May Americans get the leader they deserve

Republican Presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump shakes hands with US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. [AFP]

I was watching the US presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and I couldn't help but feel that the more developed a country becomes, the more retrogressive its politics becomes.

The debate issues - and how they were handled especially by Trump - makes one nostalgic for days gone by when those vying for such seats were people whose personality was impeccable, their standing in society beyond reproach and their character like that of Caesar's wife - above suspicion.

The same is happening in Europe, where the extreme left is gaining ground, and they sell their outrageous policies to the electorate who buy it wholesale. In France for instance, Marine le Pen who unsuccessfully vied for presidency in 2012, 2017 and 2022 has ridden on the anti-immigration policy which has propelled her to be a leading voice in French politics. She's a rabid anti-immigrant endowed with the gift of the garb. She can move masses. So can Trump. And so do most politicians who do nothing else except sell hope which, unfortunately, remains exactly that even after getting into power.

Whenever I see Trump speaking, I oscillate between hilarity and contempt. He however knows which button to press to get the right response from the electorate. His people love him, even when he says outrageous things. One can never know whether the man is serious or he's just an archetypical politician. He seems to say the right things - at least for his target constituents.

For example, in the recent debate: Trump, a rabid anti-immigration advocate, said the reason pets in America were disappearing from the streets was because immigrants were feasting on them! "In Springfield, they're (immigrants) eating dogs, the people came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of people that live there." Wow.

Even by Trump's standards, that's a new low. A fact check by news organisations found that such a thing only existed in his imagination. City officials told news organisations that "there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community."

Not coincidentally, his running mate JD Vance had earlier trodden the same ground, saying immigrants from Haiti were roasting people's dogs for dinner. As if that was not enough, Trump also alleged - again something fact-checkers found to be false - that "millions" of people were pouring into the country "from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums." The man has a fertile imagination.

Harris had her own awkward moments where fact-checkers said was not entirely true but nothing as outrageous as Trump's. The worst fib, according to news organisations, was when she said Trump's presidency had left America in a worse place employment-wise.

What bothers me is those who are anti-immigration forget their own history. America is a country of immigrants. Apart from the native Americans (pejoratively referred to as Red Indians and depicted in movies as blood-hungry ruffians), everyone else is an immigrant.

It is also an oft-stated fact that immigrants bring new ideas, are more hungry and therefore more successful. Some of the richest people today in US are immigrants, from Elon Musk (of Tesla and Space X) to Jensen Huang of Nvidia (a chip maker whose current valuation is US$2.65 trillion, third only to Apple and Microsoft) - trace their roots to South Africa and Taiwan.

Let's take a minute to appreciate how much US$2.5 trillion actually is. Kenya's Gross Domestic Product stands at US$113 billion while our budget stands at US$30 billion. It means NVIDIA's valuation is about 20 times Kenya's GDP! Let's not even compare this with the country's budget. Not a nice thing to think about but that's just the way it is.

As the saying goes, people get the leaders they deserve. May Americans get the leader of their choice, the one they deserve, even if it means being the world's laughing stock.

The writer is a communications consultant and journalist