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: waqarkauravigmail.com