GOP erred in allowing Trump set their agenda

Mr Trump, the New York real estate magnate, has wrecked the Republican Party. The tragedy is that in a democracy, xenophobes and racists like Mr Trump can win big elections. But will he? PHOTO: COURTESY

It's the silly season in America, one of the most formidable states ever created. But for this land of immigrants, this season isn't quite your usual silly. In fact, it is anything but silly.

That's because the Republican nominee for President of the United States — one Donald Trump — has upset several cherished traditions of American democracy. While Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermonter who almost pulled a miracle against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, stretched the liberatory potential of liberalism, Mr Trump was becoming a sinister bloviator.

Mr Trump, the New York real estate magnate, has wrecked the Republican Party. The tragedy is that in a democracy, xenophobes and racists like Mr Trump can win big elections. But will he?

First, let me tell you how we got here. I don't think many people knew that Mr Trump had fascistic tendencies in the tradition of Mussolini and Hitler. That's because New York State isn't known as a hotbed — an incubator — of outright fascism.

I myself had occasion to meet Mr Trump years ago when I represented Kenyan Olympic gold medalist boxer Robert Wangila Napunyi. Mr Trump was bombastic then, but nothing foretold a proclivity for fascism. It's true the press has uncovered racially discriminatory business practices against him. He's been accused of being crude, deceptive, and exploitative as a businessman. But what we've seen since he entered politics last year has been both shocking and outlandish.

Mr Trump the politician is a direct scion of the Tea Party, the American offspring of Senator Barack Hussein Obama's capture of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — also known as the White House. The Tea Party was a white racist backlash against the election of the first African-American President of the United States. The Republican Party — stinging from the loss to Mr Obama — encouraged, winked at, and egged on the Tea Party.

They used it as an anvil to delegitimise Mr Obama's push for universal health care, a more benign American policy abroad, and his domestic agenda to curtail inequality and use government to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable. The Tea Party virtually took over the Republican Party.

Mainstream Republicans — politicians, opinion leaders, and intellectuals — stood by as the Tea Party heaped the most unmentionable epithets against President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. They alleged that Mr Obama was a Kenyan — born in Kenya, and therefore ineligible to be US President.

It's true Mr Obama is a Kenyan – an American of Kenyan descent — but he was born in the American state of Hawaii. But the Birther Movement — a racist column that couldn't accept the fact Mr Obama and his black family were occupants of the White House — was beside itself with fury. Even a Republican Congressman publicly called President Obama a liar as he gave the State of the Union Address.

Mr Trump is a "birther" who has never truly repented, despite recent statements. He even suggested that Mr Obama was an academic fraud who should produce his Columbia University and Harvard Law School transcripts to prove he actually earned his degrees.

Again, the mainstream Republicans refused to repudiate Mr Trump. That's until Mr Trump took over their party. Mr Trump, a television celebrity on a show called Apprentice, honed a knack for buffoonery. He put that skill to good use as a candidate. He captured the imagination of the alienated white working class when he kicked off his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers. He assailed

Muslims, persons with disabilities, African-Americans, and women. That's when Republicans began to cringe.

But by then it was too late. Mr Trump had dismantled the entire Republican field in the primaries. A buffoon with a small IQ had taken over the Republican Party. He lambasted his own party and used the crudest terms not heard in public discourse in decades.

 In my view, no nominee of a major party has ever been less intelligent, knew the less, and was the most unprepared to assume of the Presidency of the United States. Many Republicans, including the respected conservative ideologue George Will, have divorced the Republican in the wake Trump's takeover. Many prominent Republicans, including 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, have publicly renounced him. The beast Republicans created has come back to devour them.

Mr Trump, and the hate that drives him and his rabid supporters, is a creation of a racist Republican Party. Secretary Clinton, should be the clear choice for America and the world. She is brilliant, accomplished, and compassionate.

 She represents the hope and aspirations of American democracy. She would build on President Obama's great legacy. Mr Trump, on the other hand, would take us back to Nazi Germany. Anything is possible in a democracy, but my crystal ball tells me Mr Trump will lose in a landslide in November.