Four years ago, I likened the Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton contest to one between Caligula and a Borgia and came down in favour of the Borgias, who know a thing or two about stable government, alliances and long-term thinking. This year, I saw no reason to ditch that establishment bias when the Democratic Party opposed Caligula with King Tut, running a campaign from his Pharaonic tomb and with a tomb-raider, Lara Croft, as his running mate.
I thought I’d make that clear given what I’m about to say next. I’m for Tut. It’s the tut-tutting about Caligula that leaves me unimpressed.
It’s one thing for Maltese (and Europeans) to have their preference for US president. A multilateral US leader is better for us, even if we shouldn’t be under any illusions. The US will continue to drive a hard bargain with Europe on trade. It will continue to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital while mouthing pieties about the Palestinians. It may not return to a nuclear deal with Iran, in view of the fact that Trump’s policy may have induced the Gulf states to enter into peaceful relationships with Israel.
It’s another thing, however, for us to understand the result by swallowing the propaganda offered by Trump’s opposition.
Joe Biden has accomplished a lot. He is currently the presumptive president-elect. Even if he is foiled by Trump in the courts, Biden will still have won more votes than any other presidential candidate in US history – 76 million and counting. That’s over 20 million more than Ronald Reagan obtained in the avalanche of 1984 (though Reagan won 59 per cent of the votes cast, to Biden’s 50.6 per cent).
But you will not understand either the scale or the limits of the achievement if you take Democratic propaganda, or CNN, at its word.
In January, Trump was on course for re-election – possibly by an electoral college landslide. That too would have been a historic achievement. The US has never had four presidents in a row win two terms. Trump was almost the first.
You will miss that if you think of Trump as a boob with no idea of governing, responsible for an American nightmare.
Yes, there were four years of reporting on chaos in the White House. Four years of serial sackings, of insider reports on pathological lying, of giving contradictory instructions to different officials, of lack of respect for the legal authorities, of stacking the courts to get his way, of harbouring ambitions of power beyond what tradition allowed.
Do you know who else was accused of that? Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Biden’s hero. In the 1930s, in unprecedented circumstances, Roosevelt experimented by trying contradictory solutions, filled the US Supreme Court with his appointees and ran for office an unprecedented four times (when custom already dictated no more than two terms). Who complains about FDR now?
Donald Trump’s due is summed up in one number: 71.2 million votes and counting- Ranier Fsadni
‘Chaos in the White House’ is not unprecedented. It’s what government seen from the inside often looks like. Bill Clinton’s White House was described in those terms in the 1990s, while the economy boomed. George W. Bush ran a far more disciplined administration, beginning with his strict daily schedule divided into 15-minute segments, everything programmed. Yet, it ended with a disastrous war and an economy that fell off a cliff.
Chaos is not why Trump lost (even if he wins on technicalities, it’s by a whisker). You underestimate Biden’s achievement if you don’t give Trump his due.
Trump’s due is summed up in one number: 71.2 million votes and counting – around two million more votes than Barack Obama won at his 2008 zenith and eight million more than Trump won four years ago.
Where did Trump’s votes come from? Who went to those unprecedented campaign rallies, one of which was estimated at 59,000 by the security services?
If you listen to Michelle Obama, or the Democratic surrogates, or the CNN pulpits, you’d conclude the votes came from people who need ‘healing’: people ready to overlook lies, misogyny, racism, white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Really?
It’s important to get this right. European politics are becoming steadily Americanised. Trump-inclined voters are already among us. The more you think of Trump as anathema, the more you should be interested in understanding his voters on their own terms.
Alas, the Democrat portrait of Trump voters is a caricature that makes little sense of the known facts.
Let’s take the charges one by one. A white supremacist who indulges neo-Nazis shouting “Jews will not replace us?” Israel surely would have noticed. So would Trump’s son-in-law, an Orthodox Jew, and father of Trump’s grandchildren, also Jews. In fact, Trump explicitly condemned neo-Nazis in the infamous speech where he’s said to have described neo-Nazis as “fine people”. Unlike CNN viewers, Trump voters would have known this.
A racist? Maybe. But Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, called Biden a racist until he chose her as his running mate. Then she laughed the accusation off as part of the campaign.
Can you blame a Trump voter for thinking the racist charge was part of the campaign? Especially when Trump attracted record numbers (for a Republican) of African American and Hispanic voters?
A man who abused his power to exploit women? Yes. But Democrats overlook John F. Kennedy’s and Bill Clinton’s abuses. When Biden was accused of attempted rape by a former aide, leading Democrats ignored her. If Democrats can weigh different considerations, why can’t Trump voters?
If you are already inclined towards Trump, none of these reasons are compelling. Part of the case against Trump is itself mendacious or misleading. And if Trump is divisive – as charismatic politicians usually are – so is his opposition when, for partisan reasons, it tars all his followers with racism.
The Democrats continue to patronise and stigmatise the people who didn’t vote for them. It’s their business. But if we European centrists know what’s good for us, we ought to treat such voters better than that. They deserve our respectful understanding and then maybe we’ll deserve their trust.