Trump would be a mistake the world may end up paying for

I am addicted to TV. Not all TV, mind, just one channel of the American network Fox.

I have watched so much of Fox News that there exists a real risk of damaging the good relations within my household because everyone else thinks it is crushingly boring.

I am surprised that I (a somewhat leftie liberal with right-wing views on nationalism and national security) watch that channel at all. It is so right-wing that it hurts.

"Special Report" with Bret Baier, "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren", "Shepard Smith Reporting", "The O’Reilly Factor", "Hannity", "The Five", "Outnumbered", "The Kelly File", I watch them all and many more.

Fox is the most biased media outlet I have ever encountered. It has been saying it is covering the American election, but actually it basically just covers the Republican nominations.

And it is breathtakingly partisan in its views. And it is from this fount of conservatism that I have followed the career and victories of Mr Donald Trump, the GOP presidential candidate.

Listening to Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, and Andrea Tantaros, you would imagine that I would have a good opinion of the 69-year-old billionaire.

The world has seen many reactionary American politicians, but Mr Trump takes the thing to a whole new level.

He is clearly a flake and way in over his head; a guy who is not very gifted but is used to blustering, bullying, and bludgeoning his way through situations, a man who is normally unchallenged because he is rich and the boss.

America under Trump would make America under George Bush look like Norway.

He seems to believe that the problem with US national security is Muslims.

So he wants Muslims barred from entering the US, mosques placed under surveillance, and torture used to extract information from terror suspects.

To keep out jihadists and immigrants from Latin America, who he believes are criminals and rapists, he is proposing to build a wall between the US and Mexico, estimated by the BBC to cost up to $3 billion (Sh300 billion) and have Mexico pay for it.

PRIVACY
He proposed indiscriminate bombing of IS terrorists in Syria and Iraq, thinks that Nato is a “rip-off” and both Japan and South Korea should be nuclear-armed, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a great guy and the two countries would “get along” if he was to be elected.

I heard him talk about how Libyan oil is the best in the world and is now in the hands of IS.

He has taken many other ridiculous policy positions, such as regarding climate change as just “weather”, which the BBC has helpfully glossarised and which you can read here.

I think it is strange for an American leader aspiring to be president to have such a mushy attitude towards Russia, which has become militarily belligerent towards the US military, with its fighter jets bomb-diving a US warship and performing dangerous manoeuvres close to American warplanes.

The US and Russia are deadly rivals and the world would possibly benefit if a way was found for them to “get along” if such “getting along” stopped a new arms race and the kind of military adventurism which has destroyed parts of Ukraine, whose lands Russia has annexed. I doubt it would.

Few would argue with greater US focus on defeating IS and Islamic militancy in general, but the indiscriminate bombing of countries is a war crime and torture is illegal too.

Bugging mosques and violating the privacy of US citizens without a court order is illegal, though Americans do not think foreigners have the same rights as their citizens.

I do think that many people might be inclined to believe that Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein were a much better fate than IS and that Western interference in the affairs of the world do not always result in peace and prosperity.

MILITANCY

But many of Mr Trump’s policies are sheer madness. I have heard commentators say that Mr Trump resonates with US workers going through tough times and who feel ignored and fearful and politicians will find a solution for the problems facing their country.

I have also heard others say that Mr Trump adopted crazy policies to excite the Republican base and in “the general”, he will soften up to the moderates and independents he needs to win and that America is always governed from the centre.

Maybe. God help us: Trump might turn out to be an American disaster that the rest of us will have to pay for.

*****

The adoption of Julius Malema-style berets by Cord in its push to sack the IEBC takes protest politics to a new level of militancy.

Maybe to the MPs wearing it, the beret may appear like a really cool accessory which will quickly catch on with the base.

But to many students of armed resistance in Africa, it is something you associate more closely with the AK-46 than mainstream, progressive democracy.