Peter Espeut | Pretend I’m on the ballot

“Pretend I’m on the ballot”. The Washington Post, on Wednesday, November 4, reported that President Donald Trump, on the campaign trail over the last few weeks, told voters more than 41 times to vote as if the midterms were a referendum on him. On November 3, they did exactly that, delivering the Republican Party its worst defeat at the polls since 1974 (after Watergate).

Psychologists will have their technical terms to describe Trump’s belief in his own popularity (Egotistical? Conceited? Narcissistic? Delusional? Phantasmagoric?) at a time when all the credible opinion polls show his approval ratings at historic lows (around 33 per cent). Only President Harry Truman was lower, at 22 per cent (in February 1952), because of the Korean War, economic and labour struggles, and administrative corruption scandals.

I guess this is what happens when you surround yourself with yes men and sycophants, who massage your ego and tell you what you want to hear, and who never tell you that what you want to do is ill-advised or a bad idea. Poor leaders tend to surround themselves with poor advisers, especially in financial matters.

In his remarkable presidential campaign two years ago, Trump vowed to lower consumer prices and promised “no more wars”. His frivolous (and illegal) tariff extravaganza, and his ill-conceived war with Iran, egged on by Israel’s Netanyahu, broke solemn election promises.

And what is worse, he has failed to defeat Iran and keep open the Strait of Hormuz, which has driven up the price of oil and everything else, disrupted supply chains, and made life harder for ordinary US voters. His support for Israel in its genocide in Gaza, and his failure to really help Ukraine (which helps Putin), have added to his unpopularity.

And then the corruption, the further enriching of billionaires, and the corruption, and the enrichment of himself and his family, and the corruption, and the nepotism and cronyism, and the corruption. The polls showed that political corruption was a major issue for voters going into these midterms. Jamaican politicians should tek sleep and mark death!

NO GUARANTEE

This US midterm election has shown that having big money running behind you is no guarantee of electoral success. I think we saw the same thing in our last general election. Elon Musk alone spent almost US$500 million on Republican candidates in the midterms, and has little to show for it. The impact of curry goat (and the pork barrel) on election results is declining, even in Jamaica. The politicians must be in a panic!

It seems that the “religious right”, which has supported Trump right down the line and treated him like King Darius (the pagan who God used to take his people out of exile in Babylon), has come to its senses and largely abandoned him. The Republican Party has to be concerned about its future. Giving support to Trump over the next two years could guarantee a Democrat in the White House in 2028. Trump is going to have a hard time!

President Trump is now what Americans call “a lame duck”. I suppose that means that he can quack, but he “can’t swim too good”. His party having lost its majority both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, Trump will now have a hard time pushing his MAGA agenda, and may even get really impeached this time! And many others!

He may also have a hard time enforcing his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This may ease a little of the pressure on Cuba. I wonder how Jamaica would have voted in the UN General Assembly if the vote to end the embargo on Cuba were held next week instead of last week?

Many expect Israel to ditch Netanyahu as prime minister with the neutering of his friend, Donald. It is likely that US political and military support for Israel will decline. This will be good news for the people of Gaza and Iran, but bad news for those interests who have a special relationship with Netanyahu. Those countries that receive technical support from Netanyahu’s government (e.g., military and surveillance hardware and software) may find themselves coming up short.

Ballrooms and arches, government ovals and nuclear power plants: ego-stroking legacy projects can turn the electorate against you.

EXPOSED FLAWS

Donald Trump in the White House has exposed the flaws in the US Constitution, which is supposed to produce a government that is the antithesis of monarchy. With a compliant Congress and Senate, the president’s power to appoint Supreme Court justices with lifetime tenure (who can grant him immunity from prosecution), his power to appoint his family members to diplomatic posts (where they can enrich themselves by wheeling and dealing), and his power to pardon any number of his family, friends and supporters who have committed federal crimes (and maybe even himself?), concentrate too much power in one pair of hands, and unreasonably assume probity, benevolence, and sanity.

After Trump, “We the People” will need to drastically revise their constitution.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday night after the extent of his party’s defeat was becoming clear, Trump is reported to have said: “I don’t like to consider it a defeat for me. I wasn’t on the ballot. … If my picture was on the ballot we would have won by a landslide”, a message that was the opposite of what he spent weeks saying on the campaign trail.

Trump was on the ballot, and he and all he stands for have been soundly rejected. Every nation has to develop safeguards against Trump-like leaders.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com