Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election is the greatest upset in political history, surpassing the shock “Brexit” referendum in Britain just five months ago. By confounding pundits, pollsters and media mavens, he conjured the unthinkable into reality. In all humility, I must admit, he proved my own prognosis of a Hillary Clinton win to be utterly off the mark.
The saying “anything can happen in politics” has been demonstrated by Mr Trump’s unorthodox and iconoclastic march to the White House. From an also-ran with no prior governance background and dismissed as a celeb bully, he is now responsible for running a major world power.
The entertainer has taken over the most serious portal of government by throwing every assumption and norm out of the window. The brash billionaire who never tires of mockery had the last laugh against the “system” that he effectively tarnished as corrupt, rigged and unresponsive to the needs of ordinary Americans.
For most Americans who voted for Mr Trump, the “system” and its archetype, Hillary Clinton, were the problems, not his wild histrionics. The circus for them was not Mr Trump’s brash character but the failure of the establishment to deliver. They ignored or forgave his negative traits in order to declare war on the “system”, represented by globalisation, politicians in Washington, Wall Street moguls and intellectuals who weave the warp and woof of authority in America.
The decisive factor, that worked for Mr Trump, was disgruntlement over the economy among the middle and working classes. Though Barack Obama’s administration is crowing about the steadily improving US economy, in job creation and wage levels, not enough Americans were convinced by the statistical blitz from Washington.
“Things are getting better,” President Obama proclaimed every quarter. But for 48 per cent of the US electorate that voted Mr Trump into power, they were getting a raw deal. The economic recovery, that the number crunchers touted, didn’t trickle down adequately to ordinary working people. The hillbillies from rural and smalltown America, who Mr Trump labels as the “forgotten men and women”, revolted in unison and handed Mr Trump a magical mandate to flip around their depressed fortunes.
Hillary Clinton’s camp counted on top trade union leaders and labour rights advocates to turn out the blue-collar vote for her. She enjoyed the endorsement of the 12.5 million-strong American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations, the mega conglomerate of labour outfits. But the rank-and-file proletariat deserted her and heeded Mr Trump’s call about her “bad experience” of promoting economic injustice over 30 years in public life.
In battleground northeastern Rust Belt industrial states of Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, once solidly Democratic votebanks crumbled like a house of cards despite the union machinery stumping for Ms Clinton. Ardent left-leaning Democrats who rooted for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren deserted Ms Clinton though the former two campaigned for her. The Democrats’ hardcore “base” was as sullen as most Trump loyalists at unprincipled Ms Clinton, who pipped Mr Sanders through unfair means in the primaries.
The Democrats’ much-touted “ground game” in key states and the internal unity they boasted of in the campaign were ultimately chimeras. Mr Trump is, of course, an overtly divisive figure who never cared for unanimity within his own Republican Party. There were pre-election fears of a split down in the middle in Republican ranks. How ironic then that it was Ms Clinton who practically ripped apart her party while mooting a message of “togetherness”!
A tsunami of anger against everything and everyone with elite connections swept Ms Clinton away. Her pedigree and status as an “insider”, bankrolled by Wall Street and other “haves” in America became not an advantage but a fatal flaw. Even African-Americans turned out in far fewer numbers for her, and the surge of Latino votes which was projected to lift her to her long-cherished presidential destination proved inadequate to offset a broad cross-racial, cross-ideological perception that she was untrustworthy, hailed from a privileged political dynasty and would replicate old patterns that exacerbate inequality of wealth and status in America.
Ms Clinton, the arch opportunist, was judged worse than Mr Trump the zany capitalist.
Compared to Mr Obama in the last two elections, Ms Clinton underperformed in crucial states owing to a failure to stitch the rainbow coalition of minorities that he had mastered. In the eyes of many on the Left, she was not his true successor. Women, who were mostly offended by Mr Trump’s blatant sexism, held lingering doubts about Ms Clinton’s genuineness on non-gender issues. Several of them even voted for masochistic Trump even if it meant the centuries-old dream of breaking the glass ceiling went abegging. His snarky phrase, “Crooked Hillary”, chimed with the majority of voters.
This election generated intense nastiness and vitriol, dividing American society along rural-urban, racial, educational, gender, religious and ideological lines. By amalgamating so much anger and frustration against the status quo, Mr Trump the lone ranger pulled off a miracle victory against an entire array of countervailing forces.
As America’s 45th President, Mr Trump is the harbinger of “change” without the uplifting hope Mr Obama brought to office in 2008. Can an apocalyptic authoritarian who alienates so many become an unifier and healer His victory speech on the delirious election night was an orchestrated attempt to look more “presidential”. But America’s crises of racial violence and economic injustice are structural, and face an unlikely saviour in the new man at the White House for the next four years. Devoid of better choices, Americans picked Mr Trump as the lesser of two evils. They are left to reap the scary harvest.
The writer is a professor and dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs
