The Trump card

When US billionaire Donald Trump announced his intention to run for presidency as a Republican candidate, the reaction was predictable. People sneered, scoffed and snorted in derision, amusement and disbelief. No one took the news seriously and it was Jeb Bush’s name that held most plausibility. But you can never tell with Americans! Trump hasn’t been written off as previously predicted. In fact, he is one of the forerunners in the race for Republican nomination. God save America!
Already the media is rife with Trump’s faux pas and his sweeping statements on everything under the sun, from Muslims to migrants and Syria to stocks. One shudders at the thought of him being nominated. Surely not? The Republicans won’t make that mistake, will they? Or will they? If anyone was aghast at the prospect of another Bush at the helm, they now may be saying, “Just as we thought things couldn’t get worse, they just did!”
The problem is, there are so many nomination seekers for the Republicans this time around, that the votes may get diluted and anyone could bag the win by a few paltry votes. Back in April this year, The Economist had written off Trump as a ‘publicity seeker’ and had not listed him on their ‘A-list’. But in August, the same weekly has swallowed its words and says, in effect, hey wait, Trump is still very much around!
Why should the world, and Washington in particular, be so worried about Trump descending on the White House? The reasons are many. He may be a successful businessman (though having declared bankruptcy intermittently throughout his career), but that does not qualify him to be president of the most powerful country on Earth.
He is xenophobic, bigoted, petty, vengeful, and can be described with a string of other distasteful adjectives. Let’s dissect Donald and see what makes him so distasteful.
If made president, Trump declares, he will build a wall on the Mexican border so no migrants can enter the US from Mexico and he will also deport America’s approximate eleven million undocumented immigrants. Trump says Mexicans bring in drugs, crime and that “they are rapists”.
Those are not the only objectionable or ridiculous words Trump has uttered. He is insulting to women. He says he will deport Syrians if he becomes president, because those fleeing war and persecution “could be ISIS”. His is an unabashed Islamphobe. He has implied that president Barack Obama is a non-American Muslim. (Now, however, he is reportedly working on a press release to say Obama is not a Muslim, even though he loves the sound of azaan, bowed to the Saudi king, made a deal with Muslim Brotherhood... blah, blah, blah.)
People aren’t blind to Trump’s myopic views. In a poll survey run by Suffolk University Political Research Centre, respondents were asked to describe Trump in a single word. The most common words were: idiot, jerk, stupid, dumb, arrogant, crazy, nuts, buffoon, clown, comical and joke.
There are more Trump-isms and the one that has enraged many patriot Americans is his derision of McCain. He belittled Senator John McCain’s role in the Vietnam War, saying: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, OK?” After that, his fellow Republicans have questioned his fitness to be commander-in-chief, some even demanding he withdraw with presidential candidature.
And yet, believe it or not, Donald J Trump is shoulder-to-shoulder with Jeb Bush in maintaining a solid lead in the crowded Republican field of presidential candidates.
There is, of course, the general feeling that “surely he won’t win nomination!” But public complacence can be the key to his success. If he does, by any chance, win GOP nomination, does that mean the Democrats will win the election hands down? Or will the US usher in a president with a very, very strange hairstyle?
[The observations herewith reflect the writer’s personal views]
Ayesha Kabir is Consultant, Prothom Alo, English Online