August 17, 2015

Trump: saving America, and the world.

editor:	Gurmeet Singh

After weeks of hot air comes the hot air balloon: Donald Trump has finally outlined some policies. He probably won’t win the Republican nomination – which many analysts predict will go to Jeb Bush (a story in itself). And he’s obviously using the campaign to bolster his biggest and most successful brand – himself. Now, none of this is either incredibly important or interesting – outrageous people in the media exist perennially, and become marginally more interesting during election times. What is interesting however, is not only how popular Donald Trump seems, but how uncritically his remarks are accepted.

No one’s forgotten the Mexican thing. The rapists, drug dealer thing. That went by with some noise – to preserve their own portion of the Latino vote, said some cynical – or perhaps pragmatic – commentators. But let’s have a look at some of those policies.

• Using ground troops to combat ISIS.
• Getting Saudi Arabia to pay for US support.
• “Policing” the US-Iran Nuclear deal.
• Taking back the oil fields in Iraq.
• Providing care for US war veterans from profits from said oil fields.
• Deportation of illegal immigrants.
• Getting the supreme court to review abortion laws

The Guardian also mentions that Trump is opposed to abortion except in cases of rape or incest, or where the mother’s life is at risk. He also said he’d cut funding to Planned Parenthood, a women’s health organisation if it continued to provide abortions.

Global politics is complex. So complex that to subsume it under a single narrative leads to all kinds of errors, if not actual lives lost (think of the good vs. bad idea we’ve heard since the Cold War – and something that continues in Trump’s policies). I certainly don’t pretend to have any answers – but Mr. Trump’s supporters continue to live in a fantasy-land where a single person’s (a rich, white, American man’s) bombastic speeches and mercenary ideas will save the world. “Take back the oil fields”, “deport illegal immigrants”, “review abortion laws”: not only will Trump restore the global order, he will set American demographics aright, as well as realigning its moral compass.

As I said, it’s probably not that important that Trump has said these things – he’s probably not going to win. It’s important for him to continue to be in the limelight, however, and if being a loudmouth, if sometimes entertaining, crank gets him there, then that’s fine by him. That’s obviously not to say Trump is the problem; he’s only an extreme case of politics and media obsessed with image and sound-bite.

But around the globe, there’s not only a feeling of fatigue for this very American charade of fantasy and privilege, there’s a real desire to let the hot air balloon sail on, so the real business of carrying out helpful politics can continue.

Image: The Guardian