Forensic Series 01: How did Donald Trump Lost America?

US voters showed up in record numbers in 2020 election. As we know, choosing Joe Biden as president elect is much to the dismay of Donald Trump. The result is - Donald Trump Lost America before making it great again.

I started liking Mr. Trump very recently for his unique and damn-care personality. But why did America fire the president?

Simply put: They didn’t think that he was doing a good job. Now, there are many aspects and arguments on this, but the result says it all. Although result not always tells you the full story, no matter how good you play in a football match, if the opponent scores more goals then the history will be theirs straightway.

 -  American Economy mired in historically deep recession while no visible program /packages so far for Americans in Trump years; so they thought he failed to ‘make America great’ again.

-  A global pandemic that is cleared up in many countries but deteriorated drastically in US. In contrast, he trashed ‘Obama Care’ but without any possible good alternative.

 -  Not being focused on and empathetic with the victims of racism during ‘Black Lives Matter’. The US has been fighting with all kinds of racism – be it skin-color, hair color, emotional or even social, - since last 200 or more years; so he was against the national values.

 -  Took all the criticizers as ‘opponents’ instead of finding out a win-win solution for all – be it CNN, News Channels, interviewers, close allies of US government in-country and outside, senators, even some republicans. I liked him here, but not this way. He should have remembered, he was the president of even his opponents, challengers and criticizers. Presidency is not a partisan role, it is a holistic national role, which most presidents forget nowadays and as a result, they are fighting unnecessary battles in their countries with their own people. Some are even fighting with their own emotions, ego and stubbornness in the process of winning everything on every battle. No wonder, we are having autocratic monsters under democratic government in many countries. Winning everything in every battle will make you a ‘lesser leader’ and a ‘greater boss’. And Presidency is all about leadership. Sometimes, I think it’s high time that a leadership curriculum needs to be imposed on every president across the world prior to their presidency to make them remember the basics of leadership. Although I strongly believe leadership cannot be nurtured, it is by born.  

-  Making frequent changes in senior administrative roles in US government, created a lot of stories, books and tales on him in return. Some of which made his opponents stronger while some definitely made him popular as a bold and decisive president. 

 -  Being over extrovert and attacking in nature on Social Mediums like ‘Twitter’ on silly to silliest issues, which gave his real criticizers an easy window to misjudge him in public media. The publication or advertisement was already done by Mr. President himself in Twitter. I wondered most often thinking of his ‘provocation button’ on his smart tab or cell phone, which he used to comment on Twitter. He made actually ‘Twitter Great Again’ by ‘Trump Twits’ instead of ‘making America great again’.

 -  Last but not least, his humors were of Native American standards – but not on international or global standards. Interestingly most Americans think globally while humor matters. It happened many times that he said something with humor and people were provoked across the world. Especially his humor on women, black people, poor sections, Islam, etc. Points to remember, US is a country with people from multi-diverse background, color, class and culture, who have voting rights. He should have remembered if he was willing to be elected again for the United States of America. See, you cannot underestimate any possible chance, while fighting for such a democratic leadership.  

Now if I sum up all these basic issues, I can simply say: Not being able to be ‘Empathetic’ enough while playing the role of a leader of the most advanced democracy – is the only reason ‘why Trump lost America’. Otherwise, the huge number of votes for Trump in US Election 2020 indicates that his foreign strategy, negotiation as well as his very careless attitude for rest of the world were on the favorite lists of many Americans, if not enough to win this Election.

I will recommend Trump over all his predecessors only because he didn’t start any new war with unnecessary causes and recovered many US troops from middle-east. There are many such steps which I will mention in following articles of this series, named ‘Forensic’.

So as a Leader, work with your ‘weaknesses’ today – Because no one or nothing will harm you as much as your own weaknesses will. 

Mohammed Saef Ul Arifeen

13 November 2020