Estrada: US ready to heal after last 4 years

The United States is on its way to being healed after being fractured over the last four years, former US ambassador to TT John Estrada believes. “I’m excited. It’s a big day,” he told Newsday in a phone interview. On Saturday, after a tense campaign and nearly four days of vote tallying, former Joe Biden was declared the President-elect of the United States. His running mate, Kamala Harris, also made history as the first woman and person of colour to hold the post of Vice President. Harris is of Jamaican and Indian heritage. Incumbent President Donald Trump has refused to concede, even going so far as to claim election fraud and launching legal challenges to the count – without evidence.

Trump has been a divisive president, accused of, among other things, stoking racial tensions and diminishing America’s status abroad. Estrada, a former Sergeant Major of the US Marines, was one of 489 national security leaders, including retired generals, admirals, senior enlisted military personnel, ambassadors and former senior national security officials to endorse Biden for President.

“I finally feel good that our country is going be healed after being fractured for the last almost four years. The division, the divisive politics – I can’t think of a time in history I have ever seen the politics from that office (the President) as ugly as it has been.

What you saw over the past few years is American pitted against each other by race, ethnicity religion, rich, poor – that was the message coming from the White House and you saw some people harbour a lot hatred in their soul finally feeling it was okay to be open with that hatred and racism,” Estrada, who campaigned for President Barack Obama, said. Biden was the right person, then, to heal the country. “He came out of retirement to save the soul of the nation and he is the right person to do it.”

With regards to Harris’ historic appointment, he said he was proud of the nation and the world – especially for little girls who can now see her as an inspiration, as a woman of colour achieving such a position.

Estrada noted the tensions of election, but said, “Democracy is messy but it worked out in the end.” He said over the last four years he was concerned, watching the country’s institutions appear to be dismantled, including offices like the FBI, CIA and State Department. “I felt we were going down the path of a dictatorship. I felt the only institution left to save our democracy if it came to it would have been the military because they swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, not a person. They don’t have to follow orders that are illegal, immoral or unethical.”

The country was on its darkest path since the Civil War, he said. Biden, he hoped, would bring the nation together and bring back respect to the US around the world.

“Democracy is something that’s in continuous work. And the US is the oldest one in this hemisphere. The world looked up to us and for the first time we looked vulnerable. It held through at the end. (The results) show unity over divisiveness, love over hate,” he said.