31 January 2016By Amir Taheri
With the seasons of primaries in the US presidential election starting next
week, all attention is on Donald Trump, the front-runner in the Republican
Party camp. The real estate tycoon and TV celebrity benefits from the fact
that most commentators believe the Democrats have already chosen Hillary
Clinton as their standard-bearer in this year's elections.
Thus, the only suspense left is about whom the Republicans might pick. Right
now, the answer is: Trump. But is it?
The cluster of opinion polls conducted in the past six months shows that Trump
enjoys backing from a third of Republican sympathizers. Since Republicans
represent around a third of the electorate, we could assume that Trump's
support base is around 10 per cent of the total American electorate. Thus,
some 70 per cent of Republicans and 90 per cent of the broader electorate do
not support Trump. However, we must admit that he is the most interesting show
in time. His often outrageous utterances and his feeling for the dramatic, a
result of his years as a TV show host, mark him out as a colorful man compared
to his largely grey rivals.
Yet, it is not at all certain that Trump will be the Republican candidate and
that even if he does secure that position, he will be able to win the
presidency in November. This is because, compared to older nations, Americans
have a short memory and many regard Trump as a bolt out of the blue.
However, without wanting to type-cast him, we could regard Trump as the latest
in a series of American tycoons who nursed political ambitions and, in some
cases, even managed to have an impact on the outcome of a major election.
Admiring businessmen has always been part of the American folklore which
values free enterprise and financial success in a capitalist market economy.
Due to recent mass immigration from all over the world, the average American
today is more envious of the wealthy than his counterpart was 30 or 40 years
ago. But even then a majority of Americans still regard success in business as
honorable, unlike many Europeans who hold businessmen in low esteem as selfish
''money-makers.''
Last week, Michael Bloomberg, a former Mayor of New York and another
billionaire, announced that he, too, might throw his hat into the presidential
ring to oppose Trump and/or Bernie Sanders, the socialist who seeks the
Democrat Party's nomination.
The question is whether the business of the nation can be entrusted to a
successful tycoon?
In the first century of America as a nation the answer was an emphatic no.
Because of the War of Independence and then the War of Secession, not to
mention the new nation's armed expansion in all directions, men with military
backgrounds were often favored as leaders.
Next to them, professional lawyers turned politicians were entrusted with high
office as the new nation built legal structures inspired by the Constitution.
From the late 19th century when the US emerged as the world's biggest economic
power, a new generation of businessmen started to make a place for itself
alongside generals and big-shot lawyers.
The first tycoon to be tempted by power at the top was William Randolph Hearst
who created America's largest press empire around the San Francisco Examiner
which he inherited from his father.
By 1902, Hearst had become a key shaper of American opinion and started
discreet canvassing about chances of running for President of the United
States. However, due to a mixture of personal problems and the fact that he
lacked the political skills needed in a western democracy, the tycoon had
grudgingly retreated to his niche by 1904.
Decades later he was to be the inspiration for Orson Wells' film ''Citizen
Cane'', depicting the tragedy of frustrated obsession with power.
Two decades after Hearst's abortive entry into politics, another tycoon, Henry
Ford, was tempted by the prospect of seeking the presidency. Despite an
unsuccessful attempt at winning a Senate seat from Michigan, Ford sought the
Republican nomination in 1923 which in the end went to Calvin Coolidge, a
''mere lawyer-politician.''
Hearst's lesson was confirmed: Americans liked to toy with the idea of a
tycoon as president but changed their minds once they had a closer look at the
choices available.
Unlike Hearst, Ford did not become the subject of a film but he, too, had a
dark side, including his obsessive anti-Semitism, which, exposed over the
decades, marked him out as unfit for political leadership.
In the 1930s it was the turn of Charles Lindbergh, the aviator turned
businessman, to be tempted by the prospect of entering the White House.
Lindbergh had it all, being an all-American hero with good looks and a wife
from the nation's top banking family. He also had something that neither
Hearst nor Ford had had: a political organization in the shape of the
German-American Bund (Federation) run by Nazi agents with unlimited funds at
their disposal. More importantly, Lindbergh could play on pacifist sentiments
at a time when most Americans were anxious to stay out of another big war in
Europe. This was similar to the anti-war sentiment of 2008 that helped to
propel Barack Obama into the White House. Lindbergh's ambitions evaporated
when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, forcing the US to enter the Second
World War with the aim of total victory against the Axis led by Germany.
American presidential elections remained tycoon-free until 1992 when Ross
Perot, a man who had made his fortune selling business machines to Iran, ran
for president. Taking votes from the incumbent President George W H Bush,
Perot ensured the victory of Democrat candidate Bill Clinton with one of the
narrowest margins in US history.
Perot was not as wealthy as the tycoons who preceded him but had more stamina.
In 1996 he ran again, ensuring another defeat for the Republicans.
Hearst, Ford, Lindbergh and Perot all marketed a cocktail of populism with
talk of ''the American dream'' being threatened by ''others'' ranging from Jews,
in the case of Ford and Lindbergh, to Italians and East Europeans in the case
of Hearst, to Latinos in Perot's case. They all claimed that the government in
Washington had become too big and that the average citizen was no longer
master of his destiny. In addition to this, they all adopted an anti-war
posture at a time that the mood in the US was pacifist.
Trump is following in their footsteps by singling out Latinos and Muslims as
the threatening ''other'', and attacking Washington and the political elite. He
has a problem that his predecessors didn't have. He wants to appear anti-war,
claiming that, like Obama, he had opposed the removal of Saddam Hussein in
Iraq, but promises war against the Islamic State and other unspecified ''Muslim
enemies.''
Will Trump end up like the tycoons that preceded him? The first answer comes
next week in Iowa.
Amir Taheri was born in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, and educated in Tehran, London
and Paris. He was Executive Editor-in-Chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran
(1972-79). In 1980-84, he was Middle East Editor for the Sunday Times. In
1984-92, he served as member of the Executive Board of the International Press
Institute (IPI). Between 1980 and 2004, he was a contributor to the
International Herald Tribune. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, the
New York Post, the New York Times, the London Times, the French magazine
Politique Internationale, and the German weekly Focus. Between 1989 and 2005, he
was editorial writer for the German daily Die Welt. Taheri has published 11
books, some of which have been translated into 20 languages. He has been a
columnist for Asharq Alawsat since 1987. Taheri's latest book "The Persian
Night" is published by Encounter Books in London and New York.
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