Sunday Times 2
Lessons from the Trump ‘victory’ for all leaders
View(s):By Gerard D. Muttukumaru
Donald Trump is now the President elect of the most powerful economy, military and nation on earth. He will on 20 January 2017 be handed the codes to the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. I can go on and on! Secretary Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but did not reach the magic number in the electoral college. This is one of the travesties of American democracy. Donald Trump himself many years ago wanted the electoral college scrapped. The vast majority of Americans today want it scrapped. One person one vote is the foundation of any democracy. I believe with President Obama that Secretary Clinton was perhaps the most qualified person to run for the most powerful office in the world. She was a remarkable first lady, a two term senator in New York and as Donald Trump himself once observed, a “great Secretary of State”! Yes, she made mistakes. Only the critic does not!
President elect Donald Trump
Why did Donald Trump win? All the polls and pundits were wrong! There are so many lessons for every one of us as leaders of nations, organizations and companies, and yes even as husbands, wives, parents and children. Today we have another group of leaders that are thriving because so many individuals are hurting and disappointed with their lives and current leaders. These are the fundamentalist protestant preachers and the leaders of all faiths.
So why did Trump win the American presidency? Let me attempt to outline some reasons. Others much smarter than me can add to this list.
Only 52% of eligible voters voted. African Americans, Latinos and other minorities did not turn up in the expected numbers.
Trump tapped into all that was ugly and dark in America. He also heard the voices that no one was listening to largely in rural America; the marginalised, the disenfranchised, the angry and those who saw their jobs being sucked out by globalisation. They saw gross income inequality in the richest country on the planet. They saw people who did not look like them with different colours entering their neighbourhoods, schools and places of employment and worship. And to many of them, they saw a man who did not represent white America, a black man, being elected their President. This was too much for them. They sat quietly by for eight years. We are now told that they kept their votes secret even from the pollsters and finally got their chance to “take their country back” at the ballot box. We also now know that 70% of registered republicans believed that Barak Obama was a Muslim.
Was America now ready for a woman President?
Hillary Clinton, though an admirable woman, was a flawed candidate, who along with her million dollar a speech husband, Bill Clinton, had been seduced along the way by power and money. How many religious preachers and leaders have fallen prey to power and money? How many become legends in their own minds? The Clinton’s dirty laundry (most of us have own baggage and laundry) was now fair game. One of the world’s most prestigious foundations and charitable organizations, the Clinton Foundation, has now lost its lustre and will now probably be investigated. All the good that it has done in the world is now tarnished.
The e mail problem and FBI Director Comey’s pronouncements at the tail end of the campaign only hurt Secretary Clinton. Many simply did not trust her.
This was the most vicious campaign in recent memory. Allegations of sexual assault, fraud at “Trump University” and Trump Foundation, refusal to disclose tax returns etc by the Republican candidate and the email controversy and the “pay for play” allegations against the Clinton Foundation that continues to haunt Secretary Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton. It was knife fight to the end in the world’s beacon of democracy. The nation and the world watched with shock the worst of democracy at work.
Trump listened to the dark side of America and tapped into the anxieties and fears of the disenfranchised and disappointed. The quiet voices and not so quiet voices that wanted to “make American great again”; To take back their country from “unwanted aliens”, Latinos and other immigrants. To the African Americans, he had one message: to paraphrase, “You are already at the bottom of the pile. What the hell do you have to lose by voting for me?” Secretary Clinton on the other hand did not hear these quiet voices. She believed that America was already great and must be made be made greater. The core of her unique selling proposition was that Donald Trump was a loose canon, a danger to America and a temperament unfit to control the nuclear codes and lead the free world. She had some of the most powerful voices in America echoing this same message, her husband Bill Clinton (who had now become a liability), President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders. It did not matter. The voices of darkness prevailed in the electoral college that decides who becomes President but not in the popular vote.
What does this teach all of us? In our homes, we must listen to each other. Husbands and wives should spend time together enjoying each other and listening to each other. Parents and children should listen to each other and not dictate how they should live their lives. Many of our homes and families are hurting. Fear and anxiety prevails. Instead of dealing with these anxieties and fears, we run to temples, mosques, Catholic, Protestant and now fundamentalist evangelical churches. Many are now running to ‘charismatic” fundamentalist preachers hoping for a miracle and hoping that these preachers solve their problems. But we do not do what we must do. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, cardinal now Pope Francis, told a lady who complained that her 40 year old able son was not getting married, “Stop washing and ironing his clothes. Stop feeding him every day. Let him learn how to manage his own money. Only then will he become a man”.
Government and business leaders should listen to the voices of the marginalised and disenfranchised in their countries and organizations not to the rich and powerful. The ordinary powerless masses are hurting. The world order is in shock with the Brexit vote and now the election of Donald Trump. What will happen now? The world as we knew it last week does not exist. But we have to live in hope and do what must be done today in our homes, organizations and nation. We must not put off for tomorrow what must be done today. We must do what is right. We must do unto others what we want done to us. We must look at the mirror every day and ask the question that Pope Francis asked: “Who am I to judge”?
(The writer can be contacted at gerardmuttukumaru@yahoo.com)