Fola Ojo
After Super Tuesday, March 1, 2016,
former presidential candidate Mitt Romney said these words about a man
we now know as America’s President-elect, Donald John Trump: “If we
Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe
and prosperous future are greatly diminished…Donald Trump is a phoney, a
fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump
University.”
Last Tuesday, November 8 swinging into
the wee-hours of Wednesday, November 9, the man who was and remains a
scarecrow to many Americans and nations around the world won the
presidential election in a close contest where 46.6 per cent of
registered voters refused to vote. He defeated experienced former
Secretary of State and a former US First Lady, Hillary Rodham Cllinton,
standing in for the Democratic Party. Clinton was chosen by more
Americans in the popular vote, but Trump clinched the ticket in the
Electoral College. That victory now begs the question: Did Americans
just elect a conman?
Whichever way you choose to describe
what happened last Tuesday, in about 70 days from today, Trump will
become the 45th President of the United States.
The outcome of the election was not only
a rattler to members of the Trump campaign themselves, it was to the
whole world. Heading into the election, the wind was behind Hillary in
almost all opinion polls all around the world. The big guns in her party
including incumbent Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, dug deep into
their campaign arsenals firing shots from all vantage positions. Trump
was hammered on all issues; from temperament to character and present
and past shady business deals.
He had no support of all living former
presidents from both parties. Governors ran away from him and
politicians kept their distances. But he could boast of a hardcore
support of adherents who saw in him what everyone else refused to see.
These tub-thumpers could shout. They could fight. They could punch and
kick on behalf of the man they now see as their deliverer from the hands
of Washington D.C. political elite. They were white people lurked in
rural areas across America. From my home state of Wisconsin stretching
to Minnesota and Iowa, they are embedded in and around small towns and
villages in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. They were voices that felt
deprived of the American Dream of prosperity for all. They were
uneducated, blue collar workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas
during the economic meltdown of the 2000s. They have lost their homes
and jobs and struggling to make ends meet.
If you call them racist and bigoted,
that is your own indaba. But they are Americans who feel like their
country was being taken away from them before their eyes by “others’,
who don’t look like them. Seventy eight per cent of those who voted for
Trump feared that their financial situations might get worse under a
Clinton Presidency. About 80 per cent of those who voted for Trump
feared an upsurge of terrorist attacks that may occur with the influx of
refugees from ISIS-riddled Islamic nations. They trust Trump will
defeat ISIS.
Well ahead of everybody, Trump
identified the angry white group and spoke to them. His messages
resonated without a doubt. For a man who never held any public office,
Trump has become a suave, strong and intense voice in America’s
political process with his showings on Tuesday. It is true that God
enthrones and dethrones kings. He rules in the affairs of men.
During the campaigns, Trump called
Hispanics murderers, rapists, and drug lords; and he promised to build a
wall around the Southern border to ward off illegal immigration. Yet,
about 30 per cent of Hispanics voted for the man who called them names.
He raked in more votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012. These quiet voices
were more interested in pocket-book issues than deportation threats.
Trump’s business experience and background convinced millions that he is
savvy about financial matters.
When he spoke about massively increasing
jobs, wages, incomes and opportunities for them, they believed him.
When he promised to change the ugly picture of 92 million Americans
outside the workforce, and not part of the economy, they believed him.
During his visit to Flint, Michigan, he reminded these people that in
1970, there were more than 80,000 people in Flint working for General
Motors, but today, it’s less than 8,000. Trump spoke a lot about jobs
amidst his sporadic invectives and verbal assaults on opponents and
anyone who was not ready to agree with his stance on issues:
“Everything that is broken today can be
fixed, and every failure can be turned into a great success. Jobs can
stop leaving our country, and start pouring in. Failing schools can
become flourishing schools. Crumbling roads and bridges can become
gleaming new infrastructure. Inner cities can experience a flood of new
jobs and investment. And rising crime can give way to safe and
prosperous communities”.
There are many factors swirling around
Trump’s victory, but the summary is that a man whose human flaws are
obvious to all, who harassed women and assaulted them, who mocked the
physically challenged and is considered a crooked, fraudulent conman,
will be America’s next president.
On Friday, January 20, he will be sworn
in. Millions of legal and illegal immigrants who are apprehensive of a
possible Trump mass deportation must not ferret. But America will no
longer be a haven for criminal aliens. If you work hard and play by the
rules, you will not be bothered by the law or Presdient Trump. America
has an entrenched process of governance and the rule of law that will
not change.
If you thought that Trump is not a
politician, you may be right. But you are wrong if you believe that the
New York billionaire does not know the game of politics better than
politicians. Although he has not held any public office in the past,
Trump had hob-nobbed with politicians’ activities since his teenage
years as a business apprentice with his father in New York. Trump knows
politicians. He knows they are all about money all over the world. He
has what they need; MONEY and now he’s got what they have always
monopolized, POWER!
What about his promises? Most of them
ran on empty gas. The country is waiting to see what he will do with the
over 20 million Americans who have signed up with the Affordable Care
Act (Obamacare), Obama’s signature health care programme he has vowed to
scrap first day in office. This requires an Act of the Congress; it
will not be easy to undo. Building a wall along the US-Mexico border is a
capital intensive venture that will also require the nod of the
Congress. Trump cannot force Mexico to pay for it.
If con artists have successfully pulled
off their debaucheries in the church of the Living God as pastors lying
to the people who also sheepishly celebrate conmen, it is not an outlier
to have them also as politicians anywhere in the world. And it will
also not be surprising that America may now have one as President.
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