Dateline, November 6, 2014

I did not support Mr. Trump’s aspirations to return to the house from which he was evicted four years ago, perhaps improperly so, we’re not likely to ever know.  But I certainly did not support the continuation of the tyranny under which so many in the United States and abroad have been forced to live during the past four years.  I am and have been a political independent for many decades although I have supported third party candidates, including candidates from political parties with very differing philosophies, political parties like the Libertarian Party and the Green Party and various socialist movements.  In truth, like Albert Einstein and Noam Chomsky and Nelson Mandela, etc., I consider myself a democratic socialist philosophically.  Thus on the day after the presidential electoral victory of Donald J. Trump, I watch public reactions with interest and, I confess, a bit of ambivalence.  I especially note with a bit of sardonic humor how, furious, president-elect Trump’s Deep State critics in the media and the Democratic Party seek to sow panic and more discord, whining that he will now seek revenge for all of the trauma they sought to cause him and many other opponents through abuse of the legal and penal systems during the past four years.  Hell, during the past eight years. 

Their fear is understandable, a rapist fears angry parents, angry siblings, angry spouses and police and prosecutors too.  And that fear is well earned.  And perhaps it’s justified if not justifiable.  Perhaps those who have abused the justice and penal system so flagrantly during the past four years are in for a taste of their own medicine.  But perhaps not.  During his first term in office Mr. Trump, after all, did not seek to prosecute the Clintons or their allies, even after the Steele Dossier affair.

There are other possibilities. 

Having been the victim of tyranny in action and abuse of power by the Biden administration, not only against him but against thousands and thousands of ordinary citizens, against Jill Stein, Cornell West and Robert F. Kennedy, against thousands of patriotic Americans who protested on January 6, 2021 in a manner much less flagrant than did American “heroes” in Boston Harbor centuries ago or opponents of police brutality against African Americans just five years ago, perhaps his attitude will surprise even those quacking in their boots in fear of chickens coming home to roost. 

Perhaps his administration will focus on critical issues such as sane electoral safeguards, safeguards like easy to obtain voter identification with photographs, fingerprints and other verifiable forms of minimizing fraud while concurrently seeking to assure that participation in electoral processes by all eligible voters is facilitated.  And perhaps he will recommend legislation to Congress outlawing censorship and other means of threatening the exercise of freedom of opinion and freedom of expression, whether by public authorities or by the monopolistic private entities that have gained control over the infrastructure most of us now use to communicate.  And perhaps he will propose additional legislation to Congress and state legislatures that will outlaw and severely penalize the abuse of the penal and judicial systems for partisan political purposes, eliminating related immunity which leads to impunity.  And perhaps his solicitor general can convince the Supreme Court to overturn the egregious decision in Sullivan v NY Times which has facilitated the death of objective journalism in the United States and facilitated the character assassination of so many, including Mr. Trump.  And perhaps Mr. Trump will propose a constitutional amendment that will outlaw legalized bribery through political contributions and generous fringe benefits such as free travel, etc., and seriously regulate the utterly corrupt lobbying industry.

Perhaps Mr. Trump will avoid the meddling in the affairs of other countries, including the imposition and maintenance of ludicrous punitive economic sanctions and economic blockades that destroy their economies and create a crescendo of illegal immigration seeking solace in the land that made them all kinds of promises if they’d only turn against their brethren, and, then, perhaps he and his political allies will support meaningful and fair immigration reform that will encourage compliance with applicable laws, not only by depriving violators of all related benefits and building walls, but by providing for prompt, fair and equitable procedures for immigration by foreigners who have a legitimate basis to seek permanent residency and then citizenship the way the ancestors of most current citizens of the United States once obtained it.

Perhaps Mr. Trump and other members of his administration and others who have been victims of the autocracy and tyranny rampant during the Biden administration, instead of seeking revenge and becoming mirror images of their adversaries, will do the foregoing, not in a mean spirited manner but in a manner that will heal wounds, minimize polarization and really “Make America Great Again”, but internally, not in an adversarial manner against the world.  That may not be likely but Mr. Trump is rarely predictable, and he is not always wrong.  And only someone who has been made to suffer what Mr. Trump was made to suffer during the past eight years can really understand why the foregoing changes are so essential for America’s quest to someday attain the promises laid out in the Declaration of Independence, hypocritical though they were, and the premises set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution. 

Like many Americans, I have lost faith in both major political parties and in the institutions of government, at least at the federal level, but if Mr. Trump would follow the path described above (unlikely, I know), he would earn a place on Mount Rushmore even higher than that occupied by the four deeply flawed former presidents enshrined there, all men who, notwithstanding their shortcomings, nevertheless seem to have made a positive lasting impression.

Perhaps an exercise in wishful thinking but “if our reach does not exceed our grasp, then what’s a heaven for”?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.