Wednesday 9 November 2016

The coming of true Hope and Change



On Wednesday November 09, 2016, the United States of America and the world woke up to a new dawn. In what was supposed to be a walk in the park for Hillary Clinton, who on the eve of the election was reportedly measuring drapes for the White House, a billionaire business man who had never held political office defeated a 30 year professional politician for the Presidency of the U.S. How did everybody get it so wrong?

For the first time since the 1920’s the Republican Party will control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.  However the country is still much divided. Donald .J. Trump was able to defeat 16 opponents to become the GOP nominee, and yet the party did not coalescence around his campaign.  He was able to connect with at least half of a nation that recognized that for the past eight years they had been sold a bill of goods. An imperious President Obama divided the country along party, racial and ideological lines. The real problem was that he received the blessing of the liberal elite and a totally biased media. He started his presidency with a hollow Nobel Peace Prize for having achieved nothing. For eight years the Democrats and the media supported his progressive socialist policies and his attempt to reduce the U.S. influence on the world arena. He continuously preached for multilateralism and the increased power of the United Nations on world matters.

President elect Trump did not win this election with huge amount of money, but rather with speeches which sometimes verge on the divisive and less politically correct. But what he did was to connect with the people who are hurting economically and seen the American dream disappear in front of their eyes. They saw an increase in regulations that hurt business and reduce the capitalism for which the U.S is known for. a citizenry that saw that foreigners, and illegal immigrants were given more privileges than themselves, that their security in the face of terrorism was being minimized at the altar of political correctness.

The bigger question is why was a Trump election so discarded and not seen coming? The biggest reason is that for the third time in a row pollsters got everything wrong. It seems that they did not learn anything from Brexit and the Columbian Peace Agreement. They also misjudged the reaction of the electorate. They underestimated Trump and his supporters. Their polling which used more democrats in their sampling fooled them.  Hillary Clinton did not realize that the electorate did not want a continuation of a failed Obama legacy. With the undivided support of the media and Hollywood stars she did not offer anything new, whereas Trump offered a completely different platform, even sometimes going against the grain of the GOP.

As a Canadian I cannot vote in the U.S elections, but what is astonishing is the Canadian media’s continued misunderstanding of the American psyche. Most Canadian Liberal pollsters showed that 78% of Canadians would have preferred a Clinton presidency. To me these numbers are not surprising given how U.S political issues are reported in this country. Most, if not all, Canadian media take their lead from the same feeds : All Broadcast for Clinton (ABC), National Broadcast for Clinton (NBC), Clinton Broadcasting Service (CBS), and of course the  Clinton News Network (CNN); each one of them   with a progressive liberal and socialist bias.  No wonder that Canadians have no idea that there are different views in the U.S. This is done to further a progressive agenda in Canada. Reality will soon strike when Trump starts reversing many of Obama’s policies especially those concerning, climate change, pipelines and health care. As a disciple of David Ricardo’s economic theories, I support trade and I believe that Trumps’ threat to renegotiate NAFTA is going to be less harmful for Canada than expected. As for TPP certain aspects need to be clarified and I trust a Trump administration to be able to do this as a business rather than a political negotiation.

Trump’s views on military and security issues may frighten some people. President Reagan came in and was portrayed as a man with a finger on the nuclear button. But history showed us that negotiation from a position of strength worked not only for the U.S but for the world. In today’s world we live under a cloud of a terrorist attack, and we need a different approach, Trump may bring a more pragmatic rather than an appeasing strategy in dealing with a resurgent Russia and a growing and decentralized terrorism threat. Trump should be prepared for a terrorist attack in the early days of his presidency and complacency must be the last thing on his agenda.

The 2016 presidential elections showed us that the electorate knows best. Trump was elected despite the media bias. America wanted true change, not a rhetorical one based on ideology. America decided that hope and change resided in less regulations, executive orders and government interference. Americans chose a new President, Canadians who are arrogant enough to think that they know what the U.S needs are, should be very careful in not misjudging our neighbours and focus more on what the homeland electorate may decide in the coming years, because the Trudeau government may be going down the same path as the Obama failed legacy.

Vulgarity is not acceptable, but corruption and fraud are criminal acts and for those who lament that a woman was not elected, we must acknowledge that it was not a rejection of the candidate’s gender but rather a rejection of the person. The U.S may be ready for a woman president, but not for ‘that woman’.

Good luck to President Donald J.Trump who promises true change and economic hope with it.

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