Malaysia's Tenth Prime Minister

Malaysia's Tenth Prime Minister
YAB Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim

Friday, November 6, 2020

Eyeing Biden's rousing speech.

My fellow Americans,

Let us stand for a moment of silence for the more than 200,000 Americans who have died needlessly of coronavirus.


America is at a tipping point. We are at the hour of maximum danger. The earth is at its hour of peril. Four years ago, Donald Trump promised to put America first, and he did. America is now first in the world in the number of coronavirus cases, first in the number of pandemic deaths, first in the total acres of forests burned by wildfires, and first in the frequency and ferocity of hurricanes in a season, and first in the outbreaks of racial violence and wrongful deaths. 


The Arctic is melting fast, the sea levels are rising rapidly. The earth’s surface is overheating. 


And never in the history of America has its president told so many lies while in office, at an alarming rate of 20 per day, and over 20,000 in total. He breaks the Guinness Records for the number of presidential lies told. That, too, is America’s first.


Trump wants four more years. But can America and the world survive another four years of unchecked madness ? As my running mate Kamala Harris puts it “The president he has been will be the president he will be”, only more terrifying and reckless. In Roman times, Nero fiddled while Rome burned. In today’s America, Trump golfs while the West Coast incinerates. In under four years, Trump has clocked over 18,000 hours of executive time and over 9000 hours on the golf course. 


He is the only sitting president to have dozens of books written about him, most stinking to high heaven, by his lawyers, former officials and his own niece. You don’t have to read the books, their titles tell you all you need to know about this man: “Fire and Fury”; “Fear”; “Rage”; “Unhinged”, “Disloyal”, “Collusion”. We never thought that such words would apply to an American president. He is mentally and morally unfit for office; he has never grown into the job. He still behaves like the bombastic host of the reality show he once was, firing officials and his own appointees at will. At last count, 415 of them were out the door, voluntarily or involuntarily. He does not fear God or believe in science. He governs by tweets, dishes out insults, and gets his way by sharp elbows.


 Domestically, he is against social distancing. But internationally, he has social-distanced America from its allies and believers.


Don’t get me wrong. Some people love Trump. I can think of three types who do: comedians, lawyers, and psychologists. Comedians like Stephen Colbert love him because he is an endless source of stupidity and buffoonery. Lawyers love him because he is in eternal need of their services to defend him against multiple lawsuits for sexual assault, tax fraud or business improprieties, as well as his historic impeachment. Trump is the psychologist’s favorite because he is a textbook case for infantile, psychotic behavior. Under Trump, the American presidency has become the world’s laughingstock and a sick joke.


Trump’s favorite animal is the scapegoat. Everything bad that happens is a hoax or somebody else’s fault. But there is one person he never points a finger at: Vladimir Putin. I wonder why ?  When he met Putin in Helsinki, he made sure no American official was present, except for the interpreter. And when the meeting was over, he seized her notes. Again, I wonder why ? Why the super-secrecy ? What does Putin have on Trump ? The suspense is killing us. Why not put “pee-gate” to rest once and for all and let’s see the videotapes of the yellowish bedsheet in a Moscow hotel ? I salute Putin as the greatest strategist of all time. Without spending a single Russian ruble, or pointing a gun, he has got Trump under his thumb. Trump is not making America Great Again. He is making Russia Great Again.

 

Look around you. Ask yourself: Is America a happy place ? Forget about being great. As one man said to me: How can I be happy ? I have lost my job, my car, and my house. My wife has left me, and Trump is in the White House.

You want four more years of this miserable man ? Give him back his old job as host of a reality show, where he can do the least harm.


 For Trump there is no Me-too Movement, only the Me-Me movement —turning the Attorney General, Secretary of State and Postmaster General into his personal attack dogs.

 

They say we can know a man by the company he keeps, and Americans have seen the parade of immoral characters or convicted criminals, the likes of Jeffrey Epstein, Jerry Falwell Jr., or Roger Stone who inhabit Trump’s social or inner circle.


America is at the hour of maximum danger. For the first time in our history, we have a president with a twisted logic and a “win-at-all-costs” murderous mindset, openly declaring that if he loses the election, it is rigged; if he wins, it is unrigged. A desperate man will do desperate things. He has sabotaged the Postal Service to tamper with the mail-in vote. If Trump loses, the army will have to drag him out of the White House, because he won’t leave voluntarily. Trump is a dangerous loser. If he loses the election, he might declare martial law to circumvent the constitution. For the first time in its history, America may not have a peaceful and orderly transfer of power. We may be teetering on the brink of another bloody civil war-- all because of one man. This man sends a chill down our spines. James Mattis told us that as Secretary of Defense, he slept in his gym clothes and kept a warning light outside his shower and prayed a lot in case Trump had done the unthinkable and the apocalyptic.


 Almighty God, what have we done to deserve Trump ?

Trump has called the pandemic a hoax, that it will go away by itself. Now he says a vaccine will be ready a few days before the election. How convenient ! Mr President, we want to believe you. But just to be sure, can you swear on the bible that you will put your arm where your mouth is, and be the first person to take the jab for the new vaccine ? If you do, I might even consider asking your niece to vote for you.

I must say I am profoundly disappointed by my Republican colleagues. Theirs is the party of Abraham Lincoln, not of an unleashed financial and sexual predator or racial divider. Show us your integrity and courage, and throw your amoral candidate under the bus. Give us a decent and honorable leader we can honorably compete against. We want to win fair and square, but neither do we want to lose ugly. If Republican politicians think they need to be on Trump’s coattails to win another term, be careful, his filthy coattails may turn out to be your political shroud.


Trump has insulted everybody in sight, living, dying or dead. He has even called our honored war dead “losers and suckers”. On November 3, make sure that “Putin’s poodle” is permanently leashed, kenneled, and neutered. Make sure there is no Trump Act 2. Otherwise, we are all “losers and suckers.”