The Donald, from TV star to the White House
Depending on where you are in the world, you’ll either be awake to see or wake up know that Donald J. Trump had been elected as the president of the United States of America. Most probably, you will be shocked by the result from the election.
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That is because many people did not give Trump a dog’s chance in this election.
The whole world had united against the man who was contesting with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and made it a contest of good versus evil.
Almost every poll had projected Clinton to win the election to become the first female president of the United States.
As it turned out, the whole world was not in tune with the feelings of the American people as Trump was.
He knew what to say to get the people voting for him and right from the primaries to the main election, the man who drew the crowd ended up being the one who would win.
First of all, Donald Trump a real estate and multi-business mogul had become popular for many reasons, good and bad.
He was known by his controversial manner of acquiring licence to develop his properties, exploiting loopholes to avoid paying taxes, using of strong language on Twitter and changing of wives.
Above all these though, the one thing that exposed The Donald, as he is affectionately called, was a television star for years.
As host of the popular television reality show The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice, he was for many years in the homes of people via the magic of television.
His often used expression to evict contestants “You are Fired” became a popular Trump-esque catch phrase.
As with everything else the billionaire New Yorker had done, The Apprentice franchise was a big hit and Donald was a rock star television anchor.
He was known for his eccentricities, his strong views and his non-negotiable stance on issues.
Thus when he announced his decision to contest the Republican nomination it was met with laughter. Folks saw him as a joker and he was just getting into this for the show and that he had no chance to even get close to winning the Republican nomination let alone the presidency.
Trump contested with about 16 other people, most of them tried and tested politicians such as Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, etc. who had the stripes to show for their experience in politics over the years.
There was absolutely no chance for Trump to beat these people to become the RNC’s candidate.
He was written off by the media, the pollsters said he could not make it, he was vilified by all and told in the face that he was not fit to be president and should focus on building hotels, casinos and such things that he is more comfortable doing than come waste everyone’s time, but he persisted.
It was when the real Republican caucuses and primaries begun and the votes started coming in and Trump was tearing away that they started to sit up.
All the predictions were turned on their head, the Republican National Convention through super PACs tried to stop his momentum by investing heavily in television campaigns to discredit him.
However, the more they did that, the further Donald went in the race.
He eventually clinched the ticket to represent the Grand Old Party (GOP) as its candidate for the Presidential election. At the convention of the party, they had no choice than to endorse his candidature to contest with whoever emerges as the candidate for the Democratic Party.
It was Hillary Clinton who was put forth by the Democrats to compete with Donald.
It was the culmination of this dual contest between good and evil that we saw on Wednesday morning with Donald Trump beating Mrs. Clinton to the White House.
The television star who was written off by the world, not only because they thought he wasn’t qualified, but also because of his own cantankerous nature, ended up as the one chosen by the people to be their president.
Unfortunately, the world and to an extent his competitors had not learnt much from his triumph in the primaries caucuses to know that he had a template to win in the most difficult circumstances and that he could be a danger to Clinton’s quest to become the first female president.
It’s important to note that, he knew the people he was addressing and knew what messages and cues to drop throughout the 18-month long campaign.
His slogan “Make America Great Again” reverberated throughout the country and throughout the world.
It was a message that resonated with the core of the people he was selling to and the results from Wednesday shows his hit the bullseye.
There have been so many people who had endorsed Clinton and publicly declared their disgust at Trump.
Many newspapers and media organisations and even Republicans like Mitt Romney and the Bush family had stuck their neck out against Trump because they felt he was not representing the ideals of the Republican party.
Many people across the world have expressed shock at the results, some have even gone on to express disgust at the decision by the American people to elect this man they consider to be obnoxious and not deserving presidential.
I think that if there was any lessons to be learnt about how we find ourselves here, it is more to study how in the face of very strong opposition from everywhere (blacks, women, Latinos, Muslims and practically everyone) Donald Trump prevailed.
It fascinated me and I hope we will all have the humility to learn from the Zen Master Trump.
We are not sure what his presidency will be, given his eccentricities and lack of experience in public service, but in the meantime we all should hail this master at everything he’s ever done and hope he doesn’t become a right wing extremist president. Congratulations, Mr. President!