If Donald Trump hopes to make America great again, then he will need a lot more than eight years to accomplish the job if he should serve two terms in the White House.
The message for Saudis, who have been following the presidential campaigns of both parties and who also keenly watched the recently concluded Republican and Democratic national conventions and the subsequent outlandish statements from Trump, is that democracy is nothing special.
Certainly Americans will say they revel in the messy, raucous sausage-making business of electing a leader. It’s not pretty, but it works, Americans claim. We are not convinced.
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are tainted goods in the eyes of Arabs and Muslims. Clinton was the secretary of state in the Obama administration and is viewed as a weak sister on the international stage. Trump is simply a demagogue exploiting the fears of a huge white and undereducated voters bloc. A vote for Trump is a vote for racism, bigotry, misogyny and an invitation to foreign powers to commit cyber terrorism. But Trump is by far the larger threat to world peace than Clinton. There is little confidence in Clinton, but at least she comes off as more hawkish on dealing with Daesh than President Obama.
The real issue is not these weak presidential candidates. Yes, both have the potential to wreak havoc on the world either through passivity or adventurism. The issue, rather, is a political system that indulges in immature behavior, slander and an almost gleeful pride in willful ignorance.
Binge watch CNN, Fox and MSNBC and you would draw the conclusion that their programming is one long advertisement on democratic dysfunction. According to the New York Times, only 9 percent of the voters in the Democratic and Republican parties voted in the primaries to nominate both candidates. This minority of voters forced through a nomination with an overwhelming number of delegates that shut out the hugely popular Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in the Republican Party. It kind of reminds many observers of those old communist bloc elections in which the Soviet-backed strongman garnered 99.9 percent of the popular vote.
Most Saudis don’t subscribe to the theory that the American elections are rigged, but big money from wealthy private donors taints the election process. Figure in the immense influence that lobbyists wield in know-nothing, do-nothing Congress and one comes away that democracy is an illusion.
Contrary to what one may read in the western media, Saudi Arabia does have elements of democracy that work well in Saudi society. We have a Shoura Council, a consultative body that advises and makes recommendations to the king, which are often followed, and municipal councils, in which voters now elect half the members, that makes decisions on the local level.
This is perhaps not ideal and could stand improvement to better represent the people of Saudi Arabia, but witnessing how Americans elect their leaders is cringe-worthy. On the one hand, you must credit the United States for its transparency, but on the other it weakens its standing with foreign nations.
It’s a sad thing to witness the collective nervous breakdown of American society and the resulting shambles voters made of the electoral process. Whoever is elected must begin to rebuild America’s image that sends the message the 2016 presidential election is an anomaly and that the United States is a resource and ally for nations that depend on it for stability, aid and protection.
The message for Saudis, who have been following the presidential campaigns of both parties and who also keenly watched the recently concluded Republican and Democratic national conventions and the subsequent outlandish statements from Trump, is that democracy is nothing special.
Certainly Americans will say they revel in the messy, raucous sausage-making business of electing a leader. It’s not pretty, but it works, Americans claim. We are not convinced.
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are tainted goods in the eyes of Arabs and Muslims. Clinton was the secretary of state in the Obama administration and is viewed as a weak sister on the international stage. Trump is simply a demagogue exploiting the fears of a huge white and undereducated voters bloc. A vote for Trump is a vote for racism, bigotry, misogyny and an invitation to foreign powers to commit cyber terrorism. But Trump is by far the larger threat to world peace than Clinton. There is little confidence in Clinton, but at least she comes off as more hawkish on dealing with Daesh than President Obama.
The real issue is not these weak presidential candidates. Yes, both have the potential to wreak havoc on the world either through passivity or adventurism. The issue, rather, is a political system that indulges in immature behavior, slander and an almost gleeful pride in willful ignorance.
Binge watch CNN, Fox and MSNBC and you would draw the conclusion that their programming is one long advertisement on democratic dysfunction. According to the New York Times, only 9 percent of the voters in the Democratic and Republican parties voted in the primaries to nominate both candidates. This minority of voters forced through a nomination with an overwhelming number of delegates that shut out the hugely popular Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in the Republican Party. It kind of reminds many observers of those old communist bloc elections in which the Soviet-backed strongman garnered 99.9 percent of the popular vote.
Most Saudis don’t subscribe to the theory that the American elections are rigged, but big money from wealthy private donors taints the election process. Figure in the immense influence that lobbyists wield in know-nothing, do-nothing Congress and one comes away that democracy is an illusion.
Contrary to what one may read in the western media, Saudi Arabia does have elements of democracy that work well in Saudi society. We have a Shoura Council, a consultative body that advises and makes recommendations to the king, which are often followed, and municipal councils, in which voters now elect half the members, that makes decisions on the local level.
This is perhaps not ideal and could stand improvement to better represent the people of Saudi Arabia, but witnessing how Americans elect their leaders is cringe-worthy. On the one hand, you must credit the United States for its transparency, but on the other it weakens its standing with foreign nations.
It’s a sad thing to witness the collective nervous breakdown of American society and the resulting shambles voters made of the electoral process. Whoever is elected must begin to rebuild America’s image that sends the message the 2016 presidential election is an anomaly and that the United States is a resource and ally for nations that depend on it for stability, aid and protection.
