Trump loses to a straw man

Obituaries
I am writing on Thursday morning, two days after the US general election. United States President Donald J Trump faces defeat by former vice-president Joe Biden, a straw man.

I am writing on Thursday morning, two days after the US general election. United States President Donald J Trump faces defeat by former vice-president Joe Biden, a straw man.

Letter from America:with KENNETH MUFUKA

Biden, a career politician of 47 years, has no worthwhile achievement to his name. He presided over the Crime Bill (1994), which has seen 40% of all black males go to jail. He is alleged to have perfected a politician get-rich scheme, whereby his family members are appointed to corporations which do business with government. These family members then give a portion of their fees to the “big man”.

However, over the two generations he served, he developed loyalty among the branches of government, which look the other way when asked to investigate.

That is the essence of ruling class elite. They look after each other.

Donald Trump, a street brawler New Yorker billionaire, is Biden’s nemesis. My Zimbabwean white brother Andrew Moyse has a gem description of this outlier. Trump, despite his billionaire upbringing, has “no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtly”, and the story goes on.

As we go to press, Trump has gathered 70 million votes, losing to Biden by over 4 million. It is very simple, my dear Andrew, in order to take on the political elites like Biden and Hillary Clinton, only a brash billionaire like Trump could have done it. Worse, he was part of the business operatives who sought favours from the political swamp creatures like Biden.

In the end, the swamp creatures were too much for him. His character flaws worked to his detriment. A cry baby, a scandal monger, he raised the ire of not only the political class, which was scared of him, but failed to develop any loyalty in the government establishment.

The establishment is a triad of Congressional elites, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The straw man strategy is based on a legend from Greek mythology. Brave warriors wake up to find themselves surrounded by what appeared to be attackers dressed in wheat straw suits. Inside the straw were empty suits. When this happens for the third time, the warriors ignore the challenge, partly from exhaustion and partly from a feeling that the straw men were nothing but empty suits.

No president has faced such unprecedented attack by the political triad, the FBI, the Congress and the news media as Trump. The first three years were devoted to repulsing the accusation that Trump was a Russian spy, a story investigated by 40 cut-throat attorneys, armed with US$30 million and 5 000 subpoenas. It was a hoax generated by Trump’s nemesis, Hillary Clinton. Then came another hoax, six months of Congressional impeachment, based on a telephone call spy employed by Speaker Pelosi.

“We are going to get rid of this man [Trump], one way or another,” she said in January.

Just last week, she said: “Trump is gone, no matter what the results of the elections are.”

With the New York Times employing 23 full-time reporters to adumbrate every foible attributed to Trump, whether true of not—the deck was stacked against him. The Republican Party is the “stupid party” while the Democratic Party is the mean party.

Republicans generally come from the moneyed class and any brawl will endanger their business interests. Democrats generally are street savvy; they take no prisoners, give no quarter, and fight to the death. The stupid Republicans, believing that if only they can compromise, peace will prevail, are wishy-washy, have no stomach for prolonged fights.

Over the last 50 years, Republicans have seen all the commanding heights, education, the professions, the spy agencies — you name it — falling into the hands of left wingers.

While the Black Lives Matter movement was willing to fight in the streets, advancing their credo, “no justice no peace”, there is no alternative Republican movement with similar stamina and grit.

Last but not least, Trump believes that the election was stolen. This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. In year 2000, the Miami-Dade County, the largest electoral district in Florida, but mainly black, was supposed to deliver 400 000 votes for Democrat Albert Gore.

The voting machines were older and the “X” on the ballot paper was unreadable. The readers had to shine a light on the “hanging chard” in order to discern the intent of the voter. This was time-consuming. In the end, 60 000 votes were sent to the US Supreme Court which locked them in a vault. Gore lost by 543 votes.

Please don’t ask me what happened to the 60 000 votes.

In 2019, the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia ran for the office of governor. He was simultaneously in charge of counting the votes. His opponent, Sister Stacey Abrams, says that her opponent excoriated 140 000 votes from the register.

To cut a long story short, it is inconceivable that a man can count the votes in his own election.

Now we come to the Trump election. The Democrats in Pennsylvania, a make-or-break state for Trump, are in charge of the election machine. A ballot harvester drives around the county in friendly districts, distributing ballots, and helping to fill them in out of the goodness of his heart. He also is tenderhearted towards the elderly and indigent who cannot visit the voting station. In Pennsylvania — which Trump won by less than 10 000 votes in 2016 — 10 harvesters collecting 500 ballots each can change the outcome.

Already, a sympathetic Secretary of State can send coded messages: “We are short of 1 000 votes.” Harvesters can then increase their efforts.

The question now arises: Is this not fraudulent?

Sister Stacey thinks there was chicanery in Georgia when she ran for governor. The governor is responsible for investigating the matter. I pray that you see the joke.

Similarly, as we speak, the Pennsylvania Democrat responsible for elections is supposed to investigate Trump’s complaints.

For Trump, the writing is on the wall. Mene Mene Tekel Uparsin. Peace.

l Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot. He can be reached at [email protected]