Settling down by my TV on Tuesday evening at about 11pm, I
expected to be watching a leisurely but decisive victory for Hillary Clinton
over Donald Trump. While Hillary failed to inspire me I could not give any
credit to her opponent, The Donald, a loud-mouthed, egotistical demagogue who
seemed quite incapable of articulating any policy proposal with conviction or
lucidity. Well, I staggered to bed at 8am on Wednesday having seen Trump
overwhelm Hillary with famous victories in Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Florida
and Pennsylvania leaving the political complexion of America radically changed,
nay revolutionised, to global astonishment.
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| The Winner, Donald Trump |
Trump’s triumph is just another amazing dénouement in the
labyrinthine world of US politics, the Greatest Comic Show on Earth. The Donald
has a well-honed showbiz persona and
oozes a kind of dark charisma, cocky and thick-skinned, emitting tons of chutzpah like the bouncy New Yorker he
is. The fact that he has precisely nil experience of politics, few considerable
allies and an invisible knowledge of the world outside property development has
not deterred the American electorate.
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| The loser, Hillary Clinton at bay |
All this speaks volumes on Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and
campaign which must have been peculiarly inept. She spent much more than Trump
but for all her admitted experience and for all the liberal values she paraded,
she failed to ignite the enthusiasm of her supporters. Fewer women, fewer
Hispanics and fewer African-Americans than expected rallied to her standard. She
is an indifferent orator and too well-known a face. The prospect of 8 years of
Hillary did not appeal, as she represented the old guard carrying all the
baggage of scandals in Arkansas, Bill Clinton’s pock-marked presidency, a
controversial tenure as Secretary of State and a belief in her own divine right
to privacy even in office with her illegitimate e-mails. She lived in a
privileged cocoon of elitist entitlement (just like the diehard opponents of
Brexit) and did not survive the populist tsunami bearing down on her.
I think some lessons will be derived from this debacle. The
Americans are not great royalists and recently two Bushes, father and son and
two Clintons, husband and wife, have more than sated their taste for dynasties.
People are talking up Michelle Obama as a Democratic runner in 2020, but she
should forget it – she is attractive and articulate but Barack Obama was a
one-off, an exceptionally eligible and magnetic candidate even though in office
he has been frustrated. The Papandreou and Mitsotakis dynasties have despoiled
and ruined Greece, the French LePen family is not much admired while Papa Doc
and Baby Doc Duvalier drove Haiti into the mire – keep the family out of it!
There was a strong whiff of nostalgia about Trump’s
candidacy – a yearning for a time, say in the 1950s, when America really was
the greatest nation, when jobs abounded and foreigners were kept in order. Born-again
Mike Pence invoked God and wandered into religiosity on victory night. Those
old days of motherhood and apple-pie and Norman Rockwell certainties, will never
return. The same note can be heard in Brexit, evoking days when Britain was
stronger, the beer weaker and communities were happier. It is a mirage, alas;
the real world is a tough old place.
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| Saying Grace by Norman Rockwell (1951) |
Hillary’s defeat has been ascribed to misogyny – that
hostility to women every feminist sniffs out in the most innocent males.
Nothing in the Trump campaign struck me as misogynistic – of course Trump’s
groping crudities about women were well documented, but far from glorified –
and the failure to crack the “glass ceiling” was down to Hillary not to the
system. A better lady candidate will seize the Presidency soon enough.
What metropolitan Britain and America forgot was that there
are plenty “peasants” and “rednecks” about who have a vote and cannot now be
dragooned into supporting Establishment politics. These are the former shipyard
workers in Sunderland or steel workers in Pennsylvania who experience job
insecurity, pay cuts and worry about immigration. They hope to gain from
radical change in the system. Brexit sees Britain turn away from Europe’s
ingrained mediocrity but the Brits would not choose a Philip Green
wheeler-dealer type as their leader. Trump questions free trade, NATO and
onerous foreign commitments. Fortress America often plays well in harder times
and such a policy will be damaging to the outside world. We can only hope Trump
surrounds himself with vigorous and well-informed lieutenants (names like
Gingrich and Giuliani seem long in the tooth to me) to guide his administration
through the global minefield.
Hold your hats – we are in for a roller-coaster ride!
SMD
11.11.16
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016
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