Trump: Better the devil you know for the US?

As much as some may wish it wasn't so, the person — nay man as it has been and looks set to be for at least another four years — calling the shots in the White House exerts global significance.

Trump: As the opposition dithers, he looks set to win four more years. (Photo from Facebook.)

So while there will be those outside the USA, and even a small number inside, who will plead indifference to this year's presidential election, the winner is sure to have some sort of influence on their and all of our lives, whether we like it or not

'Trump hasn't started World War III. Not yet anyway.'

Now, at the risk of being a bit premature here considering events of the past week and the fact there's the best part of a year still to run on the incumbent's term, we can say, thankfully and as predicted before he was elected, that Donald J. Trump hasn't started World War III nor turned his country into a Fascist dictatorship.

Making America heard again

What he has done is brought back that US bravado, or cockiness if you will, making it seen and heard again both at home and abroad. 

This isn't to say it's been all gung-ho, trigger-happy stuff in a classical American Wild West style. No. He's used the carrot-and-stick approach in dealing with his nation's most threatening challenger to world supremacy, China. Ditto with North Korea, more or less.

The stick has been used more so with Iran of late as we've seen to deadly effect, although it can be argued with some justification (how much the assassination of Qasem Soleimani will impact things domestically in the US in November is difficult to say at this remove). What he has failed to do is come good on his promise to reduce US troop numbers in the Middle East.

That latter negative notwithstanding, with an economy in fairly rude health by all accounts, coupled with low employment, a good number of his fellow citizens feel he has done enough to warrant those coveted four more years. 'Far worse presidents were re-elected' is what his supporters will tell you. 'Just look at the previous commander-in-chief, Barack Obama.'

For liberal Europeans, that's a hard one to stomach. Obama was their darling, the old-world style president that had been long overdue for the New World.

'The Democrats have left the country.'

The US under Obama for Europe was like seeing your old friend going out with someone who seemed a really decent, salt-of-the-earth type chap after having a few roguish partners. He wasn't the stereotypical loud, in-your-face guy we'd seen before. 

Alas, she reverted to type and then some when Trump won her over. 'We'll just never understand that young and reckless, yet alluring, US, will we?'

'Do something, Democrats'

A big reason why Trump looks set for re-election, putting to one side a highly unlikely impeachment, is to do with the opposition.

As Ronald Reagan reputedly once put it, 'the Democrats have gone so far left they've left the country.' And just like it has been in Colombia, being associated with anything close to the far left in the United States of America is pretty much toxic at election time.

OK, numbers-wise, thanks to the population concentrations on the east and west coasts, whoever finally appears on the Democratic ticket might actually, just as in 2016, win the popular vote. (One must also take into account the anti-Trump echo chambers reverberating around these more liberal sides to America. Their words tend to find more favour with non-Americans than those living in the 50 states.)

Lies of the land

This isn't, however, how the system works to get the keys to the White House. The electoral college vote should once again get Trump over the line.

I must say that if I ever got the chance to meet the current president, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to stomach him for any length. I certainly wouldn't be at ease in his company in any case. He is, after all, a serial liar. The man who gave us #FakeNews regularly says things that are clearly untrue.

The thing is, those who are doing their damnedest to get him out of office are also blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Truth being the first casualty of war and all that.

In one sense, November's presidential election is similar to what the UK electorate faced in December 2019: What's the least-bad option? The devil you know or the one you don't? 

With an opposition that raises more questions beforehand than answers, Trump is looking like the "safest" bet for US voters, as abhorrent as that is for many on the outside looking in.
_____________________________
Listen to The Colombia Cast podcast here.
Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan – The Blog & IQuiz “The Bogotá Pub Quiz”.

The Colombian Nazi delusion

Have you heard the one about the Colombian Nazis? No? Well, somewhat worryingly, it's not actually a joke. In this land of incredulous contradictions, there exists a rather confused bunch of adherents to the Adolf Hitler branch of fascism.

Latinos go Nazi. (Picture from diezcuriosidades.com.)

Perhaps they were missing the day when Nazi eugenics policy was explained in history class – that's if they went to school at all, of course. 

For, needless to say, if Hitler and his cronies were around today, Latinos wouldn't exactly be their idea of people worth supporting. In a Nazi dominated world, not just having the movement's support would be the least of their worries, though, you'd imagine.

Yet racism is alive and well in these parts. I know a number of, let's say well-coloured locals, who would move if a black person sat beside them on a bus or wherever. 

The thing is, in some parts of the world, these same well-coloured folk could be prejudiced against just because of their appearance. If only we could all see the bigger picture.*

But hey, in a country where anything with just the appearance of being to the left of the political spectrum is despised by many, the Nazis' vehemently anti-Communist stance is more than agreeable. Reaching out to find common ground with people who might like to exterminate you; how commendable. (Let's just not mention the whole Aryan issue.) 

Not only that, but the hatred of capitalism – tied up with anti-Semitism – espoused by leading Nazis also fits in well with our Colombian fascists. A not-too-neutral syncretism you might say.

However, herein lies another contradiction. You see many of these Colombian Nazis support the country's paramilitaries, or paracos as they're not very affectionately called. And where have these paracos looked for (and found) support in their bid to rid Colombia of the leftist threat? Why that bastion of capitalism the United States of America.

Bargain swastikas.

Indeed, the 'doyen' of the Colombian paramilitary, the late Carlos Castaño, was enamoured of the US and apparently had aspirations to live there. He once remarked: “I've always considered the US as a nation that has worked as the police of the world, that keeps an eye out so nothing happens to it.”** 

Moreover, he received training from mercenaries in Israel; skills he brought back to Colombia with deadly results.

Yet some of the Nazis/paracos I've had the 'pleasure' of encountering, most recently in a downtown Bogotá tienda, one that has coincidentally but innocently been named 'Nazi bar' (see Bogotá's simple pleasures II as to why that is), are not exactly following the Castaño line when it comes to the US. 

Well, they actually take the complete opposite view. 'Gringos go home' is more their approach. Oh, aren't we so terribly confused?

Though in this land of contradictions and flaky reasoning, it's par for the course. 'Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer'; we're just not sure which 'one' that is.

___________________
*The 'extranjero-files' – that is, not a xenophobe looks at the racism topic in more detail.

**Quote taken from: Dudley, Steven. Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerilla Politics in Colombia. New York, Routledge, 2006, p. 201.