Donald Trump has jump-started America’s psyche in uncontrollable, opposing directions and, only 107 days into his presidency, has sharply polarized the nation along political, party, legal and racial lines.
Hiding behind ‘I am a business man, not a politician’, Trump has thrown careless words and statements into the nation and every time he utters something, the entire nation buzzes, causing rancor around the country – resulting in far more important issues being ignored while the nation, the media and the people chase false statements that are meant to divert attention from an issue in which Trump might be finding himself vulnerable and in danger of being exposed.
Trump is a master of diversion; every time he is cornered, he throws a meatless bone way out there and everybody, especially the media, rushes there to leave him walk away whistling and free.
His die-hard supporters do not care about details and Trump knows it and takes advantage of it. He keeps them agitated with election-type rallies at which he repeats what he knows they want to hear.
They want to hear about the wall between the US and Mexico; they want to hear about bringing jobs back from China but do not question why his factories are strewn all over the world outside the US.
They whistle and wave in spite of the fact that he has failed to do any of those things.
There is now concern that he really might not understand not only what is involved in formulating policy but in the presidency itself.
Last week admitting in an interview that he being president “would be easier”.
In an editorial, titled ‘The threat Donald Trump poses to democracy is not overblown’, the Chicago Tribune said: “In just 100 days, President Donald Trump has damaged American democracy while simultaneously accelerating democracy’s global decline.”
Like The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and others, The Tribune went on to itemize areas in which it views Trump as a total failure and a serious threat to America and its democracy.
These include Trump undercutting the integrity of U.S. elections, his continuing attacks on “democratic institutions such as the free press and the independent judiciary”, his violation of “basic standards of transparency and government ethics”, and Trump “hurting democracy abroad by leaving pro-democracy reformers out in the cold”.
But many people and nations around the world feel jilted.
“Trump has endorsed and applauded dictators and despots, giving awful rulers a free pass to destroy democracy and violate human rights,” says the Tribune.
It cites how President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi of Egypt, “a military dictator who routinely tortures dissidents” was so well-received by Trump.
It mentions that Trump was the only western leader to call and congratulate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey “on winning a rigged referendum that dismantled democracy in a NATO member state”.
All within a space of 10 days, President Trump would further add that he “would be honored to meet” with North Korea’s Baby Dictator Kim Jong-un, who Trump called ‘a tough cookie’.
It’s not the age or size that Trump admires here; it is the dictatorship of the worst kind and North Korea, of course, has nuclear weapons and that gets attention!
As if in response to the Tribune’s statement that ‘those signals (Trump’s admiring and respecting dictators) have certainly not been lost on authoritarian rulers around the world who recognize that Trump does not care about democracy or human rights abroad’, one of our very own seasoned dictators seized the opportunity to make an advert of himself.
“A dictator who is elected five times? That must be a wonderful dictator,” said Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni of himself. “That must be a special one. Elected five times with all this big majority. That must be a wonderful dictator.”
Museveni has been president of Uganda for 31 years; Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has been president of Zimbabwe for 37 years; Jos├® Eduardo dos Santos has been president of Angola for 38 years all without losing an election, including Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Africa’s longest reigning president.
In all these countries, the leadership was not retained through free and fair elections by any stretch of the imagination and it seems as if Trump is somehow mesmerized by dictatorial leaders.
A huge painting of President Andrew Jackson, the man on the US $20 bill, hangs on the wall behind Donald Trump’s White House desk.
There is no former president that Trump admires more that Andrew Jackson, a slave owner whose brutal treatment and forced removal of Native Americans from their lands is legendary.
It is interesting that instead of admiring past Republican presidents like Abram Lincoln, Trump’s idol, Andrew Jackson, was not only a Democrat but a founder of the Democratic party.
Trump’s use of language seems to be extremely limited and his shallow grasp of American history is only now beginning to show.
He is not linguistically savvy; he is not descriptive but uses cheap words like “very” and “really” (which he uses twice or thrice in a row for emphasis) and is fond of barren expressions such as “like you have never seen before”.
The American voters wanted an outsider, someone with little experience in government, and they got him.
The daily chaos at the White House has hardly anything to do with governing but with arguments between the president and his political party leaders, insulting the press and opposition senators whose assistance he needs to pass his bills.
But most frightening to both Americans and foreigners is Trump’s hatred of the media and his adoration of dictators from Putin, Kim Jong-un and others.
Trump seems to be comparing well against African dictators when it comes to nepotism, family run government, putting family business over the nation and vindictiveness.
The chilling effect of frustrating failure to guide democracy according to the American way has made a president of the United States to rubbish his own country’s constitution because, to him, it’s old and is standing in his way.
Considering the bitterness of the elections on both sides and the resultant polarization, this was Donald Trump’s golden opportunity to unite the nation and be “president of all people” but not at all.
Hopefully, there is still time for him to learn.
He better hurry, though, because at dinner tables and in offices across America, a growing number of people, including some elected Republicans, are increasingly discussing how a president can be removed through impeachment or through the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which allows for the replacement of a President who is judged to be mentally unfit.
