What will america look like in 2020

Biden has been on both sides of the debate. As a senator he voted to go to war in Iraq, and he opposed a troop surge in Afghanistan when he served as vice president. As president, Biden will find there is little the U. Biden may also be forced to confront North Korea in his first months in office.

Dating back to the George W. Bush years, North Korea has timed nuclear and long-range missile tests to coincide with post-election periods in the U. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could take a similar tack to test Biden, coming after a period in which he enjoyed an unusually close relationship with the U. But the Biden administration will have less leverage to pressure North Korea to denuclearize than the U. Trump and Kim held two summits over the past four years but failed to reach an agreement.

Biden will have trouble forcing Kim to change course without support from China, and help from the Chinese is unlikely, North Korea watchers said. The Iran nuclear deal and Israeli-Palestinian conflict offer other examples of foreign policy issues that have changed significantly since Biden and Obama left office in early Biden has pledged to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in Trump moved the U.

The Trump administration helped broker peace deals between Israel and several neighboring countries in recent months, something observers said would bring added stability to the region. The growth of Jewish settlements cannot be easily rolled back and stands as an impediment to any peace talks under Biden, according to scholars who study the conflict. The U. Taking on China and other threats will require a multilateral approach between the U.

Movie theaters, when they come back, are likely to find patrons seated apart and the same film on multiple screens.

Big concerts may well never return until there is an effective global vaccine. Unmistakable in this emerging post-virus reality, experts say, are signs that human creativity will forge new approaches, new products and new social paradigms not only more adaptable to future global crises, but also more responsive to income inequality, climate change and other issues laid bare by coronavirus.

And those office spaces are likely to shrink, paving the way for a possible revitalization of urban cores as office buildings become condos. In addition, no-touch payment systems will proliferate. Public places will temperature screen. And expect an exodus from crowded cities for those whose jobs promote telecommuting.

The former created a nation of frugal savers, the latter created a young post-war populace that fueled an unprecedented era of optimistic consumerism. If there is one thing futurists seem to agree on as America rebuilds, it is the hope that resides in those children and young adults whose lives have been indelibly stamped by this pandemic, a group that may well prove to be the next Greatest Generation.

Facebook Twitter Email. The stakes have never been higher as America reopens. What can a post-coronavirus world look like? Instead, we should face up to it and the responsibility we all bear…for our present predicament. The wishful thinking that Donald Trump will go quietly once all his legal battles have been fought was further dispelled by his press conference on November 5 as well as in the days since, as Trump has issued threats to not abide by the certified results.

The country confronts a possible constitutional crisis, unlike any it has ever known, and must at least prepare for the possibility of witnessing an unprecedented sight: a president having to be removed from the White House against his will.

In that case, there would be no mistaking just how much the US democratic process has come unstuck. And such a scenario would be the biggest gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and other authoritarians who have long argued that liberal democracies are fatally flawed. Even if we avoid such an ugly spectacle, we would still inhabit a nation whose cleavages are compounded by all the drama surrounding this election. We would still be reckoning with two Americas whose occupants see the country, themselves, and the wider world in radically different ways.

Roughly ten million more people and counting voted for President Trump than four years ago. He will continue to mobilize supporters, for whom Trump delivered on the original promise of his election —namely, heaping abuse on Washington insiders, embracing political chaos, and caring little about expertise or legalities.

Trump, the martyr, is likely to be an even more potent symbol for his supporters and potentially could spur some toward violence. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and others have been warning for some time of the growth of far-right terrorism in the United States.

Sign up to receive rapid insight in your inbox from Atlantic Council experts on global events as they unfold. Establishment politicians and coastal elites will continue to struggle to take populist concerns seriously. Biden has both the opportunity and the responsibility to become a great president, not just a caretaker or a transitional one.