Daily Times

A year ago most of us were convinced that Donald J Trump would never become the nominee of the Republican Party for president of the United States (US). This week besides offering a plethora of excuses for a major miscalculation, most of us are now insisting that Trump will never be elected as president of the US. Even though Trump has not won enough delegates to win the Republican nomination but he is pretty close to it, and the last of his competitors have exited the race for the nomination. This has be a strange year for the US political process, so even at this late stage it would be difficult to say with any degree of assurance that Trump will be the republican nominee. But it sure looks like that at this point.

Over the last few months during the ‘primary’ process, it was difficult to find any major ‘opinion’ writer or TV analyst of the left or the right that openly supported Trump. However, Trump has found considerable support among a certain part of the US electorate that is extremely dissatisfied with the way things are. Trumps core support is said to be made up of undereducated white men that are extremely worried about the continuous erosion of their pre-eminence in a country that is rapidly becoming less white. The general elections to be held in November this year will really tell us which way the US is going as a country. If Trump does win the Republican nomination as expected that will indeed be a major shock to the US system both politically and socially. Over the last decade there has been a clear ‘polarisation’ between the liberal and conservative points of view but the rise of Trump goes much beyond that.

Elections have consequences. How Trump contests the general election and whether he wins will determine to a great degree how future elections are going to happen in the US. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign never took off quite like Trump’s did on the Republican side and it would seem that for all of Sanders’ success, Clinton in all likelihood will emerge as the Democratic Party nominee for the presidential election. A head-to-head Clinton against Trump matchup could lead to a Clinton win that might include Democratic victory in the US Senate. But the general elections are still a long way off and it is too early to predict the eventual outcome. That said, it is indeed difficult to imagine that the entire US election system will be completely upended by a Trump candidacy. In the past too, there have been ‘extreme’ candidates that led to their party having a bad outcome during the general elections, but the electoral system eventually recovered and a relative sense of balance was restored.

There is much apprehension among different minority communities in the US. Trump has primarily attacked Mexicans and Muslims. Fortunately for most minorities in the US, the law is going to protect them from any ‘presidential’ malfeasance. Muslims have already been through the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and they survived as a community. Mexican immigrants are now such a major part of the fabric of many southern states in particular that excising them is impossible. But even so a US president that is openly hostile to Muslims as a class of people can indeed create a great amount of disharmony within the country as well as problems between the US and its Muslim allies especially in the Middle East. Obviously, no military action against the ISIL/ISIS can occur without the full cooperation of local Muslim majority countries. As far as US-Mexico relations are concerned, building a wall is not going to serve any purpose.

Whatever else might happen on the way to the general elections, one thing is for sure. The very presence of Trump at the head of the Republican Party is going to ‘coarsen’ the electoral process. So far Trump has been proud of his rather strong personal attacks on his political opponents. How the Democrats respond to Trump’s attacks remains to be seen, but sadly, if the past is any source of information, Trump is not going to be restrained, and it will eventually end up in a free-for-all. Of all the sad results of this election, the worst and perhaps the most lasting one is going to be the utter lack of civility. As it is, Republicans have, over the last eight years, attacked and vilified President Barack Obama with complete abandon, but with Trump leading them during this election-cycle, things will definitely become a lot worse. What separates Trump from past presidential candidates is the fact that Trump prefers to insult his opponents himself and enjoys doing that rather than letting surrogates do it, as was the tradition in the past.

After having said all that I have, there is one basic reality that must be accepted. Donald Trump is not a fool. He is a successful businessman, and it is unlikely that he will embark on any major foreign policy and trade policy initiatives that could create some international turmoil. If he is elected president he will probably choose smart and experienced advisers and cabinet members. Also, it is important to remember that even a US president with a major popular ‘mandate’ during a general election is constrained after election by the constitutional separation of powers. It is indeed correct that a President Trump will be pretty bad, but it is unlikely that he will be a disaster of the magnitude of George W Bush and his ’unprovoked’ war on Iraq, which is still spewing off disastrous consequences more than a decade later.

The most unwelcome result of a Trump presidency will be reversal of Obama’s progressive achievements like the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare. Also Trump has already declared his lack of support for much of established US foreign policy. What happens to that will be another big question.

The author is a former editor of the Journal of Association of Pakistani descent Physicians

of North America (APPNA)