Circus 2016
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
The most profanity-laced Presidential campaign in modern American history is concluding. Children have watched grownups behave like brats, with both unpopular choices demonstrating disqualifying unfitness for the top slot. But, often, regulations are rigged in favor of the rich to rule over the rest under the hijab of democracy.
This election campaign has already stained the budding Clinton II Presidency, as did her husband’s antics in the Oval Office, which led to the December 1998 impeachment of Clinton I. The hierarchy in monarchy persists despite the 1775 revolt against the British Crown.
Lechery and obscenity were displayed center-stage. Instead of public policy, the focus was on who was groped, pawed, and hugged. Established norms of decorum have been overturned.
Here, over-zealous American feminists are complicit in breaching barriers of civility, which have stood the test of time. The results are self-evident. To cite Oscar Wilde, “You can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.”
Detractors of US democracy must be laughing hard.
Regarding Hillary, deep-seated reservations about authenticity and trustworthiness are compounded by the odor of the money trail. With Hillary – and the fresh review of her emails – it is constant drip, drip, drip of one scandal after another. Many who have settled on Hillary are doing so not out of affection, but largely out of disdain and opposition to Donald Trump.
Trump is one manifestation of the rapid coarsening of American culture, whose aftershocks shall continue to reverberate long after Trump is no longer dominating the news cycle. It is now socially acceptable to vent hate against certain groups.
In all Mideast-related debates, the elephant in the room – Israel – is never addressed, except in the Wikileaks disclosure, which quotes Hillary as stating to wealthy pro-Israeli donors to her candidature that she “will be a better friend to Israel than President Barack Obama.”
What more could it possibly be now? A policy which has set America on a downward slope of historic slide has already witnessed a meltdown in the Middle East and the erosion of the much-trumpeted Pax Americana, which was proclaimed globally after the collapse of the USSR. The Cold War is being revisited. Nations that don’t self-correct become their own worst enemy.
One thing is certain: the disconnect between declared intention and demonstrated action in US politics is likely to continue. Instead of public policy on display, it is a circus. A circus that dims the beacon of democracy.
Meanwhile, the fault-lines in US society have been widened and exacerbated. In the aftermath of the Obama presidency, the racial divide has sharpened. A new documentary, “13 th”, puts a spotlight on how blacks and whites look at crime and incarceration quite differently because of their different experiences and exposure.
Obama’s presidency was supposed to close this gap but evidence suggests otherwise. Instead of cohesion and harmony, thanks to demagogic exploitation of white anger and resentment, race relations today are fraught. There has been unscrupulous tapping into primeval fears and base instincts.
Obama’s presidency sparked a racial backlash. Would Hillary’s lead to a misogynist blowback?
The lesser evil is seldom proven to be the lesser evil.
