Too Early to Celebrate Trump’s Defeat

Date:

US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump
US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump

Trump’s legacy, even if he is crushed in the primaries and fails to win the Republican nomination, will live for years to come. He has made hate speech the lexicon of modern language

SABRIA S JAWHAR | Arab News

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]efore I do my happy dance over Donald Trump’s loss in the Iowa Caucus Republican presidential primary, Americans and their friends abroad may want to take a moment to consider the ramifications of Trump’s candidacy.
It’s not necessarily a good thing that Trump lost to Ted Cruz by more than three percentage points. Cruz’s strong support among religious conservatives only gives Americans a mild and saner version of Trump. And speaking as a Saudi, religious conservative influence in domestic policy is often a bummer.
The real threat, though, is that Cruz is more palatable to the American voter than Trump and stands a strong chance of giving Hillary Clinton a run for her money in November’s general election. “Trump lite” simply brings better manners and nicer language to domestic and foreign issues, not better governance or less intolerance.
We shouldn’t take Trump’s loss in Iowa for granted. We still have New Hampshire next week in which Trump is said to be the clear favorite to win. But let’s say that Iowa is just the beginning of Trump’s reversal of fortunes and we begin to see waning support as Cruz and Marc Rubio begin to look better and better to the conservative voter.
Trump has already established the national debate. He has openly advocated many intolerant policies that up until recently presidential candidates only thought about privately. He has made it socially acceptable to voice anti-black and anti-Muslim sentiments. He curries favor with despots and has made misogyny almost socially acceptable. He wants to pack the US Supreme Court with like-minded conservatives and more or less upend the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He says he wants to make America great again, but what he really means is that he wants to make America white and patriarchal again.
All of this can be dismissed as wacky, but the fact is many Americans are discussing these ideas as legitimate proposals for the US government’s foreign and domestic policies. Proposals, I might add, that institutionalize racial and religious discrimination. It’s exactly what will make America not great again.
Meanwhile, Americans are faced with a threat that it refuses to identify. Armed cowboys, yes, cowboys, seized a government wildlife refuge building in Oregon demanding that the government “give” federal lands to them so they can conduct their ranching operations without government interference. The Los Angeles Times identified these hooligans as “activists” instead of the terrorists they really are. Even members of the community surrounding the seized government building demanded the terrorists leave them alone, but to many Americans these guys were seen as heroes. The anti-government forces determined to wreck the principles that make America great are given comfort and aid by Trump and his fan base.
Trump’s legacy, even if he is crushed in the primaries and fails to win the Republican nomination, will live for years to come. He has made hate speech the lexicon of modern language. He has brought his country’s latent nativist tendencies roaring back, which has not been seen since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. —c. Arab News

theclarionindia
theclarionindiahttps://clarionindia.net
Clarion India - News, Views and Insights about Indian Muslims, Dalits, Minorities, Women and Other Marginalised and Dispossessed Communities.

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