Editorial - Kamala Harris: a beacon amid anti-democratic trends

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Over the past few weeks, it has become clear that despite all the justifications and vows of improvement, Joe Biden was too lethargic to hope for a second term in office. He would have been the springboard Donald Trump needed for his return to the White House. With Kamala Harris, he is now facing a candidate who, just a few hours after announcing her candidacy, has lit a fire under the Democratic electorate that was suffocating under Biden. So there is once again a path towards relative stability in the USA, on which we in Europe are still soberingly dependent.

However, the brief sigh of relief cannot hide the fact that there are strong anti-democratic movements in the world's largest economy and military power that go beyond Trump's whims – and are likely to persist after him. The hotly debated (and publicly accessible) "Project 2025" not only plans a takeover of the state by fundamentalist Christian loyalists, but also what should happen afterwards. Between the abolition of climate protection measures and the death penalty for "spreading transgender ideology", there is plenty of room for conservative fever fantasies in the 900 pages. Trump's attempts to distance himself from the authors of the text are above all not credible because they are de facto his inner circle.