Trump and the true face of American politics

In a chat with a People magazine reporter in 1998 America’s, new President-elect Donald Trump bared his thoughts on the characteristics of the American voting public, especially Republican loyalists. He said, “If I was to run [for the Presidency] I would run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They […]

In a chat with a People magazine reporter in 1998 America’s, new President-elect Donald Trump bared his thoughts on the characteristics of the American voting public, especially Republican loyalists. He said, “If I was to run [for the Presidency] I would run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything they hear on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be fantastic”. This well documented and verified quote has turned out to be prophetic. Trump has just run a campaign of calumny and falsehood against his main opponent Hillary Clinton that has helped him craft a historic victory. The world is now being treated to a spectacle in which some of the most distressing and unimaginable scenarios of political reaction available to the American social arena are being mounted in celebration of his triumph. For the second time in recent history the Republicans have seized the White House with a minority of the popular vote but a majority of the compulsory votes of the electoral-college. As a consequence the triumph of Trump’s rhetorical bombast has encouraged the rise of triumphalist sentimentality among some of the most irrational and indecent elements of the American political scene.
No institution is more famous for the promotion of the ideology of racial discrimination than the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). It has announced that its members will embark on a series of public marches to celebrate his victory. It remains to be seen whether Trump will embrace or reject this frightening endorsement.  However the very fact that the KKK has seen fit to announce its full support for his victory is public testimony of its support for his promised policies. This should give any rational individual who believes in the principles of equity and justice cause to worry. Donald Trump’s victory has unveiled the worst side of America’s political profile and given legitimacy to a level of reactionary intolerance that is unprecedented in the recent history of the USA. Not since the reversals of the post-civil-war reconstruction era has the prospects for racial harmony in the society been so dire. We are reminded that in the mid-1960’s, when Barry Goldwater mounted a campaign that promised to reverse the gains of the Civil Rights movement and lost, Malcolm X (Malik el Shabazz), the Black Muslim activist, predicted that sometime in the future a “Goldwater type” candidate would emerge and win the Presidential election. He warned that when that happened Black Americans must prepare to defend their rights. The Trump victory might very well be a fulfillment of that prophecy.
The emergence of the Trump phenomenon in America’s political arena has exposed the existence of a deep-seated element of bigotry and division in the white middle-class psyche of that nation. What is even more frightening is the ease with which a political opportunist like Trump could manipulate this sentiment to his advantage in such an important election. His victory suggests that the rise of intolerance of racial differences that can engender fascist authoritarianism in society has taken root in America. It is noticeable that some of his most irrational proposals, such as the plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, and the call for a ban on entry of Muslims to the USA were among his most popular campaign utterances. What remains to be seen is whether he will be able to force actual legislation to implement these untenable and openly racist sentiments through the U.S. Congress. On the other hand many analysts have suggested that Trump deployed these sentiments simply as tools of convenience in order to win the support of bigoted voters. They posit that he has no intention of actually carrying out policies based on them and that his actions will be contained by the limits of legislative practicality. According to this argument the Trump phenomenon is a product of his manipulation of the American public’s obsession with the celebrity status of their popular heroes and he will eventually appeal to them to tone down their expectations.
Trump’s most effective achievement has actually not been to win the election but rather to defeat his opponent. Hillary Clinton represented a tradition of tolerance and liberal rationality that Trump rubbished at every step of the way. At the same time he is most certainly aware that if the rise of the lunatic fringe on whose shoulders he has ridden to victory gets out of hand it will undermine his own legitimacy. As a consequence an important priority of his earliest moments in office will be the rejection of the perception that he has been elected to reverse America’s tradition of tolerance and global cooperation. Already, even before taking up the mantle of office he has disowned some of the most divisive celebratory utterances of his core supporters, asking them to stop taunting members of minority communities such as Latinos and blacks. As he makes appointments to his cabinet he might take the opportunity to send a conciliatory signal by appointing some minority leaders to posts in his Administration. The danger of such a tactic will be if these appointments end up being seen simply as cosmetic gestures rather than substantial initiatives that represent the true interests of constituencies other than those of the white majority.  Trump has shown hardly any inclination to overcome this trend and he has upgraded some of his irrational rhetoric to the level of statements of principle. It is probably in response to this that some observers and political analysts have warned that if he is not careful his presidency could eventually founder on the shoals of executive misconduct.
While Hillary Clinton can claim to have won support from the majority of individual voters Trump’s message has gained wider territorial acceptance in the USA. The symbolic acceptance of the political message of an aspirant in a majority of states is the main objective of American presidential elections. This is the purpose for which the award of electoral-college votes based on regional results is designed. The Trump camp brilliantly exploited this esoteric element of the system while the Clinton camp promoted a moral imperative that has apparently been overtaken by isolationism in the polity. It is not wrong to assume that Clinton represented the most popular segment of public opinion in the major centres of cosmopolitan habitation in America. The results proved this. However Trump appealed to the inhabitants of the centres of chauvinistic communal isolationism known as the American heartland. He exploited their fears and their presumptions of superiority over the rest of the world without reservation. This attitude of untrammelled arrogance led to him being portrayed as a bigoted and boastful aspirant by a substantial segment of the American media. Now that his strategy has been successful the media and Donald Trump will have to find grounds for accommodation and reconciliation if the system is to remain on an even keel. This search for accommodation will determine the real relationship between a triumphant Trump and the true face of American politics.
Mr. Barrett, a public affairs analyst, wrote this piece from Abuja