By Nduka Uzuakpundu

There are times when certain remarkably classy developments take place to the enrichment and happiness of American politics that one does not need the clairvoyance of the French astrologer – Nostradamus, who died in 1566 – to predict that such would be repeated in a golden future time.

When Abraham Lincoln, who holds the democratic record of being the tallest American president so far, was assassinated in 1865, many knew that killing for political reasons had come to stay. They were right: Lincoln was followed by James Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, in the battleground State of Texas. Kennedy’s assassination, by Lee Harvey Oswald, on Dealey Plaza, some historians have argued, could be likened to darkness at noon, even though it took place thirty minutes later.
The assassinations of the four presidents took place within ninety-eight years. The first three presidents who were assassinated were lawyers and members of the Republican Party. Kennedy, the first Catholic and youngest president of the United States of America, who was proudly a former journalist, was an author, a member of the Democratic Party, and the first billionaire to be a tenant at the White House. Undistorted statistics show that the Republican Party leads others in the United States of America as the one that has suffered most at the hands of Cain.
And, were those gruesome instances of assassinations a crowd-pulling soccer contest, the score, at stoppage time, would have been Republican Party 3, Democratic Party 1. It’s almost stoppage time – in this exchange of hostilities, by the titans, in American politics – and, any moment from now, the center referee, in the person of fleet-footed, seasoned George Walker Bush, would blow his whistle, signaling the end of this match that, one understands, is being viewed, on television, by an estimated 305 million viewers, worldwide. Yes, it’s all over! He has done so! What a match!
Just as the Republicans have suffered most, in the hands of Cain, so, too – in two hundred and forty-eight years of the independence of the United States America, from imperial England, on July 4, 1776 – have they produced the highest number of presidents of the country: 18. The Democratic Party: 16 – including incumbent Joseph Robinett Biden Junior, who holds the record of having the longest name, in terms of characters.
Suppose the rivalry between the Republican Party and Democratic Party was a FIFA-sponsored World Cup final match being staged in Harrisburg, the capital of the battleground State of Pennsylvania. The score, at almost forty-seven seconds to stoppage time, would have been Republican Party 18, Democratic Party 16. What a match! The first goal by the Democratic Party was scored in the eighth minute, via a spot kick by Martin van Buren – a lawyer. The Republican Party scored an equalizer in the sixteenth minute, when lanky Abraham Lincoln, wearing jersey No. 16, on instruction from the party’s coach – George Washington – took advantage of a poorly-defended Democratic Party’s eighteen-yard box and barrelled the leather sphere from the center circle.
Sam Victor Akpan (abadie) – a great football commentator and an analyst with good diction – figured that the second penalty and two yellow cards that were awarded to the Democratic Party were dubious! Eagle-eyed Adaeze Michael (idem mfo) – a brilliant football analyst – in a post-match conversation with Femi Obong Daniels (“Football, one game without violence”) – said that the Republican Party was profligate on five occasions – in the 19th, 21st, 23rd, 29th and 43rd minutes – right inside the eighteen-yard box. Said she: “One won’t be surprised if, any moment, henceforward, the party’s coach – Richard Milhous Nixon – is forced to resign. For this to be true, there’s no justification for the Republicans to have wasted so many scoring chances in such a crucial fixture. Besides, the stats showed that, in terms of ball possession, it was Republican Party, 70%, Democratic Party 30%; shots on target, Republican Party, 80%, Democratic Party, 20%; corner kicks, Republican Party 7, Democratic Party 1; and accurate passes, Republican Party 73 percent, Democratic Party 27 percent. It was a match in which, in fairness, most of the questions were asked by the Republican Party, as they dominated all the departments, especially the mid-field!”
The four instances of assassinations were preceded by the death, via illness, of William Howard Harrison – the ninth president of the United States of America – in 1841. He died of cold. He holds the record of being the first president of the United States of America to have died in office and to have spent the shortest time – thirty days. He was followed by Zachary Taylor in 1850, Warren Harding, an erudite and punctilious editor in 1923, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945.
Beyond assassinations and natural deaths, it’s on record that the United States of America has produced a president who once was denied a second, four-year term in office for whatever reason but later came back. It was Grover Cleveland (1885 – 1889), as the twenty-second president, and in 1893 – 1897, as the twenty-fourth. He was a member of the Democratic Party. His come-back record, which has remained, for one hundred and thirty-two years, unbroken, would be matched when President-elect Donald Trump of the Republican Party assumes office on Inauguration Day – January 20, 2025.
According to Olatunji Dare, professor of mass communication and great journalist (alias ‘governor’s penis busy’), come Inauguration Day, the rivalry between the Republican Party and Democratic Party would have assumed a frightening complexion of fierce power tussle, with a likelihood of redefining democracy, the American style. Said he: “In the come-back match, the score, with less than forty-seven seconds, to stoppage time, would be Democratic Party 1, Republican Party 1. A draw! It sounds like an association football pool result! Does it not? Both goals, it would be recalled, were scored in the first half via dubious spot kicks in the 32nd and 38th minutes. It’s almost certain that the center referee, who goes by the name Labalaba State (alias ‘they ain’t seen no booboo yet’), would be sanctioned by Switzerland-based FIFA – the world football governing body.”
Trump would be the forty-seventh president of the United States of America. In his first coming, which no one – except Doug Casey, a starry-eyed pollster – prophesied, he was the forty-fifth. He lost his re-election bid in 2019 to Joe Biden of the Democratic Party.
It’s now clear – beyond every shadow of a doubt – that Trump is a woman beater. It took his assaulting and flooring, Hillary Rodham Clinton of the Democratic Party, in his first coming, to be shoved into the much-revered, sacred chamber of America’s democracy: the White House. It has taken his punching and flooring vice-president Kamala Harris – as if he were Ken Norton, Marvin Hagler, or Rocky Marciano – to stage a come-back. In effect, said Olatunji Dare, “The Republicans are a bundle of unrepentant misogynists. American women should unite and ensure that Trump is not sworn in as the country’s forty-seventh president on Inauguration Day. Except the Republicans were so punished, said Olatunji Dare, they would repeat, with a touch of arrogance and entitlement, the same political crime of assaulting and flooring female presidential candidates of the Democratic Party, who are also luminous lawyers, come to the next presidential election.
And, suppose, now, that the criminal habit of the Republican Party assaulting and flooring the Clintons and Harrises were an Olympic football final match, in Atlanta, in the battleground State of Georgia, the score, said Sam Victor Akpan, would have been Republican Party 2, Democratic Party nil. “And it’s all over! Yes, it’s all over! The Republicans have won, against all predictions and expectations,” said Chuma Nnoli – a glowing football commentator – gushingly.
The victory by the Republicans has a Cadmean touch to it. The full-time score is well against the run of play. But seriously, as some psephologists, political scientists, and historians have submitted, it’s almost certain that the Republican Party would not have won the match had the Democratic Party had as their candidate a charismatic personality as William Jefferson Clinton or our own master of the game, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
An implacably angry but obscenely rich ex-beauty queen and distinguished ex-broadcaster – Stella Bassey (Emesiere) – said that Trump’s spouse, Melania, should sue for divorce. Thereafter, she should run for life and go back to her roots in Slovenia, in Europe, because, as she told polished ex-broadcasters, Roseline Ogunro and Sienne Allwell Brown, who are members of the Republican Party, and Ron Mgbatougu and Nworah Aghadi, who are members of the Democratic Party, in Nobel Prize-winning Queen’s English, Melania might be the next target of a catastrophic assault by Trump – on incontrovertibly trumped up charges. And come to that occasion, which would be akin to a keenly-contested FIFA World Cup final match, in assaulting beautiful women, staged in the battleground State of Ohio, the score, at stoppage time, would-be Republican Party 3, Democratic Party nil. Thanks to two dubious penalties awarded to the Grand Old Party!
The Democratic Party holds the record of having fielded two women presidential candidates in the political history of the United States of America. The first was Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016. The second was Kamala Harris in 2024. Both were floored by the same Republican Party presidential candidate – Mr. Donald Trump. But how come? Was a certain billionaire, not a reputed womanizer! Suppose the fielding of a woman presidential candidate in the United States of America was a keenly-contested football match in the battleground of California; Adaeze Michael thought that the score, at stoppage time, would have been Democratic Party 2, Republican Party nil! And, if it were to be an Olympic football final match, in which a male presidential candidate floored two exquisitely beautiful women at different times, the score, at stoppage time, according to Femi Obong Daniels (no relation to Stormy Daniels), would have been Republican Party 2, Democratic Party nil.
It was the submission of Stella Bassey that Trump should not consider himself as a victor. As she put it, in Nobel Prize-winning, Queen’s English: “There’s nothing to celebrate about his dirty feat! When he floored Nubile Kamala, what was his intent? It’s only in America that a disgruntled, incumbent president, who ordered his supporters to assault Capitol Hill – the heart of American democracy – would be voted for, yet, again, as the country’s president. For his many wrongs –hostile disposition to journalists, dubious tax record, his affair with Stormy Daniels, and, amongst others, his political inexperience – which has found embarrassing expressions, on many occasions, in his brashness – Trump, if you ask me, is unfit to be the 47th president of the United State of America.”

Picture: American President Joe Biden with President elect, Donald Trump

*Uzuakpundu is a Lagos-based journalist.