The Triumph of President-Elect Donald J. Trump
The
Triumph of President-Elect Donald J. Trump
By E.
Stanley Ukeni
The 2016 United States’ presidential elections has come and
gone, and as everyone already knows by now, Donald Trump emerged victorious. I
have to say that the Trump win is a shocking victory for most around the world—once
again jarring the collective confidence of the much of the global populace in
the US electorate.
Having said that, everyone has to come to terms with the
fact that Donald John Trump will soon assume office as the United States of
America’s first truly maverick Commander-in-Chief in History…and the country’s
45th President. It’s kind of surreal writing this paragraph.
Donald J. Trump, a Billionaire real estate mogul who had
never run for any elected office, nursed the idea for a possible presidential
run as far back as the year 2000. He then flirted with the idea entering the 2008,
and then the 2012 presidential elections but backing down each time. However,
in June of 2015 he announced his candidacy for the 2016 US presidential
election.
The Republican nominee’s surprisingly strong performance at
the polls—an ultimate cliffhanger, marks the triumph of unwavering resolve and
ruthless pragmatism. However, now that he has won, America as a whole must now
begin the daunting task of healing a fractured nation.
Now that the 2016 US
presidential election is a foregone conclusion, the question the world must be
asking is, “how did the pundits and pollsters get it wrong in their almost
overwhelming prediction of a Hillary Clinton election victory?”
Sure, political pundits and pollster are struggling to
explain away how they all got it wrong. I have to admit that, sadly, I was one
of those who bought into the dominant narrative of, an all-but-certain, Hillary
Clinton victory.
Some of these self-acclaimed political prognosticators are now
out rightly resorting to blame-game—pointing to the surge in momentum for the
Trump campaign resulting from the FBI announcement, 11 days before the
election, that it was reviewing new evidence related to its investigation into
Clinton and her aides’ handling of sensitive and classified information while
at the State Department. However, I for one, am not buying this attend at
explaining away their colossal failure at predicting the election’s outcome.
I think they all failed because they refused to accept the
glaring fact that Donald Trump was a masterful ‘populist’ presidential
candidate—perhaps a spectacularly effective one. Many other populist movements soon
ran-out of steam because they were
mostly driven merely by fear, the Trump movement blended an inspiring brew of
fear, media driven populism and a dash of a carefully crafted cult persona that
was decades in the making.
While President Ronald Reagan championed a movement driven
by capitalist and free-market ideology, Trump assumed the role of the high
priest of aspirational consumerism—masterfully employing the time-tested appeal
of prosperity-theology. His movement artfully struck a nerve with the widely
accepted secular notion that one is most apt to become wealthy of he or she
follows another who has already achieved vast wealth. It is a well-established
fact that Americans are conspicuous consumers, and are most amenable to popular
ideas that promise them an unabated consumerism lifestyle.
Donald Trump, who obviously owns many beautiful, classy and
expensive things, fits the mold of one most suited to seduce the American
public with a promise of creating opportunities for amassing vast amounts of
personal wealth and fortune.
The ugly truth is that the vast majority of the American
populace wants a leader who would be willing and able to screw-over the rest of
the world, if-need-be, to secure them an economic advantage…and they have found
their champion in President-elect Donald Trump. I have to add here that this inconvenient
fact is also true of citizens of many other nations.
It is important that the leaders of over nations not make
the mistake of dismissing Trump’s resolve secure an advantage for Americans. I
am of the opinion that Trump genuinely believes himself to be called to restore
America’s greatness.
Authored by E. Stanley Ukeni, © 2016. All Rights
Reserved. You are invited to follow E. Stanley Ukeni on twitter at; @EzStan . I
invite you to equally follow me on google+
I find your thoughts on how Mr. Trump won by delving into "prosperity-theology" rather moot. I rather think that as a successful and wealthy businessman, Donald Trump approached the 2016 US campaign by making use of his business acumen; shrewdly selling different messages to his audiences ( both white and blue-collared). Whilst his political competitors were busy trying to be politically correct, Mr. Trump was throwing up his sleeves clowning in the remote suburbs of Virginia and North Carolina! He simply mastered the art of exciting his supporters whilst challenging the undecided voters to jump on the wagon. Nonetheless, I must agree with you that Donald Trump did actually delve into the growing populist appeal to reach-out to others. Good write up. Keep it up!! Joey E. Dansky
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