Troubled times suit none so well as the ruthless. Perhaps, as some say, the United States is struggling to keep afloat, but its panicked throes have buoyed Donald Trump gleefully onward amid the treacherous eddies of the Republican presidential primaries. Although the outset of his campaign was marked by some degree of titillation as many onlookers waited for the punchline to drop, there is now an uncomfortable and growing realization that the butt of the joke may be none other than those same onlookers themselves, prompting serious questions as to whether Americans will truly endorse such a cutthroat character as president.
It is difficult to imagine a world where towering ramparts line the U.S.-Mexican border, all willingly paid for out of pocket by the Mexican government. However, such a world is, among other things, one of the pillars of the Trump campaign.
That the real estate magnate has been able to wriggle into the good graces of many with such facility is not entirely without reason. In a manner that whispers shades of Ko Wen-je prior to his election, Trump is defiant of power, blunt of speech and has financed his own campaign instead of relying on any political party. As lethargy pervades the U.S. economy, the wealth disparity widens, jobs are snatched away by illegal immigrants and other states around the world look increasingly askance at U.S. leadership, Trump’s fiery rhetoric has given the common man an outlet for his frustrations.
However, the more orthodox Republicans have found Trump’s antics difficult to stomach, with a bevy of the party’s elder statesmen and women recently issuing an open letter forcefully opposing Trump’s bid to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. Within the letter’s flowing prose, they exposit upon nine major reasons for their opposition, including charging Trump with dishonesty and advocating unfeasible political policies dictated by emotion, as well as asserting that his election as president would not only make the United States less secure and lower its standing in the world, but would also threaten the very civil liberties beloved by Americans. In conclusion, the signatories to the letter pledge to “commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office.”
Still, popular support may give Republicans little recourse when it comes to Trump. While Taiwan’s Kuomintang could opt to retire Hung Hsiu-chu as their candidate, the U.S. Republican Party lacks a corresponding mechanism unless the other primary contenders can together manage to corral more than half of the party’s total delegates before Trump does, precluding him from gaining an absolute majority. In the event that no presidential hopeful holds the required majority, the nominee would be selected through multiple rounds of voting at a contested GOP convention in July, something that has not been seen in some 40 years.
But the spirit of democracy is to reap what you sow, and if in November a Trump vs. Clinton head-to-head truly comes to pass, despite the fact that many say Trump is unelectable, the capriciousness of voters and subsequent lack of a guaranteed outcome means that all must steel themselves against the possibility of a United States with The Donald at the helm. Only, why is it that even as Americans remain captains of their fate, the rest of the world can only resign itself to going down with the ship?
This is so despite the fact that when it comes to the economy, Trump talks of levying heavy tariffs on Chinese exports, has similarly callow views on human rights and on the unchecked expansion of government authority which make him out to be, by all appearances, cut from the same silken cloth as the top brass in Beijing. If the core values of freedom and democracy are not among those near and dear to his heart, a Trump presidency would spell a very dangerous future indeed for Taiwan, and it would seem that alongside our prayers for ourselves, we would do well to throw in an afterthought: Heaven help the United States.
The author is president of the National Taipei University of Business.
Donald Trump may win primaries, but he’s -never- going to win a general election. Something like 18% of registered voters in the US support him. If he gets “his” party’s nomination, he will be overwhelmingly defeated by -whoever- gets the Democratic nomination.
One can hardly blame the Taiwanese for feeling nervous about the possibility of a destabilizing influence as leader of its powerful ally/protector. But Taiwan would be well advised to depend a little less on Washington’s rushing to Taiwan’s defense. The Western Pacific definitely does not need America meddling in its business, especially where it concerns Beijing. Just look at what’s happening in West Asia, where whatever Washington does in an attempt to fix things only makes them worse — much worse.
America’s present political dilemma is one of decades worth of political and economic mistakes coming home to roost. It’s only been very very recently that Americans have woken up to notice that their government for the people, by the people, of the people had perished from the earth. It’s been a long time since the US was a functioning democracy — indeed, it’s been a very long time since the US could hold a free and fair election. The appointment of GW Bush to the presidency by the Supreme Court should have made that clear to them, but it’s also been a long long time since more than half of the American electorate could be counted on to make it to the polls on election day.
The immediate problem — i.e., Donald Trump — is indeed a difficult one, since it’s not likely that Bernie Sanders will oppose him in the general election, and Bernie is the candidate who would have good chance of beating him. That leaves Hillary, but as a candidate Hillary Clinton is nothing like strong or forceful enough or fast enough on her feet to deal with Trump, should he win the nomination — which he probably will. Moreover, she continues to reinforce the growing view of her as dishonest and untrustworthy.
It is a serious problem, but both Bernie and Trump are incarnations of a phenomenon that has characterized American politics since at least the election of Reagan, namely the inability of Washington to hear the voices of the electorate because those voices are drowned out by an army of lobbyists making demands and, more recently, the sound of a ton of money filling up the electoral coffers of politicians.
The Republicans are a deeply corrupted party; the Democrats, while perhaps not quite so corrupt, are the more useless of the two. That leaves the door wide open for either the self-serving Trumps or the revolutionary Sanderses.