‘Historical shift’

With the unexpected triumph of Donald Trump in the last presidential elections, the US socio-political landscape should be bracing for a major historical shift that might affect the status and role of this country, both domestically and on the international arena, for many years to come.

Foes and friends around the world are taking note.

The new president’s standing versus both the Democratic and GOP is just one of many good indicators of this development.

While Trump openly seems comfortable to disagree with everything the Democrats stand for, he would not hesitate to let his actions and words alienate him and his team from his adopted Republican Party.

And it is reciprocal.

He does that first as the contender who defeated the Democratic Party in the elections, while cherishing the idea that the GOP should be more obliged to him than he should be to it, since he, the outsider, was the one who clinched the helm from the adversary and gave it a Republican tag.

My guess is that Trump’s quest for the presidency had more to do with a personal ambition, combined with his quarrel with the Obama administration, than with his adherence to the Republican doctrine.

It then gradually became more convenient and logical that he would run against the two-term Democratic presidency, especially that he kept targeting the incumbent Obama for years as an illegitimate president, riding on his famous birth-finder movement, which failed in that particular case.

Ironically, that very failure turned out to become the real launching pad for Trump’s political rise and popularity among millions of average American citizens who, seemingly, were fed up with the rotating power game between Democrats and Republicans since their country was declared independent in 1776.

Added to that, his opponent, Democratic senator Hillary Clinton, was more easily identified with the “corrupt” establishment in Washington.

Her knowledge and expertise, especially in the international arena, left little impression on those Americans who were tuning in to a completely new yet bold and closer to their hearts rhetoric from Trump.

All the little and serious differences between the Trump’s new administration and the rest of the establishment, including key GOP leaders, are only good and clear signals that a new major political path is in the making these days, a path that is genuinely more concerned with domestic affairs of the state and less attached to its obligations and ties with the rest of the world.

Nationalist, isolationist or even racist are some of the adjectives that can help explain this new Trumpian approach.

But how practical will it be on the ground is more difficult to figure out.

Foes’ fingers are crossed. Friends’ hearts are aching.

Saleem Ayoub Quna,

Amman