Could presidential poll signal the beginning of the end for US?

NAIROBI: Choices have consequences! That’s what the US told Kenyans before the 2013 General Election, in reference to the bid by UhuRuto for presidency following their indictment by the International Criminal Court. It may just be poetic justice! The world is now telling the US that it would be a big mistake if the leading Republican candidate Donald Trump is elected to the White House. The world is already horrified by the Republicans' love for this man, whom the UK parliamentarians referred to as ‘a dangerous fool’ in January 2015 when they debated
whether to ban him from entering the UK.

After his overwhelming victory in the Super Tuesday primaries and emerging as the leading contender on the Republican ticket, the world media was swift in its condemnation. European media expressed horror. Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf called it ‘a global disaster’ citing Trump as ‘grossly unqualified’ and ‘a promoter of paranoid fantasies, a xenophobe and an ignoramus’, and the prospect of his presidency as ‘a worryingly real danger today’.

Chinese national media believes the man is ‘hostile to reality’ and his election to White House would affect its US relations adversely. Mexican media termed his victory a ‘threat to the world’. Trump had vowed to deport over 11 million immigrants and build a wall on the Mexican border to lock Mexicans out, calling Latino immigrants ‘criminals and rapists’. Canada’s Globe and Mail opined that a ‘bellicose billionaire has succeeded in turning the contest for the world’s most important office into his personal reality television show.” The German Foreign minister has termed Trump’s style as ‘politics of fear’.

There is little doubt that man is a racist and ‘a serial liar’ driven by a raving desire to place the world in a cage under US control. He told Americans that they are ‘fed up with incompetence, they are fed up with stupid leaders, they are fed up with stupid people.” He has called women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals’. He vowed to lock out all Muslims from entering the US, and when challenged argued that his statement was “probably not politically correct’ and added “But I don’t care.” These remarks led to increase in hate attacks in the US against Muslims. UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron called his remarks ‘stupid and divisive’.

The self-indulgent billionaire brags routinely about his wealth with a celebrity finesse and cares little about what the world thinks about his clownish behaviour and condescending attitude. What if he becomes the next US president? Social media is a buzz with posts such as: ‘Get to the bomb shelter before he blows up the world’; ‘which city will be nuked first?’; ‘would he sell the US to Russia?’ and so on.

Trump’s crazy remarks created many satirical write-ups that our media picked up inadvertently, believing it to be his remarks, such as when one of media houses reported that “Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump intends to deport Kenyans living in America if elected US president,” and that ‘Kenyan government will pay for the deportation of every descendant of every Kenyan’. It was a hoax.

In a world already in danger of a World War, the last thing we need is a trigger-happy extremist with his fingers on the US nuclear button. When George Bush was the President, US’s international relations and image reached its lowest point, and the world became less secure. With a fascist conservative who behaves like Mussolini, it is likely that should he become president, it would be the beginning of the end of the US. American’s desperation with their way of life should not drive them over the edge, into an abyss fraught with real danger to the world.