We owe it to our children to stand up and defend truth

By now even children in the farthest reaches of the American Empire – like Kenya – know that President Donald Trump is the most unpopular occupant of the White House since the advent of polling. The New York real estate mogul, who beat the most experienced candidate to run for American president, has turned out to be a total disaster. Many who voted for him rue their decision and hope they had pulled the lever for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. But as former Machakos gubernatorial candidate Wavinya Ndeti would say “Yaliondwele sipite” (a corruption of “Yaliopita si ndwele tugange yanjayo”) – which means “let’s look to the future, and stop obsessing about the past.” Except in this case, we shouldn’t forget the past.

Some Kenyans like to say “accept and move on” which is a code word for us to abandon our conscience. No – never. I am afraid whether it’s in the United States with Mr Trump, or in Kenya, we simply will not accept and move on. We owe it to our children and their children to stand in the breach and speak truth to power. It doesn’t matter if we have to do so until the return of Noah’s Ark. I make this point not so much to interrogate Kenya’s debacle of elections, but to get into the minds of those Kenyans who are in love with Trump. Trump is everything they are not, but yet they will go to the barricades to defend him.