Anyone
outside the United States looking at the presidential election campaign has
every right wonder just what the hell is going on. How can a country as
indispensable as the United States seem to go so far off the rails with an
election like this? How can anyone as manifestly unprepared as Donald Trump
seriously contend for the top job in the world? Is Hillary Clinton really the
She-Devil that Trump and his dwindling number of supporters claim? Good
questions. But I would suggest that the fears are a bit over-hyped. The Center
will hold.
The
core of Trump supporters, those angry white men who feel left out of the
rapidly changing world and who subscribe to just about every conspiracy theory you
can think of (the world is run by a Global Establishment out to screw
ordinary people), is indeed loud and very angry. They have seen just about
every other ethnic group in the U.S. pull ahead of them, and they are mad as
hell. They make great TV with their inflammatory, end-of-the-world rhetoric,
and their posturing as the modern version of Dirty Harry cleansing the world of
low-life blacks, Hispanics, Asians, liberals, any and all immigrants, and –
perhaps worst of all – college educated women.
I
hate to admit it, but the United States has always had groups like this. Usually
their rantings are left to the more remote parts of the country and the darker
corners of the Web, but until now they have never had a megaphone quite like
Donald Trump – perhaps the most unlikely champion of the down-trodden one could
ever imagine. Trump is very good at Reality TV and whipping up crowds of
already dissatisfied people, but that’s as far as it goes. Anyone listening for
serious policy proposals will be very disappointed. Why bother with details,
when you can drive the crowd into a self-righteous frenzy of hatred?
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| And he has the answers?? Does he even know the questions? |
The
only consolation I can offer is that the hard political, vote-getting
influence of these groups is easily over-stated. Yes, they make good TV – much
better than the usual boring stump speeches by most candidates -- but they have
never been very good at translating all their rantings into votes on the
national level. Unless the history of more than 200 years of electoral politics
in the United States is about to be upended we will wake up on November 9 and find
that the vast Center of collective common sense has held. We have had some very
strange presidential candidates over the years -- hard core segregationists,
hopelessly naïve socialists, or other attention seekers – who appeal to
relatively narrow, but vocal groups. In the final count, however, they had no
appeal to the broad mass of voters who are much smarter than anyone gives them
credit for.
And
what about Hillary Clinton? Is she Evil
Incarnate portrayed by the more rabid Republicans? Or will she prove to be
one of the more effective presidents? One thing is for sure. Just about
everyone in the world has an opinion about her -- as you would expect of someone who has been in public life for more than 30 years. That experience is both her strength and
weakness. From the strength point of view, the United States government is a
very intricate piece of equipment and at least she knows how it works without
lengthy on-the-job training. The political weakness of that experience is that
it identifies her closely with the status-quo that many people feel is failing
to deal effectively with the nation’s challenges. The much-ballyhooed WikiLeaks
releases have so far only shown a shrewd, intelligent, practical politician.
Hardly the stuff of nightmares that the far-right crowd was hoping for.
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| Can she bridge the wide partisan gap? |
I
have never met the woman, but I respect the opinions of friends and
acquaintances who have worked with her in the Senate and the State Department.
One career State Department official told me he has never been in meetings with
anyone as smart or well prepared as Hillary Clinton. “She’s unbelievable,” he
said slightly awed. “She reads everything.
And she expects you to have read everything as well.” Then he paused and added.
“But she’s also the nicest boss I have ever had. She doesn’t suffer fools, but
she wants to help you rather than demean you. She’s not on an ego trip at your
expense.”
Perhaps her
biggest challenge will be working with Republicans in Congress to
address the real problems facing the country. Can she find a way to break down
the thick partisan walls that make it so hard to find solutions? Will she be
able to find a common ground with all the Republicans who fled from Donald
Trump and voted for her? For example, the thousands who have lost their jobs
due to factory relocations overseas deserve to have their problems addressed in
a true bipartisan effort rather than see all solutions crushed under the weight
of political ideology. If she can accomplish this she will go down as one of
the great presidents. If she fails, that strong Center of common sense may
start to erode.
