THE WORLD WILL WATCH - TRUMP OR CLINTON?

By Ruma Dubey

The US media has been literally playing on the psyche strings of the world markets. One day some news is played out and Trump is shown to lead the polls. Immediately the stocks fall, gold rises, dollar tanks and yen starts getting noticed as the safest haven in these times of turmoil.

Next day, news comes in either refuting Trumps claims or news which puts Clinton in a better light. Suddenly Clinton shines bright and the media says that she is leading in the polls.

This is how it has been played out consistently. One day Trump, the other day Clinton. The world is kept on tenterhooks more by the US media - after all they need to play it out to the fullest, this is THE big event of the year for them!  While most logical people feel that with so much stacked up against Trump, there is no way that majority of Americans could suddenly turn xenophobic and agree with his policies. Clinton is the lesser of the evil to choose from and most, at least friends and family say that Clinton is most certainly in the lead and that the polls have got it all wrong. The perception is that the media needs to keep the viewers glued, increase its TRPs and hence one controversy after the other gets played up and depicts a picture of a neck-to-neck fight between the two.

What amazes one is that the people of America have tolerated, with many even agreeing to what Trump has to offer. Whether he wins or not, the one big damage he has done is that he has made it OK for people to be racist or anti-immigrant. That’s a very dangerous stance to take, especially for a country like USA, which is actually a land of immigrants, with the natives relegated to running casinos or living off subsidies.

Xenophobia is growing around the world. The regional elections in Germany in March threw up a far right-wing party winning enough votes to gain seats in three regional election. Right wing parties have won across Austria, Portugal, Poland, Netherlands, Hungary, Romania, even Switzerland. Even in the usually pro-immigrant Scandinavian countries, the right-wing, with its anti-immigrant rhetoric is growing. Even in India, the world views it as a right-wing party sweeping the polls.

Thus as US goes to polls tomorrow, the very fact that Trump is over 40% in the polls is a very worrying aspect. It would be very easy to do some armchair thinking and say that Clinton will win – because that is what the world wants and maybe that is the ground reality. Forget the media hyping the neck-to-neck race, the very fact that Trump is in contention today is a reflection of the times we are living in.

It would be too petty to sit and ponder right now as to who – Trump or Clinton will be good for India. Did you know that there is actually a group in USA, , which goes by the name – Hindus for Trump. Yes, it is as blatantly biased as that. This group supports Trump because he is anti-Muslim and they say that Clinton is a Pakistan supporter. Their logic is that India and the US, both have been facing Islamic terror and thus should stand united. This is really bizarre because what they have forgotten is that Trump is against all non-whites – holding a US citizenship for most American Indians does not mean they are whites. More weird is that Trump publicly made fun of the Indian accent thus an Indian outsider in the US is as vulnerable to xenophobia as a Muslim Arab or a Pakistani. What is scary is that this kind of polarization is out in the open with so many supporters and this does not bode well for the entire world.

Tomorrow’s election, more than Trump or Clinton will be also be about two parties gaining more votes than anticipated – Libertarian and the Green Party. There are lot of people still undecided – they do not know Trump or Clinton and they are the ones who will swing the polls.

The world will be up watching when America goes to vote tomorrow. The results should be out by the wee hours of 9th Nov dawn for us in India.