Editor: I have always considered myself to be an “Independent voter”. In the past I have backed such unsuccessful American presidential candidates as Eugene McCarthy, John Anderson, Ross Perot, Al Gore and Bernie Sanders. When they lost, I was always able to reconcile myself to the elevation of the subsequently successful candidate to be president of the US.

But Donald Trump was “a bridge too far”. My wife and I left the US for a small, independent Caribbean island, a former British colony, which I now discover is ruled by a two-bit tin-horn demagogue, dead set on finagling dynastic succession by catering to a sycophantic band of “red ant” idolatrous supporters, and who could probably “walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters”. He now parallels his son’s silence in the face of allegations of adultery or worse with that of Jesus before Pilate. His son is Minister of Finance, Minister of Sustainable Development, and Minister of Information Technology; the son’s wife is the appointed executive director the Financial Services Authority for the country. His cousin is secretary general of his political party and Minister of Transport, Works, Urban Development and Local Government, and the brother of this cousin owns the road repair business that is contracted to do road work for the Government, as well as general contract engineering and construction of Government projects; and the Director of Public Prosecutions is a former law colleague from the Prime Minister’s law firm. Does anyone here care about any of this?  

Birds in Antigua, Duvalier in Haiti? I am out of the frying pan and into the fire! Nepotism reigns, Trump in the White House and cookie cutter clones in the West Indies.

What’s left — Argentina or New Zealand — where can we go that has any democracy left?

Joseph Herzen