Good riddance Trump, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
IT will be inescapable facts in the end that will undo US President Donald J Trump. The very mention of his name has made me sit up and take notice these past four years – in the same way the arrival of an apex predator in my livingroom would, and as he leaves the White House today, I am hopeful, if wary.
For weeks in late November up until Christmas – after it became clear he was going to lose the election; had, in fact, lost the election – a new found serenity washed over me. I voted for Joe Biden and see him as a good, honest man: the perfect antidote to Trump and his pestiferous cronies.
Reflecting on his four years in office (bad and good) is something that is hard to do if one watches CNN. I was glued to the channel during the election but then I stopped. An eco-chamber had developed and as brilliant as some of the journalists working for the station were and are, I found the lack of objectivity hard to swallow. One of the basic rules of journalism is to remain objective. Are there times when someone like Hitler emerges when it is OK to cast objectivity aside and go on the offensive by virtue of lies, damned lies, being spouted by the aggressor in chief ? Well, no.
Getting information from as wide a pool of contacts is vital and might just explain how Trump won, because in 2016, the American media were asleep at the wheel alongside the pollsters.
The country I hope to return to. The country I love where most of my family live is a changed place; a more dangerous place today. As I write thousands of people, maybe even tens of thousands, are planning to protest Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday.
Watching video footage of the Capital Building on January 6 disturbed me to the
core. It was chilling to see senators hiding in the home of democracy. Unreal to hear them describe how they feared for their lives; how some searched for weapons to defend themselves. The so-called greatest nation on earth had been brought to a standstill by a few hundred protesters egged on by Trump, who stoked the flames of their anger by claiming their country was after being stolen by the Democrats. What happened amounted to an insurrection and sedition. Even Trump’s right hand man, the diffident Mike Pence, was threatened with a lynching by the mob who waved KKK flags.
To anyone watching from space, America had regressed 70 years to the dark days of McCarthyism, racism and worse.
And this is where Trump is most comfortable, in the down and dirty. He loves a fight; knew very well that many of his 74 million voters love a fight, and riled them
up to attack, and all the while he watched it play out on telly like it was watching a wrestling match.
Just how this will pan out when it goes to trial is hard to judge. Trump is too big to fail. Always has been. He should never have gotten this far but by sheer chutzpah and neck he has. His brand of populism works. His brand works. But it is damaged. He has been impeached twice. Has lost millions of followers and is on shaky ground in the Republican party. But is he gone for good, I doubt it. Armed with a war chest of hundreds of millions raised from his wounded followers and financial backers in the wake of his defeat, he is not political dead meat just yet, and his daughter or son might run. If Covid has taught us anything, life is precious and people are beautiful but living alongside this dream is evil and as a result people like Trump will always find an airing.