Most people did not vote Joe Biden because of his spectacular ideology or transformative manifesto.
They voted him to spite Trump for his foul personality and the evidence for this is abundantly manifest in the media – news, Facebook posts and tweets.
Arrogance. Vulgarity and verbal brutality. Reckless sexual history. White supremacist views. Economic privileges. Aggressive nationalism. Accusation of electoral malpractice with help from Russia. Tax evasion. Apparent complacency in the face of COVID-19 pandemic.
The barrage of attacks on Trump make the question ‘Can anything good come out of a Trump?’ a logical one.
Yes, Trump actually did take some steps he wholeheartedly believed were good for America.
The trade war with China was a well-intentioned economic policy to stop China from taking undue trade advantage over the U.S. It was a nationalistic move, for America.
Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Agreement was not solely because he was convinced the cause was a hoax, he understood that America would make the largest financial contribution to the expensive, humongous global war against climate change and he did not want that.
This same view of the rest of the world leeching America’s wealth made Trump withdraw from continuing to fund the WHO.
If we could, for a moment, imagine America to be our nuclear family in which our father decides to cut down on charity because that is taking a toll on the family’s reserve, we would most likely accept that, even though Trump hurt the world, he acted for his country.
Besides, Trump initiated less violent incursions on foreign sovereignties and did interfere less in international affairs compared to Obama’s administration.
Truly, Trump’s performance at the just concluded election can well be described as amazing regarding the fact that almost anyone who had access to a microphone demonized and condemned him with the worst adjectives.
The preponderance of tweets and posts were against him but, right from the outset, he constituted himself a one-man squad in the war against CNN and, indeed, any media outfit with anti-Trump tendencies.
What does Trump’s phenomenal performance tell us?
There are plenty Americans who think Trump actually did well for them. These people are possibly also white supremacists.
What some call arrogance, others view as charisma and confidence. There are people whom the president’s personality does not matter to as long as he gets the job done.
There are Americans who think the rest of the world is leeching America’s wealth and that Trump did well by his policies.
There are people who did not believe the pussy grabbing story nor did they regard Trump’s view of women and his sexual activity/relationship as anything consequential.
Religion does not ask too many questions as long as the deity it worships gets a favourable mention. Many Evangelicals/Pentecostals actually believe that God sent President Trump to rid America of immorality.
Trump’s phenomenal performance probably also means that many Americans did not expect any form of magic from amidst COVID-19 pandemic.
But Donald Trump did lose the election to Joe Biden and people have been celebrating Trump’s defeat instead of Biden’s victory.
Who pulled Trump down? They were card-carrying Democrats who wanted to seize power and immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community and Muslims and Americans of colour who continually felt insulted and threatened by Trump.
It would also appear that Trump’s religious cloak was not sufficient to shield him from the electoral armour fashioned against him by the dems and immigrants and Americans of colour.
His pro-life status and open acceptance of Jesus Christ as his lord and personal saviour did win him votes but were surely not enough to redeem him from himself.
The COVID-19 pandemic in the US was also another hunger factor which helped in exposing and emasculating Donald Trump as a man who probably thought bluffing a substitute for pragmatic actions.
Determining the real effects of the international emotional outbursts on the outcome of the US presidential elections will remain difficult but it is safe to say there were none. Yet there are consequences.
Woke Nigerians living in Nigeria divided themselves into anti- and pro-Trump camps. The former considered themselves much wiser and better informed and held a disdainful and (ironically) supremacist view of the latter whom they labelled Trumptards to suggest that they are retarded folks.
Being a Nigerian Trumpist or Trumptard was regarded by anti-Trumps as an index of stupidity or crudity of the mind.
Drumming up Trump would best be likened to a rural man hawking twigs of medicinal herbs around the modern theatre of an 21 century hospital.
Indeed, there are too many lessons for ordinary people from the just concluded U.S. presidential elections.
The most glaring one is ‘Always be yourself’ is not always good advice. As a pupil, Donald Trump was a bully. As a grownup, he was vulgar and sexually wanton. As a businessman he was often fighting with people and banks and making deals.
However, immediately he became POTUS, the world wanted an infallible saint out of him. They did not want him to be himself even though he still went on to continue being himself.
The second is that humans are mere bags of emotions and the word ‘objective’ is merely a facade and, at best, a goading tool in social arguments.
Hate was fought with hate and racism with racist criticisms. This was very much obvious those who hated Trump. Remember the cartoons, the toys, the mimmicries, the photoshops and ‘orange man’ appellation.
Anti-Trump Nigerians in Nigerians regarded the pro-Trumps as inferior people with slow and warped mentation.
Anti-Trump Nigerians in Nigeria were mostly people fighting for their U.S. dreams which they understood Trump policies were going to make impossible.
While Trump was fighting for the protection of his America, foreigners in their countries were fighting for the opening of the America they hope for. Interests.
‘Hard work and intelligence can lift you but you need character to stay up’ is a hackeneyed truism, yet that cliché played out quite clearly in the US election. Donald Trump was defeated by his personality and character, not by Joe Biden.
Our success can be measured by someone else’s failure. Biden’s success was Trump’s failure.