Donald trump’s victory on November 9 is owed, in part, to an intrinsic denial present in America to accept its own decline as ‘the’ superpower. His metronomic surge in popularity comes from his appeal to satisfy a widespread concern among Americans that their nation is no longer the only game in town.
The President-elect’s opponent failed to combat him on this front. Mrs Clinton was privy to a goldmine of aspects to choose from when it comes to attacking Donald Trump. Her campaign appealed primarily to degree-educated white women as well as racial minorities and while she may not have been as successful as expected she certainly ousted Trump in this regard.
The downfall of her campaign came from her inability to appeal to the electorate’s two most controlling emotion’s: anger and fear. The former has been discussed in detail. Anger with the establishment has become a global phenomenon and her campaign failed to address this. I would touch on the latter: the omnipresent fear among American citizens of their nation’s increasing irrelevancy.
Whether intentionally or not, Donald Trump’s campaign expertly exploited a regretful tendency within human-nature: our propensity for hatred. Lamentably, rhetoric such as ‘I will make America great again’ has become the ‘trump card’ in civilised political discourse. Building walls and ensuring the nation’s ‘safety’ is what voters remember when they stand in front of the ballot box.
The UK experienced a similar fate earlier in the year with Brexit. It didn’t matter how many IFS reports appeared signalling the projected doom of the country should we vote leave – in the end a similar appeal to the fear in the mind of electorate won the day. Xenophobic talk of immigration and largely unsubstantiated rhetoric about sovereignty ultimately proved more attractive ideals to voters.
The rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China as more than worthy economic and militaristic competitors to the USA has its citizens extremely concerned. If you are a champion of western democracy and its values, then there may be some reason to this as the so called ‘BRIC’ countries continued ascent to the top of the world stage might dilute these ideals. These are, to an extent, legitimate concerns. But more concerning still is the fact that Donald Trump was able to convince America that he is the solution.
