What if Trump is elected America’s next President?

In this week’s column for Naij.com, Ebuka Onyekwelu takes a look at the possibility of Donald Trump, the world-famous business magnate, emerging as the next president of the United States of America. Would a person like Trump do good in a country like the US?

The ongoing electioneering campaign in the United States of America has possibly taken a new turn with what can be rightly called the Trump effect. Initially, nobody gave Trump any serious thought as a contender in the next year’s presidential election, but few months after, he has managed to stay. Beyond that, he has also managed to stay at the top of Republicans’ contenders for the party’s presidential ticket even above the renowned surgeon Dr Ben Carson
, former president’s son Jeb Bush, younger brother to George Bush and former governor, as well as Ted Cruz. These are well-established Americans that were perhaps taken more serious than Trump at the beginning of the campaigns.

Though not as if Donald Trump has not made his own marks in his own field too, he has. Trump is an American billionaire and writer, one of the most vocal critics of President Obama and his administration. But not more than a handfull of people took him seriously when he declared his intention to run for America’s highest political office. Today, he towers as the most preferred candidate in his party, the Republican Party, and as well occupies a remarkable position in the general election outcome as many Americans prefer him to others. In fact, according to a poll, about 68% of his supporters affirmed that they will vote for him even if he runs as an independent candidate.

What could be responsible for the rise of Trump’s political relevance in America’s presidential race?

Trump speaks the minds of Americans

Donald Trump is a perfect picture of what is right and wrong with America — arrogant rightness and arrogant wrongness. Thus in many ways, Trump seems to be championing that American creed, the mind of many Americans! Though they may not publicly share some of Trump’s views as to avoid being offensive to others, but one needs to look at the polls and his wild acceptance which is growing daily to appreciate that fact.

For instance, a 2010 Harvard politics study which placed American Muslims at 2% of Americans, has it that 53% of American Muslims find it difficult to live with their faith after the September 11, 2001 events. The import of this is that there is a palpable widespread dispassion of Americans towards other Americans of the Islamic religion. This frostiness towards Muslims in America, as is deducible from the Harvard poll, has been there. That nobody is talking about it does not mean it is not there. That people are peacefully going about their businesses trying to be modest and civilized does not conceal their sentiments against a section of Americans. The emergence of ISIS and the ongoing terror activities across the globe which have hit France, Mali and others, did not help the situation.

So when Donald Trump’s utterances about banning Muslims from travelling to America prompt online petition in the UK to ban Trump from entering the UK, but not in America, it is not coincidental; instead of his popularity to die down, it is skyrocketing.

His resentment of the norm

Donald Trump has demonstrated strong antipathy to what is popularly called political correctness in America. This is just a lose term for not being principled. Put differently, political correctness is an attempt at pleasing or posing to please everybody, or in other words, “belonging to everybody”. This is very common for politicians in America to avoid hurting a section of the populace which may then influence their chances at the polls.

Of course, political correctness is tantamount to living multi-standard life just to appear cool and accepted by all. In reality, general acceptance of a politician is simply impossible, it is only a virtue pursued. But it is relevant because of its potency to deliver bulk votes which is needful for winning election.

Political correctness is a safe net adopted by both Republican and Democrat politicians. Trump challenges the rightness of political correctness in reshaping, restoring or building a stronger America. He talks hard after the manner of America’s political realism. On 8th December, 2015, for instance, he posted on Facebook: “Since I am self-funding my campaign, I don’t have to worry about being politically correct! President Obama has fought ISIS in a politically correct manner and look where it has gotten us! If we don’t talk about and address our country’s issues – we will never solve them!”

So in many ways, Trump somehow gets people who disagree with him to agree with him at some point. By the way, that post generated about 500,000 likes, over 50, 000 shares, and about 30, 000 comments in a matter of hours! So Trump represents the face of new American politics for his staunch supporters, this is perceptible. For other American voters who find him a bit obnoxious, his apparent unusual views can be both annoying and also serve as a basis for competing views on issues.

For American politicians, Trump is driving them to brute honesty of sort. No matter how you see him or consider his views disquieting, he is making some realistic submissions within the American context. Even though he is coming from conceivably strange perspective, he is making clear points and seems to be saying what many Americans have in mind. There is every possibility for a president Trump.