US presidential demographics: Does it matter to Sri Lanka?

By Mano Ratwatte

Who will be better for Sri Lanka? It depends. For the current Sri Lankan Government, doing great things to heal relations with the USA, perhaps a Hillary regime with some of the same failed bureaucrats who bungled Libya will be better. Her focus (that is if she isn’t indicted before November for email server problems) will have to be the Middle East. She is likely to leave Sri Lanka to the bureaucrats in the State Department.

Trump or any Republican candidate will have to focus more on the Middle East and trying to walk a tight rope and appease angry rich Sunni Arab nations, and bring some stability and destroy ISIS. Sri Lanka is never on anyone’s radar for too long except that it is in a strategic geographic area and is an actor in the US-Indian strategies across key shipping routes and in their game to contain China. 

Republicans are likely to exacerbate tensions and increase military aggression in the Middle East. They are willing to accept collateral damage and be more aggressive in killing terrorists, and their families like how the UNP dealt with the JVP in 1987-89. They are less likely to worry about human rights issues.

There is an air of excitement and anger in the US today. We may ridicule or laugh and say “How could people vote for Trump?” Protectionism and tariffs on imports are usually the call of Blue collar Democratic politicians. The Wall is his own unique rallying call supported by many in both parties. 

Don’t underestimate the power of the lesser educated angry white people this time. Republican primaries are drawing massive numbers of voters to the Polls in the same proportions as Democrats did in 2008. Trump has been able to bring people to the polls in unprecedented numbers.

There is a racial undercurrent in the USA. Take a look at the numbers below for the states that voted on Tuesday March 2016 in “Super Tuesday” primaries. The states were Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas (all Southern Confederate states), Vermont, Massachusetts and Alaska. What does it tell you about the Trump factor and enthusiasm? It doesn’t bode well for the Democrats.

The second table shows national distribution of votes. The reason to share these numbers are because you can see a clearly majority of Christian White Republicans still and will always vote for a Christian White person. In November if the White (Christian) share of the Republican vote goes above 70% Trump can win.

The excitement factor is clearly in favor of the Republican Party in 2016; 

Why are these mostly White Christians angry? 

Why are these mostly White Christians angry? They feel disenfranchised and ignored. The US is more divided an angry today than eight years ago. Whether than Anger will result in a demagogue being elected as President is yet to be seen.

• Stagnant wages.
• Knowledge based economy has left them behind.
• They don’t have the skills needed for a 21st century economy.
• They feel they have lost to the Chinese, Indians and every group they can think of in the post-globalisation world. 
• US companies going overseas for manufacturing.
• NAFTA cost the US a lot in terms of net job loss.
• They don’t like outsiders including minorities and migrants. 
• They feel China, Mexico and other nations do not play fair in trade.
• They feel their constitutional right to bear arms might be under threat.
• People are also angry about the massive influx of drugs (yes the weak American soul and their addiction to drugs is why this multi- Billion dollar industry thrives) through a porous border. 
• They are angry that Obama cannot seem to cope with ISIS jihadi terrorists. 
• Obama rather arrogantly and callously called ISIS a “JV” team (essentially a Second Eleven High School Cricket Team).
• Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice and other neo liberals bungled big time in the Middle East. They are clueless.
• They dismembered Libya even though everyone with an iota of common sense predicted what would happen. Look at Libya now.
• All 3 of his most recent Secretaries of Defence were angry and disgusted with his bungling of the fight against Islamic terrorists. They have spoken out.
• Libya unravelled because of the fateful invasion of Iraq. Just as Yemen, Syria and the entire Arab uprising/spring. 
• The entire region was a tinderbox because of the dictators propped up by the West were running out of their welcome.
• A lot of this year’s anti-establishment anger and ideological twist towards this unique nationalist, populist, protectionist branding Trump has been able to put together is a result of post globalisation. 
• White Evangelical Christians who are inflamed by the Supreme Court decision to legitimise gay marriage.
• Others want a woman’s right to choose an abortion banned even if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.

This primary season young 18-30 Democratic vote is going massively to Bernie Sanders; they are less likely to be excited in November for the email lady.

Even if Trump can get 20% of black votes while holding or gaining more than 70% of the white votes in the key states that are in play he may win! (Examples of the battleground states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Virginia.)

Regionalism

There is regionalism similar to Sri Lanka. When Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ) signed the landmark civil rights legislation, he knew he had lost the entire South to Republicans. How did the party of Lincoln because the party of angry Christian whites and transform into the anti-minority party? Southern traditional Democrats (called Dixiecrats because they became Democrats because Lincoln was a Republican) abandoned the Democratic Party when segregation was ended and when LBJ signed it into law he said this quite openly. There was regionalism in Sri Lanka in August 2015. The Sinhalese south voted overwhelmingly for MR and Tamils only voted for Tamils.

Richard Nixon used the race card, affirmative action and fears of blacks into solidly garnering all the southern states to vote Republican (few exceptions were when Arkansas went to Clinton). In 1968, Arkansas went to George Wallace the segregationist! Mostly White Christian Georgia voted for Jimmy Carter (in 1976), but it went to George Wallace in 1968. White Christians are the largest voting bloc in these states. A study of any of the southern states will show the same pattern now. All Southern states of (Confederacy) went to the Republican nominee even during the 2008 pro Obama sweep, and again in 2012.

Fear of Jihadi terrorism

Look at the absurd ease with how the Pakistani terrorist couple in San Bernadino got the visa. The radicalised jihadi woman did not even have a face-to-face interview in the US Embassy in Pakistan because of State Department’s political correctness has gone crazy. A woman who meets a US citizen on the intimate gets a visa whereas a legitimate educated person who gets married to an American has to wait over two years and do a tough face-to-face interview. I was subjected to serious questioning!

There is angst and fear. That same angst is now seen in Europe. Europe now have to deal with millions of refugees. The NATO supreme commander General Breedlove spoke out this week. In testimony to the Senate, US general Breedlove said that the ISIS terror group is “spreading like a cancer” among refugees. The group’s members are “taking advantage of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations and our own”, he added. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/01/refugees-isis-nato-commander-terrorists)

Race

This year’s anger also has a lot to do with racism and the slightly below the surface bias against the first black President in US History. Republicans encouraged disrespect for Obama and promoted the Birther movement and did their best to de-legitimise Obama’s presidency. Now they are reaping what they sowed and finding it shocking somewhat disingenuously that the Trump wave is gathering momentum with or without the support of the Republican Brahmin old guard. He might lose or he might win; but he is the only man to bring out the Borat America to the polls.

A lot of Tamil emigrants in the West who are on the US Embassy website in Sri Lanka attack Sinhalese, and say that all Sinhalese are racist and won’t vote for a Tamil as President. Race is that 800 pound gorilla in the US that the elite don’t want to discuss. The Sinhala voter (a pejorative nowadays) has voted in large numbers for Tamils and Muslims easily before proportional representation brought out race, caste and religious divisions. Aboosally in Balangoda won because those terrible “Sinhala-Buddhist fellows” voted for him in a predominantly Sinhala electorate.

Pause and think: The USA was founded in 1776 and Sri Lanka gained independence only 68 years ago. It took 150 years after the US civil war ended, at least 40 years after segregation (and being forced to the back of the bus and being second class citizens and brutalised, lynched and raped), ended before this nation evolved so that a black man could in the White House as Commander In Chief and not just being the Head Purser or Butler or Chef, roles the southern white older males will still be more comfortable with for a black man. 

Obama won because of the youth vote and the massive turn out of African American voters(table 2), and also because he was able to garner and win the traditional blue states with a significant contribution by younger white voters that complemented the 95% black vote and massive numbers of Hispanic votes. If the GOP nominee crosses 70% of the White Christian vote he may win in November.

The 2015 election in Sri Lanka also followed the same patterns as 2008 in USA. Majority of Sinhalese voted for MR but massive numbers of minorities voted for President Sirisena, and the UNP making its victory more like that of Obama’s; a rainbow coalition of young urban Sinhala voters and minorities. You can see that Sri Lankans who bash Sinhalese and in particular Sinhala Buddhists these days should look at these numbers and think a bit. This is not to defend racial biases in voting. Hell, it is so obvious in Sri Lanka that Tamils and Muslims have also begun only to vote for their race now in contrast to earlier times. 

 A great Tamil Christian like Lakshman Kadirgamar would have made an excellent Prime Minister if the SLFP did not block Chandrika’s efforts and Chandrika had the guts to follow through on principle. Kadirgamar was executed by Tamil racist Tigers because he didn’t believe in Eelam. 

BBS: a movement based in demagoguery only got 20,377 votes and the Religio-racist ethnic party: the SLMC got only 44,193 votes. In contrast, Trump is getting hundreds of thousands of white Christian votes.

Perhaps Sri Lanka won’t have to wait 150 years from the end of war, to vote for a non-Sinhalese who’s a real statesman and above parochial ethnic politics like Obama? But don’t underestimate the power of the angry White, Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim demagogue. A lot of this year’s anti-establishment anger, and ideological twist towards this unique nationalist, populist, protectionist message is Trump’s own unique branding. He is an American nationalist.