In spite of the availability of quite a number of tools that can be used to detect mendacity and propaganda, one can see that misinformation is a cancer which cannot be easily nipped in the bud.
Even though former president Donald Trump lost the November 2020 United States elections to Joe Biden, he falsely claimed that the elections were rigged. The controversy-ridden man is back seeking to become president again.
A pathological liar with a narcissistic personality disorder, Trump is one man who thinks that everything must be done his way and if they are not done the way he prefers, the milk must be spoiled.
Even though the sober Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump in quite a number of opinion polls, those who care about democracy and the rule of law must be worried because Trump may win the election. Elections are an enigma with a lot of surprises.
Due to this uncertainty hanging in the air, those who believe in democracy must be worried. If Trump wins that election, he will be president of America but his presidency will have far-reaching efforts upon the developing world, especially Africa.
Most African leaders are dictators who rule with an iron fist and l am sure that they are praying that Trump wins so that they will drive further, their autocratic consolidation agendas.
Reader, Trump is a man who is on record saying that he aspires to be “a dictator”. Think about the hypocrisy, dishonesty and mental derangement of that man. If that man is allowed again to rule the largest democracy on earth, can you imagine the effects of his madness and hypocrisy on Africa?
Are we not witnessing the modern day reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini and other well-known psychopaths who occupied certain influential leadership positions prior to the 21st Century?
African Support For Donald Trump
Naturally, human beings are more emotional than logical. As one psychologist argues, “human beings make decisions emotionally and then justify them logically.”
If you ask Africans who cheer on Donald Trump, why they cheer on him, you hardly find anything tangible that they say especially if you do a comparison with Trump’s conduct.
One thing which some Africans miss is that Donald Trump is, ” a showman with no substance”, as he is described by a certain South African political scientist.
When it comes to choosing a leader to support, one ought to share certain values with that leader. The leader being supported must clearly demonstrate, not with words but actions, that he can ably advance some of the causes believed in by his supporters.
One can see that most Africans support Trump based on what he says, not what he does. Even if we look at what he says, most Africans are not serious in terms of critically analyzing and examining the full import and impact of most of his reckless utterances.
Reader, before you throw weight behind any political leader, care should be taken to thoroughly do a research on their background, conduct, actions, beliefs, etc. Do not just be swayed with the words. Even the holy scriptures say, “Charm is deceptive.”
Africans, aren’t you being deceived by Donald Trump’s charm? Isn’t the man appealing more to your emotions than logic? Remember, this the same man who hates African immigrants with a passion and is on record telling some congresswomen of African descent to leave the United States and go back to Africa.
Don’t you think that this man is capable of stoking flames of Xenophobia in America and lead to Xenophobia against African immigrants in the United States?
Never underestimate him because he did the unthinkable in 2021 when he mobilized a mob to go and storm the US Capitol Hill after he lost the election and the ensuing violence caused loss of life in Washington DC.
Deception, Hypocrisy And Dishonesty Rooted In Populism
The truth of the matter is that Donald Trump is a psychopath, but a calculative one. He is good at reading and studying the human mind. He just cleverly looks at what people want and he offers them exactly that.
In simple terms, he has mastered the art of telling people what they want to hear without him necessarily believing in those popular causes which he claims to advocate for. That is what is called populism. The biggest driver of populism is the desire to deceive people.
Soon after United States President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed US Vice President Kamala Harris to take over from him, one person sent me a message saying that they do not support Kamala Harris because her political party wants to ban churches.
Reader, this is one of the lies told by Donald Trump. Trump himself claims to be a christian. In 2020, l remember seeing a picture of him holding a bible outside a certain church building. But that is what hypocrites, they do things to show off.
Didn’t Jesus Christ tell us to beware of hypocrites who pray at top of their voices in order to be seen by men? Trump knows that most people in the world are christians and he is simply appealing to their emotions.
Nicollo Machieavelli in his book, The Prince, advises aspiring dictators that, “There is nothing more necessary to appear to be than to appear to be religious.” Trump has mastered what Canadian academic Marcel Danesi calls, “The Art Of The Lie.”
This is the same Donald Trump who was found liable for sexual offences like rape, who ran a scheme that scammed students and is a convicted felon yet he wants to appear holier than Kamala Harris. The truth of the matter is that Kamala Harris’s political party advocates for secularism, but never advocates for the banning of churches.
Advocating for secularism is different from advocating for the banning of churches. The reason why Democrats advocate for secularism is because they noticed that dictators weapon is religion in order to deceive the unsuspecting masses.
A number of Democratic Party members like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden led America but at no point did they advocate for the banning of churches. So, the argument that democrats want to ban churches immediately falls away because it is merely rooted in outright lies.
There’s no modicum of veracity in that wild conspiracy theory.
The same Trump who is loved by certain Africans hates blacks with a passion. For Donald, blacks are animals and they must not occupy any leadership position, especially in a country which Trump believes that it only belongs to the whites.
Reader, this is the same Trump who led a series of conspiracy campaigns to discredit the first black president in the history of the United States, Barack Obama. In 2011, he led what is now famously known as, “The Birther Conspiracy”. The false theory had it that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, so he was illegally occupying the US presidency since the constitution of that country does not allow someone born outside to become president.
Obama had to produce his long birth certificate which was issued in 1961 showing that he was born in Hawaii, not Kenya. Now, the same Donald Trump is at it again fabricating stories to discredit black woman Kamala Harris from contesting for the presidency.
In 1973, Trump was sued by the Department of Justice for discriminating against African-Americans in his rental properties. Reader, Trump’s lies are very deliberate. The simple meaning of the above-mentioned lies is that Trump holds the belief that blacks are too inferior to become presidents. Trump doesn’t look at black people as human beings. He hates black people with a passion, so he will create lies to discredit all black people who have leadership ambitions.
Trump cannot brook being led by a black person. For him, that is tantamount to being undermined. Trump is on record uttering several statements which seek to embarrass and demean black people.
Clearly, people forget easily. Trump lost the election to Joe Biden in November 2020 and he did the unthinkable. He made baseless statements that the election had been stolen yet he produced zero evidence so as to corroborate his allegations.
He did one of the most egregious things ever witnessed in the history of the United States of America. He secretly organised a violent mob which stormed the US Capitol Hill in order to impede the inauguration of Joe Biden. The mob caused skirmishes which resulted in loss of life.
Clearly, Trump cannot stomach defeat and he is prepared to see some people lose their lives so that he rules. For him, it is either things go his way or no way!
Reader, this is the same man who is on record saying he wants “to be a dictator” and he has openly expressed his admiration for notorious dictators like Vladimir Putin of Russia.
In retrospect, one can see that the same way Donald Trump rose is the same way monsters like Adolf Hitler of Germany, Benito Mussolini of Italy and Joseph Stalin of Russia rose. Hitler rose whilst driving anti-Jew propaganda and he ended killing more than 10 million people.
Mussolini claimed to be an advocate of morality and order yet he ended up killing thousands of his people and he created more disorder than order. Stalin claimed to advocate for the rights of the workers but he ended up killing many workers in Russia.
Those who read a satire called “Animal Farm” by George Orwell , did you know that it was written to lampoon Stalin’s hypocrisy and his pseudo revolution in Russia? Those men were populists who claimed to champion pro-people causes yet they were lying.
Those who lived during those epochs were successfully deceived by those men, the same way Trump is deceiving people nowadays.
If a madman can rule a country like America, don’t you think that such a phenomenon opens floodgates for the rise of more deranged people, not just in America, but in developing countries because a precedence has already been set.
What will become of this world if more people like Donald Trump get an opportunity to control the levers of power? How many countries are there in the world? Imagine the majority of them being ruled by a man like Donald Trump! Food for thought.
A Disaster For Third World Countries
Some of us who live in third world countries ruled by dictators must be worried about this issue. If Trump wins this election and goes back to the White House, what will become of us?
Reader, when people do evil and bad things, they often feel more fortified when they see others, especially those above them in society, do the same.If the most senior medical doctor in your community becomes a drunkard and a habitual smoker, how will you convince other smokers who are not doctors to stop smoking because it is insidious? The moment you try to convince them, they will retort, “Why don’t you start by telling doctor X to stop first? Leave us alone please.”
If the most prominent pastor in your community is found in a compromising position with a married woman, those people who go after married women feel fortified and they begin to think that it is not wrong because the most prominent pastor is doing so. If you try to reprimand such a person, they will say, “Pastor X is doing it, start by reprimanding him.”
When certain sins are committed by people who hold high societal offices, those who commit the same sins begin to think that they are not wrong because X, who is supposed to be a role model, is doing that. Peer pressure is not for children but it transcends age. Haven’t you ever told someone to stop doing something and then they tell you, “Dear, almost everyone is doing it. It only becomes wrong because l am doing it?”.
I remember former president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe being asked, by American journalist Christian Amanpour, why he rigged the elections in 2008 and he shot back by indicating that why the American journalists fixated themselves on interrogating election rigging claims in Africa without questioning why the then president of the United States, George Bush had been accused of stuffing ballots in Florida during his first term. Let’s say that Mugabe was correct to indicate that Bush rigged the elections. But did that make it right for Mugabe to rig elections only because Bush had done so?
Reader, Mugabe knew that the world looks at America as the global leader in as far as democracy is concerned. If the headmaster is accused of coming to school late, do you think parents can castigate other mere teachers for doing the same without the same teachers indicating, “Why don’t you chide the headmaster first?” So there seems to be an unwritten societal rule which legalizes a crime because someone with a higher office has committed that very crime.
In Zimbabwe, the current leader Emmerson Mnangagwa and his cabal in Zanu PF are currently preparing to flout the constitution in order to extend his term of office beyond 2028. I know for a fact that embassies like the US embassy in Harare will issue statements condemning such an unconstitutionality but Zanu PF will hit back saying, “What about Donald Trump? Did you chide him when he did that unthinkable act of sending a violent mob to storm the US Capitol Hill which resulted in the deaths of innocent citizens?”
Zanu PF will do that as a way of absolving and exonerating themselves and they will neutralize the voices which will be telling to stop disregarding the constitution.
Reader, Donald Trump is on record vowing that he will jail his ” enemies” and some pro-“deep state” journalists if he gets into power again. Whilst speaking at the Democratic National Convention last week, Kamala Harris uttered this very powerful statement, “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man but the consequences of sending him back to the White House are very serious.”
So, never take Trump for granted, especially after a top court in the United States ruled that Donald Trump is given immunity for crimes he committed whilst in office. That simply emboldens him to commit further crimes if he attains power. People might think that he will not go to such extremes but they must realize that a narcissist like Trump is capable of doing anything.
There was a certain madman in my home area who used to loiter at the growth point and when some people tried to run away after seeing him, they would be assured by people who were always at the grow point, “Please do not run away, he doesn’t beat up people.”
One day, he did the unexpected. Whilst some passengers who were heading to Harare were resting in their bus while it was stationary at the growth point , the madman whom l am talking about locked the bus from outside and set it alight.
He clearly wanted to kill all those people who were on the bus. The moral lesson from this story is that a madman is always a madman, never ever think that there are certain extremes he won’t go to because for him, there is nothing that can be regarded as extreme.
Let’s suppose Trump gets into power and he successfully jails his “enemies” as he vowed, do you think that the United States can chastise African dictators for doing the same. Even when human rights defenders try to voice out such concerns, they will be dismissed and be told to start by condemning Donald Trump. Remember when Zanu PF introduced the so-called Patriotic Bill, which is draconian in nature and is paradoxically meant to jail true patriots, they always defended it by saying that the United States has a similar law.
Let’s say the United States has a similar draconian law, does that justify such a draconian law? Reader, the United States is looked as the de facto leader of the world and if it is found wanting, some may choose to follow bad habits on the pretext of following in the footsteps of the United States. If Trump gets into power and he begins to roll out his undemocratic plans, do you think African autocrats will listen when they are told, by big organisations like the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, etc, to stop violating human rights? African dictators will simply say, “Why don’t you deal with Trump first? Go to hell.”
So it means that calls for African leaders to respect rule of law will be of no consequence because African leaders will use Whataboutism to hit back, viz, “Have you dealt with Trump? If you have not, please leave us alone.” Again, the attention of the world will be on Donald Trump and human rights violations in Africa will mostly go unchecked.
If the biggest supermarket in your area is on fire, do you think people will find enough time to help someone whose cabin is on fire? Your cabin will simply appear to be negligible and the loss you have suffered will have few people who extend a helping hand to rescue you from drowning. So it means greater focus by big international human rights watchdogs will be on Trump whilst human rights violations elsewhere in countries that appear to be insignificant will be ignored. Think about it, reader.
And this will not end with Donald Trump. Remember Trump has managed to rise because he knows that people like Hitler, who have so many commonalities with him, managed to rise. You have to know that if Trump wins the US election this year, more Trump-like characters will be emboldened and say to themselves, “So it is doable.” Such characters will come and they will wreak more havoc than Trump in the United States.
Before you realize it, world democracy would be on the high road to extinction. As observed by American political science scholars Steven Levitisky and Daniel Zibblat in their book, How Democracies Die, “People are often slow to realise that their democracy is being dismantled, even if it happens in their eyes.”
Rest assured that if Trump becomes president again, more Trump-like characters will rise and occupy levers of power, not just in the United States, but around the world. Imagine a situation where there is backsliding of democracy and ” enemies” of the president of the United States are incarcerated, what will happen in African countries, let alone in Zimbabwe?
What’s Next?
What this simply means is that it is not the United States democracy that is under threat, but world democracy. Proponents of democracy must roll up their sleeves, organize themselves for a big fight that must be waged around the world, if Trump wins the imminent US election.
In Africa, more abductions of political opponents are coming, more killings of the “enemies” of the leaders are coming, more arrests of opponents on trumped up charges are coming, from African dictators who will have a feast of unhinderedly abusing human rights if Trump becomes president.
Even though most opinion polls are showing that Donald Trump is going lose this election to Kamala Harris, it’s never guaranteed. He may bounce back through the Electoral College, like he did in 2016. So at the moment, human rights defenders around the world, especially in Africa and Zimbabwe, must start preparing for the hell which will come in the event of a Trump presidency and its effects.
Mobilize more resources, mobilize more people and galvanize yourselves towards a big fight against deeper autocracy, which lies ahead. Prepare for the winter season whilst you are still in summer . The winter which will come, in the event of a Trump presidency, must be thoroughly prepared for.
Venceremos
