As the US warms up for presidential elections next year, Donald Trump has become a household name in the Continental United States as well as abroad. The celebrity-cum-billionaire has been leading among the Republican candidates, bypassing Jeb Bush and other popular figures. Today Donald Trump is the undisputed front-runner in opinion polls across Republican America. Who is Trump and how has the Trump phenomenon dominated the better part of the Republican debate for the upcoming elections? Sixty-nine year old Trump has risen from an entrepreneur who started different enterprises to a tycoon in the American business community. Owner of hotels, resorts, skyscrapers, the Miss Universe Pageant, Trump Towers, golf courses and The Trump Organization, maverick Trump is a WWF enthusiast and sponsor, writer of ten books and a net worth somewhere between $6 billion an $9 billion. He is one of the highest paid TV personalities, with $3 billion paid for one episode. Additionally he has been married three times. Above all, Trump may become the most controversial president of the United States of America ever. Trump has been playing to the gallery especially for audiences in the Red States after Syrian and Libyan refugees flooded Europe. He has shown his anti-Muslims bias. His hard-line approach towards immigration even from Mexico can be gauged from his presidential campaign inaugural speech: “The US has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Known for controversies, Trump has made sure his presidential campaign does not give a dull moment. The Washington Post of November 26 carried the story: ‘Trump draws scornful rebuke for mocking reporter with disability’. According to the report: “Donald Trump is under fire for mocking a New York Times reporter with a congenital joint condition during a campaign rally in South Carolina this week, drawing a scornful rebuke from the reporter and others who called Trump’s actions ‘despicable’. “The incident occurred as Trump was defending his recent claim that he had witnessed thousands of Muslims cheering in New Jersey on Sept 11, 2001, as the World Trade Center collapsed. The assertion has since been fact-checked and discredited by law enforcement and government officials who were in New Jersey in the days and weeks following the terrorist attacks.” Donald Trump has regularly taken hundreds of people and organisations to court, conversely hundreds of lawsuits by organisations and individuals have been filed against him; some believe this is normal in Big Business in America. Much has been talked of Trump’s one-line statement on a radio talk show in September this year – that the US should use India to check Pakistan in case a nuclear armed Pakistan becomes unstable. While Trump may need some foreign policy input from his advisors during the campaign, he may become a very different president after occupying the White House. Till then we keep our figures crossed and try to develop a better understanding of the Trump phenomenon. The US is a divided polity and the chasm between both schools of thought (Republican and Democrat) will keep increasing. A Trump or Clinton presidency won’t be much different in reuniting this divided polity. The demographic profile of the US has tilted the balance in favour of the Democrats. However, the Red States and many white Americans will continue to resist a Democratic rise. In case Trump becomes president, it may well be the last time Republicans will have gained ascendency in the White House, Congress as well as governorate of the states. With the anti-immigration debate getting a fillip in the Trump camp and mounting pressure on Congress to tighten immigration laws, the US is heading into an uncharted territory where the rise of extreme right-wing politics may clash with liberal democrats backed by second-generation immigrants who form one-third of the American electorate and whose numbers are steadily increasing with every passing day. Is America facing a crisis of leadership? If Hillary Clinton and Trump are the best options available, then maybe America does not deserve anything better at the moment. I quote Allen L Roland on the fall of the American polity and leave it to the readers to judge the rise of the Trump phenomenon. “Donald Trump represents the last desperate hope of an American electorate who have been left out of the political process and have lost respect for our corpocracy, so in their powerless dilemma, many have turned to a billionaire huckster who will gleefully voice their fears and concerns while creating a grade D political reality show which sadly has become American politics” The writer is a Lahore-based defence analyst. Email: waqarkauravi@gmail.com
