Writers on the 2016 Election: Nigerian Writer Sunny Ayewanu

America is a country that is continually evolving or renewing itself, but its value system, anchored on defined social dynamics and the dreams of its founding fathers, remains sacrosanct. That is why when it appeared that Donald Trump was going to jettison the age-long American values, it elicited uproar and disaffection, not just in America, but all over the world.

However, a puzzle that eats me hollow is how a candidate with such vociferous “non-traditional” views rode to power, on the back of his confessed sexual misdemeanors, non-disclosure of tax returns and his party leaders dramatized public rejection of him.

Any of these scandals was enough to bring down a candidate in America in the past. While I am not condemning Trump’s ascendancy to the White House for whatever it’s worth for the American electorate that voted him into power, I crave to get enough insights from political pundits and social-cultural analysts in America as to how this stunning novelty materialized.

-Sunny Ayewanu, Nigerian poet and fiction writer, fellow of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.