NOW THAT THE WHITE HOUSE IS TRIUMPHANTLY ‘TRUMPED’

By Joseph Adudu

Yesterday, Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45th American president. And I am positive that people like Professor Wole Soyinka have already devised means of living with their trauma in the next four years or more. Not only him but many other Nigerians and Americans, especially the democrats whom I believe come have come to terms with the fact that now; Donald Trump is the President of the United States of America. A lot of people from Africa and Arab regions had prayed earnestly that the boisterous Republican candidate did not win the November 8, 2016 election. Against all odds and permutation however, Trump made history by defeating the highly favoured Democratic Party candidate, Hilary Clinton in spite of opinion polls favouring her. From the beginning of the presidential campaign that political observers and opponents derided as a huge joke, Donald Trump made up his mind that his greatest asset was his complete lack of a quality all his opponents had to a greater or less extend – disrespect which knew no boundaries.

He was tagged as shameless, disrespectful, and lacking in decency and propriety that are normally the defining characteristics of mainstream politicians in the US. However, the same negative trends seemed to have propelled Trump to the threshold of the Republican Nomination.

A refusal to respect ‘sacred cows’ has enabled the all-conquering property mogul to leave a succession of once-mighty high profile casualties in his wake.

They include: Senator John McCain, former Republican presidential candidate and war hero, ridiculed for being shot down by North Vietnam and becoming a prisoner of war; Megan Kelly, Fox News host, on the receiving end of relentless personal and misogynistic attacks after confronting the candidate about his attitude to women; Jeb Bush, scion of one of America’s most successful political dynasties and once thought the likely nominee, mocked as “low energy”; Mitt Romney, the failed 2012 Republican nominee, vilified after attacking Trump’s credentials; Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, swatted away contemptuously as “little Marco”; and last but not least, Ted Cruz, the Right-wing Texas senator who became the party establishments last hope of stopping the Trump juggernaut only to be flattened by a fusillade of abuse that included attacks on his wife’s looks, fanciful smears of his father’s role in the assassination of JFK and himself denigrated as “lying’ Ted”.

Even Pope Francis was not spared when Trump fired back after the Pope suggested “he is not a Christian”. The Pope was asked by a reporter travelling with him back to the Vatican at a conclusion of a trip to Cuba and Mexico if a Catholic could vote for Trump to which Pope Francis said “A person who thinks only about building walls wherever they may be and not building bridges is not a Christian. This is not the gospel”. In response, Trump said “no leader, especially a religious leader should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith. For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. They are using the Pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant. The Pope is not seeing the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current economic policies have on the United States. He doesn’t see how Mexican leadership is outsmarting President Obama. The Mexican government and its leadership has made many disparaging remarks about me to the Pope because they want to continue to rip off the United States both on trade and at the boarder and they understand I am totally wiser to them.

“I am proud to be a Christian and as President, I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened unlike what is happening now with our current President”

You would agree with me that in all these, Trump has not behaved like a traditional politician – however, the results of his behaviour have been an almost unbroken run of success that has confounded Republican Party grandees who have despaired of stopping him. It all seems too fantastical to comprehend. Yet hindsight shows that Trump deployed his absence of shame to offer simplistic populist solutions on issues that have shaped a fearful and resentful public mood and therefore reaped electoral dividends in key areas like Immigration, Terrorism and Trade among others.

For instance; immigration, a serious concern to conservative working-class voters, Trump played to base instincts. Mexico was sending drug dealers and rapists to America, he said in language that drew widespread condemnation but clearly resonated. In response, he would build a “beautiful” wall on the border and force Mexico to pay for it. Some 11 million illegal immigrants would be rounded up and forcibly deported.

On terrorism, Trump first repeated the discredited trope that “thousands” of American Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks after the November’s deadly Jihadist assaults on Paris. When that brought the inevitable denunciations, he went further than any other candidate would ever have dared – by proposing a blanket ban on all Muslims entering the United States, a blatantly discriminatory policy that nonetheless played on the fears of a significant segment of Republican voters.
On trade, Trump has depicted the loss of American jobs as a result of flawed trade deals with China, Mexico and others and vowed to stop what he presented as the sell-out of the country by a clueless, weak leadership. “Trade agreements would be torn up”, he said. This has chimed with a portion of the electorate left bewildered by the pace of change wrought by the digital economy – and un-persuaded by arguments that similarly disruptive processes are wreaking just as much havoc elsewhere.
In all these, two reasons stand above all: Trump won his party’s nomination and the general election itself because he, alone among other contestants, dared to defy the media and spoke directly to the American people. Second; he worked harder than Hilary Clinton, campaigning even in blue states experts said he had no hope of winning.

It may also be interesting to note that Trump did not ignored the Media as witnessed in the volume of interviews he granted and the number of Journalists he carted around on a dedicated press plane for months. On the contrary, the press ignored him on the assumption (in my personal opinion) that he was going to lose. To many in the media industry, it was all a pointless ordeal, leavened only by the apparently gratifying task of catching Trump in a perceived gaffe or noting audience misbehavior.

Many Journalists apparently believed it was their civic duty to protect the public from Trump more so as a lot of them lacked curiosity about what Trump was saying to voters and whether he was reaching them. As a matter of fact, Journalists and Editors were busy talking and forgot to listen. As I pointed out immediately after the November 8, 2016 Presidential election, most media outfits concentrated in broadcasting and publishing hit piece after hit piece in an all-out attempt to destroy Trump. During the campaign period, a check on any websites of the mainstream media on any particular day was inevitable that you would find an anti Trump story usually accompanied by a pro- Clinton story nearby. I have also said that the elite were desperate to keep Trump out of the white House and if that means shedding all notions of media objectivity and siccing their attack dogs on Trump day after day, then it must be accomplished. What we saw during the campaign season was absolutely unprecedented.

In a nutshell, not many expected Trump to win the American Presidential election because he was an outlier having run against both parties and also appealed to voters’ basest instincts and did so in an arrogant manner. It is also obvious that a lot of people had wished for a different outcome. While some have called the out come of the election a historical disaster, others see God’s hand in it. Still, others see it as a terrible case against democracy while others say its beauty was also at play. Whichever way, Americans have spoken but Trump should be careful not to misread the mandate given to him. I personally think it would be a great mistake for him to regard his mandate a license to abolish all the policies of the immediate past administration. Trump is now the president of the United States of America but the consequences go beyond that and this is where the real work starts. Indeed, the campaigns have been crude and offensive creating bad blood as demonstrated by protesters immediately he was declared winner and yesterday during the inauguration. And I believe it is for this reason that Trump repeatedly said that he is a president for all. In his speech after the inauguration, Trump spoke of new era of economic prosperity and job creation for Americans. But I was highly elated when he also pledged to unite the ‘civilized world’ against ‘radical Islamic terrorism’. I can’t agree less with President Trump on this. Terrorism to me is that monster that has taken the world by storm and if not properly tackled, may likely bring it to its knees. Nigeria is an indispensable ally not only in regional but continental security. President Trump therefore, should seek for serious demonstrations on the part of President Buhari to partner with Nigeria in confronting our security challenges-mostly, to bring an end to the Boko Haram menace- as well as other regional security problems.

It’s apparent that since the end of the cold war that saw the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the world has constantly relied on the United States leadership to maintain world peace. Though some pundits have observed that the US has not always lived up to expectations, but I believe the US is undoubtedly, an indispensable world power which despite its imperfections, has helped to stabilize the world and prevented it from tearing apart.

On his intention to build walls to tinker with some of the country’s policies concerning immigration, I think Nigeria leaders and the elite are the saddest. And I am not surprised. I stand to be corrected but it is doubtful if there are other countries whose elite are as crazy for America as the Nigerian elite and leaders. They jet out to America to treat malaria, catarrh, cold and sore throat instead of putting in place qualitative health institutions in our country to the standard that is obtain in the US. Most of our leaders both past and present sent their children to school in the US thereby helping to grow the US economy and killing ours but urging the rest of us to be patriotic by making do with what is already in shambles here. So, most Nigerians would be eternally grateful if President Trump would keep to his campaign promise of erecting the wall and encourage leaders of other developed nations to do same to shut out Nigerian elite and leaders so they can stay back at home and begin to perfect ways of giving proper attention to our decayed institutions with the aim of developing them to meet up with global standard.
Finally, let me state that President Trump faces daunting challenges but I hope every decision and action he takes would be in agreement with his conscience and the Almighty God will surely see him through.

CONGRATULATIONS, DONALD AKPASU (WARRIOR) TRUMP.