I am so happy I was wrong.
On this first Monday marking the beginning of the end of Donald Trump, I feel like the world is already suddenly a brighter place; or at least less burdened.
Joe Biden goes from having been America’s youngest senator in the 1970s, to now being the country’s oldest-ever president.
In fact, he makes a habit of being part of ground-breaking moments in history.
He served under America’s first black president.
And now not only is he bringing America’s first female vice president to the White House, but she also happens to be a woman of colour, whose Indian mother and Jamaican father were both immigrants.
So it makes sense that her views on immigration and equality are diametrically and loudly opposite to the Trump team.
Like I’ve said before, Biden is by no means policy-perfect, but he will undoubtedly be a whole lot better than Trump on just about every front, including just being a sane, likeable human being.
And even if he makes a complete mess of it, his worse day could never be as destructive as Trump was on a good day.
Having sadly lost a wife to a car crash and a child to cancer, I feel that Biden will bring some much-needed compassion and empathy to the most influential leadership position in the world; two qualities that Trump would see as weaknesses.
Biden has also had years of practice as a diplomat and a politician, including his eight-year stint as Barrack Obama’s second-in-command.
And now he has a strong woman at his side in Harris.
This means there are going to be times when Biden is unavailable, meaning for the first time in history, America will have a black woman in charge.
If you need another reason to admire Biden, I strongly suggest you YouTube a video of him in a debate in 1986, where he chastises a government official over America’s tactful diplomacy with apartheid South Africa.
You see him being passionate, eloquent and indignant – qualities that would’ve served Trump well.
While Trump was jealously trying to erase all traces of Obama from America’s legislative landscape, this is also an opportunity for Biden to keep that legacy alive.
He was after all part of the team that conceived of and implemented things like Obamacare, the universal healthcare that particularly irked Trump. If he chooses to, Biden can now pick up where he and Obama left off, which by the way, was to hand over a growing economy with low unemployment to the Trump administration.
Trump, on the other hand, joins a rare club of one-term presidents who were quickly relegated to history’s trash can.
But his presidency has brought with it a few interesting lessons. For what it’s worth, the world now finally understands American elections a bit better.
And while this was America’s highest voter turnout since 1900, we know now that there are more than 70 million Americans who identify with Trump.
It would be fair to say that they are chronically racist, bigoted, selfish, vain, mindless, masculinist and xenophobic.
Or they are easily taken in by a charlatan.
Either way, Trump has scraped away the veneer of respectability that America once peddled to the world.
And while they refuse to admit that he exploited them, he has also set them free to be their prejudiced openly.
And it’s going to take more than a Biden to stuff that genie back into the lamp.