America is in deep confusion today over who won yesterday’s Presidential Election.
Whoever won will either have benefited from or lost as a result of the over 100 million ballots cast before Election Day; and the quarreling will continue over whether ballots posted by mail should be counted, whether prison inmates and persons with outstanding court fines should have been allowed to vote and whether laws forcing minority voters to have to travel long distances to post ballots amounted to suppressing votes.
If Biden wins, Trump’s militias (like The Proud Boys) will by now have taken-up positions to keep ‘The Donald’ in ‘His White House’; and the official loser would still refuse to make that Concession Speech to ensure his millions of uptight supporters accept and stand-down.
A Trump win will also have the same backlash – and especially if Biden was elected by majority vote but Trump is selected by the Electoral College.
If Trump lost, by now he will have made clear his intention to file a complaint with the Supreme Court he spent four years rebalancing in his favor, to be heard before January 20, 2021 (Inauguration Day).
Thing is, though, while the result will have implications for America and its future relationship with the rest of the world, the Caribbean cannot safely say it has anything, spectacular or ordinary, to look forward to — and not even if Kamla Harris, of half-Jamaican parentage, becomes US Vice President.
Why?
Because just like Barack Obama proved on the job, no one who holds the office of President or Vice President of the USA can be themselves, or will be allowed to serve any other Master than Uncle Sam.
After the Grenada Revolution 41 years ago, the Caribbean was promised that the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) would have erased the need for people to worry about radical change, but all the region got that still stands is the Regional Security System (RSS), armed and trained by the US military.
Same with President Trump’s and Secretary Pompeo’s more recent promises to CARICOM leaders in Miami and Kingston of increased US investment and security assistance in return for supporting American intervention in Venezuela.
Those promises too have also turned into lemons.
It’s okay for us to be eternally optimistic and perennially hopeful, even if we may seem to be hoping against hope.
Nothing wrong with that, as we do believe in the Caribbean that we must always have a positive outlook on things, no matter how bad.
But I still maintain that, from empirical evidence and long historical experience, which candidate wins a US Presidential Election has never really made a difference for the Caribbean, if only because the Caribbean (and the outside world at large) is the last thing on American voters’ minds when they mark their ballots!