The phenomenon of Donald Trump winning the United States presidential elections is tackled by Liberian academic and activist Robtel Neajai Pailey in an article for New African magazine - the cover of which is shown above - in her column Random Acts of Activism. The 2010 Tutu Fellow examines the contentious US elections and its outcome in her piece Africa's lessons for Trump's America. It begins by arguing that Trump's victory has exposed the emperor's nakedness and that Africa has much to teach Americans dismayed by the outcome of their election.
In the United States, she says that the least-qualified candidate of all time beat the most qualified through a deeply flawed electoral college system after an election marked by hate speech and mysogynistic vitriol. By comparison, in her country, Liberia, a highly qualified septuagenarian, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, beat the hugely popular football star-turned-politican George Weah in a high-stakes runoff. With a 70% voter turnout in Liberia versus 56% in the US, Pailey says that the witty observation by Ghanaian scholar Dr. Takyiwaa Manuh was accurate when she encouraged Americans to consult Africa on 'how to trump your Trump.'
The full article can be read on page 28 of the January edition of New African.
