….# The Imperial Overreach
Aaron Gono
” Gondo rashaya nhiyo
Rine shungu iri
Rinokumba chero marara
Kugara gunun’una gunun’una
Usaita secondo
Rinokumba chero marara”-(Late Dr. Oliver Mtukudzi on his album Gondo).
As the President of the United States, Donald Trump loses sleep daily, ranting to destroy Iran with one blow and preparing to capture Cuba. One wonders what is going on in the mind of this spoiled old man. A superpower president who doesn’t value human life. Who is excited by the devastation caused by his war toys. Who is always willing to destabilise a peaceful world.
I always asked myself why the world remains quiet whilst a madman is destroying all the bridges. The American people too, are complicit in his devastation, they cannot impeach him. They managed to make Richard Nixon stop the war in Vietnam but can’t do the same to one of its worst presidents in American history.
His rhetoric speeches about ‘America First’ are contextualised as something that benefits them only- the Aryan race. They only benefit a few tech- billionaires and some elite in his government. The man is obsessed by wealth and l wonder how Americans voted him into power. I think it is the Electoral College that brought him to power not a popular vote.
As he stretches his resources from Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Greenland, Canada, Nigeria, Taiwan etc. Anyone who did history at primary level can easily dictate a ‘ grim reaper ‘ in real time. That’s what historians call ” imperial overreach” which destroyed all former empires. They didn’t realize their limits, they wanted more and more and finally their resources could hold no more and collapsed.
America is already on the departure lounge and it is too late to turn around as its president is surrounded by idiots. The Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney’s reference to Thucydides in his speech on January 20, 2026, at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2026 in Davos, reminded me of one of my first stacks. Carney began his speech by saying:
“It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must. And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.”
America didn’t win the hearts of the world by military power. It applied ‘ soft power ‘- the ability to influence others through culture, values, and trust rather than force- has always been one of the U.S.’ strongest tools.
Now America republic, every day its foreign policy is changed and any of its shortfalls is blamed on foreigners, fentanyl from China, opium from Cambodia, Venezuela etc. Weak nations like South Africa are blamed for treating the ” Boers” in an inappropriate manner. They are offered asylum and permanent residence status in the U.S to run away from murderers. African Americans are ill-treated daily in its streets by (ICE) and discrimination against is rampant in every American eco-system. So, they can’t teach us good table manners.
Its soft power which is now practiced by China through its Road and Belt Initiative, is gaining momentum around the world. Now America thinks by using force it can achieve the best. Its pop culture is now observed as a charade. Its values of democracy, free trade, human rights etc are now opinions rather than facts. Trust which we used to respect America has been debunked when it threatened Greenland and Canada. A country which is now suffocating every Cuban citizen, cannot be trusted anymore. No matter how its western media try to sanitize Trump’s violence against the world. The trust has gone and nobody will never believe in America.
“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”- (Fydor Dostoevsky). That was America’ s guarded secret for centuries. Now Trump’s hubris has exposed it. Thanks Make America Great Again (MAGA) base you opened our eyes.
