DONALD TRUMP: The New York Times has editorially stated that \"Politicians targeting minorities, foreigners or women have always existed in the culture (meaning, US culture)…every generation or so, at least one demagogue surfaces to fan those flames.\" Th American politics has not seen anything like what Donald Trump has been showing in the last few months while campaigning for the Republican ticket for the November 2016 presidential election. He has never held elected office at any level, federal, state or local. He is a multi-billionaire businessman who has shown what the power of money can do to politics in the United States of America.
Far from allowing his political inexperience from becoming an obstacle to his intention to win the most powerful political office in the world, Donald Trump is using his inexperience in politics as his other main capital apart from his money. He has portrayed politicians as deceitful, dishonourable people who use their trade to mislead and trick people. He promised he would bring to politics at the national level a breath of fresh air where the voices of the people at the grassroots would guide the decisions of Washington.
His agenda has been that of the extreme right - albeit, an unclear one. In fact, against his views, seasoned extreme conservative Republican politicians have been made to appear liberal. He has picked Washington, immigration, Mexicans, women, health care, income tax, Muslims, security and foreign affairs issues to arouse his grassroots supporters. He has provided confused views on these critical issues of national importance. In fact, he simply said in his meetings, media interviews and the Republican presidential debates whatever he thought would arouse passion among his supporters at the grassroots without even caring to check the truthfulness or correctness of his statements.
He thus spoke against immigration aware that there is a lot of resentment at the grassroots of the Republican Party on allowing the 11 million illegal immigrants for staying in the country legally. Donald Trump in fact has gone overboard with immigration - calling Mexicans criminals and promising as President to build an impregnable wall on the 1000-miles-long US-Mexico border.
On foreign affairs, he has spoken like it is God-given right of the United States to dominate the world that President Obama has squandered. He promised to restore US right to dominate the world.
Muslims have been a major punching bag for Donald Trump. He began by talking about the Muslims like they stink and that it is a misfortune that they live in the USA in millions. He said he would like to close mosques in the country in response to any event like the Paris carnage. After the Paris carnage, his views on Muslims have crossed the limits of sanity. He thus said he saw "thousands and thousands" of Muslims rejoicing in Jersey City, New Jersey, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to arouse hatred. His attack on Muslims encouraged fellow campaigner Dr. Ben Carson to say things about Islam and Muslims that are not even printable!
As his grassroots supporters raised his standing in the polls to the top convincingly, Donald Trump became more and more irresponsible and offensive with his views. In the beginning, many outside the Republican Party and the extreme right also supported him because of his anti-Washington and extreme right views. He surprised himself and the Republican Party as he left the seasoned politicians behind to lead in the polls. However, it did not take people outside the extreme right and grassroots conservatives to see through the brittleness and weirdness of his views. He, nevertheless, continues to lead in the polls because the majority of extreme right in the Republican Party finds passion in his views, their weirdness and brittleness notwithstanding, while the large pack of candidates in the race divide the Party's vote among them.
The interest in Donald Trump is finally starting to wane nationally where initially he had created considerable interest. He is now being exposed for what his candidature has been all along - demagoguery but offensive in nature. New York Times in an editorial titled "Mr. Trump's Applause Lies" exposed this demagoguery. The editorial stated that "Politicians targeting minorities, foreigners or women have always existed in the culture (meaning, US culture)… every generation or so, at least one demagogue surfaces to fan those flames." The editorial has viewed Donald Trump to be that demagogue at the current juncture of US history.
The editorial has drawn parallels between Donald Trump's demagoguery with those of past demagogues. It compared his views on Syrian refugees as "Trojan horse" with Joseph McCarthy's on communism and communists. Likewise the editorial compared his comments with the need to do "unthinkable things" for the country's security with those of George Wallace in 1963. George Wallace had said then that US "must redefine its heritage" and ideology from external attack "in order to function and to grow and prosper."
The statement that he had seen "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in Jersey City celebrating the 9/11 attacks has been exposed as such a blatant lie that it has to be a mystery what really made him make it. Nevertheless, he has refused to take it back as he has with the litany of lies he has made on the campaign trial on so many other issues. In fact, by what he has been saying in his campaign, Donald Trump is starting to raise doubts among many about not just him but also the Republican Party. Outside the United States, eyebrows are being raised about how in a country that considers itself to have the moral authority to lecture the rest of the world on democracy and on issues of right and wrong someone like Donald Trump has become such a serious contender of the Republican Party for the White House.
The Republican Party that watched him emerge right under its nose to lead the Party's large pack of candidates for the presidential ticket had all the while hoped that his litany of lies and weird views would encourage the Party's supporters to desert him eventually. Unfortunately, the party failed to consider his billions of dollars and the large number of its own supporters that have liked him and his views and has kept him not just in the race but also leading the other candidates by a good margin. In so doing, he has forced the Republican Party into a Catch-22 situation.
If the Republican Party cannot ensure the exit of Donald Trump, then it would be forced to nominate the most unsalable candidate for any presidential election in recent memory. He has done the Republican Party enough damages already and even if it can deny him the ticket, it will have to bear the consequences of watching in silence his antics and his abuses and insults affecting almost all voting groups except his own narrow base of extreme right. He has insulted the Hispanics, the other recent immigrants, the women and the Muslims. Thus unless the Democrats do extremely stupid things between now and November 2016, they could have very high hopes to send another Democrat to the White House. And if that happens, the Democratic Party would certainly remember Donald Trump with gratitude.
The writer is a retired Ambassador.
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