An incredible thought it may be, but the United States could be heading for a civil war, and this is not something that the media created. Donald Trump has categorically stated that he is not necessarily going to accept the results of next month’s election. That means if he does not win, of course.

In the third and last presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump refused to commit to accepting the results, saying in effect that he would have to examine the results (“I’ll look at it at the time”) before he made up his mind, preferring to keep people “in suspense.”

That sounded rather remarkable, even by Trump’s standards. We know that he has been accusing some people of planning to rig the election. He has even suggested that it is already rigged. He is accusing everyone he can find – Hillary, the media, the FBI, the weather – of being part of some gigantic conspiracy to rob him of what he considers his birth right, the presidency.

These may be dismissed as the histrionics of a loud-mouthed buffoon given to bluster and self-promotion, but you have to consider a number of factors that could lead some people in Trump’s corner to refuse to throw in the towel and instead tear up the ring, beat up the referee, steal the belt and declare their man champion.

His campaign has been the least civil in recent American history, plumbing the depths of decency with wild accusations against everyone who thinks differently from him. His supporters have been raucous and given to violent manifestation; some of them have, seriously, come from groups with reputations that place them on the fringes of legality. His supporters have generally erred on the side of thuggery.

Can an American election be stolen, as Trump claims this one is already? I’d not doubt that. It is documented that JF Kennedy got people to steal his election for him back in 1960, with a little help from Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago. Two decades ago, we witnessed the chaotic election claimed by George W, with a little help from younger brother Jeb in Florida.

The point here is, whether Richard Nixon and Al Gore thought they had been cheated, they eventually accepted the results because, I suspect, they saw the stability of their country as more important than electoral fairness.

It is well known that at the lower levels, in the state and local elections, cheating and various forms of skulduggery are rampant, but the American system has attuned itself to these things “for the greater good” of everyone.

Now, the suggestion that a Fuhrer-like candidate will not accept the results if he doesn’t like them places America smack in the middle of the African continent. In Africa, when you lose an election, it is most probably because it was rigged.

In fact, almost all elections are rigged, sometimes even by people who would have won them anyway; it’s a way of life. Some time ago, a presidential candidate in an African country declared that if he did not win he would go “to the bush.”

He lost, and sure enough kept his promise; after five years of bush war he came to power and has kept his post since then, daring anyone who wants his job to follow his example and start another civil war. Plus, he jails his opponents as Trump promises to do Hillary.

There is enough anger in America – whipped up by the politics of bigotry and racism — to start a civil war, and it looks like Trump wouldn’t be averse to firing the first salvo. The way it looks, he may even try to get the Russians to offer him some assistance, seeing as he is so enamoured of Vladimir Putin.

But his best bet would be to enlist African help. Africans lost faith in elections a long time ago, and only a couple of elections in the past two decades can be considered free or fair. If he thinks Hillary is going to steal the election, he should come to us and we will teach him how to rig it himself.

Then we can start believing his spokeswoman who told CNN after the debate that Trump was “gonna accept the results because he’s gonna win the election.”
Ordinary prescience, if you ask me.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]