For many who follow American politics and public sentiment, the election of Donald Trump this week as the 47th president of the US would not have come as a surprise.
Trump, the Republican candidate beat vice president Kamala Harris, of the Democratic Party, to lead the world’s biggest economy, in a historic return to power.
The reasons behind the result are multi-faceted.
They are about the US’s economy, the rising inflation under the Democratic administration which has working-class Americans under pressure.
They are about identity politics, the dominance of white heterosexual male privilege in the US which Trump embodies.
They are about Harris’s gender in a country that values masculinity and military posture as traits of leadership.
They are also about her own campaign which did not resonate enough with traditional Democratic Party voters.
As some commentators have said, her campaign, while high on glitz and glamour, was politically, an unmitigated disaster.
Worth noting perhaps is that on many foreign policy matters, the Democrats and Republicans historically do not hold fundamentally different views.
Their allegiance is to the US and its allies, often to the detriment of other nations.
Their continued support of Israel’s war on Gaza – under the guise of self defence – is only the latest in a series of geopolitical atrocities committed under the watch of or with the blessing of the US.
Trump’s election is particularly bad news for the world, not because he is a Republican but because he is Trump – an erratic, racist liar who has no regard for the rule of law.
Americans, like any other nation, have a right to choose who should lead them.
Their choices are understandably based on domestic interest rather than global matters.
But the reality is that this choice will be consequential for them and the world over.
Those who support him claim he will unite a nation deeply divided by immigration, abortion rights, race and class.
He won’t.
Domestically, Trump will institutionalise segregation and the embolden right-wing fascism.
Globally, he will not calm tensions but aggravate them.
He will not quell unfolding wars, but fuel them.
Trump’s election is a product of democracy but it is a victory for populism, privilege and strongman politics.
SowetanLIVE
