President Donald Trump’s rebound is a resounding endorsement of the Republican’s sexist and racist prejudices.
It is a reawakening of residual racism in the once ‘great’ America.
The limping economy made the resurgence even more urgent.
Trump aspires to ‘Make America Great Again’ — a byphrase for a return to jaundice.
The ‘Maga’ movement rides on the power of context.
Inflation fires its reboot.
The Republican candidate’s perceived strength in addressing domestic issues, especially the economy, hides more than it exposes about the dominant American psyche.
The archetypal America is a white man’s world.
They detest immigrants whose ‘breeding capacity’ may turn the ‘owners of the West’ into a minority.
The Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris does not fit as the commander-in-chief.
But it is not merely the white supremacist disdain for the vice president — an Asian African woman.
This America treated former First Lady Hillary Clinton, with the same contempt when she ran against the alpha male candidate of the Republican Party in 2016.
Data shows 10 per cent of Black men voted for Trump in 2020; 25 per cent did last week.
About 41 per cent of Latino men voted for Trump in 2024.
Only 12 per cent did so in 2020.
They voted to ease the pain in their pockets.
Latino men preferred their relatives be deported than vote for a woman.
Black men would rather be led by a white old male than vote for a progressive woman.
The man promises economic recovery.
Kamala slid below President Joe Biden’s score of 2020.
A 80-year-old man is preferred over a younger, progressive woman.
There is a Kenyan analogy: the rejection of Raila Odinga’s presidential candidacy in central Kenya in 2022, had more to do with Azimio coalition running mate Martha Karua, than the lynched former DP Rigathi Gachagua’s ability to rally support for President William Ruto.
The Agikuyu preferred a newcomer and an uncultured Gachagua to the polished lawyer of Karua’s gender.
Not surprising Gachagua was the first local politician to celebrate triumphant Trump on ‘X’.
There is something alike in their shared penchant for loose talk.
Kamala and Hillary represent a side of the US that the ‘great’ America does not countenance.
She is decent in a world that frowns at decorum, especially when the decorous are on the wrong side of the race and gender continuum.
She was flawless in a world that celebrates a certain amount of lawlessness.
Trump represents the centuries-old cowboy spirit, which is still dominant among white male supremacists of the American Wild West, and the slave riding South.
The polarity illustrates the dominant forces that pulled down the curtain on the Democrats’ presidential campaign.
The comeback of the 45th US president, as the 47th tenant of the White House, is a black swan.
Opinion pollsters, and largely partisan press, overlooked what they framed as a dead heat race.
The race was a landslide sweep for the Maga movement within 12 hours of the closure of polling stations.
There was a card traditional public opinion shapers and legacy media missed.
They underrated Trump’s billionaire funded capacity to stun cynics.
They missed the residual pressure of old prejudices that dominate the white American psyche.
US legacy media studiously keeps away from racism and sexism as stubborn forces that undermined Kamala’s plank.
They are silent about Trump’s infamy, which is framed as ‘Make America Great Again’.
The outcome exposes the duplicity in the ‘Land of Opportunity’.
A land that preaches democracy to the rest of the world, while overlooking its aberrations, particularly racism and gender inequalities.
Even American women, who are victims of chauvinistic slurs, could not stand with Kamala.
Even though women make up 55 per cent of voters, and know Trump’s penchant for sexism and racism, they rode with the misogynistic flow.
Immigrants Trump accuses of ‘contaminating’ American blood, eating dogs and cats in their neighbourhoods, played house niggers to Uncle Sam.
They endorsed a 78-year-old male chauvinist, and a convicted felon, to lead the ‘free world’.
They did even as the right thinking promises to fight on.
There is still light, and hope, among progressives.
Kamala’s exit message is a salutary lesson in decency: “When we fight we win. When we lose we concede.”
OKECH KENDO
University journalism lecturer and climate change local actions advocate
