‘US election campaign may be violent and damaging to US world standing'
Professor Inderjeet Parmar analyses rise of Trump in overview of presidential primary elections
A contest between Donald Trump and the prevailing Democratic
candidate in the US presidential election could turn violent and become
damaging to the country's world standing, according to Professor Inderjeet Parmar.
Writing
for The Wire, the City University London academic explained Trump was
heading towards victory in the race to become the Republican Party candidate
in November’s battle for the White House.
Professor Parmar believes the campaign to select the final two
presidential hopefuls has highlighted deepening divisions between individuals
who represent the established political elite and the majority of
Americans.
In the latest in a series of articles on the presidential
primary elections, the academic, of the Department of International Politics, explained
Trump’s “anti-politics” approach was winning over voters across the USA.
He said: “The gap between the established political elite
and the vast majority of Americans is now wider than it has been since the
1970s – the last time the very legitimacy of the American political system was
called into question in the wake of the horrors of the Vietnam War, the illegal
bombing of Cambodia, the furore over the leaked Pentagon papers and the
Watergate scandal that destroyed Richard Nixon.
“It is unlikely that a contest between Trump and any
Democratic candidate will not be ugly, possibly violent, divisive and damaging
to America’s global standing. But it might clarify what America really stands
for.”
In his previous
article for The Wire, Professor Parmar described the “crisis” in the
Republican Party that is seeing its traditional supporters deserting previously
popular figures such as Marco Rubio.
The academic says this “civil war” could mean that, in the
event Trump triumphs in the November presidential election, the billionaire businessman
may be left without enough support in Congress to deliver his policies.
He said: “Analysis of Republican primary results so far
suggests that the crisis in the GOP [Republican Party] is far deeper than the
Trump phenomenon and is exposing a party incapable of governing with anything
like a coherent programme let alone a favoured candidate backed by the official
leadership.”
Professor Parmar added: “Put together with the level of
vitriol in the Republican candidates’ debates, this is a process that’s
exposing a party that appears to have lost control of the primaries and, if
either Trump or [Ted] Cruz wins the White House, is likely to disavow their own
president.”
Writing in his blog,
the US political expert explored the GOP divisions further, with an article on
the “50 reasonable conservatives” who wrote
an open letter to Donald Trump condemning the real estate magnate as unfit
for office.
“This open letter represents the US foreign policy establishment’s
rejection of an aggressive warmonger because he’s not in their networks, not
part of their elite, and not in their control,” he said.
Following Super Tuesday – the day when the greatest number of US states all
cast their votes on which party candidates they want to run for president –
Professor Parmar wrote in
Fortune magazine that the final vote could be among the most “brutal” US
elections ever.
The academic explained there were vast differences between
the politics of the Republicans’ likely candidate Trump and the eventual winner
of the Democratic Party’s vote – either the favourite Hillary Clinton or Bernie
Sanders.
“November might see one of the most brutal of contests in
American history since Thomas Jefferson took on John Adams, each trading slurs
that would shock Americans even today,” he said.
Professor Parmar has also written analysis of the New
Hampshire primary results and the Iowa
caucus as part of his commentary of the 2016 US presidential election
campaign.