Who moved the cheese? The parallel political heist of Washington and Nairobi

US President Donald on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, on July 8, 2026. [AFP]

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." Ecclesiastes 3:1

Spencer Johnson wrote a book in 1998 that sold 30 million copies and took less than an hour to read. The entire argument fits in one sentence. When someone moves your cheese, you have two choices. Find new cheese or starve defending the empty station where the old cheese used to be.

Four characters live in a maze. Sniff and Scurry sense the change and move on. Hem and Haw stand at the empty station arguing about why things should return to normal. Hem never moves.

He starves with his principles intact. Haw moves late, finds new cheese, and writes lessons on the wall for whoever comes next. The book is not about cheese. It is about every leader who mistakes the place where they once won for the reason why they won.

This week's signal

The Democrats' cheese was moved, yet they are still at the old station. Kiprop Chirchir decoded the American political DNA with surgical precision. His political diagnosis didn’t offer a cosmetic Band-Aid; he sliced straight down to the chronic vascular blockage choking their voter coalition.

His perspective has made one of the most precise political observations in recent American commentary. The only wall holding the Democratic coalition together is immigration policy. Examine everything else. Black church communities are deeply evangelical, socially conservative, and family-centred.

Hispanic Catholic voters hold traditional views on abortion, gender, and religious expression that align far more closely with the Republican doctrine. Working-class voters who built the Democratic foundation have been leaving for two decades.

Union households that voted for Roosevelt now vote for Trump. The cheese that built the Democratic coalition moved a long time ago while the party is still at the old station.

The Republican Party found new cheese in 2016 when economic nationalism, cultural identity, and conservative values built a coalition crossing racial lines. But it left one piece in the bowl. Immigration. The moment Republicans find a credible, humane immigration position separating the policy from the hostility, they will govern for a generation. That is what Spencer Johnson applied to the world's most powerful political maze.

What it means for business

Political stability is the most undervalued business input. When coalitions fracture, policy becomes unpredictable and investment slows. Kenyans living in the United States sent home $2.52 billion (Sh327 billion) in 2024, representing 51 per cent of total remittances of $4.94 billion (Sh642 billion).

That flow is not politically neutral.

 When American immigration policy tightens and the coalition driving that tightening builds long-term governance, every dollar in that pipeline carries new risk.

 Kenyan businesses and Treasury teams must model that exposure now before the cheese settles permanently at a new station. That is foresight leadership.

What it means for policy

The Republican Party that has solved its immigration problem will be a fundamentally different Washington partner. More transactional, less multilateral and more focused on bilateral economic reciprocity.

It will be less sympathetic to development aid. Kenya must prepare for a Washington that asks not what it can give Africa but what Africa gives in return. Dangote's refinery interest, Nairobi's AI leadership, the Amazon satellite ground station, and the G7 invitation are leverage. Kenya must assemble them into a coherent foreign policy position before the new American political settlement arrives and the negotiating window closes.

What it means for Kenya

Kenyan politics has run on ethnic cheese for six decades. The coalition controlling Mount Kenya, the Rift Valley, the Luhya bloc, and the Coast wins. Every election is a community headcount, not a contest of ideas. Tribal arithmetic, not policy argument. But the cheese has moved.

The generation that voted in 2022 and took to the streets in 2024 is making economic calculations, not ethnic ones. Youth unemployment at 67 per cent does not care which community the President comes from. A ChatGPT adoption rate of 42.1 per cent does not organise along ethnic lines.

The party that reads this shift first, builds a coalition around economic transformation, digital opportunity, and governance accountability, and leaves the ethnic station permanently, will govern Kenya for a generation. The ethnic cheese is gone.

Afterthought

Hem starved at the empty station, insisting someone bring the cheese back. Haw found new cheese by letting go of where it used to be. The Democrats in Washington and the coalition builders in Nairobi are both standing at Hem's station. In 2027, power will be with the high-quality “cheese”. That’s the undeniable performance record Kenya is witnessing.

Power behaves exactly like a discerning woman; she is drawn to a performer with a tangible development record. “Decisions are made on the radar screen, but the future is yours”.

-The writer is a human-centred strategist and leadership columnist