Dr. Ibrahim Al-Othaimin
Many of the observers of the US elections were shocked as Donald J. Trump was announced the president-elect of the United States of America. The news was marked by protests that swept across the United States condemning his victory. There was every indication in the run-up to the election that Hillary Clinton would become the first woman to be president of the United States, which was also predicted by various polls. At the same time, as reported by the highly reputed magazine, The Atlantic, major US newspapers, including the New York Times, openly supported Clinton urging readers to cast their votes for her. Hence, Trump’s victory was considered out of the question. Yet, after the electoral madness, a deeper analytical view of the subject matter indicates that Trump’s takeover of the White House was largely predictable for two main reasons:
Firstly, the use of emotional discourse. All US presidents, the Republicans in particular, have used emotional over rational rhetoric in their presidential campaigns. The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, by Drew Westen of Emory University, looks into the extent to which presidential candidates used human emotions in their presidential campaigns and debates in order to win the hearts of voters in US presidential elections between 1950 and 2000. He concludes that the human brain is not just a rational neural cluster that is capable of “weighing the objectivity of evidence and drawing proper conclusions to make the right decision.” It is rather a neural cluster that can be emotionally influenced and provoked. Hence, many decisions are besieged by emotions. Trump significantly increased the emotional dose in order to win the silent majority of people. He focused on the daily bread issues of voters, including jobs, border security, crimes committed by immigrants, foreign trade and “Islamic terrorism”. Most of his speeches contained one or more of these issues. His rhetoric, therefore, swept across many segments of US society, especially the majority of whites.
Secondly, the global “trend” of far-right politics. Putting the Trump phenomenon in its global context reveals that it is part of a global trend that is leaning toward the rise of far-right politics. This is not merely a popular rise, but is rather becoming strongly evident in the official course of the political process. An overview of the reach of far-right parties shows tremendous electoral success in an increasing number of European countries. In France for example, the far-right politician Marine Le Pen has been the president of the National Front Party since January 2011. Her father, the far-right politician, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was the founder and former president of the party. She was elected a member of the European Parliament in 2004 and re-elected in 2009. In one of her extremist statements, she referred to Muslims’ performance of prayers on the streets as resembling the Nazi occupation. These statements have been condemned by the French political class as a whole. Currently, she intends to stand in the French presidential elections in 2017.
In Britain, there is Nigel Farage, the former leader of the far-right UK Independence Party, and one of the most prominent advocates of Brexit. In an interview for Channel 4 with former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, Farage labeled British Muslims as a “fifth column”. He added that there has never before been a migrant group like Muslims, who want to “change who we are and what we are.” Farage’s aim appears to be to get rid of “irrelevant” anti-discrimination laws.
In addition, there is the far-right Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, who became a member of the Dutch House of Representatives in 1998. Wilders is the founder and leader of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, a party that is known for its anti-immigration tendencies against Muslims in particular. Such far-right parties are distinguished from the right-wing by advocating “nationalism”.
Therefore, Trump may be different from the European far-right movement in style, but they all share the same extremist views of focusing on “nationalism” in a way that may incite hate and racism against the “different other” in violation of the declared basic rights advocated by the West. As professor of international relations and political economy, Dr. Bahjat Quarni puts it, the grave danger of Trump’s pattern of thinking lies in the fact that “he is not running for presidency in a marginal country, but in the biggest country of the world that has unprecedented military power, global cultural impact, and the technology for intellectual invasion of the world”.
Finally, Trump, the candidate, may not be very different from Trump, the president, but he will also not differ greatly from the far-right political course. The formation of his government, from the Supreme Court to the Department of State, clearly reflects his inclination to the far-right movement, as some of the appointed personalities have racist and isolationist political views.
— Dr. Ibrahim Al-Othaimin is a Middle East affairs specialist and security analyst based in Riyadh. He can be contacted at Ibrahim.othaimin@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @Alothaimin
