So, Trump is Not An Orangutan

(From Sadhana Seelam, USA)

When I was in junior college in India, I remember reading The Guide, by RK Narayan. A one-line summary would read something like - conman forced into the role of a mendicant through sheer force of commonplace events.

Fast forward several decades...

In the last debate, when Hillary shined like she always does, with her natural brilliance and formidable grasp of affairs, I was surprised by her response to the interviewer’s question about what she admired about Trump... astounding as Hillary was that night, I was dismayed that all she could say was something nice about his kids. Trump on the other hand answered quite evenly, ‘her perseverance, she never gives up.’ That was when I felt a sudden pang of fear.

It turns out that several million people, almost half of US voters chose Trump to be their president. But, that was November 8th! Right? Today is November 11. It seems like an age since the race was called in Trump's favor. And there he was parading his impeccably turned out family, that's how millionaires or possibly billionaires (anything is possible now… dress themselves) sounding like an alien. I mean not like Trump. Civil. Measured. Gracious. Prompting many television viewers to ask, 'Will the real Trump please stand up?'

So what happened? As an ardent Hillary supporter I was stunned and in denial. Still am. I may never get over the loss of not having one of the smartest and most capable women in the world as my president.

How did Trump not get bogged down by the slick, well-oiled Democratic Party machine? He probably just ignored it. He was too full of his own three talking points that he never deviated from.

When Trump and Melania glided down that escalator from Trump Tower in Manhattan, announcing his candidacy, the world watched and frolicked. Even those who eventually ended up voting for him probably had a hearty laugh. It also provided endless inspiration for late night comics and Trumpism became an attribute respectable folks shied away from. Trump became a grammatical form, sometimes noun, verb or adjective.

There were tons of people who loved the succinct summary he produced unabashedly at each event, jam-packed with adoring crowds, ready to rip off a right arm in favor of their savior. They needed a savior after the debacle, in their eyes, of an Obama presidency. Twice. They smarted from the 'up yours' sort of thing.

When Trump and Melania glided down that escalator from Trump Tower in Manhattan, announcing his candidacy, the world watched and frolicked. Even those who eventually ended up voting for him probably had a hearty laugh. It also provided endless inspiration for late night comics and Trumpism became an attribute respectable folks shied away from. Trump became a grammatical form, sometimes noun, verb or adjective.

Trump's supporters worked at fever pitch. I was a Hillary volunteer and believed I was passionate but my passion was comfortably caressed by polls that acted as happy pills; both for myself and those I sought to persuade.

Trump's supporters never needed the barrage of emails Hillary supporters got from the cream of the Democratic establishment. They were instead pumped every time a Trevor Noah or a Colbert or a Bill Maher maligned their god. They sprang to his defense like they were defending their own wayward child, harshly condemned for truancy.

In the last debate, when Hillary shined like she always does, with her natural brilliance and formidable grasp of affairs, I was surprised by her response to the interviewer's question about what she admired about Trump... astounding as Hillary was that night, I was dismayed that all she could say was something nice about his kids. Trump on the other hand answered quite evenly, 'her perseverance, she never gives up.' That was when I felt a sudden pang of fear. Hillary was so tuned to not paying Trump any compliment that she had to eschew that opportunity for spontaneity and chose to praise his kids instead. We are separate people from our kids, she could have said she admired his brazenness..

That would have been an honest answer.

And the conman in that story of The Guide that I read many years ago adjusts to being a mendicant and tries to live up to the adulation and trust placed in him. It changed him completely and he transformed himself to become the cure all for the woes of villagers and folk who, with the power of their faith, vested in him a personality he didn't know he possessed. And, adhering to Darwin's dictum; 'It's not just the survival of the fittest,' which Trump has proved, but, the second part, 'But those most adaptive to change,' part that will prove right or wrong, the boundless confidence people have reposed in a man, whose election caused more tumult than a meteor hitting the earth.

(Orangutan is derived from Malay and Indonesian words. Orang means ‘person’ and hutan stands for forest. Orangutan means ‘person in forest’)