THERE is something rather disturbing about the reaction, response and interests of Zimbabweans in particular and Africans in general to the ongoing election race in the US.
A visitor to Harare from another planet would think Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump are from Murehwa or Hwange, because of the knowledge about these two candidates we exhibit.
This visitor would really think we are a province of the US participating in the elections.
He or she would be interested in knowing how these two would better our lives.
None of the two is better; these two are Americans, interested in nothing else but America.
One of Zimbabwe’s finest writers, Dambudzo Marechera, aptly put it when he wrote: “Most whites are racists…and several so-called liberals… shower us poor souls with love when they consciously or unconsciously pity us for being black.”
And this is the exact attitude of these two vying for the American presidency.
And our morbid fascination with them validates Marechera’s assertion that: “Many African societies which benefitted from the wind of change in the 1960s have already failed to cut the umbilical cords of colonialism that connects them to their former masters both economically and socially.”
Loving or liking or thinking that one of the two is any good kufarira n’anga neinobata mai.
History does not lie.
America has never been for Zimbabwe and will never be; for the simple reason that we are black and Africans.
Illegal sanctions imposed on the country, especially by the US, have been effective in their objective of crippling Zimbabwe, never mind the rhetoric that they are targeted.
The sanctions are real and continue to bog down the economy.
According to an International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 3 No. 21 (Special Issue – December 2013) produced by the University of Zimbabwe: “In the post-Cold War era, politics has taken paradigmatic shift and the use of military force to resolve disputes has lost its lustre, splendour and credibility.
“Use of military force has become less acceptable and sanctions have become a popular tool of foreign policy, a means of coercive diplomacy to whip countries to change their behaviours, perceptions or policies.”
For instance, Ian Smith was no sanctions-buster; the Americans continued trading with Rhodesia ensuring that their kith and kin were not affected by the embargo imposed on the brutal regime.
The US, which immensely benefited from British occupation of Zimbabwe, never stopped importing chrome from the then Southern Rhodesia. 
Thinking that Trump or Clinton will make life better for Zimbabwe is, for want of a better word, foolishness.
What should we expect from a nation that cannot respect blacks who have become ‘Americans’?
African-Americans live in constant fear of being killed in their own country.
Clinton is on a mission to depose African presidents she deems problematic and an impediment to the American agenda.
She is no different from the belligerent Trump, who has already pledged to remove illegally from power President Robert Mugabe and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.
Clinton gloated after she successfully orchestrated the murder of Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.
“We came, we saw, he died,” she said.
She has also been mentored by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger whom Clinton calls ‘a friend’ and ‘relied on his counsel and checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders’.
And Kissinger is the man who boldly declared that Zimbabwe and South Africa do not belong to black Africa.
When American policy is crafted and implemented, it does not go away easily, it is maintained and promoted by successive administrations.
Even the African darling of the West, former South African President Nelson Mandela remained, up to 2008, on America’s terror list on which he was put by the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s.
Thus one of the biggest impediments to the country’s economic recovery, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA), promulgated into law by former President George W. Bush, will not be scrapped any time soon by Trump or Hillary who helped craft it.
The law provides for the barring of trade between Zimbabwe and the US at private and national levels.
Clinton or Trump in office will definitely not result in Zimbabwe accessing credit lines from the multi-lateral lending institutions or cancellation of debts. 
No matter who assumes office, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control will not stop sniffing around and chasing Zimbabwe’s transactions with the intention of freezing them.
Former US Congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney could not put it any better when she labelled proponents of ZDERA racists. 
“When we get right down to it, this legislation is nothing more than a formal declaration of US complicity in a programme to maintain white-skin privilege.
“We can call it an ‘incentives’ bill, but that does not change its essential ‘sanctions’ nature.
“It is racist and against the interests of the masses of Zimbabweans.”
The US Government states that, until the US President certifies that the rule of law has been restored in Zimbabwe, ZDERA will remain in place.
And can Trump or Clinton be satisfied until regime change has been effected and a puppet of the US is in place.
The only comforting thing is that America is no longer a superpower.
Its shenanigans and bullying tactics are no longer effective.
Zimbabwe has survived the US onslaught by looking elsewhere for co-operating partners such as China, Russia and Brazil, the new economic superpowers.