e_Paper (11 November 2016)

Opinion 23
DT
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2016
Rural America’s white-lash elects Trump
This is the way democracy dies
LETTER
FROM
AMERICA
• Fakhruddin Ahmed
America’s 18-month long
nightmare has ended
with a chronic headache.
In a shocking upset,
Americans elected their first
playboy president. Donald Trump
has been in the public eye for 40
years. America knew a lot about
him.
They learnt more gory details
about his private conduct during
the presidential campaign; yet,
had no qualms about electing him.
If the Americans consider
Donald Trump worthy of their
highest elective office, the world
should not quibble.
This was a contest between
into the cities of another hitherto
blue state, which Obama had
won twice, Michigan. Trump had
frequented it several times, and
won by 12,000 votes (0.3%).
Clinton spent an inordinate
amount of time in iffy North
Carolina, (which Obama won in
2008 and lost in 2012), and lost it
badly, by 177,000 votes (3.8%). She
should have campaigned more in
Florida, which Obama won twice
narrowly. Clinton lost Florida
decisively, by 120,000 votes (1.3%).
Last month, Steve Schmidt,
John McCain’s strategist for the
2008 campaign, expressed his
surprise at Clinton’s strategy as
she was attempting to expand her
campaign to Arizona, which she
was not going to win. Schmidt
said that if Clinton only defended
her firewall states (Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin, Michigan) she would
be elected president.
Why didn’t Clinton campaign
in predominantly white rural
America? When all is said and
with both the Republicans and
Democrats for letting them down,
and have found a voice in the
“outsider” Donald Trump.
And Trump has played them
like the Pied Piper.
There was a method to Trump’s
madness
The Trumps have a history of
discrimination against blacks. His
father Fred was arrested at a Ku
Klux Klan rally in 1927 in Queens,
New York.
The realtor who was renting
out Trump’s apartments in New
York City in the 1960s said recently
that he was told by Fred Trump,
in Donald Trump’s presence,
not to rent his apartments to
blacks. President Nixon’s justice
department sued the Trumps in
the 1960s and 1970s for housing
discrimination against non-whites.
A Trump associate told Rolling
Stone this June that he heard
Trump say: “Black guys counting
my money. I hate it. The only kind
This is a blot on America’s democracy
REUTERS
If the Americans consider Donald Trump worthy of their highest elective
office, the world should not quibble. This was a contest between rural
and urban America. For once, rural America won
rural and urban America. For once,
rural America won.
Born and raised in a
millionaire’s family in urban
America (New York City),
Donald Trump managed to sell
himself as the champion of rural
America. Raised in a working
class household in rural America
(Scranton, Pennsylvania),
Hillary Clinton failed to connect
with her working class roots,
and campaigned exclusively in
urban America. Inexplicably,
Clinton did not campaign in the
predominantly white rural areas
of three Democratic states, all of
which she lost.
In her firewall state of
Pennsylvania which Obama
won twice, Clinton campaigned
exclusively in Philadelphia
and Pittsburgh, while Trump
campaigned in “rural Alabama”
that lies between the two cities.
Trump won by 68,000 votes
(1.2%).
Hillary never visited another
of her firewall states, Wisconsin,
which Obama won twice during
the campaign. Trump did, and
won by 27,000 votes (1%).
Only on the last day of
campaigning did Clinton venture
done, Trump won 306 Electoral
College votes to Clinton’s 232.
However, Hillary Clinton has
won over 200,000 more popular
votes than Trump nationwide
(Clinton: 59, 814,018, or 47.7%;
Trump: 59, 611, 678, or 47.5%).
This will be the second time
in the last 16 years that the losing
Democratic candidate will have
won more popular votes nationwide
(Al Gore won 600,000 more
votes nationwide than George W
Bush in 2000), than the winning
Republican candidate. This is a
blot on America’s democracy.
This is the year of the working class
whites
In June, JD Vance, a former marine
and Yale law school graduate,
wrote a sensational memoir about
working class whites: “Hillybilly
Elegy: A memoir and culture in
crisis.”
He captured the frustration
and hopelessness of poor whites
of Scottish and Irish origin living
in the Appalachian region of
America, who have seen goodpaying
local factory jobs disappear
or go abroad, and are worried that
their children will be worse off
than they are. They are furious
of people I want counting my
money are little short guys that
wear Yarmulkes every day.”
It is such a mindset that
propelled Donald Trump in 2011
to sire the “Birther movement”
that accused President Obama of
being foreign-born, and forced
the president to show his birth
certificate.
This fabrication ingratiated
Trump to the Republican base.
Thanks to Trump, over 40% of
Republicans still believe that
Barack Obama was born in
Kenya (therefore, his presidency
is illegitimate) and that he is a
Muslim (he is a Christian).
Before its publication,
conservative commentator Ann
Coulter sent Trump a copy of her
2015 anti-immigration book: Adios
America: The Left’s Plan to Turn
Our Country into a Third Hellhole.
After reading it, Trump made
anti-immigration the main plank
of his platform. As he came
down the escalator of the Trump
Tower in New York, in June 2015,
shouting imprecations against
Mexicans (“rapists,” criminals,”
“drug dealers”), his popularity
among the Republican base shot
up, never to come down again.
Trump then added Muslims
to the list of immigrants to be
banned.
This alarmed other minority
groups such as Chinese-
Americans, who had suffered
discrimination, and Japanese-
Americans, who were imprisoned
in internment camps during WWII.
Trump alienated Native
Americans by repeatedly calling
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth
Warren (she is part Native
American), Pocahontas. In an
attempt to please his white base,
Trump has repeatedly insulted all
minority ethnic groups -- African-
Americans, Latinos, Asians, and
Native Americans.
There are three reasons why
Hillary Clinton lost: 1) When
Clinton first burst into the national
scene in 1992 as the presidential
candidate Bill Clinton’s wife,
Republicans calculated that she
would run for president some day.
On radio and Fox News, they
have been vilifying her ever since,
resulting in Hillary’s undeserved
high negatives.
2) The installation of seven
servers at home to receive and
transmit confidential state
department correspondence made
Clinton look irresponsible.
3) FBI Director Comey’s letter
to Congress saying that more
emails have been found that could
be pertinent (they were not), 11
days before the election, reversed
Clinton’s momentum.
Many voters mistakenly
believed the Republican
propaganda that Clinton would be
indicted if she was elected.
Bottom line
Good candidates win, bad
candidates lose.
Jimmy Carter was a bad
candidate and Ronald Reagan an
excellent one in 1980. George HW
Bush was a good candidate, and
Michael Dukakis an awful one in
1988. Bill Clinton was a very good
candidate in 1992 and 1996. George
W Bush was a better candidate
than Al Gore (2000) and John
Kerry (2004). Barack Obama was
an excellent candidate in 2008 and
2012. Hillary Clinton was a flawed
candidate in 2016.
Donald Trump was dangerous
as a candidate, and could pose
a mortal threat to America as
president.
In a 2012 interview, retired
Supreme Court Justice David
Souter prophetically predicted
the appearance of a Trump-like
candidate: He posited that the
republic was not threatened by
foreign invasion, or a military
coup, but by civic ignorance:
“What I worry about is, when
problems are not addressed and
the people do not know who is
responsible … some one person
will come forward and say, ‘Give
me total power and I will solve this
problem,’” he said.
“That is how the Roman
Republic fell. That is the way
democracy dies,” he added. •
Fakhruddin Ahmed is a Rhodes Scholar.