ImageAFPImageThere have been numerous different oil militant groups in Nigeria
A militant group in Nigeria says it has bombed three pipelines in the south of the country in the latest attack on the country's crucial oil industry.
The claim by the Niger Delta Avengers has not been independently confirmed.
The NDA, the latest militant group to emerge in Nigeria, is demanding that a greater share of oil wealth be spent on ending poverty in local communities.
Attacks resumed earlier this year after funding for former militants was slashed.
Nigeria is one of Africa's biggest oil exporters and it is the country's main export earner.
Nigeria's government and the Dutch-British oil company Shell, which operates the pipelines, have not yet commented on the alleged attack.
The NDA said it had blown up three trunk lines carrying 300,000 barrels of oil a day to Shell's Bonny export terminal in southern Bayelsa state.
Destruction of oil installations by successive militant organisations have severely disrupted crude production.
But an amnesty programme for former militants led to a period of relative peace until earlier this year.
Talks to resolve the conflict have been taking place in recent months, resulting in a delicate ceasefire, but those talks stalled at the beginning of November.
Since then there has been a sharp increase in attacks.
President stands his ground: By Martin Patience, BBC News, Lagos
ImageAFP
The continued attacks on pipelines are slashing Nigeria's oil production - and hammering an economy reeling from its worst recession in years.
This month, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari met leaders from the Niger Delta in a bid to end the violence.
The government also announced a vague plan to invest $1bn in the region - although it didn't spell out where the cash would come from.
Since the high-profile meeting, there have been a slew of attacks.
One of the militants told the BBC that the government was "playing with us" and that it wasn't putting its words into action.
Militant groups say they're fighting for a greater share of the resources for local communities. They also want the government to honour a previous amnesty programme - which offers cash payments and retraining - after its budget was slashed by two-thirds at the start of the year.
The government, however, accuses the militants of holding the country to ransom.
The continued violence is designed to pressure the government into making an agreement.
Despite the enormous economic pain, the president is standing his ground.
Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has released a statement blasting "ignorant" Nigerians calling on him to tear his green card as he had earlier promised to do if Donald Trump emerged winner of the US Presidential election. Read the statement below...
"Let me end with a Red Card to those noisome creatures, the nattering nit-wits of Internet: maybe Trumpland is not as despicable as the Naijaland you impose on our reality from your secure cesspits of anonymity. Go back to school. Your problem is ignorance, ignorance of whatever subject you so readily comment upon.
Learn to study your subject before opening up on issues beyond your grasp. Sometimes you make one feel like swapping one green for another, out of embarassment for occupying the same national space as you. But don’t get nervous, or start jumping for joy too soon – the Nigerian passport is just as tough to rip, physically, as is the Green Card, so I’ll stay put in my private Green Belt – the one I have named the Autonomous Republic of Ijegba. I negotiate my relations with both peoples and nations from its internal protocols – yes, that is indeed arrogance for you, but an arrogance of several decades’ principled growth. I carry that patch of green with me, everywhere, in a secure, invisible, and inaccessible pouch! It is that warehouse of ingrained sensibilities that engendered my decision".
Read the full statement below
I shall begin on a morbid note. One of the horror stories that emerged from the Daesh (Isis) controlled parts of Iraq was the gruesome tale of the mother who had a daughter affected by wanderlust, even in that endangered zone. One day, when she looked for her to attend to some home chores, she found that she had gone missing yet again. As she searched, she shouted in frustration: ”As Allah is my witness, I’ll kill that girl when I catch up with her”. A neighbour overheard and reported her to the Hisbah. The mother was summoned by the mullahs who ordered her to put the child to death, since she had sworn by Allah. She refused, so they took the child by the legs and smashed her head against a wall. End of story. True or false? It certainly was published as true testimony. That is all I have to say to the ”literalists” who obsess over a time scheme of their own assessment. Thus, failure to have torn my Green Card ”the moment” that I learnt that Mr. Donald Trump had won the presidential elections of the USA. It did not matter what I was doing at the time – teaching, eating, swimming, praying, under the shower or whatever. Or a family member saying, ”Wait for me!” – speculatively please, no such disturbance ever took place. If it did however, I am supposed to contact the Nigerian media – to whom I have never spoken, and who never contacted me – except one – to beg permission to pursue a realistic definition of ”the moment”. Media fascism is however, a subject for another day,
For now, that moment having passed, I must be culpable of breaking a solemn promise. By the way, since we are on the terrain of literalism, has anyone attempted to ”tear” or rip apart a Green Card? Even a Credit Card? For the average hands, that would take some doing! I have actually considered garden shears for a dramatic resolution, this being closer to my real profession.
I have been asked several times – interestingly only by the foreign media, with the exception of THE INTERVIEW – whether indeed I did make such a statement at any time, and whether I still intended to carry it out, and the answer remains a categorical ’Yes’. Not recently, mind you, nor, in the inaccurate blazing PUNCH headline of Thursday Nov. 16 , but in the accurate wording that is contained in the actual story on page 9. So, where and when did I first notably make that declaration. Answer: Addressing a group of students at Oxford University and fielding questions. It was NOT a public lecture. I have never summoned a press conference on the issue. The organizers did not invite the (unregistered) Association of Nigerian Internet habituees. It was the accustomed student seminar format that moved from the light-hearted to the serious, the ridiculous and (hopefully) the profound and back again. I even used the encounter to compare my threat with the public antics of a former president – unnamed, I assure you – who tore up his party membership card of a moribund ruling party. Whatever my failings, I do not lack originality, and I was not about to be find myself indebted to that contumacious general!
Nonetheless, did I mean what I said – that is, ’exiting’ the USA? Absolutely, and that is the very theme of this address. It will not attempt to deal with the notion of an exit time-table as conceived by others, as if even the incumbent US president and his replacement are not even permitted over two months to pack their bags and prepare to move in and out of the White House, but must exchange positions the very moment that a winner was proclaimed. Anyone would think that the Brexit Vote made it imperative for the Brits to plunge into the English Channel instantly, instead of negotiating two years for an orderly withdrawal. Plebians like me of course need far less time, nevertheless they do not uproot overnight. Any other proposition speaks of a permanent agenda, of frustration and hidden histories – such as opportunities to rehabilitate themselves in the public eye. There is also recession in the land, and I can understand the psychology of impotence and thus, transferred aggression. Let it be understood – before I move even one word further – that I interrupted my present commitment in the United States solely for an urgent meeting with the Ooni of Ife on an ongoing project. I am obliged to return to the US in a matter of two or three days to complete my interrupted mission. Fortunately, that mision is guaranteed to end long before the United States becomes Trumpland Real Estate.
And now we move from absurd, frankly idiotic distractions to Substance. Why, in any case, am I pulling out of the United States? Why – as demanded of me by some of my genuinely concerned and sober interlocutors around the world – why such an extreme reaction? Why the terminal response to the elections of another land? Also, and perhaps most crucially, why am I left virtually mouth agape at the furore my stance has engendered? I simply fail to understand why this has gone beyond a flurry of public commentary and hilarious cartoons, and turned into a masturbatory for some, a vomitory for others, and an epilleptic sanatorium for a self-reproducing number? Why, in genuine bafflement, do I experience astonishment? Why do people find this commonplace, accessible-to-all act so extraordinary?
The answers to all the foregoing can be summed up in a familiar expression: a life of environmental sanitation, or call it – sanity. My temperament requires a certain minimum level of environmental health to function properly. I use the word ’temperament’ as a historical fact, a personality development that first manifested itself all the way back to student days, and has remained consistent all my life. Nowhere is perfect, certainly not all the time. Nonetheless, every human being has this need, however approximate, some perhaps with objective awareness, others intuitively, some more acutely and intensely than others, especially when defined by their professions, occupations, social and other involvements. The craving is common to all humanity – if I am wrong, then I must have dropped from Mars.
Here now is a potted history of the choices made by this contributor over the years in pursuit of this need, all the way from student days. Read carefully and learn!
As a student in Leeds University, one of whose subjects was Spanish, I steadily refused to accompany other students on long vacation job opportunities in Spain, designed to make us master the spoken part of the language. Apart from the Isle of Man, I went to France and Holland instead, whose languages were not part of my studies. And yet I had already fallen in love with flamenco music – played for us from records by our Spanish lecturer, and was dying to watch flamenco dancing in the flesh. Language study however, involves, as we all know, the study of a people´s history and culture. I had encountered the history of the Spanish Civil War, the violent overthrow of a legitimate Republican government, and the ’white terror’ of the Falangist leader, General Franco. I identified with the volunteer soldiers of the International Brigade. Spain was under boycott in parts of Europe, so there was a choice to be made. I refused to step into Spain until years after I had graduated and returned home, and General Franco was certified dead and buried. A personal choice.
Australia: It is now some twelve to fifteen years since I issued a Red Card to Australia, unannounced. That Red Card subsists till today. The occasion was a conference of PEN International, and I had made the usual visa application. When the forms arrived, I found the requirements for applicants over 70 years (I think) so obnoxious, intrusive, and degrading that I refused to fill them. Negotiations with the Australian government by Australian PEN led to an exception being made for me. When it was communicated, I wrote back: Absolutely Not. I refused to be the token geriatric. That application document was highly disrespectful of age and I wondered what kind of mentality had crafted it, wondered if the Australians themselves knew what image was being projected in their name. I said to our go-betweens: Not for a moment am I equating myself with Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela, but they are older. Does it mean that, if they decide to visit Australia, you would subject them to this form of degradation?
Till today, I have routinely declined any invitation to Australia, a country I had visited years earlier to sumptuous hospitality. I learnt some time ago that the obnoxious requirements have been removed but have not bothered to check. The reason was this follow-up: a journalist heard about my absence from the PEN conference and made enquiries. He interviewed me and I told him the cause. After visiting the Australian embassy for their side of the story, he reported back that the diplomat in charge responded to his questions with the comment that the embassy was too busy with more important matters. did not make a fuss. My position was based on principle but, basically, it was a personal affair between me and Australia. It remains so till today.
China: I did not, could not visit China for years after Tienanman Square. I was dying to visit that remarkable nation of culture and history, itching to go with every invitation. The Chinese ambassador in Nigeria tried to win me over after the ousting of the Gang of Four. I declined, but accepted the books he had told me did not exist while the Thought of Chairman Mao ruled the waves. Even when, years later, one of the top American travel agents organized a visit of Nobel laureates with mouth watering honoraria, I could not bring myself to join others. Constantly swimming before my eyes was the image of armoured trucks and tanks running over students encamped in Tienanmen Square, leaving behind rivulets of blood. Before I eventually accepted an invitation from the University of Beijing, I checked with some of the dissident poets – was it a decent time to visit? Had sufficient time passed for the average survivor of that carnage to obtain closure? Until they gave me the green light, I refused all invitations. Again I did not fuss. I did not call an international press conference in the interim.
Back home to our continent – this time, post-Apartheid South Africa. How many of these hysterical purveyors of Internet obscenities – including some printed media – are aware that for nearly two years, I handed South Africa the Red Card? And why? Because of her then astonishing display of xenophobia, most notably against Nigerians. I was a personal recepient of that treatment which took place – of all occasions imaginable – on the occasion of my visit to deliver a three-part memorial lecture in honour of the late Nelson Mandela. Undoubtedly, on that very occasion, there had been a misunderstanding over visa issuance. Nonetheless, taken in the context of the rampant humiliation of Nigerians at the hands of South African authorities, and the South African civic pockets also, I went to the final lecture with my luggage. The moment I concluded the last of my lectures, I insisted on being driven to the airport, silently shaking off the South African dust off my feet for ever. It was only to my hosts that I uttered the declaration that they were seeing me in their nation for the last time. Until I withdrew the Red Card, I did not summon the Press.
Now, how did that boycott end? It is a remarkable story which deserves its place in the narratives of sheer serendipity. It involved Dennis Brutus, the South African poet, an enlightened Head of Nigerian Immigration and, indirectly, Archishop Desmond Tutu and Albie Sachs, former chairman of the South African Constitutional Court. Also, retrospectively, the role played by Nelson Mandela’s widow, Graca Machel, during my ordeal at the airport. While the boycott lasted however, I declined between seven to nine invitations to South Africa, including a UNESCO event that was however billed to take place there. The ending of that boycott, like the beginning, was ultimately my private and personal decision.
Shall we take Cuba, that revolutionary island where I was personally decorated by Fidel Castro with the Felix Valera medal of honour? Despite all efforts by the then Cuban ambassador to Nigeria, and very valued friends and colleagues in Cuba, I issued her my usual silent card some years ago. I found the execution of those ill-fated adventurers who tried to escape on a raft excessive, not forgetting the shooting down of a hi-jacked plane. Were their acts condemnable? Indisputably! Did the punishment fit the crime however? My answer is obvious – No. Jose Saramago, the late Portuguese Nobelist had apparently taken the same position, as I found out when we both met at a subsequent event in Cuba when our Cuban boycotts eventually ended. Were we wrong or right? That is immaterial. The point is that neither called a press conference or publicised our individual decisions. They were personal decisions, made independently.
And so on, and on, and on….brief to prolonged, reluctant to instant boycotts of places of normally congenial roosting, for a variety of reasons, and dictated by individual temperaments. And so we come finally to Donald Trump, and the sometimes travesty of collective choice.
I was in New York during the run-up to elections. I watched this face, its body language, listened to his uncouth, racist language, his imbecillic harangues, the insults to other peoples, other races, especially the Hispanics, Africans and Afro-Americans, even citing once – I was told – Nigeria as an instance of the burdensome occupation of global space. I watched and listened, disbelievingly, since this was America, supposedly now freed to a large extent – as we like to believe and have a right to expect – from its lamentable history of racism. But I saw, not only this would-be president but – enthusing followers on populist a populist roll at the expense of minorities! I followed the fluctuating poll statistics. I began to warn my colleagues, friends, my family: listen, this thing is happening right before our very eyes. This is how it begins, how humanity ends up with Cambodia, with Rwanda, with Da’esh. We are watching a Hitlerite phenomenon. We are witnessing history in reverse, unravelling before a complacent world. I said to them, if this man wins, I am relocating. It had gone beyond a joke. They all said, it will never happen. Even a day to elections, some Nigerians, with whom I had a meeting in New York, waved off the possibility. The entire world goofed – T.B. Joshua and other pundits, charlattans and experts alike. A colleague at Harvard mentioned the celebrations that would follow the election, but shortly after, confessed his concerns, cursing the FBI man who had chosen to intervene at an unprecedented stage in the elections.
Again, I said to him, I shall relocate if Trump wins. He said, I’m coming with you, echoing numerous other colleagues to whom I had sounded the same alert. I promised them all political asylum! So, it was nothing new, the Oxford comment. Whatever language I used is my familiar language, not the language of Da’esh or its local impotent surrogates.
Finally, here is something very personal, but I have to answer the question of my genuine interlocutors in matching sincerity. Our US base and family home in California – Abacha instigated – faces a rockhill known as Mount Baldy. It has survived the menace of fires, so close to disaster that we were placed on evacuation alert a number of times and were once actually bundled out by the police for over forty-eight hours. A fireball overflew the house on one occasion, landed some distance from ours and consumed that unlucky home. Not too far away, an escaping family took a wrong turn and lost their lives in the flames. Nothing of such menacing interludes ever brought to the fore the remotest consideration of relocating! However – and let this be stressed to all those who are strangers to the world of images – for this individual called Wole Soyinka, the superimposition of the Trumpian face on those bare mountain slabs began to take on reality, a reality that probably became even three-dimensional, like the massive faces of those former US presidents that remain gouged into the peaks of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, visited by millions. My environment, albeit a substitute one for our authentic home in the forests of Ijegba – had become compromised. That is all I shall write on the reality of superimposition – the notion of waking up every day of habitation and seeing on that mountain slab the face of Donald Trump on my borrowed preserve, where, from upstairs, I sometimes stood in bouts of contemplation, especially whenever the house was empty.
For me, something is gone. Again, I speak for myself, not for my family who are, in any case, also American citizens, an acquisition that I have declined I cannot recall how often. Let me repeat, even that portion of empathy that comes from intimate occupancy and usage over the years, and where the products of my ”extra mileage” were born, has become violated. It is still home, second home, but one individual named Donald Trump – and his cohorts – have ruined its hard-earned companionship and serenity, built up over the years. As I keep repeating, these issues are personal.
And so, back from our quick excursions to Asia and the Antipodes, what is so special about America that an agenda of abandonment creates such hysteria? I am incapable of double standards in these matters. Why do individuals feel threatened? I have never invited anyone to join me in my purely personal odyssey, begun before most of these sniveling upstarts were born. Is it the Green Card that sets America apart? Then perhaps it iis time to repay the compliment with a Red card, as in soccer. I am not aware that the world’s oxygen storage tanks are located in the US of A, so that we cannot breathe away from it. I shall always compliment the American success story on many fronts, including the fact that millions of migrants derive their very living – including crucial send-home remittances – from her generosity. Many of us will always be grateful to her government at the time for sheltering both our persons and our mission during the Abacha years. However, we are also individuals, with specific needs, different sensibilities, and definitions of productive environments and thus, up to this moment, my Wolexit stands.
It is a personal thing. Perhaps it will help even further if I remind you of what I wrote in my memoirs: YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN. There I confessed that my greatest – and irrational – fear in exile was that if I died outside Nigeria, my well-meaning family, colleagues and friends, would bring my body home. I took firm steps. The thought of resting within that earth while it was trampled over by a despotic monster whom I thoroughly despised, was the absurd but all-consuming fear that I had all through that deadly struggle. Obviously that fear has been eliminated, but then, having watched this American Wonder rise to power through a contemptible denigration of my sector of humanity, through mockery and jeers of my origin, I no longer find that environment congenial either for work or leisure, and I have signalled my unambiguous intent to exit. No one else is invited.
Well now, a remarkable development. I stated earlier that the issue is not just one individual called Donald Trump, but the human environment that he and his ilk have spawned, one that contributes to a toxic environment across the globe, with the rise of ultra-nationalism and exclusionist politics. That environment is however engendering counter aspects to that created by Trump’s lowest common demonimator in followership. Spontaneous protests have sprung up across the country. Too late, I’m afraid, and ineffectual, since Demoracy has the last word, and its rituals have been concluded. The law of the land will prevail. However, I have been considerably cheered by the spontaneous manifestation of this rejection of the shame and horror that a ”majority” has imposed on the totality. Americans will have to live with it, but there is hope. Even before the street protests, something rather strange had taken place.
On the very morning of the conclusion of elections when I switched away from one news channel to the next, the screen went suddenly blank. Then came a scrolled message that called for a quiet, peaceful revolution. It went on and on, without voice or images, and it was non-partisan, since it rejected not only Trump but Clinton as befitting candidates but declared American democracy a sham. It went on to complicate matters by identifying an individual – Bernie Saunders – by name as an acceptable leader of a new movement. It excoriated past governance policies, dismissed even Obamacare as a failure – I disagree by the way – and urged viewers again and again to LET’S TALK ABOUT IT. LET’S MEET ON THE INTERNET. LET A PEACEFUL REVOLUTION BEGIN etc. etc. It could have been Channel 33 or 34, I am no longer sure. A serious, viable movement? Maybe not sustainable under the present system, but it goes into that multi-faceted network that leads to the eventual sanitization of any socio-political environment. And then, latest of the latest, the state of California has mounted a referendum for secession, within her constitutional rights. Quite an unpredictable prospect but, much as I am predisposed to upheavals by vox populi, I prefer to be out of the environment, being a non-citizen.
Let me end with a Red Card to those noisome creatures, the nattering nit-wits of Internet: maybe Trumpland is not as despicable as the Naijaland you impose on our reality from your secure cesspits of anonymity. Go back to school. Your problem is ignorance, ignorance of whatever subject you so readily comment upon. Learn to study your subject before opening up on issues beyond your grasp. Sometimes you make one feel like swapping one green for another, out of embarassment for occupying the same national space as you. But don’t get nervous, or start jumping for joy too soon – the Nigerian passport is just as tough to rip, physically, as is the Green Card, so I’ll stay put in my private Green Belt – the one I have named the Autonomous Republic of Ijegba. I negotiate my relations with both peoples and nations from its internal protocols – yes, that is indeed arrogance for you, but an arrogance of several decades’ principled growth. I carry that patch of green with me, everywhere, in a secure, invisible, and inaccessible pouch! It is that warehouse of ingrained sensibilities that engendered my decision.
WOLEXIT stands – I coined that deliberately, to signify repossesion of my space of legitimate decisions. The media can nitpick over details – that is your profession. At long last, totally oblivious of the ongoing cacophony that had sprung up in my absence, I finally did receive for the first time a brief questionaire from a Nigerian journal, The INTERVIEW, and one other. I responded. My exit time schema applies, not yours. If it even becomes convenient to bring it forward, I intend to do so, but please don’t come at me with plaints of time imprecision. ! never discussed it with you, nor invited you to a private decision whose execution was already in the making. Do not try to browbeat me. It’s a waste of time – all you have to do is immerse yourselves in my antecedents
Hello everyone, welcome. Please let me share with you this nice piece well fabricated and filled with insights to the controversy of Trump's win. WHY DONALD J TRUMP WON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN 2016 Ozodi Thomas Osuji If you look at the two candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, regardless of your political orientation you are forced to conclude that Hillary is smarter and is the more polished of the two. She appears well schooled in the ways of the political world; she says all the right things. Donald appears like an uneducated bum from the boondocks, a Hilly Billy from the Appalachian backwoods of Kentucky; Trump seems so dumb that you wonder what he is doing wanting to be the president of the world’s greatest economic and political power. However, what this facile assessment of Trump fails in recognizing is the nature of leadership. Leaders articulate what is in the minds of those they lead. Leaders are folks who tune into their peoples psyche and know what they want done and promise to do it. Hillary Clinton is not an American leader in the sense that she did not tune into what true Americans desired. She desires a globalist political economy regardless of its consequences for the average American; she wanted an open door immigration policy that flooded America with nonwhite persons and, more importantly, with Muslims. WHO ARE USA AMERICANS? In 1492 Christopher Columbus became the first European (apart from Scandinavians alleged landing at Iceland and Canada a thousand years ago) to set foot in the Americas. In 1500 the Portuguese landed at Brazil. The Americas were given to the Spanish and Portuguese by the Pope. Other European powers, especially the, Dutch, the French and the English tried to get a piece of the action. In 1587 the English under Raleigh tried settling 100 men at Roanoke, Virginia but failed. In 1607 the English finally made a permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. Thus, began the English experiment in North America. African slaves were brought to Jamestown in 1619 hence Africans have always been party of the USA. When people talked about English America they meant English men and Africans. Of course there were Native Americans in the USA but those were not always seen as part of America; indeed, they were not given American citizenship until 1924 (the Indian Citizenship Act, also called the Snyder Act)! In effect, the USA was founded by Christian English men and is understood as the continuation of England and English culture. Recently, there has been a flood of Muslims into the USA and that changes the dynamics of America. When a critical mass of Muslims in America is reached America will change and no longer be a Christian country. Muslims have a theocratic view of governance; in Muslim political culture, the leader who claims to rule on behalf of Mohammed, who claims to be rooted in the Koran, Sharia and Hadith, is supported by Muslims. This means that Muslim ruled countries will look like something out of seventh century Arabia, something like todays Afghanistan and Iran. The prospect of regressing America to a more primitive stage of human evolution is scary to white Americans but, apparently, Hillary Clinton was not cognizant of it and kept trying to please Muslims by talking about how inclusive her policies are. Anyone who objected to her views, especially her desire to bring in even more Muslims to America, is told about the first amendment to the US constitution that guaranteed freedom of religion and separation of state and religion. It is a red herring to say that the first Amendment of the US constitution guaranteed Islam’s right to be in America. America’s founding fathers were all Christians. What they aimed at accomplishing was to not allow religious wars between the various Christian sects (Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans and Presbyterians etc.) to affect the state; they wanted the various Christian sects to go do their things outside the realm of government. They did not include other religions in the first Amendment. They certainly did not include protecting Islam in their conception of freedom of religion, for, to them Islam was not a religion. Islam, they knew, was a political ideology with which Arabs wanted to dominate the world. The founding fathers were well read men and knew the history of Islam. They knew that Mohammed (570-632 AD) used the sword to convert Arabia to Islam and that upon his death his followers used the sword to convert the entire Middle East, North Arica and Spain to Islam. Europe fought several wars to keep Muslims out of it. Charles Martel, the king of the Franks, in 733 AD fought to get rid of Muslims from France. It took seven hundred years before the Spaniards (ruled by Arab Muslims from 711 AD) under Isabela and Ferdinand finally got rid of Muslims from Spain in 1492. When the Turks (originally from Western China...they had been converted to Islam by Arabs when they expanded eastwards to China) took over the leadership of Islam they invaded Europe from the East and reached the gates of Vienna, Austria and were beaten back on several occasions. Finally, in 1453 Muslim Turks took Constantinople, the capital of Christian Byzantium Empire, and used the sword to convert its hitherto Christian people to Islam. Turkish Muslims, now calling themselves the Ottoman Empire, proceeded to close Europeans overland trading with Asia. To find an alternative sea route to India and China the Spanish and Portuguese inadvertently discovered the Americas in 1492 and 1500 respectively. The Christian West, for three centuries, fought a Holy War, the Crusades, with Muslims aimed at driving Muslims out of their Holy Land, Jerusalem. The founding fathers were aware of this western adversarial history with Muslims and were not sympathetic to Islam, not even a little bit; the first Amendment to the US constitution was not meant to protect Islam in America, as Hillary and her fellow liberals disingenuously argue. The Christian American knows that Islam is the enemy of America and want to keep it out of America and saw Trump as a leader in his fight against Muslim takeover of America. Trump is a leader in that he was able to sense what Americans wanted done, get rid of Muslims from America. AMERICANS ARE CHRISTIANS Americans came from Christian Europe and consider themselves Christians. Of course, there is admixture of agnostics and atheists in the American population, for not everyone accepts the idea that God created this world. There are other religions in the world such as Hinduism, Buddhism and so on. Americans allow those religions to come and practice their religions in America. But no one has the illusion that the dominant religion of America is not Christianity. What happened, lately, is that Muslims were allowed to come to the USA and suddenly they began talking about Islamizing America or trying to place their religion on equal footing with Christianity. Indeed, the radical parts of them talk about imposing their Koran, Sharia and Hadith on Americans! Such radical Muslims claim that their Muslim law precedes the US constitution and, indeed, teach that Muslims should not obey the US constitution for it is manmade and, instead, should only obey Muslim laws, Sharia for it supposedly came from God! How do we know that the Koran came from God? It is because Mohammed claimed to have heard the voice of the angel Gabriel dictating the contents of the book to him. How do we know that the voice he heard is from the angel Gabriel, assuming that angels exist; how do we know that he was not a paranoid schizophrenic hallucinating and projecting his voices to what he called God? We do not know any of these things to be true or false. One can only accept them on faith! What we know from empirical observation is that wherever Islam is imposed, such as the Middle East, people in it invariably live in seventh century Arabian culture, a non-scientific culture. Here then come Muslims trying to return America to a primitive stage of social evolution! This is, to Christian Americans, as alarming as alarming can be. Liberals, under the guise of the first amendment to the constitution, talk about allowing Muslims to build their mosques wherever they want to and spreading their religion in America. Indeed, after their terrorists destroyed the twin towers of the world trade center in New York, Muslims wanted to build their mosque there! Barack Obama saw nothing wrong with that desire! Obama did not recognize the implication of what Muslims wanted to do: show their defeat of Christianity and colonization of North America! Or, maybe, he is in cahoots with them and wants them to take over America? Many Christians suspect that Obama is a Manchurian candidate planted by Saudi Arabia in a Christian country! Christian Americans know that when Islam reaches a critical mass in America it would try to take over the country. It would do so by exploding suicide bombers all over the country and by committing all sorts of terrorist acts. Through these terrorist acts it would arouse the fear of being killed in Americans and intimidate them to embracing Islam. It should be noted that it was through such means that Muslims took over Christian Middle East and North Africa. There is no doubt that Islam wants to take over the Western world and thereafter establish the world wide Muslim Caliphate that Mohammed envisioned. Liberals do not seem to understand the existential threat to Western civilization posed by Islam and have an open door policy to Muslims. Christian white Americans are aware of the danger of Islam and want that religion kept out of America. Trump reads this message loud and clear and promises them to keep Muslims out of America. THE FEAR OF THE SPREAD OF NON-CHRISTIAN VALUES IN AMERICA Christian culture is predicated on the Bible. The bible provides Christians with a way of life. Clearly, Christians believe in living their lives as their religion’s founder said that they should live: love God and love your neighbor like yourself, and do unto other people as you want them to do to you. There are several passages in the bible telling Christians that a man supposedly having sex with another man or a woman supposedly having sex with a woman is sinful. Despite biblical injunctions against homosexuality, in today’s America liberals teach that any kind of sex between consenting adults is fine. They have embraced homosexuality with gusto; indeed, Barack Obama was lecturing Africans to discard their cultures opposition to homosexuality and embrace homosexuality otherwise he would not give to them the paltry economic aid that his administration gave to them. In the liberal atmosphere of Obama and Hillary’s America, there is little doubt that soon the country would also legalize pedophilia and bestiality; why not, there are people who prefer such sexual acts and in the liberals mind whatever people believe that they are oriented to do is natural and they ought to be allowed to do it. Then is the issue of Abortion. Christians believe that no one has a right to kill other people; they include unborn children in this equation. Thus, many of them oppose abortion. Hillary not only approves abortion but would permit it all the way before the child is born. From her perspective, a woman has the right to her body and that right includes killing the babies inside them. Christian Americans see these trends in morality as against their religion; they see them as degeneration of their culture. Instead of recognizing their fears they are told that they are backward and ought to embrace the new culture of everything goes. They are told to allow grown men to one day wake up and see themselves as women and go use the same bathrooms as their five year old daughters (and they suspect that their daughters may be raped by these transgender folks). Clearly, homosexuality exists all over the world but evidence shows that when a culture approves it that that culture dies. Greece and Rome embraced homosexuality and pedophilia and became weakened and were defeated by more vigorous races. If many men live the homosexual life style, Christians believe that it is only a matter of time before they contract diseases and die off. America’s culture and civilization will die if a significant number of the people live the homosexual life style. Life affirming Christians therefore kick against the death affirming homosexual life style but are told to get over it and live with-it. Well, they do not want to get over it. Trump articulates their points of views and they voted for him. Homosexuals must recognize that there are people who consider a man putting his penis into another’s anus an absurdity; you cannot be absurd and ask people not to see your absurdity. The normalization of deviancy is offensive to Christians. This does not mean that Christians can wish away homosexuals. Statistically, in every behavior, about three percent of the population deviates from the standard norm; there probably will always be those who deviate from sexual norms and are attracted by homosexuality, pedophilia and bestiality. Absurd behaviors probably will always exist in human society; rational societies generally seek ways to manage these absurdities rather than celebrate them, as Liberal Obama was doing. (As I pointed out elsewhere, it seems that one must find life meaningless and is existentially depressed and seek nihilistic coping measures to do what male homosexuals do.) MULTICULTURALISM We all know that the English founded the USA in 1607 when they settled at Jamestown, Virginia. From there on America has English culture. Lately, folks from all over the world have come to America. These folks from non-English backgrounds were told by anthropologists that all cultures are equal; they imbibed the idea of cultural relativism. Now, they want to have their cultures taught at American schools hence the concept of multiculturalism. Some of these recent Americans resent that English is the medium of instruction at American schools. Immigrants from Latin America where Spanish is spoken want Spanish to be taught at American schools on a coequal level with English (they do not do the same thing in their Latin countries, they do not teach English coequally in their schools). Multiculturalism has led to a cacophony of cultures in America, with each competing to be accepted. The result is that that which held America together, the Anglo Saxon culture is attacked; the social fabric of America is tattered. These days, no one knows what the American culture is, any more. These trends make the original the Anglo Saxon Americans mad at what is happening to their country. They believe that if the trend continues their country would become like third world countries. Africa and Latin America consist of backward countries where no real science and technology comes from so if the USA becomes like them science and technology dies; America would revert to primitive state of being. White Americans want to take their country back from forces that they believe is dragging them backwards. Trump understands this fact. THE CHANGING AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHICS America used to be predominantly white and black. Now, it is about 72% white and 12% black. It is projected that in fifty years, if the current population trends continue, Latin Americans would become the dominant group in the USA. Given that Latin Americans have made no significant contribution to science and technology or to mass culture, for that matter (the world’s pop culture is dominated by black Americans), white Americans fear that their country would become like Latin countries, read primitive countries. As for Africans white folks ask: what exactly is good about Africa, what have they contributed to science and technology? If the answer is negative what makes Africans to feel that they should be admired by white Americans; why should white Americans embrace African cultures? What good has come out of Africa? Honestly: who wants to be like an African, a people that cannot even govern their continent well, a place where corruption is the order of the day? Go to any African country and the first question that enters your mind is: are there human beings who govern this joint? Are there political leaders in Nigeria running the bedlam or is it a wild animal preserve with unsupervised animals doing as they damn please? Americans do not want to be like what they see as third world people; therefore, they fear the increasing changing American demographics. Trump understood this elemental fear in the American psyche. THE EVICERATION OF AMERICA’S INDUSTRIES America began as an agricultural society but when industrialization began in Britain around 1746 Americans quickly embraced industrialization. By the 1830s America began industrializing. This meant manufacturing stuff with machines and the factory system came into being. Cities quickly grew up around factories hence the urbanization of America. This was the way America was until the rise of Asian countries. The owners of America’s factories recognizing that Asian workers are as good as the American worker, if not better, and, additionally, that they are cheap, and wishing to make enormous profits moved their factories to Asia. American factories literally moved to Asia. American factories that hitherto employed millions of high school leavers and paid them living wages were no longer there. Thus, in today’s America the two third of the population that do not go to universities find themselves not having well-paying jobs, and often doing mostly minimum wage jobs. You need to do two such jobs, full time, to be able to make the wage you need to pay your bill, and we are not even talking about supporting families. This incidence makes working class Americans furious at their leaders. The relocation of America’s factories to Asia resulted in the pauperization of America. Everybody sees these things happen but liberals do not seem to mind that Americans are increasingly poor. Obama became the president in 2009 and under his watch the trend accelerated; the only type of jobs he created are mostly minimum wage jobs and or allow those with rare technical skills to make billions of dollars whereas the middle class fell to lower class status. Hillary had no real plans to change the fortunes of the poor. Instead, she used the system to make millions of dollars and became enormously wealthy. She and her husband, Bill Clinton, set up a reported phony Foundation and had folks contribute to the Foundation before they came see her at the State Department, where she was the Secretary of State. Hillary’s apparent corruption and lie telling issues apart, she did not seem to care for the pauperization of Americans. Trump, although a billionaire behaves like a working-class boy! He has kindred spirit with the working stiff. The working poor feel that he understands their pains and would do something about their plight and that is why they voted for him (Hillary told us that she has not gone to a grocery store to shop by herself in over twenty five years; apparently, she has lost touch with the lot of ordinary Americans!). America’s working class want America to stop moving its factories to other countries, to stop exporting their work to third world countries, especially to Mexico, the new low wage country (now that wages are rising in China). RENEGOTIATE ADVERSE TRADE AGREEMENTS Working class Americans want their government to renegotiate trade deals with other countries that allow those countries to dump their goods in America and not allow Americans to sell their goods in them. Japan, for example, dumps it cars in America but American car manufacturers hardly can sell a few cars in Japan. This situation seems unfair regardless of its cause (Japanese culture that asks the Japanese to buy their own goods, not foreign goods). America cannot continue running indefinite trade deficits with other countries; if the trend is not reversed the American economy will collapse. Obama ran the deficit upwards of ten trillion dollars, mostly borrowed from Asian countries. America now owes almost twenty trillion dollars to other entities. This is a travesty and Americans want the situation reversed. THE IRAN DEAL Obama negotiated some kind of deal with Iran that says that Iran is to stop moving towards manufacturing nuclear weapons for ten years after which they are free to resume doing so. As a result of this supposed good deal America released Iran’s moneys in the USA, upwards of $150 billion dollars. Iran is a known supporter of terrorism. In effect, Iran is given money with which to fund those who are out to kill Americans. What kind of deal is this, Americans ask? OBAMA’S DISASTROUS FORIEGN POLICY IN IRAQ AND SYRIA Obama’s foreign policy included appeasing Muslims (he is suspected of been a closet Muslim). In the process America has lost influence in the Middle East. Where there is power vacuum other political actors move in. Russia moved in and is now a power to be reckoned with in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. Hillary is associated with Obama’s Middle East debacle, especially with what happened in Libya and Egypt; if allowed to rule she probably would continue the policy that has produced nothing but chaos in the Middle East. Americans want to either stay out of the Middle East or not go try changing governments in the Middle East; they know that such behavior bring about instabilities in Muslim countries. Muslim countries traditionally have authoritarian forms of governance; trying to make them democratic in a life time is a pie in the sky. If you are going to have foreign policy you had better make yourself seen as strong, not weak, as Obama made America seem. Trump understood these things hence white folks flocked to him. Obama’s precipitous withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and refusal to go to war in Syria when Hafiz Assad crossed the red line he had set for him by using chemical weapons largely created a power vacuum in Syria and Iraq. ISIS emerged to occupy the power vacuum left by Obama and Hillary’s foreign policy. To the extent that ISIS jihadists are killing people in Europe and America, Obama and Clinton are partly responsible for it. Trump understands that strength deters aggressors so a powerful America will deter jihadists from killing Westerners. And if jihadists dared killing Americans America ought to show them force: go in and kill as many of them as if possible so that they learn that what they can do other people can do better; since they like cutting off folks heads their own heads can be cut off, massively! America has the military means to wipe off from the face of the earth the entire Muslim population of the world. Muslims are not the masters of the universe that they fantasize themselves to be. Obama allowed Muslims to run amok killing Westerners as if they have some kind of supernatural power that no one else has. Trump wants to reverse this trend and his desire appeals to the militaristic soul of Anglo Americans. DISCUSSION America has had two hundred and forty years of rule of laws, of elected governments that pass one administration from one to the other; whereas Germany was ruled by dukes, kings and emperors until the end of the First World War, 1918, hence had less than fifteen years’ experience with democracy when Hitler came to power in 1933. Trump is going to rule by the law because he was socialized to American democratic culture. Moreover, given the separation of powers in the American polity, he will do only what Congress and the judiciary allows him to do (even if he appoints three Supreme Court Justices). The other branches of government are simply not going to allow him to rule unconstitutionally and transform America to a third world one man’s rule. America is based on the rule of law and that will continue under Trump’s presidency. The fear that he would become another elected Adolf Hitler who would make America a fascist state is exaggerated. CONCLUSION I can go on and on talking about other issues that led to the rise of Donald Trump, and there are legions of them. However, I hope that the above mentioned ones have given the reader an inkling of why Americans chose Trump as their new leader. A leader is a person who articulates what is in the minds of those he leads; a leader is a person who knows his peoples aspirations and promises to actualize them for them. A leader mobilizes human resources and capital to achieve the goals he knows that his people desire. Americans, for example, desire well-paying jobs; Trump plans to rebuild America’s dilapidated infrastructure and those pay good wages. Whether Trump is going to deliver on his promises or not remain to be seen. The critical point made in this essay is that he senses what his people desire and promises to do it for them. The essay did not evaluate the good or lack of it of what Trump’s white people desire; that is a topic for a different paper. For example, is it good that white Americans want to reduce the number of non-white immigrants in their country? Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD November 9, 2016 Dr. Osuji teaches at the University of Alaska. He can be reached at (907) 310-8176 or (907) 227-5544 or ozodiosuji@gmail.com;oosuji@alasaka.edu
NEW YORK — Donald J. Trump will be the 45th president of the United States, the Associated Press projected Wednesday. He will be the first person to hold the office despite having no prior political or military experience.
The AP officially called the race for Trump at 2:31 a.m. ET.
The Republican nominee’s victory over Hillary Clinton marks a stunning upset that neither the polls nor the pundits saw coming. But Trump, defiant to the end, insisted he would win despite burning bridges with key voting groups and even many Republicans. In winning, Trump upended almost every norm of American politics and apparently changed the shape of the Republican Party.
He spent the final three weeks of his once-unlikely White House bid railing against a “rigged” election, alleging without evidence that voter fraud would be widespread. Trump even hinted at the idea of not conceding the race if he lost, jokingly promising to accept the results of the election “if I win.”
But the brash billionaire also predicted that he would shock the establishment and said his campaign would be “Brexit Plus Plus,” a reference to Britain’s exit from the European Union, which also was not forecast in the polls. And in the end, to borrow one of Trump’s favorite expressions, he did indeed exceed expectations “big league.”
“They all told it wrong from day number one,” Michael Cohen, a longtime Trump adviser and Trump Organization attorney, told Yahoo News.
“America is going to see the change that it deep needs and they’re going to have a leader a real leader,” Cohen added.
Trump spent the night huddled with family and friends, watching the returns inside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where one Trump campaign source initially said some allies expected him to lose and were simply hoping he would outperform Mitt Romney’s showing in the 2012 presidential race. But as the night wore on, the Trump team became more optimistic and began to think the celebrity businessman had a chance, based on razor-thin margins in battleground states. After Ohio was called for Trump, the same source predicted that even the Democrats might also be changing their assessments of Trump’s chances.
Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, described a jubilant atmosphere in his war room in a text to Yahoo News before Trump was projected the winner.
“Absolutely buoyant. We can smell the win,” Conway said.
The crowd that waited to see Trump speak in a ballroom at the Hilton cheered each time a state was called for him. (Unsurprisingly, the television monitors at the event were showing Fox News, the cable news network favored by conservatives on which Trump had appeared often.)
“I had hoped for this,” a second Trump campaign source said. “I knew there was a chance for this, but I gave it a 30 percent chance. I thought we would come up just short.”
Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cheer as they watch election returns during an election night rally, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, in New York. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
Polls had widely shown Trump to be an underdog against Clinton, the Democratic nominee who faced a series of questions over her use of a private email server and how her family foundation interacted with the State Department during her tenure as secretary of state. But those polls were apparently wrong.
Shortly before 2 a.m., Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta appeared on stage at the Javits Center in Manhattan, telling Clinton’s supporters that the candidate would not be appearing.
“We’re not going to have anything more to say tonight,” Podesta told the crowd. “We’ll have more to say tomorrow.”
Podesta added: “We are so proud of you, and we are so proud of her.”
Clinton had enjoyed a double-digit lead over Trump in national polls following the presidential debates, but she saw that cushion evaporate after FBI Director James Comey set off a political firestorm 10 days before Election Day. Comey said newly discovered emails related to the investigation were being reviewed, and Trump started predicting that she would be indicted. On Sunday, Comey said a review of those emails did not change his position that Clinton should not face criminal prosecution.
The results indicated that Trump outperformed expectations among working-class whites, forming a coalition of states that few thought possible when the campaign began. Meanwhile, Clinton underperformed among college-educated and young white women.
In the end, Clinton failed to overcome the showman, who gobbled up thousands of hours of free airtime on cable news by making a series of controversial and improbable promises, like a pledge to build a wall along the southern border of the U.S. and a promise to “shut down” Muslim immigration. Trump also stayed in the spotlight by fighting a series of feuds and raging against the media. And despite Clinton’s strong performance in the presidential debates, in which she goaded Trump into gaffes and kept the focus squarely on his shortcomings, she could not translate those performances into votes.
Trump’s election is already sending shock waves through the political system because it signals a repudiation of establishment politicians that, to many voters, the Clintons represent. The property magnate and former “Celebrity Apprentice” host, one of the most unconventional major-party candidates in U.S. history, had vowed to “drain the swamp” of Washington, D.C. He derided many of the leaders he’ll likely now need to work with, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan and many other congressional Republicans.
It also remains to be seen if president-elect Trump will be able to heal the country’s sharp political divisions, some of which were sparked by his campaign.
But the Queens, N.Y.-born Trump, 70, will have to face all of those challenges and more when he is inaugurated in January
RALEIGH, N.C., and GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A confident Hillary Clinton spent her final day on the presidential campaign trail flanked by pop stars, her family and the Obamas, promising to try to “heal” the country if she’s elected president.
Across four rallies in three states, Clinton looked ahead to a potential victory, promising voters she would bring a divided country together as president and reflecting in the past tense on how ugly the campaign had been.
Donald Trump, expressing equal confidence, barnstormed across the country vowing to win Election Day, fundamentally change the country’s path and make his supporters’ dreams come true.
Both candidates’ promises culminated in a pair of rallies held in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
Speaking at 1 a.m at North Carolina State University, Clinton shouted over the deafening cheers and foot-stomping of thousands of young supporters, who had been warmed up with performances by Lady Gaga and Jon Bon Jovi — including a duet of “Living on a Prayer.”
“This is sure worth staying up for,” she said, taking in the crowd.
The Clintons and the Obamas at a rally at Independence Mall in Philadelphia. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
“Tomorrow night this election will end, but I want you to understand, our work together will be just beginning,” Clinton said. “We have to bridge the divides in this country. As the Bible says, we have to repair the breaches.”
It was a lesson Clinton hammered home again and again on her final day on the trail, as she cast herself as a leader who could heal the nation after a long and brutal campaign. “We have so much divisiveness right now,” she said at a rally near Grand Rapids, Michigan. “We have to start listening to each other.”
She reminded her supporters that she wanted to be the president for “everyone,” not just those who vote for her.
“I regret deeply how angry the tone of the campaign became,” Clinton said at the largest event of her entire candidacy: another Monday rally with the Obamas and Bruce Springsteen that drew 33,000 people to Independence Mall in Philadelphia.
A supporter screamed out, “Not your fault!” Clinton laughed.
Meanwhile, Trump took the stage at 12:30 a.m. in a setting that was typical of any other one of his rallies this season: a sterile bright convention hall in Grand Rapids, Mich., featuring a simple stage with an American flag, a bleacher full of people behind him and a podium.
Donald Trump points to the crowd as he arrives to speak to a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
Two hours earlier, Trump had appeared at what his campaign had originally envisioned as his send-off to his unlikely bid for the presidency: a large arena rally in downtown Manchester, N.H., surrounded by thousands of people, including his family, and a stage marked by laser lights and a fog machine.
But in the waning days of the campaign, as Trump sought to find a path to 270 electoral votes, his campaign added a last minute stop here in Michigan, hoping to turn a traditional blue state red for the first time since 1988. It was his ninth state he visited in a little over 24 hours.
“If you think you’re going to get a regular speech at 1 a.m., you’re crazy,” Trump declared as he took the stage. But that’s exactly what the GOP nominee gave: the same stump speech he’s been giving for weeks.
Introduced by his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who did not stick around to share the stage with Trump, the GOP nominee attacked “crooked” Hillary Clinton as a slave to special interests and corrupt politician whose use of a private email server is likely to spawn investigations that will stymy her potential presidency.
Supporters listen as Indiana Gov. Mike Pence speaks to a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H. (Photo: Charles Krupa/AP)
In contrast, he cast himself as a change agent who could blow up a corrupt system who could turn the nation’s focus back to helping struggling blue-collar workers whose jobs have been gutted by American companies moving overseas.
Echoing the message that launched his unlikely White House bid more than a year ago, Trump reiterated his promise to undo trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and NAFTA. His pitch was clearly aimed at stirring up workers in what is one of the more conservative parts of the state.
“The corrupt politicians and their special interests have ruled over this country for a very long time,” Trump declared, reading from prepared remarks. “Today is our independence day. Today the American working class is going to strike back finally.”
“We are hours away from once in a lifetime change,” he said.
But Trump being Trump, he couldn’t resist breaking from the script. And he did so repeatedly, including when he again attacked Clinton for campaigning with celebrities in the days leading up to Election Day. The former reality television star suggested her decision to campaign with Jay Z and Beyoncé was “demeaning” to the political process.
Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Photo: Paul Sancya/AP)
“We don’t need, we don’t need Jay Z or Beyoncé. We don’t need Jon Bon Jovi. We don’t need Lady Gaga. All we need is great ideas to make America great again. That’s all that we need,” Trump said.
But the event offered some embarrassing optics for Trump, who is banking on the support of his faithful followers to propel him to the White House. Almost as soon as the candidate took the stage, hundreds of the few thousand supporters on hand began filing out of the room.
They passed through an exit lane directly in front of the press corps, staring at reporters across a barricade as if they were on exhibit. Questioned why they were exiting, some pointed to the late hour, while others said they were trying to beat traffic. Some said they’d seen enough.
But Trump pressed on, undeterred by his thinning crowd. He declared imminent victory, pointing to the 16 primary challengers he’d defeated when many wrote off his candidacy as a joke. He said he had trust in his supports to turn out for him. “I know my people,” he said, adding, “If we win Michigan, we win this historic election.”
Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and musician Lady Gaga greets members of the audience after speaking at a midnight rally in Raleigh, N.C. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
Clinton’s jubilant final day sounded a lighter note than either Trump’s or the final slog of the general election, in which Clinton weathered the storm of her campaign chair John Podesta’s email inbox being made public by a cyberattack.
She took a dominating lead in the final weeks of the race, but the race tightened in the closing stretch. Ten days before Election Day, FBI Director James Comey announced that he would review new emails that appeared “pertinent” to the bureau’s investigation of the private email server Clinton exclusively used while secretary of state. The surprise twist injected Trump’s candidacy with a shot of adrenaline.
But Clinton has since rebounded a bit in the polls, though it’s still a close race: As of Tuesday morning, the RealClearPolitics average of national surveys had her up 3 points over Trump. And Comey announced Sunday that investigators had reviewed the emails and found nothing to change his conclusion from last July that neither Clinton nor her aides should face charges.
With these hurdles behind her, victory — and what comes next — appeared to be on Clinton’s mind Monday. The Democratic nominee answered a question from entertainer Ryan Seacrest on his radio show that morning about whether she expected to speak to Trump if she wins. “Oh absolutely,” she said. “I hope that he will, if I’m successful, play a constructive role in … coming together — bring people who supported him to the table so that we can have the kind of national conversation we should have.”
Huma Abedin greets supporters on the tarmac as she arrives on Hillary Clinton’s campaign plane in White Plains, N.Y. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
Clinton brought her longtime aide Huma Abedin back on the trail for the first time since Comey’s announcement. Abedin’s estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, was the source of the new emails, which the FBI reportedly found while investigating whether he sent lewd messages to an underage girl. On Monday night, Abedin was spotted on Clinton’s plane flying between Philadelphia and Raleigh, the same leg that Jon Bon Jovi jumped on for as well.
The Clintons appeared to be in high spirits aboard their plane after the Philadelphia event. Clinton’s press corps shouted questions at her and former President Bill Clinton from their cabin in the back of the plane. Both Clintons pretended not to hear the reporters, with Hillary Clinton playfully cupping her hand over her ear before turning back and taking her seat.
When she landed in Westchester at 3:30 a.m. after the marathon final day, Clinton was greeted by hundreds of staffers and supporters who waited for her on the cold tarmac. “Welcome home!” they chanted, before she emerged from her “Stronger Together”-branded plane to the theme of “Fight Song.” Clinton shook hands and said hellos for a few minutes as Secret Service agents and her aides, including Abedin, shadowed her. The Democratic nominee turned away from the crowd and gave Podesta a big hug, as if to thank him for something.
She then got into her car and was whisked away to her home.
AFP
AFP
