The election of Donald J Trump to the US Presidency is unique in a number of respects. He has ascended to the position of the 45th President of the United States, in world’s most powerful political position without having any prior political background. A successful billionaire business tycoon, Trump proved he was more political than day to day politicians because he managed to elicit support of the voters he had targeted to win over. From the time of his successful taking of the Republican Nomination Trump faced bitter opposition first from the Republic Party stalwarts, then from feminists, blacks, immigrants especially Muslims and Hispanics for his sexist, racial and anti-immigrant stances. He even fought some critical war veterans and one veteran family with no less ferocity. However, now that he has been elected he is a different Trump. He not only said meeting with President Obama is ‘an honor’ but also termed the outgoing president a very good person. Trump had replied to an Obama criticism during the campaign by saying he was a disaster in the While House.If one takes a note of Trump’s political campaign from the beginning to the end one would find that he was always prepared to and actually mended the fence when this was necessary. After the badname spread that Melania Trump did copy the speech of Michelle Obama in his Republican Party Convention speech, the speech-writer was fired and a new campaign chief was appointed when several flows were noted. But he never ever made a mistake of letting his supporters to forget that he is a stanunch Repiblican and stood by the values the party stands for. Trump’s political success has come at a time when there has been some reverse swings in international relations like the breaking away move of Britain from the EU, and emerging new power balance demonstrated by China’s assertion of its claim on the South China Sea despite the ITLOS case that it did not contest and the verdict; Russian’s forceful remergence in the world stage challenging the US-led unipolar monopoly in world relations since the break-up if the Soviet Union in 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall.
Trump vowed to erect a wall at the Mexico border to prevent the influx of immigrants and drug trafficiking. This has been termed as a political bluff. The same is the case with many claims that he made about his business sucesses and against his Democratic Party rival Hillary Clinton’s reported faillings – most of those being pure and simple election propaganda. Trump made no mistake in making lazy American voters realise very early in the campaign that ‘look here is a man speaking about your political and economic interests’, and a surprise nacked statue of the man emerged in all US cities in no time. After election, however, greens smell problems ahead as Trump , like the typical American extreme right stand, does not see global warming as an issue needing urgent steps to tackle. News reports rumor that his choice to head the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is somebody who his going to tell others ‘global warming is good’. Trump’s well-wishers would love to believe that he would not commit the blunder of withdrawing from the Paris Climate deal, like his predecessors deserted the Kyoto Protocol even after signing it. Because this deal is backed by the rest of the world.
(First Published in The Asian Age on 13 November 2016)
Related Posts
