Trump or Clinton?

CHUKS OLUIGBO

“Are you for Trump or Clinton?” That was how I shoved the question straight into the face of my Nigerian-American friend the other day. It was meant to be a parting shot after a half-hour-long animated WhatsApp chat.

“Both of them are complicated but I’ll go for Clinton,” she retorted, then fled before I could ask her to break it down.

Just a few days later, someone posted an emotionally-charged speech by Michelle Obama on a WhatsApp group where I belong.

In that speech, Michelle said Hillary Clinton’s opponent was “perhaps living life high up in a tower, in a world of exclusive clubs, measuring success by wins and losses and the number of zeroes in your bank account”, with “so little exposure to people who are different than you”, making it easy for him “to take advantage of”, “dehumanise”, “treat...with contempt” “those who are down on their luck, folks who play by the rules, pay what they owe, because to you those folks just aren’t very smart and seem somehow less deserving”.

“Maybe that’s why this candidate thinks certain immigrants are criminals instead of folks who work their fingers to the bone to give their kids a better life, to help build the greatest nation on Earth, because he doesn’t really know ‘them’. Maybe that’s why he thinks we should be afraid of our Muslim brothers and sisters, because he really has no idea who they are. He doesn’t understand that they are ‘us’. They are our friends, our family, our neighbours, our colleagues, people of faith just like so many folks around the country.” Et cetera.

“Great speech by Michelle. As always,” I commented. Someone concurred: “In fact after this speech, if I were a skinhead (KKK) I would vote two times for Hillary.” But someone else – let’s call him Mr. D – had a different view, though not about the message but the messenger.

“Michelle Obama is part of the problems of the world today. Those people are hypocrites. They are evil. She is not the saint she paints herself. If you know them, you will never admire them again,” Mr. D offered.

But I was not willing to be dragged into taking Panadol for another man’s headache. So I simply said I was not competent to discuss American politics, which gave me the imprimatur to stay on the sidelines and observe. But there were some who were ready, so they challenged Mr. D to simplify.

“First, if you know Hillary Clinton, I mean, if you know her and what she’s capable of doing and what she has done, anyone who supports her has a question mark,” he replied.

This only attracted more “voices” asking for specifics.

“That Hillary deleted 33,000 emails and bleached the server; that FBI on Friday reopened her investigation; that she is at the forefront of pushing for abortion, LGBT; that she uses her office to enrich herself, for instance, taking $12 million bribe from King of Morocco, etc,” Mr. D said.

“The greatest fear in America today is religious freedom. There is a gang-up against Christianity, especially Catholic Church. Hillary Clinton is at the head. There are legislations and laws to suppress religion. Taxes paid by Catholics are used to fund abortion, called Planned Parenthood. They plan to force churches to wed gays and lesbians. It is a whole lot, I mean, trying to go against people’s conscience and freedom of worship and backing it up by law, else you go to jail.”

More opposing “voices”. But just when it seemed Mr. D was running out of steam, a Nigerian-American on the forum came to the rescue.

“When we look at American politics from the surface, it looks harmless as the medium that promotes the flourishing of human freedom. But this post-Christian culture/politics has become forcefully secular, demeaning very frequently religious beliefs, especially Christian faith, and idolizing radical ‘atheistic humanism’. We often do not see how SOME of the current laws hamper religious liberty. Obama's 'Health and Human Services' contraceptive mandate immediately comes to mind – the legal challenges to HHS contraceptive mandate filed by religious nonprofits like the Little Sisters of the Poor. American mainstream media do not have interest in bringing to light these abuses of power,” he said.

“This quiet marginalization was what prompted Cardinal Francis George, the former Archbishop of Chicago, to observe that he would probably die in his bedroom/hospital, but his successors might die in prisons – because of faith-motivated dissent. It is sad, but if we read beyond CNN and others, we would encounter several Christians from different denominations who stood firm to their Christian convictions and who paid the great prices for it. In light of all of this, it is important to note some points. With the recent passage of Justice Antonin Scalia, if Hillary Clinton is elected president, and a liberal jurist joins the high court, the fortitude of a few jurists, like Thomas Clarence, could be further tested. God save us!” he further said.

Then he concluded on a rather sombre note: “The alternative, Trump, is also scary.”

Sincerely, it was the first time I’d seen folks vent such anti-Clinton sentiments. The groundswell of opposition right from the beginning of the campaigns has been against Donald J. Trump, especially in media circles and among the intellectual class. From the early days till now, articles opposing Trump’s candidature have flooded Project Syndicate, a highly reputable site that features “exclusive” Op-ed “contributions by prominent political leaders, policymakers, scholars, business leaders, and civic activists from around the world”.

“Why Trump?” by Elizabeth Drew, “Trump’s Italian Prototype” by Bill Emmott, “Donald Trump’s Message” by Joseph S. Nye, “Republicans Ride the Trump Tiger” by Theda Skocpol, “Trump the Traitor” by Bernard-Henri Lévy, “Trump’s Fiscal Follies” by Jeffrey Frankel, “What Putin Sees in Trump” by Christopher Smart, “Reason in the Age of Trump” by Ana Palacio, “The Many Extremes of Donald Trump” by Simon Johnson, and “Trump Versus the West” by Dominique Moisi are just some of the headlines.

Ironically, the more they wrote, the higher Trump soared, ultimately proving a big threat to Clinton, whom many had thought would easily coast to victory with Trump as her major opponent.

Well, the die is cast. The election is just two days away. My opinion is that Americans are old enough to know what they want. Whoever they choose, it’s their choice to make. Nothing we say here can change that fact. Many Americans apparently believe it’s a between-the-rock-and-the-hard-place scenario. The campaign itself has been all mudslinging. Even the Financial Times has called it America’s “most vicious electoral campaign in living memory”. But choose they must.

Last year Nigerians had a similar scenario – or so we thought – but we made a choice and we’re living with it. Whoever the Americans choose, they’ll also live with it. The decisions of an American president cannot possibly affect us much more than Buhari’s are already doing, unless we don’t live in Nigeria. And for those who say they’d tear their green card if Trump wins, the choice is theirs as well. But aren’t they lucky to have a green card?