History can be mad at times, but history must be made all the times.
The American presidential election of November 5 may be the most consequential election in US history. This is the first time a convicted felon, Donald Trump, will be running to become the president of US in the Republican Party, while the oldest President in American history, Joe Biden, will be running under the Democratic Party. Majority of American citizens have made it abundantly clear that they do not want either of them to be the next President. After the last presidential debate on Thursday, 27th June, 2024, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, in which Joe Biden presented himself as a frail, forgetful old man, and Donald Trump presented himself as a compulsive liar, who told about 50 lies in about 45 minutes of the 90- minute debate, the call for Joe Biden to step aside for another younger vivacious Democrat to take over and defeat Trump grew loudest.
Throughout American history there has never been a President like Donald Trump. He was twice impeached within a space of four years for seeking a foreign indictment of a political opponent by a foreign country in exchange for the release of an appropriated aid to that country, and secondly for seeking to overthrow the democratic choice of the American people by instigating a violent mob to attack the capitol in which the lives of all the congressional members and the life of his Vice, Mike Pence, was put in substantial risk on January 6, 2021. He was convicted on 34 felony charges for sleeping with a porn star while his wife was pregnant and falsifying his business records to hide the hush money payment he made to her to buy her silence in order for the information not to be released to the American people. He was found liable in civil damages for sexual abuse of a lady some decades ago, and he has actually confessed that he grabs women by their pussy once he finds them attractive.
His business empire has been hit with hundreds of millions in punishment for various corrupt and illegal deals in New York. He has openly solicited the rigging of election in the State of Georgia to overturn the result of that state in his favour. He had collected classified documents illegally and dumped them carelessly in his Maralago residence where there are evidence that he had disclosed some of their contents to undeserving audience. Forty out of about 45 senior associates who worked for him as President dubbed him unfit to be President. He insulted veterans who sustained injuries in wars and called captured and dead veterans losers and suckers. He has promised to use the once hallowed and independent Department of Justice (DOJ) in America as a tool for vengeance if he is re-elected to deal ruthlessly with political opponents. He doesn’t respect rule of law but believes the President should enjoy absolute immunity from everything he does no matter how criminal. He lambasts the judiciary if they rule against him and calls judges corrupt.
He wants to be a dictator like the North Korean leaders and has openly expressed his desire that Americans should respect him as one. He is a climate sceptic who believes that climatic change is a hoax. He doesn’t respect scientific evidence and believes that politicians should decide for scientists what they should do. He wouldn’t support the wearing of masks during covid 19 as recommended by scientists which would have saved lives in America. He left America in debt for more than $8 trillion because of his unsolicited tax cuts for the rich which reduced the revenue due to the government. Trump put out himself as a racist who couldn’t even call George Floyd by his name, a black man, that one vicious white police officer knelt on his neck until he died. He called third world countries shit holes. Totally bereft of empathy and completely consumed with his quest for power.
Not even in a “shit hole” Donald Trump’s third world country is such a man qualified to be President. In most of the Constitutions of third world countries, a convicted felon is not qualified to be President. It’s obvious that the framers of American Constitution neglected, failed, or refused to add such conditions for qualifications to become an American President because they never anticipated that time will come when American citizens will even contemplate a convicted felon to be their President or even thought that a convicted felon will have the balls to present himself to become the President of America. The framers of the Constitution were not totally wrong because time it was when a divorce in marriage can destroy someone’s political career in America. So also was marital infidelity, or any kind of sexual perversion. America was a nation deeply enmeshed in religious beliefs of Christian origin. They lived a holy monogamous life that fought for justice for the oppressed people worldwide. Their charity for the less privileged around the world was legendary and their scientific creativity, which saw them become the most powerful economy in the world, was admirable.
All these successes were predicated on the foundation of true democracy where sovereignty belongs to the people from which governments derive all their authority and powers. They exercise this sovereignty through free, fair, credible, periodic, and verifiable elections. Most countries in the world, including Nigeria, copied their own version of democracy from the United States of America, and most countries that became faithful to the creeds of American democracy based on rule of law, had gotten almost same results. America is the world political capital of democracy and world economic capital. Any unstable person who governs America can destroy the political as well as the economic stability of the world. This is the reason every citizen of the world should be interested in what happens in the presidential election of the United States on November 5.
On the other hand, Joe Biden is a good and decent man who is largely an institutionalist. He believes in separation of power and abhors executive lawlessness. Even as a sitting President, he rejects every idea of a President of America being treated as a King that is above the law. His son was convicted of buying a gun to defend himself while being a drug addict in a trial that some die hard followers of Trump described as dumb yet he accepted the judgement without uttering abusive words on the judiciary or the DOJ of which head he appointed, subject to the outcome of the Appellate courts. He relates with the poor and down trodden especially the most racially abused. He appointed the first black female Justice of the Supreme Court, and the first black Secretary of Defence. He is an adict of climate change and has started building a future free from the adverse effect of fossil fuels on the climate. He wouldn’t separate babies from their mothers in order to prove a point in efficient border management. Unemployment is at the lowest ever, inflation holding steady, and immigration problems scaling down. There’s only one allegation against him, “he is too old for the job”.
We need not labour ourselves trying to draw a contrast between these two men because Thomas L. Friedman has done it for us when he posited in New York Times that “Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election. And Donald Trump, a malicious man and a petty president, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. He is the same fire hose of lies he always was, obsessed with his grievances – nowhere close to what it will take for America to lead in the 21st century.” It’s submitted that summarily, Biden is too old to be President, while Trump is too unfit to be President. In the overall issue that matters for America which is the survival of democracy, Biden’s corpse will protect democracy and its institutions better than Trump’s living body.
Let me make one thing clear, it’s most likely none of the candidates will step down judging by their history. Biden was not given any chance to win in his first election as one of the youngest American Senators, but he persevered and won. Donald Trump believes only in himself and will never step down. Moreover, the fear of replacement scenarios, among the Democrats, is as much as the fear of keeping him. The candidate that will win will be the candidate that his party rallies round him despite these challenges. The Republicans, despite Trump being a convicted felon, rallied round him and shamelessly joined him in condemning the institutions of State in America, yet some Democrats, shamelessly, are turning away from their candidate because of one bad night of 90 minutes of displaying some traces of old age. Let me make it clear, if the Republicans had a younger, more decent man as candidate, I have no business looking at Joe Biden, especially as an Evangelical who is sceptical of the overdrive with which the Democrats are pursuing certain policies that run contrary to my faith. But democracy has to survive first before one can freely practise his faith. A victory for Trump will certainly make our fight for genuine democracy in Africa and particularly in Nigeria more difficult, because we will find it more difficult to convince our people that rigging of election and dishonesty do not pay. As a former presidential spokesperson of one of the leading opposition parties in the last presidential election, and the first actor that acted the first movie that started Nollywood, a Columnist, and for the sake of survival of democracy in America, which will further consolidate democracy around the world, I believe that Joe Biden should be the next President of United States of America. I reached this conclusion when I came to the realisation that the worst of Joe Biden is still better than the best of Donald Trump.
_The Sun Nigeria_
