IT’S not often, if ever, that I’ve found myself agreeing with Piers Morgan in the Daily Mail. But this week was that rare exception, when Morgan described Russian President Vladimir Putin’s congratulatory telegram to Joe Biden on becoming US leader as the “political equivalent of poisoning Donald Trump with nerve agent Novichok”.

Yes, it’s one thing for top US Republicans like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to break ranks and confirm Biden’s election victory, but you know the game’s a bogey for Trump when Putin shoves him under the bus.

It says all you need to know about Trump’s White House reign when we get to the point that the Kremlin accepts the US election results before the US president himself.

Even after 80 million Americans decided enough was enough, Trump would not let go, and still hasn’t, though the writing is now on the wall, bringing at least some good news in an otherwise annus horribilis.

Sticking with such a positive frame of mind, it would be nice to think we have now seen the end of a US presidency that has tested and twisted the country’s political system to breaking point. For once it would be reassuring also to discover that Trump has turned his back on the workings of America and the world to perpetually play another 18 holes at Mar-a-Lago and leave statesmanship and diplomacy to the grown-ups.

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But we are talking about the ultimate snake oil salesman here, one with an ego the size of a bus and the mindset of a spoilt, brattish child who if he can’t have all the toys will do his damndest to make sure no one else will either.

So far Trump’s passing has not been quiet and that will continue to be the case. How can it be when you look at the carnage he has left behind, not to mention the political booby traps primed and left lying around for an unwary Biden administration to trip on?

Writing last week in The Atlantic magazine, US journalist and novelist George Packer made the point that in order to assess Trump’s legacy, you first have to start by quantifying it. That process as outlined by Packer makes for stark reading. Just ponder these three facts alone.

Firstly, in less than under a year more than a quarter of a million Americans have died from Covid-19, a fifth of the world’s deaths from the disease, the highest number of any country.

Second, in the three years before the pandemic, 2.3 million Americans lost their health insurance, accounting for up to 10,000 “excess deaths”. Millions more lost coverage during the pandemic.

And last but far from least, in Trump’s first year as president he paid $750 in taxes, yet while hewas in office, US taxpayers and campaign donors handed over at least $8 million to his family business. Oh and that’s before the $421m in loans and debts for which Trump is personally responsible.

As for his actions abroad, there are those who will argue that he at least didn’t take America into any “new wars”. But that is to ignore the other crises he helped fan or create – his attempts to scrap the Iran nuclear deal being a point in case, while making other deals with the likes of Turkish Islamist autocrat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that left the Kurds, among America’s most loyal allies in the Middle East, high and dry.

Given such a disastrous and mercenary track record, not to mention other criminal proceedings still hanging over Trump and certain associates, is it right to simply let him wander off without a degree of accountability? Even before he sits down in the Oval Office, already there is no shortage of challenges facing Biden. But should one of the most pressing not also be to ensure there is no clemency to his predecessor?

IT was John Dean, the White House counsel who turned witness against Richard Nixon and served time in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate abuses, who recently argued that the ideals of American democracy demand that Trump be held accountable.

“We are a nation of laws, and presidents cannot be excluded from that,” insisted Dean while admitting that such a process would be “politically uncomfortable” for America.

Right now it remains the case that Trump’s conduct before and while in office offers potential targets for possible federal investigation under Biden’s administration. But the question is whether the president-elect will choose to go down that path in a country already deeply polarised.

On one level it would be perfectly understandable were Biden simply to focus on the practical challenges at hand which America has in abundance right now.

Head down and avoid unnecessary fights over issues sure to inflame people’s emotions might be the way to go. But not only is it hard to imagine Trump allowing this to happen even when out of office, but whether the “healing” that Biden talks so emphatically of can actually take place without the legacy of Trump being confronted and overcome once and for all.

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Also, should Biden choose to grasp the nettle, how do you begin to repair that other aspect of Trump’s legacy, his evisceration among many Americans of any common conception of reality?

Perhaps this more than any other thing epitomises the toxicity and nihilism Trump has left behind, something that can’t be killed off by investigations or court cases but instead has to be taken apart fake brick by fake brick before serious rebuilding can begin.

Trump’s claims that he might not attend Biden’s January inauguration, his thirst for the spotlight and the fact that he has left behind a structure that allows him to raise yet more cash and ensure his influence is felt in the Republican party are all warning signs.

While Trump, of course, won’t have it all his own way given the lawsuits that hang over him, he will hobble Biden at every turn.

America’s most disastrous president might be heading for the White House door, but he will still be lurking around the neighbourhood.

Joe Biden knows this and only by running him to ground, political risks and all, will he be able to detoxify Trump’s America.