The US Presidential Election: Death Of A Salesman Or The Reincarnation Of The Salesman As Politician?
By Jude Fernando –October 3, 2016
Jude Fernando
The first presidential debate between a ‘salesman’ and a lawyer ended up with the lawyer winning the debate because the ‘salesman’ proved that he not only lacks the knowledge, skills, and etiquette to engage in a public forum, but also cares very little about morals and social responsibility in doing business. Trump was either too arrogant, self-righteous or intellectually incapable of learning from his debating consultants and campaign managers, worth millions of dollars. The skillful lawyer outsmarted the slick ‘salesman’ and crushed him. But the salesman refuses to accept the loss—and certainly the presidency is not guaranteed for the lawyer.
The debate may not have killed Trump’s chances of being the next president of the United States, even though he was unapologetic about his well-documented deplorable comments and his controversial legal and moral history. One would expect that in the United States, a country that is hypersensitive about political correctness, inclusivity, diversity, and multiculturalism, that Trump-like behavior would make a politician (or even a civilian) a social outcast and that the pre-election polls would predict a landslide victory for Clinton. The allegations against Clinton are nothing compared with those against Trump. Additionally, during the presidential debate, she took personal responsibility for some of those allegations, though she fell short of making a sincere apology. The debate, however, did little to reduce the risk the Democrats took by fielding a candidate who is unpopular both inside and outside the Democratic Party- the risk of losing an opportunity to win a hat trick of democratic presidencies.
Certainly, Trump is not an anomaly in today’s world. Nor can his popularity be explained by the absence of better candidates among the Republicans or Clinton’s unpopularity. If we are to understand Trump’s ascendancy, we need to look beyond the personalities and personal histories of Trump and Clinton. We must look beyond the way they have conducted their respective campaigns and the first debate, and the taken-for-granted differences between the Democratic and Republican political parties. We need to look at characteristics within the American political culture that have remained unchanged, and that politicians and the general public are unwilling and/or unable to disrupt. This culture is not a lone creation of politicians but also of the society’s obsession with global control, excessive of political correctness, religious conservatives, liberal institutions, and the mainstream media.
Hegemony and Security
Trump appeals to the emotional side and Clinton appeals to the intellectual side of the national-security concerns of the American public, although neither challenge the origins, goals, economic bases, or realities of national security that continue to be rooted in Dean Acheson’s assertion that “no challenge can be tolerated to the power, position, and prestige of the United States.” America’s global hegemony is a deeply ingrained ideal in the minds of most Americans, and its preservation still holds strong appeal for the American public. This is not only a political ideal but also an economic and cultural ideal that is promoted by politicians as well as educational and religious entities. What underpins these ideals is a global expansionist agenda of American security and economic and political interests, which many countries widely perceived as acts of aggressive imperialism-even when they appear in the form of ‘humanitarian imperialism’ or the principle of the ‘right to protect’. These policies have inadvertently contributed to security threats to American interests and to the lives of ordinary people in not only America but also the rest of the world.
Security threats to human life have taken many forms and, in fact, gained a life of their own and can that can no longer be traced back to their original causes. Unaccustomed to thinking about freedom and security outside the narrative of global dominance, Americans are trading their freedom for temporary security and a willingness to risk both. Hence, people lose patience with diplomacy as the main mechanism for addressing the perceived root causes of these insecurities. Under these circumstances, anyone who promises to be a spokesperson for fear and anxiety and advocates using aggressive measures to safeguard security by taking ‘control’ has a good chance of winning the presidency.
