By Raffique Shah
November 12, 2024

The world is what it is today, what it was yesterday, and what it always will be. It will never change because the vast majority of people do not want change. Mediocrity reigns supreme, vandalism rises to the top and so it will be forever and ever, Amen.

I awoke to the not-surprising news that 73 million Americans had voted Donald Trump in as the 47th President of the United States for the next four years.

I was neither shocked nor disappointed. This happened in a superpower that is touted as the most advanced society in mankind’s existence, and home to some of the most powerful people on earth.

What is more startling is, had the majority of Americans voted for Kamala Harris, it would not have made an iota of difference to their well-being, with their attitude that they rule the world. They will determine not only who lives and who dies, as in Gaza, where for them primitive sub-humans exist; but they will also determine the shape of democracy in Venezuela, in Mexico, even in England and much of Europe, once deemed the most advanced societies ever.

It was not by accident that the wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, who interestingly happens to be a product of the worst racist country man has known, Apartheid South Africa, ventures to campaign on the hustings for Trump. He dared anyone to stop him from buying votes at millions apiece.

I watched with amazement as black people in America, Trinidadians and Tobagonians among them, proudly proclaim their support for one of the dumbest men I have ever had the misfortune to listen to. He is without doubt a multi-millionaire, but no decent human being who values his life, his well-being and that of his fellow men, good governance, integrity in life and in public office, ought ever to find commonality with such a vagrant, even when pleading for the lives of the innocent in genocide.

I am not a prude or purist. I have long given up the utopian dreams of my youthful days when young people across the world could dream of a world that offered equal opportunities to all its citizens. The world is what it is—a place where people so casually discard principles, honesty and integrity on the altar, not of expedience but of raw greed and power. What some men wouldn’t do for a dollar.

Many years ago, back in 1999, when Trinidad hosted the Miss Universe pageant, it occurred to me that it was Basdeo Panday who brought Donald Trump to Trinidad. I distinctly recall Trump, the business magnate and beauty contest franchise holder at that time, promising millions of dollars of “Trump” investment in Trinidad in return for our hosting the pageant. At the time he expressed interest in owning or leasing an island off Chaguaramas and setting up a luxury resort—music to the ears of the greedy and the inherently corrupt who were all falling over attempting to get a touch or even a whiff of “The Donald”. Of course we got nothing, but then again, Trump is Trump and Panday was Panday.

Given the high profile that the American presidential election enjoyed across the world, and certainly here in T&T, my concern is not who wins because it makes not a damn difference who did; it is who loses that is of concern to me.

The world loses big. Instead of standards in all aspects of life and politics lifting with some mythical tide, they seem to decline as if to accommodate only the lowest common factors. When reporters, in the days before the election, sought answers from people who indicated they would vote, the best these university graduates could utter about their concerns was a dumb “the economy”.

Except for his imposition of some surcharge on certain imported goods—motor vehicles, I believe was one—nothing made a difference to America or Americans after Trump. For many years now, America’s economy has been running on empty. The country’s coffers operate on printed dollars, meaning they are probably the only country on earth that can simply print money and have it accepted anywhere as bonafide currency. T&T can’t do that, neither can Venezuela, India, Cuba, etc. You get the point.

What Trump can and will likely do is lower the level of people’s thinking, their education and basic common sense. Here in T&T, there was a time when one could engage almost anyone and hold intelligent discussion. Intellectual exchanges were commonplace, especially among university graduates. We are now reduced to talkin’ tata. You’ll starve if you expect intelligence to ooze from the mouths of the multiple-degreed “intelligentsia”.

Perish the thought of sitting for hours with the likes of a CLR James, a Willie Demas, a Noor Hassanali or an Eric Williams.