why can't it be more simple?

Today sees the inauguration of Joe Biden as the President of the United States of America.

And what a complicated and convoluted process it seemed to be.

Forget the law suits and claims of fraud, they were exhausting enough, but the way in which the U.S. declares an election winner seems to me, a complete outsider, as strange in the very least.

I'm not for one second proclaiming that our system here in the U.K. is fair and representative.  But at least we know within a few hours of polls closing who has won a general election.

In America though it's all, well, perhaps point form is easier:

(and forgive me but I'm not a U.S. constitutional expert - this is just how the sequence of events seems to pan out to me)

1. the election is held in November

2. news outlets (!) call the winner

3. the electoral college meets in December where state electors (in the main) reflect the will of their state's constituents and award their votes in accordance with the way the state elected (I say in the main as "faithless" electors can actually ignore the will of the people apparently)

4. this is then ratified by Congress in early January

5. the President Elect is then finally inaugurated as President a couple of weeks later.

Now I suppose it could be argued that this is true democracy in action.  Yet it also looks like a schedule where doubt can be heaped upon the result, a delay affording room for conspiracy theories to brew, for blatant threats to election officials, and a process whereby the whole result can be obfuscated and potentially undemocratically changed in some way.

And we were indeed treated to a circus of failed law suit after failed law suit and not so thinly veiled threats in a struggle by the incumbent to steal at worst, and cast doubt on the actual result at best, of the 2020 election.

Then we witnessed what can only be described as disgraceful, ugly, vile scenes as a mob, seemingly egged on by the incumbent trump and culpable republicans, ransacked the Capitol building in Washington.

And the losers in all this?  The American people of course.  At a time where covid 19 is ripping their country apart,  the economy is crashing and people are losing their jobs, income, and homes this vacuous delay in administration change seems to me like two and a half months where there has been no government.  Two and a half months lost or wasted.

I may be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me.

You can argue that leadership here is woefully useless (it is), but at least it is clear and there are no voids between governments when there is a change.  It happens overnight.

Anyway, here's to the next four years.  America looks broken to me and Kamala Harris, sorry I meant Joe Biden, has one mammoth job on his hands to repair it.