{"id":1877,"date":"2021-01-09T18:55:25","date_gmt":"2021-01-09T18:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/uganda\/?p=1877"},"modified":"2021-01-09T18:00:37","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T18:00:37","slug":"of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail","title":{"rendered":"Of \u201cdotards\u201d, democracy\u00a0 and why nations fail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Uganda<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word \u201cdotard\u201d as \u201ca person in his or her dotage,\u201d which is \u201ca state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oxford\u2019s dictionary definition is: \u201can old person, especially one who has become weak or senile.\u201d The word is pronounced d\u014d-terd (as in DOE-turd), and searches for the term spiked following Kim Jong Un\u2019s reference to Donald Trump in their heated exchanges as a \u201cderanged US dotard\u201d.<\/p>\n

This was during the one of their war of words in 2017 (see https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2017\/09\/21\/a-short-history-of-the-word-dotard-which-north-korea-called-trump\/).<\/p>\n

What caught most people\u2019s attention in regard to its usage was the fact that the North Koreans\u2019 had unearthed an archaic and rarely used word to describe Trump.<\/p>\n

Many (including myself) had until then never come across the word. This week we had a moment to laugh with the North Koreans and poke all sorts of jibes at the United States of America.<\/p>\n

Not only had president Trump managed to continually malign the world\u2019s greatest nation\u2019s election as a fraud, he had in the course of the week been able to marshal an army of rednecks to lay siege on Capitol Hill, the seat of the USA\u2019s most sacrosanct institutions.<\/p>\n

In his actions, not only did we see this deranged \u2018dotard\u2019 desecrate the country\u2019s institutions, but we also got a chance to see him complete the handover of control of Congress and the Senate to the Democrats in the Georgia senate races. It is a fleeting moment of schadenfreude for us because tomorrow the USA will, despite the egg on its face, pick itself up and resume its position in the \u2018free world\u2019.<\/p>\n

Why will the USA be able to pick itself up and get on with being a great nation? Institutions. Vice president Mike Pence said the following words in a letter he released before the sitting to certify president-elect Joe Biden\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there is any lesson for us to take from vice president Pence\u2019s statement, it is the fact that he realised that US institutions were stronger than any single person. Nations fail because of weak institutions.<\/p>\n

Weak national institutions are easily overrun by strong men who wish to assert their selfish interests over the rest of the people.<\/p>\n

All through history, we have seen leaders incite people to engage in unreasonable acts by creating a \u2018them vs us\u2019 scenario. This is what Trump has been trying to do, using a subtle play on White privilege and fascism. It happened in Hitler\u2019s Germany, and we saw it closer home in the Rwandan genocide.<\/p>\n

The reason Trump has failed is best articulated in Daron Achemoglu and James Robinson\u2019s Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. In this essay, the authors explain that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success.<\/p>\n

Revolutions in countries with weak institutions do not amount to much because those who mount those revolutions simply take over the reins of power to recreate similar systems from those they depose. It is, therefore, difficult for citizens to acquire real political power and change the way their society works.<\/p>\n

As the riots on Capitol Hill showed, the USA is not a \u201cperfect union\u2019, but has strong institutions to prevent it from failing. While Donald Trump may have had his day in the White House, the electoral system (as an institution), however imperfect, stood the test of his machinations and enabled the voters to eject him.<\/p>\n

And that is what democracy is about. You can have a \u2018Trump\u2019 yes, but if the system works, it should not take forever for the system to eject such a deranged dotard. For the Americans, this shall pass. For us, we continue to live on a wing and a prayer.<\/p>\n

Prof Sejjaaka is country team leader at Mat Abacus Business School.sejjaaka@gmail.com<\/b><\/p>\n

@samuelsejjaaka<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word \u201cdotard\u201d as \u201ca person in his or her dotage,\u201d which is \u201ca state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.\u201d The Oxford\u2019s dictionary definition is: \u201can old person, especially one who has become weak or senile.\u201d The word is pronounced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":1876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,8],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-1877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nOf \u201cdotards\u201d, democracy\u00a0 and why nations fail - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word \u201cdotard\u201d as \u201ca person in his or her dotage,\u201d which is \u201ca state or period ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Of \u201cdotards\u201d, democracy\u00a0 and why nations fail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word \u201cdotard\u201d as \u201ca person in his or her dotage,\u201d which is \u201ca state or period ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-01-09T18:55:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/01\/img-5ff9ef2cd969e.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Of \u201cdotards\u201d, democracy\u00a0 and why nations fail\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-09T18:55:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail\"},\"wordCount\":702,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/01\/img-5ff9ef2cd969e.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/of-dotards-democracy-and-why-nations-fail\",\"name\":\"Of \u201cdotards\u201d, democracy\u00a0 and why nations fail - 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