P Kharel

In a basically partisan move, the United States House of Representatives in December decided to impeach President Donald Trump but dragged its feet in formally paving way for the Senate to take up from the popular chamber of the Congress. Although his critics might take consolation from the impeachment, Trump will try to cash in on his charge that the opposition was engaged in a disgraceful move out of sheer spite rather on his version of facts.
People don’t discount the incumbent president making a deep dent on the eventual rival candidate’s arguments during the final campaign for the White House. Inauguration day is 11 months away. As the heat and dust in connection with the election process gathers momentum, many interesting sidelights and highlights are bound to be tossed up. It is becoming an increasingly reiterated exercise that presidential election in the United States is no arena for ordinary Americans with modest financial means to throw their hats in the ring. This year’s race just about reconfirms the same, even if the Republican Party is certain to endorse the billionaire President Donald Trump’s bid for re-election.

Ticket to White House
The stable of Democrats seeking party endorsement has narrowed down but the intensity of competition is expected to be fuelled in the next few months, culminating in the summer convention formally declaring the party pick, most likely to be pitted against the incumbent president in a country overwhelmingly dominated by the two parties.
Americans are very assertive about their president’s credentials. One of the requisites for presidential hopeful is to be a natural-born citizen. Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright ineligible, as they are not natural-born American citizens but immigrants. Kissinger was among the first who the elected Trump in 2016 visited some weeks prior to being formally inaugurated the 45th president. European countries avoid mentioning the prescription they give to the developing world that depends on their dole-outs. When it comes to the nation’s highest job, Americans are acutely conservative.
When John F. Kennedy declared his candidacy and was subsequently approved by Democratic Party in 1960, his multimillionaire status came in for suspicions and questions as to what could a millionaire about issues pertaining to an average American. A couple of decades later, the public mood shifted to the extent of embracing of billionaires as prized candidates.
As long as an aspirant is not involved in tax fraud, the legitimacy of a superrich candidate is not questioned simply because or she happens to own piles of cash and enormous properties. Times have indeed change beyond recognition these past few decades. Kennedy’s extra-marital affairs were allowed to be a private affair by the American press whose status was recognised by the First Amendment in 1791.
The 1980s proved different. Democratic Party’s aspirant to the White House, Gary Hart had to bear the brunt of it, thanks to the Miami Herald’s “peephole journalism”. Hart was widely tipped as a frontrunner for the top job, also described many as the world’s most powerful post, but the manner in which he was caught by a probing—or, prying, to some—camera that arrested him locked overnight in a hotel room with a woman who was not his wife.
Narrow contests nearly marred the democratic practice in election at least thrice in six decades. Kennedy’s victory against Nixon, two-time Vice-President under outgoing President and World War II hero Dwight Eisenhower, was concluded as a result of a record-narrow margin of popular votes. Four decades later, George W. Bush was involved in another narrow victory over Democratic opponent. Less than two decades later, yet another nail-biting finish occurred in the Trump-Hillary Clinton clash, proving many a political analyst wrong in their prediction of triumph for the Democratic Party candidate who previously served as President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.
It seems the scribes and analysts who predicted defeat for Trump have not been able to reconcile with their own wrong conclusions. Almost all of them have been rambling vitriolic attacks against the man they had judged unfit for the top job without any let-up. The New York Times and its regular contributors and columnists are but an example in a blatant display of being proved wrong gone too sour for fair analysis.
Trump’s House impeachment might be an issue for his critics who recall past impeachment moves. What they like to not mention is the fact that Richard Nixon in 1974 resigned over the Watergate phone taping scandal before the process could get completed on realising that a bipartisan collective voice would have found him guilty. The prospect of humiliation was avoided through a resignation that was swiftly followed by a presidential reprieve from Gerald Ford who, as his vice-president, took over to complete the remaining period of Nixon’s term.
Trump pulled it off three years ago. Will he be able replicate the success story next autumn, too? If he does, his vehement critics will reel under another spell of frustration even as they are yet to find their balanced footing since the 2014 fiasco they suffered. The House of Representatives impeached him but the Democrats do not seem to have gained much from the incident that was pursued as a political strategy on the eve of an election year more than anything lofty professed by the impeachment movers.
In six months’ time, the Republican and Democratic candidates will be formally announced for the last lap to the White House. The Democrats hope to impute the motives of the Republican president seeking re-election while Trump is sure to attack relentlessly the vendetta his opponents has trained on him out of prejudice. If the past is any indication, it might lower the levels of election rhetoric to new heights.
Public opinion polls continue to reaffirm the support Trump has drawn consistently from Republican voters. This has not changed in spite of the daily badgering of the Trump administration by a posse of hardened critics who hardly anything positive to say about its decisions and action. Such solid support should come in good stead in November. Whether the president can convince other voters that his political rivals accuse of things he never did and nor have they been proved in accordance with due process of law should prove to be the clincher.

Attention grabber
Trump has an image of someone who does not fear taking a route that others fear to tread. Often, he calls a spade a spade, and does not hesitate to hit back his critics without presenting false modesty and feigned warmth. That does not mean he does not want some attention-grabbing events to happen in the pre-election months. For instance, he wants some kind of agreement with the Taliban militants in Afghanistan so that Americans can be recalled home after 19 years. He is also eyeing some kind of accord with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

(Former chief editor of The Rising Nepal, P. Kharel has been writing for this daily since 1973)