Mark Wignall | Trump has an evil eye on Jamaica

The earliest personality trait openly demonstrated by Donald Trump was his cruelty. Encouraging his supporters in 2016 to be physically aggressive towards harmless hecklers, inviting law enforcement to be rough on those arrested, mocking the disabled, and routinely dissing women. And of course, he had no intention in trying to conceal his racism.

As president he had little interest in actually learning the art and illusion of governance. But he soon found out that he could up the ante in his innate cruelty. He could attach it to government policy and pick and choose his pet wickedness while mentally floating in his pleasure.

So those officials managing the difficult situation of asylum-seekers, crudely separated toddlers and children from their mothers at the southern border areas and worse, failed to keep records to track the disconnections.

The only thing that ever gave back love to Donald Trump was the storm of dystopia spinning around in his head. So, a day without another bucket of bile to spill on someone is a wasted day.

In the many criminal cases smothering him he has made enemies of those investigating his many misdeeds. And, capturing from the autocrat’s textbook, he has invited many of his mindless, aggressive cult followers to see the Justice Department as declaring a war against him.

And he has called names.

Which means that, for Jamaica’s sake, whatever happens between now and the US presidential election in 2024, the only outcome that will protect Jamaica is Trump failing badly to reach 270 electoral college votes.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan is Jamaica-born. Two years ago when she blocked Trump’s efforts to slow down a Congressional committee’s bid for his administration’s White House papers, she feistly stated one for the history books, “Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.”

NIGHTMARE SCENARIO

A nightmare of a scenario which gives Trump the presidency in early 25 will see some of the worst pushback in foreign policy that little Jamaica will ever see. As a start, Trump is more than likely to commandeer and corrupt cabinet agencies and complete the capture of Congress. There will be a harsh anti-tourism campaign launched. Jamaican resort areas will be painted as criminal infested, vermin-ridden hellholes, and it relentlessness will destroy the industry.

In an outward falling of dominoes as foreign exchange begins a new round of hopscotch with little chance of slowing down, the rest of the economy will begin to falter. All columns need not be pulled down all at once. Just a few of those sturdy ones.

Donald Trump could never see himself embracing presidential power again and not using it to inflict harm and unbearable pain on others and on a country like Jamaica for giving the US Justice Tanya Chutkan.

In early 2004 Prime Minister P. J. Patterson gambled on the trust he believed many in the Jamaica intelligentsia had of him by hosting Jean Bertrand Aristide, the then recently deposed president of Haiti.

American foreign policy was having another long moment of incongruence with the Haitian leadership of Aristide. So the Americans sweet-talked him and allowed him a better send-off than the type given to Patrice Lumumba, prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1961.

While he was cooling out at a protocol house in St. Ann and mentally preparing for the trip to an African country I conducted a poll and, to my dismay it showed that a significant majority of Jamaicans had somewhat hostile feelings towards Haiti and not much sympathy for the plight of Aristide. I was actually expecting our people to express more kindheartedness.

One of my regular readers who has had association with Haiti questions Jamaica’s newest policy move on Haiti.

‘Haiti is very, very unstable. The gang violence is out of control. It is one thing to send the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) to Haiti after a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane. It is quite something else to do so to help restore order and keep the peace.

“What if the JDF members get shot at or come under sustained gunfire and must return fire and the return fire injures or kills Haitian citizens? What if JDF personnel are injured or killed?

“If you send the JDF personnel with guns, then the chance of a gunfight is very good. If you send them without guns (very unlikely), they could be sitting ducks. Has the government thought this through?

“The PM’s ego may have been a huge factor in the decision. I am not against helping Haiti, but if the JDF are to be the “police” so to speak, I am against it.”

It is very obvious that both political parties are revving up for local government elections early next year. Many government policy moves are likely to be influenced by that very fact of a pending election.

The times of the 1970s and well into the 1980s were the times that various commissioners of police were hand-in-glove political partners of those who had political power.

In those days cops who were really ‘fryers’ could not, would not hold on to certain, ‘men of influence’. And if they were indeed held on to and locked up, the call the next day would see the criminal don (man of influence) released and more than a few times, with an apology.

We should not, however, fool ourselves into the belief that because the ascension of commissioners came via the associations, it must have meant that the political link was broken. not at all.

If a political leader in power in Jamaica wants a certain man as commissioner, the leader does not need to form his lips into a whistle to signify that the association has landed on the correct name. It is just known.

Among the rank and file cops there is a command structure which ensures that its own power is never smothered by the disconnected philosophies of those at Old Hope Road. And this while allowing the bosses to believe they have more power than they really have.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.