Dera Editor,
It is very sad that an educated guy like Fuad Rahaman should publish that kind of peripheral politics in attempting to persuade Indo-Guyanese to vote for Donald Trump.
There are three basic myopic and convoluted ideas he and a few others like him are pushing among Indo-Guyanese in the US.
1. He wants Indo-Guyanese to vote for Trump basically as a payback or retaliation against certain leading New York democrats who were formerly (but indicatively not any more) hoodwinked by strong APNU, and their henchman, Rickford Burke’s lobbying against the PPP/C government. That is now all history. Three investigative teams to Guyana debunked all claims by these lobbyists. Mr. Rahaman further claimed that it was the Trump government that effectively brought the Guyana 2020 general elections fiasco to an end. Not true. It was a massive collaborative effort by Caricom, UK, EU, Canada and a dozen other countries of which the US was one. True, it was only when the US threatened visa sanctions against the election conspirators that the APNU+AFC finally surrendered. Any US government at the time would have done the same, be it Republican or Democrat. After all, the bigger picture is all about US interest.
But importantly, the Indo-Guyanese population should not be so peripheral and use these three unfortunately misled Democrats as their excuse to vote against the entire the Democratic Party. That is extremely dangerous. They should blame APNU and Burke.
Secondly, from my interactions with Indo-Guyanese living in New York and New Jersey, I get the impression that their number one issue is the unregulated influx of large numbers of illegal migrants into their communities, and this has heavily disrupted almost all aspects of their social, economic, health, educational and sanitary situations for which they ignorantly and blindly blame the incumbent government, and will vote them out solely for this reason. This kind of reasoning, ignorance and blatant refusal to read and research and see both sides of the story is very dangerous, and unfortunately, has no cure.
Thirdly, Mr Rahaman and so many others display a total ignorance of the history of the United States and especially the history of both the Republican and Democratic Parties. How little does he know about the Republicans and that the politics of 1860 bear almost zero resemblance to the Republicans of today.
Back then, Republicans were, generally, a party of Northerners and Democrats were, generally, the party of the South. Today the parties have reversed roles.
But even worse than the reversal, it is Donald Trump, who has opportunistically changed his allegiance to a Southern state, Florida, and is appealing to nostalgia for the Confederacy and stoking racial divisions, not trying to end them or get past them. He wants to bring back Jim Crow just like he reversed Roe vs Wade. Trump has unilaterally and selfishly hijacked the Republican Party to his own personal use with violence and threats of violence and illegalities. Don’t forget January 6. And that is why all decent Republicans are going against him, including the Bushs, Cheneys, Romney and even Pence.
The man has absolutely no morals and values. He repeatedly belittles and insults women, minorities and other non-white races. Has committed multiple frauds, tax evasions, crimes against women, employees and investors. He has fostered a nostalgia for the Confederacy and openly stokes racial divisions. The calamity farmers faced last year was because of the tariffs he had placed on China. Trump has, objectively, reduced the importance of US leadership in the world and isolated us from our closest allies.
He is greatly to be blamed for 180,000 lives lost to Covid. His economic policy skyrocketed the national debt by eight trillion dollars which economists will tell you is the main reason for weakening of the U.S. dollar which indirectly causes inflation. His policy resulted in enormous losses of US jobs primarily due to imposed tariffs.
Fact checking teams debunk his claims that he created the greatest economy in the world; that he brought peace to the Middle East. These things objectively did not happen.
Trump is the greatest fraud this side of history. Those who study his biographies know that his whole life he has been a bully, a dictator and fraud and closely bordering on criminality. Vote for him and you are aiding and abetting ignorance, criminality and dictatorship – the latter he proudly admits he will be. Otherwise, you can vote for the most educated presidential candidate ever.
People generally vote for a party, against a party, or for their own interests. At this election, their personal interests, freedoms and future of their daughters, future of their environment, future of world democracies and world peace are all at stake.
Yours truly,
Gokarran Sukhdeo
