OPINION: The significance of a possible Trump election triumph

Last Updated on Tuesday, 5 November 2024, 7:06 by Denis Chabrol

By GHK Lall

It is better to keep everything serene today, the day after that American Tuesday. As usual, I am sharing from the predawn hours, so there is scant insight about developments coming throughout the day. Still, I go on record with what the US Election means to me, what a return of Mr. Donald Trump to the presidency would signify.

Though unattached, the preference was for a Ms. Kamala Harris’s victory. Though not the ideal inspiration for a candidate, the spirit still associated. There is too much Democratic Party baggage for her to carry, any progressive pol to manage. The Biden legacy doesn’t favor. But, after this, and the many other more expansive, wiser analyses, Ms. Harris represented the America I knew and loved (still do), however limited and flawed her candidacy may have been. In sum, a President Harris is a lesser menace to the US Constitution and democracy itself. Oh, and one more thing before I get to the main man: there is that ancestral issue. People who I can identify with, leaders who identify with people like me, well, they get the mark. We do vote that way in Guyana, don’t we? And from some of the quick scans done, there are Guyanese who feel proud to do in America what they are loathe to do in Guyana. It is the issue of issues. I recognize the right of all to vote for one who curses people like them; but I haven’t reached that sublime state, yet.

Having reeled Mr. Trump into this contribution, another American name spills into the conversation. His name was Joe McCarthy, senator from Wisconsin. His party affiliation doesn’t matter. The late Senator McCarthy saw enemies of America everywhere: hiding under rocks, plucking them out of thin air. When he couldn’t find any (which history has emphasized was almost always), he was only too delighted to manufacture them. Whatever was thrilling to his feverishly sizzling imagination, he gave shape, delivered. To America. On hapless victims. For then and for history. The few who dared trying to stop him were steamrolled. President Truman stood up to him, and a new enemy was born. President Eisenhower was incensed with him, but needed an SOB to do dirty work for government and party. The problem is that a president is bigger than a senator, incomparably bigger. This is the problem for Americans. It is for me.

The issues are crippling, customized for a man of the truths of Mr. Trump. Economy. Abortion. Law and order. And, that bone-in-the-throat called immigration. Back in the day, those less careful ones, there was the Yellow Peril. Then came the Browning of America. Now, there is this Invasion of America, and swamping of it. One man was given the freedom (and the nod, possibly) to say that America is for Americans. The question I ask of myself is simple: what place, therefore, for people like me? What consideration, thence, for those tired and poor and huddled masses who yearn…. There is no more visceral, more volatile, more violative issue than immigration, (not even abortion). Frankly, the concern is not about Norsemen nor Celtics. Think of the darker side of the sun. And no matter how brightly I may shine, or high there’s rising, that is all I count for, for that is me. Now, I close out the personal and creep into the national.

A Trump presidency would be about making Exxon still greater. No issues there. But a greater Exxon translates to a weaker, more prostrate Guyana. For a man who could be so cavalier about the rights of man, especially the colored man, the prospects look bleak. I am talking about Guyana. The ambassador wouldn’t be taking up time cautioning about ‘inclusivity’ and ‘all Guyana benefitting’ from the national wealth. The honoring of contracts spoken so solemnly about by those whose lives have been littered with the dishonorable would gain traction that couldn’t be challenged. Instead of two warplanes overhead, there could be two dozen. They wouldn’t be a reminder to Mr. Maduro to mind his manners. Those planes would be to shake up the natives here by sending the strongest message to them: look after own business. Leave Exxon to its own business. I admit that is taking things to the extreme, since the local Mau Maus and guerillas are so few. Rather, my mind is concentrated on all those Guyanese looking to America as the way out from oil rich Guyana. Already, nativist emotions are raw and ragged (razor sharp) over too many people who look like Guyana’s demographics taking over their neighborhoods, their jobs, and their concert halls. There is that other one that nobody is talking about: eyeing their womenfolk. Out of the man’s own mouth came such incendiaries as criminals and rapists. With the exits corked up, the pressures here would build. For sure, there will be countless visiting delegations from the USA. But for taking, and little about giving.

I think I have said enough, except for this one straggler. When someone like Vladimir could see a brother in Donald, there is nothing that I can say or write that is better. It is what is frightening. About where America and democracy and demagoguery could all be going. As America goes, so could Guyana.