Showing posts with label 45th President. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 45th President. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

A Democratic Boomerang

The Electoral College voted December 19, 2016, finalizing Donald Trump's election as the 45th President of the US. The following day, in the supposedly greatest democracy on earth, the hypocrisy of many caught up with them in the form of a trending hashtag, #NeverMyPresident. 


In a democracy, the will of the people supersedes everything else. Therefore the hashtag was as stupid as the call for the abolition of the #ElectoralCollege and as divisive as the #CrookedHillary hashtag (that unfairly demonized one flawed candidate over an equally flawed opponent), given that elections are won by a majority of votes no matter how people feel about a particular candidate. 

In the US, it’s the electoral college vote that counts, so even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million ballots, it did not change anything. Fact is, for the Democrats, the numbers just didn’t add up this time, but that’s no reason to devalue the electoral college.

By calling for its abolition and continuing an unhealthy obsession with Trump (which, by the way, is the reason he won in the first place), Clinton fans and the Democratic Party are unwittingly impeding the unraveling of Donald Trump. The campaign is over, now it’s time to assess him on his policy, not his campaign antics. 

Therefore criticizing him for every triviality will erode the power of  any serious critique on things that actually matter. And since his supporters, like him, take all criticism personally, they instinctively respond to every attack by defending him, which leaves them no time to actually evaluate him. It is important for them to evaluate him because they voted him for a purpose.

It goes without saying that dwelling on trivialities simply repeats the mistakes made during the campaign, which is, steering attention away from issues.  It is now clear, of course, that disparaging Trump just “for being Trump,” is tantamount to celebrating Trump.

It might be time for the country to move on. It might also be time for Democrats to look beyond the email hacking as a reason for their loss though a bipartisan investigation is crucial for the sake of the country. 


Clinton & Obama
The truth of the matter is that if the contents of those emails were not damaging to Mrs. Clinton, the hacking would not have made any difference at all, after all, as many have said, the Russians didn’t write the emails. 

One interesting point many ignore is that if a majority of American voters wanted Hillary Clinton to be president, the hacked emails, even with their damaging contents, would not have made any difference. And there is no greater proof of that than Donald Trump himself. 

Putin
He refused to release his tax records, they still voted for him. He mocked a disabled person on national television, they still voted for him. He called Mexicans rapists, they still voted for him. He made utterances in public that no other presidential candidate would dare make in private, they still voted for him. In short, Donald Trump broke every rule of the game but because the majority wanted him, they voted for him anyway.

Maybe it’s time for America to finally "silence the guns" and seek instead to understand the meaning behind that choice.   


Thursday, November 10, 2016

The Moment of Truth

President-elect Trump & incumbent Obama
The White House
The triumph of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, which comes at the heels of Britain’s exit from the European Union, has been hailed as the apocalypse. But apocalypse, it may not be. Though several issues and scandals fanned the embers of the bitterly fought 2016 election, what really propelled voters in the US, as in Britain (during the Brexit vote), was an unprecedented yearning for change. It probably doesn’t matter now that no one actually asked the question: What kind of change? 




President-elect Trump
Clearly, the clash between Trump and Mrs. Clinton challenged Americans to confront divisions over race, gender, religion, ideology, and the country’s very national identity. 
Farage & Trump
Interestingly, the "candidate Trump" and the "president-elect Trump" appear to be two different people. In his victory speech and in his comment during a visit to the White House for a meeting with President Obama, Trump sounded conciliatory. Now, what if the campaign persona was actually stage-managed? What if the facade of bigotry was just set up to appeal to a larger number of those angry  and desperate for change no matter what? What if no wall will be built? What if Muslims can enter the US as before?   

In a world where interest groups have usurped the rights of many ordinary people, causing the middle class to disappear and sparking anger, some believe that boosting populist movements everywhere is the best possible chance they have to upend the corrupt system. So, the emergence of Trump in the 2016 presidential election and his disregard for political correctness which many people despise, gave hope to those who felt short-changed.

Donald Trump
Interestingly, following his victory, many irritants in Europe, who mistake racism and homophobia for populism, are bracing themselves for the wind of change that they think a Trump presidency will bring.

Now, as controversial as this might sound, I think that it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to allow the radical movements in Europe to win for a change—from Marie Le Pen of France to Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria to Geert Wilder of the Netherlands to Pablo Iglesias of Spain to Beppe Grillo of Italy—not because they can deliver, but because it will prove a very simple point, and that is: It is easier to find fault than to find a solution. 

President Obama
As many examples have revealed, campaign rhetoric and the reality of governance are two different things. And truth be told, in the history of mankind, revolutions triggered by emotions had been largely successful because they were powered by ideas, which today’s populism gravely lacks. 

There is no question at all that in the absence of a fundamental idea of statehood, blind anger over a broken system alone cannot a revolution make.