America’s predictable annus horribilis
By Charles Ihejirika
The birth of American nationhood in 1776 gave the world a multi-dimensional transformative force that has made life more livable, and the future more predictable. In the process of engineering its unique democratic experiment, it has spread its tentacles across the globe, for good or for bad, depending on where you stand. There is scarcely any corner of the world where the ‘American wonder’ testimony is not shared. From airplanes to electricity, to television, to the internet, to social media America has ruled the world and received a bourgeoning amount of prosperity for its ingenuity and democratic credentials.
The uniqueness of anything America, including its exceptional quality of leadership, the pioneering role of its scientific community, the eradication of worldwide epidemics, the destructive prowess of its ammunition, the conquest of its colleges and universities, and the saving grace of the dollar after the second world war has mesmerized the world and duped some to believe that America is resoundingly exceptional by all standards.
However, some experts are prepared to debate whether such huge exploits stand on the pedestal of being more exceptional than other Scandinavian countries of central Europe. In my opinion, I concede that in a hugely deserving way, the world owes a lot of gratitude and respect to America for leading the way to escape routes each time the world finds itself at a crossroads. More than any other country, America has always demonstrated its attempt to squeeze water out of stone when the world needs it most.
Interestingly, in the checkered journey of America, there have been deeply embarrassing and highly depressing occasions when it could easily pass as an ordinary third-world country, the so-called banana republic, especially one whose banana fruit was harvested prematurely.
The America we know
Before long, bizarre and explosive developments in the American political landscape combined with the seeming rabid ignorance of the American electorate to shift the debate about American exceptionalism to the front burner of public discourse. What is not debated, unfortunately, is the fact that if America has lost its political and economic exceptionalism, it’s the making of America itself, fueled by its unprovoked restiveness and the unbridled quest to dictate to the world, even when its actions are contradictory at best, and hypocritical at worst.
Perhaps nothing has exposed the underbelly of America’s house of hollow than the 2016 presidential elections. But that, again, paled into insignificant side-show when compared with the “house of horror’ of 2024 elections. The drama of the 2024 elections started by presenting Americans with the arduous task of deciding who will be the Commander-in-Chief between a fall-prone, gaffe machine octogenarian, and a reality TV clown, deranged chaos agent whose meaningless slogan to ‘make America great again’ only found meaning in his admiration for, and capitulation to ‘strong men’ like Kim Jung un and Vladimir Putin.
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It sent shock waves to discerning minds that the best America could present as presidential candidates are an exhausted man who would have been 81 years old at the inauguration on January 20 (making him the oldest president), a twice-impeached, four-times criminally indicted conman who has successfully dragged the once revered Supreme Court into the hyper-politicized and integrity-challenged arena of presidential election. His demand for absolute presidential immunity over his scheme to undo the clear loss of the 2020 presidential election is reverberating in capital cities across the globe, to the cheering of our enemies, and the chagrin of our friends.
America the bad
As the current presidential cycle picks up steam, President Biden’s ‘decision’ not to seek reelection after his disastrous performance at the first debate threw up Kamala Harris, a much younger, no-nonsense senate questioner, who restored the hope of Democrats, and instantly turned the tables on Republicans who have made Biden’s age a political talking-point. Now, they have to defend the candidacy of 78-year-old Doland Trump, who is currently the oldest presidential nominee of a major political party in the US, ever.
The same Republicans, including the do-nothing 118th Congress dominated by a highly dysfunctional and bitterly divided GOP, were finding it difficult to define Harris after being disarmed by Biden’s sudden evaporation. So, they settled on her liberal voting records, ridiculed her as a ‘Border Czar’, and suggested that she would be the first DEI president. Surprisingly, some Republicans have alleged without substantiation that Harris actually slept her way into and upwards in California politics.
Mr. Trump, maybe, for lack of his trademark ‘birther conspiracy theory,’ has resorted to insults and innuendos by calling her ‘laughing Kamala,’ and insisting that she is crazy. And to him, laughter is a disqualifying characteristic, just like his dubious claim of Obama’s place of birth and funny name snowballed into a conspiracy theory of disqualification.
In the run-up to the election, the nasty rhetoric and noisy vulgar, even by Trump’s standard, are chorused by the MAGA crowd, which has demonstrated that nothing said or done by their ‘king’ is disqualifying enough to abandon his sinking ship. Even the promise to be a dictator for one day, and use the military inside America, against protesting American citizens have not penetrated their thick skulls.
No holds barred
Paradoxically, American evangelicalism is not spared by the wrecking ball wielded by the former president. The once revered movement has made a public mockery of itself by its sheepish crowning of the ‘Christian Trump’ who could not mention even one verse of the bible to support ‘what his faith means to him.’ The conscious efforts at a ‘Trump coronation’ that turned the bible-wielding, tongue-speaking Christians into ‘idol worshippers’ as they worshipped and prayed over the golden Trump statue at CPAC, has taken a frightening dimension as they bolster his disingenuous devices to desecrate and discredit institutions that tend to hold him accountable, check his bogus claims of unlimited power, or attempt to contradict his ‘alternate truth’ project. In this regard, Mr. Trump has somewhat succeeded in sowing needless doubt among American voters, bullied the ebullient American news media, and dragged the Supreme Court into the mud of public vilification.
The unrestrained display of crass ignorance and double-speak are defining issues as we vote for president in a few hours. This electoral period has jolted our political, economic, and military allies, who have not forgotten how Mr. Trump bullied NATO members with transactional leadership (where everything was reduced to dollars and cents), threatened to withdraw the US from the WHO, and insisted on renegotiating age-long bilateral agreements.
Mr. Trump’s fixation on immigration is questionable. For a man who has been married to two immigrants, and whose grandfather was an immigrant, you would expect that he has some rudimentary understanding of immigration, but that is not the case. To him, every immigration to the US, whether illegal or not, is bad for the American economy and crime statistics. He has promised, again, to deport all illegal immigrants. And the pertinent question to ask is: how many people did he deport in his first term of chaos and confusion? Or was he busy building the big, tall wall that Mexico paid for, and forgot to conduct mass deportation?
The soul of Uncle Sam is on the line
The vice president, Kamala Harris, is not a particularly excellent presidential candidate by any stretch, she has been sketchy on some important economic issues, evasive on some traditional Democratic strongholds, and lacked specifics of her own policy proposals. She will inherit some of the political baggage of Biden’s administration since she is part of the era. But a simple juxtaposition of the two candidates will reveal a compelling contrast that looks like darkness and light. Mr. Trump is hoping to dispense distributive justice with his long and growing list of ‘enemies within’ who should be nailed and jailed, while Mrs. Harris is expecting to invite and unite diverse shades of Americans, including those who disagree with her. The former president is bent on being a dictator and apprentice fascist, while the vice president has promised to respect and entrench the rule of law.
Mr. Trump has degraded and disgraced the time-tested American electoral system and vowed to contest it, again, if he loses. His opponent has undertaken to honor and respect the wishes of Americans as expressed. However, Mr. Trump’s supporters have touted the fact that he was good for the economy because they had more money in their pockets, and that inflation was low. Accordingly, economists have questioned the cost of that ‘economic goodness’ to the average American when the hefty tax cut was for wealthy people, those in the same economic club as him. They also pointed out that there were no disruptive supply chain problems, and that the high energy cost caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was absent during his presidency.
Are we there yet?
As America enters the next phase of its national life, the road promises to be bumpy and blistering. If Trump wins the 2024 presidency, his erratic, disruptive anti-establishment stance, will combine with the foolery of the MAGA foot soldiers to make the country weaker and poorer. If Mrs. Harris wins, Congressional GOP and Trump stooges will make the country ungovernable.
Taking due cognizance of the central significance of the 2024 presidential election, the twists and turns as seconds turn to minutes, and the huge consequences of its eventual outcome, whoever takes the oath of office as America’s 47th president on January 20, 2025, would have the unenviable responsibility to define 2024 as America’s annus horribilis or its annus mirabilis.
- Dr. Charles Ihejirika, an Adjunct Professor of Law at Barclay College of Law, USA, could be reached at cihejirika@cavallauniversity.education