In dismissing Trump’s victory, there's real risk valuable lessons won't be learnt

America's president-elect Donald Trump on election night at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel in New York City on November 9, 2016. PHOTO | JIM WATSON | AFP

What you need to know:

  • A Trump wins an election when something fundamental has given and a people do not care about the character of the saviour.
  • It pays to listen and try to understand it.

In what some are describing as the “most shocking” and “unlikely” electoral victories of recent times, Republican candidate Donald Trump won the US elections Tuesday.

Apart from folks who were in his camp, almost no self-respecting pundit, polling organisation, and mainstream media gave the billionaire businessman, who was making his first foray into politics, a chance.

Trump was everything wrong wrapped in one: he was slated as a misogynist who boasted about sexually abusing women, egoistic, a charlatan to his critics, a liar, a racist, an anti-Muslim fanatic, a Hispanic hater, name it. But in the end, he still prevailed.

Even by the often-derided standards of “African politics”, that was something. To appreciate it, consider for example what happened to Senator Kiraitu Murungi in 2005.

Then Justice minister, when responding to donor criticism of corruption in the Mwai Kibaki government, Kiraitu argued that they were preaching to a government that was already committed to fighting corruption.

He then added, in true Trumpian fashion, that the donors’ criticism was “like raping a woman who is already willing”.

Hell came down on Kiraitu’s head. A subdued Kiraitu called a press conference, apologised, and sued for peace. Trump said worse things, and did not apologise.

Yet, here is, standing triumphant.

Now the pundits and social media commentators are having their say, explaining the “disaster”. It was sexism and racism (don’t forget the same people elected Obama twice), white Americans, frightened about “foreigners” overrunning their lands rallied, Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate, and so forth.

NOT ENOUGH

All those things about Trump are probably true, but they are not enough to win an election. You still need to be a skilful candidate who knows how to galvanise fear into votes.

In dismissing Trump’s victory, therefore, there is a real risk that valuable lessons will not be learnt from the defeat.

The world was equally shocked when the British voted in June to leave the European Union. It seemed like an act of national madness, and too many of the elite have still not accepted it.

Looking at this from Africa, it is something familiar — disagreeable as the outcome might be.

Recently in Nigeria the tax authority advertised 500 jobs. There were a mind-blowing 700,000 applications, and 2,000 of the applicants had first class degrees. From Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, all over the continent, it is a familiar story.

Yet every day, these desperate people, some of whom have not had jobs for 10 years, read stories of public officials, politicians, and their cronies stealing billions of taxpayers’ money.

In the US and other industrialised economies, in the financial crisis of 2007-2009 ordinary folks lost their jobs, homes, families, and plunged into miserable existence. The financial firms that had caused the crisis in the first place with reckless speculation, and giant firms, got bailouts.

Everywhere, the small people are being hammered. I do not think they are going to preserve the democracy, political and social orders, “national values”, and even nations if they are being so brazenly cheated in the national project.

NO TOOLS

Clearly, we do not have the tools to measure the depth of pain these people feel, nor do we have the language to ask meaningful polling questions, and so we miss the rage.

Now in Africa, we are not about to have a Trump (although the venality and cruelty of some of our leaders are probably worse), simply because elections are stolen or there is repression. But eventually, as we have seen recently in Ethiopia, the dams of anger will still burst.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who came to power at the head of a victorious rebel army in 1986, used to explain what happens when people are in a desperate fight. He said when you are at war, you welcome everyone — thieves, liars, drunkards — as long as they are devoted to fighting your enemy. The issues of their character you sort out after the fight has been won.

A Trump wins an election when something fundamental has given and a people do not care about the character of the saviour. It pays to listen and try to understand it.

By the way, I was rooting big time for Clinton. I have not slept well and I am hurting. Fortunately, I learnt long ago to listen not just to my heart, but to my head too. 

Charles Onyango-Obbo is publisher, Africapedia.com and Roguechiefs.com; Twitter: @cobbo3