Is there sadness for America? No way. Both Trump and America got what they deserved. Like we got what we deserve.
Why and how did Donald Trump make such a spectacular comeback? This question will remain a source of surprise and even shock. Will keep troubling people continuously. Taking this a step further, it will cause everyone to question the mentality of Americans, their intelligence and morality for a long time. Since when have Americans been so principleless and moralless?
America has given Trump an extraordinary victory. He is the first Republican in two decades to win a majority of voters. Before Trump, Grover Cleveland in 1892 was the only president who had a gap between his two terms. According to The Economist, this comparison does not do justice to Trump’s achievement because the America of Grover’s era was very different from the America of Trump’s era.
Kamala Harris had said in an angry tone in one of her rallies that Donald Trump does not represent America. “We are not like them,” he said. I think what he meant was Trump’s racist thinking, his feelings of vengeance, his hatred towards women and his steps towards fascism. But the new map of America, filled with the red color of the Republican Party and glowing with Trump’s influence, is showing that America is also exactly like Trump. Due to sympathy for Trump, every color and section of the American society voted for him. He won not only in traditionally hotly contested states, but also in states that were strongholds of the Democrat Party.
Trump has not only got the mandate, but has also established control over the Parliament, which was necessary for running the government without any hindrance. Who would have thought that Trump would become a symbol of a new political era for the whole world. Trump entered politics only to be taken seriously and to be able to sit with scholars. In April 2011, at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, he had to face Barack Obama’s ruthless sarcasm. He was considered a vulgar person. Then he decided that he would become a full-time politician. Its purpose was to show the political elite its status. And he did it.
Every second American voted for Trump because they felt they were ridiculed by the political elite. The average American couldn’t relate to Obama, Clinton, Biden, even Bush and Kennedy. It was almost impossible for the public to reach these elites. These elites neither knew nor cared about the realities of people’s lives. People felt that they had been marginalized, there was no one to ask them. When Harris talked about ‘joy’, she got angry. Inflation was skyrocketing, the rich were getting richer and life was becoming difficult for the working class as salaries were not increasing, opportunities were limited and corruption had become a part of life.
Amidst all this, Harris never said anything that seemed like she would bring about change. Undoubtedly, as a person, she herself was an agent of change, but there was no change in her policies and her plans for America and Americans. It seemed as if if she became President, Biden’s tenure would be extended by four more years. She will follow the path of the former President. When she said, “We will not retreat,” instead of giving people hope for stability, they created fear that things would remain the same. According to a report by the Guardian, when its correspondent asked a Muslim woman why people of Arab origin and Muslims were so overwhelmingly supporting Trump, she replied, “We believe in them…we believe that they He can end wars because there was not a single war in the four years he was President.” The reporter was stunned.
Undoubtedly millions of voters voted against Trump. But he succeeded in convincing a greater number of people than them that the America they knew was disappearing. And their country is in danger from economic, cultural and demographic points of view. Now America is happy that it has elected a criminal as its President. He has no regrets. Trump kept telling lies after lies without hesitation, telling stories of imaginary conspiracies being hatched against him, but people kept believing him to be truthful. Trump may have been found guilty by the courts, may have faced serious charges of fraud and sexual assault, may have been known for his foul language and defamation of others, but Americans have assumed that if Trump That they are being harassed, they are being targeted, then they must be right.
Then, he also had the image of a strongman. A man who faced many political and legal setbacks in the last four years but did not give up. Prominent World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestlers such as Undertaker and Hulk Hogan supported Trump, further strengthening his strongman image. According to polls, a majority of men – whether white or black – voted for Trump. Harris was successful in winning over a section of women in her favor. But there was no dearth of women who disagreed with Harris supporters. I had read the comment of one such woman in an international report. She said, “If these (Harris supporter) women are thinking that abortion rights are the real problem then the problem is with them. He is away from the reality of life…Trump talks about reality.”
There is no doubt that America and Trump have become one? Is there sadness for America? No way. Both got what they deserved. Like we got what we deserve.
But I do feel sad that for the last ten years I have been living in a world that is deeply divided and polarized. And it will remain so in future also. And it is not that this division is due to ideological differences, or that there are different views of the world behind them. No way. Today the situation is such that if you do not support them, you become ostracized. If you don’t speak their language, you are silenced, you are put in the dock. I am sad to find myself in a world in which the only option is to answer a brick with a stone, where there is a crisis of trust. But we have to remain calm and live in this world in which fear will prevail over hope. (Copy: Amrish Hardenia)