More than Trump's victory, this was Hillary's failure

Nobody in Kenya believed it could happen. None of my friends in the United States thought it would happen.

Democrats thanked God that the Republican Party chose Trump to fight against invincible Hillary.

The US elections were a frightening reality show, a test to the intelligence of modern democracy. The media overestimated its own power and underestimated the shrewdness of a candidate we did not, and still do not, know.

A good number of Republicans had long cursed the day Trump secured the nomination. The only thing Trump would achieve, they said, is to make Hillary President and destroy the Republican Party.

Yet it happened. America is truly the land of unexpected results.

Nobody knows who lied the most, whether it was polls, the media or the people. Against all predictions too, US markets have also risen to record highs.

CNN says the Dow opened at a new all-time high and the S&P 500 was inches away from a new record, while the Mexican Peso has lost 14 per cent. “The reason is simple. Markets thrive in uncertainty, and Donald Trump is uncertainty on steroids.”

How could the polls be so wrong? In March 2016 there were already worrying signs in the race for the White House. On 10 March 2016, I wrote:

“Trump’s presidential bid seems to have gained irreversible momentum. The whole world may hate him, but the world does not vote for a US president, only Americans do.”

It was meant to be the end of the Republican Party, yet it turned out to be a new birth. The Republicans have swept the presidency and the two Houses. Donald Trump set the right trap; he embodied the neo-American dream: thrash and thrive, get it done, no matter how.

Mr Trump is not dumb. He reached the White House by manipulating three key elements: grandiose dreams with a pinch of nationalism, the media, and the advantage of a non-likeable opponent.

GRANDIOSE DREAMS

Trump manipulated too many unexposed Americans into the selfish pursuit of a personal, romantic dream of a past long gone, the American dream.

America’s amazing traditional social mobility is now past. Too many simple people saw in Trump a Jedi who can bring back these past dreams.

Modern election machinery has turned candidates into demigods. We seek redemption and salvation from them, the neo-messiahs. They believe it, and often fall into the political gluttony of promising a heaven they cannot deliver; and while at it they run down the economy.

This is what populists do. They make beautiful promises, with an attractive pinch of nationalism.

Idi Amin’s Africa for Africans lasted until the Indian-occupied shops’ stock was spent. The Chavez-Maduro ‘Oil for the Venezuelans’ killed an already poorly diversified economy.

Hitler’s Aryan race superiority slogans, and now Trump’s “Make America great again” pitched two-generation immigrants against neo-immigrants.

MAJESTIC MEDIA STRATEGY

Betty Hernandez, a highly educated young professional who settled in Austin, Texas, some years ago, explained to me that the newly-arrived New York magnate, known as a media figure because of his own television program, achieved maximum popularity thanks to an apparent marriage of convenience to the media.

She says that for months, cascades of images, sounds, letters and ink fattened the image of Trump, amplified by television, by his own TV programmes. It was an unprecedented orgy of information, at the stroke of shrill headlines.

Betty says that Trump managed to get the equivalent of $3 billion (as calculated by Anthony Gaughan) in free advertising with his inflammatory statements, loud uproars and a natural talent for celebrity.

For months, the best communication strategists warned ‘ignore him!’ for they knew this was the best antidote to the candidate’s venom of insults and excesses. But this advice turned out to be an impossible task thanks to the hunger of big media ratings.

When they finally realised the size of the monster they had awakened, it was too late. They even tried to openly destroy him but it had the opposite effect. Many people saw these attacks on Trump as the final kicks of a system that wanted to maintain the status quo and refused to die.

In any case, the media was not sincere. They could have foreseen this but they had taken sides, they were blind guiding the blind. It was not really Trump who won the election, it was Twitter.

The real losers were CNN and a host of other houses that misguided the public on what was really foreseeable.

This election has changed the way election media will be managed in future.

NON-LIKEABLE OPPONENT

Trump must not forget this was, more than his own victory, Hillary’s defeat and failure; this was the result of what in Spanish is called voto castigo.

“Voto castigo” does not have a literal translation in English; it is a sort of “punishment vote”, the kind of situation that would push somebody to say “I did not vote for Trump, I simply voted against Hillary.”

In fact, Hillary obtained far less votes than Obama, while some people who do not usually vote decided to vote for Trump. I recommend here the reading of McGillis’ Revenge of the forgotten class.

Hillary was a conventional candidate, predictable, measured, coldblooded and brutal. She represented the status quo, the system, continuity.

Donald was a maverick outsider, a man who embodied our modern culture with few and feeble convictions and shaky, changing values. He is superficial, immature, intelligent, pragmatic, manipulative, a media celeb and filthy rich from obscure ventures.  

The white American middle class and lower middle class were looking for somebody unpredictable; someone who would shake up the system.

The focus on minorities kept this huge class of people disengaged from the American dream. This might explain the huge strength of the Trump phenomenon in the little-known rural United Sates. The middle class is in debt and quality education is unaffordable.

Trump consistently accused the current government of designing a financial recovery plan that turned out to be the slowest recovery in history.

He appointed himself the messiah of the dispossessed, and he promised them work and a future. In addition, he used insecurity and racial changes in the United States to motivate voters.

He may fulfil his promises of reducing taxes, simplifying regulatory processes and increasing infrastructure expenditure to jumpstart the economy.

Trump will not be a standard president. He won the White House by waging one of the most divisive and polarising campaigns in American political history.

The 2016 election made clear that America is a nation deeply divided along racial, cultural and class lines, but the country will survive Trump.

Again, in a totally unforeseeable move, Donald Trump gave an unexpectedly welcoming, sensible victory speech. He was not Trump the candidate but spoke about unity, kindness and working with willing nations. He even praised Hillary Clinton.

We still don’t know what is in store for America. Will the real Trump please stand up?

Dr Franceschi is the dean of Strathmore Law School. [email protected]; Twitter: @lgfranceschi