It is the day after the 2024 US presidential election. I am standing in the unseasonably hot sun in Queens, New York.
I am leaning into the camera, speaking earnestly to viewers in SA. Through the window I can see a television host and five guests on CNN, also leaning forward earnestly, discussing how and why Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris to become president-elect of the US.
What was coming out of our mouths was in large measure verbiage that carried very little of the harsh truths that the world needs to hear.
Just hours after voting stations had closed on the east coast of the US and the results were starting to trickle in, we were speaking as if the candidates before us, Trump and Harris, were newborn, pure, individuals with no history that gave us a clear idea of what our world will now look like.
We were talking about Trump, a man who just four days before voting started, had stood in front of television cameras and simulated performing masturbation and oral sex on a microphone.
We were speaking in serious terms, in terms that assumed a rationality, about a man who in his victory speech just a few hours before had referred to the media as “the enemy camp”.
One could go on ad infinitum about what an utterly unsuitable incumbent of the White House Trump is: he has threatened to use the justice department and FBI to attack his political rivals, has normalised banter of an authoritarian nature and vowed to be a “dictator” on Day 1 of his presidency.
Just hours after it became clear that Trump had won, we were happy to keep quiet and say nothing about how his supporters had claimed that there was massive fraud going on in the election without a shred of proof that this was happening.
Indeed, just a week before the election, Trump had revealed that he doesn’t need votes to be installed as president again because he had hatched a “secret plan” with speaker of the House Mike Johnson to take the presidency anyway.
He said: “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a little secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”
Analysts speculated that Trump and Johnson were “secretly” talking about installing Trump as president through a “contingent election,” whereby the House of Representatives, not the Electoral College, determines the president.
Even those close to Trump display vengeful, undemocratic, instincts.
Mike Davis, a controversial right-wing lawyer and commentator close to Trump’s inner circle, has claimed that he wants to drag the “political bodies of Democrats through the streets” following the Republican electoral win.
What I am trying to say, in a rather roundabout fashion, is that Africa and the world should prepare for a period of shock and awe, of isolationism and authoritarianism, that Trump has vowed he will unleash on the world.
Trump has been consistent in saying what he intends to do when he comes back to power, and he now has that power.
Across the globe, analysts have been assessing a Trump victory as if we are discussing business as usual.
You, dear reader, may also think this is an ordinary election. It has not been that way.
Think about the fact that back in 2020, Trump refused to acknowledge or concede that his opponent, Joe Biden, had won.
Think about the fact that Trump had given us all a clear indication that he would not accept this result unless he won.
He does not believe in democratic institutions unless they work for him.
That is why he has consistently praised those who breached the US Capitol building on January 6 2021 as “patriots”, vowing to pardon a “large portion” of them.
I do not mean to be alarmist. However, the world is at a more dangerous inflection point than many of us dare to speculate given the person who is now preparing to re-enter the White House.
The leader of the free world, as it were, is not a man who believes in the institutions of a free world.
Some do get the point that the world is about to become far more insecure.
The Associated Press wrote at the weekend: “Based on Trump’s first term and campaign statements, the US will become less predictable, more chaotic, colder to allies and warmer to some strongmen, and much more transactional in picking friends globally than before.
“America’s place in world affairs and security will fundamentally change.”
It quoted French President Emmanuel Macron speaking at a European summit: “We must not delegate forever our security to America.”
An unpredictable leader, bitter from the past, is about to occupy the White House. Africa should brace itself for shocks — and prepare.
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