The White House, unarguably the most popular house the world over, is in the news and will always be. The reason isn’t because President Joe Biden is no longer in the race to keep Donald Trump far away from this all-important house; it’s because it’s not an ordinary house, it’s the house, the one from where decisions that engender peace and war have been taken and are still being taken; it’s the house where fates are sealed and destinies overturned; it’s the house with phases and faces, the house that shows you what it wants you to see. This house is like Esu odara. Its cap has red on one side and black on the other, and the side you are facing determines what you see and what you get.
If you are in its good books, goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your lives, and if you are in its bad books, woes betide you.
From this house, plots have been hatched against African leaders, European leaders and Asian leaders. From this house, decisions that led to the death of foreign leaders have been taken, and decisions that crippled economies have been stamped. Ask Iraq. Ask Libya. Think of the fact that what becomes Al-Qaeda today is not without American connection. Osama Bin-Laden, that it eventually killed during the Barack Obama era, was once an ally.
And from this house, economies have been breathed life into; foreign politicians have received support that shot them into political relevance back home.
This house has existed for centuries. It has undergone transformation, but its spirit of America first remains. It has housed president upon president; four of them were assassinated in power starting with Abraham Lincoln. James A. Garfield was assassinated after Lincoln, and followed by William McKinley, who was bankrolled by billionaires Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller and JP Morgan to ensure their grip on the American economy remained tight. John F. Kennedy was the last to be executed and tighter security measures were taken after the incident and, for decades, no American president has fallen to assassin’s bullets.
Biden currently calls the shots at the White House, a position he grabbed from Trump about four years ago. Now Trump wants the keys to the White House back and he has overwhelming support.
At the CNN debate Biden had with Trump, his best wasn’t good enough and trust Trump to take advantage of the president’s poor performance to tell Americans he is the one for the job. The poor performance eventually helped to get Biden out of the race.
On July 13, United States Vice President Kamala Harris, who Biden has endorsed as his replacement, reached out to voters. Her message: With the United States Supreme Court granting Donald Trump wide-reaching immunity for his actions as president, he has been emboldened to weaponise the Department of Justice against his political enemies. Harris added that the “Donald Trump running for office right now is not the same one that we ran against in 2020”. This candidate Trump, she says, is more unhinged, more dangerous and has nothing to lose.
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Harris argues that if Trump wins four more years in the White House, not even the courts will hold him back. “It’s what he wanted. It’s why he hand-picked three justices for the Court who helped deliver this decision,” Harris says.
Hours after Harris message to voters, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who lived in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, shot at Trump who fell to the ground, and Secret Service agents had to surround him. Trump said a bullet pierced the upper part of his right ear. The shooter was killed by the Secret Service.
Trump’s four years in the White House was not all bad news. He is credited with overhauling the U.S. judiciary, especially with the appointment of three Supreme Court justices and the fast-tracking of the appointment of more than 200 federal judges. He is also respected in some quarters for pushing through massive tax cuts for corporations, expanding the economy faster than it was under Barack Obama, and crashing unemployment to a record low— before the economic gains were washed away by the Coronavirus. He also normalised relations between Israel and four once-antagonistic Arab neighbours, and he condensed U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. But like a commentator noted, all these were “dwarfed by what Trump got wrong”. Whether or not he is able to repeat the feats is a different kettle of fish.
Though endorsed by Biden, it’s not official that Harris is the Democratic Party candidate. It looks certain she will get it. Time will tell if she will be able to achieve what Hillary Clinton couldn’t achieve and get the keys to the White House.
My final take: Whoever wins this race for the White House, believe me, isn’t going to change the tradition of the house, the tradition that ensures its international politics, better known as diplomacy, is not just about saving the world, but also about making it have access to overseas economies, fossil fuels, mineral resources and the blue economy.
The next occupant of the White House will still maintain the tradition that uses treaties and deals to ensure America has easy markets for its goods abroad and will also see to it that the World Bank and such America-promoted financial institutions champion what is in America’s interest.
