The Phenomenon of Trump in the US Presidential Elections

• 02.25.2016, 10:46
• Liana Hovhannisyan
•  America,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World,  Analytics

The first stage of the US presidential elections, primary, in is still going on. After republican primaries in the four states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada) Donald Trump managed to win in the three states gaining the vote of 81 delegates (to  win the first stage of the elections and to be nominated as a republican candidate in the second stage Trump needs the votes of 1,237 delegates).

Notwithstanding the fact that last week the US current president Barack Obama openly declared that  he "has a lot of faith in the American people"  and believes that Trump will not be president, the poll results prove that Trump continues to be a frontrunner among the republican candidates.

What does the phenomenon of Trump speak about the internal moods in the US and how does a businessman who has no direct connection with politics and is a "showman", manage to gain the sympathy of the US citizens?

To explain Trump’s such kind of success one should refer to the internal moods in the US, particularly to the fears and negative sentiments of the US residents against the government. Among them three main factors should be identified which Trump so far has managed to successfully use in favor of his interests.

First: In the US, the anti-migration sentiments continue to grow. The US residents continuously complain of the advantages given to the illegal immigrants. As they state "the immigrants get everything, while they get nothing." It this sense it is not strange that among one of the main theses of Trump’s presidential campaign is fight against illegal migrants.

Second: Among Trump’s supporters there are representatives of the so-called silent majority, who complain of  reverse discrimination. They represent the US "white residents", who are prone to think that because of the "black people" they are discriminated in their own country.

Third: The majority of Trump’s supporters think that the US current president is not able to defend their country from foreign threats, particularly from the possible terrorist attacks. In this context it is interesting to note that Trump uses religious discrimination as a tool in his campaign. The latter for many times has come up with the initiatives such as to increase the regulation on the mosques, to create data of the Muslim population to increase control on them, as well as to introduce a temporary ban not to allow the entry of the Muslims to the US.

Thus if we try to sum up then we are to state that one of the main guarantees for Trump’s success is the so called negative vote. So far he has successfully managed to use the exiting negative sentiments for his benefit. However, the solutions proposed by him so far have been based on destructive methods that expressed discrimination against religion, race and the like.  This is a reality which raises number of questions…