Donald Trump. | CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP.
He is back, the convicted felon! Yes, Donald Trump made history and earned his bragging rights, becoming only the second former president after Grover Cleveland to make a comeback to the White House in 130 years.
Not only that, he became the first former president to be convicted of felony.
Another milestone, at 78 he will be the oldest US president to hold office. But for an old man he still has lot of energy and pizzazz, much more than the stumbling, mumbling, stuttering Joe Biden who could not run for presidency again.
The come-back champion secured 279 electoral college votes, 9 more than the required number and soundly defeated his female rival, Democrat nominee Kamala Harris in the popular vote by 51% to her 47%.
In his victory speech Trump thanked God for twice saving him from the assassin’s bullets so that he could lead the greatest nation on earth again.
He told his voters that he would keep all his election promises and make America great again. World leaders, including our president, were quick to congratulate Trump and extend a hand of friendship.
Ramaphosa, who has been leaning towards Russia, may have to re-adjust his relationship with America and the west. The US markets cheered Trump’s victory but in our local stock market the Rand sank.
Now as the most powerful man in the US, he may be able to get the courts to drop his other charges. As it is, the New York court delayed his sentencing on the felony charges until after the elections.
There is now the probability that Trump may not serve jail time for the thirty-four counts of felony. This happens in one-party despotic regimes, not in first world country which boasts to be the bastion of democracy
How does Melania stand smiling next to him I cannot understand. How do his children feel? Is it all forgiven and forgotten because their father will be the most powerful man in the world?
How did the American people elect such a morally depraved man to be their leader? Does only military and economic power make a great nation? How can other nations emulate the US? Does power wipe out your wrongs? Yet Trump has many admirers around the world.
You find this blind loyalty in despotic, third world countries, not in a first world country which boasts to be the bastion of democracy. Donald Trump is America-- brash, arrogant and conceited.
He sums up the dichotomy of America-- a gun-toting, bible-carrying nation. Kamala Harris can console herself that she did not lose to a gentleman but to a male chauvinist, bereft of all moral values.
T MARKANDAN | Kloof
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