GUEST BLOG: Alex Pirie – A Trump Presidency: It Will Never Happen…Until It Does

I have been watching the US election preamble with growing fascination, and apprehension.

Fascination because the political establishment is getting a thorough kicking from both sides of the populist outsider coin that is Sanders/Trump. Apprehension because, ultimately, the victor could be Donald Trump.

Many will say, indeed have been saying for many months, ‘It will never happen’. I have been noticing that the chuckle or snigger that usually follows this pronouncement has been sounding ever more nervous and hollow of late.

Which brings me to ‘Until it does’. History is bulging at the seams with precedents of outsiders taking power against the odds. Julius Caesar even left us an expression that describes the massive first risk the interloper needs to take, ‘Crossing the Rubicon’, the point from which there is no going back.

Trump has gone well beyond this point even if his campaign goes down in flames in the coming months. His hate-filled, fear inducing brand of rhetoric has unleashed a tidal wave of prejudice and racism that is increasing in confidence in its expression. This is made even more menacing by reports of growing violence against Trump opponents with the courage to protest at his rallies. This will be very difficult to contain even if Trump is eliminated from the race and virtually impossible if he wins the Republican nomination or, stuff of nightmares, the US Presidency.

The problem that the Republican hierarchy has with Trump is not so much the ideas he expresses but the volume and bluster with which he expresses them. A Cruz or Rubio presidency would attempt to distance itself from Trump rather than actually look for meaningful solutions to the inequality that has spread far and wide in US society after more than 30 years of Neoliberal policy.

Trump has seized on the resulting corrosive fear and loathing that has been long growing in some sectors of the community. He may not have created the problems but he is taking full advantage of them, much like two European outsiders did in Italy and Germany over 80 years ago. Hopefully this horror story does not come to pass at the ballot box or the US, and the world, could be in for a very bumpy ride.