America now banana republic

Has America joined us in the ranks of banana republics, where elections are not an opportunity to change government but a threat to the welfare of the country?

This past week, outgoing US President Donald Trump, clinging to power claiming rigging, promised explosive evidence of electoral malpractice. It was to be paraded on the Sean Hannity show on Fox. Mr Hannity and Fox News tend to support the more right-wing fringes of the Republican Party.

Unfortunately, I missed Mr Hannity’s no doubt important show but I have read that the “evidence” included observers not being allowed as close to the ballot boxes as they wanted and complaints, I kid you not, of being looked at badly by poll officials.

 If you expected fake ballot papers, abduction and murder or disappearance of election officials, stuffing of ballot boxes, the military being brought out to vote and vote and vote, alien boxes full of marked ballot papers or the electronic manipulation of tallies, an area in which we trounce the world better than in the marathons, a Msando or a Tharaka Nithi, you are in danger of being solely disappointed.

Even our purist Chief Justice David Maraga would encounter difficulty in finding “illegalities” in the election to the extent of ordering a recount, leave alone invalidating the victory of President-elect Joseph R. Biden.

Democrat-leaning counties

In 2016, Mr Trump won Pennsylvania with 0.72 per cent, or 44,292 votes, the slimmest presidential election margin in the state in 176 years. Mr Biden has surpassed that with thousands of ballots still left to count, many of them in Democrat-leaning counties. On Saturday, the Associated Press analysed the vote and concluded that there was no way Mr Trump could catch up with Mr Biden and called the state for Mr Biden. Networks followed.

Mr Trump has filed many cases in a slew of states hoping to delay certification of results and pave the way for state legislatures, many of them Republican-controlled, to step in and, perhaps, override the outcome and send electors to the Electoral College with instructions to support him, or create an excuse to refer the dispute to the Supreme Court, where he has carefully nominated “friendly” judges.

You may have expected the grandees of the Republican Party, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, would pay Mr Trump a visit and tell him: “Mr President, you lost the election, you can’t win. Off to Mar-a-Lago with you.”

But they have circled the wagons around Mr Trump and his rigging claims. Republican leaders are generally and ridiculously spineless in the face of Mr Trump, a vindictive and powerful man known to exact political revenge on those who stand up to him.

He controls the “Republican base”, a large swath of the white, Christian population, many of them poorly educated and generally believe everything he says and act according to his wishes, akin to our own tribal chieftains.

Religious beliefs

This constituency is angry, feels forgotten and believes they are being upstaged in their own country by immigrants. They are outraged by practices that go against their religious beliefs, such as homosexuality and abortion, supported by the more liberal Democratic Party.

Mr Trump, a lascivious New York billionaire who couldn’t care less if the foetuses were aborted along with the uterine infrastructure and who — it is not an exaggeration to say – can’t hold the Bible the right way up, has been very clever in branding himself as the poor man’s champion. He talks about Second Amendment rights — to bear arms.

And he had protestors brutally cleared by the military to stage a photo op in front of a chapel, holding the Bible upside-down. Having Jerusalem handed to Israel, even though it is claimed by Palestinians,looked irresponsible, undoing years of careful diplomacy. But it won him the devotion of Christians, including in Kenya, who view him as God’s imperfect instrument to have His will done on earth.

Republican leaders are standing with Mr Trump to signal to the base that they gave their hero every chance to overturn the election. There are two Senate runoff elections in the state of Georgia which will determine whether the Republicans retain control of the Senate or go into the opposition and Mr McConnell and other Republican Senate grandees lose their jobs of chairing powerful committees.

In banana republics, where people reject election results because they can’t process electoral loss, a few observations can be made: Whoever the hordes of citizens vote for, the outcome of the election is pre-determined. Mr Trump said he couldn’t possibly lose the election. Secondly, the outcome is a personal matter for the tin man dictator; it has nothing to do with the welfare of the people or the good of the country. The dictator is the country; only he knows how to do stuff and save the day.

Mr Trump is in this zone. The Big Man’s family is always around power, feeding off the top layer and, like fatted calves, their hungry mouths locked on the tit of State.

Elections become about the family and the protection of its access to largesse. The White House is a family affair and the Trump clan has done well off his job.

I regret to announce that the US, from a narrow electoral perspective, is a banana republic — albeit a white, wealthy one.

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