Lessons for Kenya From Trump impeachment saga
US President Donald Trump has just been acquitted by the Senate over charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He had been impeached by the House in December 2019 over the same charges.
He had been accused of withholding military aid to Ukraine to force it to institute corruption investigations against former vice president Joe Biden, who was then the Democratic Party frontrunner to challenge him in the November 2020 elections.
The impeachment saga has major lessons for Kenya.
First, strong institutions which work are critical. In America, there is a very effective system of checks and balances through institutions that are independent.
The key institutions of governance are the presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The House decided to investigate the President, tried him, and impeached him. Impeachment in the House acts as an indictment, after which a trial is held in the Senate.
The House the tried to influence how the Senate would conduct its own trial, but was rebuffed. In the entire saga, the White House was a mere bystander.
The whole impeachment saga did not suck in other government institutions.
And when it was over, the country just continued humming along. There were no pieces to pick up, because they did not create any pieces to begin with.
Secondly, insulate the economy from politics. America’s economy under Trump is roaring.
One would then assume that when the President is under siege, the economy would do likewise.
But it did not even blink. It continued churning out jobs. The stock markets, normally an indicator of economic sentiment by investors, continued its record-breaking streak.
Despite an emotive, charged and highly partisan impeachment process, the economy remained unmoved. There is a vital lesson here.
In Kenya, the current noisy and highly charged contretemps over the Building Bridges Initiative has stumped everything else. Every time Kenya’s politics becomes turbocharged, the first casualty is the economy. That must change.
Thirdly, politics cannot be the be-all and end-all of a country’s life. Even as Trump’s impeachment rolled on in Washington, Americans went on with their lives.
Nothing stopped. The Oscar Film Awards and Super Bowl Football championship were held as scheduled.
Trump gave a State of the Union address in the House where he had been impeached, even as his trial continued in the Senate.
In Kenya, the country eats, breathes and drinks politics. When there is a major political upheaval, the country is consumed by the madness. A country can never mature on that type of diet.
Lastly, a huge lesson to the media, especially the mainstream media. The major media outlets in America, the CNNs, Washington Posts, Wall Street Journals et al, have spent the last five months of the impeachment saga trying to influence congressmen and senators to throw Trump out of office.
They worked feverishly to influence public opinion against the President. All these efforts came to zero.
People ignored what the media was saying. You can make your own conclusions about what that says for media credibility in America.
Trump’s approval rating rose substantially after the impeachment to its highest since his presidency, and is now higher than presidents Barrack Obama and George Bush at a similar point in their presidencies.Talk of unintended consequences.
Media needs to beware. The ground has shifted. New media, driven by technological platforms has completely altered the balance of power away from traditional media for all time.
Politicians now communicate directly to their followers. Trump has 60 million on twitter.
Traditional media is now just another bush in a huge forest. Unfortunately, it continues to delude itself that it still retains its power of yore.
So is Kenya’s mainstream media, which has failed to realise the days it influenced the narrative of the day are gone.
Power of the media is now widely dissipated. The media either creates a new paradigm that aligns to the new reality, or they’ll continue talking to themselves. — [email protected]
