Mark Wignall | Chaos, cruelty, fear!

The first time around in 2016, the shocker came upon us like a global cardiac arrest. Was it that America was not yet ready for a woman president, or could it be that the idiocracy was in the early phase of its development? In 2024, Trump’s win over Kamala Harris was an even more painful slipping of the guillotine on our collective necks and, maybe, confirmation that a woman president, especially one permanently etched in ebony, would not quite make a perfect fit to the Oval Office.

As if that was not enough to send me scampering to the gate of the big house in the east, last Wednesday and Thursday, my casual conversations with men under 60 living in inner-city communities told me that, to many Jamaicans, Trump is a hero, especially as their views on transgender matters line up with his.

Of course, as it is one of the most biologically complex processes to understand and explain, Jamaicans were stuck with the simplistic, ‘man a man, woman a woman’.

The difference between the Trump of 2016 and the more enervated, slower Trump of 2024 is that the one of today, nodding off and hardly interested in learning any new strategies of governance, has gathered around him enforcers of his chaos, each a Rasputin whispering their special pain in his ears.

Believing someone when they first announce to you who they really are would be easier this time around than in 2016 because the goose was already primed before it was put in the oven was Trump’s way of proving to the world that the dodos were wandering around and eagerly waiting to be hurt.

MENTALLY HARMED

At its simplest, it would appear that Trump was mentally harmed in his adolescence. At his every waking moment, he wants to make a plea, any plea, for someone to love him. Because that doesn’t happen, he has always been on a mission to hurt others. Retribution is his brand. He will be doing it on behalf of the people, is nothing more than one man expending his personal wrath on his gullible followers.

“AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump won a larger share of black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and most notably among men under age 45. Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, also were more open to Trump than in 2020.” Associated Press.

And yet the community of individuals set to be hurt the most in his mass deportation madness are overwhelmingly Latinos. And he had declared the pain and the promise to them.

The police union who endorsed him before the election heard his promises, knew of his penchant for supporting violence at his rallies in the 2016 campaign. They voted for him then and in 2024, even as he referred to the violent mob of January 6 indicted or imprisoned as hostages. And yet, as he issued blanket pardons and played the fool when questioned, the police union head squealed. As if Trump had not already declared his intention on the campaign trail.

He totally bamboozled them and then dismissed them as they cry foul.

Inside the federal government, he has placed on hold all DEI programmes. And, lest we forget, that stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or, matters pertaining to giving people of colour an opportunity to catch up after centuries of playing step back, stacked against them about 85 per cent to 15 per cent.

In a programme more than tinged with a heavy dose of cruelty, incoming immigrants who had secured interviews with agents on the American side of the border had to deal with the painful reality of all interviews being cancelled. It must be stated that immigration or any other programme mired in cruelty only makes sense when those crafting the policy derive pleasure from the pain of those they hurt the most.

INSIDE THE BAD HISTORY

In 2002, even the most skilled political pundit could not have seen that, six years later, America would elect a man of colour to the US presidency. I thought of that as Elon Musk made two Seig Heil salutes at a GOP gathering. Musk has purchased a good chunk of the presidency, meaning that he is close enough to Trump to say what he wants and to even openly pour cold water on Trump’s US$500-billion tech plan which excludes Musk.

It is also useful to take another look at the rise of the Third Reich in the 1930s. Did those who worshipped Hitler see or feel the moments when the rug of freedom was slowly being pulled out from under their feet and the rough carpet of repression pushed in its place? I think not.

The fact that Trump has surrounded himself with political stooges who will later get to call themselves his cabinet is another call to arms. The enablers are being lined up and every single one of them are deathly scared of him.

That is bad history, authoritarianism on the move. He wants Panama, Greenland. He is sabre rattling at Mexico and his attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico is part of his strategy to annoy Mexico and create weakness in its government infrastructure.

His trying to be on every side of the TikTok issue has worked so far, if Jamaica is any example. “Dem a try shut dung TikTok,” said a painted-face young lady to me last Wednesday. “But Trump just say two time an it come back. Can’t mess wid him.”

The voices in his head visibly pushed onto his face when the Episcopalian Bishop prayed in his presence and made an appeal of mercy to him in his treatment of poor immigrants working hard and the gay, lesbian and transgender community.

Mercy is not a word in Trump’s lexicon. If anything, it is just a most inconvenient annoyance. It will be difficult to avoid the pall of fear that has fallen onto the land.

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