By Owei Lakemfa

IF the United States (US) were not the most powerful country in the world which can change the course of human history. If its President were not the most powerful politician in the universe with the largest military. If American policies and actions would not affect world economy. If it were not a nuclear power with an arsenal that can sink the world.

I would have been contented sitting down to enjoy the one-man comic act called Donald Trump. He is the egoistic multi billionaire estate mogul, businessman  and leading Republican Presidential aspirant who when he opens his mouth, which is quite often, his words pour  out in unrestrained torrents. This week, as he basked in even higher ratings,  he rationalised his knack for speaking before thinking things through “No one tells me  what to say.

I go by my heart. The combination of heart and brain.” Trump is vanity incorporated. He revealed in his book TRUMP: SURVIVING AT THE TOP that he visited his 118-room house in Palm Beach no more than two dozen times in the years he had owned it. He said of this and other items including yachts he acquires “the same assets that excite me in the chase often, once they are acquired, leave me bored…For me, you see, the important thing is the getting…not the having”

With a knack for saying the most outrageous things like  claiming that Mexicans and immigrants are “bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they are rapists”. He  dismissed  Senator John McCain’s rating  as a war hero, and mocked US Secretary of State, John Kerry   as an incompetent  man who “goes into a bicycle race at 73, falls down and breaks his leg.”

Trump is a street fighter who obeys no rules while his opponents want a normal ring with rules; for many of his supporters, this is his strength and the weakness of other contestants. In bulldozing his way through the primaries, he  calls the  Kentucky Senator “The moron Rand Paul” while he says of  Jeb Bush; son and brother of  two former Presidents “He’s stiff. The guy can’t  even talk. He has zero energy.

You would fall asleep interviewing him”. With each ranting, his popularity seems to grow. This week,  the Fox News national poll put him at 25 percent, that is a 13-point lead over his nearest opponent, Ben Carson who has 12 percent, Ted Cruz, 10 percent, Jeb Bush, 9 percent and the rest thirteen contestants having between 1 and 6 percent.

As far as Trump is concerned, he has won the Republican primaries which may pitch him against the Democrat candidate whom he assumes will be Senator Hilary Clinton. So he opens fire  declaring her a “highly complex person who can’t  help going over the edge. She just can’t stay true to herself.”

With his rating women very low, he assumes he will defeat her, so he takes a shot at President Barrack Obama whom he claims is hated by every country “Obama is going to like me, very, very much because when he’s done with his term, he will be at my golf courses, because I have the best golf courses  in the world. He is going to go off to greener pastures, I guess.”

Even without the Republican primaries haven taken place, the boastful Trump not only assumes that he would succeed Obama as American President, but that he would have a successful first term  in office.  He told American  talk show  host, Chuck Todd “In four years, you’re going to be interviewing me and you’re going to say ‘What a great job you’ve done, President Trump.”

Trump’s programmes include criminalising abortion except in cases of rape, incest or where the woman’s life is in danger. He sees the Iran Nuclear deal as a bad contract which he would use his expertise as a businessman to neutralise.

On ISIS, he boasted like a typical cowboy starring in a Hollywood Western “We go in, we knock the hell out of them, (we) take the oil”. He expanded his thought process in his programme; American troops will be sent to fight ISIS  and “(We) will take away their oil-and use the profit from the oil sale to help the injured US soldier”.  In his imperial mindset, he seems to shut out the reality that ISIS has no oil,  and that it is the responsibility of the Americans to take care of their troops, including the injured.

He wants to reduce social spending, take on  China and Japan whom he claims are ripping off America, and impose heavy tax on  firms exporting jobs. Except for the indigenous minority Indians, all other Americans or their forebears were immigrants. Trump’s main programme is directed at immigrants. He wants to deport all undocumented  immigrants estimated at over 11 million with 60 percent of them being Mexicans.

In doing so he said “We’re going to keep the families together, but they have to go”.  He said illegal immigrants caught will be detained until repatriated while people who overstay their visas, will be held by local officials until the Federal authorities arrive.

He also wants to end birthright citizenship; there will be no automatic  citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. He also hopes to abolish the Obama   Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act under which immigrants would be granted conditional residency, and after getting better qualifications, full residency. Clearly, under a Trump presidency, things will be quite tough not only for Americans and  undocumented immigrants, but also for the rest of humanity as American policies would be unpredictable, predatory  and scornful of poor countries.

A President Trump would set more fires across the world like George Walker Bush, and generally make the universe, a more insecure place. Certainly, there will be the lighter side, for instance, he may call Queen Elizabeth II ‘an old girl’ who should vacate the British throne for Prince George, her great grandson!

Trump is the Republicans nightmare. If he does not win their primaries, he says he will run as an independent candidate. Either way, he will reduce their chances against the Democrats.