By Qays Arthur
The undoubtedly historic victory of Donald Trump at the
polls is certainly, if nothing else, worthy of reflection. There are many
important lessons to be had from this most unusual campaign and election.
Here
are a few that stand out to me as an outsider.
It must be said that the campaign was horrendous involving,
as it did, apparently unprecedented levels of slander and vitriol. At
least one significant social commentator has taken the Trump
win as an opportunity to soul search saying that such depravity and the hate,
fear, and suspicion it engendered should at all costs be avoided in the future.
That sentiment certainly has merit from a Muslim perspective. Every setback,
loss, or slip should provide the believer with an opportunity for introspection
and, where appropriate, repentance - which is always a good idea.
It may also be true that in this victory there is an indicator
of the force (for better or worse) of authenticity. Politicians, as this
campaign has made painfully clear, are hardly towering examples of moral
rectitude. Yet there is something to be said, in retrospect, about the American
voter’s decision to elect someone who was not perceived as being pretentious or
deceptive, even if only with respect to his rhetoric, views, and disposition.
That is about as much as I can muster concerning positive
moral lessons in this affair – unfortunately there wasn’t much to go on.
As regards the intersection of politics and morality, I have pointed out before that Muslims in the US, and
indeed elsewhere, have for too long been content with an alliance of
convenience with the political and intellectual left despite the glaring and
unconscionable moral compromises entailed thereby.
That alliance is sustained by a fear-based conventional
wisdom that says Muslims, as a vulnerable minority, have no choice but to ally
themselves with socially progressive yet morally permissive political and
intellectual forces in order to avoid harm at the hands of a powerful “racist”,
intolerant, white majority. That approach might be expedient but it is not the
way of taqwa which would require instead that legal and social
means be sought to preserve and express the values of the community, in
addition to preserving its safety, as permitted by the constitution and
relevant laws.
Now this turn of events, completely unforeseen by those
political and intellectual forces, undermines that morally flawed, fear-based
conventional wisdom. The academics and pollsters (especially the progressive
yet permissive ones) were all just as wrong regarding their political calculus
as they are with their moral calculus and the Muslims are right there with them
– vulnerable and exposed.
The fact is that America is not the same
today as it was in years past. It is no longer simply a “white” nation with an “other” underclass such that
the fear-based calculus of race and class politics remains potent in
the same ways as before. The fact that race and gender were not particularly significant in getting Trump into office,
despite obvious efforts on the part of the political and media establishments
to play on them, may indicate not only that current methods of measuring public
opinion are inadequate but also that the public response to political and media
stimuli has changed in significant ways.
Could it be that the Democrats (especially) and Republicans
have left the nation so broken and divided that they are now confronted by a
groundswell of frustration-inspired, populist, anti-establishment sentiment
that threatens them and republic’s existing political assumptions?
If that is the case then the Republican party is certainly
doing better, emerging politically stronger after the election despite its
divisions. That may well be because they, at least in part, grudgingly
accommodated that groundswell of subversive ideas manifested in the Tea-Party
then the Trump “movements” which, in retrospect, were very early warning signs
of the outcome the nation faces today.
And the Democrats too, with their now forgotten Sanders
movement, had their own early warning sign. But that movement was anything but accommodated by the party. Perhaps
snuffing out the Sanders movement in such a manner was a fatal blunder that,
along with other signs like what I would call the Malik Obama effect, were ignored ultimately leading
to previous Obama strongholds contributing to the dramatic triumph
of Trump.
Whatever the details are, Trump’s victory is not a minor
matter nor is it a temporary setback for the political and media
establishments.
This is a watershed moment and it may also be a judgment
from God against the morally flawed conventional political wisdom relied upon
by American Muslims for their political engagement up to this point.
Things have changed and right now America, for the first
time, has a president who is an ill-tempered, crude, outsider with no
government experience at all. But he is also a president who has refused the assistance of pro-Israel lobbies, has pledged to be neutral on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict,
has called for an investigation into why polls indicate hatred on the part of
Muslims toward Americans (he did that when he called for a ban on all Muslims entering the country – see
paragraph five), and yet has virtually single-handedly taken on the American
political and media establishments and prevailed.
American Muslims could therefore take this development as
either a catastrophe of apocalyptic dimensions or as an opportunity of similar
magnitude. Either way, swift, responsive leadership and positive action will be
required.
So insha Allah khayr will come out of it.
