US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
TRUMP’S FOLLOWING TRUMPED AT THE POLL
Why the US presidential election result isn’t the surprise that it is being made out to be
BY Amantha Perera
It was the perfect political sleaze story with all the right ingredients. A young, good looking, politically ambitious woman (in fact, two ambitious women), a sleaze-job of a husband (perhaps two), cyber espionage, national security and an all-important election.
THE ‘MOTHER LODE’ It was the story that any campaign would want to avoid, when a mere two weeks before the American presidential election the FBI announced that it had found 650,000 emails from Huma Abedin in a laptop that was used by her estranged husband – former Congressman Anthony Weiner. It had sex, sleaze, politics and national security written all over it. Abedin has been a close aide of Hillary Clinton for many years.
The Trump camp, which had been trailing in the polls at the time, jumped at the story by calling it the ‘mother lode.’
Weiner is a notorious name – a name that has been dragged through many a scandal. He had been declared persona non grata a long time ago by the Clinton camp. This was despite his wife being an indispensable aide to Hillary from when she was America’s first lady. Hillary Clinton has gone as far as to call Abedin a second daughter.
Following his marriage to Abedin, Weiner – who was a rising star in Congress – landed in a sexting scandal in March 2011, which was cleared up thanks to some nifty PR engagements, to set him on track for the race for Mayor of New York. But mid-stream in the campaign, another sexting scandal broke, resulting in him losing the mayoral race as early as in the primaries. In a subsequent investigation on whether Weiner had sexted with a minor, his electronic devices were taken over by the FBI.
THE EMAIL STORY Emails have been one of Clinton’s main faux pas. There have been leaked emails of her campaign staff as well as an investigation into her use of a private server for official mails. As with the Weiner case, the email scandal was all about naivety on cyber security.
Here’s how the Washington Post described it: “Hillary Clinton’s email problems began in her first days as secretary of state. She insisted on using her personal BlackBerry for all her email communications, but wasn’t allowed to take the device into her seventh-floor suite of offices, a secure space known as Mahogany Row.”
“For Clinton, this was frustrating. As a political heavyweight and chief of the nation’s diplomatic corps, she needed to manage a torrent of emails to stay connected to colleagues, friends and supporters. She hated having to put her BlackBerry into a lockbox before going into her own office,” it added.
The Washington Post also noted that “her aides and senior officials pushed to find a way to enable her to use the device in the secure area. But their efforts unsettled the diplomatic security bureau, which was worried that foreign intelligence services could hack her BlackBerry and transform it into a listening device. Clinton used her BlackBerry as the group continued looking for a solution. But unknown to diplomatic security and technology officials at the department, there was another looming communications vulnerability.”
According to documents and interviews, “Clinton’s BlackBerry was digitally tethered to a private email server in the basement of her family home, some 260 miles to the north in Chappaqua, New York,” it stated, adding that “the officials took no steps to protect the server against intruders and spies because they apparently were not told about it.”
The first email scandal was based on Clinton’s insistence on the dire need of her BlackBerry. This saw the National Security Agency having to go so far as to seek a ‘mitigation option’ to allow her to use the mobile phone without compromising national security.
However, last year’s investigation into her use of a private email for government engagements resulted in the FBI recommending that no charges be filed against her, as it was a case of Clinton having been ‘extremely careless’ in handling her email system.
In October, the FBI announced it had found emails from Weiner’s estranged wife Abedin that it thought may be potentially relevant to the earlier Clinton server investigation.
Yet, on 6 November, a mere two days before the presidential election, the FBI concluded the investigation and declared that it had not changed the conclusion it reached in July.
This second email bombshell – termed the ‘October surprise’ – was the scandal that many said could undermine the Clinton campaign. A month and a half before the elections, a foreign correspondent based in Delhi warned US diplomats that both candidates had stacks of skeletons in the cupboard.
POLL RESULTS By the time the FBI announced its investigation into Weiner’s computer, Donald Trump too had been stalked by one skeleton after another. Most of these were of his own making and had alienated one vote block after another, with even the ‘mother lode’ appearing not to get him back on track.
There was a definite impact from the announcement of the investigation, with Trump gaining ground on Clinton in six states that were expected to be a tight contest. But with the FBI’s announcement that it was not pursuing an investigation, Clinton led Trump by four percent in a national poll conducted by NBC News/Wall Street Journal.
The New York Times had the race tighter, with Clinton’s 45.3 percent only marginally ahead of Trump’s 43 percent. And of the 10 national polls it cited, Trump led in only one.
D-DAY ELECTION Forty-eight hours later, all the pre-election polls looked a farce as Trump swept through in state after state. During his final speech, Trump had said that they were going to ‘Brexit the vote’ – and that was precisely what happened. As the world’s financial markets stumbled and Clinton’s celeb supporters panicked on social media, America voted with its pockets.
Early analyses of voting patterns suggested that Americans had three things on their mind – immigration, terrorism and the economy – much like in the Brexit vote. On all three counts, Trump was seen as the better bet.
Clinton also came with her own political baggage; that of her husband Bill, from her tenure as Secretary of State and more recent issues. This was an election where America had to choose between whom they disliked least. And at the end, the array of niche votes – women, blacks, Hispanics and the young, who were to propel the former first lady to presidency – didn’t gain traction.
Like the Guardian said following the release of results, Trump’s “was an appeal to the heart, not the head, in a country where patriotism should never be underestimated.”
Clinton was not the novelty factor, nor was she the Obama of 2008. She was and is the entrenched establishment candidate. Trump was the outsider – the guy who was ruffling the feathers.
TRUMP’S TRIUMPH The chief strategist of Obama’s presidential election victories David Axelrod clearly analysed this dynamic when he wrote in The New York Times, in January, that “open-seat presidential elections are shaped by perceptions of the style and personality of the outgoing incumbent. Voters rarely seek the replica of what they have. They almost always seek the remedy, the candidate who has the personal qualities the public finds lacking in the departing executive.”
And for a decade, Trump had cultivated a mass following with his reality show. While Clinton relied on celebrity endorsements, Trump was a celebrity himself.
In America, pop culture is a powerful tool. It has elected a Hollywood actor as a two-term president and an immigrant to replace a sitting governor in California. Trump in the White House was not at all an aberration, though not many wanted to acknowledge that.
TRUMP AS PRESIDENT What does the oncoming Trump presidency mean for this part of the world and specifically to Sri Lanka? The best place to gather any sense of this was in New Delhi.
As I wrote in the November edition of LMD, the vibes were that a Trump presidency would mean an overhaul of the personnel of the State Department.
He is less likely to be engaged in regional politics and other issues, unless they have a direct impact on trade. So his presidency would offer more space for our President and Prime Minister (both of whom were quick to welcome Trump) to combine to act on reconciliation pledges.
What would be interesting however, is how President-elect Donald J. Trump deals with two equally hard-nosed leaders – India’s Narendra Modi and China’s Xi Jinping.
Spot on, Amantha. This was, indeed, an election where America had to choose between whom they disliked the least. To be honest, however, until the very last minute I had both hoped and believed, a la most of the major US newspapers, that Mrs. Clinton would be elected president. In fact, I was so convinced that it was a foregone conclusion that I was flabbergasted to see Mr. Trump clearly ahead of Mrs. Clinton.
Maybe, the mainstream US media spoke about whom they wanted to be elected president rather than about the ground realities of the USA ignoring the shift in the perception of its voters. Maybe, writing had been on the wall for the very opposite of what the politically naive had hoped for.
Like the global financial crisis in 2007-2008 or the Brexit, Trump’s victory had been hiding in the plain sight. But, I don’t like Trump and his obtuse anti-minority stance; and I still believe his victory is a huge lapse of the collective judgement of the informed US voters.
But, then again, I’m just as much sceptical of the impartiality of the mainstream media that has influenced my prejudices against him. As it unfolds, I’m growing less and less sure of both what I know and what I hear. A man is, who people around him believe him to be. Likewise, at the end of the day, a US President is what the world media tell the world who he is, which won’t be necessarily be the truth always.
An interesting read, but it is an understatement to brand American voters as some sort of blind celebrity followers. Ronald Reagan was not a Hollywood star but an active republican for almost two decades before he became president. While being an active politician, he did engage in a number of other social activities so to speak. He was a democrat to start with, an active union leader for Hollywood stars, fighting against communist influence even as a democrat before changing sides to become a conservative hardliner.
His active backing for the Republican Presidential Candidates in the 1960s made him a force to be reckoned with, placing him as a new republican hopeful. Reagan was elected Governor of California, not because he was an actor, but a politician with a sense of purpose and a sense of humour. He was a regular on comedy panels on TV with the likes of Dean Martin, Don Rickles, Franc Sinatra and Johnny Carson. As Governor, he was a formidable character, where, since being elected in 1966, he recorded a state budget surplus, and was re-elected in 1970.
Following his success in California, he put his hat in the ring for the Republican Presidential Nomination in 1968 and in 1976, but was unsuccessful. However, his steely personality wasn’t discouraged by two failed attempts, and his third attempt in 1980 brought him success, making him the oldest president in their history, winning again in 1984.
In 1980, he won against a very unpopular and weak incumbent president (Jimmy Carter). In addition, it was the time the world saw Conservativism blossoming; for instance Thatcher won in 1979 in Britain and even J.R. Jayawardene became our President around the same time. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s story has many parallels to that of Reagan. Thus, branding intelligent voters, in an advanced economy like the US, as blind Hollywood followers is misleading to say the least. Reagan’s or Schwarzenegger’s success at politics does not give any inspiration for poor voters in a developing economy like ours to choose from film actors. What we need is a highly educated and intelligent bunch of ministers from all walks of life to drive the country forward.
My learned friend you seem to be less familiar about world politics. As all of us are originally from Sri Lanka, we all know why we came to USA, how we had to live in Sri Lanka for past 20 years and how the politicians behave, especially the ‘first-time’ politicians who are much like ‘DT’ in USA. We all know, as Americans that we immigrants are the best performers in the American education system and what is the performance of ‘white’ people in it.
If we take the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) which is where my daughter graduated from, 98 percent students are Asians. This is the case at Stanford as well. I just want to highlight that immigrants (even DT’s great grandfather was an immigrant from Germany) came to USA for a purpose and we do not expect gain ‘casino treasures’ overnight or just live for the day, thinking tomorrow is also another ‘day’, adopting the culture of ‘white’ citizens.
This election took advantage of the short-term requirements of the majority of Americans. These are not long standing but are instant changes like ‘instant soup’ as opposed to a nice ‘feast’. It was done in this country which is the most democratic nation that stands for liberty and freedom.
As I mentioned earlier, as a first time politician, DT has never had a political background or military experience which are two of the primary qualifications that a potential presidential candidate needs in America. He is merely a businessman who has no idea of the political situation of today’s world.
America is the main target of most of the dangerous terrorist organisations, therefore the country needs a careful and diplomatic approach to deal with the rest of the world. Such an action plans calls for far-sighted thinking and political experience as we Americans do not need to engage in another international war, since we suffered enough throughout the past decade due to the repercussions of wars such as reduced jobs and closing down of businesses, with the spiralling cost of living, especially in California.
The 32-year old issue of terrorism was wiped out after a tough war which could not be effectively dealt with in 1983, even by some experienced politicians. However, an ‘apprentice’ political leader – who is similar to DT – came to power by chance and fulfilled the requirement of the majority of Sri Lankans by defeating terrorism. As I mentioned before, these are like the short-term expectations of the ‘white’ people. This situation can be aptly described by the saying, “where the God is afraid to step up, the fool is dancing.”
What has happened after the war? Sri Lanka is still struggling to survive with the looted economy and suffering from the consequences of the war. It is like the saying uttered by the last king of Ceylon Sri Wickramarajasinghe, “inguru deela miris gaththa wage” (offering ginger in exchange of chilli).
By chance we might be able to find fresh and far-sighted first-time political leaders, but 90 percent of the time, the results may turn out to be zero. It is still too early to forecast how the DT administration will work in America. But at the beginning, his approach was wrong as he started dividing the American citizens by provoking racism through his speeches and hiring less professional people to his team. Furthermore, signs of nepotism will not be favourable for a better change.
Amantha, as always you are connecting a few good dots with an insightful perspective (and ‘vibes’). Trying to predict the incoming president’s foreign policy stance towards Sri Lanka is as difficult as trying to figure out what’s on his tax return. It’s probably going to be less hawkish, and more in the realm of deal-making, since he will bring in an outside perspective. I sorely wish the sex, sleaze and scandals are behind us, but given the machinations we have seen so far, I have my doubts.