The Phenomena of Donald Trump
Guess why he is winning
By Tarif Youssef Agha, March 11, 2016
No doubt that many of those who are following up with the American Election, Americans and foreigners, can’t explain how the billionaire Republican candidate Donald Trump is winning against all his Republican competitors, even though he is the most vulgar one among them; a lot of analysts call him “a phenomena”. As a viewer of the contemporary American politics, I will try in this article to find out how and why that happened.
Let’s first shed some light on the map of the American politics since the Independence, where almost only two parties dominated the political scene: the Democratic and the Republican Parties. The first one came from a party established by Thomas Jefferson in 1792 by the name of “The Democratic-Republicans” which supported more power for the States against the central power of the Capital. The Democratic Party emerged from it in 1828 and kept its name and principles since then, but also became to be more liberal. The second one came from a party established by Minister Alexander Hamilton in 1791 and called “The Federalist” which supported the central power of the Capital against that of the States. The Republicans Party emerged from it in 1854, kept the name since then and became more conservative. The first election that took place under the two parties system took placed in 1796; the Federalist John Adams won.
Back to Donald Trump, it is very important to understand that this man doesn’t genuinely belong to the political establishment represented by the two mentioned parties; his identity as a Republican is a phony rather than a real one. The proof here is that he used to donate to Democratic and Republican candidates in the past elections; a party member donates only to his party. Another proof here is that many Republican leaders criticized him and asked him to quit; he threatened several times to run as an independent if the Republicans won’t treat him fairly. This is enough to prove that the man is indeed independent, but he preferred to wear the Republican uniform so he gets more political support and more media coverage. He learned the lesson of the Texan billionaire Ross Perot who ran as an independent candidate back in 1992 and lost big time because he was ignored by the main stream media, and also because he was unable to confront the unlimited political support of a well established party.
Now we knew that Donald Trump is an independent (but under a Republican uniform) candidate, we can understand why he is the front runner so far. The American people are sick and tired of the failures, scandals, and lies of the presidents who dominated the White House during the last few decades and who belonged solitarily to the two aged parties. I will analyze some in the following.
The Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1963) was the first to get his country involved in Vietnam by deploying military consultants under the claim of stopping the spread of communism in the Far East. The Democrat John Kennedy (1961-1963) escalated the involvement in Vietnam and created a scandal by having an affair with an actress whom he used to meet in the White House. The Democrat Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969). Was the one who started the Vietnam War (1965-1974) officially; it claimed about fifty eight thousand casualties, tens of thousands of injuries and sparked hundreds of angry street protests. The Republican Richard Nixon (1969-1974) had to withdraw the army from Vietnam under fire in a very humiliating manner, and then was forced to resign in 1977 after he was related to the Watergate Scandal. The Democrat Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) failed to free the staff of the Embassy in Iran disappointed the American people and made him look weak. The Republican Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was disturbed by his administration involvement in the Iran-Contra Scandal when it was accused of secretly selling weapons to its enemy, Iran. The Republican George Bush Sr. (1989-1992) promised the voters “Read my lips, no more taxes”, but he broke that promise for “economical necessities”, the media, therefore, called him “a Liar”. The Democrat Bill Clinton (1992-2000) sank in womanizing scandals; one of them took place in the White House. It empowered the Republicans to go after him and try to impeach him. The Republican George Bush Jr. (2000-2008) got the country involved in the war on Iraq under accusations which were later found not true (the weapon of mass destruction). He also claimed he received a “Prophecy” from God to attack Iraq; that claim made him laughing material, locally and internationally. The economy reached its worst level in decades during his time; several big companies, manufacturers and banks filed for bankruptcy and the country is still suffering from that up to now. The Democrat Barak Obama (2008-2016) promised to improve the economy, but failed to accomplish any serious progress. He also hurt the American reputation internationally by deserting some of its allies and leaving areas known as American influenced places; all that allowed traditional enemies like Russia, China and Iran to take advantage and to come to replace the US.
Confronted by all those failures, scandals and lies, the American voter today is disgusted by every thing that is connected to both parties, and is ready to vote even for the “Worst Genies” as long as they don’t belong to those two parties. By coincidence, Donald Trump was there at the right time at the right place to be that genie that appeared suddenly to save the day, so when he says that he gains Democratic voters, it might be true. In addition to all that, he is taking advantage of the current issues and saying what the voter wants to hear. So he is utilizing the vicious acts committed by ISIS to play the Islam-phobia card, and the bad economy to play the immigration card, promising to kick out the illegal immigrants and to build the wall along the Mexican borders. In addition to that, the weaknesses of his main Republican running mates (Cruz, Rubio and Kasich) made it easy on him to defeat them all. Besides all that, he tends to take extreme stands and to use bad words, never used before by a presidential candidate, just to win the media’s coverage no matter what. But how capable he is to fulfill his promises is a different question, especially if we dig deep into his past and present, and try to find out what he is hiding there.
Finally, the Founding Fathers of our Nation warned from the danger of the political parties and their roles in dividing the society. President George Washington (1789-1797) hated the idea of the parties and warned in his Farwell Address from what he called “The destructiveness of the party spirit”. President John Adams (1797-1801) said “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties”. And President Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) also said “If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all”. It looks like the American people returned to the words of the Founding Fathers and decided to listen to them.
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(Can be shared without permission)
By Tarif Youssef-Agha
An Expatriate Arab Syrian Writer & Poet
Member of the ‘Syrian Revolutionary Writers Assembly’
Houston, Texas
Friday March 11, 2016
http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry