The Historic Mr. Trump

In watching Mr. Trump’s run for the American presidency go off the rails, we really must hearken back to 2008. Then, Hillary Clinton was a woman running against Barack Obama’s sexier and more compelling campaign. Just as the media narrative presented Obama as a more effective candidate, and the Clinton campaign as part of an older and more hawkish run for the White House, the American people were not willing to hand the nuclear codes to someone who’d voted for the Iraq War in the first place. So, Obama became President, and the rest is history.

But this time around, pundits and the so-called opinionated are flummoxed. How could Trump have even made it this far? Why is he even polling quite as well as he is polling in places like Florida? Granted – we understand that Arkansas ‘cannot’ vote for a liberal like Clinton – even if she is STILL married to that state’s former governor. Nonetheless, what kind of people still think Donald Trump has a path to the White House? Why is anyone even saying that we should all wait until October to put Clinton on much safer grounding? Does anyone even think that Donald Trump intends to pull a rabbit out of his pocket during the presidential debates slated for October? After all, this is the candidate whose off the cuff comments are getting him into trouble and forcing everyone to defend him – only to have him turn around and contradict things and everything!

Perhaps, the best way to put a face to all this unrecognizable stuff is to read Regina Lawrence and Melody Rose’s ‘Hillary Clinton’s Race for the White House.’ Talking about gender politics and the media on the 2008 campaign trail, this 2010 book’s final chapter [The Future Female Presidency] specifically suggests that [g]iven the androcentrist notions of the presidency woven into the fabric of U.S. political culture, most men enjoy a presumed advantage over most women in their ability to fit the unstated ‘qualifications’ for that office. Trump – like Obama did to Hillary, and Mitt Romney did to Obama in 2012 – just had to look the part of as many American male actors playing the role of president, or look like every other previous president – Obama included. In fact, Obama and Trump have another thing in common as per Ms. Lawrence and Rose: As a man, Obama just needed to display his family so that people would find commonality with him. A quick look at the Republican Convention this past July, and one can almost see why some are still besotted with Trump.

Invariably, what may make Mr. Trump as historic as he ostensibly is right now, stems from the fact that the Ultimate Anti-Obama is disintegrating right before our very own eyes. The man who deliberately sought to delegitimize America’s first black president cannot seem to stand the lights of the stage. The Showman – the Donald – owns a most vacuous chutzpah; a sheer lack of temerity to stay on course and beat the girl he’s running against.

Ultimately, after almost 8 years of what many consider a successful presidency, Barack Obama is playing a larger role in America’s life than many could have ever thought he would. In the first place, he is going to ensure that America elects her first female president. And more importantly, he is showing the world that in spite of what this loud white man said about him, much of what was said was hot air. That this hot air buoyed a whole generation of angry white people is another story. The reality is that Trump is going to break a lot of hearts – even worse than Mitt Romney or John McCain before him ever did. The Republican Party was never invested in Romney; heck – they did not even like him. But Trump was the Republican Party’s golden baby. He was the giant slayer. An Obama slayer who could not slay a Little Clinton.

The Habari Network
August 13, 2016