This has been the first American presidential cycle I have followed. Prior to this year's political process---the presidential debates, the primaries, the rhetoric, the whole shebang---I was completely unwise to the peculiarities of American politics. In my imagination, American politics was a fairly mundane affair; if it is correct as I was told that the election of Bush Jr. to the position of POTUS was primarily on the basis of a strong "pro-life" wave of support, then I had figured that Americans must not have any real-life issues to contend with. It did not help that there are only two parties with any reasonable shot at election and this limits the space for disparate voices. I yet see the two party system as an ultimately inadequate system for America as the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society it is moulding itself into but as the recent elections have informed me, there is considerable room for dialogue and re-imagination in the American political system.
Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the prominent players of the primary season represent many different faces of the American populace and along with that, a fairly broad set of economic and social ideals. This is, in my opinion, and unlike those ridiculing the rise of a figure like Trump, or Drumpf as they say, an impressive achievement for a secular democracy--it reflects a populace with a diverse background of motivations and opinions and that is ready to participate in fair political process to demonstrate it. Sometimes it gets looney, but that is rather limited, and I reckon the looneys exist equally on both the liberal and conservative ends of the spectrum.
Here I discuss my thoughts on the various candidates, especially Trump, Sanders and Hillary in the hope that I may also be able to fine-tune my assessment of their various policy stances through the process of writing this post.
So let's start with Trump. In my mind, Trump represents (largely) two sets of reactionary forces. One, there is a section of the white populace that is less educated but has traditionally enjoyed a decent standard of living working blue-collar manufacturing jobs. The rise of cheap (and predatory) Chinese manufacturing in the past three decades has dismantled the economic position of these people. They have also had to face a lowering wage structure as an unregulated influx of cheap Mexican labor has flooded the American market. These are traditional Republican voters who stand disenchanted with the American political process. The Republican party, in no way differently from the Democratic party, has refused to take up their cause because cheap immigrant labor is vital to many industries whose rich donations keep afloat the mega-money election process. I feel for these people, because even if they may be opposed to the idea of America as a multi-cultural society, these people have a right to their economic interests being protected by the American political system which I do not see happening.
That said, it is worthwhile to ask why these people do not expect themselves to compete with Mexicans for cheap labor jobs. Perhaps this is due to generational inertia; American kids have grown up seeing their parents enjoy a relatively comfortable life working daily wage jobs and they probably expect a similar standard of living for themselves. The issue is that we live in a highly globalized economy so if you cannot re-imagine yourself and find a place in the system, someone else will do so. This inertia, or fatigue among the original inhabitants, as I understand, is a large part of what drives the immigration policy of many rich economies.
Europe, for instance, has long remained fairly isolated due to strict anti-immigration policies. I remember during the English Language Proficiency sessions that I partook in when first joining Harvard, I had discussed this issue with an Italian girl. She had proudly stated that you could not become an Italian citizen without having Italian blood. This obsession with ethnic purity has generally hampered Europe's progress. There are factories upon factories in Germany for instance, that need laborers but cannot attract young Germans. The new generation wants to settle in cities and do something more exciting and (or) profitable. The unwanted factory jobs are the kinds that immigrants don't mind taking up.
Europe is only now beginning to realize that much of America's growth story can be attributed to this openness to immigration; perhaps the greatest rise in America fortunes came on the back of the exodus of persecuted Jewish and other minorities after the Second World War and after that, the opening up of America's doors to Indian and East Asian immigrants in the 60s under Lyndon B. Johnson. The establishment of the European Union was a first step towards this end; the free movement of people across Europe's borders has generally benefited Europe, but perhaps not as much as some would have previously ascertained. This may be down to the choice of a single currency which has hampered the ability of poorer countries like Greece and Italy to regulate trade and commerce. And in the light of this, Europe is becoming more open to immigration from non-European nations.
I had an interesting conversation the other day with a professor from Spain. He told me that Spain's immigration policy is focussed on getting semi-skilled migrant workers from Morocco. He said that immigration from Andalusia into Madrid, for instance, does not help drive Spain's economy as much as the immigration from Morocco (even though the geographical separation between the two is not much at all). As is true for immigrants generally, for the Moroccan immigrant into Spain, even a modest wage by Spanish standards represents a wage increase that is far more significant and infinitely more compelling than any increase in riches for a Spanish native from Andalusia.
But of course while immigration makes a lot of economic sense, it will always remain a tricky topic. For one, there's always a gnawing question in my mind: are capitalists piggybacking on the shoulders of liberals to foist upon local people levels of immigration that are simply unmanageable? Is excess growth, a few points more on the GDP scale, all that nations and human society must constantly strive to achieve? Americans are working longer hours, getting paid less, all in the hope that this will enable continued growth for the nation, and probably fund more iPads, and cars and other such things that are now perceived as essentials for living. But are they?
And then we enter the murky region of nationalism based on language, ethnicity and culture. What is the immigrant's right to cultural preservation? What is the right of the local people to ask the immigrant to conform to their cultural standards? Should the state actively participate in enforcing the assimilation of immigrants into the host society? The second set of forces that supports Trump is one that sees immigration as a threat to the social fabric of the society. Unlike the previous group of Trump supporters, this one is more diverse. I think a lot of people who may vote for Trump in the end may align with him based on his anti-immigration stance; a thorny issue that certainly seems to have been the major driving force behind the Leave campaign and the Brexit vote. While these questions deserve a political discussion, I often find Trump's comments on the matter, which I get the sense he seems to pass off as policy proposals, both unfounded and bordering on the dangerous.
For instance, take his exhortation to his followers to attack (online, with words, and other vitriol) a US-born judge who delivered a verdict against the scummy Trump University, on the basis that the judge's Mexican heritage influenced his decision. Heck, even Kayleigh Mcenany, recent Harvard Law school grad turned CNN political pundit who agrees with literally everything Trump has to say, was forced to disagree with him on this. I also disagree with Trump's blanket statements like," ban all muslim immigration". I was shocked that my extended family in the US that is otherwise entirely Democrat is more than willing to entertain this idea of Trump's. Recently when my parents visited us here in the US, we went to the home of a Sikh family who left India in the 80s; my grandparents had sheltered/hid them during the bloody anti-Sikh riots right after the death of Indira Gandhi. I figured that they might have a different view on this matter as being part of a community that had once faced persecution themselves, but it wasn't the case.
So how did Trump defend this one? After the media backlash, Trump soon backed off from asserting a blanket ban on Muslim immigrants and said instead that there should be greater scrutiny in accepting immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. Here I do not entirely disagree. I believe that any state must be vigilant and smart about where it wants to get its immigrants from and it should reserve the right to do so without castigation. In this sense, I do not see any harm in Trump's suggestion that immigration from Muslim-majority countries should be considered on a case-by-case basis whereby it is made clear by a US officer that the said person does not believe in something as egregious as, say, `all gays will burn in hell', or 'I will make my wife and daughter wear a Burqa all their lives and I will view every other woman who expresses herself in the way she wants as a whore'. This is simply not acceptable, and there are enough poor, forward-thinking and hard-working immigrants from around the world to consider from before accepting barbarians into the country.
Just this morning, I saw on New Day on CNN, Alison Camerota interviewing Sohail Ahmed, the son of Pakistani immigrants in Britain. Sohail is an ex-Jihadi sympathizer, and one who at some point chalked out an elaborate plan to blow things up in London. Sohail says he eventually abandoned such ideas because of the work of a charity anti-terrorism organization that stepped in and helped him reform himself. He also happens to be gay. The conversation with him was enlightening. Sohail said that right from childhood (in London, no less), the local mosque and muslim community drilled it into his psyche that the UK and US are at "war with Muslims", and that they want to destroy Islam. He said that the most damaging aspect of this narrative is this obsession with the idea of "us and them". I think he hit the hammer right on the head with that point.
Us and them
About a month ago, we were out to buy our first car. Often times, the salesman who we would go on a test-drive with happened to be black. This one salesman was a very well-mannered older black man from a farming family in Ohio. I don't remember how the conversation started with him, but we ended up discussing Donald Trump, muslims, gun control and the history of the Irish and Italian mafia in Boston. The conversation eventually veered into the domain of race. This man had exceptionally forward-thinking views. He was strongly in favor of banning all guns besides hunting rifles, and making compulsory basic gun education before getting the right to own a gun. He was a devoted Christian, but he sympathized very strongly with Muslims who he said have suffered a lot over recent years at the hands of America; he encouraged us to watch Fareed Zakaria's documentary, "Why they hate us", which we had been wanting to watch anyway.
But I felt less comfortable listening to his views on racial tensions in America. He suggested that most white people do not understand their "white privilege", that they think of black people as "mud-people" who they wish were as far away from them as possible. He said that white people destroyed Africa, which was back then an amazing place, and he wished that he could go live in Africa once "they could sort some of their issues out". Some of it may be true, while some of it, especially the latter, is false at least by most modern standards of living. But African American history is so blighted by injustice that it is hard not to sympathize with black people here. Racial discrimination, predatory policing and profiling---none of these are yet a thing of the past. And there is a seething anger amongst black people due to these injustices.
But is this anger really productive? This is a difficult topic to address. When this anger comes out on college campuses, it often seems like a farce, at least to me. Take the case of Dorothy Bland, the Dean of the school of journalism at U. North Texas, who made up a story of how she got arrested walking the street because she is black, or the intense rage depicted by young liberals, black, white or blue, over a harmless email discussing Halloween costumes by the Yale lecturer Erika Christakis, or this demand letter from black students at Oberlin college demanding `exclusive black safe spaces' among other things that violate any sense of justice and equality. And finally, what was Black Lives Matter doing interrupting the Toronto Pride Parade (link)? (To be clear, I think BLM is an indispensable movement against police brutality and I fully support it otherwise.)
These movements take away from the real problems that black people face in America and it gives all the more ammunition needed for Republicans to summarily dispel any idea that the country has race issues. It makes those people say that the shooting of unarmed black teenagers such as in Ferguson is down to statistics (given black people commit so much more crime in the US). It makes all the unjust, and racially-biased sentencing, such as that of falsely convicted Brian Banks getting 6 years for rape he did not commit as opposed to one Brock Turner getting 6 months and less for rape that he did, such as one 18 year old black kid getting 162 years in prison for armed robberies in which no one was hurt, disappear into the background.
It is my observation that much of the same anger hounds Muslims across the world; this time the enemy is Israel, the West, the Jews, Christians, and Hindus. And this mass-scale anger, funded through Mosques operated by Imams on the payroll of the Wahabbi Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and Qatar is what is producing the droves of Jihadis out there. As long as the community does not see beyond this problematic way of thinking and shuns vengeful local Imams, there is nothing that Western liberals can do or say to stem the tide of Jihadi violence. There is no amount of rallying against Islamophobia that can take away the anger of Muslim societies against the West. This is for Muslim societies to introspect: why are they filling their children with so much hate for everyone else? Calling a spade a spade may then be the best strategy from the point of view of the US, along with carefully screening immigrants from Muslim-majority nations while keeping a strict eye on the kinds of sermons handed out in Mosques in the US.
The American Liberal and Bernie Sanders
Amidst all this rage and confusion is the American liberal. The American liberal, like their Indian counterparts, and I'm guessing, really all liberals around the world are driven by two basic impulses: justice, sure but also an immense savior complex. The modern liberal often fails to appreciate, at any level, the line of thinking of conservatives because the modern liberal is often too egotistic to entertain any fact or opposing view-point that does not fall in line with the well-drummed narrative of an overbearing majority oppressing the minority. Not only is this narrative often a naive representation of the reality, it deprives minority communities of the urge and really, the duty, to introspect. It creates a huge victim mentality which disallows people to set higher standards for themselves. And sadly, it is at the centers of academic excellence, such as universities, where the most open-minded individuals of different backgrounds (should) congregate, that we sorely lack a different perspective to the liberal narrative. Bernie Sanders, to me, is an incarnation of this rage.
But before I discuss Bernie Sanders, I want to ask why is the modern liberal so out-of-touch with the conservatives? Why is there so much bi-polarity in world views amongst people, especially when so many more are enjoying a better education? My guess is the problem lies in the amount of information and data we have in today's world. You would think that this availability of data drives people towards choosing better, clearer answers but it doesn't. There is so much data that you now simply pick and choose the data that suits you. Then there's false data that misleads you. And then there's the arrogance of having access to all that data at the tip of a button that you do not need advice anymore from peers, relatives, doctors, engineers, sociologists, and older people who generally advocate the calmer, more sensible option; heck, you know it all because you have Google. Every random bloke has highly curated views on science and arts and you name it. (And by extension, an idiot like me can also choose to occasionally `opine'.) It would be good, honestly, if we did away with all this technology for a bit and learned to give one another a tad bit more respect, try and hear each other out for a change, ya know?
Back to Bernie; I had several initial reservations about him. First, someone who advocates the Scandinavian economic and social model for a country of the size and population density as the US is grossly out of touch with reality. Norway is basically a Western Saudi Arabia; people have progressive social values, yeah, but you're talking about a very homogeneous country with a TINY population of around 5 million living off huge reserves of oil and gas. Even so, over 50% of Norwegians survive directly with the aid of public welfare, a system that is completely unfeasible for a country as large as the US. Sweden has a tiny population living off of massive reserves of forests and iron ore; it still benefits from its relative isolation during the second World War that generally ravaged its major trading partners in Europe. Previously, Sweden's main export was Volvo and Nokia. Volvo went bankrupt and was bought out by a Chinese firm while the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy have practically wiped out Nokia. The remarkable figure of merit here is that Nokia's downfall alone has raised the unemployment level in Sweden by 5 percentage points.
Even with the above economic reservations out of the way, I was dismayed at Bernie's poor record with guns. Maybe I'm completely out of touch with the whole of America on this issue, but I simply do not understand how it can be okay for any average Joe to carry around firearms with them. I find it hard to swallow how glibly conservatives state that a person could have killed just as well with a knife as with an assault rifle---umm no, carrying out a mass-killing with a knife is insanely harder than with an automated gun---the last `mass stabbing' amounted to a total of 3 victims (recall the ``you ain't muslim bro" video; link); life lost is always unfortunate but it is important to note that it in no way compares to the number of lives lost in gun violence. Conservatives also point to Europe quickly to say that, even though Europe has strong anti-gun laws, ISIS has carried out its worst attacks in Europe. This conveniently ignores the fact that Europe suffers the sad fate of having a porous border with ISIS-threatened states unlike the US where you must fly in and go through an intense immigration examination. Just imagine what would happen if it was as easy to buy these guns of war in Europe as it is, apparently, in the US. But even liberals in this country do not want guns out of the streets and many give similar arguments as to those given by the conservatives. For all the liberal talk, Mr. Bernie Sanders has taken donations from the NRA, and has opposed a bill to hold accountable gun store owners for not doing enough background checks before selling their wares to customers.
Even so, there were moments during the first few debates back in December/January that I thought Bernie raised some good points. Bernie asserted that the major issue with healthcare in America is not so much universal coverage but the cost of it in the first place. He said that the predatory involvement of private insurance companies has led to massive inflation of hospital costs making healthcare unaffordable for the common American; he lent his backing to the idea of a centralized insurance, or single-payer system to address these rising costs. I'm not sure what the real pros and cons of this system are and I'm weary of a wasteful body like the government dealing directly with money flow, but I was happy to hear someone at least focus on the idea that healthcare costs in America need to be brought down in a time when the dominant conversation amongst politicians is about providing more people with the same inflated insurance coverage.
Example. Our friend recently caught the Norovirus. She was fit to drive herself to the hospital but the hospital insisted on having her call the ambulance and assured her that the insurance would cover the costs. The 1-mile ambulance ride was billed at 8k dollars. (Insane.) Little to no haggling but haggling nonetheless brought that down to 3k. The insurance company refused to pay at first but they finally had to pay up. All that mental stress, the haggling, the harassment, arbitrary and inflated pricing, and unprofessional conduct; this is a torture story that people in one of the most developed countries in the world should not have to go through. Compare this to a story some of my Canadian friends who visited India for the first time told me of their experience---one of them got pretty sick and she desperately needed medical attention. The doctor at the hospital just got her on an IV drip and discharged her without asking for any money reasoning that, it was, after all, a bit of electrolytes and water that were needed. (This is not to paint rosy the bleak condition of healthcare resources in India but to point out how a bit of humanity and common-sense billing can go a long way in helping people out.) Surely the ambulance ride did not have to be billed at 8k? The insurance company paid this cost but only because of the highly inflated cost of insurance in the first place. In this sense, I question whether universal healthcare ala Obama is side-stepping the more urgent issue: how to make healthcare more affordable.
But Bernie Sanders has since then gone from being a politician who wants to engage with the public on the basis of certain respectable economic and social ideals, to a self-proclaimed messiah who's leading a revolution to single-handedly overturn the nexus of crony capitalists and big banks that are running down American people. It is not surprising that his aggressive oratory before the California state primaries led to his supporters throwing chairs on to the stage and threatening Debbie Shultz, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair for her perceived bias towards getting Hillary to win the Democratic nomination. Sanders could not so much as apologize for his supporters actions but instead said of the matter, that it was to be expected since the people are angry at the way the democratic process is being subverted by the DNC. This is a particularly farcical accusation considering Hillary at that stage, and now, holds both more popular votes and popular delegates.
Given how Bernie and Trump derive their popular appeal from populist ideals backed with aggressive, `rage against the machine' kind of oratory, it is not at all surprising, that CNN polled over a third of the Democrats who supported Bernie as being ready to jump ship and vote Trump 2016 if Hillary became the Democratic nominee. I think that itself is perhaps the most damning indictment of Bernie's campaign.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
And so finally we come to one Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary is a unique proposition. I'm not quite sure why I support her. I'm not sure I even do support her. (Regardless, I have no vote.) I'm not sure she has offered us any good reason to support her besides the fact that she has a long history as a public servant, and that she would, in her own words, continue President Obama's policies. `Make America Whole Again' as opposed to Trump's `Make America Great Again' makes me wonder if she's trying to sell milk products to America instead of running a political campaign in a time when the world desperately needs new ways of thinking about important economic questions related to globalization, immigration, environmental reform and the ever-growing threat of Islamism.
While I appreciate that Hillary attempts to present various sides to any argument before providing her endorsement---a more nuanced view exhibits, to my mind, both a necessary intelligence and a statesman-like temperament---it often seems her answers come not from a deeply held conviction or belief but mere political expedience. For instance, she says she supports raising the minimum wage when being grilled by Bernie in a public debate, but talks about being conservative about it, and keeping in mind concerns of small-shop owners, when she's speaking separately to independents. Hillary appears to be perpetually frightened by the possibility of alienating voters to the extent that it drives what she says and where she says it.
The fact of the matter though is that she must know what she is doing because she has more or less wrapped up the Democratic nomination. Her strategy of towing Obama's line gave her a free pass with African Americans which allowed her to handsomely consolidate delegates from southern states where a large number of Democrats are of African American heritage. By appealing to the milky goodness of `Make America Whole Again', that luscious good feeling of how America is for everyone and how we will continue to be a great country by not doing much other than loving each other seems to have worked fairly well with minorities and has given her enough votes to stay neck-to-neck with Bernie in all the other states. And then being a Democrat of yore has meant she was handed a large initial super-delegate lead which was always going to be hard for Bernie to surpass.
Political machinations aside, Hillary has failed to come across as an inspiring candidate. In fact, at times her submissive towing of Obama's line, repeating that she will bring Obama's policies to fruition has left me angry. I absolutely hate it when women, especially those who are educated and in a position of strength, act like doormats and it is a sad proposition that the first female nominee of any major American political party is asking for votes on the platform that she will simply continue someone else's policies.
But Hillary knows of her lack of charm and had admitted as much to the press sometime ago this year. She says she isn't like her husband who can go around and give these excellent speeches and sound convincing and inspiring. (Sure, Bill, we all know how that helped you out.) She tries to present herself then as this person who knows how to work the channels but cannot necessarily project her behind-the-scenes persona into her speeches. But this is again not really acceptable. Being a statesman is also about being charismatic and getting people to feel enthused about your plans and buy into your ideas. Being a statesman also involves talking to different political constituents, business partners, foreign leaders and much more.
I hope Hillary can win against Trump but it is going to be a hard fought battle. Here's hoping that we will see a more fiery and enthusiastic version of Hillary when she rounds off against Trump. Because so far, it's not been very convincing.
Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the prominent players of the primary season represent many different faces of the American populace and along with that, a fairly broad set of economic and social ideals. This is, in my opinion, and unlike those ridiculing the rise of a figure like Trump, or Drumpf as they say, an impressive achievement for a secular democracy--it reflects a populace with a diverse background of motivations and opinions and that is ready to participate in fair political process to demonstrate it. Sometimes it gets looney, but that is rather limited, and I reckon the looneys exist equally on both the liberal and conservative ends of the spectrum.
Here I discuss my thoughts on the various candidates, especially Trump, Sanders and Hillary in the hope that I may also be able to fine-tune my assessment of their various policy stances through the process of writing this post.
So let's start with Trump. In my mind, Trump represents (largely) two sets of reactionary forces. One, there is a section of the white populace that is less educated but has traditionally enjoyed a decent standard of living working blue-collar manufacturing jobs. The rise of cheap (and predatory) Chinese manufacturing in the past three decades has dismantled the economic position of these people. They have also had to face a lowering wage structure as an unregulated influx of cheap Mexican labor has flooded the American market. These are traditional Republican voters who stand disenchanted with the American political process. The Republican party, in no way differently from the Democratic party, has refused to take up their cause because cheap immigrant labor is vital to many industries whose rich donations keep afloat the mega-money election process. I feel for these people, because even if they may be opposed to the idea of America as a multi-cultural society, these people have a right to their economic interests being protected by the American political system which I do not see happening.
That said, it is worthwhile to ask why these people do not expect themselves to compete with Mexicans for cheap labor jobs. Perhaps this is due to generational inertia; American kids have grown up seeing their parents enjoy a relatively comfortable life working daily wage jobs and they probably expect a similar standard of living for themselves. The issue is that we live in a highly globalized economy so if you cannot re-imagine yourself and find a place in the system, someone else will do so. This inertia, or fatigue among the original inhabitants, as I understand, is a large part of what drives the immigration policy of many rich economies.
Europe, for instance, has long remained fairly isolated due to strict anti-immigration policies. I remember during the English Language Proficiency sessions that I partook in when first joining Harvard, I had discussed this issue with an Italian girl. She had proudly stated that you could not become an Italian citizen without having Italian blood. This obsession with ethnic purity has generally hampered Europe's progress. There are factories upon factories in Germany for instance, that need laborers but cannot attract young Germans. The new generation wants to settle in cities and do something more exciting and (or) profitable. The unwanted factory jobs are the kinds that immigrants don't mind taking up.
Europe is only now beginning to realize that much of America's growth story can be attributed to this openness to immigration; perhaps the greatest rise in America fortunes came on the back of the exodus of persecuted Jewish and other minorities after the Second World War and after that, the opening up of America's doors to Indian and East Asian immigrants in the 60s under Lyndon B. Johnson. The establishment of the European Union was a first step towards this end; the free movement of people across Europe's borders has generally benefited Europe, but perhaps not as much as some would have previously ascertained. This may be down to the choice of a single currency which has hampered the ability of poorer countries like Greece and Italy to regulate trade and commerce. And in the light of this, Europe is becoming more open to immigration from non-European nations.
I had an interesting conversation the other day with a professor from Spain. He told me that Spain's immigration policy is focussed on getting semi-skilled migrant workers from Morocco. He said that immigration from Andalusia into Madrid, for instance, does not help drive Spain's economy as much as the immigration from Morocco (even though the geographical separation between the two is not much at all). As is true for immigrants generally, for the Moroccan immigrant into Spain, even a modest wage by Spanish standards represents a wage increase that is far more significant and infinitely more compelling than any increase in riches for a Spanish native from Andalusia.
But of course while immigration makes a lot of economic sense, it will always remain a tricky topic. For one, there's always a gnawing question in my mind: are capitalists piggybacking on the shoulders of liberals to foist upon local people levels of immigration that are simply unmanageable? Is excess growth, a few points more on the GDP scale, all that nations and human society must constantly strive to achieve? Americans are working longer hours, getting paid less, all in the hope that this will enable continued growth for the nation, and probably fund more iPads, and cars and other such things that are now perceived as essentials for living. But are they?
And then we enter the murky region of nationalism based on language, ethnicity and culture. What is the immigrant's right to cultural preservation? What is the right of the local people to ask the immigrant to conform to their cultural standards? Should the state actively participate in enforcing the assimilation of immigrants into the host society? The second set of forces that supports Trump is one that sees immigration as a threat to the social fabric of the society. Unlike the previous group of Trump supporters, this one is more diverse. I think a lot of people who may vote for Trump in the end may align with him based on his anti-immigration stance; a thorny issue that certainly seems to have been the major driving force behind the Leave campaign and the Brexit vote. While these questions deserve a political discussion, I often find Trump's comments on the matter, which I get the sense he seems to pass off as policy proposals, both unfounded and bordering on the dangerous.
For instance, take his exhortation to his followers to attack (online, with words, and other vitriol) a US-born judge who delivered a verdict against the scummy Trump University, on the basis that the judge's Mexican heritage influenced his decision. Heck, even Kayleigh Mcenany, recent Harvard Law school grad turned CNN political pundit who agrees with literally everything Trump has to say, was forced to disagree with him on this. I also disagree with Trump's blanket statements like," ban all muslim immigration". I was shocked that my extended family in the US that is otherwise entirely Democrat is more than willing to entertain this idea of Trump's. Recently when my parents visited us here in the US, we went to the home of a Sikh family who left India in the 80s; my grandparents had sheltered/hid them during the bloody anti-Sikh riots right after the death of Indira Gandhi. I figured that they might have a different view on this matter as being part of a community that had once faced persecution themselves, but it wasn't the case.
The problem with Trump's talk on this matter is, to an extent, about how coarse it is. It does not help America in any way whatsoever when the GOP presidential nominee openly lays suspicion on an entire community. This only creates more distrust among the general population towards this community and can lead to an increase in hate crime and other kinds of hostilities. Take for example the various street attacks on Sikh men that happened soon after Trump's incendiary statements against Muslims. (It is a rather sad matter that Sikhs are often confused with Arab muslims because of their religious tradition of wearing turbans.)
So how did Trump defend this one? After the media backlash, Trump soon backed off from asserting a blanket ban on Muslim immigrants and said instead that there should be greater scrutiny in accepting immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. Here I do not entirely disagree. I believe that any state must be vigilant and smart about where it wants to get its immigrants from and it should reserve the right to do so without castigation. In this sense, I do not see any harm in Trump's suggestion that immigration from Muslim-majority countries should be considered on a case-by-case basis whereby it is made clear by a US officer that the said person does not believe in something as egregious as, say, `all gays will burn in hell', or 'I will make my wife and daughter wear a Burqa all their lives and I will view every other woman who expresses herself in the way she wants as a whore'. This is simply not acceptable, and there are enough poor, forward-thinking and hard-working immigrants from around the world to consider from before accepting barbarians into the country.
(Before I am accused of also broad-brushing an entire community, it helps to look at statistics: Pew Research Study. About 90% of muslims in Asia support the barbaric Sharia Law. About 90% of Egyptians consider the death penalty an appropriate punishment for an apostate from Islam. Omar Mateen's Aghan-born dad posted videos saying that "God will punish all gays"; Omar Mateen is now understood to have been gay himself and could have carried out the attack in a fit of rage driven by self-hate for being gay. Finally, Muslims must introspect why no Muslim-majority society has allowed the peaceful existence of other religious communities.)
Just this morning, I saw on New Day on CNN, Alison Camerota interviewing Sohail Ahmed, the son of Pakistani immigrants in Britain. Sohail is an ex-Jihadi sympathizer, and one who at some point chalked out an elaborate plan to blow things up in London. Sohail says he eventually abandoned such ideas because of the work of a charity anti-terrorism organization that stepped in and helped him reform himself. He also happens to be gay. The conversation with him was enlightening. Sohail said that right from childhood (in London, no less), the local mosque and muslim community drilled it into his psyche that the UK and US are at "war with Muslims", and that they want to destroy Islam. He said that the most damaging aspect of this narrative is this obsession with the idea of "us and them". I think he hit the hammer right on the head with that point.
Us and them
About a month ago, we were out to buy our first car. Often times, the salesman who we would go on a test-drive with happened to be black. This one salesman was a very well-mannered older black man from a farming family in Ohio. I don't remember how the conversation started with him, but we ended up discussing Donald Trump, muslims, gun control and the history of the Irish and Italian mafia in Boston. The conversation eventually veered into the domain of race. This man had exceptionally forward-thinking views. He was strongly in favor of banning all guns besides hunting rifles, and making compulsory basic gun education before getting the right to own a gun. He was a devoted Christian, but he sympathized very strongly with Muslims who he said have suffered a lot over recent years at the hands of America; he encouraged us to watch Fareed Zakaria's documentary, "Why they hate us", which we had been wanting to watch anyway.
But I felt less comfortable listening to his views on racial tensions in America. He suggested that most white people do not understand their "white privilege", that they think of black people as "mud-people" who they wish were as far away from them as possible. He said that white people destroyed Africa, which was back then an amazing place, and he wished that he could go live in Africa once "they could sort some of their issues out". Some of it may be true, while some of it, especially the latter, is false at least by most modern standards of living. But African American history is so blighted by injustice that it is hard not to sympathize with black people here. Racial discrimination, predatory policing and profiling---none of these are yet a thing of the past. And there is a seething anger amongst black people due to these injustices.
But is this anger really productive? This is a difficult topic to address. When this anger comes out on college campuses, it often seems like a farce, at least to me. Take the case of Dorothy Bland, the Dean of the school of journalism at U. North Texas, who made up a story of how she got arrested walking the street because she is black, or the intense rage depicted by young liberals, black, white or blue, over a harmless email discussing Halloween costumes by the Yale lecturer Erika Christakis, or this demand letter from black students at Oberlin college demanding `exclusive black safe spaces' among other things that violate any sense of justice and equality. And finally, what was Black Lives Matter doing interrupting the Toronto Pride Parade (link)? (To be clear, I think BLM is an indispensable movement against police brutality and I fully support it otherwise.)
These movements take away from the real problems that black people face in America and it gives all the more ammunition needed for Republicans to summarily dispel any idea that the country has race issues. It makes those people say that the shooting of unarmed black teenagers such as in Ferguson is down to statistics (given black people commit so much more crime in the US). It makes all the unjust, and racially-biased sentencing, such as that of falsely convicted Brian Banks getting 6 years for rape he did not commit as opposed to one Brock Turner getting 6 months and less for rape that he did, such as one 18 year old black kid getting 162 years in prison for armed robberies in which no one was hurt, disappear into the background.
It is my observation that much of the same anger hounds Muslims across the world; this time the enemy is Israel, the West, the Jews, Christians, and Hindus. And this mass-scale anger, funded through Mosques operated by Imams on the payroll of the Wahabbi Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and Qatar is what is producing the droves of Jihadis out there. As long as the community does not see beyond this problematic way of thinking and shuns vengeful local Imams, there is nothing that Western liberals can do or say to stem the tide of Jihadi violence. There is no amount of rallying against Islamophobia that can take away the anger of Muslim societies against the West. This is for Muslim societies to introspect: why are they filling their children with so much hate for everyone else? Calling a spade a spade may then be the best strategy from the point of view of the US, along with carefully screening immigrants from Muslim-majority nations while keeping a strict eye on the kinds of sermons handed out in Mosques in the US.
The American Liberal and Bernie Sanders
Amidst all this rage and confusion is the American liberal. The American liberal, like their Indian counterparts, and I'm guessing, really all liberals around the world are driven by two basic impulses: justice, sure but also an immense savior complex. The modern liberal often fails to appreciate, at any level, the line of thinking of conservatives because the modern liberal is often too egotistic to entertain any fact or opposing view-point that does not fall in line with the well-drummed narrative of an overbearing majority oppressing the minority. Not only is this narrative often a naive representation of the reality, it deprives minority communities of the urge and really, the duty, to introspect. It creates a huge victim mentality which disallows people to set higher standards for themselves. And sadly, it is at the centers of academic excellence, such as universities, where the most open-minded individuals of different backgrounds (should) congregate, that we sorely lack a different perspective to the liberal narrative. Bernie Sanders, to me, is an incarnation of this rage.
But before I discuss Bernie Sanders, I want to ask why is the modern liberal so out-of-touch with the conservatives? Why is there so much bi-polarity in world views amongst people, especially when so many more are enjoying a better education? My guess is the problem lies in the amount of information and data we have in today's world. You would think that this availability of data drives people towards choosing better, clearer answers but it doesn't. There is so much data that you now simply pick and choose the data that suits you. Then there's false data that misleads you. And then there's the arrogance of having access to all that data at the tip of a button that you do not need advice anymore from peers, relatives, doctors, engineers, sociologists, and older people who generally advocate the calmer, more sensible option; heck, you know it all because you have Google. Every random bloke has highly curated views on science and arts and you name it. (And by extension, an idiot like me can also choose to occasionally `opine'.) It would be good, honestly, if we did away with all this technology for a bit and learned to give one another a tad bit more respect, try and hear each other out for a change, ya know?
Back to Bernie; I had several initial reservations about him. First, someone who advocates the Scandinavian economic and social model for a country of the size and population density as the US is grossly out of touch with reality. Norway is basically a Western Saudi Arabia; people have progressive social values, yeah, but you're talking about a very homogeneous country with a TINY population of around 5 million living off huge reserves of oil and gas. Even so, over 50% of Norwegians survive directly with the aid of public welfare, a system that is completely unfeasible for a country as large as the US. Sweden has a tiny population living off of massive reserves of forests and iron ore; it still benefits from its relative isolation during the second World War that generally ravaged its major trading partners in Europe. Previously, Sweden's main export was Volvo and Nokia. Volvo went bankrupt and was bought out by a Chinese firm while the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy have practically wiped out Nokia. The remarkable figure of merit here is that Nokia's downfall alone has raised the unemployment level in Sweden by 5 percentage points.
Even with the above economic reservations out of the way, I was dismayed at Bernie's poor record with guns. Maybe I'm completely out of touch with the whole of America on this issue, but I simply do not understand how it can be okay for any average Joe to carry around firearms with them. I find it hard to swallow how glibly conservatives state that a person could have killed just as well with a knife as with an assault rifle---umm no, carrying out a mass-killing with a knife is insanely harder than with an automated gun---the last `mass stabbing' amounted to a total of 3 victims (recall the ``you ain't muslim bro" video; link); life lost is always unfortunate but it is important to note that it in no way compares to the number of lives lost in gun violence. Conservatives also point to Europe quickly to say that, even though Europe has strong anti-gun laws, ISIS has carried out its worst attacks in Europe. This conveniently ignores the fact that Europe suffers the sad fate of having a porous border with ISIS-threatened states unlike the US where you must fly in and go through an intense immigration examination. Just imagine what would happen if it was as easy to buy these guns of war in Europe as it is, apparently, in the US. But even liberals in this country do not want guns out of the streets and many give similar arguments as to those given by the conservatives. For all the liberal talk, Mr. Bernie Sanders has taken donations from the NRA, and has opposed a bill to hold accountable gun store owners for not doing enough background checks before selling their wares to customers.
Even so, there were moments during the first few debates back in December/January that I thought Bernie raised some good points. Bernie asserted that the major issue with healthcare in America is not so much universal coverage but the cost of it in the first place. He said that the predatory involvement of private insurance companies has led to massive inflation of hospital costs making healthcare unaffordable for the common American; he lent his backing to the idea of a centralized insurance, or single-payer system to address these rising costs. I'm not sure what the real pros and cons of this system are and I'm weary of a wasteful body like the government dealing directly with money flow, but I was happy to hear someone at least focus on the idea that healthcare costs in America need to be brought down in a time when the dominant conversation amongst politicians is about providing more people with the same inflated insurance coverage.
Example. Our friend recently caught the Norovirus. She was fit to drive herself to the hospital but the hospital insisted on having her call the ambulance and assured her that the insurance would cover the costs. The 1-mile ambulance ride was billed at 8k dollars. (Insane.) Little to no haggling but haggling nonetheless brought that down to 3k. The insurance company refused to pay at first but they finally had to pay up. All that mental stress, the haggling, the harassment, arbitrary and inflated pricing, and unprofessional conduct; this is a torture story that people in one of the most developed countries in the world should not have to go through. Compare this to a story some of my Canadian friends who visited India for the first time told me of their experience---one of them got pretty sick and she desperately needed medical attention. The doctor at the hospital just got her on an IV drip and discharged her without asking for any money reasoning that, it was, after all, a bit of electrolytes and water that were needed. (This is not to paint rosy the bleak condition of healthcare resources in India but to point out how a bit of humanity and common-sense billing can go a long way in helping people out.) Surely the ambulance ride did not have to be billed at 8k? The insurance company paid this cost but only because of the highly inflated cost of insurance in the first place. In this sense, I question whether universal healthcare ala Obama is side-stepping the more urgent issue: how to make healthcare more affordable.
But Bernie Sanders has since then gone from being a politician who wants to engage with the public on the basis of certain respectable economic and social ideals, to a self-proclaimed messiah who's leading a revolution to single-handedly overturn the nexus of crony capitalists and big banks that are running down American people. It is not surprising that his aggressive oratory before the California state primaries led to his supporters throwing chairs on to the stage and threatening Debbie Shultz, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair for her perceived bias towards getting Hillary to win the Democratic nomination. Sanders could not so much as apologize for his supporters actions but instead said of the matter, that it was to be expected since the people are angry at the way the democratic process is being subverted by the DNC. This is a particularly farcical accusation considering Hillary at that stage, and now, holds both more popular votes and popular delegates.
Given how Bernie and Trump derive their popular appeal from populist ideals backed with aggressive, `rage against the machine' kind of oratory, it is not at all surprising, that CNN polled over a third of the Democrats who supported Bernie as being ready to jump ship and vote Trump 2016 if Hillary became the Democratic nominee. I think that itself is perhaps the most damning indictment of Bernie's campaign.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
And so finally we come to one Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary is a unique proposition. I'm not quite sure why I support her. I'm not sure I even do support her. (Regardless, I have no vote.) I'm not sure she has offered us any good reason to support her besides the fact that she has a long history as a public servant, and that she would, in her own words, continue President Obama's policies. `Make America Whole Again' as opposed to Trump's `Make America Great Again' makes me wonder if she's trying to sell milk products to America instead of running a political campaign in a time when the world desperately needs new ways of thinking about important economic questions related to globalization, immigration, environmental reform and the ever-growing threat of Islamism.
While I appreciate that Hillary attempts to present various sides to any argument before providing her endorsement---a more nuanced view exhibits, to my mind, both a necessary intelligence and a statesman-like temperament---it often seems her answers come not from a deeply held conviction or belief but mere political expedience. For instance, she says she supports raising the minimum wage when being grilled by Bernie in a public debate, but talks about being conservative about it, and keeping in mind concerns of small-shop owners, when she's speaking separately to independents. Hillary appears to be perpetually frightened by the possibility of alienating voters to the extent that it drives what she says and where she says it.
The fact of the matter though is that she must know what she is doing because she has more or less wrapped up the Democratic nomination. Her strategy of towing Obama's line gave her a free pass with African Americans which allowed her to handsomely consolidate delegates from southern states where a large number of Democrats are of African American heritage. By appealing to the milky goodness of `Make America Whole Again', that luscious good feeling of how America is for everyone and how we will continue to be a great country by not doing much other than loving each other seems to have worked fairly well with minorities and has given her enough votes to stay neck-to-neck with Bernie in all the other states. And then being a Democrat of yore has meant she was handed a large initial super-delegate lead which was always going to be hard for Bernie to surpass.
Political machinations aside, Hillary has failed to come across as an inspiring candidate. In fact, at times her submissive towing of Obama's line, repeating that she will bring Obama's policies to fruition has left me angry. I absolutely hate it when women, especially those who are educated and in a position of strength, act like doormats and it is a sad proposition that the first female nominee of any major American political party is asking for votes on the platform that she will simply continue someone else's policies.
But Hillary knows of her lack of charm and had admitted as much to the press sometime ago this year. She says she isn't like her husband who can go around and give these excellent speeches and sound convincing and inspiring. (Sure, Bill, we all know how that helped you out.) She tries to present herself then as this person who knows how to work the channels but cannot necessarily project her behind-the-scenes persona into her speeches. But this is again not really acceptable. Being a statesman is also about being charismatic and getting people to feel enthused about your plans and buy into your ideas. Being a statesman also involves talking to different political constituents, business partners, foreign leaders and much more.
I hope Hillary can win against Trump but it is going to be a hard fought battle. Here's hoping that we will see a more fiery and enthusiastic version of Hillary when she rounds off against Trump. Because so far, it's not been very convincing.
