It was Indira Gandhi who once is said to have raised doubts about the value of education, a remark that invited criticism back then, particularly since it came from a nation that was struggling with high illiteracy and a very weak system of education. But seen now in the context of how the citizens of the United States elect their President, a position that genuinely qualifies as the seat of the most powerful political leader in the globe, this is just the kind of question that needs to be asked. And it is indeed being echoed from different quarters, not the least from those a little less ill-informed than Donald Trump and his cronies in the United States. As writer Andy Borowitz said in the New York Times way back in March 2016, “Stopping Trump is a short-term solution. The long-term solution, and it will be more difficult, is fixing the educational system that has created so many people ignorant enough to vote.”
That was long before the Trump candidacy veered towards the collapse it now faces in the light of leaked tapes that capture him as a violent sex predator who does not stop short even when talking about his daughter. Suddenly, several GOP leaders seem to think they have had had enough as calls grow for Trump to stand down and allow the Vice Presidential nominee and Indiana Governor Mike Pence to lead the GOP ticket. If that happens, it would be unprecedented but even this does not shut out the larger question of how a man who would control the buttons of a war machinery that could destroy the world many times over is elected in the first place or comes so close to becoming the President of the United States. It makes mockery of the system of an informed electorate, of checks and balances that the US system is said to provide, what with long-drawn campaigns, intensely fought primaries, highly watched television debates – all celebrating choice, freedom and transparency so that the best of American leaders can rise. But the system that gave us the phrase from the “log house to the White House” has degenerated today to coming close to giving us “Trump Tower to the White House.”
There is of course deep worry in capitals around the globe. A nation that only eight years ago elected its first African-American President is now debating global issues with cries of “lock her up”, asking for the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to be arrested, with wild statements led from the podium by a man who has unashamedly spoken against Muslims, targeted Latinos and other minorities and peddled prescriptions that might make a school teacher warn pupils to behave.
This is the currency of the debate, this is the standard of discourse at the highest political level in what is (or was) known to the world as “the land of the free”, with the total money being spent running into (according to some estimates) 10 billion US dollars, money it would seem spent to put on display the worst of the United States of America.
While the US and its internal political dynamic play out in the run up to D-Day on Nov. 8, one thing should be clear “to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world” — words used by Barack Obama less than eight years ago to describe the global audience that is inevitably clued in to the process of US elections. As President-elect, Obama used the occasion of his victory speech to reassure the world as America basked in the glory of making history with his election. If that was a celebration for America, what has followed in the years is a dive into the depths of ugly rhetoric, the so-called birther movement that continued to raise doubts on his birth and a frenzy whipped up by language that would in saner times be confined to the loony fringe.
Keeping aside the committed voters, those driven by their ideological support for the GOP or the Democratic Party, the vast majority who will decide the outcome of the election have today become helpless prisoners to the voices that are fed to them, victims of noisy communication that appears to give so much information and insight but in truth delivers noise that confuses, constrains and creates chaos in the minds of ordinary citizens. This is the inevitable end result of a system that feeds on insta-polls, ever rising technological analysis, swing studies and all the tools that slice and dice the data till it has no connection with the core issues at hand.
In such a state, it requires increasing levels of shock to act and see the dangers ahead. The Trump tapes (there are reports that more will be released in the days ahead) deliver just that shock. But to an observer not caught in the frenzy, there was already enough on the plate to shock, the dangers of a Trump presidency were all too apparent all along and it was the same Republican leaders who now cry foul who went ahead and chose their nominee, then provided excuses for his outrageous positions, supported him and hemmed and hawed and tried to duck when he let loose his wild attacks.
To those watching this ugly drama, it should be clear that there is a lot wrong with the US and some of this must be traced back to an education system that is failing, a media that hypes form over substance and the sheer idiocy of thinking that the future of a nation can be decided by stirring up false debates in a television studio. These are some of the lessons all those today privileged to be non-Americans can learn.
Author is Editor, SPJIMR
(Syndicate: The Billion Press)
