A match-up would be excruciatingly delicious.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: The rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is akin to the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in India, which finally swept the polls in the Delhi elections, to form the government.
The mild-mannered Sanders manages to draw huge crowds at rallies around the country – mostly young people, who are enamored by the idea of affluence being narrowed between the haves and the have-nots, spearheaded with his socialist agenda.
Trump is the perfect amalgamation of an anti-establishment hero and the epitome of glamorous capitalism. He refused to write his profession as ‘politician’ when recently he was summoned for jury duty in New York. He instead wrote ‘Real Estate.’
There is no two people in the current elections more diametrically opposite to each other in personality and ideals than Trump and Sanders.
One is an abusive, in-your-face veteran of reality TV, who can out-heckle the worst of hecklers. A star bully who looks like one and speaks like one. Years ago, invited to a book reception for the media at the Trump Tower in Manhattan, I was overawed as Trump walked regally into the room. All I could remember at that moment, and at a couple of other media receptions where he was present, was not only his grand bearing and dominating personality which dwarfed everybody else around him, but his germophobia. I didn’t dare shake hands with him, was scared he might wipe his hands clean with a handkerchief right in my face, with a glare.
The other is mild-mannered to the point of irritation, which in itself is a hard trait to ignore. It could turn quickly to sympathy when it comes to polls. Sanders recently gave up the mike, and didn’t speak at a recent rally when volunteers from the Black Lives Matter organization aggressively took over the stage. One can only imagine what Trump would have done, in that scenario.
It’s too early to speculate a Trump-Sanders battle for the White House in the general elections. That would be historical, perhaps the most fascinating political duel ever in the history of elections in a democracy. A Capitalist vs. a Socialist, outsiders both, who captured the public’s imagination. The debates between the two would be excruciatingly delicious. The result: nobody in his or her sane mind would be able to predict.
But what Trump and Sanders have going for them at present, as poll numbers suggest, is surging popularity fueled by voters who are disgusted by regular, veteran establishment politicians like Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.
The strong whiff of corruption has besmirched Clinton, and her campaign. She struggles to ‘wipe out’ the growing suspicion that she did something gravely wrong. Critics say she might land in prison on felony charges as investigation heats up, congressional hearings loom large, for compromising classified documents on her private server. Some party insiders have begun to feel jittery, with no other viable Democratic candidate fit and experienced enough to fill in her shoes, in case she is indeed indicted on some charges later this year.
But more than anything else, what is goading the rise of Trump and Sanders is nepotism attached to the Clinton and Bush legacies.
Bill Clinton remains one of America’s favorite presidents, his rating when leaving office remains the highest ever. His sexual tryst, however, in the White House, shocked the nation. America may have gone past the 9/11 terrorist attacks almost 14 years ago, but not Bill Clinton’s blatant lies. It’s going to be dirty déjà vu if Hillary does, in fact, become the Democratic nominee.
It might be hard for voters to reconcile to the idea of Bill Clinton again returning to a home he left in shame. They might as well move the Large Hadron Collider to the White House.
The whiff of nepotism even extends to Hillary’s staff, with Huma Abedin a prime suspect in perhaps egregious ways to dispose of classified e-mails. It’s also another matter, and something bound to come up as a talking point, that Hillary may sympathize with Abedin, a woman who has herself had her share of marital troubles with the sexual escapades of her husband, Anthony Weiner.
Jeb Bush has the money and the charisma to even woo Democratic voters, but he cannot disentangle himself from the controversy-laden two terms of his brother George W. Bush. The wars that inflamed America have yet to be extinguished, and most Democrats and the Republicans blame Bush for that. Americans perhaps understand now that wars will remain perpetual. Evil rises in different forms, and has many heads, like ISIS.
It’s this specter of corruption and nepotism being extended to the White House for another eight years starting from January, 2017, that may ultimately repulse voters, next November. It’s also strong factors that have propelled Trump and Sanders into the limelight, kept them there for now, more than their individual right and left leaning messages.
The AAP benefited similarly when they went to the polls.
The voters of Delhi were disgusted by the corruption-laden years and the nepotism of the Congress and the BJP. The far-fetched idea that a party comprised of ordinary folks, who spoke of the angst of common folks, would root out corruption, had a golden halo around it. It finally proved too alluring for voters to ignore. The Congress and the BJP were routed.
It’s a different matter that most voters who shoved the AAP to power in Delhi are disappointed by how they have governed so far.
(Sujeet Rajan is Editor-in-Chief, The American Bazaar)
3 Comments
On what basis, do you say Delhi voters disappointed? Do not spread nonsense based on your individual opinions? Delhi Voters are in fact very happy. You wish to promote Modi indirectly??
Jeb Bush has the charisma to even woo Democratic voters?
Really? You cannot have been watching him on TV. He has the charisma of a brick and in retrospect makes his brother George W. look like a stellar campaigner.
I hope that I have not offended any bricks.
Bush screwed Americans so bad, I really doubt anyone with a “Bush” surname can be president again!