KARANJA: American dog whistle political chickens coming home to roost

Last Saturday, Donald Trump campaign rallies descended into total chaos with one rally in the very ethnically mixed second city of Chicago (as Chicagoans like to call themselves – presumably second to New York) being cancelled as protesters who seemed to number as many as Trump supporters, shut it down.

Most of the Republican Party’s support comes from the rural, whiter areas of all the states within the USA, with the bigger more diverse cities generally siding with Democrats.

On this occasion, Donald Trump had a rally scheduled inside the city of Chicago, perhaps in an attempt to test the waters in urban more diverse areas, where Republicans never do well. Perhaps Trump is hoping to make headway if indeed he is going to stretch his lead for the primary, but in particular for the general election against a Democrat, most likely, Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and patently racist rhetoric finally came back to bite him in the backside and the result was the ugly scenes witnessed.

The Republican Party has for years used coded language to stoke racial fear and hatred in an attempt to attract votes from America’s poorer whites who have well documented fear, anger and resentment toward other recent immigrants, who have been mostly Latino and Asian.

Finally, Donald Trump came along and just did away with the dog whistles and simply started using straight racist, bigoted, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, xenophobic language.

Kenyans are used to seeing politicians brawling, name calling and behaving badly. Not so much for United States Presidential elections which have looked like a very civil affair at least as far as recent memory.

The fights taking place this last weekend were more reminiscent of a much younger evolving democracy such as many of Africa, Latin America and Asia’s democracies, not the 200+ year old American democracy.

So what’s the takeaway for Kenyans other than the Schadenfreude of seeing those who like to lecture us about our politics showing themselves out to be not much more evolved.

It shows clearly that there are problems of tribalism everywhere. America has several different sets of tribes. Like Kenya whose two big tribal divisions seem to be represented under the umbrella of Cord and Jubilee, America’s tribes fall under the Republicans on the right of the ideological divide (or GOP as they are sometimes called), and the Democrats on the left.

America is further divided along racial and cultural lines between blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians. In America however, the biggest coalition across the racial lines is the Democratic coalition which enjoys the support of all the different racial minorities including Latinos, Asians and blacks with African Americans forming the bulk of the Democratic Party’s base.

The second lesson beyond the obvious one of tribe/race/political ideology is the fact that clearly, any populace, no matter how advanced has its problems and those problems could easily be exploited to the very negative result that was witnessed this last weekend.

Alternatively those problems can be used as a rallying and unifying point to provide solutions for the population indeed no matter how challenged and young a Democracy might be.

Kenyans should heed the example of America to see that it is indeed very much up to us to think carefully about the leaders we support and hold up. The American Republican Party is currently getting exactly the leadership they themselves have chosen and probably deserve. In the same token, Kenyans are responsible under the new constitution for the leaders they pick, and indeed, will continue to get the leadership that we deserve.

Kenya is still on very shaky and youthful ground politically. However, Kenyans paying close attention to their political process, holding their leaders both in government and the opposition to high standards of accountability and delivery on their promises will give Kenya a more solid foundation for her young democracy.

Is the government delivering on its promises? If not, is this as a result of government inaction, or has the opposition played a role of obstructionism similar to the Republican Party under Obama’s Presidency? Are Kenyans getting their money’s worth from the fourth estate of journalism? Has the media been a fair, balanced and unbiased source of information?

The biggest lesson from the current American Presidential race is that no country or population is immune from the lack of reason.

Kenyans should demand a new politics that debates ideology and seeks to provide solutions to Kenya’s problems through a political philosophy that deals with the issues of an emerging African economic power such as ours.

Kenyans have to be extremely vigilant in refusing the politics of name-calling, hate, tribalism and xenophobia. Kenyans must demand much higher standards from their leaders and when the leaders fail to deliver, throw them out.

This must include the opposition which has a responsibility to hold the government accountable but also to assist in pushing Kenya’s agenda. Kenyans have it in their ability to demand a politics of dignity, fairness and equality for all sectors of the population, and indeed they must.