Earthquake waiting to happen: President Trump

Islamabad diary

This is not just gut feeling but the evidence coming out of this American presidential campaign, more fascinating than anything I have watched in my adult life.

Donald J Trump hasn’t come out of nowhere. He addresses the anxiety of large sections of the American populace…anxiety born of two things, the planes coming out of a clear blue sky on that particular September morning in 2001 and the economic meltdown of 2008.

The fears arising out of that first event were cultivated and even magnified by the Republican Party. It was the wildest American professors – the neo-cons and their ilk – who spread a message of fear. Out there were enemies plotting against this land ordained by God, the United States; America was vulnerable and it had to go on the warpath.

George Bush’s wars instead of lightening the national mood gave it a darker lining, the Bush White House’s unsurpassed contribution to history being that it created hotbeds of terrorism where none existed – in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya. Islamist extremism, deriving inspiration from a mindless interpretation of Islam, could not have taken off the way it did without the American invasion of Iraq and the West-encouraged mayhem in Syria.

The 2008 Wall Street meltdown spread feelings of helplessness, frustration and plain anger among broad sections of the American electorate, especially white blue-collar workers whose wages were already stagnant for years and who were seeing jobs either going abroad or being taken by Hispanics and other immigrants.

So we have fear on the one hand and gnawing economic insecurity for many Americans on the other and into this angst steps in a larger-than-life figure, Donald Trump, who has flair and style, is not politically correct, says seemingly outrageous things as if straight from the heart, claims he is like nobody, is unique and will stop the decline, be tough with terrorists, use torture against them because it works, build a wall along the Mexican border to keep all those illegal Mexicans out, see to it that Muslims – dangerous Muslims, the sources of all that terrorism – stay out of the US, tell the Saudis some plain truths, bring back jobs to the US, reverse the terms of trade with China…in short, make America great again.

And you know what? This message has resonated across the American political landscape. Just as Bernie Sanders’ supporters yell for him, the huge crowds at Trump rallies are in a state of ecstasy when they see their champion appear – his appearances better choreographed and more fun than anything Hollywood could contrive – and hear him refer to ‘Crooked Hillary’ and speak of the fears and hopes of his charged audiences. This is charisma at work and Trump exudes power and authority.

All the journalists got him wrong…every pundit worth his salt confidently pontificating that before the primary season was over Trump’s candidacy would burn out. That this was just a passing circus show, entertaining of course but destined not to last because the American people, even the Republican Party, were not so foolish, so out of their minds, to go for someone as improbable as The Donald. Haha, they jeered, almost in unison, this was no reality show, no Miss Universe contest.

How were these great analysts and commentators so sure of themselves? Their dismissiveness went beyond arrogance. They wanted to believe what they were saying because someone like Trump just did not fit into the grooves of their preconceptions. He was outside their mental frame.

They did not understand him, that’s for sure. But it is also a fair bet that they did not get a proper handle on the American mood – that mixture of anxiety, fear and anger which has made whole classes of Americans yearn this election season for something different – something removed from the ordinary sounds of American politics. Now that these high arbiters of taste and opinion are having to eat their words, the spectacle is not without its share of amusement.

No American running for any kind of office can afford two things: make fun of Fox News and go against the grain of the Israeli lobby. To give an idea of the phenomenon we are seeing, Trump has done both.

Because he is his own media superstar, drawing in TV audiences and thereby enhancing the ratings of TV channels with his appearances, he is immune – like no other candidate I can remember – from the hostage effect, the power, of the American media. He is not beholden to it. Instead, it is the media dependent on him because he himself, his utterances, his tweets, his rallies are the news. He creates the news and hence dominates the news cycle. If anyone has put the media in its place it’s him.

Consequently he has spent little on TV ads. He has hired no pollster. His campaign organisation is small, about a hundred people – compared to La Clinton’s close to a thousand.

And he is the first American candidate in living memory, Bernie Sanders being the second, who hasn’t sucked up to the Israeli lobby. In previous American elections that we have known there used to be a veritable race to get the approval of AIPAC, the all-powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Mercifully, not this time. La Clinton is of course a diehard, unvarnished, no-holds-barred pro-Israeli. But it’s not doing her much good this election season.

Furthermore, Trump says openly and loudly what is taboo for other American politicians to even hint at, that removing Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi was wrong not because they were angels but because by doing so the US has created instability and turbulence, the conditions fostering the rise of Islamist extremism. Apart from Bernie Sanders, try looking for another American paladin willing to say the same. American politics is hidebound. There never was space for anything new. Even the sharpest American politicians parrot each other’s prejudices. Trump and Sanders, each in their own way, have shattered that mould.

Not just the media but the entire Washington political establishment had little sense of what was about to hit them and transform the contours of this election campaign. Dismissive was the operative word. They were dismissive of Trump, dismissive of Bernie. Hillary Clinton was so far ahead in the polls that it was the accepted wisdom that her path to the White House was clear. This was some weeks ago. Now – and isn’t this already amazing? – Clinton and Trump are running neck-to-neck, with some polls giving the advantage to The Donald.

The unthinkable is happening right before our eyes but American received opinion, the conventional wisdom, is still not ready to take in this reality. Leaders of public opinion still think this is a bad dream which will go away.

Far from going away it is acquiring more tangible form with very passing day. Hillary Clinton has all the paper advantages – blacks, women, the Hispanics on her side. Yet she is still not finding her stride. And the tag ‘Crooked Hillary’ is not going away.

La Clinton, I have this feeling, will look the has-been candidate as the campaign heats up and she and Trump square off against each other. The only person who can stop Donald Trump is Bernie Sanders. But when will the Democrats be that enlightened to choose him? So my hunch, for what it is worth, is that into the White House will come marching, against the odds, The Donald. Exciting times lie ahead.

Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com