The “un-blackening” of the White House

By Vijaya Chandrasoma

The political scene in the US has reached a most interesting stage, even though the election is more than a year in the future. The candidates of both parties, Republican and Democratic, have now crawled out of the woodwork, and, especially in the GOP, the situation changes almost weekly: favourites of last week become the dropouts of this, and poll positions reflect dramatic changes. 

The two Republican debates which have been held with 10 of the candidates most popular in the polls participating have shed little light on the selection of the Republican nominee. They have been just hours of name calling, insulting and platitudes about racism, socialism and bigotry, with no answers to the problems facing the nation today.

Hillary Clinton 

On the Democratic front, Hillary Clinton has been regarded as the first American lady president since she was in the White House, when Bill was president. Bill Clinton presided over a period of unparalleled economic expansion in the 1990s. He was also well known for his penchant for, and success with, the ladies, which nearly ended his political career in 1998, when he was impeached for perjury in the context of an affair with a White House intern. The impeachment failed as it did not receive the required majority in the Senate. Clinton proffered his “profound apologies for his behaviour, which had brought disrepute to his office and embarrassment to the American public”. 

The fact that the charismatic Clinton left with the highest approval rating for any president leaving the office shows that the American public regarded the publicity given to his peccadilloes as merely vengeful efforts by the Republican Party to discredit him and his successful presidency. For his raw intelligence, charisma and compassion, if not for his roving eyes, Clinton has always been a personal hero.

However, the problems she faces on a number of fronts and the political baggage she carries from her years as the First Lady and Secretary of State cast doubts on the inevitability of her election as the 45th President of the United States.

The baggage include inappropriate though technically legal emails from her personal server when she was Secretary of State (for which she has now publicly apologised), improper financial donations from international donors routed to her campaign fund from the Clinton Global Initiative, Bengazi, Whitewater, her failed efforts at getting a universal health care bill passed in the 90s and other flames fanned by the Republican Party. She also is most secretive and does have a tendency to flirt with the truth. 

Her husband certainly does not constitute a part of this baggage. In fact, Bill Clinton is today considered one of the finest presidents in the history of the nation, one whose post-presidency work around the world has earned him the status of a statesman, in the mould of Jimmy Carter. Most Americans think that Bill Clinton is a positive factor in Hillary’s campaign, just as his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2012, in support of Obama’s re-election, all but clinched the presidency for Obama. While many argue that a vote for Hillary represents getting two presidents for the price of one, there are others who are a little apprehensive about how Bill will occupy himself roaming the halls of the White House with nothing but interns to do.

Bernie Sanders

We are reminded of how a little known black senator outdid her in 2008. There is today a similar contender from the Democratic Party who is making serious inroads into Hillary’s inevitability. He is neither black nor young, but he was himself a little known senator till a few months ago. 

Considered a rank outsider when he announced his presidential bid in May, he has now taken over the lead from Hillary in the early voting primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa. He is the independent Senator from Vermont, a 73 year-old, self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist named Bernie Sanders. He cannot compete with either Hillary Clinton in his own party, or the billionaire-backed Republican aspirants, if he does win the nomination, in the money stakes, a crucially important factor in modern presidential elections. For campaign contributions, he does not depend on billionaires, banks, corporations, the NRA and other such blood-sucking organisations, but relies only on small contributions from the public. So that probably wipes out his chances.

But he has provided a breath of fresh air into the political scene and has captured the hearts and minds of working Americans. He does make the right noises which resonate with the American demographics of today, which do not resemble the white, “honey I’m home”, racist America of the 1950s. In his election speeches, he talks about issues only, sternly refusing to make negative comments about his rivals, Republican and Democrat alike.

Sanders addresses the primary socio-economic issues of the day. In his webpage, he says: “The American people must make a fundamental decision. Do we continue the 40-year decline of our middle class and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, or do we fight for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment and provides health care for all? Are we prepared to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class, or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy? These are the most important questions of our time, and how we answer them will determine the future of our country.”

Exciting talk!

Donald Trump 

The Republican circus of presidential aspirants consists of Bible thumpers, libertarians, immigrant bashers, many with full campaign coffers backed as they are by the Koch brothers and other billionaires. The wild card is Donald Trump, real estate mogul, television star, owner of the Miss Universe pageant, famed also for his living, breathing hairpiece.

Trump has boastfully admitted to a net worth of $ 9.8 billion, and has vowed to finance his own campaign. In spite of many gaffes in public speeches (he called Mexican immigrants “rapists, and murderers”, women “fat pigs”, and told Megyn Kelly, a moderator at the first Republican presidential debate and a respected Fox news anchor – perhaps an oxymoron – that her confrontational questions to him during the debate indicated that she has blood flowing from her eyes, and “whatever”! ),Trump is currently comfortably ahead of his closest rivals, Dr. Ben Carson and Jeb Bush in Republican polls, and is even inching ahead of Hillary in national polls.

Trump represents the last gasp of rich, white Americans’ wet dream of keeping America firmly mired in the 1950s: Mississippi style racists, immigrant bashers, climate change deniers, Wall Street and corporate supporters, all those religious right-wing nuts with the wonderful qualities that make up the Tea Party. Trump has forced that section of the population out of their dark closets, to give them a last chance of preserving values which have long died right under their noses. If Trump does win, then America will face four years of slashing of benefits to the poor and the elderly, tax breaks to the rich, racist and anti-immigrant violence, sexism, war and the destruction of the environment, until America is ruined beyond recognition. This will not, cannot be allowed to happen.

Trump won’t win because most Americans are not quite that crazily and maniacally right wing. He represents a bubble that will self-destruct soon. Unfortunately, Bernie Sanders probably won’t win either for the diametrically opposite reason, because he is perceived as being too far to the left. His policies, which will take the US onwards to a democratic socialist, secular nation in which her citizens, rich and poor, black, white and polka dotted, able and disabled, are taken care of like citizens of many civilised First World countries, like the nations of Scandinavia. But he does not have the money to beat Clinton. And perhaps, at 73, he’s too old. More’s the pity, he would make a fine president, if only a one-term president.

There is yet another reason that a Republican will not win the presidency. George W. Bush’s Reign of Error between 2000 and 2008, which brought the US down to its economic knees in the biggest depression since the 1930s and a disastrous illegal war without a viable exit strategy, has probably given the Democrats a free pass to the White House till at least 2024.

So, in all probability, Hillary Clinton’s inevitability will finally be vindicated in 2016. But it is hoped that the popularity of Sanders’ policies, which currently are claiming the sympathy of the middle class and poor voters, will drag her, even against her core values, to the left of the centre which she currently occupies. 

Tasks for the 

next president

The US is the richest country in the history of this planet, but a large number of its people live in abject poverty, with the wealth being confined to the richest 1% of its population. The political and religious ideas of a large number of its people remain in the 1950s.They have not evolved to reflect the changing demographics of today. 

The next president will have the task of addressing vital issues like climate change, wealth inequality and stemming the decline of the middle class, racism and religious bigotry; discrimination against people of colour, people with varying sexual orientation and women; halt its complete degeneration into an economic and political oligarchy; and become, once again, the just democracy envisioned by the Founding Fathers.