The triumph of Trump

America is quite a country often described as a land of the free and considered a place of milk and honey. As an individual I have always considered it a holiday destination. In spite of its rainbow nature, it still continues to have institutional racism dogging it. #BlackLivesMatter is a movement not new to any of us. The average black male in the United States is more likely to be pulled over by the police and over 60% of blacks and Latinos are more likely to end up in jail than their Caucasian counterpart. Winning the presidency by the first black individual in the history of America invariably put Obama on the world map. His wife, the elegant Michelle Obama, would remain for a long time to come one of the finest American first ladies and one of the coolest ever. Michelle is admired across racial lines. This did not stop the attacks on President Obama. It did not stop blacks from been killed across America. Being the President of any country is not a piece of cake. It requires steel, leadership savvy, balls, empathy, kindness, firmness and risk taking. Nobody said you needed to have the entire nation behind you. You just need to have at least three quarters and a team with high end competencies. It requires doggedness, ability to take criticism, face international pressure, do right by your people and make decisions for the overall benefit of all. In measuring their achievements, there have been weaknesses and strengths allocated to the different presidents in the different eras across historical landmarks. There was President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, there was President Bush senior who took America to the Gulf war, Bill Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal, then President Bush Jnr who took America to the Iraq war. There is President Obama; whose presidency is yet to be fully assessed. The triumph of President elect Donald Trump took many by surprise and as the international media have been reporting, he practically pulled a stunt in most of the traditional democratic states by beating Hillary by a whopping 289 to her 218 electoral votes. We stayed awake all night to see how this will play out. The first female United States president? All that has slipped by now. Clearly America is not ready for a female President.

Here are the issues that counted in this election.

1) Immigration: Immigration is very high on the agenda of most Americans. They feel that immigrants have taken their jobs hence leaving them jobless. While it may have been rambunctious, Trump spoke directly to the issue.

2) Trade deals: Most Americans feel that trade deals short change American people and still affect their jobs negatively. Again, Trump spoke directly to the issue.

3) Sloganeering: There is nothing that sells more than a slogan that speaks directly to the ordinary people. Again Trump maximised this. “Let’s make America great again” was hard to beat and appealed to the ordinary man.

4) Change: Trump told anyone that cared to listen that he was going to change the narrative of America and governance.

5) Establishment: Most Americans felt that nothing was changing and were completely uninterested in a person who had been in government, many times over.

6) Dynasty: Americans were not ready to repeat a Bush dynasty by handing over the Presidency to another Clinton.

7) The Obama factor: It was unthinkable that there would be a black President whose Secretary of State in his first term was a woman aka Clinton (2 minorities) and believed Clinton would be a continuation of an Obama presidency.

8) The black community: A large percentage of black voters were neither interested in Clinton nor in Trump. They felt one was racist and the other was untrustworthy. They disenfranchised themselves; making it possible for Trump to make it all the way.

9) Those emails: Secretary Clinton also never really shook off the issues of those emails of using her private email for doing government business. In spite of her defence in the last couple of months it haunted her till the very end. It did not help matters that the FBI had revisited the issue on the cusp of election week.

10) Finally, The Trump TV personality machine: One would have thought that everything that Trump said that made him look un-presidential would stop him from making it this far. But Clinton spoke to the establishment, the elite, Wall Street and the polished. Trump spoke to the outliers, the wayward, the racists, the sexists, ordinary Americans and everyone in between. The latter came out to vote for him. Amazing that Trump has suddenly become more sedate, using a teleprompter and seemed to have edited some of his rather unsavoury comments. His victory speech was even more so. We watch and see how this presidency endears itself going forward. As for Clinton, she won the popular votes by over 200,000 but this was not enough.

Lesson learnt
Never dismiss anyone in the race for anything. Never look down on anyone in their aspiration, for always what will be will be in spite of the rest of us. And guess what? Being a TV personality always helps.
Well it’s now President-elect Donald J. Trump. Let’s see how this works!