Fall is approaching, so is the apple season in America. My neighbor has a tall apple tree whose numerous beautiful fruits are hanging. I start with casually picking the low hanging fruit. Deep into the season when most of the apples become ripe, I stand under the tree. Many ripe apples fall to the ground just on their own. I do not have to make any effort at all besides walking with my basket and picking up the beautiful ripe apples. This is actually true for all fully ripening fruit; wild fruits such as Masuku and mbula, peaches, apricots, oranges, and especially mangoes. I have stood under mango trees all my life in Zambia and have seen tons of beautiful delicious mangoes almost hit my head when they are very ripe.
As the Presidential election campaign has gotten very heated here in America, there are established ingrained policy arguments that responsible voters have to mull over; which candidate is better at handling immigration and the problems of illegal migrants at the Southern border with Mexico, crime, abortion, Ukraine aid, Israel/Gaza war, Taxes, health care, climate, and the economy. All presidents benefit from the falling ripe mangoes syndrome. As soon as each of the 46 previous American Presidents elect had completed his inauguration, they could have entered the White House (which is the American State House) and just laid down on the couch in the oval office for four years and done nothing.
If the economy thrives, they will be called economic geniuses even if they did not even lift their smallest finger to fix the economy. If the economy implodes while the President is laying down on the oval office couch, the blame will even be louder. In American politics, we generally accept these unearned advantages and disadvantages of the economy for who is occupying the Presidency.
When pollsters ask voters who they trust to handle the economy better, they consistently choose Trump over Kamala Harris. It is well understood that Harris has never been President before. What the American voters should be asking is besides the benefit of the falling ripe apples or mangoes syndrome, what did Trump specifically actually do that might have caused the economy to improve during his 4 years in office?
The benefit of the Trump tax cuts went to the richest 1% of the population. He did not have to fight and sweat to get the tax cut legislation through Congress because he and his rich class friends were going to directly benefit from the legislation. The middle and working class did not benefit much. Instead, 2.7 million jobs were lost during the Trump presidency. The economic growth rate was -2.2%. He added 7 trillion dollars to the national debt mainly because of the massive tax cut for the rich.
His handling of the Covin pandemic was a disaster and a tragedy as there was chaos and just lack of a steady hand and effective leadership that should have been grounded in reality during an emergency of such national magnitude. Bob Woodward’s interview with Trump during the early months of 2021 revealed Trump had deer, insa, nyiska in the car headlights reaction, he shrunk, and was clueless in the face of the oncoming deadly pandemic. Over one million Americans died. What should amaze you and me is why anyone in their right mind would still want to vote this man back to being President again. He only talks big.
What I suspect is that when we humans experience a great tragedy that was the Covid 19 trauma and collapsed economy, our minds cannot handle the difficult memories of the trauma. Instead, we focus on some of the pleasant memories however small those memories might have been. We experience psychological amnesia. Hence the rosy opinions of some of the (Make America Great Again) MAGA American political supporters and others who say the country was economically doing great during Trump’s presidency and supermarket prices and inflation were low.
Beyond taking advantage of the falling ripe apples syndrome about the economy, Trump also takes advantage of the so-called low information voter which may be a large swath of the national American population. Unless you are a talking head political pundit, news nerd or politics junkie, you will not follow the numerous Trump lies and get into the weeds of fact checking the lies. You will have no ability or time to fact check the prolific number of false statements he makes every day. Nine years since 2015, most Americans have to realize that whenever Trump stands before a microphone now and moves his lips, he is telling lies. Lies appear unfortunately for the country to be his oxygen which gives him political life.
If he won and he implemented his dangerous Project 2025, we will not be living in the America of peace and tranquility that we have known.
By Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
“All presidents benefit from the falling ripe mangoes..”
There is nothing wrong in bringing back the 45th president because mangoes/apples would not stop falling down and you continue filling up your chisuwo baskets anyway. Disinformation and misinformation always thrive as seasonal mangoes do. So don’t paint him black just because you think Harris must carry the day. Infact it is such write-up that makes voters fall for Trump, as pollsters rightly confirm.
Unfortunately, the audience here will not be voting in American elections. We are being informed. Someone said that a person who informs on what does not affect people is boasting. Information must be practically useful to the recipient.