[ 13 November 2016]
In this piece, Jide Ajani opens up startling revelations about the US president Elect, Donald Trump- such things which were grossly unpardonable, xenophobic, inimical as well as antithetical to any progressive society but which demeaning as they seem, were the same things that 'ironically' made him the next President of America. What a paradox!
What follows is an excerpt of Jide's arguments as culled from Vanguard. We have considered it apposite for which reason, we have craved indulgence to replicate it here, Its original title reads:
"AFTER 8 YEARS OF TOLERATING OBAMA: A WHITE MAN TAKES OVER THE WHITE HOUSE"
How did Americans come to this sorry pass? Yet considered,the man they elected President, against the woman they rejected:
Donal Trump admitted verbal sexual assault; involved in alleged charity fraud; called for nuclear proliferation as well as national stop and frisk; allegedly violated trade embargo with Cuba; admitted dodging tax employing loopholes in the system; called for ban of Muslims from entering the US; lied about support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003; penalized for racist housing discrimination; filed for bankruptcy a number of times; lost the three presidential debates largely by showing scant knowledge of world politics; mocked John McCain for being a Prisoner of War, POW; labelled Mexicans rapists and thieves; allegedly questioned judge’s integrity because of parent’s heritage; confronted by dozens of assault victims and witnesses with allegations of abuse; disparaged former Ms America for being overweigh; tweeted about sex tapes at 3am; called for more extreme forms of torture against terror suspects; asked why nuclear weapons can’t be used since they are readily available; said working women who become pregnant are a discount to productivity; caught on tape saying women should be grabbed by the ….
As for Hillary Clinton, she used an unauthorised server to send emails while serving as Secretary of State. This, some Americans found unforgivable?
Therefore, they opted to vote for Donald Trump.
Perish that assumption.
US President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands during a transition planning meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on November 10, 2016 in Washington,DC.
Even if Madam Clinton had not had the email controversy to contend with, Trump would have probably won because of the theme of his campaign: Hate!
He promised Americans what many of them liked hearing – that the country was being lost, and that some people were out to take their country from them.
Trump was able to work on the mentality of fanatical Americans, those breed who believe in the ‘us-against-them’ syndrome.
Indeed, there were some who openly wept in lamentation because Obama won the 2008 presidential contest.
At Silver springs, Maryland, not far from the office of Discovery in Maryland, this writer had a first hand encounter with Americans who cursed and swore to take their country back from Obama after his first term. Unfortunately for that lot, Obama defeated Mitt Romney in 2012 and secured a second term.
Therefore, when you see a Trump in shining xenophobic armour chanting “we need to take our country back”, he had a ready base to appeal to.
Against all odds, Trump was necessarily going to win the presidential election of November 8, 2016.
This because, according to an exposition on the internet, every bold advancement of freedom in America had always met with a backlash of equal if not more measure and, in some instances, racist in nature.
Take, for stance, the emancipation of the slaves and reconstruction which was met with resistance by one white supremacist Jim Crow.
Or how the desegregation of schools and public spaces in the 1960s “birthed a wave of resegregation in the 1980s; or the voting rights act of 1965; and half century later there are poll lines so long they disenfranchise those who cannot afford to wait, while new laws are excluding countless citizens who have voted all their lives”
The post goes on to illustrate why the occupancy of the White House by a black man was most sacrilegious in the estimation of some Americans.
“So”, it continues, “when we voted against the odds to elect the first black President eight years ago, when we had a clear symbol that the country was literally becoming more black, why shouldn’t we expect the successor to be the meanest, whitest most vile bigot possible?
The very same guy who demanded to see Obama’s birth certificate to prove he was a real American. And when protesters demanded that Black Lives Matter, why shouldn’t we have anticipated the rise of a candidate who encourages violence against peaceful demonstrators?
A President Trump would fit right into American history. And like Presidents Jefferson, Jackson, FDR, Reagan, Clinton, and yes, even Obama, a President Trump would continue our American tradition of leaders who expand the empire through the suffering of people of colour.
I’m waiting for the year 2043, when this white supremacist nation becomes mostly non-white” – there is a study which suggests that by 2043, Latinos, and people of colour generally would have a numerical superiority against white Americans.
As for the monster of electoral college, it is not for lack of trying: 700 times Americans had made attempts to amend or thrash the electoral college model but they had never succeeded.
Perhaps, were the generality of Americans to allow for proportional sharing of electors in the college, Donald Trump may not have won the US presidential election of last Tuesday.
Just as members of the Democratic Party woke up at some point to the fairness of proportional allocation of delegates, a process which allows contending aspirants for the party’s ticket to share delegates based on the proportion of votes garnered, it is expected, rather than hoped, that, at some point, the American system would find meaning in proportional representation for electors.
In fact, but for proportionality, Barrack Obama could not have defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic Party primary.
That said, how did virtually every opinion poll misread the stars? It has been discovered that some of the people interviewed/polled disclosed that the toxicity of the environment around Trump coupled with the potential for opprobrious reaction made them give false responses regarding their choice of president.
Therefore, many who actually planned to vote for Trump said they were not going to vote for him or that they were undecided.
But this autopsy would not resurrect the dead horse. Trump would be sworn-in on January 20, 2017, to begin his four-year term.
Unfortunately, not one immune to controversy, Trump’s transition committee is already swimming in controversy with his sons taking a front row.
The challenge is that Trump’s vast business interests, according to him, would be handled by his sons while he is running the affairs of the United States.
But now that his sons are part of the transition committee, a committee which would have unfettered access to state information in all ramifications, while at the same time running their father’s business, how un-conflicting is that?"
Nelson A.Osuala
Is a Blogger & the Associate Editor of Negroidhaven.org
(Negroidhaven)
