August 13, 2016
By Saeed Qureshi
Donald Trump the Republican Party nominee for the 2016 presidential elections should not be the president because he doesn’t speak for the whole American nation but for specific segments and their interests. He is focused on petty and non-issues such as building a wall between Mexico and USA and blocking the immigration. He has yet to come up with distinctive and fundamental plans and perceptions that can make America further greater and stronger. He hasn’t offered any substantial contours of his foreign policy.
He would pursue a politics of division and discrimination evidenced from his denunciation of minorities, Muslim Americans, Mexicans and women, etc. Ostensibly If he wants to impose stringent restrictions on immigration that how one can differentiate between a pluralistic and cosmopolitan America with Russia and China and many other countries that don’t allow the people from around the world to come through a well laid-out immigration process and lead decent lives. United States is an oasis and a haven for the uprooted and wrongly persecuted people from around the world.
Donald Trump possesses a unique and peculiar temperament. At best he is a non-conformist. Irrespective of the caution and restraint needed in canvassing all the more for the highest office of the president of the United States, he is prone to making statements and remarks in his public rallies and media interviews that could be termed as wild and indiscreet. Either he willfully projects himself as daring in condemnation of his opponents or there is a kind of method in his recklessness.
Even a novice and upstart in politics and more so contesting presidential office has to placate, stimulate and cultivate his audiences and electorates. Yet Donald Trump is not cast in the mold of holding his tongue-lashing and desist from issuing controversial and rowdy remarks.He would not mind painting women as fat pigs, the Latinos or specifically Mexicans as “criminals, drug dealers, rapists” and the Muslims as terrorists. Donald Trump is shorn of the political discretion, caution and restraint to cover up his wild emotions and perceptions. On top of it he is at dagger’s drawn with quite a few Republican stalwarts.
Of late he labeled president Obama as the founder of the ISIS: the army of Islamic militants fighting in Iraq and Syria. He has also bracketed his Democratic contestant Madam Hillary Clinton as accomplice of Obama in creating that ferocious terrorist outfit. Now this is preposterous and indeed reflects a racial or abnormal mindset. Such a remark about the president of United States is also tantamount to disgracing the people who elected him.
As a matter of fact, president Obama’s track record is brilliant in serving United States and its people after the mayhem created by his Republican predecessor George W Bush. If Obama had not been popular and his policies and decisions were counterproductive or fallacious, he would not have been elected for the second term. That is an eloquent testimony to his caliber and his popularity and endorsement of his remarkable achievements during his tenure in office.
Instead of foul mouthing, recriminations and throwing mud on the democratic leaders and calling names and indulging in blame games, he should have rather focused on his agenda and forcefully argued and canvassed his programs and policies.
Due to his inconsistency, aggressive postures and foul cartelization of certain sections of the American society based upon gender and different faith, his popular rating has drastically plummeted. Of late he is 9 points behind Hillary Clinton. He is faced with serious debacles in various key states including Utah and Ohio which he himself has acknowledged in his speech made at the Republican rally in Pennsylvania.
The economy turnaround that he often talks about in his public meetings cannot be successful as his own economic empire was not built entirely through fair and legitimate means. He is resisting presentation of his tax returns on the grounds that IRS was already probing his taxation issues.
Logically there cannot be a comparison between financial management of a company and that of a country. But since his assets and wealth and properties are being questioned for loopholes, his claim of strengthening American economic regime seems to be hollow.
American people do not need a” bull in China shop” but a prudent, enlightened, farsighted and temperamentally stable president. The McCarthyism, arm twisting or to tame the recalcitrant states with armed intervention is no more relevant nor productive in the present times. America has been directly engaged in fruitless military conflicts after the second world war in Viet Nam, Korea and the Middle East and Afghanistan which in fact later boomeranged.
Those military adventures proved to be counterproductive in the longer run. Yes, there can be an international efforts and cooperation for defeating the later day militants and to make the world a safer abode. Such an endeavor would be best for the mankind and the United States can lead that sublime revolution. Merely by dropping a bomb on a hostile country or fighting all by herself against the terrorists and despotic regime like that of Bashar al Asad in Syrian would be ineffective and remain interminable.
As for building a wall like “China Wall” between USA and Mexico, only a person detached from ground realities can conceive such an absurd project. Even if the wall is built it cannot hold back the incoming illegal immigrants from south America. Moreover, massive funds would be needed for such a gigantic undertaking and the Congress is not going to sanction that staggering spending.
A massive force of thousands of guards would be needed to protect it round the clock from being breached or demolished at various places by the poachers, desperate smugglers and entrants. There would be innumerable legal cases filed by the land and farm owners whose land and orchards would be taken over by the Trump administration.
Those cases might take decades to be decided one way or the other. This project is mere kite-flying that can never materialize. We have seen the Berlin Wall (built in 1961) and later demolished (between 1989-1992). That wall separated the German nation into communist and non-communist countries. Its total length was 96 miles.
The adverse economic fallout by the “Trump Wall” would be staggering. Hundreds and thousands of acres of land would become unutilized for farming. The mountains, cliffs, the forests and jungles would have to be blasted or partly removed for the wall to go along 2000 miles long border. As such it is a utopian idea that looks attractive on the paper but is practically unattainable and ruinous.
No comments:
Post a Comment