Donald Trump looks, talks and acts the part of the Ugly American. In that sense, he is very much every American's President
A day before completing 100 days in office, Donald Trump addressed the National Rifle Association, an organisation that had given him full-throated support. Pic/AFP
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I have mostly been visiting coastal America, where most people have indignantly told me the same thing: "Not my President." The brave exception is my childhood friend Ravi's 78-year-old father, an old immigrant from Mumbai's Sindhi real estate community who called his own son a "Hillary-lover", as if poor Ravi was standing in queue outside the defeated presidential candidate's bedroom door; he is an unabashed Trumpian.
I went to rural New Hampshire and Correia, another childhood friend's wife, repeatedly declared: "Not my President." I pointed out that while she may have not voted for him, he now represented the entire country, but she instead began devising ways of ridding the planet of President Donald Trump. In San Diego, family friend Linda said "Not my President"; she was irked with Trump's rudeness towards German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
In Brooklyn, my mother's physiotherapist declared, "Not my President", and then let loose a string of unprintable thoughts. Sigh. If only Indians who didn't like Prime Minister Narendra Modi had the courage to make a similar declaration.
On Trump's 100th day in office on Saturday, many Americans, I imagine, were relieved that the world was still in one piece. A day earlier, Trump was addressing the National Rifle Association, an extreme right-wing outfit that had given full-throated support to his campaign. He climbed the stage and even if he wasn't the biggest a** to become US president, he certainly had one of the biggest a**es of a US president.
He had nothing much to brag about by way of achievement during his 100 days other than how he beat all predictions to win the election back in November, which even Modi doesn't do; perhaps Trump is not thinking of future election campaigns. During an interview to Reuters on the occasion, Trump lamented how being the president was harder work than he had anticipated, much to the all-round dismay of all Americans. This was certainly an unprecedented achievement: complaining about being the most powerful man on Earth.
No wonder the American media is everyday screaming some nonsense or the other about North Korea. Trump, in his interview, spoke of the possibility of a "major, major conflict" with this nation. Imagine, a country that lost 10 per cent of its population due to the great famine of 1997 - this is currently a threat to a country where official statistics say that 38 per cent of Americans are obese, and this includes three out of four adult males. The emaciated are a threat to a nation of fatties.
While I was in New Hampshire in mid-April, my high school friend Emory was seriously discussing with another gentleman the possibility of Trump putting troops in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. It does not seem to strike anyone that the South Koreans, who have an election coming up, don't want all this war-talk. It also doesn't seem to matter that the North Korean ballistic missile tests keep failing, one after the other.
Most surreal is that just months ago, nobody in America (outside of the national security establishment) gave a rat's a** about North Korea. Campaign rhetoric comprised the "terrible, terrible" deal with Iran, about Russia, about NATO, and about China. It is dizzying that all of a sudden even my friend Ravi, after a vodka or two, is asking me about the prospects of war with North Korea. What a distraction it would be for America! Another lovely war.
My University pal Gillian may say "Not my President", but what she and other Americans don't seem to realize is that outside of America and its Wall of Comfort, or its Wall of Arrogance (it has so many walls that a physical wall with Mexico is only a logical next step), the rest of the planet regards Donald Trump as the very caricature of America – a country that is earnest about saving the environment, but kills millions of trees to wipe its bums.
A country where a white man growing a beard is a hipster, but a brown man growing a beard is a terrorist; a country that dwells on newer and newer types of cuisine as if obesity was just a minor footnote in evolution, while it tries out newer and newer bombs by dropping them on the different, disposable parts of the planet (all in the name of wiping out the bogeyman named ISIS).
Perhaps that's what's in store for North Koreans: being the guinea pigs for another "Mother of All Bombs", in the name of dislodging a nuclear-armed boy dictator. Trump looks, talks and acts the part of the Ugly American.
In that sense, even if on his 100th day the Gallup poll shows his approval ratings at 39 per cent (53 per cent actively disapprove), Donald Trump is very much every American's president.
Aditya Sinha's crime novel, The CEO Who Lost His Head, is available now. He tweets @autumnshade. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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