This is an insightful piece about some takeaways from the upsetting victory of Donald Trump at the U.S presidential election after Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party was projected as winner in the build-up of the election.
Donald Trump
Having not been foretold even by the most credible pollsters, Donald Trump’s victory has upended every paradigm in global politics and as well left in its trail, hard lessons for political actors.
It is a triumph that would for a long time, pose as a reference point and model in political contests given its upsetting and recording making nature.
Whichever way it is viewed, the exercise has provided a new and different way to look at politics by reasserting that change remains the only constant certainty in politics, especially in developed democracies.
That this victory came even with the President-elect’s recognized shortcomings resonates salient questions whose answers could be found in Trump’s exploitation of the peculiar undercurrents that defined the historic election.
Examining this victory through the prism of Trump’s believed unelectable post-election status, showed that every political contest is purely a battle of ideas which could be won with tricks as exemplified by him.
Little wonder, Dick Stoken in his book: The Great Game of Politic: Why We Elect Whom We Elect observed that it was germane to understand the force that can force the pendulum back toward the centre thereby resulting in the change of parties in power at the executive level.
Indeed, by turning out upsetting, Trump’s triumph exposed how risky it has become for a political system to be consumed by the realities of the moment when projecting the likely outcome of elections.
Though it had never been out of context to predict the future with today’s event, in Trump’s victory, it becomes risky to treat post-election prognosis as a reality in respective of the scope of its focus. Interestingly, the development brings to mind, Robert Green’s nineteenth law of power where he cautioned thus: ‘’Never underestimate your opponent or think less of him. You never know the force of his blow when he comes in for an attack.”
Of course, the triumph which momentously defeated conventional and professional wisdom provides a lesson that every segment of the electorate most be prioritized in very political engagement. That was self-evident from the demographic of those, who voted for the President-elect.
In all these, the hardest lesson remains that no matter what, the people take preeminence over the establishment when targeting the audience of political messages. The people in this context are simply the ordinary men and women, who feel neglected by the system and the white working class, who craved for a paradigm-setting President.
Therefore, possessing the inalienable rights from which government derives its sovereignty as highlighted by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence makes it fatal to ignore the people’s significance in any democracy where their power had not been stolen.
On that strength, it would be agreed that by choosing Trump as the 45th President of the United States amid post-election resentment, Americans have reaffirmed that political legitimacy is still defined by the American people Indeed, it seems difficult for the world to grapple with the reality of a Trump presidency, but it is a surprising fact Americans would live with within the next four years.
Perhaps, this immortal quote in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet would provide solace. ‘’When our deep plots do pall and that should teach us there’s a divinity that shapes our ends’’.
Written by Charles Kumolu for the Vanguard