The Tribune

By Nicole Burrows

AMERICA: “Donald J Trump is President-elect of the United States of America.”

REST OF THE WORLD: “Y’all ain’t serious, though. AAAAOOOOOOO.”

It was a horror show. I’m still having daytime nightmares (and am I seeing things or is Pence wearing the wrong colour tie for this moment?)

Then, this is how it went in Trump’s victory speech.

“Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division”.

“...it is time for us to come together as one united people.”

“I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help, so that we can work together and unify our great country.”

And I’m not buying what he’s selling. And I’m going to finally turn off the switch in my mind that keeps trying to tell me that most people do what makes the most sense. I apologise to myself every five minutes now for ever being so hopeful that a majority of Americans actually would accept more of the same rather than the more insane.

To be clear, if I was an American citizen, I would not have voted for Trump or Clinton, just as I will be avoiding Minnis and Christie next year. And the outcome of that would probably have been similar to what it has turned out to be, but I would have been okay with that if it would have ended up the same way anyway. I don’t entirely disagree with the Republicans’ perspectives, just as I don’t entirely disagree with the Democrats’ perspectives. But Trump is a horrible spokesperson to represent all Americans.

My first question is: “So is it still rigged Donald? Is the election still rigged? Was the election rigged?” Because, I gotta tell you, I’m thinking it for damn sure must have been for this to be the outcome … for you to have won it. Surely this is a joke.

“We will also be a country of law and order.” Said the tax cheat. Hold on. This is definitely a joke.

Trump knows full well that, had he lost said election, his speech would not be gracious; it would instead be swollen with more hateful, spiteful, nasty rhetoric. I see your true colours, Mr Trump (cue Cindy Lauper). I think the whole world does.

For months you campaign - now successfully it would seem - on hate speech … commentary that would almost certainly incite the most easily brainwashed, uneducated and diversity fearful to the polls to vote in your favour. Now we must believe you want unity? Something does not add up. But hats off to ‘The Donald’ and Ms Conway and Mr Bannon if this was indeed their strategy all along.

People keep commenting about how much more subdued Trump is now. I don’t think so. It’s an illusion. It’s another one of his many faces. He is acting the part of the subdued now because he is in the seat he aimed for all this time and his delusions of grandeur have materialised.

In the whole victory speech, six minutes were minimally substantive; the rest was a veritable shout-out to family and friends, and everyone and everything is fantastic, terrific, amazing or unbelievable. And in this way, Trump truly resembles the average American if the average American is who voted for him as we are meant to believe. If this is their thinking, intellectually, they may be on par. Trump could even be below average. But he’s a damn good shyster, and that’s really all you need to ‘succeed’ in politics, business and modern life.

I thought George Dublyah, Mr Nookelar, was bad. When asked how he feels about the moment of realisation and the job ahead of him, Trump told Lesley Stahl, ‘60 Minutes’ interviewer, that it was “so enormous. So big. So enormous.” He also told her that his scheduled 15-minute interview with President Obama turned into a 90-minute interview. I wonder how much of that was due to his lack of understanding and Obama’s need to repeat himself like it was kindergarten.

Trump also remarked that the conversation with Obama was unbelievably interesting. Yes, sir - that’s what emotional intelligence does … it makes your conversation interesting. I’m so glad you found that out. Let’s aim for that in the next interview, please.

In life, you have a choice: you can walk the straight and narrow and accept that much of what you want in life you won’t get by doing or being good, or, you can teeter on the grey line and be shady but ‘successful’. I would wager that the number of ‘successful’ people in this world who have ill-gotten gains far outstrips those who travelled the straight and narrow or did good … or were/are smart. After all, you don’t have to be intelligent to be ‘smart’ in business, especially if you know the art of screwing people over.

Where The Bahamas is concerned, America’s President-elect, as it appears, is friends with Phil Ruffin … another tax dodger, who is said to still owe a crapload of money in hotel taxes in the Bahamas. ‘Birds of a feather’ has never been a more appropriate phase. And now, they tell me, our own good Prime Minister Christie, who has been known to drive around with Ruffin in our taxpayer-financed vehicles, was once an attorney or signatory for Donald Trump on the old Resorts International deal?

Ugh … the pain of these realities. I thought all of our negative reputation died with Pindling, but it would seem that there are others at the ready to make it thrive.

Our silly leaders say there’s nothing to fear with Trump as US President. Just how bloody foolish are we? We are a country with a main industry dependent on the excellent health and sustenance of all of our natural environment. From just that one perspective we should all be pissing in our pants with Trump as US President. He has already said he doesn’t believe in climate change. He doesn’t believe science is real, in spite of the natural history of the earth or of projections of its future. He is therefore quite apt to come and set up a couple oil rigs himself out in our ocean floors and jolt the hell out of them for the black gold because even if there’s an oil spill, damage to the sea bed, the coral reefs, the fish stocks of our oceans, it’s not real to him. And it will be worth it because there will be oil to sell. Oil to sell in a world that has no use for it when everything becomes too hot to function or survive. But Trump is no visionary, so I guess he couldn’t see it if he tried.

Personally, as an aside, I believe climate change is real, and it will happen with a progressive and terminal outcome; science has demonstrated the eras of the earth’s transitions. It is another life cycle as we all will live and die one day. But if you take care and certain useful precautionary measures, it is possible to delay the outcome. I suspect that Trump will consider that to be folly.

CNN’s Andersen Cooper recently made a comment on his show in the US election aftermath that ‘it’s not the end of the world.’ But it very well could be, for countless reasons that range from Trump’s stance on policy issues to his temper tantrums and flagrant hostilities. The man’s moronic attitude will provoke every militant crusader around the world. But we have his assurance, as given in his first official interview, that he will “conduct himself in a good manner, depending on what the situation is”. As long as everyone remembers, America first.

And, behold, then he said it: you “need a certain rhetoric to motivate people”. So I guess we can all stop wondering whether or not his campaign hate speech was a sham.

But to further not make sense, he says Americans are protesting his presidential victory because “they don’t know me - I just don’t think they know me.” What? What they think they know about you is what you showed them for the past two years. You see, this is why intelligence matters.

And let me not forget to add, he told Ms Stahl that, as far as his campaign goes, he can’t regret it. And he’s proud of it. Because it won him the White House. Well I never.

The man has not been representative of the progressiveness of America. He is a reminder of the hateful ugly past of a nation trying for a comeback. At this point, maybe Sane America just needs to call in the Brits and have them recolonise all of the Americas. Maybe that would be a fate less painful than a Trump presidency.

Were he not the man he presented himself to be in the run up to the election, why would he have hung his hat so decidedly on his questionable positions?

Alternatively, if he is a completely opposite person now than he was on the campaign, but he says you are to believe that today’s him is the real him, what does that tell you? America is rancid, or America got duped and elected a chameleon?

A man willing to pretend to be something completely other than he was to win your votes so he could satisfy his ego and be president, and fulfil the Republican mandate, and use the people who believed in him to do it? Bait and switch all the troubled, poor white folk of America to rile them up with hideous antics and verbiage, then switch once elected President?

So which is more true? America has elected an egomaniac, with multiple personalities, or America has elected someone who would do anything, put on any mask, say any mean things necessary to get the top seat in the White House? Which is it? And who will it be from time to time? Which version of Trump will America rely on to keep their position in the world?

As the pundits continue to ponder, let me ask you ... Was the result of this US Presidential election a movement against the Democrats? Against the Clintons? Against the political elite? Against the political establishment? Against diversity? Against a woman as leader of the free world? Could it be that even the mighty United States of America is not ready for a woman to lead the country?

All of the above?

America - “one nation under God, indivisible”.

Donald Trump’s strategy: Divide and conquer. Presidential?

Donald Trump’s slogan in effect: Make America hate again. Presidential?

Has Trump’s rhetoric successfully divided the country? Or has it only emphasised - under a floodlight - the existing and incurable division among Americans?

Comments and responses to nburrows@tribunemedia.net