Sadeq Khan
A sea change is in the air about the global order in public debates and agitations through Western democracies. While in Europe it is more in the form of activists’ agitation on the streets, in the USA it has entered community assemblies and town-halls in the course of party political campaigns for nomination of Presidential candidates in the race for the White House, 2016.
In the first primaries in IOWA, two maverick candidates competing in the race on the lists on both sides, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders, came close second, the latter neck to neck, with the candidate considered establishment favourite, i.e. former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In New Hampshire, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders resoundingly won presidential primaries, riding a wave of anti-establishment anger in the second key test of the long, unpredictable race.
Roller coaster riding
The runaway victory by Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist advocating nothing less than “political revolution,” spelled a deflating effect on the campaign of Hillary Clinton, who put a brave face on the loss and admitted she had work to do as the campaign moves south. On the Republican side, Trump’s visceral assault on American politics galvanized voters who brought him his debut victory in the fledgling race, keeping him in pole position despite his second-place showing in Iowa caucuses.
Ohio Governor John Kasich’s uplifting and positive message of renewal catapulted him into second place, a potentially critical result for him as the Republican Party works out which mainstream candidate could successfully challenge the billionaire tycoon Trump, who did what he had to do: secure a solid win after Iowa where his finishing second called into question his showmanship strategy and his brand as a winner.
With 92 percent of precincts reporting, Trump swept 35 percent of the vote to Kasich’s 16 percent, with Iowa winner Ted Cruz at 12 percent, narrowly ahead of former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Sanders, a US senator from Vermont who essentially treats neighboring New Hampshire as his home turf, crushed Clinton by 60 percent to 38 percent, with 93 percent of precincts reporting, and a record voter turnout.
Sanders addressed supporters at his victory rally saying his primary win signalled voters no longer wanted business as usual in US political life: “What the people here have said is that given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for the same old, same old establishment politics and establishment economics. The people want real change. Together, we have sent the message that will echo from Wall Street to Washington, from Maine to California.”
Changing US politics
Timothy Stanley, a historian and columnist for Britain’s The Daily Telegraph, and author of “Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between L.A. and D.C. Revolutionized American Politics”, said in a CNN commentary on the message from the Republican voters: Trump is a real estate magnate who helped transform the New York skyline in the 1980s, before moving into casinos and a retail empire that includes a tacky clothes-line. When he entered the Republican presidential primaries, many of us wrote it off as a publicity stunt. The fact that it was such bad publicity should have told us we were wrong. Trump went after illegal immigrants — branding many of them as “rapists”, while asserting that “some, I assume, are good people” — and promised to surround the country with a wall. From that the pundits deduced that he was far-right, if not a nationalist, like Marine Le Pen of France. But his appeal proved more complex.
On some domestic issues he is more left-wing: health care, infrastructure spending and tax. On social issues, like immigration, his tough guy appearance strikes a chord with people who feel they’ve been betrayed by weak national leadership and silenced by political correctness.
They revel in the shamelessness of a man whose fortune means he’s beholden to no one and who doesn’t look like he cares whether he wins or loses. But he won in New Hampshire with an interesting constituency that includes self-described moderates and new voters. In other words, the Trump campaign poses a challenge to the Republican Party leadership and its conservative establishment.
About the common message from both sides, Timothy Stanley told CNN: “US politics is changing before our eyes. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump winning is not a big surprise. Both polled ahead for weeks. Yet these results feel revolutionary. These two men have defied their party establishment, done everything they were not supposed for do and still won victory with substantive lead. Politics will not be quite the same again.
Taking terrorist threats seriously
But the big shock is John Kasich in second place. First, Jeb Bush led the moderate pack, then Marco Rubio, now we have a third contender, a man who ran on experience, compassionate convention and refusal to sink to the lows led by Trump. Question is, does he have the structure and money to last longer? What is striking from the exit polls is how even more ideological both parties are than they used to be representing a polarised electorate.
Nevertheless, the strength of populist feeling is palpable. Perhaps people are looking for generational change and substantive differences between parties. Trump versus Sanders race would give them both. It will also probably give them Michel Bloomberg (New York billionaire) running as an independent and one of our most divided and definitive election since 1992.
Meanwhile in a written Statement for the Record on Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee by James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence on February 9, 2016, the following remarks were made about Bangladesh: “Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s continuing efforts to undermine the political opposition in Bangladesh will probably provide openings for transnational terrorist groups to expand their presence in the country. Hasina and other government officials have insisted publically that the killings of foreigners are the work of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Bangladesh Jamaat-e Islami political parties and are intended to discredit the government. However, ISIL claimed responsibility for 11 high-profile attacks on foreigners and religious minorities. Other extremists in Bangladesh including Ansarullah Bangla Team and al-Qa’ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS)have claimed responsibility for killing at least 11 progressive writers and bloggers in Bangladesh since 2013.”
In the race for the White House, the front-runners so far as well the runners-up in line have all made clear that they take the ISIL threat anywhere on the globe seriously as an existential threat to the super power. The warning in the US National Intelligence assessment must not be taken lightly.
Source: Weekly Holiday
