The United States of America that elected Donald J Trump in 2016 was a highly polarized and divided nation; but the country Trump asked to re-elect him last Tuesday, is even more polarized and divided. Donald Trump has desecrated the values that make America a beacon to the world. After four years of incompetence, corruption, racism, bigotry, white grievance and failed leadership, American politics is more toxic and partisan. Daily life has been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic that has registered over 230,000 deaths amid finger-pointing, bickering, buck-passing and pathological lies-telling by Trump who has been an unmitigated disaster and failure as head of America’s government and as head of state. Trump can claim his regressive tax cuts, deregulation and three US Supreme Court judges as political wins, but as the conscience of the nation, the guardian of American values, and America’s voice in the world, he failed woefully to rise up to the challenge. Trumpism is morally bankrupt; that is why Trump was soundly rejected. The crushing bloody nose he suffered was good riddance of bad rubbish.
In his first term, Trump has been a destructive president. A second term would have affirmed all his negative impulses and worst instincts. In Tuesday’s election Americans faced a clear choice between a fractious, personalized rule, dominated by a racist white supremacist who scorns decency and truth; and those values that made America great, and an inspiration around the world. Joe Biden might not be a miracle cure for what ails America, but he is a decent man; a centrist, institutionalist, consensus-builder who would restore decorum and civility to the White House. Biden has the character, temperament, political sagacity and gumption to begin the long, arduous task of renewing America’s promise and heal its deep fractures. That is why America gave Biden a mandate by electing him with the highest number of votes ever won by a candidate in American presidential election history.
Trump is yet to come to terms with his wholesale repudiation by the American people. Only once in the past 40 years has an incumbent lost reelection. Trump is estimated to lose the popular vote by about five million, although he used his election-night party to falsely claim he had won the election, and to rile up his rabid supporters with baseless lies that his victory was being stolen; even as most states had just begun counting the over 103 million early and mail-in ballots cast before election day. Yet the closeness of the race signals Trumpism has come to stay. With this election, it has become clear that Trump’s upset victory in 2016 was not a flash in the pan but the beginning of a profound ideological shift in the Republican Party. Defying expectations, Trump won millions more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. America’s failure to reject Trumpism more decisively suggests that the Republican Party, which is now under Trump’s spell, is not about to shake itself out of the trance any time soon. It is even conceivable that Trump, or a member of the Trump family, would run for the White House in 2024.
When Trump described African and other black nations as “shithole” countries, it was not an unusual comment from a man universally known as a complete dotard. Despite its derogatory connotation, Trump’s insult to black people might have passed as another hackneyed racist comment of the typical uneducated, xenophobic tribe of delirious whitemen ensconced in the homophobic wilderness called America. But the gassy, bombastic, loose cannon who spewed the verbiage was the President of the United States and for the past four years, Americans have been reminded everyday of how pathetic it is to have a president of Trump’s character.
That was not the first time Trump’s use of language would advertise his obsession with racism and xenophobia, or his discourteous demeanor and utter irreverence for truth. Either out of political naïveté or deliberate mischief, Trump has consistently made remarks that are unbefitting of a president. He has undermined the principle of tolerance and equality on which America was founded. He has associated laziness with blacks, called Mexicans rapists, and called for a total shutdown of Muslims entering the US. He refused to condemn anti-Semitic white supremacists in Charlottesville. His all-too frequent gaffes are so unbecoming that they portray the president of the United States of America as a man bereft of a moral compass and empathy. He is neither conversant with history and shamefully so, nor does he understand the social evolution of the world he lives in.
That African immigrants have contributed immensely to the socio-economic and political development of the US is a fundamental historical truth about the rise of America. For one thing, most of the African immigrants in the US tend to be among the best and the brightest from their countries of origin. Many immigrate to the US, earned higher degrees from Ivy League universities and are more successful than whites and other Americans of the same social status. There are an estimated 30,000 Nigerian doctors in the United States contributing to the health and wellbeing of the American people. This is apart from other Nigerians who are university professors, nurses, social workers and care-givers and others in professions many white Americans would cringe to undertake. It is trite to say in the United States, one would definitely find a Nigerian in all respectable professions.
Also, many blacks of African descent serve honorably in the US military and to turn a blind eye to their contributions and label them as people from shithole countries is the meanest display of ingratitude to the diversity and complementarity bestowed on mankind by God. Trump immigration officials cruelly separated children from their parents and put them in cages at the southern border; a major blight on the toga of America’s international image as a country founded by immigrants. Trump pandered to his base supporters by enacting sweeping immigration restrictions, but limiting immigration will only drain America’s vitality. If America as a nation lays claim to anything good and beautiful it has acquired in the cause of its nationhood, it did not earn such from the white community alone. Likewise, anything bad and ugly in the United States did not originate from African-Americans. The totality of what makes America today and its greatness has the historical and cultural imprints of different peoples, especially people of African descent including slaves who worked the plantation fields and built the White House.
Trump’s bullying and lies and juvenile tweeting habits has wrought enormous damage on America’s democratic culture. Tribal politics predated Trump but while other presidents saw toxic partisanship as bad for America, Trump made it his official currency of governance. He never sought to president of all Americans. Faced with global outrage and peaceful Black Lives Matter protests after the barbaric killing of a black man, George Floyd by a white police officer, Trump’s instinct was to depict the sad event as an orgy of looting and left-wing violence; part of a pattern of stoking racial tension.
The most head-spinning aspect of the Trump presidency is his insulting contempt for the truth. All politicians prevaricate, but Trump elevated lies-telling as the art of statecraft. Nothing Trump says can be believed including his theory of alternative facts. The man lies and lies shamelessly even when the lies can easily be proven as lies. Partisanship and pathological lying undermine norms and institutions, including America’s system of checks and balances. Trump calls for his opponents to be locked up; he uses the Department of Justice to conduct political vendettas; he commuted the sentences of his supporters convicted of serious crimes; he gave his daughter and son-in-law plum jobs in the White House; and arm-twisted Ukraine for dirt on Biden. When a president casts doubt on the integrity of an election just because he fears he might lose, he undermines the very democracy he swore to defend.
With Covid-19, Trump had a golden opportunity to unite the country around a well-organized response and win re-election based on his leadership. Instead he downplayed the virus and wasted time scape-goating Democratic governors. He muzzled and belittled renowned American institutions, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and berated science and experts, including over masks. Unable to see beyond his re-election, he continues to lie about Covid-19 and its consequences; propagating fake cures. The result is over 230,000 dead Americans with over nine million infected and counting. Trump has treated America’s allies with the same disdain and small-mindedness. Alliances like NATO magnify America’s influence in the world and once unraveled, cannot easily be put back together. When countries that have fought alongside America look at Trump, they struggled to recognize the country they admire. From the city upon the hill; the light for other nations to follow, America under Trump has become the laughing stock of the world.
No doubt, a majority of Americans came to the right conclusion that four more years of a disastrous president like Trump would destroy the country. In 2016 Americans did not know Trump; in 2020, they had seen Trump in action for four years and most were fed up with the divisiveness, lying, the trampling of norms and the shrinking of national institutions into personal fiefs. Re-electing Trump would have put a democratic seal on all the harm he has done to America including his senseless craving for power and disdain for the rule of law. Tuesday’s election once again showed that America is a divided nation. Many politicians set out to feed the divisions, but none has divided the country more than Trump. We hope his ignominious exit will stand as a lesson in good riddance of bad rubbish – you can fool some people some time but you can’t fool all the people all the time. Go quietly President Donald J Trump; America is tired of your insanity.
