Say what you may about polling across Western democracies, but there can be no doubt that elections this year have certainly made the world wake up and take notice.
First, there was the shock of the Brexit referendum and now, the surprise election of Donald Trump as the US President. While many people inside these two campaigns are shocked at the scale of victory achieved, others, particularly smarter people in the Opposition, are not.
At the end of the day, the ‘little guy’; the forgotten voters in the hinterland, have rebelled against constantly being told what to do and how to behave by liberal elites sitting in ivory towers in urban centres.
These voters are not inherently racist or illiberal in their views. The ‘institutionalised misogyny’ that some women are using to explain away Hillary Clinton’s loss, particularly her lack of appeal to her core voters, which should have been women, does not stick.
Why would college educated white women choose Clinton by a narrow 51-45 marginIJ Some ‘experts’ in our country, still reeling under the humiliation suffered in 2014, have even questioned the American electoral system where Clinton could win the popular vote, yet not win the presidency.
The fact is that in every country, the system is different and political parties evolve to ‘play the system’. The fact is that the Republican Party in the US managed to play it a whole lot better than the Democratic Party.
One of the most remarkable foresights about this election came six months ago by controversial left-wing film-maker Michael Moore. Moore had noticed the particular focus that the Republican Party and Trump were playing in the ‘rust belt’, the US’ mid-Western States, hollowed out by de-industrialisation.
The media portrayed Trump as a demagogue. The Huffington Post, till yesterday, labeled him as a racist and xenophobe, in every article , had in their enthusiasm believed that Clinton would win a landslide, convincing her to visit States that would not traditionally be in play.
She did not visit the Democratic redoubt of Wisconsin even once after Spring. Trump did. Time after time. And the neighbouring State of Michigan too, the home of Detroit, a city destroyed by the movement of automotive jobs across borders.
And the media laughed, how could Trump win these two StatesIJ Whatever one might argue about the nativist white enthusiasm to vote for Trump, one will miss the point.
We can debate about how successful a businessman Trump has been, although he will be the first US President with a ‘brand’, and even branded buildings in India, his abilities as a communicator are at a level that match, even exceed that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He told his electorate, which had seen their communities shattered and towns hollowed-out, that he would make ‘America Great Again’, and no matter the fact he did not have specifics, he would do it somehow. And as in the Republican Primary elections where he held off 15 rivals by successfully demonising most of them, he painted Clinton as the devil incarnate.
And stories of her private email server just served to reinforce that view. Clinton’s perceived lack of empathy and the fact that she was the ultimate political insider has doomed her. It is just that the polls did not know yet.
This election is also a damning indictment of polling science, rather traditional polling science. Pollsters have not managed to keep up with the rapid evolution of technology. On the message board website Reddit, several ‘Alt-Right’ (Alternative Right) groups sprang up, some to make jokes about Clinton and spread them through their networks and others to game pollsters.
However, Artificial Intelligence calculations and researchers doing deeper ethnographic research had actually called the election in favour of Trump weeks ago. The UK pollsters were wrong twice in a row, the American pollsters now. Polling science is stuck in the previous generation and has not accounted for technology. Trump’s win has not only consigned Clinton to the history books but traditional polling as well.
Sure, Trump’s win has some elements that should get India and the world worried. While it is questionable how much of a social conservative a thrice-married man will be, he holds some ‘Trump’ cards, in a matter of speaking, in issues including the US Supreme Court and the environment.
One hopes that Trump will not turn out to be the demagogue that many fear he will be. Every country looks out for their interests first, however, with a Trump White House, India and the US could see several interests line up quite nicely indeed.
There are still two months to go before Trump takes his oath as the 45th President of the US, and if the markets are anything to go by, things may not be as bad as they seem.
(The writer is Managing Editor, The Pioneer)