Mark Wignall | Score one for the politics of hate, fear and racism

Since late Tuesday night, I have been trying to rid myself of the living nightmare that the United States has driven itself off a cliff. It is terrifying to many, even those who have never followed up anything about American politics that Donald Trump has been elected once again.

“I think some of the aspects of current American government that people on both sides find frustrating are partly a function of the inability of people to understand how government can and should function. It is a product of civic ignorance.” So said Associate Justice David Souter 12 years ago.

He warned Americans that “... authoritarianism was just around the corner. He predicted that, paradoxically, American democracy could end up being its undoing if a majority of voters in an election collectively decide to end it.”

From the online publication Alternet: “Souter went on to explain that he worries less about the U.S. losing its form of government due to foreign invaders or by a military coup as is the case in countries like Egypt and Myanmar. Rather, Souter said he felt democracy was most at risk by the American public itself, not being educated enough about what’s causing their frustration and electing a demagogue convincing a majority of voters that they alone can fix it if given ‘total power.’ He noted: “That is how the Roman republic fell.”

A reader who lives in the US and who, like me, believed that based on numerous polls, Kamala would have won, wrote, “Well, as for the US election, so much for polls and my analysis. I was comprehensively wrong. I wonder what the result tells us. January 6 did not matter to the voters. It also tells us that isolationism and America first is in fashion. Finally, it tells us the situation at the US Southern border was heavy on voters’ minds. And finally, white supremacy is alive and well.”

The things that Donald Trump told us he would do made many rational people felt secure enough to believe that he would be trashed at the voting booth. Certainly, mass deportation alone would be immediately understood by the American at street level, the shopper buying strawberries, the meat packer and small business owners purchasing meat for resale.

HATE FOR WOMEN

Plus, how could men buy into his brand of hate for women? Maybe there is something about the American man that we do not know. In the end, many Americans bought into his warped idea of what America could be,

I read that a poll conducted after the election indicated that 48 per cent of Gen-Z voters told the researchers that they lied to them about party choice. A first reading of that would tell us that Trump would be their first choice, but they were self-conscious enough to hide it. Two questions arise: What was it about Trump’s terrible pack of poison that made them love him? Two, what was it about the burst of conscience that made them lie to the pollsters?

Can we draw the early conclusion that America is still not ready for a woman president? Certainly! We have to bear in mind that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. Trump captured everything in 2024. Maybe there was something about Kamala that scared America. Maybe there was something about her that came across as non-American — strong, articulate, intelligent, and non-white.

Or were there hands on the scale? Musk (X)? Russia? Trump’s win will immediately put the hammer to NATO, and Putin will be given immediate permission to go full tilt on Ukraine. America’s foreign policy roster will be aligned with the right-wing European shift. Trump’s trade policies will rattle global trade as he goes on his revenge tour.

At home, he gets a free pass on his legal matters. He will shape the legal and security agencies (DOJ, FBI, CIA, etc) to suit his whims and fancy. There is no immediate escape from this nightmare that has fallen on us. We have relatives living in America. If before this they were deemed second class citizens, they are now suspect with every step.

REALLY, PM?

“They use whatever happens in the society, even if it’s criminal, for their political benefit, and that, my friend, is PNPism.

“They embrace even criminality to make their political point for political benefit, and that is how PNPism has destroyed our society, and it is threatening to do so again because we see their embrace of criminality, their defence of criminality, and that is why, my friend, they resist the states of public emergency because they are bent on defending and protecting criminality,”

Thus said Prime Minister Andrew Holness to bell -ringing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters at Member of Parliament Rhoda Moy Crawford’s constituency conference in Manchester recently. The prime minister has recently earned himself a doctorate and is entitled to be called Dr Andrew Holness. We expected him to grow bigger with the designation. With him calling the People’s National Party (PNP) allied to criminality, the pot-and-kettle relationship does not quite match the taking of a PhD.

I have always supported the various states of emergency in specific areas of Jamaica simply because the security apparatus in Jamaica has not yet found that magic potion to deal with our rampant criminality. A 20 pre cent drop in homicides is not enough to satisfy Jamaicans. Even if it was a 35 per cent falloff, the base number is already high, and a hit shooting that claims four lives at one location drives up the fear level.

The sordid history of the PNP, the JLP, and the PNP versus the JLP in gun wars of the 1970s cannot, under any circumstances, place one party in the lofty position of being able to call out the other in launching a bigger gun fight than the other.

They have both used guns to decimate areas where those ‘on the other side’ live. So, Dr Andrew Holness, as PM of Jamaica, you know the history, you know the bark of guns, the arson, the pain, and the years of bloodshed.

A heated political platform is not the best place to demonstrate the rigours of a PhD.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com