It was early May and my long time friend, Willie, had come to see me in my hotel room in downtown Houston, Texas. We had planned severally to meet either when I was in the US or when he came to Nigeria. None had come to pass, except during one of his visits to Nigeria about 15 years ago.
We have been friends forever. Actually, from Class 1 in secondary school. Three of us, including Austin, were actually a very greedy and selfish lot. How? The three of us held tightly to the first three positions in our set from Class 2 to 5. Just monopolized those positions and competed fiercely amongst ourselves. And the irony was that the three of us were best of friends.
After our tertiary education, with things looking rather gloomy in the country, Willie voted with his feet – he left for the United States. He has since become an American citizen, with an American wife and American children. As I put on the TV to give some background noise to our high-pitched conversation, on cable television was the US presidential campaigns. When I asked my friend his impressions of the campaigns so far, his response jolted me to the reality of American politics.
Willie said he would “probably vote for Trump” in the general election. And that he was seriously considering him as his candidate of choice. With this “revelation”, I now sat upright on the bed, crossed my legs and quietly asked him to explain to me why he was considering Donald Trump as an option.
For the next 20 minutes, my friend gave me a long lecture on how the American system is rigged and unfair; how Obama has failed to live up to expectations; how interest groups have hijacked the American political system for their own personal benefits; why Hillary Clinton is part of the problem and not part of the solution; why Bernie Sanders would make a better President but regrettably he won’t be able to win the nomination of the Democratic party. He spoke extensively on the “poor state of the economy” and how the poor are being ripped off by the well to do.
The Affordable Health Care Act – better known as Obamacare – earned scant regard from my friend. He repeated all the lines from the Republicans: it is more expensive; violates people’s right to free choice, etc. He reluctantly conceded that more people now have health insurance than before the Act was enacted. The time has come, he said, for the system to be changed. And it is only somebody like Trump that has the guts to do that.
On this particular evening, I was a very patient man. After he had exhausted all the possible reasons why he was considering Trump as a preferred candidate, I calmly took him on. I began by acknowledging that Trump has done so well so far because he represents the world-view of a large segment of the American society; people who are ignorant; narrow-minded and racist. Also, a lot of people are hard-pressed economically and they are quick to blame their misfortunes on factors that have little or no bearing to their present status.
It is only ignorant people who would canvass the view that America would be better off without allies in NATO; that only narrow-mindedness and wickedness would make anybody to oppose any measure that guarantees better health care delivery to a greater majority of the people. And that from what we have been hearing Donald Trump saying on the campaign stumps, he is an unvarnished racist. I added that to admire a man who peddles insults and not ideas as a strategy to get to the White House is very unfortunate.
I, then took the argument to another level: that I am ashamed on his behalf, that he Willie, a Blackman who grew up in Nigeria, who ought to have a better understanding of the political and social dynamics of the United States, is mouthing all the stuff he just regurgitated. I told him I was not entirely surprised that he holds such views. After all, Clarence Thomas, a Black man on the Supreme Court bench, is anything but Black in his thinking. I have even bought and read his book, “My Grandfather’s Child” to understand how he came to be the liability to the Black cause, I still couldn’t understand why, as the only Black man of the Supreme Court bench, Thomas has never for once followed the noble tradition of the venerable Thurgood Marshall. Thomas is the antithesis of all the struggles of the Civil Rights movement.
I made Willie to be aware that blaming Obama for the less than sterling achievements of his administration is tantamount to blaming the victim of a crime. The Republicans never gave an inch to Obama to carry out his agenda for the American people. Hardly any law from the White House was passed after the Democrats lost the Congress in the 2010 elections.
Their agenda was to make Obama a one-term president. And when that strategy failed in 2012 after Obama was re-elected, rather than re-think their ways, they doubled down on it. And you now turn around to blame the same man the opposition had done everything to cripple? That is unacceptable.
Since our conversation, it has become crystal clear that the November presidential election will be between Clinton and Trump. It goes without saying that most of the rest of the world would prefer Clinton to succeed Obama. However, it is not our call to make; it is left to the Americans to choose their president.
I can, however, wager a bet that Hillary Clinton will beat Donald Trump by a mile. And the reasons are simple: national elections have favoured the Democrats in recent times. In the past six presidential elections, the Democrats have had a majority of the votes in five of those elections, even the one that brought George W. Bush to office in 2000.
The demographics of America have rapidly changed, and are still changing, to favour minorities, and therefore, the Democrats. Blacks, Hispanics and Asians are increasing their ratio of the overall population. And they are becoming more politically engaged.
Thirdly, there is a large number of Republicans who are embarrassed by the candidacy of Donald Trump, and would rather sit at home on election day or vote Hillary Clinton.
GUARDIAN
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