Trump’s America

Next year, American voters will decide whether they are comfortable with President Donald Trump, a leader whose style of governance is polarizing his nation and offending many of the values that were once as American as baseball. The time between now and the elections are certain to see remarkable declines in cohesion of a nation with many fault lines, as well as a worsening in the conduct becoming of persons that wish to lead a nation which used to set standards for much of the world. On the other hand, the world may see the real USA, a nation being tested around its foundations by a leader who may change its basic character, or serve as a brief adventure into stormy waters. Either way, the campaigns will not show the US in good light. Many of its dark sides will join Trump in the gutter where he seems more comfortable, and no one will come out smelling good. America’s friends will wish that it is not on a definite descent as a nation that claims to have put much of its disturbing history behind for good.

It is difficult to be neutral about Donald Trump. It is not so much that he cannot court neutrals. It is more likely that he has a solid base, and he is better at reinforcing it than fishing for new converts. When his story is told in years to come, one version may be that of a man with an instinct for recognizing the values of papered-over and pampered people that wait for opportunities to redress changes in the foundations of their nation. Certainly, his victory over Senator Hillary Clinton was fundamentally a function of his ability to recognize an undercurrent and the instinct to play to it. His pledge to build huge, physical walls to keep out neighbours, playing to sentiments that underpinned right-wing America, re-writing America’s relations with much of the

world and tweaking racial prejudice offended by the Presidency of Barrack Obama combined to create a trajectory for success and the creation of a constituency that is difficult to dislodge.

The Democratic party took longer to recover than mainstream Republicans who woke up to the reality that they have a win that does wisdom and caution of decades of experience available to him. He was the President that wanted a tough US in a world that appeared hostile or too chaotic for total control. World powers such as Russia and China and the EU sat up to a new face of America that was less predictable. Trump was setting new rules for the world. Half of America cheered. The other half worried.

At home, Trump quarreled with journalists and pandered to groups that occupied the fringes of acceptable society. Race re-emerged as a basic issue in American politics. Words like outrageous, offensive and unbecoming became staple part of the vocabulary that described him. He appeared to relish provoking all establishment, giving succour to interests that had lowered their profiles in the face of more visible values which shaped much of visible America. He polarized all opinion and the media to a point where any pretenses to a middle ground had disappeared. Virtually all institutions that were central to the democratic system were torn into two or were turned inside out by a President who offended one spectrum of American society while the other end of the spectrum cheered him on. Nothing was sacred. Trump understood the psychology of the fringe, and he made it larger and more powerful by continually massaging it. Shock, scandal and outrage became the new normal as his considerable constituency moved into the mainstream.

With the elections next year, Trump is raising the ante. He is involved in an altercation with female members of Congress that has all the hallmarks of racism. He tweets away serious allegations around his conduct on many issues, particularly allegations around his role on Russian manipulation of the elections that made him President. He offends Europeans by insulting their leaders, and provides dictators around the world with validation by embracing them. The US economy looks in a good shape in spite of him, and he claims credit for it. The world is a lot more dangerous than it was two years ago, thanks to his insistence that US interests as defined by him must be enforced at all cost. Now the Democrats are involved in campaigns to put someone forward who may have a chance to stop a second term for Trump. Trump is setting the tone and the agenda of their campaigns against each other. No one should rule out the possibility of a second term for Trump, and a certain descent of the US into the lower levels in the hierarchy of nations with a claim to world leadership.

Abubakar wrote this piece from Abuja