Where both Modi and Trump are similar

Donald Trump is all set to take oath as the 45th President of the United States after his win based on electoral college and his near win on the popular vote. It is clear that pollsters could not pick up the winds of political catharsis that people seek through voting for an "outsider", of course this term is to be used relatively.

Narendra Modi as chief minister was considered an outsider to national politics and to the dominant ideological positions within the main national parties. Even within the BJP, Modi had to engineer a coup which contemporary political observers are yet to account for.

Pre-Modi, BJP was, by the 2014 general elections, bereft of any popular face and Modi used his political/election campaign as a basis for routing opposition within and without his party.

Similarly for Trump, the campaign of the "outsider" has the effect of "fissioning" traditional voting constituencies. Despite Trump’s sharp rhetoric and cultural war on the issue of immigration, Latinos have in some numbers voted for Trump because they see no hope in the slow destitution.

Even African-Americans have, in a small percentage, voted for Trump. Both these have made a significant dent in key battleground states as well as shifted blue states red.

Although it was expected that the African-American vote percentage clocked under Barack Obama would come down for Hillary Clinton, but the lack of enthusiasm among this demographic for Hillary can be seen even in states such as North Carolina, where Hillary invested heavily towards the end of the election campaign.

Even though 8 per cent of the African-American vote for Trump may not sound much but it can make all the difference in a close election, especially in the ability of Democratic Party to keep blue states from getting dyed red.

Modi, in similar ways, also fissioned and fused electoral constituencies to the extent that the Dalit vote was overwhelmingly in favour of Modi’s BJP, and BSP was practically wiped out from the electoral map of national politics.

Even Muslims in some proportion voted for Modi’s BJP in 2014.

The single-minded empirical approach of polls in repeated elections have exposed a need to introduce qualitative analytics and political risk assessments within the polling framework to have more meaningful numbers.

The gap between the results and polling numbers have revealed that the knowledge platforms on which the poll generating machines are structured are flaky in their foundations and are likely to miss "change" elections where an outsider is running as the main contender.

The outsider not only breaks the traditional perspective on social coalitions that make up electoral constituencies for political parties but also flattens geographical denominations.

Trump, a billionaire businessman from New York, could appeal to the so-called "rust belt" in the northeast of United States that have become industrial swamps where job losses in the manufacturing sector have been as high as almost 60 per cent.

Obama preached against "trickle-down" economics but practiced something entirely different. He infused cash inflows into the financial sector/ Wall Street sharks, rather than into some sort of neo-industrial revival and left them with a pipe dream of jobs in a new renewable energy economy which seemed to benefit only billionaires like Elon Musk of Tesla Motors.

It did not translate into tangible economic opportunities for the very demographic which voted heavily for Obama.

Democrats under Hillary Clinton attempted to make the campaign into a personality referendum within the dynamics of cultural warfare issues like sexism, xenophobia, and so on, which are framed by the liberal, centre-left and left media in a way that neither exuded confidence nor enthusiasm enough to counter novelty offered by the outsider.

In similar ways, the political opposition to Narendra Modi attempted to shift the terms of electoral conversation between the political parties and their constituencies into a cultural referendum, in terms which did not generate any legitimate traction to check the silent snowballing momentum of Modi as the outsider.

The rather benign gains/advantages to the incumbents in poll numbers in the initial stages of the campaign becomes a dangerous source of false assurances and solace to the opposition of the outsider that their cultural warfare is not only legitimate but also succeeding, even though this may prove to be an electoral mirage.

The advantage for an outsider is that the needle of judgment cannot be turned towards him irrespective of the baggage that this outsider may bring with them. This includes substantial immunity from skeletons in the closet, such as the allegations that suddenly emerged against Trump beginning on the eve of the first national debate between the two Presidential candidates.

The outsider’s main strategy is to steward the needle of popular judgment towards the political incumbents. However, the challenge is to make an emotional connect with the seething political impulse for change, shifting the ground-game for political parties that can go unaccounted for by political pundits.

This emotional connect generates a goodwill that can carry the electoral crown on to the tired brow of the outsider.

Trump, much like Modi, made a new conversation with a promise to renew the political covenant that ties people to political parties. That is the essence of political spirituality in a constitutional and electoral democracy.

People will always be wiser than political pundits.

Also read: Trump or Modi, democracies cannot despair

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