Why no “observers”?

I have a soft corner for the former president of the US Mr. Jimmy Carter. He paid for his honesty by being denied a second term because he used the term ”malaise” to describe what the country was going through – double digit inflation, prime lending rate on par, to contain inflation by deflating the economy, the Iran Hostage crisis, the failure of “Desert Storm” operation, and of course, his call to Americans to tighten their belts, by setting the thermostat to, oh, my! 80^o F; not 68^o F when the outside temperature was 90+^o F with matching humidity levels.

After a few years after demitting office, he became some sort of an “elder” and set himself up as an impartial “observer” of democracy at work in “shit hole countries” – India was one of them. His imprimatur on the process of elections in other countries was something to be displayed on the mantle of democratic governance; so, people thought.

This is precisely when I slowly fell out with him. Did he not realize that his loss to Reagan showed the deficiencies of the American system? He showed a singular deficiency of learning from one’s own experience. That, if nothing else, showed that he was not an “elder”, or at least a sufficiently introspective one.

Yet, I admired the sincerity of purpose, though misplaced, he displayed. I did not hold it against him that he proclaimed himself a Born-again Christian, but kept his religiosity to himself. Indeed, that was his plus point, I conceded. One is allowed to be stupid and/or irrational in a democracy, I reasoned.

Now, the US is enjoying the presidency of Donald J. Trump and the agony is prolonging, blame mail-in ballots. The sincerity of purpose is as evident in the case of Trump as it was with Carter. Indeed, it is much more in the open; Trump cares for himself and none else. He would have dated Ivanka but for the fact that she is his daughter. The Department of Justice (DoJ) is a lapdog of DJT. “Grabbing their pussy” is as crass as it came but the American public is OK with that. With Trump, what you see is what you get, WYSIWYG! Every day he is setting records

So, why no country on the face of the earth is sending in its “observers”? In one phrase, “the strength of its currency.” Not one country dare question the US, howsoever morally bankrupt it is.

The more pointed question is, “Why is China not sending in its observers?” It moral standing has never been in doubt. It never had any and this would not change. Its currency is as important to global trade as the US Greenback is. Its population is about five times that of the population of US. Its inequality index is on par with that of the US.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. The US, for all its talk of standing up for democracy across the world, never sent in an “observer” into China. The country would not just let them in. Tit-for-tat, anyone?

Turkey, Egypt, Hungary, Saudi Arabia and all other countries do not have a leg to stand on. Their cupboards are open and skeletons are falling out in a jumble. The Brits are shitting in their pants.

Under Trump, the US of A, over four years, has become a “shit hole country” – any country whose leader does not acknowledge the death of nearly a quarter of a million people due to a single possibly controllable cause cannot be described as anything other than the epithet that Trump himself used to describe other countries.

Then, the best country to send in an “observer” to watch the US election jamboree is one such “shit hole country”. I do not wish to name any, but there are many candidates, as Trump sees them.

OK, I will name one: the Republic of South Africa. Trump had the guts to call one of the tallest moral leaders of the world, Nelson Mandela, as someone who doomed the economy of the country. Just to balance the equation, RSA must send in its “observers”. The USA, under Trump is down the shit hole far deeper than RSA ever went, no thanks to one of its legislative arms, the US Senate.

This is my recommendation to Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of RSA.

Yes, if only wishes could come true, Jimmy Cater would make an excellent internal “observer”!

Raghuram Ekambaram