I had never ruled out the possibility that Donald Trump could win the presidential elections in the US. I expressed this in published press interviews, the last being with a reporter from Al-Sharq Al-Awsat only hours before the polls opened. There were three basic reasons why I believed Trump could win. The first was the rise of the ultra right in Europe. Taking France, for example, we find that this phenomenon has reached dangerous proportions. In the French presidential elections of 2012, Marine Le Pen, leader of the extremist National Front, came in third with 20 per cent of the vote. This was unprecedented. Then, in the European Parliament elections of 2014, her National Front won 25 per cent (up from only six per cent in the 2009 elections) while at the national level the party won 28 per cent of the vote, earning it 265 seats in parliament (as opposed to only 118 seats in the 2010 elections). Many expect Le Pen to come out ahead in the first round of the French presidential elections in 2017, which will enable her to enter the runoffs for the first time in French history. Marine Le Pen could become the president of France, even though many observers dismiss this possibility. What the foregoing indicators mean is that Europe is changing rapidly and for the worse. The second reason relates to the recent British referendum. In spite of the fact that all opinion polls favoured a vote in favour of Britain remaining in the EU, the referendum delivered the opposite results: Exit. The shock was immense and it reverberated throughout the world. I, myself, deduced from the circumstances surrounding that referendum in particular that the world as portrayed by the media and opinion polls is quite different from the world as it really is. This is why I was wary of opinion polls ahead of Election Day in the US, all of which gave Clinton a comfortable lead. Thirdly, quite a few prominent observers and political analysts believed that Trump stood a good chance. American history professor Allan Lichtman has used what he calls a basket of “keys to the White House” to forecast the outcome of presidential elections since 1984. In an interview with The Washington Post he predicted that Trump would win by a narrow margin. Similarly, Helmut Norpoth, a political science professor at Stoney Brook University who developed the “Primary Model” that has correctly predicted the results of elections since it was first applied, also stated that the odds were in favour of Trump. Then there was the famous political satirist and filmmaker Michael Moore who posted an essay on his Website, “Five Reasons Why Trump Will Win.” When the ultra right grows so widespread in Europe, the majority of British voters decide to leave the EU and a man like Trump gets into the White House you can be sure of one thing: The world order is in the midst of great upheaval. The Trump victory is a product, not a cause, of the chaos that has afflicted the world order. As such, it reveals the depth of the identity crisis that is sweeping through a rapidly globalising world of diverse cultures and civilisations. As this crisis mounts, it threatens to produce more manifestations of extremism and intolerance that propel towards returns to national, ethnic, religious or sectarian “roots” which appear more capable of expressing a society's particular properties. Trump's statements during his campaign betrayed a deep misogyny and racist attitudes that are biased in favour of the wealthy white population and are hostile towards Muslims above all. They also drove home the fact that this man is set on reviving his version of a strong and proud America, even if he has to destroy the whole world to do it. This is a man who pledged to ban Muslims from the US (he makes no distinction between extremists and others), to expel millions of illegal immigrants from the US, to abolish Obamacare, to reduce taxes for the corporate rich, to pull the US out of Paris Climate Change agreement and out of free trade zones, to levy heavy customs duties on all Chinese imports, to build a wall along the Mexican border and make the other side pay, to make US allies (especially NATO countries and Gulf Cooperation Council countries) shoulder more of the financial burdens for US protection, and to cancel the accord with Tehran over the Iranian nuclear programme. Taken together, this is a plan for declaration of war against many parties in the US and abroad. Russia and Israel are the only countries towards which Trump expressed some affection during his campaign. He does not see Russia as an inevitable enemy of the US, but rather as a potential friend in the war on terrorism. On a number of occasions, he expressed his admiration for President Putin. With regard to Israel, Trump has reiterated his absolute commitment to that country's security. He also stated that he does not see its settlement expansion activity as an obstacle to peace and he has recognised Jerusalem as the “eternal capital” of Israel and vowed to move the US embassy to that city. As a way of confirming that these were not just campaign promises, he announced that he was expecting a Jewish grandson and he broadcast his joy after this grandson was born. Trump's election triggered waves of anger both inside the US and abroad. Mass demonstrations erupted in major US cities in which protesters cried “Trump is not our president!” This is unprecedented in US history. In Europe, some official reactions were both defiant and concerned. Some, not without reason, questioned Trump's ability to lead the world order. In many people's opinion, Hillary was the real victor in the elections. She won the popular vote (with 61.8 million votes against 60.8 million for Trump, or 50.4 per cent of the vote versus 49.6 per cent for Trump). Yet, in the US electoral system, it is the Electoral College vote that prevails. But as no one expects this system to change in spite of the many criticisms against it, many observers believe that the real problem resides not so much in the electoral system, per se, as in the political system as a whole. This problem has become so profound as to impede the rise of leaderships that are truly equipped to grapple with challenges at home and abroad at a delicate time in the evolution of the global order. If the last US presidential elections tell us anything it is that the American voter has totally lost faith in the official establishment and longs for radical change in both institutions and policies. It is to everyone's misfortune that the US political system, in spite of venerable democratic traditions, was only able to produce Hillary Clinton as a representative of the sectors of society that favour stability and continuity and Donald Trump as a representative of the sectors of society that refuse to bow to the status quo and long for change. Hillary, as we know, had served in many official capacities for about a third of a century. Since her political record reflects an unbounded ambition the aims of which were obtained at the cost of noble humanitarian values, she seemed to epitomise all the opportunism and corruption that permeates the US establishment. Trump is the perfect embodiment of the other side of the American coin. He is a wealthy business magnate, a rebel not only against the US political establishment as a whole but also against his own Republican leadership, and he has never held any government office, whether by election or appointment. His demagogic personality and behaviour was such as to make him seem more of a political charlatan than a statesman, but it was his demagoguery that succeeded in unifying all opposed to the establishment, rejecting conventional policies on the grounds that these policies, whether Republican or Democratic, were responsible for the deterioration in the status and prestige of the US. Many believe — and I count myself among them — that Trump's election as president of the most powerful nation that history has ever known represents a dangerous setback for the noble humanitarian values for which mankind has struggled for so long and, therefore, that all efforts should be made to ensure that he fails in his project. However, I do not believe that Clinton was a better option. In fact, maybe it will be better for the world to deal with a US president who is more forthright and who is bold enough to say what he feels inside, however crude and offensive it sounds, than to deal with a president who wears masks and is a clever manipulator behind the scenes and the facades of slogans. We need only to recall, here, what Bush Jr did to Iraq to realise that the official establishment in the US is capable of producing things that could be worse than Trump. Still, the world needs to rise to the level of the challenge he poses. Yet, I am unsure whether the world, in spite of the intensity of some of the reactions we have seen, is prepared to genuinely lock horns with Trump. In fact, I expect a lot of masks to fall off soon. Unfortunately, some Arabs have welcomed the Trump victory. Perhaps this was out of spite for “other” Arabs who they do not like or whom they resent for their overbearingness, and out of the belief that they will be able to take their enemy brother's place as US friends. If they do believe this, they are deluding themselves. Trump will have no other friend in this region apart from Israel. Trump believes that the birth of Israel was divinely ordained and, therefore, that the US has the responsibility to protect and empower it. His actions here are less likely to be informed by sound political judgement than by a sense that he is on a divine mission. This is why I am totally convinced that Trump will do all in his power to help Israel to bury the Palestinian cause. Towards this end, he will try to capitalise on inter-Arab disputes and propel as many Arab countries as possible to normalise relations with Israel without compelling Israel to withdraw from the Arab territories it occupied in 1967. He will do all this beneath the banner of the war against terrorism. So be on guard! The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
