Hate sells, from India to America

Dubai eye

The writer is a Middle East based
columnist.

Said Adlai Stevenson Jr: “In America any boy may become president, and I suppose it is just one of the risks he takes.” Seriously, though, it looks like the United States may be all set to elect its most obnoxious, divisive and bigoted president yet. Donald ‘Teflon’ Trump, once shrugged off as a big joke and a minor nuisance, has emerged ahead of the pack, setting the cat amongst the pigeons.

The billionaire candidate is intolerably cruel and racist and revels in purveying hatred and bigotry. And yet he has been on a roll, winning primary after primary. On Tuesday, he won the Nevada caucus and now enjoys an unassailable 46.5 percent share of the vote.

The mystified Republican leadership and the rest of the political establishment have been watching the rise and rise of the upstart in utter horror and disbelief. It seems that no one can stop this juggernaut now. The Republican nomination may already be in the bag for him and the battle for White House may eventually narrow down to a Trump versus Clinton thriller.

Given the many chinks in the former first lady’s shining armour and the popular yearning for change after eight years of a Democratic and ‘no-drama Obama’ presidency, Trump’s supporters may be forgiven for concluding that their candidate stands a fair chance – however outrageous the idea may be to the country’s ethnic and religious minorities.

Trump’s stunning ascendancy is no flash in the pan. As Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times argues, it has been the logical and inevitable outcome of the myopic, intolerant politics that the Republican right has been practicing all these years.

Insisting that he hasn’t come across a politician who is so “ill-informed on the issues, or so evasive, or who so elegantly and dangerously melded bombast and vapidity,” Kristoff blames the rise of Trump on decades of Republican leaders, who “pried open a Pandora’s box, a toxic politics of fear and resentment, sometimes brewed with a tinge of racial animus, and they could never satisfy the unrealistic expectations that they nurtured among supporters”.

The Republican frontrunner “is the consequence of irresponsible politicking by Republican leaders – the culmination of decades of cultivating unrealistic expectations within the politics of resentment,” argues the New York Times columnist, eerily reminding me of my own country, where similar ‘toxic politics of fear and resentment’ not too long ago paved the way for our own Trump.

The Republican frontrunner has successfully preyed on and tapped into the deepest fears, insecurities and plain old-fashioned prejudices of the majority of famously uninformed Americans to reach where he has today. From calling the Latinos rapists and criminals to demanding a blanket ban on Muslims, and from insulting African-Americans to singling out women and immigrants for scorn, Trump loves to hate just about everyone. Clearly, hate sells.

The rest of the world may scratch its head in bafflement at the growing popularity of a candidate like Trump, but as far as the Americans are concerned – at least the white Christian majority – they seem to love everything he says and does. The candidate’s popularity ratings have been soaring, not despite his intemperate, hateful barbs but because of them. Every time he targets a vulnerable, voiceless minority, his ratings seem to go up. In his latest attack, he has called for shooting Muslim terrorists with bullets dipped in pig’s blood!

In his brief yet eventful journey, the candidate has spread so much sweetness and light all around that many Americans are beginning to miss the quiet dignity and respect with which Barrack Obama treated his bitterest of adversaries and critics.

David Brooks, another New York Times columnist from the right, recently surprised everyone by declaring how he is beginning to miss Obama amidst the ongoing presidential campaign. Noting the sharp “decline in behavioral standards across the board,” Brooks praises the integrity and basic humanity of the incumbent: “Many of the traits of character and leadership that Obama possesses have suddenly gone missing or are in short supply.”

Brooks also had a word of praise for Obama for choosing to visit the Baltimore mosque and standing with Muslims, at a time when Trump and everyone else is picking on the community. Which, coming from a conservative pundit, is really something. One only wishes that Obama had done this earlier. But then, he also leaves behind a legacy of many misses, the chief among them being his spectacular failure to rein in Israel.

After his ambitious start on the Middle East, Obama dropped the issue like a hot potato, after running into the blind wall of Israeli intransigence. And to think he was nominated for the coveted Nobel Peace Prize in his first year in office, on the basis of his lofty promise to resolve this mother of all conflicts!

Returning to the phenomenon called Trump, what I find most fascinating about the candidate is the predictable and tested script of his campaign and the uncanny, unmistakable parallels with Prime Minister Modi’s breathtaking leap from Gujarat to Delhi. I don’t know if the Republican frontrunner has met the Indian leader, but apparently they share much mutual admiration.

Trump may not have a successful pogrom on his resume, but he makes up for it with his toxic, xenophobic rants and his ambition to drive out all Muslims. Like our hero, who carefully cultivated his larger-than-life image and engendered a cult following as a strong leader who knows how to deal with the pesky Pakistan and endlessly multiplying ranks of Muslims and ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’, Trump has burnished his credentials as a tough-talking, no-nonsense strongman who can make America great again, whatever that means.

And just like in India – where the corporate media, with the blessings of big business, whitewashed 2002 and gave birth to the legend of a hardworking, incorruptible and assertive leader contrasted against a soft-spoken, self-effacing prime minister – the US media has played a significant role in shaping the Trump candidacy. Ignoring his many scandals, profligacy and sheer meanness, he has been projected as a successful business baron with old-fashioned common sense!

No wonder Trump has found support in the influential Indian-American community, which has formed a committee to support the candidate whom they see as the “best hope for America”. A member of the Indian Americans for Trump Committee told BBC that only a strong leader like Trump could take on the challenge of Islamic terrorism and illegal immigration.

Their own roots notwithstanding, Indian Americans have little patience for the nuisance called immigrants and refugees and strongly support Trump’s call to build a high wall along the border with Mexico to keep out all those illegals. They also believe Trump could and should join hands with their hero Modi in this mission to take on Islam across the globe.

Back home in India, the media went gaga when Trump had a passing word of praise for India during a chat with CNN, saying that India is doing great but no one is talking about it. The remark was made in comparison to China of course, which not surprisingly, Trump loves running down. But it was enough to set off celebrations all round, ignoring the many sterling qualities of candidate Trump.

Many are already dreaming about a grand Indian-American alliance against you know who. After all, top US multinationals from Microsoft and Google to Pepsi are already headed by Indian-Americans and Silicon Valley is teeming with Indian techies. This could be a win-win partnership between the two great democracies. So what if it is brought about by the rise of the rabid Right, which refuses to see beyond its nose?

Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com