The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

THE US election is almost here – as you can tell from flicking on just about any US station. When it’s not the fevered discussion on news channels, it’s the wall to wall advertisements in between segments. Even turning to the streaming websites is no refuge, with the ones carrying advertising pitching election adverts our way even though we have no vote to give.

It has also been the topic of plenty of discussion here in The Bahamas, arising over dominoes and porch talk.

There is of course the talk of “who will win?”, of which my own dominoes crew largely feel it’ll probably go to Trump, though some of that is resigned world-weariness rather than any enthusiasm. As I write, the betting odds marginally favour Harris – though not by much, and if I check again in an hour I wouldn’t be surprised to see it going the other way.

Beyond that, there is the question of which of the candidates would be better for The Bahamas if they win.

Historically, there is generally the feeling that our country does better when a Republican is in office.

Part of that is down to taxation. Republicans lean towards less taxation, that makes people feel they have more money in their pockets, and we reap the benefit in terms of more visitors and investment.

Trump, though, is not your typical Republican, and we’ve already had a dose of what he was like as President.

Granted, a chunk of that was when COVID-19 was running rampant, but there was no huge benefit that we could see from his presidency for us.

Back when Hurricane Dorian hit, there was little sympathy on show from the then President.

Amid talk of letting Bahamians into the US on humanitarian grounds, he said: “We have to be very careful. Everybody needs totally proper documentation because The Bahamas had some tremendous problems with people going to The Bahamas that weren’t supposed to be there. I don’t want to allow people that weren’t supposed to be in The Bahamas to come into the United States, including some very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers.”

That’s a lot of “very bad” right there and not a lot of talk of helping people whose documents were somewhere buried under their collapsed house.

Trump of course has based a large amount of his political stance on keeping people out of the US, casting many of those migrants as being associated with crime.

Equally, we are still in an administration with Harris as Vice President. Of course, she came to visit The Bahamas. Air Force Two touched down on our soil, her motorcade roared down Bay Street, meetings were held, then back down Shirley Street and up and away.

Neither administration has seen progress in delivering an actual US Ambassador for the country, though there are the entanglements in the Senate to contend with for that.

We have however seen significant progress on the building of the new US Embassy, ribbon cutting and all.

From those I talked to, between beers or rounds of dominoes, the feeling was that Harris would be the better outcome for The Bahamas. There’s no sign that Trump would bring the usual Republican approach that would give our nation a boost, and there’s not been any indication of efforts to build up relationships during his previous presidency. Harris at least has been here, has touched dirt. Her motorcade has seen our potholes. There has, at least, been interest.

The general impression I have is that the current Democrat outlook is more outward looking than the Republican one. Trump is not focused on foreign affairs, and while I won’t pretend that the Democrat ticket is particularly advanced in that regard, it is at least seemingly more aware of international concerns.

For us, one of those concerns at present is Haiti. And it should be a concern for the US too. The closest Trump’s campaign has come to addressing it is baseless claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s cats. Given the complex situation in Haiti, there is no suggestion he would bring a subtle hand to deal with the problem of creating a path back to peaceful democracy for a country torn apart by gangs and corruption.

That’s no promise that a Harris administration would be able to solve it – just that there might be a more attentive ear. Might. The boots on the ground in Haiti are noticeably not American. Kenyan. Bahamian. Jamaican. But not American.

As the closing arguments are made, much of the rhetoric is not about voting for someone but against something. The Trump camp demonises Harris and her policies and says she will tear apart America. The Harris camp does the same with Trump, pointing to the violence inherent in his words.

In this, are we really any different in our politics?

Time and again, we vote a party in then vote it out again, promises unfulfilled and agendas half-finished.

The talk with the current administration from the opposition is of the need for commissions of inquiry, of a lack of transparency, of a failure to deliver promises in election pledges.

The previous administration met with the same kind of talk from the PLP in opposition.

Don’t you all get so tired of it? Where is the actual party that will deliver on what it promises, and not get into office and shuffle off the pledges it now finds inconvenient?

The Freedom of Information Act is a good example, a can kicked so far down the road that you can barely see it in the distance any more.

So as we think about which US election outcome would suit our country more, perhaps we need to think harder about which Bahamian election outcome would do so instead.

What matters is how our own politicians deliver. And if there is a genuine alternative that will live up to what it says.