Malaysians must be prepared for the upcoming melee, but more importantly, we as a society must learn from the follies of the Americans
NUMEROUS artificial intelligence software and not-artificial-nor-intelligent sentients have correctly predicted the outcome of the US Presidential election.
Despite the drama delivered by polls and pundits claiming the race was too close to call, Donald delivered a Trumping victory over Kamala Harris on Nov 5. He even won the popular vote — Republican’s first in three decades — and looks set to spring- step into the White House by January, backed in absolute by a Republican-controlled House and Senate.
Chat GPT did pre-empt the result. And so did the Malaysian chapter of the Harvard Club, whose election watch party cheered for Donald as, according to them, “when Trump was in charge, there was no war”.
Most decent-minded Americans despaired. So did international and local observers, refusing to believe that the self-professed model of democracy has fallen into the same trap again.
I’m sorry. Gee, it’s a beaten path well-trodden.
So, the world woke up to another term of the same fascist, racist character of a US president. Americans apparently couldn’t have enough of the four-year period of blatant corruption, ineptitude, greed, misogynistic approach, cruelty and lies.
Trump’s previous term was marked by a staggering number of misleading claims.
The Washington Post reported that over his four-year service, Trump was documented making approximately 30,573 false, exaggerated or misleading statements, averaging around a ridiculous 21 claims daily.
According to the paper, the volume of Trump’s misinformation is unprecedented in the US presidential history, and yet he has returned with a bigger mandate.
Trump himself has lived in a glass house all his life. Born with a silver spoon, inheriting fame and fortune in excess of US$400 million (RM1.67 billion) from Fred Trump, his real-estate magnate dad, Donald has never experienced life below the billionaire pedestal.
Yet the working-class voters have consistently chosen to believe that either Trump is one of their own or that he has fought more for their interest compared to other presidents.
In 2023, a poll by the Progressive Policy Institute found that 44% of working-class voters lauded Trump as the president who had done the most for working families over the past 30 years. His opponent at that juncture, Joe Biden, mustered a paltry 12% votes.
Americans casted aside the indications and warnings, as they think that they did not lose their faith. But they’ve failed to realise that they have lost their sight on the higher ideals of integrity values and ethics that founded their nation.
Even the American Muslim group seems to have lost their plot, myopically choosing to punish Harris for the Biden administration’s impotency towards the terrorist state Israel.
The Council on American Islamic Relaions’ exit poll found out that significantly less than 50% of Muslim voters backed Harris, a pale comparison to their 65% to 70% support for Biden in 2020.
It is morbidly disturbing as Trump has historically shown vulgarities against the oppressed Palestinians and continuously given a blank-cheque support for the Israeli Zionist murderers, most clearly with his unilateral declaration of Jerusalem as Israel capital in 2018, despite the international uproar.
Trump’s consistent pattern of dishonesty and moral compromise were dismissed as unconventional or populist approaches, left in the back lane alleys of entertainment and talk shows.
His morally corrupt character was joked about, and branded as morally polarising, opening towards unending debates on what constitutes moral integrity, and which parts were suitable for the highest position in public office.
There is a finite ugly possibility of what awaits the US and the world in the next 50 months. Markets are bracing for impact.
Trump threatened to mess up world trade in the four years prior, and now he is back with a vengeance, to finish the job he failed to follow through by his own ineptness.
Malaysia will not be spared, since the slew of US investments arriving on our shores recently are beneficiaries of Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act 2022. Analysts are expecting Trump to repudiate this act, blocking ventures meant to expatriatise US’ semiconductor industry globally.
Malaysians must be prepared for the upcoming melee, but more importantly, we as a society must learn from the follies of the Americans.
In choosing leaders, there is no substitute for moral integrity.
- Asuki Abas is the editor of The Malaysian Reserve.
- This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition
