In the run-up to the American presidential elections, countless statements mistakenly have expressed that Hillary Clinton’s decency, dossier knowledge, and political experience would make it possible to win the election. On the other hand, it seemed clear to everyone that Donald Trump had no chance of winning because of his poor preparation for factual issues, his “masculine language”, and his political inexperience.
These very schoolmasterly reflections have gone far beyond reality. Obviously, it was not about finding a functionary or a technocrat, nor a well-networked candidate with experience. It is certainly an advantage for a leader personality to know his dossiers well, to be respectful and exemplary; but these are in fact only optional qualities in relation to the urgent changes that voters really expect.
On the other hand, what appears to be absolutely necessary, especially in the context of today’s America, is to point out the most urgent problems of the country (war, immigration, fiscal slippages), and this rather with emphasis, and irrespective of whether all rules of decency are respected.
This means powerful and strong communication with charisma, accompanied by a genuine desire to bring about changes, to set oneself apart from the exhausted and no longer legitimated establishment, and to grasp the concerns of large sections of the population genuinely, which have been neglected too long. Above all, however, considering the urgency, this means to relinquish political correctness and PR language coming across as artificial. The real feat achieved by Trump is the fact that a right-wing billionaire without humanitarian or social vein could win the simple classes of society, because they had the impression that he understood them better than the nice, progressive Democrats, who fancy themselves and respect all sexes and minorities, and who talk in a courteous and aseptic language.
In reality, it is not so much an anti-Clinton sentiment, but an anti-Obama sentiment that has influenced this election significantly. The election result is a clear disapproval of the outgoing president, in the sense that the values and policies embodied by him, and due to which he led an intense pro-Clinton campaign, are no longer of interest to the majority of the voters. At the utmost, the self-satisfied elites of Manhattan or San Francisco are still interested in it. Today, neither as a democrat nor as a republican, one can still be under the illusion that Silicon Valley and Brooklyn represent America in any way.
In addition, the war policy of Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama is stranded in a cul-de-sac. Certain warmongers in this part of the world and elsewhere accused the Democrat for his military “retreat” in the rest of the world. In fact, he is the president, under who even more assassinations by drones than in the Bush-era were carried out. He was the president, who was up to his throat enmeshed in the wars in the Middle East, and who shortly after the withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq – at first covertly, then quite openly – supported jihadist groups (Islamic state, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya).
This policy cannot be excused with the refugee flows and the jihadist assassinations that hit the West. As for the new Cold War with Putin’s Russia, whose geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and Crimea are only the tip of the iceberg, this is perhaps the greatest threat to American hegemony in the world. Russia blocks US claims in the Middle East. China offers its support to Putin in the UN Security Council, and the influence of these two powers effects that other countries form a group around them that do not a bit or hardly take into account American interests (Iran, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Philippines ... and several Latin American states).
The pacific and transatlantic free trade agreements are blocked. At a time, when US debt has reached $ 20,000 billion, 44 million Americans have depended on soup kitchens since 2008, and the adjusted rate of unemployment – including the discouraging long-term unemployed – is 25% rather than the official 5%1, the time has perhaps come that the US buries its forced intention to expand and finally turns towards the problems in its own country.
Let us not be deceived. The emergence of Donald Trump is by no means a guarantee that all foreign and domestic political problems of the US will be solved. However, the hope to end the cold war with Russia, to protect the American borders better and to jolt the political establishment has preliminarily been enough to transfer far-reaching powers to him. •
Source: Bilan from 9.11.2016
(Translation Current Concerns)
1 cf. the revised statistics by shadow statistics: www.shadowstats.com
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