November 9, 2016 the day Americans exercised their much cherished democratic right of electing their president should normally have been a day of much joy and elation. However, with the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States it has become what President Roosevelt called a day of infamy- the day Japan invaded Pearl Harbor where much cherished American values were put in imminent danger.
With the election of a man who is self confessed racist, xenophobe and religious bigot, the great American values embedded in the U.S. Constitution and articulated in the Declaration of Independence are threatened to become as light as a chaff in the wind. The long held and cherished American creed that all men [women]are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, which so many of us looked at with envy and veneration seems to have been rendered to look like an empty slogan.
It is not without reason that the whole world is gripped by the sad news of Trump’s election to the Presidency of the U.S. Even the normally reticent Ethiopians who by law cannot openly discuss local politics, watch certain T.V. channels, read or write anything which looks like disagreeable to the Government or consult certain websites, take out their revenge with loud voice and flailing hands by openly, passionately and loudly discussing the U.S. elections. After all there is no niche or crack in the world where American influence has not penetrated.
Winston Churchill once said “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest.” Democracy being the product of fallible human mind may sometimes go awry and allow some bad apples to slip through the crack and besmirch the whole system. It is an irony of the highest order that a country which gave the world the first written democratic constitution, a country ruled by visionaries such as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy and Barrack Obama and a country into which great moral values have been engraved by the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. should fall at the lap of a moral midget called Donald Trump.
A French author once said ” a people gets a Government it deserves.” This is not entirely true, particularly when it comes to the people of the U.S. who by enlarge are generous, hospitable and compassionate, few racists notwithstanding. Americans do not deserve a racist, a xenophobe, a religious bigot and sexual harasser for a president. Unfortunately as the result of imperfection of democracy Americans have elected Donald trump who has promised that he will build a wall to isolate Mexico, interdict Moslems from entering into the United States, expel millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States, throw Hillary Clinton into jail, allow Japan to build nuclear bomb, scrape trade agreements such as NAFTA and much more. These prescriptions are nothing to joke about. They are concrete political programs on which Tramp ran and won the Presidency of the U.S. People who elected him are going to hold his feet to the fire to fulfill them.
People may take solace in the knowledge that the American system is protected by checks and balances of the legislature, executive and the judiciary, so that no branch of the Government endangers the Union or its institutions. However the American Presidency is a very powerful position and the President has enormous power particularly in matters of foreign affairs and defense. Some people in fact jokingly refer to the US President as a constitutional dictator. So it is appropriate at this juncture to briefly examine the possible impacts of Trump’s administration on the world which for better or worse is irretrievably intertwined with what is going on in the U.S.
-Because of lack of faith in Trump’s administration the stock market will plummet and this will have adverse effect on the world economy resulting in world wide recession.
-NATO may be dispersed upsetting the long maintained balance of power and detente among the powerful nations of the world thus endangering world peace.
-Now that Trump has argued that Japan and other nations should posses nuclear bomb, nuclear proliferation may be the order of the day.
-Trump in his usual cavalier manner may rescind the AGOA agreements and other treaties with African nations and others. The list goes on.
Trump’s presidency is not only a threat to the unity of the American people, but it is also an imminent threat to world peace and security. So what should be done to stop this man from unleashing havoc in this fragile world? The responsibility falls directly on the American people and more so on the House of Representatives and particularly the Senate. The Senate must find ways and means of impeaching and removing Trump from the office “for inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the Office of the President of the U.S. (Article II of the U.S. Constitution). Or the Senate must impeach Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors including tax evasion, hate crime against Latinos, racism and sexual harassment by groping women – which was not an act of a spoilt brat but rather a perverted deed of a deranged middle aged man.
America will remain great as long as it remains faithful to Jefferson’s oath where he said “….[I] swear upon the altar of God, eternal hostilities against every form of tyranny anywhere in the world.” The U.S should remember those peoples who have been stripped of their human dignity and have been turned into a sheep, in Shakespearean language made to stand “sans eyes, sans ears sans everything”
America blew up its chance of electing an extraordinarily capable and compassionate woman to the U.S. presidency. Had she been elected it would have gone down in the annals of the American history that this was one of America’s finest hours.