Donald Trump triumphs
Michael Dingake | Tuesday November 15, 2016 17:06
Are protestors against Trump’s victory nuts? Did they expect every American to be head- over-heels for Hillary Clinton? Why? America is supposed to be a multiparty democracy in which a candidate with majority support wins. And of 46 per cent-plus Americans who went to the polls, Trump was favourite. He had some original ideas about changing the status quo in the line of foreign policy, trade policy, domestic investment, employment creation, new methods of war against terrorism, walling the border with Mexico and so on. What did Hillary Clinton offer Americans that was exciting and new? Nothing, except sniping at Trump for implicit tax evasion. Anyhow, we know that all the American superrich except Warren Buffet and a couple others don’t want to be taxed. My one consolation, had Clinton won, would have been that at long last, America had a female Pesident. I itch to see women in decision-making roles; they are bearers and natural custodians of human life and should be allowed their good role of nurturing humanity. Margaret Thatcher’s reactionary tendencies notwithstanding, where a man and woman are judged to be on par on any endeavour, a woman deserves an affirmative action award!
Trump’s policies as enunciated during his campaign, at least some of them, sound downright crazy. I am thinking of his Mexican wall and steep trade tariffs against China and Mexico among others – 35 to 45 per cent trade tariffs is prohibitive! Enrique Pena Nieto the Mexican President is rightly worried. However I don’t think he need be overtly worried. Trump won’t commit American taxpayer’s money for wall construction; he expects Mexico to pay for the monstrosity they don’t want. Since the wall won’t benefit Mexico, Enrique must just laugh it off. The illegal immigrants will continue streaming in, defying police dogs and their handlers at the San Diego border post. Trump, a successful businessman should know the Californian economy which not so long ago was the fifth largest economy in the world owes its enormous size to the illegal immigrants’ labour. The wall rhetoric is so much eyewash.
Trump’s Islamophobia isn’t unique; majority Americans may not say it, but they believe Muslims are terror incarnate; barring them from the US and deporting some already inside, is the headache. Trump knows how simple minds can be won over this one; judged by his rhetoric, Trump may sound crazy to some but credible to others. His attitude on women, Hispanics and African-Americans is the stuff of the establishment bigotry and unsurprising. President-elect’s apartness from other American policy-makers is that he spits it out; hypocrisy isn’t his strength.
There’s often sanity in loonies. Donald Trump’s policies on NATO smacks of ingenuity. EU ought to bear a proportionate share of NATO’s running costs; NATO, is more a European asset/liability than America’s. Europe should bear the lion’s share for/of its survival. Without US bearing the disproportionate costs, EU would not be as uncompromising on peaceful coexistence with the Russian Federation as it currently is. As long as NATO receives the US subvention, so long will tension at the Russian border escalate menacingly. Hopefully the Trump juggernaut will prevail and save the world from a catastrophe of nuclear war.
Nothing wrong should Trump stop foreign AID to Africa. It would help Africa wake up from her deep slumber of dependency syndrome. It’s time Africa stood up and walked on her two legs. Why should anyone mourn the loss of aid which in any case comes stuffed with puppet strings? Nonsense for Africa to be an eternal puppet of the West! Instead of bemoaning impending loss of aid under Trump, Africans should be thankful and stop whimpering like a puppy which has lost its mother. Africa should welcome the impending loss and go full steam ahead to plug the hole of illicit capital outflows from her shores. The capital outflows run into billions of dollars annually; perhaps go even a little further, militantly demand reparations for previous exploitation of Africa’s resources under colonialism and the slave trade, the foundation of America’s wealth! Time to stop self-pity and become proactive to shake the status quo!
Does Trump desire American isolationism? Fine, if he and the Americans can attain and sustain it! US in isolation would leave the rest of the world free to design its own independent life without interference from US bouncers and cowboys! Guided by self-determination and interdependence of sovereign states without US arrogance and big brother watch. left alone from the bossiness and fickleness of the US police inspectorate, such a free world might succeed in building proper democracy as government BY the people FOR the people in theory and in practice. (People, defined as the majority of the poor, rural, working class and genuine friends of the underclass!
Our current world with US in command, suffers the unfeasibility of building democracy in practice. US has made a theoretical contribution to democracy: how to fight for freedom against suppression and oppression by outsiders and how to manage the process by the principle of the separation of powers, needed for functioning democracy. Independent, sovereign, smaller states can build a more functional democracy from bottom than one imposed from above, US ‘regime-change’ style.