So, in the big, big news of this week, America has spoken. Republican Donald Trump’s victory against the Democrat’s late anointed candidate, Kamala Harris, is, despite most analyst’s predictions, a resounding one.
The reality is though, that America never really had a choice, as while Harris had an opportunity, her husband’s indiscretions, and her confused rhetoric, never offered ‘middle’ America a genuine alternative.
Any alternative to Trump had to be quietly spoken, to demonstrate authority, and most crucially, to be respectful. And maybe too, America wasn’t ready yet for a woman, let alone a black woman, to hold the world’s most powerful elected office.
Hilary Clinton got close, saying “Women are agents for change, drivers of progress, makers of peace,” and that’s what America genuinely needed, the job description in a nutshell. Clinton would have resonated with today’s generation including that ‘smart power’ was “showing respect even for one’s enemies, trying to understand, and empathise with their perspectives.”
Unfortunately, Harris was never that person so this was a glaring missed opportunity, for American women, and America, such will not always abound.
Are American males ready for a woman to lead them? They appear to be almost ‘masculine before all,’ to the extent of carrying a veneer of toxic masculinity, and decidedly more so than the ‘elder’ nations.
After all, they may take their lead from even William Shakespeare, as he wrote of bringing forth only men-children, “For thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males,” while in rebuttal, Lisa Simpson says, “Our society is suffering from a shortage of real masculinity,” so the American psyche, with its insecure male perspective may be the real rub!
Complicating matters, did America also, genuinely, want respectable? Given its ability to see past respectability for much of its recent history, think Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton, Trump, and Biden. It’s almost as if that massively influential nation revels in being seen as a caricature, and do they not understand the difference, the quite definite distinction between laughing at... and being laughed at?
The Supreme Court of the United States has determined, just this year in Trump v. United States (2024) that “all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts,” and it would not be cynical to suspect that while one inhabits the office, there could be a legal determination that everything they do is official! To what extent this will embolden, and justify the actions of the office under Trump, is anybody’s guess?
So again, while the world remains powerless, and must respect the American electorate’s decision as both clear and legitimate, that same world will surely now wait, with bated breath, for the actions of a very ‘dynamic’ leadership’s consequences to be unleashed upon us all.
In 71 days, on January 20, the man who would be king will be anointed for the second time as the President of the United States of America, and ‘leader’ of the ‘free world.’ Does this give Trump a mandate to, like Maximus Meridius Decimus, and, “Unleash hell!”
What will his place on the throne mean to millions of potential immigrants in Central and South America who look North for opportunities across the wall? What will it mean to millions in Europe, reliant upon a Nato alliance he has threatened to dismantle? He has also made noises about getting out of environmental agreements like the Paris Accord. What would that mean to the planet? What about North Korea, foe to America, friend to Trump? Will Ukraine’s Zelensky pay the price for not ‘dobbing in’ Hunter Biden? Will Trump’s ‘relationship’ with Vladimir Putin see America restrain the Russian bear, or...? And will he offer legitimacy to Israel’s Middle Eastern ambitions, and plunge the region even further into its historical enmity?
We will wait... with fingers crossed.
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