During the months since he defeated 16 other contestants and became the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States, Donald Trump was vilified and abused in a manner reminiscent of the dozen years that Chief Minister Narendra Modi endured similar calumny. In both cases, there was a flood of negative comments rather than a trickle, and in both cases, this was shrugged off by both men as they set about winning the most powerful job in their respective countries. Trump opposed getting directly involved in the messy war going on in Syria, while his opponent Hillary Clinton favoured intervention that carried the risk of war with Russia. However, it was the Republican rather than the Democrat who was daily painted as a warmonger. The US media showed how the “free” press in a democratic country can exhibit the worst features of the press in dictatorships. Repeated exposés of misdeeds of the Clinton campaign by WikiLeaks were almost totally ignored by self-declared independent television channels as they competed with each other to endlessly repeat Donald Trump’s admittedly tasteless comments in 2006, made while he was oblivious to being taped. The Republican candidate was characterised as racist and uncontrolled in his anger to a degree difficult to remember in the case of any other President except the portrayals of Abraham Lincoln by media in the Confederate states during the Civil War. It was scarcely an exaggeration for Trump to claim that the US media were in effect part of the Hillary Clinton campaign.
As if this was not enough, stalwarts in his own party sought to ensure his defeat. Ohio Governor John Kasich repeatedly made transparent his distaste for Trump, as did Senator John McCain, a former Republican Presidential nominee. Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan went farther, openly snubbing Trump and making it clear that he was eager to see him lose. It was disingenuous on the part of Ryan to claim that he was not in favour of Hillary Clinton when it was obvious that only she would win were Trump to lose.
Despite efforts by both Democrats and Republicans, including former President George W. Bush and Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, ultimately it was Donald Trump who prevailed on 8 November, when the last ballots were counted. The win was not narrow, but convincing, and had a tailwind strong enough to ensure that the Republican Party retained control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Judging by the remarks that he made while campaigning, the omens appear bright for India-US relations. Both President-elect Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are strong personalities and effective leaders, with a proven record of success in business and in politics, respectively. Modi did well in greeting Trump soon after his victory, and the two are likely to meet for the first time during the coming months. Hopefully, Donald Trump will not follow the example of Bill Clinton, who visited India only towards the close of his term, but that of Barack Obama who came to this country early in his first term. Trump and Modi have correctly zeroed in on terrorism as a major challenge facing the civilised world, and this common threat ought to bind them together into a 21st century alliance between the world’s most powerful democracy and the world’s most populous democracy.
The Sunday Guardian wishes President-elect Trump well in the gargantuan task before him of navigating his nation in increasingly treacherous geopolitical waters, and look forward to a deepening and broadening of the US-India relationship, probably the most important for both in coming years.