America: Out of Order

Only one person should be elected president of the United States: Hillary Clinton. What does Donald Trump’s success tell us about the nation? He is simply a symbol of a deeply divided country and that things under the Republicans could get even worse.

Americans have elected 44 presidents thus far in its 228-year history. Some of them were of average character and some were even of dubious character. They have rightly disappeared into the mists of history but there are several notable exceptions – both Democratic and Republican – who have been honored with memorials in Washington, D.C., including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The assassinated John F. Kennedy is memorialized by a beautiful tomb in Arlington National Cemetery and Ronald Reagan is the namesake of the national airport. Regardless of how their politics are judged, their imprint on world history is undeniable. Anyone running for president needs to know with whom he or she is hobnobbing. Of the two candidates competing next Tuesday, only one can make the claim – as old fashioned as it may sound – of possessing the qualities necessary for the job: Hillary Clinton. The Democrat is by no means a perfect candidate, and her party may have been better off had it nominated someone else more interested in criminology, but there can be no doubt that she indeed has the knowledge, intelligence and experience needed to govern the United States. And no, she won’t start a third world war with Russia as some European intellectuals have wildly speculated.

The Hill Dividing Clinton from Trump Is Both Steep and Long

Whether a Clinton presidency would be considered outstanding enough to warrant a national monument or having a major airport named for her is immaterial. It would be sufficient to cite the mere fact that she would be America’s first female president. It seems to be a necessary observation but of course it’s not, no more than the observation that Barack Obama always needs to be identified as America’s first black president.

One need not like Clinton to prefer her as America’s next president. One may consider her a wealth-and-power hungry schemer, but the hill dividing Clinton from Trump remains both steep and long. The election on Nov. 8 is as important as it is elementary: America’s soul, America’s unity, and America’s world leadership role all depend on it. At the same time, it has never been more evident which candidate is better suited for the Oval Office.

Donald Trump Is a Uniquely Impudent Politician

The Republicans nominated a man who is, in every respect, totally incapable of being president. We need not enumerate Trump’s political and personal deficiencies here. It’s clearly evident what the GOP is offering American citizens: an imposition, a political insult, a crime against a historically honorable party and the office once inhabited by the giant, Abraham Lincoln, to which the GOP now wants to elevate a golf course nitwit.

The paradox is that it was all plainly visible from the start and yet now, shortly before votes are cast, he still has a chance. Despite everything, a good 40 percent of Americans are prepared to make a demagogic charlatan their president – a bizarre turn of events. Even if Clinton wins, four out of every 10 voters will have opted for Trump.

In view of such a gloomy possibility a good question might be why nearly half the population is backing Trump? Is it stupidity? Seduction? Anger?

Clinton-Land vs. Trump-Land

All three reasons definitely played a role in Trump’s rise. The more important question, however, is: If one-half of America votes for Trump, what does that mean for the U.S. as a whole? Are the 50 states still united or have they devolved into two entities (they might be called Clinton-Land and Trump-Land) where the citizens all carry the same dark blue passport but share little else with each other besides contempt?

The people of Trump-Land and the people of Clinton-Land speak different languages, eat different food, live in different communities, send their children to different schools and get their world views from different media; they have different opinions, and – above all – have a very different perception of what the facts are. What is considered the gospel truth in Clinton-Land is thought to be filthy lies in Trump-Land, and vice versa.

Many borders divide the two lands: economic, religious, ethnic, social, cultural and political. Putting it crudely, Clinton-Land’s inhabitants are well-to-do, educated white liberals along with minority blacks and Latinos. Trump-Land’s inhabitants are poor working-class white citizens disenfranchised by globalization along with a battered middle class mortally afraid it won’t ever get any better.

Trump Has Torn the Seams of American Society with All His Strength

It wasn’t by pure chance that Trump consciously targeted and attacked the establishment, illegal Mexican aliens and (less openly) blacks, and that he accused Clinton of being a globalist and a cosmopolitan. And it wasn’t by mere chance that his followers – those that the inhabitants of Clinton-Land not always wrongly thought of as rabble – hungrily ate up his inflammatory words. Trump keenly sensed which seams in society were weakest and then set about tearing them apart.

If that’s so, then America has a far more serious problem than just Donald Trump. It means Trump isn’t the disease, he’s just a symptom. In that case, an entire generation of politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, will have failed to accomplish their set task of bringing the nation back together. It means that a large part of America has set itself apart from the America they knew and loved for many years.

And Donald Trump is just the beginning.