Why I would vote for Trump

Roshan Khatiwada

If I were a US voter, I would cast my vote for Donald Trump.

The remark would seem absurd and, at a glance, many would think it has come from a blind supporter of President Donald Trump. But I have nothing to do with who Trump. However, I am concerned about what happens after the US gets a new president. Whether people like it or not the whole world is directly or indirectly waiting to know who is going to be the in charge of the Oval Office in Washington DC in a couple of months. I am not an exception.

The last four years have been somehow crazy in US politics. Having beaten Hillary Clinton unexpectedly, a new face, little known to the outside world, was sworn as the 45^th President of the United States and since then things have been unpredictable. Unlike his predecessors, more specifically the immediate past president Barrack Obama, who was very soft-spoken, modest in behavior and smart in talking to people and media, Trump has been very aggressive, outspoken, boastful, and dangerously unpredictable.

Clashes with media personnel, hiring and firing of high ranking officials, trade war with China, withdrawals of troops from Afghanistan and Northern Syria, cutting the number of NATO troops in Germany, getting into the demilitarized zone between two Koreas to meet Kim Jong Un, the North Korean supremo, tough immigration policy and the Trump Wall, adamant and weird statements during COVID-19 crisis, etc., but not limited to them, would reflect Trump and his personality.

If we look at the emergence of Trump, only very few of the prognosticators predicted that this is the kind of person that the Americans were expecting. The media, experts and the elites tried to cover up the expectations of the people for long. Very few wanted to bring the fact to light that the US has been paying no or less attention to its citizens and had been mingling with every unnecessary foreign affair starting from Afghanistan in 2001 to Syria until recently.

The common Americans had been overloaded with the burden of its so-called role of world’s security guard. Barely less than a decade has the US not been involved in some sort of war ever since the WWII, and most importantly, with no satisfying results. Be it in Vietnam, in Korean war, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Cuba, Syria or any other war where the US participated either directly or indirectly. The so-called ‘peace through war’ policy rather helped create North Korea, Islamic State supporters, Jihadists, ISIS, Al-Qaida, 7/11 incident and many more.

The US spends roughly 3.4 percent of its total GDP on NATO which accounts for roughly 69 percent of the overall defense expending of the NATO. Trump, in the recent past, had criticized the other NATO allies of not contributing even 1.5 percent of their GDP to the NATO military alliance. If the figure does not look frustrating in percentage ratio, it would when analyzing the size of economy. According to Investopedia report (2020), the nominal GDP of the US is $ 21.44 Trillion while Germany, the second largest NATO member has the nominal GDP of $ 3.86 Trillion and the UK is the third one with $ 2.83 Trillion.

It is very rational for any informed American citizen to question why such a huge national budget is spent for so many of those affairs and activities in which the US citizens have no concern for. This question has been raised by Donald Trump. Thus, millions of people, who believed that such policy of ‘Peace Through War’ had neither worked nor will, had been tired and irritated of stereotype president who sanctioned one after the other country, invaded one after the other sovereign state and who created mammoth hatred among the people of other countries towards America and the American citizens expected someone like Trump and they finally felt being represented. Hence, they voted Trump and will do so in the ongoing election.

By the 1^st of November, the CNN reports, that over 91 million people have already voted and if media are to be relied on, mostly democrats or Democrat supporters. On top, the media keep repeating that the republicans will come to vote the election day and would attempt creating some sort of havoc in the election booths and riot in the streets. There is wide-spread propaganda about how Trump will leave no stone unturned to remain in power and the rumor of how he has been pledging Russia to help him secure victory once again.

Additionally, almost all the pre-poll surveys forecast Joe Biden to win the election, similar to what had been predicted four years ago, Clinton winning over Trump. However, Trump overturned the whole trajectory and proved that the pre-poll predictions are all fake and it works on someone’s design. Therefore, Trump’s supporters will keep the media propaganda of the previous election in mind and keep faith in themselves until the last minutes.

The democrats have historically been the favor among the immigrants. One after the other, the Democratic nominees keep promising the immigrants to uplift of better job, better earning, better future for their family, better schools for their children and a better assimilated society. However, unlike the popular commitments, the systemic discrimination still prevails and the Democratic presidents including Barrack Obama have been ineffective in reducing this systemic discrimination.

Police brutality on the Black Americans continued to rise even during the presidential tenure of Obama. Statistics reveal 96 out of 100,000 Black Americans are at risk of being shot by police. Out of the total police brutality cases, Black Americans are more than double the victims compared to the White Americans. To most surprise, the ‘Black Life Matters’ movement started while Barrack Obama was in the White House. The ‘Quinnipiac University Poll’ in 2014 portrayed Obama as the worst president since the WWII. These facts and figures will definitely haunt the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden too.

Looking at economy, the accumulated household income had decreased from almost $ 71,000 in 2008 to just above $ 65,000until 2015, reports Pew Research Centre. The economy had been struggling to be stable ever since Obama came into office while it had gained momentum in his last year and had continued to rise at an annual average of 2.1 percent since Trump took the Presidential Oath of Office. The after-COVID-scenario would definitely prove something else. Similarly, the Gini coefficient shows that the household income inequality rose from 0.46 in 2007 to 0.48 in 2016.

The foreign invasion record of Barrack Obama is no less than the demonized George W. Bush. In his last year alone, around 26,000 bombs were dropped on foreign soils. He not only demolishedLibya and tore Syria apart, Obama, along with vice-president Biden and secretary of state Hilary Clinton, have sole responsibilities in creating more and more numbers of jihadists around the globe. He not only ordered the record number of drone attacks but also distinguished himself as the president selling the highest number of arms since the WWII (Japan Times report).

Libya had turned out to be the most prosperous nation in Africa and it had strengthened its presence in Africa and the Middle East until when Obama decided to crack down on the country. Ever since the collapse of colonel Gaddafi, not only Libya succumbed to civil war but also the neighboring countries became the victims of the arms in Libya.

Additionally, most of the analysts believe that there would fundamentally be no difference in foreign affairs between whether it is Trump or Biden at the desk. Trump’s warning of possible nuclear attack to Iran would be the same irrespective of who is sworn to office. The Israel-US close tie is likely to be unchanged resulting in the same grave distrust between Palestine and its sympathizers and the US. If so, why change the presidency and bring someone else to repeat the same actions or inactions? Why not to let the same president patch the wall and heal the wounds he made rather than bring someone else and enlarge the hole or add insult to injury?

With the election day approaching the doorstep of the Americans, the heat of blame game, allegation and forgery have skyrocketed. Hunter Biden’s secret laptop to Trump’s less than a thousand dollars tax payment, a new judge appointee to COVID-hit president and what not got a fair degree of attention in media and created some sensation in the social media.

On top of everything, this election is most likely to be different from any previous election in many ways. This is after a period of time in recent history that gunmen, beside the security personnel, are and would be seen in the street rampant in protecting the ballot boxen, which President Trump had publicly appealed for. In addition, there possibly will arise a constitutional threat if Trump would declare the election a void alleging some sort of external interference or internal mismanagement and dishonesty of federal and/or local election commission. He has already criticized in public of how the early votes may have been compromised and he might not accept the election result provided he is defeated. Thirteen states in the South have already threated that Trump’s defeat might result in cutting the tie of Union reports the Atlantic. In this danger, if created dramatically, the role of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and the verdict of the supreme court would be both crucial and decisive.

The worst of all is the state Trump is in now. He has made such crazy decisions and statements over the past years (especially after the COVID-19 outbreak) and he has been personal to many of the high level officials and the Democrats to such a degree that he is very likely to face some kind of criminal charges if he would not secure victory. This puts him in the do-or-die situation from where he has nothing to lose, therefore, he would do everything at his grasp to keep him at the office. On his attitude and his craziness, the whole world is aware of the extent Trump can go to reinstate himself as the victorious president. This might end up in direct clashes in the streets between pro-Trump and anti-Trump folks.

Will the history repeat itself by making Trump the only second president beside George W. Bush Senior in the recent four decadesto lose his re-election and the 10^th in the history of America? A lot still depends upon how China, Russia, Iran and many more virtually interfere the election process. As there have been many allegations that Trump is likely to get support from Putin’s men in the same way he did four years ago. China, on the other, might be wishing Biden to replace Trump and lift the Trade war. Israel, however, would enjoy the luxury of having Trump re-elected and continue standing beside Netanyahu in crushing Palestine. Iran, on the contrary, would try to take revenge with Trump who had given a go to the lethal drone strike killing its second ranked leader, Soleimani. UAE’s sultans, however, are more than comfortable with Trump and want him to shine to office again. Amidst such complex foreign relations who wins the race is still a wait and see.

Yet in all these fairy tales, conspiracies, craziness, and drama of the US election, who rises to power is a wait game for the whole world. If only Trump loses the election, it would not be due to the charm of Biden but Trump’s own mishandling of Corona Virus outbreak and his reckless ideas during the pandemic. In the whole of this game of thrones, I would have voted for Donald Trump since he makes the better fool between the two fools.

The writer is a postgraduate student at The Department of International Development and Global studies in Roskilde University, Denmark.

Published on 2 November 2020