On Wednesday night in Las Vegas, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off for the last and final time before the US goes to the polls on 8 November. The Donald Trump that emerged at the debate was no different from the one who has transfixed the world by the sheer outrageousness of what he’s been saying throughout this presidential campaign.
True to his uncivil style, he called his opponent a “liar” and a “nasty woman” and then, astoundingly, refused to affirm that he would accept the verdict of the people. “I will tell you at the time...I’ll keep you in suspense”, he said, pursing his mouth like an ill-tempered school boy who’s a bad loser on the playing field.
Drawing Parallels Between Trump and Modi
Yet this is the man who has repeatedly been compared with the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. There are similarities between the two, we have been told. Trump’s demagoguery echoes Modi’s, say the analysts; his ‘Make America Great Again’ campaign pitch is no different from Modi’s ‘Achhe din’ or ‘Make in India’ slogans; both have railed at the corruption of the political establishment and have ridden on the public’s desire for change; Trump’s tough line on Muslims and immigrants closely resembles the view of Hindu nationalists, the BJP Prime Minister’s biggest cheerleaders and staunchest constituency. And so on.
To be sure, fringe Hindu right wing groups have been quick to claim Trump – lock, stock and toxicity – as their own. In May this year, an outfit called Hindu Sena held a yagna in Delhi for Trump’s victory. In June, they celebrated Trump’s birthday and with clownish devotion, fed his poster some cake. This particular group believes that Donald Trump is their man to rid the world of Islamic terror.
Simplistic Conclusions
Though polls show that a vast majority of the Indian diaspora in the US supports Clinton, there are outfits like the Republican Hindu Coalition that are rooting raucously for Trump. At a benefit for Trump held in New Jersey by the group last Saturday, Trump spoke rousingly, peppering his speech with his usual ignorance and incoherence. “I’m a big fan of Hindu,” he said, going on to commiserate with the people of Mumbai for the Parliament attack in Delhi in 2001.
Reporting on the event, The New York Times wrote, “his (Trump’s) anti-bureaucracy and country-first language closely tracks that of Mr. Modi, who has tapped into the disgust that India’s Hindu majority feels toward its government.”
Apart from the paper’s ill-informed statement that India’s Hindu majority is disgusted with its government (Really? Disgusted with Modi’s government? Or with the previous one? And was it only Hindus who were disgusted with the previous dispensation?), the report once again draws the simplistic parallel between Modi and Trump that’s been doing the rounds for months.
That parallel is not only simplistic – it’s pretty much demolished by one overriding difference between the two leaders. Modi is a politician. Donald Trump is a billionaire ex-reality show star, whose understanding of politics resembles that of a bull doing his stuff in a china shop.
Stark Differences
Modi knows the way to keep the Hindu right, which is his core constituency, riveted to him without saying a single hostile word about the minorities. In fact, his much-touted pre-poll slogan was: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas. After coming to power, his party men like Sanjeev Baliyan, Yogi Adityanath and others have often made incendiary communal statements. But Modi, the consummate politician, has been careful to affirm – albeit belatedly at times – his commitment to India’s pluralism.
In contrast, Trump’s appeal amongst the US’s nativist, white male population is essentially built on his vicious anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric. He has called Mexicans rapists and criminals, wanted a ban on Muslims coming into the US, stoked xenophobia, and made slighting comments about women and the disabled – all of which delighted his supporters.
Trump’s Appeal Threatened by Tape Scandal
His campaign began to implode after the appearance of the Access Hollywood tapes where a 59-year-old Trump brags about sexually assaulting women and making moves on married women. Polls show that Trump’s support among women has further nosedived in its wake. But even before the tape emerged, he had said enough to paint himself as a messiah of the few – the lesser educated white Americans who feel they’ve lost their supremacy in an increasingly multi-cultural, multi-religious country. In “telling it like it is” – a favourite Trump phrase – he has blithely dispensed with the political imperative of trying to appeal to the maximum number of people if you want to win an election.
India’s Right Wing Different from Conservatives
The ugly hyper-nationalism playing out in India today – including its lethal cousin, cow vigilantism – is unquestionably a product of an empowered right wing ethos. But the nation-first right wing agenda is on the ascendant in many parts of the world. Britain’s Brexit vote was powered by the right-wing UKIP. In recent polls, alt-right groups like the National Front in France, the Danish People’s Party in Denmark,
the Freedom Party in Austria and so on, have done extraordinarily well. But none of them are in power. And they may not be for a long time, because their appeal continues to be limited even now.
That’s why it’s wrong to compare Trump with Modi. One important reason Modi was able to steer the BJP to power was that he could make his persona rise above this or that bloc. He is a deft politician who knew the art of appealing to most of the people in the run-up to the elections. Trump is the Apprentice here – the apprentice politician
who is all bluster and no nuance, all theatre and no substance.
That’s why Modi won. And Trump might lose. "Bigly".
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi. She can be reached @ShumaRaha. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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