| After three weeks in perfect weather - sunny and warm but not hot - in the US, I was dreading Northern Ireland grey darkness. Particularly with cold weather coming in. In fact it has been pleasant to be home. This morning was sunnily atmospheric in leafy, late autumnal ways that you don't get in the desert of the American Southwest. We reported a fortnight ago about how mild it has been in NI. Well, even when it does get colder at least oil is the lowest price it has been since before the Ukraine invasion. I last sent this email before the American election. In San Francisco I had sought out people who had worked with Kamala Harris, one of whom told me why she was not overly radical and would be a "phenomenal president". Then on the eve of the poll I wrote this detailed analysis piece about why I still believed the core polling numbers favoured Donald Trump. In the event he not only won, he won the popular vote, which I had thought distinctly possible but had not thought likely. After the victory I wrote about the clues that there had been that Mr Trump would win, that were foolishly dismissed by his critics, a dismissal that I noticed on both sides of the Atlantic. Many just didn't like him and so assumed it wasn't going to happen. On election day itself I was in Arizona and talked to voters in the evenly divided county in which the capital Phoenix is based. I think what the elderly woman says in the video in that story is important to understand many Trump votes - America is changing too fast she said, confirming - when I asked - that she meant immigration. On voting day president elect Trump did not just rely on a shrinking white base, but increased his support among ethnic minorities. There might be some messages for unionists in that, I wrote last Saturday. Mr Trump's claims that the 2020 election were stolen were contemptible, but I during last week I wrote this piece about how there is a separate, legitimate point to be made about the value of Voter ID - something we have rightly had in Northern Ireland for 20 years, helping stop republican fraud. Today my column is about how Mr Trump's his key government appointments of characters like Matt Gaetz have immediately reminded us of the bad sides to the incoming president. Enjoy your reading and your weekend, Ben | 