4 political lessons for liberals from Trump’s triumph, Hillary's fall
Much to the horror of liberals around the world, Donald Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton and will be the next President of the United States. It is now time for people of a liberal persuasion to do some much needed introspection to deduce why a dog-whistling populist has been chosen to replace Barack Obama as the leader of the free world.
Firstly, the wave of protests we are seeing across the US paint a sorry picture. Liberals have been protesting in droves using slogans like "not my president" to raise their voices against the scary prospect of being stuck with Trump as the commander-in-chief for the next four years.
These protests aren't just futile but reek of a double-standard on the part of liberals and progressives. If Trump had lost and his fans had started protesting, they would have been rightly condemned for not accepting the results of the election.
So, liberals have to differentiate themselves from Trump supporters by expressing their faith in democratic institutions, even if the result has been unfavourable to them.
Secondly, liberals desperately need to speak out against the phenomenon of political correctness which has been adopted universally by the political left. Political correctness is the tendency to avoid uncomfortable topics or expressing what's true out of the fear of offending different groups of people.
People are tired of this phenomenon and Trump was able to capitalise on this by projecting himself as someone who is politically incorrect.
According to the PC police, anybody who has any reservations about immigration or believes the rate of immigration should be controlled is a "racist" or a "bigot". Imagine how a rural lower middle-class American who has lost his job at the farm to Mexican immigrants would feel when he is accused of being a "racist" just for expressing concerns over illegal immigration.
Another example of astonishing levels of political correctness was at display when both Obama and Hillary Clinton failed to use the words "radical Islam" to describe the wave of terrorism we are witnessing across the world.
When Democrats and liberals avoid talking honestly about issues like migration and terrorism, people tend to gravitate towards genuine bigots like Trump. So liberals need to talk about these issues and present a viable alternative to voters.
 |
| Hillary Clinton was discredited so much by Bernie Sanders' fans that people just couldn't get excited about her nomination. (Photo: AP) |
On a related note, liberals also need to stop throwing around words like "racist" and "white supremacist". While there is no doubt that Trump pandered to racists during the campaign, the electoral map clearly proves it's not just racists and bigots who voted for him.
In fact, many people who voted for Obama twice decided to cast their ballot for Trump this time round and it's not likely that they suddenly developed racist tendencies over four years. The much more likely scenario is that they got tired of being labelled racists just for expressing a different opinion.
Thirdly, liberals need to stop attacking people from their own tribe who they view as being insufficiently pure. There is a tendency on the left to view as impure anybody who isn't ideologically very close to them.
For example, Bernie Sanders' fans attacked Hillary throughout the primary season as she was closer to the centre than Bernie. While Hillary was by no means a perfect candidate, she was discredited so much by the Bernie fans that people just couldn't get excited about her nomination.
A lot of progressives decided to either vote for a third party candidate or not vote at all as they weren't inspired by Hillary. This was clearly a mistake as the difference between Trump and Hillary is huge compared to the difference between Bernie and Hillary.
The conservatives on the other hand decided to be more pragmatic and overwhelmingly voted for Trump despite him not being the ideal candidate for most of them.
Liberals need to realise that politics is the art of the possible and it is sometimes prudent to place pragmatism over idealism.
Finally, now that Trump will be the next president, liberals should stop demonising everybody who joins his administration.
It is important that he gets good advisers, and thus attacking the few sensible people who might to be willing to join the administration will have an adverse effect on the US and the world.