This time eight years ago, very few people gave Donald J. Trump a beggar's chance of getting anywhere near the White House. The pundits said that he was a joke. The media wrote him off. The polls said he was dreaming. No one who worked hard to make his money would have bet a cent in any of Trump's failed casinos across America that Donald Trump would become the 45th President of the United States of America.
In November 2016, what looked like a joke became reality! Donald J. Trump was announced President-elect of the United States of America, the most powerful office in the world. Surprise! Surprise! The American people, deploying their fairy-tale electoral college system told the world that they had elected as their president the trash talking man who spews obscenities as much as he openly sprouts divisions and cultural wars.
The former United States First Lady, former New York Senator and former U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton received about three million more votes from the American people than Donald Trump in the elections but come and see 'America wonder', a guy who was that badly worsted at the polls, a guy who has run his companies four times into bankruptcy and has been married to three different women was announced winner of the election.
Imagine if that had happened in an African country, Donald Trump would have immediately picked up his smart phone and gone to his Truth Social platform and fired off messages to deride the country as a 'shit hole country' with no respect for the basic tenets of democracy - majority rule.
On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump moved into the White house and it was unending chaos. In four years, he was impeached twice. After losing the 2020 Presidential elections, he took every crazy step to hold on tightly to the White House. Clutching fiercely to his refusal to concede, he went to practically every court in America and lost and lost and lost. On January 6, 2021, he unleashed his supporters on the US Capitol in an unprecedented insurrection to disrupt the constitutional process of vote counting required to hand over to his successor, Joe Biden. The world watched in horror as the violent chaos unfolded in Washington DC.
With the problems in Nigeria, you may wonder why I write so much about America. I have always been fascinated by America. For much of my lifetime, America has been seen as the moral compass of the world, promoting democracy, human rights and fighting autocratic regimes, evil, hunger and disease across the world. I doubt if there is any family in Nigeria which does not have an important bread winner living in America. People around the world have looked up to America to show us the way. America used to be seen as the leader of the free world. What happens in America concerns me.
I have always known that some Americans can be "one kind" but I never thought there were so many 'crazy' people in America who would crown Donald Trump as the leader of the free World. The amazing thing is that many of those who propelled Donald Trump's journey to the White House are the bible quoting Christian conservatives. How could this group consider this man whose behaviour is so unchristian, to be one of them and accept him as promoting their values? This is the same man whose own niece, Mary Trump with a Doctorate in Psychology, refers to as the most dangerous man in the world.
Donald Trump has shown us the power of Reality TV and the smart phone. In the world of Reality TV, there is no bad news. Bad news is good news. Donald Trump, the star of NBC's Reality TV show, "the Apprentice" understands that in the crazy Reality TV world, all you need is to be in the news. And so, the Donald swears, curses, and wagers his fingers at everyone and if you are not discerning, you are captivated! He is not just in the news all the time, he is the news and many not quite discerning Americans clap and cheer. They may think that they are watching Reality TV. What they may not understand is that if this weird fella to whom nothing is sacred and who is lashing out at all the institutions that have made America stable, is not challenged, it will be hard reality for their children and grandchildren to continue to have a nation that they will be proud of. The entire world would have lost America, the important world leader.
In November 2024, Americans will go the polls again. Almost every poll says that Donald Trump will once again be the presidential candidate of the Republican party.
As I write, Donald Trump is facing 91 criminal charges across the states of Florida, New York, Georgia and Washington DC. If he is found guilty in any of these charges, he could be sentenced to many years in prison. He is also a defendant in a civil suit in New York in which his company has already been found to have engaged in fraudulent activities. In the suit, New York State is claiming $250,000,000 from the Trump Organization. The organization could also face the closing down of its operations in New York.
In May 2023, a jury in New York found Donald Trump liable of sexually abusing columnist, Jean Carroll, and ordered him to pay the sum of $5 million as damages to her. Meanwhile about 400 Trump supporters who took part in the January 6 insurrection have been convicted and sent to jail.
None of the above has slowed down the overwhelming support of millions of the grass roots of the American Republican party, for Donald Trump. I do not know that it will make any difference if Donald Trump is found guilty of committing murder.
The American Presidential election is turning out to be a reality TV show. Incumbent American president, Joe Biden is not a good showman. He has found himself playing in the turf of the master of Reality TV. How will the battle end?
See you next week.
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