He has severally known as many heritage media shops ‘faux information,’ calling for the licences of some media like NBC and ABC to be revoked. He has threatened CNN and Washington Publish numerous instances. Reporters With out Borders, a media watchdog, claimed in its analysis findings that Trump verbally attacked media greater than 100 instances within the two months run-up to the election. He coaxed ABC for a $15 million defamation settlement and threatened to go after Jeff Bezos’ companies if he didn’t rein in Washington Publish’s criticisms.
Bezos, the current writer, caved in, annulling the newspaper’s decades-long endorsement of a presidential candidate, which within the final marketing campaign favoured the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. The Publish which I visited as a part of my fellowship in 2003, and which I hallowed for its heritage and journalistic excellence is now in reputational tatters; at the moment bearing the load of a slew of retaliatory resignations together with a current one by a prodigious cartoonist whose illustration was dropped for depicting Bezos and another tech giants cringing earlier than the all-mighty Trump.
The Pulitzer award winner, Ann Telnaes, who had been at The Washington Publish since 2008, mentioned: “In all that point I’ve by no means had a cartoon killed due to who or what I selected to goal my pen at, till now. The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who’ve been doing their finest to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.” Moreover the resignations, The Publish misplaced an estimated 250,000 subscribers.
Trump had threatened to jail the no-holds-barred TV host Jimmy Kimmel and Mark Zuckerberg, founding father of Fb which yanked him off the platform for spreading revolt through the invasion of the Capitol. His first time within the White Home was a tough trip for the media, it’s going to be barbaric from January 20.
Kimmel mentioned Individuals had a selection between a prosecutor and a legal, “they selected a legal,” and referenced the selection between Jesus and Barnabas. He mentioned of the election day: “Horrible day for ladies, journalists, the bodily challenged, for Healthcare, poor folks, additionally horrible time for many who voted blindly with out understanding him.”
He’s traditionally black-hating, thumping up his acquainted chorus over the last presidential debate that Black Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had been consuming cats and canine. He was sued in 1973 for refusing to lease residences to black households. A number of Black individuals in The Apprentice, a actuality TV floated by him expressed gross racial biases. His shithole reference to African international locations and stereotyping Blacks as lazy are nicely documented. It’s no brainer that his Africa overseas coverage can be vastly adverse.
The in-coming American President wants some information of the American historical past, identical to I, an alumnus of U.S. Division of State had 20 years in the past; could also be that would water down his rambunctious and myopic posturings: How America turned an amazing nation constructed on freedom and variety and democracy, formed by a historical past of innovation and migration. And understanding that the White Home was so named, not out of white supremacist irredentism, however a easy white coating of the constructing after the British Military torched it through the Battle of 1812.
He also needs to have an historic tour of the Republican Occasion based by one in all its progenitors, the legendary Abraham Lincoln who proclaimed a free press; and remind him of how he succeeded destroying the social gathering and muffling all dissenting voices.
I requested Meta AI to explain Donald Trump’s behaviour in a sentence, it returned this: bold, dominant, and outgoing, with tendencies to be impulsive, self-serving, and exploitative, usually prioritising his personal pursuits and picture over conventional norms and establishments. ChatGPT returned this: Donald Trump’s behaviours are sometimes characterised by assertiveness, a confrontational communication fashion, self-promotion, and a bent to problem norms and traditional authority.
When folks apply for delicate positions, organisations do background checks. Easy background checks devoid of politics would have enlightened the ‘uninformed’ American folks extra concerning the man they had been staking their lives on.
The U.S. judicial system has at all times been a reference level for different international locations. The way it didn’t ship the convict behind bars or extract corresponding fines appears one of many Seven Wonders of the World. I think about how the Western World would have described the “despicable judicial” act had been it to be in a Third World nation. I assumed the growing/underdeveloped international locations had been those credited with inequitable judicial system skewed solely towards the poor and the underprivileged.
A jury had earlier convicted Trump in New York of 34 counts of fraud, a Class E felony offense with a penalty of as much as 4 years in jail and hefty fines. However the New York Justice, Juan Merchan on the January 10 sentencing issued an “unconditional discharge,” which means “the case is over, the conviction stands, and no additional circumstances connect.” Authorized juggernauts are nonetheless scrambling to grasp the unconditional discharge of an clever fraudster who would lead probably the most highly effective nation on earth.
A pacesetter ought to encourage hope and belief. However Trump’s second coming is sending waves of tension and fears in a world already careworn with wars, starvation, deaths and disasters. After Scotland First Minister John Swinney congratulated Trump and supplied a hand of fellowship, the congressmen scolded him, querying how Scotland would profit from Trump, a misogynist, conspiracy monger, a local weather denier, a racist and a fraudster, a convicted felon.
World leaders are in unanimous panic assault proper now due to the election of 1 man. Leaders in EU, North America, NATO, Africa and the Center East are bracing up for a war-mongering and self-serving, impulsive and ill-mannered president. You’re but to take the levers of energy, and you might be already touting annexing Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark; Panama Canal owned by the sovereign nation of Panama. You serially ridiculed a extra revered Prime Minister of Canada, calling him Governor Trudeau and mouthing a self-serving rhetoric of creating Canada the 51st state of U.S. He has been on a risk binge towards quite a few international locations together with Iran, Mexico.
The privilege of the U.S. as a superpower can’t be underrated. However international locations of the world should be unanimous and make concerted efforts in confronting the Trump risk lest their inaction or passivity breed one other Hitler, and one other World Battle.
Africa wants not look unto right this moment’s U.S. as a repository of democratic conduct or judicial impartiality. The Western World have at all times sermonised towards the vote-buying prevalent in Nigeria and different elements of Africa. However how do you clarify the pro-Trump pre-election offers by the tech giants led by Elon Musk in anticipation of presidency contract patronage? African international locations have to develop their very own programs in consonance with native calls for. In Trump’s America, Africa received’t be on the desk.
As a Chief Correspondent with The Punch in 2003, I had the chance of interviewing the then U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Howard Franklin Jeter, who spoke glowingly concerning the U.S. enactment of the African Development and Alternative Act (AGOA), a commerce programme enabling about 35 sub-Saharan African international locations together with Nigeria to export sure items to the U.S. with out tariffs. That programme can be the primary casualty within the Trump authorities.
Nigerian governors, nationwide and state legislators in addition to different members of the political class have been skilled within the U.S. on the Western-style democracy and civil society programs for the reason that outset of the Fourth Republic, with enormous monetary enter. Nigeria and different African international locations have to cease all that political pilgrimage and the illogical funneling of tax-payers’ cash. It’s time for a paradigm shift.
Concluded.
Onayoade, Journalist and Model Guide, is a Freedom Home Fellow.
