Mark Wignall | America’s date with an uncertain destiny

In less than a week, the citizens in all of the states of the powerful United States of America will go to the polls to elect their political representatives in the House - and those Senate seats up for grabs on November 6.

These midterm elections have electrified the global community even more than the presidential elections of 2016 did. Indeed, it is because the global community watched in a sort of dazed horror as the Electoral College awarded a win to Donald Trump, a man who in his campaign bared his twisted soul and badly formed mind in peddling hate, divisiveness and racism why we anxiously await to see what will happen next Tuesday.

As America so royally embarrassed itself on that day of shame in November 2016 and gave the obviously autocratic and hate-filled Trump the nod, next Tuesday we will be eagerly watching and waiting to see if sufficient number of American voters will, in full-blown remorse, begin the first step to dislodging the agenda of a man driven by all of the worst impulses known to human nature.

A man without empathy like Trump must be, by the incompleteness of its very nature, also a man who is devoid of feeling and thus given over to hate, tribalism and cruelty in his policies. Worse, in his hostilities towards, say, immigrants, one senses that he derives immense pleasure from stepping on the weak and hearing them scream while he sits atop the most powerful office in the world, scowling and totally disinterested in the mess he has made.

With Republicans having both houses of Congress and the White House occupied by the great stain of Donald Trump, hate and bigotry of all shades have dug themselves out of their long dormancy and are literally on the streets of America parading in anger as they draw fuel from the vileness occupying the Oval Office.

Stunningly detached

The American president is so stunningly detached from even a fifth-grader's understand-ing of global affairs that he cannot connect the basic dots which tell him that if he needs a detente with North Korea, he has to tread skilfully and diplomatically with the autocratic Chinese leadership in Beijing.

He doesn't have the mental capacity to figure out that his trade war with China and distancing America's leadership from old allies are likely to have unintended global economic and security consequences which could plunge the world into a long season of overheated discord.

He has never been able to move outside of the hate which consumes him and even put on an act of moral leadership. To him, the spoilt-brat-turned-man can do no wrong even as his errors of policy and abject failure to rise to the occasion stare him straight in the face. And that is what is so scary about Donald Trump: his incapacity to recognise or acknowledge the negative consequences of his actions.

In the wake of the tragedy in Pittsburgh where a right-wing loon used an assault rifle to murder Jews gathering at prayer, Trump offered the view that if one of the faithful praying last Saturday had a gun, maybe the mass murderer would have failed. No consoler in chief, no capacity to rise, to be more than just a huckster seeking a few more votes.

One is hoping that it will all come to a boil by way of the ballot box next Tuesday when the Democrats take the House and bring back Congressional Oversight to the table. One could even hope that the Senate race surprises us and give millions of Americans an early Christmas.

- Mark Wignall is a political- and public-affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and observemark@gmail.com.