Time to Shut Up and be President

Martin Guevara

HAVANA TIMES — Well, one era has come to an end, the US people have spoken and chosen Trump as their new president and he has now taken office. Anything else is just nostalgia.

It may not be a reason to rejoice but it’s not a reason to fall into a deep depression either. That is as long as we understand that the democratic game is a sequence of experiments, led by the rotation of the most common and different sentiments among social classes, so as to move forward and to bring cycles to an end.

Even the most amazing cycles we can imagine have to come to an end.

A mishap in elections if well-played can be an opportunity to strengthen the ousted bloc’s beliefs. It’s an invitation for them to wake up and to follow, protect and continue to work on their civil and pacifist achievements. Meanwhile technocrats and businessmen will try to revive business networks and pragmatic areas where they can reveal their more efficient side and take advantage of new paths so as to transmit the wish to live in a free world of progress, harmony and peace.

In the United States, the president can’t do whatever he feels like; he is controlled by a very close and strict, but efficient, power. We can still say that he is the most powerful man in the world when it comes to danger, because he has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons at his disposal. However, he can’t even fire them on a day of uncontrolled rage or revelry without consulting others first.

On the other hand, Donald Trump is a more predictable person than what he tries to make himself out to be, but a lot more than what you might expect from the most powerful president in the West. Given his little political culture and culture on the whole, as well as his low level of emotional intelligence when compared to his great level of intuition, a strong personality and charisma over short distances.

He’s the kind of person whose discourse can be disgraceful, his jokes unacceptable, but he creates a lively and trustworthy environment in his immediate surroundings without letting those present forget for a second that he’s the one in charge. He inspires the kind of personal loyalty that sects and cults do.

The opposite of Al Gore, whose audience likes his talks but the proximity of his person makes them fall into a deep sleep.

We’ll have to see. Progressive US citizens will have to work hard from now on. They will be on the alert but always watching to see if he will make his worse promises come true and rise up like only the US people know how. And the rest of the world who share the same democratic ideology, embodying the spirit of freedom that the United States has come to symbolize, from time to time, throughout different times in its History. Precisely because the tide is formed there and then sweeps across the face of the Earth, provoking an imitation response or the opposite.

And if it turns out that quick-tempered Trump does more good than bad like many people are afraid he will, well I’ll be happy to take in a deep breath of relief, congratulate him and wish him the best in his new endeavors.

Even though his own team, after the recent electoral campaign, needs to understand that the doubts the rest of the world are having today are more than well-founded.

A new era is upon us, we know the fair players and we accept the rules of the game before breaking into a sweat, so all we can do now is congratulate the winners, take part so that they can do the best they can and if not, work to change them.

The time has come for Trump to shut his mouth and begin to rule. From now on, the ball is in his court and depending on how he deals with his challenges, he will take the following phrase as encouragement or as biting critique, when he hears people shouting as he walks by:

Run Run Donald Gump