Donald Trump has seen his meteoric rise towards US
presidency in his campaign with eventual clinching of the Republican Party
Presidential ticket in unprecedented fashion. Very high on negative rhetoric
and imposing himself in a party he was never an insider this man is within a
shooting distance to the most powerful office on earth. In America and across
the globe there are many who hope he doesn’t succeed but as they say all
politics is local - it’s up to America. His campaign has been brash, abrasive,
arrogant, racist, sexist that makes him disdainful. His style surprisingly won
him the Republican ticket but thanks to the party own strategic mistakes during
the Obama reign of eight years. The republicans spent all their time in their
hate campaign against Obama and forgot they needed more serious and informed
attention to issues of the day, a loophole Donald Trump fully exploited.
More fundamentally, we should be asking what has helped Trump
overcome the established favorite Republicans him being ranked an outsider. We
should be concerned with the dynamics in the American society that have assured
his meteoric rise. How come he still commands a size-able following and bar some
serious campaigns and reason prevailing Trump could easily triumph in November
8 poll? There are certainly some issues within the American society. Among what
is cited is that the blue color jobs white workers are a disenchanted group.
The effects of trade pacts and globalization that has adversely affected
critical employing sectors like manufacturing which has heavily shifted to
other destinations like China has had its toll on them.
Moreover, add the thorny issues of immigration and rise in
global terrorism which they associate mainly with Islamic religion. It has made
a large portion of American society wary of most of the rest of the world with
bad undertones touching on religion on one hand. Not surprising also far right
populist parties and politicians are on the rise in the Western world. Hitherto
quieter places like Finland, Italy and Netherlands are seeing more intolerance
to ideals that they find alien to their society. Indeed immigration is becoming
quite thorny. Brexit was a signal for the hate for increased immigration and
opening the society for greater continental integration for UK.
But what we should not lose sight of is that the world has
changed greatly. Even society’s long stranglehold by ruthless dictators
particularly in third world is showing greater resistance and open to ruthless
resistance and dangerous ideals. Poverty and lack of employment opportunities
is providing a spark for intolerance to status quo. In a nutshell the
challenges many of the nations are experiencing are a sure harbinger for the
rise of extremism and spur growth of candidates like Donald trump. These are
people who would rise with a lot of rhetoric and promise quick fix solutions
some laced with hate messaging. It is easy to sell that kind of theme to people
undergoing some form of economic and social malaise.
The American society despite having undergone plenty of
transformation under President Obama still is grappling with some touchy
matters such individual and segmental economic well being all linked to quality
of employment and the shift by heavy employers like manufacturing to cheaper
destinations like China and Mexico. This is the kind of propaganda themes as propagated by Donald
Trump that also allowed people like
Hitler rise to power in Germany in the 1930’s and the rise of extreme
ideologies such communism in Russia in the late 1910’s and in China at the time
of Chairman Mao. All the proponents do is
promise quick solutions which look
magical in nature which upon success of
getting to power the reality sinks in quite quickly leading to extreme measures
which end rather badly for the citizens of those countries.
May I take a slight look at Kenya in the same context? With so many unemployed people, endemic
poverty, extremes of corruption and tribalism imbued in the social fabric of
the society it will take a populist to cause societal upheaval. Indeed with the
culture of tokenism so entrenched plus people beholden to lies from politicians
it is easy to create bad leadership sooner than later. All the Kenyan problems
cannot be solved at once but we must quickly put measures and mechanisms to
tame some of the problems the society is facing such as poverty and massive
unemployment. Otherwise as can be observed populism that overrides common sense
easily gets room in the political psyche of people and many times with devastating consequences. Leadership is also symptomatic of the conditions of
the society as can be seen with the rise of Donald Trump and other extremist
politicians earlier on.