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Published : 13 Nov 2016, 12:05 PM
Everyone is bewildered beyond disbelief: How did Trump win? A Billion dollar bewilderment indeed. If we backtrack a little we will be able to decode that Donald Trump and his campaign team sent the right kind of messages to the ultra rightists, and the message is, "white" America does not like immigrants, especially Mexicans, Hispanics, Latinos, Africans and Muslims. The 'white' America loved the Trump slogan "Make America great again". Even the dreaded KKK lent support to Donald Trump bringing back memories of those horrendous stories of the 50s and 60s.
The 'White' American history is all about tales and fables of early settlers and male heroism. There is no female hero worth the name in their War of Independence or many wars against the Red Indians or the American Civil War. It was totally a male dominated frontier and Americans love to share those overblown stories repeatedly in the local pubs.
The orthodox American history is all about male rights. There is little mention of female rights. Look at the voting rights of women in America. After ratification on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote – known as woman suffrage. When the United States of America was founded, its female citizens did not enjoy all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote (Think if this was the case with Bangladesh – allowing women to vote well after 200 years of independence!)
So, with that over inflated male ego, they are not ready to see a woman defeat a man in any competition, let alone in the presidential election. They did not like when that 'woman' humiliated Trump in the three debates. They did not like when the media mocked Trump and presented him as a buffoon. So, the core Americans, the neoconservatives, decided to give the answer on the Election Day. And they did. Therefore, Trump did not win because of any of his positive attributes, rather all the negative factors contributed to changing the course of the tide in favour of him.
Why did Hillary lose? Definitely those Americans who think rationally did not feel comfortable the way she handled her official emails concerning state affairs, especially those concerning Middle-East issues. One cannot use personal emails in case of state affairs but either knowingly or unknowingly she did that, and either way it was a faux pas if not a felony. The Secretary of State of the United States of America is not allowed to make many mistakes. The FBI should have been on it months ago instead of huffing and puffing only a week back. The callous handling of the emails presented herself to the serious citizens as one too confident, with that "I couldn't care less" attitude. They did not want to trust someone with such questionable temperament with presidency, especially with the nuclear armament.
The Benghazi embassy attack case also came back like an apparition to cause her downfall. The diplomatic fraternity would not forget or forgive her because they believed had Hillary acted promptly and judiciously the lives of the Americans including that of the American Ambassador could have been saved. After that tragic incident, she had to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi to answer questions about her actions in 2012 when the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by terrorists and four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Republicans in Congress have been investigating the attack and were determined to discover whether Clinton did enough or not. Many democrats felt at that time that she did enough within her capacity and the investigation was merely a political attack on Hillary Clinton.
She further distanced herself from the core Americans because of her open cajoling of the Afro-Asian immigrants and Muslims. The neocons did not buy her liberalism and rather thought she was too casual, therefore, America will not be safe in her hands. Veritably she failed to reach the hearts of the core Americans with any of her plans. In fact, many thought she never had any worthwhile plan.
The Election is behind now. But the question that looms large is, why the Republican Party picked up a bullish business tycoon as the candidate? Why they wanted a neophyte in the White House…someone with not an iota of knowledge of geo-politics. Is it because they wanted someone as president who would have no idea what was cooking in the war room? Is really something cooking behind those closed doors where even President Donald Trump will have no access? Will he be told by the 'wolves' that America was in grave danger so you have to go on camera and declare war against its enemies – China? North Korea? Iran? Syria? Are we going to see a repetition of the George W Bush era?
Time will tell.
