N'gomo M'bele was the leader of a rather large African country, had been for decades, and had no intention whatsoever of leaving office. After all, he had spent millions to assure a loyal army, a cadre of faithful aides, a powerful secret police, and a nationwide community organization effort.
He liked think that he was Africa's Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese president who understood that the hearts and minds of his villagers were essential to victory, longevity, and the prosperity of the nation.
The Viet Cong were masters of the carrot and the stick. They would inform, educate, cajole, tempt, and encourage villagers to back the revolutionary war to rid the country of the round-eyed devil; and if they ignored or refused, they would be decapitated, their heads on spikes leading in and out of the village, their women raped and abducted.
Genghis Khan, masterful leader of the Mongol-Turkic armies that thundered out of the steppes to conquer vast lands from Japan to Europe, was the model for all political movements to follow. Intimidation of the masses rather than conquest of their armies was the key to empire.
Now, M'bele was not as savage as either Genghis Khan or the Viet Cong, but no less determined. His phalanxes of operatives were everywhere from the great river to the sea, in the mountain villages of the East to the jungles of the South.
He paid generously for this support, and his soldiers, secret police, informers, and community organizers were thankfully faithful. The money came from the country's vast mineral wealth and the foreign aid intended to assure access to it.
The foreign aid was but a pittance compared to the rare earth deals M'bele made with China and France, but with it he built the five-star Independence, a world-class hotel overlooking a bend in the river with views to the central highlands beyond. Every foreign guest was treated to the best French and Japanese cuisine, spacious suites, and attentive Fulani hostesses.
In short, M'bele had created, confirmed, and consolidated a regime for life. He satisfied the United States and its persistent demands for free and fair elections by holding referenda throughout his reign, each one confirming his popularity and approval for his programs. Elections were indeed held, and he kept his winning margin to a safe, unsuspicious majority. The State Department was happy, and more financial transfers and billion dollar purchases followed.
Of course the International Civil Rights Commission called for his head, exposing what they saw was fraud, misuse, endemic financial chicanery, and the disappearing of thousands of citizens at the hands of the secret police, but M'bele simply paid no attention, refused subpoenas to appear at the UN tribunal, and continued on ruling and profiting from his many international 'arrangements'.
'I want to meet the man', Donald Trump had said to his Chief of Staff. 'Arrange it'.
Trump had always been intrigued by Africa's big men and how they acquired and held on to power for so long. The countries they ruled were by any standards among the world's poorest, but poverty had never dampened the revolutionary efforts of ordinary French, Russians, or Cubans. How was it that these big men were able to hold on to power for so long and with so little opposition? The answers would be key to Trump's desire for continued governance.
The meeting between Trump and M'bele would have to be done quietly, given the extensive - although unproven and unlikely - UN charges of gross malfeasance, and the White House and Secretary of State maintained strict cover and maximum security. The two presidents were to meet offshore in international waters in unremarkable-looking fishing boat flotillas, but the encounter would signal a new era of African-American solidarity.
All well and good, democracy, American investment interests, African American votes and more, but Trump was interested in M'bele's personal story, how he came to power and more importantly how he retained it for so long.
Secret and unreported as the meeting was, the American President returned to the Oval Office smiling like a Cheshire cat. He not only had heard the story of M'bele's rise from a poor, destitute African village to the Presidential palace, but the requisites of political longevity.
The trick was to translate the African experience - a politicized and fiercely loyal army, an equally loyal secret service willing to do whatever it took to maintain Unity, Solidarity, and Community (the slogan of the ruling M'bele party), unaccountable millions to buy security, loyalty, and fidelity, and the absolute will to reign - into the American political vernacular.
The No Kings protesters - a squiggly lot of older women - who demonstrated against what they saw was Trump's undemocratic expansion of executive power, had no idea how right they were. Of course they had no clue about governance, African big men, real authoritarian rule, and presidential tenacity, and just went about the day as though it was a Girl Scout jamboree - a love fest, a chattery, happy occasion to meet, eat, and sing.
Donald Trump, watching the event in Lafayette Park across from the White House, smiled, turned to his closest aide and political confidant, and said, 'Ah, the irony of ignorance', putting his arm around the man's shoulders. 'Little do they know'.
The bilateral meetings between the White House and M'bele's palace continued more openly but only by Trump's trusted aides and confidants who were there to explore the ins and outs of African power, the twists and turns to be avoided, and the opportunities to take, how much it all would cost, and what would be the anticipated financial benefits.
M'bele was delighted that the President of the United States was taking such a personal interest in him, and while he never gave away state secrets, he was happy to confide in an ally who, if he was successful, would be a partner and supporter for many years to come.
Now, Africa is the land of corrupt, venal, authoritarian rulers. From north to south, east to west, the continent is and has been ruled by autocrats. Idi Amin, Mobutu, Mugabe, Deby, Kagame, and any one of the post-apartheid rulers of South Africa were just the most notably corrupt African heads of state; but N'gomo M'bele was the best or worst of the lot - he had amassed more power, more wealth, and more absolute authority than any of them, so Trump's choice of him as a tutor was the right one.
Trump was savvy enough to first work the American democratic system to its limits, then introduce his more authoritarian order. His bulldozing of the Washington bureaucracy went unchallenged, the worst offender of waste, fraud, and corruption, USAID was demolished, and the DOGE team had every other useless federal agency in its sights. The Administration's front men met the challenge of the courts, and found enough political motivation, bias, and favoritism to blunt legal action. His executive orders were so many and issued to quickly that the court system simply couldn't cope.
In state after state, Trump's political operatives were at work, In red states he found ways to consolidate power, in swing states his orchestration of gerrymandering was brilliant, and blue states he sowed dissatisfaction, anger, and resentment at progressive programs and policies. ICE, the National Guard and federal troops were sent to blue cities to 'restore order', but were clearly first forays into military rule.
Congress would be more difficult to control, intimidate, and reduced to a rubber stamp office, just like M'bele's parliament; but doable, and once again the President used his famed will, intimidation, threats, lawsuits, and carrot-and-stick political dealmaking to prepare the ground.
Things were going swimmingly for the President, so he felt confident enough to invite M'bele to the White House. However, the meeting, roundly criticized by the Left who howled foul and brought up all the baseless charges already leveled at the African leader, was enthusiastically anticipated by the President of the United States. He would repay his new friend with a state dinner, honors, and gracious thanks.
The meeting date has not yet been announced, but will happen in the coming months; but the word alone of such a high-level invitation has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in American investment in M'bele's nation, talk of a new generation of African-American solidarity, and thousands of black votes.
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