Blue Collar White Americans Spoke and Hired Donald Trump
The Americans’ political civility and the judiciary system’s credibility are always seen as a model in the world.
By Abdennour Toumi
The shock remains, but the country must move forward one week after American voters hired President-elect Trump in his new “unpaid” job. The on-going Trump saga continues and leaves one asking, is democracy in America really working? According to classic political system theory, the qualification of the U.S. constitutional system is the most complicated of the Western democracies; of the three Democratic systems, the U.S. theoretically applies the Presidential system.
On one hand, an elected President with the majority of Electoral College votes (270). On the other, with a direct secret ballot commonly known as the popular vote, the election went to the Democratic party candidate. (This is the fifth American presidential candidate, who won the popular vote and lost the Collegial vote). Though once the President-elect pronounces the oath of Office as President of the United States, America has large Constitutional attributions.
Nevertheless the Americans’ political civility and the judiciary system’s credibility are always seen as a model in the world. A President could be impeached, corrupt politicians jailed, a Chief-of-Staff of a Vice/President indicted, even a national journalist of the New York Times jailed for failure to disclose information.
Yet President-elect Trump’s rhetorical campaign discourse has turned into an unhealthy post-election political debate in the media and among the radical liberals, despite his consolatory victory speech. “I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all Americans, all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs,” the President-elect said, and again later, in his constructive meeting with President Obama, according to the White House press corps.
The election of Donald Trump is a message sent to the media, polls centers, think-tanks in D.C., and to the two-party system establishment and their dynasties by disenchanted Americans and anti-Obama alliance. A strong message that imploded the G.O.P. and the Democratic Party policies, visions and strategies that are mot working for the large majority of Americans, who seem to believe only in their change.
Ironically, an electorate paradigm campaign was used by President Obama in 2008, a change that was meant to be conducted by President Obama, who wished to be remembered like J.F. Kennedy, whereas his mythical legacy is now buried by an amateurish politician, who would lead the analysts to think of Nixon’s legacy in lieu of Kennedy’s.
From this point, the election of Donald Trump is the consequence of President Obama’s hesitant and prudent public policies, not to mention his MENA foreign policy.
However the conservative extremists of the G.O.P. were not able to accept the loss of their party’s presidential control to President Obama or to accept a bi-racial President. Since his election, a new fringe-right movement emerged as an obstruction to President Obama’s political platform.
Immediately after his election, the extremist movement declared its “Holy War” against the hope of the majority of Americans, who then reshaped America’s twenty-first century multi-cultural and social cohesion. They started with prayers in cult clubs, then included the paranoid TV and radio talk-show hosts of the movement, who fervently wished for President Obama’s administration to fail.
Next the Tea Party gatherings moved against President Obama, followed by the political delusion of the Governor of Texas raising the question of secession. Finally, the episode of the nomination of Judge Sotomayor, and the appearance of the “birthers” (led by the President-elect himself) and the “deather’s” sects.
He was called a “hidden Muslim” during the primaries, and a friend of a “terrorist” during the final race against the Republican candidate.
Although in the U.S. the “political debate” is simplistically framed between conservatives and liberals, these overused clichés lost their meaning in the unhealthy debate about health-care reform in 2009-10. As a result, American media and the people still remember an elected official in the House daring to heckle the President in the middle of his joint session speech of State of the Union, calling the President a liar from the bench of the House.
Subsequently, across the country, Muslim and Arab Americans are showing and expressing their concern about the Trump administration. Trump’s campaign rhetoric included calls for a ban on Muslim immigrants entering the U.S., followed by promises of extreme vetting of immigrants from countries affect by terrorism.
I did speak with Muslim Americans in Portland, OR, San Francisco, CA and Boston, MA, who are manifesting a mixture of concern and fear over the results of this election. I spoke with a Muslim community leader in Portland, Dr.Ihsan, who told me: “People here are over exaggerating and emotional, after all, we had George W. Bush… and now Trump — frankly, I don’t see any difference, after all we live in a country of law and accountability. Now, Muslims should be more exigent and less indulgent with politicians,” as Dr. Ihsan put it.
Even though President-elect Trump offered a conciliatory tone during his victory speech, his administration is still a mystery. Muslims and Arabs in America are not necessarily all U.S. citizens, although they are legally residents. Indeed there are some illegal residents, who are worried about the next Attorney General and the Homeland Secretary, since the name of Rudy Giuliani (Sarko of America) surfaced in the news media for the post.
But Muslim and Arab Americans continue to believe in the American Dream, it’s really a matter of riding the “waves” in a turbulent political season and life does go on. Americans elected Muslims and Arabs to State Houses and Congress, including election of the first female, a former Somali refugee with a head scarf, to sit in Minnesota’s State House bench, a surreal scene if in France. It was also mentioned in the media that the next DNC Chair could be a Muslim.
After all, Americans and their fellow Muslims and Arabs are better off in a messy and complicated democracy rather than in a chaotic dictatorship.
- France correspondent for The Arab Daily News.
- www.bareed-areej.com Editor-in-Chief
رئيس تحرير مجلة بريد الأريج
- Political consultant at IMPR a Think-Tank based in Ankara, Turkey.
- Member at the European Observatory for Arabic Language Teaching based in Paris, France.
- Affiliated with Sociology of Islam Journal and contributor at Middle East Studies / International Studies, Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies Center, Portland State University in Portland, OR.
EDUCATION: Diplôme des Études Approfondies (DEA) in Political Science from Toulouse University I, France. Master’s degree in Law from Algiers University, Algeria.
Email im at: [email protected]
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