Africa has faced the problem of political leaders being unwilling to step down and concede elections and suffered from President Trump’s racist tirades against the continent.

So there was strong reaction to his unwillingness to accept losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

It was reflected in headlines like “Africa to Trump: Who’s a sh**thole now?” Many Africans were “unable to resist having a little fun” and the subject trended on Twitter in places like Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. 

Mr. Trump referred to African nations and Haiti as unstable “shitholes” in 2018.

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“Trump should just pull off his mask and tell us which African country he’s from,” a Twitter user in Zambia joked.

America’s 45th president has never visited Africa but in 2018 he denigrated the countries and made similar comments about prospective Nigerian immigrants bound for the U.S.

Some Nigerians drew parallels to Mr. Trump’s claims and what has happened in their own country, which has had election disputes.

“Unlike Goodluck Jonathan, most often losers don’t accept defeat, meaning many election results are contested in court,” reported dw.com, “Nigerians looked enviously to the U.S. as a country with an exemplary transition system. Not any more … .”

Nigerian Salihu Yakubu expressed surprise to DW’s Hausa news service that “America’s present democracy is no different to Africa’s.”

East African Uganda is involved in its own bitterly contested elections.

“What happened when the Trump mob stormed and stopped Congress from certifying the results of a duly elected president was an attempted coup,” President Museveni ally and campaigner Morrison Rwakakamba told DW. “What happened in the United States is not only bad for the Unites States, it is bad for the world.”

Auodeji S. Emma from Nigeria tweeted: “I don’t know whether to gloat or cry. @realDonaldTrump is revealing the unknown side of the West!”   

A level.medium.com headline declared, “Today America showed us exactly who it is. Believe it.” Article author and adjunct professor of Journalism at Morehouse College David Dennis Jr. wrote, “Today is the dimming of the gaslight that suggested that America cared about law and order, police, fairness, the flag, democracy, free and fair elections, the Constitution, the will of the people, equality, police procedure, blue lives, and America itself. The only law of the land is the law that maintains white supremacy. There is no rule of law besides anti-Blackness.”

South African Riaz Tayob told Africa Watch via WhatsApp text, “The stark difference in policing between White nationalist MAGA supporters and the Black Lives Matter movement was not lost on many South Africans.” An attorney who works as a researcher for the Southern and Eastern African Trade Institute in South Africa, Tayob continued, “The idea that there are good people on ‘both sides’ rings particularly hollow, not all protests are the same. Some reaffirm human dignity based on human rights, whereas others speak for privilege and barely concealed discrimination.”

Opening up the discussion to include the history of the corporate blueprint to dominate democracy, or the 1971 “Powell Memo,” Tayob said, “The Koch brothers and other billionaires are seeing a culmination of the Powell Memo rolled out by the Heritage Foundation that seeks that old conservative goal,  justification for the virtues of selfishness and privilege.”

Tayob said America has imposed its influence in the form of “regimes”  from “Egypt to South Africa, while continuing its assault on Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and Iraq (where it was disinvited but refuses to leave).” Tayob added. “The long and short is imperialism is not possible without tyranny at home.” 

Asked whether things in the U.S. will ever change, he said, “That is an open question, particularly since the Democratic Party has campaigned against its own progressive party members. A kind slave master is certainly better than a true one. And most likely we will see Biden-Trumpism.” Meaning? “The soft glove covering the imperial fist that regularly crushed progressive movements the world over.”

In Zimbabwe the Capitol Hill invasion by Trumpsters meant the shoe was on the other foot. DW reported, “The continuous issue of longstanding and crippling U.S. sanctions on the Southern African country triggered some irony and provoked much laughter.”

On Twitter Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwe wrote: “Last year, Pres. Trump extended painful economic sanctions placed on Zimbabwe, citing concerns about Zimbabwe’s democracy. Yesterday’s events showed that the U.S. has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy.”

The Twitter hashtags “#American,” #Trump,” “#TheUS,” and “#Democracy” trended for Zimbabwe and jammed WhatsApp traffic.

(Follow @jehronMuhammad on Twitter.)