Republican presidential candidate, Donald John Trump staged one of the most remarkable political upsets in American history; since at least 1948, to become the 45th elected president of the United States; in a stunning culmination of an explosive, populist and polarizing campaign that revealed the true character of America as a xenophobic, racist and divided nation. Trump’s campaign provided daily evidence that he would be a terrible president. His experience, temperament and character make him horribly unfit to be president of a nation the world looks to for leadership; as well as commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful armed forces and in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal. He has exploited America’s simmering racial tensions, fusing visceral identity politics with an economic populism and nationalist overtones that espoused white supremacy with his ubiquitous campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.” Trump’s election is an international embarrassment to America; an unbelievable shame that demands no perfunctory exaggeration as it gives a bad name to democracy as a form of government.
The shocking upset, defying late polls that showed Democratic flagbearer, Hillary Clinton with a modest lead, triggered global financial jitters and set off and alarm bells among America’s allies, many of which were rattled because Trump, in his grievance-mongering campaign repeatedly cast doubt on the need for America’s military commitments abroad and its allegiance to international trade deals “negotiated by stupid people” which he blamed for costing American manufacturing jobs. His unvarnished angry message made his rallies furious, entertaining and heavy on banality, insults and name-calling. In a blistering campaign in which he repeatedly stoked fear, division and appealed to base sentiments, Trump insisted the political machinery was “rigged” against him and his deluded supporters; whom he riled up to defeat the establishment forces that had assembled against him, from the world of business to government, and the consensus they had forged on everything from trade to immigration.
From the moment he entered the campaign, with a shocking set of claims that Mexican immigrants were rapists and criminals, an air of improbability trailed his campaign. The 70-year-old real estate reality TV star with no government experience, described his politics as the transactional reality of a businessman. His campaign was a laundry list of contradictory policy proposals, often changing by the day. A Trump government would cut taxes for the rich while imposing trade protections that would raise prices for the poor. His voodoo ideas on revenue and spending are an affront to statistics. He believes climate change is a hoax perpetrated by China. He ran a fact-free campaign with scant regard for the truth and made outlandish suggestions that raised questions of constitutionality, like banning Muslims from the United States. He promised to build a wall at the southern border to keep out Mexican immigrants and says Mexico will pay for it. The media was his favorite punching bag; berating them as “dishonest” and promising lawsuits against news organizations that covered him critically. Above all, he was a pathological liar; he lied so frequently that he earned the dubious distinction as the most lying candidate ever to run for the presidency.
Trump’s dozens of business entanglements; many of them in foreign countries will follow him into the Oval Office, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest. His refusal to release his tax returns, and his acknowledgment that he did not pay federal income taxes for years, has left Americans with considerable gaps in their understanding of his crooked financial dealings. A serial philanderer and sex predator, presently in his third marriage, Trump boasted, in a 2005 video, about using his public profile to grope and sexually assault women; and then claimed it was locker room banter. When women came forward to accuse him of sexual assault, he threatened to sue them. He disparaged female political rivals as lacking a presidential “look.” He objectified women for sexual veneration; ranking them on a scale of one to 10, even holding forth on the desirability of copulating his own daughter – the kind of outlandish behavior that should disqualify any candidate for high public office.
All this alone should have stopped any decent person from casting a vote, if they had one, for Trump. But as it happened, white voters who had helped elect America’s first black president, refused to rally behind a white woman. Tuesday’s election was a referendum on gender progress: an opportunity to elevate a woman to America’s top job and to repudiate a bully an egomaniac, whose character and temperament, including his remarkably scandalous veneration of women as sexual objects would be a blight on the toga of the oval office as a place for moral leadership.
American political pundits and their mainstream media have tried to spin this international embarrassment which the election of Trump symbolizes. Their narrative points to some imaginary anger against the political establishment and a revolt, especially by working people against the elite. This is hogwash and no one is fooled. The truth of the matter is that population projections estimate whites will become a “plural minority” in America by 2035 and this is creating a palpable sense of fear and uncertainty amongst White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) who are first in the pecking order of power in the USA.
Trump is a bigot, racist and xenophobe, who ran a dog whistle white supremacists campaign with an unvarnished message to white Americans who felt the promise of the American dream had eluded their grasp because of globalization and immigration. He was emphatic in “taking our country back” and “making America great again”, which euphemistically meant: “making America white again.” It stretches credulity that blue-collar white working-class union voters in industrial towns, who for decades have been the bedrock of the Democratic Party, ignored all what Trump stands for and embraced him as their improbable champion. Trump presented himself as the embodiment of the success and grandeur that many white voters who betrayed Clinton in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio felt was missing from their own lives and from America itself. He convinced white Americans that people who don’t look, dress, eat, or pray like them want to take over their country. It was “us” versus “them” and so we must stop “them” else “we wouldn’t have a country anymore.”
That in essence was the message white America sent to the rest of the world by electing Trump. It was not about Hillary; it was about de-legitimizing the first black president whose citizenship Trump has always questioned, and remains an unapologetic birther. Hillary’s embrace of the Obama coalition was a kiss of death, because in the view of the alt-right, she was an “enemy in the house.” Trump’s victory therefore, amounted to repudiation, not only of Hillary, but of President Obama, whose legacy is now imperiled. Eight years after losing the Democratic primary to Obama and 16 years after leaving the White House as First Lady for the US Senate, Hillary was poised to carry on the two legacies: her husband’s and Obama’s. Her defeat signaled an astonishing end to a political dynasty that has colored American Democratic Party politics for a generation.
No matter how white Americans try to rationalize Trump’s victory, the world will continue to have a low opinion of America’s political system. Over the past two decades political deadlock and mud-slinging have become normalized. Recent sessions of Congress have shut the government down, flirted with a sovereign default and enacted little substantive legislation. Granted that Americans are fed up with Washington; why didn’t they vote out the Republicans who have obstructed Obama for the last eight years? The inherent contradiction that conservative women, who wear their moral piety as a badge of honor, voted for a moral leper like Trump is hypocrisy that stinks to the high Heavens!
The best that can be said of Trump is that his candidacy is a symptom of the popular desire for change and political revival. Every outrage and every broken taboo is mistaken as evidence that he would break the system and change Washington. But this is mere wishful thinking. This was a white election. It was a race election. Contrary to all the data and demographics about a changing America, Donald Trump defied conventional wisdom and believed he could win by mobilizing the white vote and turning out angry white voters in greater numbers than others believed was possible – and finally winning the White House with an overwhelmingly white vote.
To hope that any good can come from Trump’s wrecking job reflects a narcissistic belief and a foolhardy confidence that, after a spell of chaos and demolition, you can magically unite the nation and fix what is wrong with America. America has lost its moral compass and has become a racist, xenophobic nation. Since every people get the leadership they deserve, a racist xenophobic nation deserves a racist xenophobic bigot like Donald Trump. We hope he leaves office with a better economy than the last republican president. It took the Democrats eight years to fix that.
