Why Donald Trump is not important
The North American presidential race from an European point of view
First things first — Donald is not important. Despite what you hear constantly on the “news”, on the debates, or over on Twitter, politics still is a game you can’t barge in and disrupt with a loud mouth and money. Politics is, in it’s essence, a chess game where you trade one piece for another. Donald wants to take all pieces. It doesn’t work that way, but we’ll get back to it in a bit.
For now bear with me a bit while I atempt to give you a look on the Presidential Race here in Portugal.
Portuguese presidential elections are in a week. The campaign, this year, was pretty long at about 12 days or so. Granted our (portuguese) political system views the President as more of a referee for the actual government, it still is just 12 days to choose a candidate from both left, right, center and from outside the political circus. Yes, we also have people from outside politics running to be President of the Republic — most notably, Sampaio da Nóvoa, a former college dean. Through the constant debates, we actually learned a thing or two about the candidates and their intended policies, but most political analysts consider the result to be already decided. It will be Marcelo’s victory. As for Marcelo, he is a former political commentator and former leader of a influent party, and he can be considered the Hillary of Portugal. A political wonk with a charming smile and some well conceiled fangs.
If one were to look at the Portuguese elections alongside the USA’s one would be perplexed by: 1) the excruciating long campaign (why so long??? Are people just trying to feed the media, or actually hoping to have some candidates bleed funds until having to drop out of the race?); and 2) the circus of it all — the reality TV that American politics is even without someone as Donald. I can actually enjoy American politics, if only because there is such drama you would be fooled to think it is a telenovela of some sort.
We could argue that the bipartisan model seems very strange from this side of the Atlantic, or that the gun laws (or lack of thereof) are painfully non-understandable on such a developed country. We could, but there is one thing that I believe is more important — the reason why Donald is not important.
Donald is a mere byproduct
Donald, Rubio, Cruz and others on the Republican Party are just a byproduct of the American Fear.
“American Fear — the collective fear of everything and everyone that does not conform to a generally and specifically defined set of rules accepted by the majority” — you can quote me on that, if you want
North Americans seem all too afraid of what does not conform to:
- Skin Color
- Religious Belief (or lack thereof)
- Country of birth
- Sexual Preferences
- Social Beliefs (most notably seen used against scientific evidence of, say Climate Change)
- And so on(…)
And this fear is a crippling fear that leads to some of the most unexplainable incongruities of such an amazing country. There is no logical way for the so called “Leading country of the free world” — do we actually need such a country, to be honest? — to be one of the countries with more inmates per capita, killings by guns per capita, less reliable social system, such a widespread desbelief of science and most notably on Climate Change. It doesn’t make any sense! How can you claim to be “Great” if you can’t actually get to grips with the fact that the average North American still doesn’t know whether the Climate is changing, or if Evolution is a poison spread by the Evil? How can you intend to be an educating force abroad when you have such a cleavage on your educating system that people believe the planet is not warming and that dinosaurs didn’t exist millions of years ago, just because there was noone there to see it? How can you “lead” the “Free World” when you have one of the most inefficient prision systems around?
How long can you keep pretending that democracy is important when so many rights are denied to the minorities (of race, creed or sexual orientation) and to a very imposing majority (women)?
Donald is not important because of this. Donald is but a manifestation of a systemic fear of everything. Of Mexicans, Chinese, Gay, Women, Black People, Muslims, Baldies, Everything and Everyone! Donald is quite literally the perfect metaphor for the “gun to protect yourself” argument. A gun with which you will hurt others or yourself in order to fend off a fear that never materialize itself. The moment you give people hope, and take away their fears, Donald and people like Donald will cease to exist. If anything, Obama’s first presidential race was won by giving people hope.
The more you give in to fear, like a young Anakin Skywalker, the more you turn to the dark side, the more power you give to it. To really make America great again, what you need to do is give people hope, explain their fears, reassure the people of what is real and what is not, of all the examples from the other countries on acceptance and tolerance. Only then, America will truly be a “Leader”.
