Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Chido Nwangwu is the Founder of USAfrica. Follow on X (Twitter) @Chido247
For some, Trump has become one of two things: a fraudulent charlatan or a sinful messiah. His instincts and strategy seek to divide the nation on cultural, border and identity issues. I must note, too, that recent immigrants, especially, African immigrants, have elevated and made America a better place. Who’s your Medical Doctor, who is your pharmacist and computer engineer? Despite his hard work and achievements, the 81-year-old President Biden (born November 20, 1942) has been dogged by low polling numbers.
Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, is a man millions of people hold in clashing and countervailing assessments. In his latest campaign speeches in December 2023 and setting up for the 2024 presidential election (if he overcomes the legal hurdles), Trump has unleashed his far right-wing nativist agenda and ideology.
At a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire on Saturday, December 16, 2023, divisive former President Trump ramped up his anti-immigrant position, admiration of autocratic despots and White nationalist politics.
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country…. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they are coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country, nobody’s even looking at them.”
President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has since denounced Trump’s comments as reflecting Hitler’s white Aryan supremacist language and worldview. “Tonight, Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy,” stated campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa.
“Trump is not shying away from his plan to lock up millions of people into detention camps and continues to lie about that time when Joe Biden obliterated him by over 7 million votes three years ago. He is betting he can win this election by scaring and dividing this country. He’s wrong.”
Hitler wrote in his manifesto “Mein Kampf,” that “all great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died off through blood-poisoning.”
The next day in Reno, Nevada, Trump threw more fuel to the fire of racial hatred, anti-immigration rhetoric and agenda: “This is an invasion. This is like a military invasion…. Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.”
It’s his loathsome, explosive mix of overt and dog-whistle racism, xenophobia, abuse of rights and floating of fear and criminality. He throws those around in his desperate effort to be reelected to office.
Trump has promised to severely cut the number of immigrants from certain sections of the world, including many persons who are naturalized citizens. He has warned that should he win his bid to be returned as President of the United States, he would implement “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” Trump has indicated that he will detain people who enter the country illegally or make their way to seek asylum.
Trump, wanna-be-dictator!
These unhinged comments and threats by Mr. Trump on what constitutes the vital ingredients of good citizenship show his lack of sense, a sense of the history of this country. One of the greatest Presidents of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), underscored it with these timeless words: “Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace or creed or line of descent.”
Recent immigrants, especially, African immigrants have elevated and made America a better place. Who’s your Medical Doctor, who is your pharmacist and computer engineer? Despite his hard work and achievements, the 81-year-old President Biden (born November 20, 1942) has been dogged by low polling numbers.
In a battle between Biden versus Trump, James Norman Mattis who put in 44 years in the Marine Corps and retired as a USMC General has since indicated he prefers Biden. The man that I described in the June 4, 2020 edition of my column ‘The View From America’ as a “distinguished embodiment of America’s highest dedication to its armed forces” criticized Trump as insensitive, divisive and unworthy in the handling of the brutal murder of another non-confrontational Black man, George Floyd:
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us…. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”
Mattis came from retirement to serve as the 26th U.S Secretary of Defense from January 2017 to January 2019. Americans mobilized and voted out Trump, the brazen racial polarizer, partisan hustler and patron of several retrogressive causes!
•Dr. Chido Nwangwu, author of the forthcoming book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity, is the Founder of the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper on the internet, USAfricaonline.com, and established USAfrica in 1992 in Houston. He has appeared as an analyst on CNN, ALJazeera, SKYnews, and served as an adviser on Africa business to Houston’s former Mayor Dr. Lee Brown. Follow him on X (Twitter) @Chido247
