I suppose it’s fair to accuse me of being a busybody for commenting on American politics as a Nigerian. As a citizen of one of the most corrupt nations on earth and the poverty capital of the world, I should have enough worries to focus on instead of being concerned with what’s happening thousands of kilometres away in America. But it isn’t as simple as that. The thing is you can’t run away from American politics. Just like you can’t escape American influence in media, entertainment, and sports wherever you go in the world.
Growing up, political pundits and social commentators would often make reference to America as a counter-example to the dysfunctionality in the Nigerian system. Sometimes, they interchanged America with “saner clime” during these impassioned public discourses. Naturally, I grew up having admiration for American culture and politics because of this. America became the ideal a dysfunctional country like Nigeria should look up to, or so I thought.
Here in Nigeria, our politics is at a pre-historic evolution. As I wrote elsewhere, Nigerians overwhelmingly vote along ethnic and religious lines, elections are rigged, voters are intimated to vote for a particular party or candidate, and politicians engage in what is called Stomach Infrastructure (the gifting of food items to a hungry and impoverished public in anticipated exchange for their votes). Debates don’t win elections in Nigeria. For instance, former President Muhammadu Buhari did not attend any debates the two times he was elected. Current president Bola Tinubu followed in his footsteps. Instead of well-articulated campaign promises, he gave us gaffes and word salad during his campaign last year. He conveniently avoided any interviews and debates that would expose his senility and frailty. But those who debated and attended countless interviews and town hall meetings lost. As much as politicians manipulate the electoral process with money and intimidation, the voting public is equally guilty of primordial sentiments.
I started having a keen interest in American politics in 2019. I very quickly realised how surprisingly similar American politics and Nigerian politics are when I saw the same primordial groupthink that undergirds our politics and politicking play out in America. I couldn’t reconcile the idea of America being the saner clime I was led to believe with the irrational loyalty to party and ideology among Republicans and Democrats.
It is not lost on me the schism Trump’s emergence in 2016 caused in America. He became the unprecedented and unpresidential president. Infamous for saying absurd things, and attacking the media for fake news, he turned American presidency into a farce. He doesn’t filter his words. He is boisterous, bellicose, and a master at expletives. For instance, after then Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari visited him at the White House, he reportedly called him lifeless.
His foibles gave the media fodder to fearmonger about him in their reportage. For every half-truth and ‘fake news’ uncovered about him, the media inadvertently turned him into a martyr. His base stood behind him no matter what the facts say. The Democrats were just as guilty of this irrationality as Trump’s base. They demonised the MAGA movement as fascist. And of course, Trump was demonised as a neo-Hitler. It got worse to the point that hoisting the American flag meant you were a far-right extremist. I guess you can describe US politics as a horseshoe of irrationality from the right to the left.
This irrational groupthink has set the free world some civilisations back into Hobbesian prehistory. In 2024, the last thing we should be seeing in America is an assassination attempt on a former president. As of the time of writing this, the details about the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, are still sketchy. While it looks like he acted on his own volition, the very fact that someone thought of assassinating a former president is a sad commentary on what has become of America, the saner clime. This is the kind of thing that may not surprise you if it happened in the Third World.
Owing to its influence in global politics, a backward America sets a dangerous example for the rest of the world. Whatever America does, the world copies. For instance, the rise of right-wing nationalism in America with the emergence of Donald Trump has metastasised to some countries in Europe, South America, and Central America. America hasn’t just exported its politics; it has exported its culture war issues to the rest of the world whether it’s Black Lives Matter or Pride Month. With this assassination attempt on Trump, America hasn’t only lost its moral high ground to lecture developing nations in the Third World on how to defend democracy, it may be setting a dark trend for the rest of the world. It has given autocrats cheap victory. If America accuses Putin of assassinating opposition figures like Alexei Navalny, Putin can always use this assassination attempt on Trump as a smart retort.
I never thought I’d see the day something like this would happen in America. I never thought the many things I’ve seen over the past few years would happen in America. I never thought a man in his twilight years would be obstinate in contesting for a second term despite his many gaffes and falls even when most Americans and even his party members don’t want him to recontest. That is something you typically see in Africa whether it’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu who has been caught on tape licking the microphone or it’s Paul Biya of Cameroon farting and displaying signs of memory loss during a US-Africa summit sometime last year or it’s Salva Kiir of South Sudan peeing on himself. By the way, six journalists were arrested over the viral clip of Salva Kiir peeing on himself.
I never thought I’d see the day anyone would hold sway on a political party in America the way Donald Trump has commanded cult-like fealty from Republicans. He has been apotheosized into a messiah and no matter what he has been accused of, no matter what the facts are, the knee-jerk reaction from his base is to denounce it as part of the machination of the deep state. Again, you find this kind of politics in Africa. We call it godfatherism in Nigeria.
For a democracy barely hanging on a thread, the assassination attempt on Trump will further cause a tectonic divide. To his base, it confirms every suspicion about the so-called deep state. To them, the only logical conclusion to every controversy Trump has been embroiled in from Russiagate to his two impeachments to his ongoing court cases is that the powers that be would take him out by any means necessary. Well, Thomas Crooks, regardless of what the facts show in the coming days and weeks has emboldened Trump’s supporters in their conspiracy theories. I don’t see how American democracy would survive this schism.
It’s sad that civility and decency are a thing of the past when one thinks of American politics. The lust for power at all costs, the blind loyalty of party members, the obstinacy of senile men, and the deification of political godfathers are all too familiar features of a typical African democracy which now characterise American politics. The bastion of democracy, the saner clime that once served as the ideal for the rest of the world has become a slapstick comedy. We like to say in Nigeria that politics shouldn’t be a do-or-die affair. Perhaps, this time, America should learn an aphorism from Nigeria.