THE United States has always presented itself as the paragon of democracy for the last 240 years.
It had become the world prefect, but all this façade collapsed this week when President Joseph Biden pre-emptively pardoned his family members.
Biden is a veteran politician. He spent over 50 years in public office.
Of these 50, some 12 years were at the helm of Capitol Hill as vice-president and president of the US.
As a senator, Biden had spearheaded a number of sanctions laws against developing countries that he thought were not living up to the US standards of democracy.
However, there is always a black sheep in the family.
Biden had the misfortune of having a son, Hunter, who dabbled in drugs and guns.
Hunter was convicted late last year by the Federal Courts.
- BCC flights multiple tenders
- In Full: Nineteenth post-cabinet press briefing: July 05, 2022
- Byo City polishes Manica Diamonds
- Bullets shoot down Chiefs
Keep Reading
He became the first child of a sitting president to be convicted.
Hunter became an election issue.
Americans were worried whether Biden would pardon his son or let him serve his sentence.
For most of the election period, Biden categorically told the media that he would not pardon Hunter.
Biden broke this promise.
In his last days and hours in the Oval Office, he pardoned not only Hunter, but also five other family members.
Let’s look at the January 19, 2025 clemency order.
“Be it known, that this day, I Joseph R. Biden, Jr, President of the United States, pursuant to my powers under Article II, section 2, clause 1, of the constitution, have granted unto: James B Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T Owens, Francis W Biden a full and unconditional pardon for any nonviolent offences against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon.”
What are nonviolent crimes? These crimes include road traffic accidents, corruption, fraud, abuse of office, defamation, among others.
It is conceivable that Biden family members at the height of the patriarch’s powers used his name in personal deals.
They may have acted as middlemen to give people access to Biden, set up businesses for third parties or even got State contracts.
All these are non-violent crimes, but they can make one extremely wealthy.
President Biden, like the despised developing world leaders, also weaponized the law against his political opponents, especially Donald Trump.
Trump in his inauguration speech spoke about it.
Said Trump: “During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first. Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponisation of the Justice Department and our government will end.”
Biden was aware of this Trump grievance.
He pre-emptively pardoned senior Republican politicians who had given evidence against Trump in the January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection inquiry.
By any objective standard, Biden showed that all politicians are the same — they think about their families and friends first and that politicians will always weaponise the law against their opponents.
The US has lost the moral high ground to preach to developing world leaders about democracy.
Biden’s actions have caused severe damage to the efforts of political activists across the developing world who in their works looked up to the US as a paragon of democracy.
Biden’s actions have launched us into the world of messianic leaders.
Trump thinks he has a Godly mission to make America great.
Said Trump: “Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and, indeed, to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”
We are now firmly in the era that political leaders, who think like Trump, that they have a mission to save their countries will do as they please to accomplish their missions.
Back home in Zimbabwe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa campaigned on the platform of “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Mnangagwa’s party, Zanu PF, has started the motion to amend the Constitution to extend presidential term limits.
They, in their wisdom or lack of it, think leadership is only embodied in the person of Mnangagwa and that without him, Zimbabwe’s development will stall.
From now on, the missteps by Biden and Trump would be used as evidence against those opposed to the third term machinations.
People against the mutilation of the Constitution will be accused of being American sponsored — a dirty word in our politics.
More than ever before, political activists need to use new local paradigms in the fight against constitutional amendments to entrench power.
Zimbabweans have to be reminded that 92% of the eligible electorate voted for the 2013 Constitution, which Zanu PF wants to trash just so they can soothe the ego of one man.
The document embodies our collective values and should not be amended at the whims of those with selfish agendas.
It should be plain simple to everyone that the Trump era calls us to look inside to support ourselves.
The age of foreign development aid is coming to an end.
Zimbabwe can ill afford to spend money on referendums to extend terms of office for political leaders when that money is needed for public health, public education, energy supplies, public housing and creating social safety nets for pensioners and vulnerable members of our society.
It is important that Zimbabweans should learn from Biden’s actions that politicians look after their own.
We learnt the lesson in November 2017, Robert Mugabe, then President, even in the face of guns and tankers, protected his own and this too shall happen again in the future.
More importantly, leaders are selfish and should never be put on the messianic pedestal.
We should strive to make systems that work rather than rely on individuals.
- Paidamoyo Muzulu is a journalist based in Harare. He writes here in his personal capacity.
