US, Kenya election similarities offer food for thought on 2022

The US presidential election season is progressing rather more slowly than expected, with the election just over a year away in November 2020. In fact, even though ours are due in 2022, there is more energy, intrigues, backstabbing and rabble-rousing than in the US. The Republican ticket is all but sealed with Donald Trump assured of getting re-nominated unless he declines, or something really negative happens. It is unclear what sort of sordid revelation could ever prove debilitating for Mr Trump, for he has a knack of surviving incredibly negative and sordid revelations like no one else.  

He lied about the crowd size at his inauguration and forced the authorities to manipulate pictures to prove his lie. He has refused to publicly disclose his taxes—a first for anyone seeking political office in the US—and gotten away with it. And recently, he got confused about the path of Hurricane Dorian, and instead of admitting his mistake, he changed the metrological map with a marker, and then got government experts to back up his lie! Mr Trump is aware of his Teflon-like image and he famously stated in 2016 at a rally in Iowa that “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”