American Politics

On 20 January 2017 the United States of America will inaugurate a controversial individual as their new president. Based on the controversy surrounding the statements he made on his campaign trail and based on the kind of statements he tweets about on Twitter, what does his election say about the United States of America?

The words racist, bigot, sexist, stupid, etc. are used often when many people refer to Donald J. Trump. In fact, he would not have been widely seen as a controversial individual if he was run of the mill. One thing is certain, Donald Trump is not run of the mill. But can we say he is racist or bigoted or any of those other labels placed upon him by the average American? Let's look at the facts.

On 14 June 2014 Donald Trump made his presidential running announcement speech at Trump Towers in New York. At this event he said the following:

"Thank you. It’s true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

There is the possibility of racism in what he said, but what he said was probably not aimed at all Mexicans, which does not make it racist. He did not say "Mexicans are rapists" he said "They're rapists" and since he was talking about Mexico's worst being sent to the USA in that moment, the context was probably in reference to those specific "bad" Mexicans and not all Mexicans.

In saying "they're racist" he might have been referring to all Mexicans, but judging by the way he speaks in general, for example saying "They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you.", which made no sense and he said "They’re sending us not the right people", which is just bad English it might be that his English is just bad and that is where the misunderstanding occurred.

Is Donald Trump sexist? The reference most widely used is that of the 2005 Access Hollywood video. In this video he does say

"you know I am automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them"

later in the video he does say

"and when you are a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything".

That definitely does classify as sexist and lewd. It prompted Trump to apologise for what he said on this day in another video. These types of statements do qualify as the kind of things presidents elect of the USA just should not say and it is definitely sexist.

Is Donald Trump stupid? Is this man an idiot? According to Wikipedia to be stupid is to lack intelligence or common sense. So does The Donald lack intelligence and or common sense?

When Trump said he would make Mexico pay for the wall he is going to build, how did he expect them to agree? At best he could probably expect them to help him build a wall, but Mexico does not have that kind of money in terms of what their priorities are. They're fighting a losing drug war, have high unemployment and other social issues to keep their money occupied. If things were great in Mexico, why would so many be crossing the border to the USA? That should have been common sense.

At a December 2015 rally in Charleston, South Carolina, Donald Trump said the following:

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."

An intelligent man would not have said this on the campaign trail because of the fact that one does not implicitly alienate any group of voters and usually men or women running for POTUS do not say those kinds of things.

In fact, this statement also makes him bigoted. Bigotry is when you are intolerant towards those who hold different opinions to you.

Furthermore, during world war two Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps to protect the USA against possible Japanese attacks from inside the country. It is something the country still regrets and had arguably very little impact. It is something that may actually have caused more Japanese to sympathise with the Japanese Empire than had they been left to be regular Americans. This is something POTUS should know.

It might however be that the idea behind this quote was to put in place a temporary ban to allow "our country's representatives" to "figure out what is going on", but this is just my attempt at playing devil's advocate, and any religious ban is actually unconstitutional and stands contrary to the way things are supposed to be done in the USA based on the principles of the US Founding Fathers. Their spirit until recently was the way things were supposed to be done in the US.

So, the verdict is that Donald Trump may very well be racist, he has definitely shown sexist tendencies, he is bigoted and probably not the most intelligent person about despite the billions he has made.

We have established Donald Trump is as far as POTUS goes, probably not one of the greatest ever elected - in theory. We will probably not have a clear idea until after his first one hundred days in the Oval Office. He is however inclined towards racism, sexist, bigoted and suffers a lack of common sense. Is the fact that Americans have voted him into power an indication of the mentality of the average American?

Americans are ruled mostly by fear. Donald Trump plays very well to that part of the average American. Fear is partly caused by a lack of information so Trump should actually be thanking the "fake media" he so regularly attacks for creating the fear, which has helped him gain power.

After Nine Eleven it was easier to take away the rights of Americans or to infringe upon those rights. In that sense the terrorists actually won, because they managed to change the USA into what it is becoming - and enough Americans know that is not what they want. That same fear caused Americans to lock up their fellow Japanese Americans during the second world war and plays a part in creating more terrorism today. Read Cause and effect in the war on terror.

Donald Trump represents the apparent new voice of reason, the no-bullshit attitude Americans admire especially when things are going south. Trump may not be the best speaker, but he touches nerves all the time. Unfortunately, just like with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini he also brings out the worst in people and usually we see the extremes people are capable of like with Kristallnacht in Germany 1938.

The hidden bigotry often under the surface in most societies and also the USA is now coming to the surface. People are starting to think being bigoted, racist and nationalistic (make America Great Again) is somehow acceptable, but it is not.

So are most Americans just small Donald Trumps?

Probably not.

Despite the fact that Trump is coming to power Wikipedia says Clinton won the popular vote in the USA by 2.8 million votes (Trump - 62,979,879 votes and Clinton- 65,844,954 votes). In the end most people in the USA did not vote for Trump. The Electoral College system in the USA ensured Trump came to power in the end.

According to Breitbart 8.7million more Republicans voted in 2016 than did in 2010. It might also be prudent to consider that according to all the polls, Clinton would win so Democrats did not come out in such force as would have given them the win. The Democrats probably let the elections slip out of their hands. But it's too late now. Fortunately this means that Democrats were probably just caught with their pants down while many if not most Republicans like what Donald Trump stands for and are therefore aligning themselves with racism, sexism and bigotry.

If most Americans had voted for Trump one might have asked why did they do that, but most Americans did not vote for him. Although the difference is only about 3 million in a country of more than 300 million, most people probably did not support the ideas of Donald Trump according to the polls. Unfortunately he is now in power and the Electoral Colleges, which had to prevent something like this failed. Also, if the election was a one-man-one-vote exercise, Trump would have lost.

Most Americans are not small Donald Trumps, but there are enough Mini Donald J. Trumps to cause many problems in that country and for the rest of the world. America has slipped and this may be a bigger disaster than Nine Eleven.

Time will tell.