As I sat last Saturday night/Sunday morning, watching vice-president elect Kamala Harris do the warm up for Joe Biden’s acceptance speech, Bobby Ewing sprung to mind. Remember that shower scene in Dallas? It felt like the past four years had been just a bad dream.

Suddenly, there is no sign of Donald Trump. He doesn’t matter now. Twenty-four hours beforehand, he delivered that extraordinary, rambling address from the White House. It was arguably the lowest point of an unbelievable four years. It was jaw-dropping.

A new dawn

Once Kamala Harris took to the stage in Delaware the following night, it felt like the dour grey curtain in a cold damp theatre was rising and, behind it, a bright and happy backdrop was being unveiled to the growing cheers of a bruised and battered world.

After a slow start, Joe Biden’s speech became an inspiring thing of beauty, and his words made the heart sing. It made me proud of my Dad’s generation of men. You can be a septuagenarian and really matter.

In this year we’re enduring, it was a tip of the cap to our fathers and grandfathers and mothers and grandmothers who are suffering so much hardship in so many ways.

A very close friend of mine from Indiana told me how her mother and sister have fallen out over the election. Her mother is a devout Christian and, for her, the bottom line has been Trump’s pro-life position. Little else matters to her.

Her sister would be of a more liberal view; hence the unhappy political stand-off, which essentially mirrors all of America right now.

Remember, Donald Trump received the second highest popular vote in the history of US presidential elections last week.

And those tens of millions of people who voted for him, along with his huge number of admirers across the globe (and, particularly, here in Ireland), are devastated.

But those celebrating are not doing so based on Trump’s pro-life stance. Many people are pro-life and that is a personal decision, which should be respected as part of what remains a very delicate and emotional discussion.

No, people are celebrating for different reasons.

His stance on the environment and public health – the two greatest threats to civilisation – should be enough to convince even the staunchest of conservatives of the dangers of his views.

We all hoped, at some stage, early on in his first term in office, he’d ditch the intransigent attitude he adopted on the issues that matter and show some respect for the office he was privileged to have been elected to.

We gave him every chance. It simply didn’t materialise.

Final act

Last Friday, his final act of inventing theories around democracy summed up his limited capabilities and his chaotic term in the Oval Office.

I understand and respect that he has his fan base but, come on, stand back a minute. How could anybody be inspired by his mantra and approach to everything in the Year of our Lord 2020?

And how could anyone not but be inspired by the words of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris last Saturday night?

Listenership figures

Self praise is no praise but Countrywide jumping to 260,000 listeners in the latest JNLR survey making it one of the most listened to programmes on national radio is worth bragging about!