Dear Editor,
Deplorables on both sides. Serious trust issues within both camps and with voters. What can be termed only as largely trenchant bigoted, tit-for-tat, retaliatory, senseless and blind voting. A campaign run on personality attacks and scandal rather than on substance. A country bitterly divided. A large swathe of voters who are disgusted on both sides but will still relent to their inner fears, prejudices and hatreds and vote. Ethnic prejudice flaring and flying high. Rage against the establishment running wild. Decrepit candidates.
A mountain of frightening baggage. A propensity to avoid and distort the truth. Shocking affiliations, connections and friendships. Crass vulgarity on full display and often accepted, condoned and overlooked. Political interference by state resources. A terrifying lunacy that envelopes this entire campaign. No, this isn’t Guyana. It is the mighty United States of America. The most destructive elements of Third World politics and electioneering are now the dominant headlines of the world’s foremost democracy.
Some will gleefully (foolishly so) point to the degradation of American politics and the laughing stock it has become in the last six months. Others fear for its democratic foundations after this fiasco. Guyanese at home will wonder how this could have happened while Guyanese-Americans will wonder whether they have returned to Guyana with this political and electoral nightmare. But no matter how much this madness looks like Guyana or feels like Guyana, this country, the great USA, can never be Guyana. Come November 9, after this foreboding period of fear and loathing, this country will return to defending its citizenry, advocating for their best interests and seeking to protect its democratic foundations. And those who were throwing barbs at each other just a day ago will undeniably hold steadfast together to these principles.
Yes, a new US president can alter some things but the system as a whole is built on something infinitely better than Guyana. Unlike Guyana, this electoral tribulation in the USA will not become a foundation for retaliation or aggrandizement. Unlike Guyana, the US system is built with enough buffers to prevent runaway opprobrium. There are protective and corrective measures. There are campaign finance laws that prevent lowlifes from funding their protection. There is separation of powers. There is rule of law, which has departed Guyana since the sixties. The vast network of people who are ready to defend their and their country’s rights will persevere against those who they believe attempt to use power against the basic constructs of the democratic core of the society. It happened ferociously during the Bush and Obama presidencies.
So, no matter how ugly the elections get in the USA, the system works overtime to prevent executive lawlessness. It works to prevent the kind of corruption that takes hold in Guyana when power is achieved. The nastiness in Guyana’s election is only a precursor to executive debauchery that continues after the election. In the USA, the game changes noticeably.
People in the USA will see change whether it is good or bad. The people of the USA possess the courage of their convictions that Guyanese never had or will never likely attain. They can elect failed candidates to the highest office of the land and turn around dramatically in 4 or 8 years and vanquish them electorally. They will not hold onto those who will kill their economic interests or sink their country. They are more willing to look beyond race to find relief. There are systems in place that help a country like the USA move forcefully beyond bitter electoral campaigns. They help to cure the bitterness and rage that may accompany those campaigns. They remind voters that there is a country to build, prosperity to secure and democracy to strengthen after the turmoil of electioneering is past. They help to protect the citizenry from executive abuse of power or tit for tat punitive action.
In Guyana, there is largely no separation from the election to the assumption of power. What obtains is a vast continuation of the worst excesses of what is always a vitriolic campaign. The country always suffers. Finally, whoever gains power after this election will, notwithstanding their failures, still make more profound changes for the betterment of America in 4 or 8 years than any political party has ever made for Guyana in decades of power. It is why even as the worst of Third World electioneering unfolds in the mighty USA, the vast majority of Guyanese at home would take a free visa to its shores in a heartbeat.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
