Donald Trump is the new star on the American horizon. He wishes to be, brazenly so, the President. So what!
Donald Trump has emerged as a novae, effective and all-rampant voice on the American political and electoral firmament. His numerous book titles make for an interesting series of nomenclature, such as , Trump: Surviving at the Top; Trump: How to get rich, which objectifies one aspect of the American Dream, and finally a corrective for the nation in Trump, The America We deserve. 2016 can be conveniently earmarked as the withdrawal year of the American Overarch, wherein, the American establishment chose to mend fences with the Arab world and take imminent steps to solve the Syrian imbroglio. Stefan De Misruta emerged as a sane voice in West Asia where Russia and Iran pitted against Saudi Arabia and its allies in order to stifle the opposition forces espoused by the opposition to Bashar al-Assad, which is the Syrian National Coalition.
In such a down phase, devoid of the American hyper-puissance in the global polity and various regional theatres, the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump etches out a new trajectory and a new ‘red line’, re-defining the domestic churning and the narrative in United States. Though he does not negate the ‘Old Reagan’ line as espoused by other Republican candidates such as Mr Ted Cruz, but, the year-old showcasing of an intently aggressive and assertive-campaign-run till the Primaries in South Carolina, have cemented his perch as a prominent presidential candidate. He might be placed to confront the ‘statist’ candidature of Democrat hopeful, Ms Hillary Rodham Clinton, despite the bumptiousness associated with him. Ms Clinton too has made a return to winning ways in the Nevada Caucuses after her crushing defeat in the New Hampshire Primary where myriad polls prognosticated about her concession speech, too soon akin to the one delivered by Republican candidate Ted Cruz after his defeat in the South Carolina Primary and as a consequence of his string of losses.
According to a New York Times report, “Ms Clinton devoted her campaign to ‘hotel and casino workers who never wavered’ and ‘the thousands of men and women with kids to raise, bills to pay and dreams that won’t die’. She used plural pronouns like ‘we’ and ‘us’ more than usual, as opposed to leaning on ‘I’, a clear attempt to make her campaign about voters as Mr Sanders has done powerfully, thus, making her intent clear to meet the chosen Republican candidate.”
Mr Trump is everybody’s Putin, who, too has succeeded in being the power Czar in Moscow with his Boxing days strength. In a characteristically charged report in CNN, the Republican trumpeted that he would punch one of the haranguing protests during one his meetings. At a las Vegas rally recently, a protester raised a dissenting voice, “Veterans to Trump: End hate speech against Muslims”. Despite the remarks about women and on the immigrants along with the rabidity of his personal vituperations, Mr Trump might be the person to look out for in the savage electoral trail of 2016. He also is not well informed about the ‘rising stature’ of the Indian juggernaut, as it became evident in the Davos round of talks earlier on. Still, he expressed his Asiatic concern referring to that fact that “India is doing great and nobody is talking about it”. It’s that maverick-like streak and brashness coincidental with an American cowboy which makes him into a difficult pushover. The US is a nation recently recovering from the economic downturn and question marks are being increasingly raised on America’s West Asia policy. It is here that Mr Trump might emerge as a personage who might yet fill the void.
An article in Huffington Post says, “In 1997, Haley had been arrested for stealing a calculator from a Wal-Mart in Texas. Under the law, Haley should have been sentenced to no more than two years in prison, even with prior convictions. However, another statute reserved for habitual offenders was mistakenly applied to his case, resulting in a sentence of sixteen years. Then, Ted Cruz’s advice was sought as the Solicitor General of Texas few years back. This might be a flash in the pan but Trump supporters have made a lot of light out of this act of ‘cruelty and want of humanity.’”
Though, Mr Cruz won the Iowa Caucuses narrowly, he has been trending second to Mr Trump on most of the occasions, according to US media reports. The latter leads in the context of ‘expectations’ and is a true blue conservative apart from Ted Cruz, despite Mr Trump’s recently aired difference with the Pope on the issue of building walls between Mexico and the United States. An ABC/ Washington Post poll reported that 42 per cent citizens expect Mr Trump to win the Republican nomination and 43 per cent respondents gave the best chance to win the presidency to him, followed by the neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Mr Jeb Bush, Mr Marco Rubio, Mr Cruz and Ms Carly Fiorina. According to the same poll, “Trump also continues to garner greater support among less educated potential voters — 46 per cent among those who haven’t gone beyond high school, vs 23 per cent among those who’ve attended college.”
The question is: Is Mr Donald Trump unstoppableIJ The direct fallout of the South Carolina result is that all the candidates are under pressure to demonstrate ‘strength and chutzpah’. This Gotham City corporate appeal of a mature candidate like Mr Trump is all-pervasive with a bright sparkle of a tuxedo and a silk tie, with him being the founder of the conglomerate of Trump Entertainment Resorts. His net worth is four billion dollars, in the estimates of Forbes magazine. Thus, it is the satin sheen and brash bravado of his candidature which can make him pip others to the post. The question again is: Has, his ‘other’ side already done lasting damage to his long-term electoral fortunesIJ
(The writer teaches at Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi)