Daily Times

Like her bestsellers Bushworld and Are Men Necessary? Maureen Dowd’s recently published book The Year of Voting Dangerously is a keen analysis in dispatches from the “political madhouse.” In addition to her New York Times pieces “Portraits of the Lady and the Trump,” her new book includes essays on the characters in this year’s ‘psychodrama’. Dowd has appropriately selected The Derangement Of American Politics as the sub-title of her book. In 1999, Dowd, a columnist for the New York Times, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her series of columns on the Clinton impeachment and Monica Lewinsky scandal. Dowd has covered Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton for years. This is the ninth presidential debate Dowd has covered for the Times. There are eight chapters in the book constituting content interesting enough to catch readers’ attention.

I found “Unconventional Conventions” most interesting as the content reflected on the author’s personal experiences and interaction with people and places, and response to ideas and thoughts. She writes, “Fortunately, Donald Trump likes it rough. The violent incidents at his rallies, he told me once, didn’t worry him. He felt it added a frisson of excitement to the proceedings. So he probably loved Loser Night at his Convention.”

Trump dismissed contentions that he doesn’t really want to be president, “Well, no, I would like to win. Make America great.”

Caught between two candidates with the highest unfavourables ever recorded, waging one of the nastiest races ever seen, Americans are plunged into the year of voting dangerously. It is a surreal fever dream, a campaign unlike any other. Dowd traces the psychology and pathology in America’s consequential battle of the sexes. The race becomes even nuttier when you consider the candidates’ past parallels and intersections. Both are larger-than-life New Yorkers and members of famous dynasties: an ex-Senator and secretary of state living in Chappaqua, and a real estate developer born in Queens. Trump is a former Democrat and donor of Clinton’s campaigns and the Clinton family foundation, while Hillary and Bill were guests at Trump’s wedding reception to Melania. And their daughters, Ivanka and Chelsea, are friends. Bill Clinton was one of the last politicians to speak to Trump before he jumped into the race, and some Republicans have voiced suspicions that Trump is a Manchurian candidate, unleashed to sabotage the Republican Party and ensure Hillary’s election.

The first presidential debate held on Monday, September 26, was an excellent opportunity for over 100 million people across the globe to watch it live from a New York university. The well-organised event kept the audience glued to their seats before their television sets. The 90-minute debate focused on jobs, economy, taxes, criminal justice, law and order, health, education and issues of foreign policy etc.

Trump thought outsiders had stolen jobs from Americans, and that Big Business in the United States could create more jobs. He thought American businesses were leaving the country thus damaging American economy. Clinton had the upper hand in the debate, as she was convincing and impressive with full grasp on the issues under debate.

Two more debates will be held before the elections. It will provide a chance for voters to better judge and decide who deserves their vote. It may also have impact on the Electoral College.

Researchers, looking at history, find examples of rudeness and a need to chart a path to a more respectful discourse. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson found himself in the political race of his life. Jefferson was running for president of the young republic, and needed an edge in the election against John Adams, his friend turned philosophical and political foe. Jefferson called on a journalist and pamphleteer named James Callender, and he secretly funded Callender’s attacks on Adams, who was soon denounced as a hypocrite and warmonger. Adams, Callender declared “behaved neither like a man nor like a woman but instead possessed a hideous hermaphroditical character.”

Adams and his supporters retaliated. They called Jefferson an atheist and seized on racist attitudes, dubbing him the “son of a half-breed Indian squaw.” When the name-calling ended and operatives finally put down their quills, Jefferson won the election.

Fast-forward 216 years, and the mudslinging tone of the presidential race sounds surprisingly familiar. During every presidential election cycle, pundits seem to utter the same declaration: “This could be the nastiest, bloodiest race we have seen in years.” Sometimes they are right. Today anybody can say anything and everyone has a channel. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts. There is need for pragmatism and a series of programmes and policies. There should be no space for alienation and anger. Politicians need to have an orientation for tasteful behaviours.

The writer is a former director of the National Institute of Public Adminihstration, a political analyst, a public policy expert and an author. His book Post 9/11 Pakistan was published in the United States