Albert Baldeo (Front row, second from left), stands in solidarity
with Sikh leaders at the Richmond Hill Temple, the
largest in the USA. Albert Baldeo
Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, Oct. 11-17, 2019 BQ
Brief reflection on
Trump’s impeachment
By Roberto Savio
ROME, Oct 7 2019 (IPS) —
It is very likely that the idea
of impeaching Donald Trump
will be a boomerang. Trump
fans are listening to a furious
campaign which smacks of
coup d’etat and call his accusers
traitors who deserve to go
to jail.
In the first three hours
after the announcement of
the Speaker of the House
of Representatives, Nancy
Pelosi, that an impeachment
process would be launched,
Trump received a million dollars,
five million in 24 hours,
and 8.5 million in two days.
His campaign received 50,000
new donors.
Trump won the election
by just under 80,000 votes.
It should be borne in mind
that the US electoral system
does not elect the president
by the majority of the votes of
its citizens, but by delegates
that each State elects to vote
the president. For historical
reasons related to how the
Union was created, the less
populated and less developed
states have proportionately
more delegates than the large
and wealthy states.
Trump ran his campaign
in the less developed and
less populous states, and in
practice ignored the big cities
and the most populous
states, like California. In the
popular vote, that is of citizens,
Democratic candidate
Hilary Clinton won by three
million votes.
I think the Democrats
have done Trump a great
favour. In any case, even if
the impeachment passes in
the House of Representatives
(where the Democrats have
a majority), it has very little
chance that it will pass in the
Senate where, again for historical
reasons linked to the
creation of the United States
of America, each state has
two senators, regardless of its
population. Wyoming, with
578,000 inhabitants, has two
senators, as does California,
the most populous state in
the country, with 37.2 million
people.
And it is precisely the less
developed states and those
with smaller populations
that allow Republicans to
have the majority in the Senate.
For the impeachment to
be successful, a two-thirds
majority of senators would
be needed, which is highly
unlikely.
The only possibility is to
increase the number of voters,
who do not exceed 50
percent of those who have
the right to vote. But will
the impeachment have this
impact? Are the citizens of
the less developed states
going to increase their electoral
participation in protest
at Trump’s actions? There
is no evidence of this, and
much will depend on who
the Democratic candidate is
going to be.
The camapign of demonising
Joe Biden is going to have
some impact. And the progressive
candidates, Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren,
are the kind of politicians
who seem too elitist
in the states that vote for
Trump. They are very conservative
regions, and Trump
has the unconditional support
of the Evangelical
Church, which is estimated
at 40 million parishioners,
while the Catholic Church is
very conservative.
Obviously, if there is an
economic crisis, this could
have a transverse impact
since Americans traditionally
vote with their pockets.
But, for the moment, 90% of
Republican voters — as well
as his parliamentarians —
remain loyal to Trump.
Herein lies the fragility of
democracy, when it is based
on non-democratic rules.
Boris Johnson was elected
prime minister, not by the
British people, but by around
160,000 members of the
Conservative Party. The difference
is that Johnson has
had to expel 21 members of
his party, all high-profile parliamentarians.
He has been blocked on
his personalist and authoritarian
path by the Supreme
Court, which has annulled
his decision to prorogate Parliament.
In the United States,
no like-minded parliamentarian
has criticised Trump,
and the Supreme Court has
a Republican majority, which
will change the American
legal system considerably.
The lesson that comes out
of all this is that democracy
works if it has laws that guarantee
the balance of powers
and there is a conscious and
interested citizenship in the
common good, not divided
in a partisan way, where the
other is considered an enemy
and not one that has different
ideas.
The case of Brexit and
Trump are good examples.
But let’s not forget the case
of Hungary, where Viktor
Orban, after being democratically
elected, developed
a xenophobic policy against
migrants, carried out tight
control of the press, the
National Election Commission
and the judiciary,
enriched his faithful with
funds from the EU, changed
the entire electoral system
accommodating it to his
party and then declared himself
follower of an illiberal
democracy.
By Albert Baldeo
We condemn the surge of violence,
hate crimes and attacks all
across America, from the murder
of Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal,
a Sikh police officer who was
recently murdered in Texas, the
murder of Bronx police officer
Brian Mulkeen who died in a
case of friendly-fire while trying
to arrest an armed man, Maulama
Akonjee and Thara Uddin
both immigrants from Bangladesh
and fathers of three who
were walking home from midday
prayer when they were killed,
to the several other unreported
crimes.
We must condemn all hate
crimes and call for the fullest
punishment under the law. An
attack on any person is an attack
on all of us. We also recall the
recent atrocious attack on a
Hindu priest, Swami Ji Harish
Chander Puri, who had to be
hospitalized from the bruises and
abrasions he received when he
was targeted at the Shiv Shakti
Peeth Temple in Glen Oaks.
Since Aug. 5, 2012, when a
neo-Nazi gunman walked into
a Sikh temple in Oak Creek,
Wisconsin and opened fire, killing
six worshippers and injuring
several more, the largest mass
shooting in a house of worship
in America, violence and hate
crimes have increased alarmingly.
The FBI, which tracks anti-
Sikh, Hindu, Arab-American,
Buddhist, Mormon, Jehovah’s
Witness and Orthodox Christian
communities hate crimes,
announced that hate crimes
have increased by 16.7 percent
and anti-Sikh hate crimes by
more than 243 percent, although
these statistics do not include the
many more unreported crimes.
We must unite and eradicate
these crimes, and assist law
enforcement in bringing them
to their attention and action.
Albert Baldeo is the president
of the Queens Justice Center and
Baldeo Foundation, 106-11 Liberty
Avenue, Ozone Park, NY
11417.
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