Donald Trump’s campaign for nominee of the Republican Party (GOP) for president of the United States is over. He is celebrating, but he is also terrified! Many GOP elected officials, and lifetime stalwarts of the GOP, deem him unfit to represent the traditional values of the GOP, or to serve as president of the U.S.! The adage “It is not over, until is over” has become now Donald Trump’s nightmare!
What is Donald Trump’s problem? Baraq Obama exemplified it yesterday as follows: “Trump treated the (nomination) campaign like a carnival,” and “his campaign emphasized the spectacle and the circus,” (the atmosphere, not the issues). “Every candidate, and or every nominee, needs to be subject to exacting standards and genuine scrutiny,” Obama concluded. (The N.Y. Times, May 6, 2016)
The president’s encapsulation of Donald Trump’s campaign was perfect, and the rejection of Donald Trump by many of the GOP officials seems to be the result of the same conclusion. He treated reporters who asked him difficult questions as hostile and ordered his security guards to expel them from the forum; he treated Hispanics as a U.S. menace and after he won the nomination he ate a ball of chili and praised Spanish food; he considered at first all Muslims as terrorists, and after a public outcry he mumbled some exemptions and definitions. For others who challenged his views, he bragged: “I would like to punch them in the face, I would tell you!” And when bullish Trump supporters “punched in the face, kicked, pulled and shoved” anti-Trump protesters, and the police arrested them, Donald Trump rushed to their rescue and paid lawyers to represent them in court. Trump’s campaign, in short, was a carnival of his braggadocio on the stage, and plenty of “paid hooliganism” below stage!
Now the GOP is divided on whether to support Trump or not out of fear that he may turn the White House, and possibly the sober U.S. global diplomacy, into a circus and a carnival – if he ever gets there. It is feared that Trump, a formed host of the TV reality show “Apprentice,” who fired anyone he judged as non-performing on their tasks, would as an “apprentice president” himself fire any of his expert advisers who disagree with his views – because his egomania is so uncontrollable that stands above reason! Bill Gates, the former CIA Director has said that the U.S. Army will “not obey” any order from Donald Trump that violates International Law or U.S. treaties with other nations.” That was a diplomatic way for Gates to say that the U.S. Army won’t obey any “crazy order from Donald Trump!” George W. Bush was famous for ordering his underlings “I am the president: Do what I tell you!” With Donald Trump already behaving like Napoleon, the specter of a Babel Tower dissonance in Washington between Trump and other GOP leaders seems inevitable! The collision of egos between Trump and other GOP leaders has already began.
The Republican Party is already divided on whether to support Donald Trump, fearing the crazy and/or the unpredictable might happen from a novice politician with a bloated ego, an unrestrained arrogance, and an attitude to dictate his values and views to anybody without any regard to other cultures, traditions, and religions. Trump wants to be president, because he wants to become himself the center of the world. That would serve his egomania, but doubts are aplenty whether or not that would serve the Americans, or the U.S. interests worldwide! Plus, Trump seem to be unable to understand the difference between running a hotel business and running a superpower. Already 81% of Latinos in the U.S. hate Trump, and although there are no statistics on Muslims, I am confident that 80 to 90% of Muslims hate Trump, too. Add Trump’s anti-Putin, anti-Europe, and anti-China comments that would negatively affect relations with our allies, Russia and China, and a Trump presidency looks like a dark cloud in the U.S. political horizon! I am really ashamed to see Germany, a country of 80 millions lead by Angela Merkel, a world-class stateswoman, while we, the U.S. a country of 316 millions spin around a clown, Donald Trump, or some other “me too” wanna-be lightweight aspirants.
Donald Trump won the U.S. Republican nomination for president with a novelty campaign focusing on the carnival atmosphere; a lot of anti-Hispanic, anti-Muslim, anti-Russia, anti-Europe, and anti-China rhetoric
into politically unconditioned crowds that misinterpreted Donal Trump’s braggadocio and carnival atmosphere as “a dynamic leadership.” Then, his insults and hostility of Hispanic and Muslims was also taken by the crowds as ”a veracity of character!” It wasn’t! It was racism and bigotry!
The Las Vegas style campaign of carnival, circus, and hooliganism bravado of Donald Trump is over. But it looks now like the first half of a soccer match. The second half would be to convince the Republican Party to accept his political baggage, and help him to carry it into the White House! Would the Republican Party leaders accept to become Donald Trump’s errand boys? If they want “a braggart GOP clown” as president, why not!
Nikos Retsos, retired professor
