Hillary Clinton not Donald Trump deserved to be 45th US President
I woke up early on Wednesday - November 9 and like possibly millions of others in India I watched Donald Trump romping to victory.
My last evening's worries over what I should do with my single Rs 1,000 note and a couple of 500s got relegated to the background as America pulled of a sleight of hand unprecedented in the minds of supposedly sane minded global citizens the world over.
Somehow the feeling of disbelief was more than May 2014 when closer to home another maverick promising change broke through convention to break in to the portals of power.
But as the inevitability of the Wednesday morning in India turned into a night of mourning for the Clinton camp, I sat back on my sore haunches to wonder about the why of the disenchantment?
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| Hillary is a woman and I wanted her to win... (Photo credit: Reuters) |
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump - two people in the world, like more than a billion others who I am never going to meet, two individuals whose existence is possibly of no consequence to my daily worry of dal roti and my current obsession with a single Rs 1,000 and double Rs 500 notes and two humans who stand for everything I am not.
Then why... why was I so interested and taken up with which of them won and who lost... then why this feeling of being let down, by the people of America?
After much soul searching, I realised that there are primarily three reasons to why I would have liked Hillary Clinton to have become president:
Reason 1
After three decades in Washington, Hillary comes across as someone who is more open to compromise. To give and take when it comes to understanding another point of view. The flip side to that is, she being an insider to politics, she would certainly be cleverer by half on how to manipulate situations to her and/or US advantage.
Reason 2
Trump is racist and my brown skin tingles every time he waves his orange hair and raises his finger to speak like a white supremacist. I am scared of what a white man with all the power in the world would do to it.
But who am I kidding; USA, if we forget the last eight years, has always had a white male trumping around the White House. Now there will be a Trump trumping around so how different will that be?
Reason 3
Hillary is a woman and I wanted her to win just to break convention but Trump winning is as much a breaking of convention as Deve Gowda becoming prime minister in India.
The comparison is however unequal - Deve Gowda slept on the job and Trump has a wall to build and make Mexico pay for it so the world better stay awake.
The world over people are bucking the trend and demanding short term gains. In this age of instant gratification, no longer are people ready to go with compromise, the countless millions who now have the power to dictate, want their voices heard.
Like in India, two and half years ago, so in USA today, those who felt ignored, slighted and forgotten have risen to remind everyone where lies the power.
They have ensured that they bring in someone who they see as one of their own, someone who does not come with a pedigree. In the USA, like in India, someone who spoke of the baser things in society, who manufactured hate where hate lay simmering under covers and who demonised minorities who don't impact the system has risen to the heights of power.
All across the world the message is clear, not only does the majority rule but the majority wants to believe that it is ruling. The person who has been able to channelise this turpitude to his own gain has proved to be successful. In India there is Modi, in Russia there is Putin, in China there is Xi, in South Africa there is Zuma and now in the USA there will be Trump.
Some might lament that the world is a harsh place now, and into the foreseeable future, but to them I say rejoice for there is no hypocrisy left out there.
The final cloak of naïvety that romantics could hide under has been discarded. From now onwards you get what you see and the future is not only Modified but Trumped.