One of the advantages of being an American citizen living abroad is that you can register to vote using an absentee ballot and send it in by e-mail. On Tuesday, I cast my vote in the U.S. general election for Democrats Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. This is not a statement of patriotic duty. In fact, my nationality has never been a defining factor when it comes to my own sense of identity. Yet, more than ever before, I felt an obligation to take part in the U.S. election, not because I’m an American but because I believe that civic responsibilities extend beyond the borders of any one country.
Hillary, the right choiceMs. Clinton will make a good president of the U.S. and she will carry forward the struggles and ideals of the Barack Obama administration in the admirable tradition of liberal American politics. She will be the first woman to lead the U.S., which is as important as Mr. Obama being the first African-American president. There are those who may be cynical about these symbolic milestones of democracy but when the majority of Americans make that choice it is a significant moment in history, not just for the U.S. but for the world at large.
At the same time, the phenomenon of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, has added a grotesque visage to the global pantheon of political demagogues. As a real estate tycoon, he is a man who has invented and reinvented himself, which is not unusual in American society. The bluster and braggadocio that he brings to his business deals and his ability to market himself as a product of capitalism is not unusual in a country that celebrates outspoken individualism and adversarial competition. But it’s not Trump the businessman who frightens me. It’s Trump the candidate because he is, in essence, a creation of the enemies he wants to destroy.
Trump, the sum of all fearsSince 9/11 the American public have felt the threat of terrorism within their borders. Al-Qaeda and now IS (or whatever shape-shifting acronym applies) have become the frightening avatars of American anxieties. The threats, of course, are very real and there is no denying that radical Islamist militias are at war with the West. But this is not a conventional conflict.
The fundamental strategy of terrorism is to create fear, anger and loathing — it is anarchic and nihilistic, attacking progressive ideals and institutions. With Trump the candidate, terrorists have succeeded in letting the American genie out of the bottle. Yet there is nothing genial about him, nor is he inclined to grant anyone’s wishes but his own. Mr. Trump would be the perfect American President from the perspective of terrorists around the globe because he personifies and voices right-wing xenophobia in a self-destructive rampage of bigoted rhetoric. As others have noted, he makes it much easier to attract disaffected young recruits to the cause of the IS and its ilk.
Here in India, there are those who have celebrated the candidacy of Mr. Trump because he is anti-Muslim. Obviously, America does not have a monopoly on xenophobia. It would be short-sighted and naïve for anyone to think that Mr. Trump, as president, will be a friend of India, or any other country for that matter. He is a knee-jerk isolationist and just as he continues to rant about American jobs being sent to Mexico, he sees India as a nation to which the American economy has been outsourced. His racist, misanthropic comments do not distinguish between black and brown, or even off-white.
American elections, as seen from abroad, are often described as an interminable and chaotic exercise in collective ignorance. Enormous wealth and military might have given the U.S. a claim to being leader of the so-called “Free World”. But today, Americans are afraid of the future. There is no doubt that the only way the U.S. can maintain its power and influence is through what Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton refer to as “an interconnected world”, that depends on international treaties and trade deals rather than retreating into an impermeable and impervious shell as Mr. Trump suggests. Nevertheless, if we believe the polls, half the American public wants to elect a man who rejects common sense, whether it comes to global issues like climate change or his fellow demagogue, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A Trump victory would be a defeat for the U.S. but also for the world as a whole. He may be a caricature of the bloated, egotistical and ugly American, but there is no ironic punchline to this joke. Instead, there is something inescapably dangerous about him because he and his supporters fail to understand that Mr. Trump is an incarnation of all our fears and prejudices. He is an American nightmare conjured up by those who seek to turn us against ourselves.
Stephen Alter is an American writer born in India.
