Rethinking Donald Trump – OpEd

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By Harish Venugoapalan

One election that never fails to catch the eyes of the entire world is the American elections. This election has been no different. Generally, in any election, the presidential candidates’ popularity is discussed. But in this election, for a change, the candidates’ unpopularity is being discussed. The latest opinion poll shows that among registered voters, 39 percent view Hillary Clinton favourably while 57 percent view her unfavourably. Donald Trump is viewed by 38 percent of the registered voters in a favourable manner while 57 percent of them view him unfavourably.

One more significant point to note is that the media has come out dominantly in support of Hillary Clinton. The same media has come out in full strength against Donald Trump. This has been the case right from the beginning when Donald Trump was contesting the Republican Primaries. Then, columns and articles used to be dominated with titles like ‘Why Trump can never become a Presidential candidate?’, ‘Why it is important to stop Trump?’ etc. Once he was elected as the Presidential candidate, the topic shifted. But the tone did not. It is about ‘How America cannot afford to have Trump as President.’ The New York Times published an editorial a couple of days back endorsing Hillary Clinton as its President titled ‘Hillary Clinton for President.’ It followed it up with another editorial ‘Why Donald Trump should not be President’. The Washington Post posted an editorial with the heading ‘It’s beyond debate that Donald Trump is unfit to be President.’ There is another group that has named itself ‘Historians against Trump’ which published an open letter to the American People to warn against the dangers of electing Donald Trump as President of the USA. Everyone seems to have ganged up against Trump these days.

Is a Trump Presidency all that bad for the US or the rest of the world? To begin with, Trump gave out a lot of dangerous statements initially. His remarks about Muslims, Mexicans and women were extreme and dangerous. But it is also true that he has moderated himself enormously in particular after his new campaign team came into force. Now he has started talking about how he won’t allow people from ‘enemy countries’ instead of saying that Muslims will not be allowed in. Earlier, he compared Mexican immigrants to rapists and mentioned that Mexico is sending people who commit crimes, who are killers and who are rapists and that he will build a wall along the border for which the Mexican government will pay. Recently, he went to Mexico, met the President there and came back and gave out a statement that ‘Mexicans are great people and they will pay for the wall.’ Lastly, he has stopped making the ‘misagonystic’ statements that he used to make. These are all improvements. It is all about moderation. Of course, not many in the liberal media have pointed these out!

Many people accuse Trump of being a populist. But if one looks at his statements, it is clear that in many of the issues, his stand goes against the mainstream stand of the Republican Party. For one, the Republicans thrive by seeing Russians as their enemies. But Trump probably is the first Presidential candidate who has openly called for good ties with Russia. His lauding Putin and going to the extent of saying that the Crimea annexation should be recognised is not going to win him many votes. Yet, he has done that. One wonders ‘would better American-Russian ties have resolved the Syrian crisis by now?’ Surely the answer is ‘yes’. How many less deaths would that have caused? We are speaking in thousands. He has also promised to pull back the American troops from the Middle East and other parts of the world. Is this really possible and good too? But at least, it will not lead to disasters like Iraq and Libya for which both the Republicans and Democrats are responsible — the Republicans for the former and the Democrats for the latter. Whatever one might say about Trump, he speaks his mind. That cannot be refuted.

Also, when he has been requesting the African American community to vote for him, one thing is clear. He is not going to win many votes from them because of the fact that most of them vote for the Democrats. It is clear that he wants to be seen as a moderate among the wider white voters — especially among many from the Republican Party itself who accuse him of being a demagogue and an extremist. Even if that is so, he should be appreciated at least for making the attempts to reach out to the African Americans. Yet, he is more often ridiculed for this. That is not to say that Trump should not be criticised at all. There are plenty of things to criticise about Trump right from his non-submission of IT returns to obscene remarks that he has made repeatedly during the course of the election campaign to many other issues. The point that this writer is making is that ganging up against Trump in totality and making the point (or attempting feebly) that it would be the end of the world if Trump gets elected as President is not the right thing to do.

Also, the ‘intellectuals’ coming together is comparable to something that happened in India a couple of years back. Back then, in April 2014, before the general elections, 26 intellectuals wrote in The Guardian warning that the secular fabric of India would be destroyed if Narendra Modi becomes the Prime Minister of India. Well, it has been two years since Narendra Modi has become the Prime Minister of India!! Nothing seems to have happened to the ‘secular fabric’ of the country. It is safe and sound. Modi may also well be on the path of becoming the Prime Minister for a second time in 2019 — much to the chagrin of these so-called intellectuals. Instead, it is the intellectuals themselves who are having the last bite of the humble pie that they have bitten.

Let’s get this one right — a Trump Presidency is not only possible but also probable. If the Americans think that Donald is the trump card that they have, they have a right to say ‘yes’ to that. About these people who want to do everything within their power and stop Trump, to substitute from the famous ‘Rasputin’ song by ‘Boney-M’, ‘Oh………those intellectuals.’

Source:
This article was published at Modern Diplomacy.

Modern Diplomacy

The Modern Diplomacy is a leading European opinion maker - not a pure news-switchboard. Today’s world does not need yet another avalanche of (disheartened and decontextualized) information, it needs shared experience and honestly told opinion. Determined to voice and empower, to argue but not to impose, the MD does not rigidly guard its narrative. Contrary to the majority of media-houses and news platforms, the MD is open to everyone coming with the firm and fair, constructive and foresighted argumentation.

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