RAJESH SINGH
Those left stunned into a state of near paralysis by Donald Trump’s victory will take some time to recover. After all, they had unleashed every sort of arsenal on the Republican candidate, and with even many Republican leaders shunning Trump, they were certain that the man would be despatched soon to where he belonged: The dubious world of real estate. Let him make his money there or collapse in a financial abyss, they had opined. And just to make sure that he was kept miles away from the White House, they regurgitated every single sleaze story that came into the public domain — of hitherto unknown or little known women surfacing to allege that years ago, even decades ago, one Mr Donald Trump had groped them or said insulting things about them or tried to get fresh with them. His rivals and critics revelled in audio tapes of his interviews where he had made obnoxious remarks against women. Taken together, they were certain these exposés would snuff out his presidential dream.
They were certainly well-organised liberals, and with an enviable reach extending from the media to the intelligentsia to the moneybags to the well-oiled political machinery of Washington, DC, which cares less about who is in power and more about protecting its turf. But the hate-Trump lobby, for all its intellectual acumen, forgot one basic fact: The US presidential election was not a referendum on misogyny. It is, therefore, amusing to hear laments from these shocked souls to the effect that Trump’s election demonstrates the deep roots misogyny has taken in American society. “It’s a vote for misogyny’, they insist, not knowing what else they should pin the blame on. This trend is evident in the Indian media as well, and particularly in the case of television new anchors who suddenly found their campaign against the eventual winner go for a toss.
Or perhaps they know but are unwilling to admit it. Because to admit is to acknowledge that Trump managed to keep focus on real issues that bedevil Americans even as he was slandered (even if at times with some justification) on personal matters. Interestingly, those who participated in or endorsed the salacious campaign didn’t care a bit about the impact it would have on Trump’s family : His wife, children and the rest. They didn’t bother to ask themselves or to others why Hillary Clinton, the loser by a big margin and a vociferous campaigner of women’s rights, didn’t take a stand on the indiscretions of her husband and former President Bill Clinton. As they say, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones at others. They remembered a starlet or a model who was allegedly abused by Trump, but developed amnesia when it came to Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton’s response to the scandal.
Of course, it can be conceded that Hillary Clinton had acted with grace and demonstrated an admirable sense of maturity in forgiving her husband for the momentary lapse. After all, there is nothing like a woman telling her man: ‘I forgive you.’ It’s so touchingly sacrificial, for the sake of the family, for the sake of little children whose lives would have been shattered by a public fracas on so scandalous a matter. The liberals and the Leftists were, however, not so understanding when it came to Trump’s admission of certain misdemeanours and his public apology. The yardstick was different, his apology meaningless and their response swift and brutal. But the American voter was watching and waiting for its say. On November 8, it delivered the knockout punch to the Clintonians.
Now that the ‘damage’ has been done, Hillary Clinton’s apologists are busy interpreting the mandate itself as not really an endorsement of Trump. They say that he got some 200,000 votes less than Clinton, and won only through the electoral college mechanism. Well, Trump had not devised the system. Every President of the United States has won after gaining at the electoral college. They also say that Trump supporters came out to vote in large numbers but Clinton supporters failed to make it to the booth in adequate numbers. So what does that indicate? it shows that people were excited and motivated enough to vote for Trump while Clinton’s supporters were not that keen to cast their ballot for her.
Arising out of the second is a third reason (excuse, really). It’s that Hillary Clinton’s supporters were so certain of her victory that many of them did not find it necessary to step out of their homes on voting day. This is laughable, since most poll surveys had predicted a neck-and-neck race for the White House where every vote mattered. In the end, it did not turn out to be that close; Trump won by a wide and clear margin.
The bare fact is that voters were disgusted with the Establishment and its cliched and devious ways and placed their trust in an ‘outsider’ who would assure them of anything but continuity. They wanted someone who could shake the system by the scruff of its neck, and believed that Trump was the man to do it. They trusted their instincts, not the ponderous warnings and advices of the cocktail-circuit-roaming busybodies parading as torchbearers of all that is, and should be, just and fair in society. Now it’s for Donald Trump, soon to take over as President of the United States of America, to live up to people’s expectations. The Americans are no different from the Indians: They can make or destroy politicians by the wave of their hands.
(The writer is editorial director, nationalistonline.com, English)