Warning to Americans

We humans are so contradictory! We are individually and collectively contradictory. What we are individually affects each of us; what we are collectively hurts us as a society. We also fail to learn from the experiences of others. It is incredible that in the third millennium we continue to be enamored by snake charmers. Even more incredible is the fact that the recipe of being powerful, gross, deceitful, boastful, xenophobic, classist, racist, and another long list of “-ists” works to the point of being more arrogant, more rude, more deceitful, more boastful, more xenophobic, more classist, racist and more of all the other missing “-ists,” and allows a lunatic to rise in the polls and become more popular every day.

The experiences of Nazism, fascism, Maoism, and Stalinism in the 20th century have served as deterrents against new, similar experiments. However, it is said that “man is the only animal that trips over the same rock twice (or many times).” There are sociologists and psychologists who say that it is because man with his rationality tries the same failed recipe to see if the result is different. Animals are more basic beings, which is why they don’t experiment twice. And at this point I don’t know who is more rational, the animals or us humans.

I have been following the U.S. presidential campaign – as I think all of us earthlings should do – with much interest. Donald Trump is an uncontrolled madman unleashed by his fellow citizens. He is a kind of institutionalized madman for those who allow anything, and like madmen, ends up destroying the country. It seems incredible that with every lie he tells, Trump rises in the polls; people “tripping over the same rock,” as the saying goes. Perhaps the recent allegations of sexual assault will stop his dizzying ascension, revealing once again a puritanical northern society. “Do as I say, not as I do.” Despite his slogan that he is going to “Make America Great Again,” what he can achieve is coming to an end.

By proposing to repatriate undocumented Mexican immigrants (who do the work that the locals don’t want to do), build a wall, and, on top of that have Mexico pay, is one of the craziest issues that have arisen with Trump, but one that has brought him the most followers. Gen. Juan Vicente Gómez claimed that unlike a good unsophisticated person, the truly crazy ones are the ones who eat excrement.* The people who do or say outrageous things and depend on using craziness as a shield should have to eat excrement. People who are truly crazy will eat it but those who pretend to be will not. I don’t think Trump would do it, and it tortures me to think that if he wins the election, he might have the power to declare war, send soldiers anywhere he pleases, and even launch nuclear weapons. A problem for the world indeed. The most powerful country in the world with an arrogant megalomaniac controlling its destiny is a threat to humanity. Trump might have the world smelling sulfur…

We Venezuelans already know, painfully and sadly, the danger of giving power to one of these individuals. We have experienced firsthand what it is to have someone in power with the same look, the same fanaticism. Don’t say that the Americans weren’t warned of the danger.

*Editor’s note: Juan Vicente Gomez was president of Venezuela intermittently between 1908-1914, 1922-1929 and 1931-1935.