Trump is losing, but has proved he is no pushover

Twenty-four hours after the counting started in the United States elections, the incumbent Donald Trump is being taken kicking and screaming to the exit door of his presidency.

Though the final results are not out, Trump will likely find himself dumped by the electorate on to the sidewalk. He will have to get up, dust himself and walk away into history. Unless there is another twist in the tale in 2024, and he returns again as a contender for the top job.

But he has proved a point, that he still has massive support among the American people. This will surely rank among the biggest surprises of the election. The 68 million votes Trump polled was a close call unlike many forecasts which talked of a landslide in favour of the Democratic contender Joe Biden. Trump has managed to get more votes than he did in 2016, and overall has secured 48 percent of the vote.

What this means is that, contrary to a large section of the media, analysts and the intelligentsia, Trump has had a big impact on the nature of US politics over the last four years.

Silent supporters

There were millions who supported Trump, quietly. They remained under the radar in surveys and made their presence felt only on polling day. They probably saw in him the possibility of a figure who could reverse their economic slide. Trump was someone who would “make America great again” and rein in an open economy that was perceived to be benefiting only large corporations and big businesses.

On paper, the balance sheet looked good but in reality proved to be disastrous to the middle and lower classes who lost their jobs due to outsourcing and the debilitating economic recession.  Trump came to represent the new underclass with his promise of reining in the new industrial power China, bringing back outsourced jobs and standing up for the White community many of whom fear they are losing out to a resurgent black community and Latinos besides “coloured” migrants from Asia and elsewhere.

Some 57 percent of Americans say they are better off financially since Trump came to power.  In 2019, unemployment was at its lowest in recent years.  A Wall Street Journal report, quoting the Labour Department, said the number of openings increased across education, retail and construction and outnumbered the unemployed by 1.625 million in April, the largest such gap since 2000.

Trump arrived on the scene four years ago at a time of fast paced change in American society, politics and economy. From a reality show host and a successful businessman, Trump was the unlikely winner in 2016. And in the last four years, during a rollercoaster of a presidency, he subverted the liberal-scripted “political correctness” by backing White supremacists, talking down to women and bringing back religion to the centre-stage.

Despite this brazenness and the “bull in a China shop syndrome” what the results of the election have shown is that there was a constituency in the US, especially the White,  conservative, right-wing section, which enjoyed his antics, thoroughly backed him and would have wanted him to continue for a second term.

As promised, Trump did bring back jobs. He introduced legislation that taxed companies extra for outsourcing jobs.  He thumbed his nose at the Paris accords on Climate Change and incentivised manufacturing in traditional polluting industries in the so-called rust belt.

He did not hesitate to play to the gallery on the issue of immigration.  The Trump administration’s actions on the southern border detaining migrants and then separating the children from families was repulsive, all the while catering to the sections that frown upon inward undocumented migration.

The Trump administration pressured its Mexican neighbour on immigration to a point where that government for the first time sent in National Guards on its side of the border to plug illegal migration to the US.

His move to restrict inward migration from select Muslim countries, while shocking large sections, warmed the hearts of the Christian right.  His brazen concessions to Israel and the denial of longstanding aid to the Palestinian territories was just what his supporters were looking for.  No wonder disappointment is writ large at Trump’s showing, reflected by his supporters’ protests outside a counting centre in Arizona.

No COVID impact?

What is really surprising in the quantum of votes in his support is it is so despite Trump’s mishandling of the Coronavirus pandemic.  Going by reports, one would get the impression that this alone would have been enough to sink his presidency.  But, it looks like his supporters did not mind it. Probably, it was a balancing factor, and if his administration had done a better job, it could have made a difference to his final tally.

According to the New York Times, notwithstanding the COVID pandemic and the economic misfortunes accompanying that, “41 percent of voters said they were doing better than when he took office, compared with only 20 percent who described themselves as worse off.”

For 35 percent of voters, the economy was twice as important as Trump’s handling of the pandemic.  Some 49 percent fully endorsed Trump’s handling of the economy while 48 percent approved the way his government handled the pandemic, the Times report said.

If one were to go by Trump’s relationship to the mainstream US media and his constant accusation that world-renowned outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN indulged in “fake news” it would seem that the president would have to pay a price for his unsubstantiated allegations.

But now, even if he loses, it would seem that not everyone is on the same page as those who stand by the liberal mainstream media which have a long history of fair and credible reporting.  Which means there are takers for Trump’s allegations on “fake news” while swallowing his own version of news that have repeatedly been proved false, like his first claim in his presidency that there were more people for his inauguration compared to Obama’s.

One can have a bone to pick with the media too.  For, mainstream newspapers and TV channels with all their experience have been largely unable to keep track of the underlying sentiment across the country.   If they had indeed shined light on the mood in America’s nooks and crevices over the last four years, the prognosis on Trump would not have come up short.  And, we need not have been surprised that he polled 68 million votes.