Recently, a former President of the United States of America and the Presidential candidate of the Republican Party in the upcoming elections in that country, Donald Trump, was shot and wounded while he was addressing a rally in Pennsylvania. The gunman’s name was given as Thomas Matthew Crooks, aged 20 years.
President Joe Biden, speaking on the incident that has brought American democracy in a bad light, stressed the “need for us to lower the temperature in our politics and to remember that, while we may disagree, we are not enemies. We’re neighbours, we’re friends, co-workers, citizens, and, most importantly, we’re fellow Americans.” Already, he has ordered an independent investigation into what has been described as an assassination attempt while also heightening the level of security around the former President and Robert Kennedy Junior, who is running as an independent candidate. World leaders, reacting to the unfortunate incident, wished Trump well.
American democracy is regarded in the free world, especially in the Western hemisphere, as the bastion of that system of government, also known as liberal democracy. Since 2016, when Trump emerged on that country’s political scene and was elected President, a lot has happened, to the point that even Americans themselves are beginning to be worried about the departure from the perceptibly refined and unified system they used to know.
It must be admitted that Trump was a very successful businessman before his political foray. He brought the same can-do approach that tends to be brash and pugnacious into politics. That cost him a second term in office, an embarrassment he is determined to overcome by running for office again. That is well within his rights as defined in that country’s constitution.
As a newspaper, we are also concerned that America is losing the quality of a shining city on a hill emulated by other nations. Trump vied for reelection in 2020. Before the results were officially announced, he addressed a press conference repudiating the entire process to the utter disbelief of discerning citizens of that country. Spiting the usual practice in America, he refused to congratulate Biden, who was certain to win that election, claiming that the process was flawed.
We recall that in 1960, John Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in the presidential election by a mere 100,000 votes. By American standards, that could not be considered a victory. Nixon had the option of going to court to insist on a review of the entire exercise. But he resisted the urging of his supporters and insisted that “America was too important to have a disputed President”. That was statesmanlike, an attribute that Trump needs to cultivate urgently.
In 2020, Biden had already garnered 270 college votes, which were required to claim to be elected. He also had a majority of the popular votes. Yet, Trump refused to throw in the towel. Instead, he was alleged to have instigated his supporters to storm the United States Congress, the Capitol, on January 6, 2021, to disrupt Biden’s inauguration later that month. America, to date, has not gotten over that humiliation as it set the stage for the divisive politics that is threatening to call into question their claim that their version of democracy is the best and most viable option.
As President, Trump resisted efforts to address the issue of gun control, a situation that makes it possible for anyone, regardless of age, to have access to a gun. The young man, appropriately named Crook(s), was just 20, and he already had access to a gun and was willing to use it on a top politician, in this instance and, ironically, Donald Trump. Unfortunately, he was killed before his motives could be established.
Analysts of that shooting incident expressed their worry over the incendiary level to which political rhetoric in America has descended. After the Presidential debate, Trump dismissed Biden as a ‘broken piece of crap’. That comment was viewed as not just inciting but unexpected of a former president and one aspiring to assume that office again.
It is also pertinent to draw attention to the Democratic Party’s abuse of the judicial process, which they tried to use to stop Trump. That, too, was offensive and contributed to the perception of political rhetoric in the United States, which is becoming similar to what obtains in emerging democracies of the third world, where smear campaigns and other soapbox oddities are considered normal.
But all hope is not lost about normalcy returning to good old American politics loved and envied by friends and foes alike. Perhaps it needed the shooting of Trump to emphasise the urgency of the moment. In the wake of the assassination attempt on him, he was reported to have scrapped plans to talk, today, about how bad the current administration was at the Republican National Convention ongoing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.,
‘‘I had all prepared an extremely tough speech about the corrupt and horrible administration, but I threw it away,’’ in favour of overcoming the political divide in the country. ‘I want to try to unite our country, but I don’t know if that’s possible. People are much divided.’’
This newspaper finds it reassuring that Biden and Trump, the two most prominent gladiators in the political space in the United States at the moment, are talking about peace and unity. Time is of the essence before the November poll, but it is not too late to start the rebuilding process now.
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