DT e-Paper, Friday, Decdember 20, 2017

Opinion 21
DT
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2017
Trump is a symptom, not the cause
Bluster, bigotry, belligerence, and bad taste -- Trump lays claim to them all
Only in America
REUTERS
Who knows, he might end up being hailed
as more of a genius than a demagogue. But
don’t hold your breath. Expectations are
low for a reason
• Niaz Alam
If it is still true that when Wall
Street sneezes, the whole
world catches a cold, one
shudders to wonder what
type of symptoms it may pick up
from the inauguration of President
Trump.
Xenophobia, protectionism,
and attacks on liberal values are
undoubtedly on the rise globally,
but it would be a mistake to blame
their spread on a man so new to
politics and running for public
office as Donald Trump.
Just six years ago in 2011, while
President Obama was vanquishing
all foes before him, the new
president and first lady were
merely much mocked celebrities
soaking up the most vicious
personal insults comedians could
throw at them in shows like “The
Roast of Donald Trump.’’
No viewer then could have
seriously imagined that this
infamously vain, notoriously
mercurial personality could ever
reach the top of the political pole.
Yet contrary to most
predictions, he managed it in
record time.
And even worse from the
point of view of Democratic Party
politicians, it appears for the rest
of this year, almost nothing Donald
Trump does or can do, short of
declaring war on China, is going to
surprise voters or make him look
worse than we already believe.
Bluster, bigotry, belligerence,
and bad taste, Donald Trump lays
claim to them all.
But instead of being
undermined by such attributes,
Donald Trump revels in them and
while repelling millions of people,
has managed to attract and secure
more votes in the places where
they mattered the most.
Not only that, but by
relentlessly attacking the media
and behaving in a way that sets
expectations beneath rock bottom,
Donald Trump has now virtually
inoculated himself from mere bad
press and scandal.
Throw in the honeymoon
period and deference new US
presidents tend to attract, and
the only way his ratings can
go in his first year is up. With
Putin clamouring for a special
relationship (Russia’s military and
intelligence assets don’t make up
for its declining demography and
falling oil revenues) and Brexiteers
knocking on his door every week,
there will be no shortage of photo
opportunities where the Donald
can showcase his fabled brand of
deal-making.
Even if these are only for ego
and show, they can still be used
to make him look better than
expected.
And therein lies the rub.
The biggest mistake Democrats
can make now is to focus their fire
on the president directly.
Inconvenient as it may be, the
unpalatable truth is that for a party
that has beaten the Republicans
in the popular vote in all but one
of the seven presidential elections
since 1992, the Democrats have
even less to show for it in Congress
than they did during Ronald
Reagan’s heyday.
The picture is bleaker
still across the bulk of state
governorships and legislatures.
Somehow, the Republican
Party, despite being split at the
top during the race to the White
House, with many of its more
moderately inclined senior figures
coming out against Trump, is still
better organised and ruthless
enough to get its vote out around
the country.
The very Republican ideologues
and vested interests who did so
much to impede Obama’s policies
and trampled on the Constitution
to prevent him nominating a
Supreme Court Justice are already
the biggest beneficiaries of Hillary
Clinton’s lost crusade.
If President Trump’s ego gets
bored with pomp, ceremony, and
constitutional niceties, or age, and
BMI make him resign, it is VP Mike
Pence and the rump, and yet still
majority Republicans in Congress
who will run the show. Lobbies for
church, gun, prejudice, and war
will rejoice stronger still.
The Democrats’ best option
may be to focus on individual midterm
races and nationally wait for
the Donald to make enough errors
for some of the blame to rub off on
his Republican enablers.
Of course, in a country as
rich and blessed with natural
resources as the US, there is
always a possibility that whatever
economic policies and/or disasters
Trump’s policies bring, he will
create enough of a feel-good factor
among his fan base to win again
in 2020.
Should he manage to do so, and
if he delivers on some of his more
Bernie-esque pledges to reform
campaign finance and drain the
swamp, who knows, he might end
up being hailed as more of a genius
than a demagogue.
But don’t hold your breath.
Expectations are low for a reason.
It took decades for money
to obliterate common sense in
election campaigns and spending.
It took many election cycles for
lobbyists and donors to make the
entry costs for national politics so
high that the concept of politicians
not serving vested interests or
powerful lobbies or not being
plutocrats themselves has become
more and more quaint.
It took many presidential terms
for Congress to become ever more
comfortable with rising income
inequalities.
And it took over a century
of post-Civil War divisions for
the party lines of anti-African
American racism to evolve their
present day borders. Making it all
the easier for the candidate who
appeals to such sentiments to
nurture a backlash against the first
non-white US President.
When the answer to a problem
is someone as unlikely as Donald
Trump, you know there is a lot
more fixing needed than he is ever
likely to accomplish.
How did it come to this when
Obama left the economy stronger
than he found it?
About the only thing
Presidents Obama and Trump
have in common, apart from one
immigrant parent, is that years
before either ran for president,
they each wrote a best-seller.
Dreams from my Father
is cosmopolitan, eloquent,
insightful, and moving. Its
pages resonate with thoughtful
commentaries about identity,
post-colonialism, emigration, and
race. Its unknown author became
a law professor.
The Art of the Deal, meanwhile,
is easy to read on a plane. It is
quasi-entertaining in a boastful
sort of way, but far from the only
read of its type.
Its famed multi-millionaire
author went bankrupt. Twice.
Including somehow losing money
on a casino.
Both were elected president at
their first attempt.
Only in America. •
Niaz Alam is a member of the Editorial
Board of Dhaka Tribune and is a former
vice-chair of War on Want.