The writer is a development anthropologist currently based in Fairfax, Virginia
What will become of Trump’s assertions of pulling out of the Paris Agreement on curbing climate change remains to be seen. The implications of a Trump presidency for the situation in Syria are not yet clear either. Besides Cuba and Iran, Pakistan too is waiting to see what unfolds under his presidency.
Some of our analysts feel that like other Republican presidencies, the US may become less intrusive under Trump. However, some have cautioned that the US may become be more sympathetic to India. It is perhaps still too early to project the consequences of a Trump presidency for the rest of the world. Yet, it is important to understand why the Democratic Party lost to the likes of Trump, despite all the controversies which have plagued his campaign.
Michael Moore, amongst others, had aptly warned that Trump would make inroads with average US voters unless Democrats made a break from the corporate sector which is blamed for driving down wages, exploiting workers and exacerbating class tensions not only within the US, but around the world. In order to understand how someone like Trump was able to project himself as an anti-establishment champion of the working class, we have to understand what has happened to the Democratic Party, which has espoused egalitarian values and aspired to be a grass roots level part of the ordinary citizenry.
It was Bill Clinton, who after three Republican terms in office which had seen growing influence of the market mechanism, also made the Democratic Party a proponent of similar principles. He not only put his weight behind NAFTA, but got rid of the Glass Steagall Act, allowing manipulation of mortgages and interest rates, acceleration of wealth concentration, and the subsequent housing crisis, and the resulting global financial crisis. He also introduced mandatory sentencing for non-violent drug possession, which resulted in mass incarceration of people of colour. It should thus be no surprise that African-Americans did not come out in support of Hillary Clinton, especially since the Democrats kept ignoring them during the current election campaign as well.
While Obama managed to secure the African-American vote during his two terms, the continuing racial profiling which sparked the ‘Black lives matter’ campaign indicate that the grievances of this sizeable proportion of the American population are yet to be addressed. Moreover, while Obama endorsed the Dodd-Frank Act, it did little to curb the influence of lobbyists, billionaires and politicians focused on re-election within the Democratic Party. Obama was also party to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which Trump has promised to dismantle since it hurts the working class.
There was a ray of hope in the vision put forth by Bernie Sanders and his progressive economic agenda. He also wasn’t afraid to point out failed foreign policies that have become the bedrock of the Democratic Party, including its support for Israeli aggression. However, the Democratic Party did not bet on Sanders. While Hillary Clinton won the primaries, the allegations surrounding her connections to the corporate sector, and use of her official position to secure donations for the Clinton Foundation, enabled a belligerent billionaire to label her as untrustworthy, and a member of the status quo, unable to deliver change.
Unless Democrats move left, and formulate a set of not only fairer but also widely appealing economic and foreign policy principles the current Republican-dominated US government may be here to stay for longer than the next four years.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 18th, 2016.
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