By Adeleke Adefioye
New governments always herald mixed feelings. Supporters of the parties and candidates elected are celebratory, while the other camp(s) on the other side of victory are sad, disappointed, and dejected. However, the general populace, either on the winning team or not, is expectant. People always think the new incoming president would show up on the day of the inauguration with a magic wand to make their age-long concerns as citizens disappear shortly after the oath of office has been administered.
The November 5, 2024, presidential elections in the United States of America were no different. There were many defining moments in the years and months preceding election day. From Donald Trump’s ‘comeback’ attempt to the Republican and Democrat primaries, Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race to the emergence of Kamala Harris, and from deliberations on policies to divergent candidates' views.
For me, there is something out of the ordinary in the election. This out-of-the-ordinary is more like a mystery—a deep-rooted mystery that seems to have defiled any resolution. Based on his demeanor, I’m one of the greatest critics of Donald Trump. He ran a presidential campaign defined by the promotion of hatred, personal attacks, and threats of political violence. He deserted the message of love, compassion, empathy, fairness, and unity synonymous with leadership.
I have a favorable disposition towards Republican policies, but I’m one of those voters who distinctly draws a line between Republican policies and candidate Donald Trump. As a humanitarian, I have every reason to. He openly said he wouldn’t mind if journalists were shot, he called POW Veterans losers, he made fun of a journalist with a disability, anyone who disagrees with him is, by default, an enemy, he bragged about grabbing women inappropriately, and disrespectfully, and to make matters worse, his choice of words is reminiscent of that of a 5-year-old. While the list of his eccentric attitudes is inexhaustible, his actions also constitute an aberration of all the great values the United States stands for.
I have had conversations with some of his supporters, and for the most part, I have heard them say they support Trump because he’s pro-life. My argument against that is that a pro-life crusader does not cherry-pick a specific stage of human life that he or she supports. You cannot profess to be pro-life at the unborn baby stage and be anti-life or brutal to the same baby when he or she becomes an adult.
A leader who is genuinely pro-life would not wish that journalists, any other professionals, or humans be shot. I remember vividly when Taylor Swift publicly endorsed Kamala Harris, Donal Trump hopped on his Truth medium and sent a message in all upper cases: ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.’ A progressive leader will not hate anyone for supporting his or her political opponent, and a pro-life individual will not propagate a crusade of hate on any human.
Trump has always deviated from the tradition of decency and the preservation of democracy. When he lost the 2020 elections, he fought hard to overturn the people’s mandate. He instigated his supporters to wage war against the authority – a misguided action that led to the January 6, 2021, insurrection – a devastating attack on the capitol that became a global embarrassment.
When it became obvious that Mike Pence, his Vice President, wouldn’t support his illegal attempt to hold onto power, his supporters almost lynched Pence when he was on the verge of performing the ceremonial function of certifying the election results. Trump referred to Pence as a coward for upholding his allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America. Trump would prefer loyalty to him as the President over allegiance to the Constitution.
Historically, his loyalists seem not to realize that Trump is an evil genius who specializes in parasitic relationships. All he thinks about is himself. Once he uses you, he discards you and moves on to the next victim.
For Elon Musk, who has found a new love in Trump, it is very glaring that he eyes proximity to power as a way of skewing regulations in a determined attempt to protect his billions and hobble his competitors. Trump’s tax break for billionaires is another viable catch for him as the middle-class and hard-working Americans bear the brunt of the awkward policy that overstretches the common man.
Musk fails to realize that Trump is not a big fan of his success. In his typical ‘bad blood’ attitude, he threw Musk under the bus before Musk became his supporter and a donor to his campaign, Trump said this about Musk – ‘When Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocket ships to nowhere, …. Telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said “drop to your knees and beg,” and he would have done it.’ That is the same guy whose feet Musk is gladly licking now. For me, there is a place for money and personal wealth, and there is a higher pedestal for personal integrity.
I wish someone could remind Musk of Rudi Giuliani, Michael Cohen, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and George Papadopoulos, who had all, at some point, been used and discarded by Trump. Most of them had either done time in prison or are still doing time because of their susceptibility to Trump’s cheap maneuvers. For Giuliani, he lost everything he had worked for all his life, and Trump turned his back on him.
When all his attempts to seize power failed, he broke the age-long tradition of peaceful transfer of power. He refused to set up a transition team. He never invited Joe Biden to the White House for a handover briefing, and he didn’t show up on the inauguration day. With the country ravaged by the pandemic at the time, the Biden Team had no data to work with. It was a crucial time when the business of saving lives needed to be prioritized, but Trump couldn’t care less.
Ironically, despite their political differences and a time when Joe Biden would have played a paid-back game, Biden, on November 13, 2024, a week after the election, invited Trump to the White House, congratulated him, and promised to make the transition an easy process for him and his team. It is also imperative to note that on November 16, 2016, Barrack Obama invited Trump to the White House and gave him all the support he needed for a smooth transition. That is the United States of America everyone knows.
This has always been the story of decency, maturity, reverence, and preservation of democracy in the United States of America’s political history from its inception. And from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. From Reagan to George H. Bush. From Bush to Bill Clinton. From Clinton to George W. Bush. From Bush to Barack Obama. From Obama to Donald Trump, and from Trump to the bar lowered to an all-time low – an unprecedented divisiveness the nation has ever witnessed.
Trump has an inordinate ambition to rule with no guardrails. His love for absolute power is out of this world. He had secretly declared his admiration of Adolf Hitler, according to some of the members of his inner circle in his last tenure as President. In the months preceding the just-concluded general elections, most of these inner circle members came out publicly to warn the general populace of how dangerous the return of Trump to the White House portends for the nation.
Folks like Mike Pence, former Vice President, Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of State, William Barr, former Attorney General, Gen. John Kelly, former White House Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Mark Esper, former Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis, former Secretary of Defense, John Bolton, former National Security Adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster, former National Security Adviser, Dan Coats, former Director of National Intelligence, Mick Mulvaney, former United States Representative, and others.
They described their personal experiences with Trump at different times, on different platforms, and in different forums. They all reiterated how Trump meets the definition of Fascist and Authoritarian. They couldn’t be more right. As President-elect, Trump has made some sinister moves that are consistent with an attempt to strategically position him to rule rather than govern.
He proposed there won’t be a need to have his cabinet picks go through senate approval. He then proceeded to appoint controversial figures who are his extreme loyalists into key cabinet positions – Matt Gaetz, who is under investigation for rape, sexual misconduct, and drug abuse as Attorney General, Pete Hegseth, accused of sexual misconduct and allegedly paid hush money to settle one of his accusers, as Defense Secretary, Chris Wright, a climate change critic, as Energy Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an unrepentant conspiracy theorist who has been publicly disowned by all his siblings and family members, as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Gaetz and Hegseth have both denied allegations of sexual misconduct. In the case of Hegseth, his mother, Penelope Hegseth, has openly informed everyone who cares to listen that her son’s disturbing behaviors and repeated maltreatment of women are at variance with the way she raised him. ‘On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say… get some help and take an honest look at yourself…,’ Pete’s mother declared. However, these are the questionable characters Trump has nominated to co-pilot the affairs of the nation. Talking about like minds.
On the other hand, Gaetz is frantically trying all he can to ensure that the report containing the findings of the investigation of the House Ethics Committee about him is not released to the public – talking about a guilty conscience that needs no accusation.
Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, who initially posited that the Ethics Committee needs to do its job, is now poised to block the release of the report to the public a day after visiting the President-elect. This is the same Speaker who blocked a bi-partisan immigration/border bill that would have been a viable resolution to the Southern Border issue. The block was instructed by Trump. He preferred to run on the issue during the campaign than to have the issue resolved by the bill when it was passed.
Trump openly declared that he would be a dictator from day one. Everything he has done so far and still doing points to the fact that he cherishes Fascism and Authoritarianism. The great Maya Angelou said that when people tell you who they are the first time, believe them.
As a President-elect, he has elected to engage in a trade war with China with a proposed 25 percent tariff on products from China. He has also, surprisingly, added Canada and Mexico to the list. He seems to have failed to realize that the common man would have to deal with the dust raised by the aftermath of the tariff imposition. Also, leaders of these countries on his tariff imposition list have the right to impose the same unfair tariff on American products coming into their countries as well.
Already, the fallout from the tariff threat is generating heat domestically. Employers of labor and business circles are currently spinning the wheels and lending motion to the pendulum as it swings from side to side. ‘The vast majority of that tariff will be passed onto the consumer as a price increase,’ Corie Barry, CEO of Best Buy, informed investors.
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, is meeting with stakeholders in Canada on how to counter the tariff threat, and the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has responded with a swift suggestion of retaliatory tariffs on American products coming into Mexico.
On the other hand, China has been using the opportunity of Trump’s impending trade war to expand its international influence with a formidable focus on trade. China has already built a mega port in Chancay, Peru. With a Mega port in Peru, it is glaring that China may have technically secured a considerable percentage of the trade in South America. With Trump’s tariff threat, the pendulum of a higher rate of trade is, no doubt, going to swing in the direction of China. This is in addition to President Xi Jinping’s moves to use Trump’s election victory to divide the U.S. and its allies.
In line with realizing his inordinate ambition of being a dictator, one of Trump’s senior advisers issued a threat and fired a ‘warning shot’ in the direction of the House members who plan to vote against any of Trump’s cabinet nominees. ‘…. if you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it,’ the adviser threatened. Is anyone already having a premonition of imprisoned freedom where everyone kisses the rule of law and the principle of checks and balances goodbye as soon as Trump is sworn in?
In another development, the President-elect has proposed that a clog be thrown in the wheel of freedom of the press. In a swift move, Trump has urged Republicans in the Senate to squash the ‘Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act.’ The bill had earlier passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives with a great deal of support. However, the bill, sponsored by Kevin Kiley, a Republican, is currently ‘strangled’ in the Senate after an instruction from their slave master, Trump, to kill the bill. ‘REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL,’ he wrote in all upper cases.
Smart observers would agree that Trump is, no doubt, laying all the groundwork for his inordinate ambition of dictatorship. His actions are synonymous with men who unleash domestic violence on women. Their first step is to turn their victims against their family members and friends, and once they succeed in turning their victims into lone rangers, they begin to take their victims through bouts of violence, knowing fully well that they have no one to turn to for help.
It doesn’t look like the nation needs the services of a soothsayer to reveal what lies ahead - a bumpy ride with eccentric leadership when Trump gets back to the White House.
Some of his supporters believe that most Americans who voted for Trump cannot be wrong. Yes, the majority could be wrong. Mr. Noah from the Holy Bible would explain better. The majority believed Noah was crazy about his flood crusade. They all wrapped their arms around their belief system that flood was the last thing that would wipe them out until it happened. The majority who voted for the President-elect can also ask a few other nations of the world who voted for candidates who truncated their democracy and became unrepentant dictators.
I have closely evaluated the last election, and a few things still pose unresolved mysteries. Trump campaigned on hate propagation and divisiveness, and the majority voted for him. He insulted women, and they still voted for him. He used a very derogatory word to describe Michigan, and they still voted for him. He disrespectfully tossed paper towels at the people of Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria ravaged the island with an allegation that his administration withheld about $20 billion in hurricane relief to the island, and later, his administration allegedly blocked investigations into why the relief was withheld. He brought Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as the Island of Garbage, in one of the Trump rallies, and they still voted for him.
He was impeached twice the last time he was president and found guilty of a 34-count felony charge, and they still voted for him. He did not campaign on the rich values that America stands for. He promoted hate, bigotry, and prejudice. In one of his rallies, I heard him pitch for the highest office in the country and stated that people should vote for him because he’s a better-looking person compared to Kamala Harris, an assertion that was far from the truth. Even if that was right for the sake of argument, I wondered why any rational human being would say that under any circumstance, let alone while campaigning for the exalted position of President, yet they still voted for him.
In a country where a convicted felon will not get a job as a cleaner in a mom-and-pop store, the same country elected a convicted felon into the highest office in the land. These are mysteries for a lot of Americans who voted against Trump.
However, as a devout Christian, the only thing that makes sense to me is if the Almighty God decides that he wants Trump in the Oval Office for a specific reason.
As I wrote in an article titled ‘The Rise and Fall of King Trump,’ historically, God sometimes calls the least qualified person. Such were the cases of Rahab the harlot, Moses the stutter, David the least amongst his brothers, Gideon, the son of Joash, Esther, the queen of Persia, and so on.
It is imperative to note that God appointed Saul as King of Israel and rejected him for flouting his orders about booty and King Agag of Amalek. He appointed David and rejected him when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. The saving grace for him was a true repentance.
God gave Trump a chance the first time, but he was humiliated and thrown out of the White House following comments like ‘I alone can fix it.’ ‘I know more than the Generals.’ ‘I don’t listen to my advisers; I do whatever I want.’ I even heard him say, ‘People now tell me I’m more popular than Jesus.’ Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverb 16:18).
With all the unintelligent statements he made at his several rallies, God must have decided to give him a second chance. It is a matter of time for everyone to see how the second chance plays out, especially now that we are watching him place a high premium on loyalty to him and not to the Constitution.
If inference must be drawn from Trump’s actions and strategic maneuvers lately, whether the economy does well or not, whether his foreign policies adversely affect the United States of America’s global relevance or not, whether his proposals of high tariffs lead to a trade war or not, whether the GDP does well or not, a few things are sure under Trump.
A threat to democracy, gross abuse of the rule of law, a divisive nation, less economically empowered middle class, use of political power for personal gains, systemic racism, retribution against his non-supporters, mass firing of federal workers, getting rid of top military officers who did not support him, a new world order at the global political scene, violent rhetoric against opponents/critics (for sure, Trump will go after a 5-year-old who, either maliciously or constructively, criticize him).
If Trump's efforts to fill his cabinet with inexperienced people with questionable characters who are personally loyal to him is anything to go by, cronyism will speedily replace meritocracy. The Supreme Court, Senate, and House of Representatives also tend to become rubber stamps for Trump's whimsical and capricious intentions.
I just read Hakeem Jeffries, the House of Representatives Minority Leader’s vivid new book, ‘The ABCs of Democracy,’ and I wish the nation had chosen American values over Autocracy, benevolence over Bigotry, the Constitution over The Cult, Democracy over demagogues, economic opportunity over Extremism, and Freedom over Fascism.
As the world waits for the President-elect’s second shot at the White House, there are great expectations. At the same time, folks on both sides of the political aisle are hopeful and skeptical. As the world waits, I wish, hope, and fervently pray that the United States of America does not kiss democracy, the rule of law, checks and balances, orderliness, substance, triumph, working families, voting rights, freedom, fairness, accountability, and equity goodbye.
I honestly hope and wish I was wrong. However, the fact on the ground strongly tilts towards a Trump-controlled rather than a Trump-governed United States. We shall all see.
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