It is hard to know the mental landscape of America. A man derided as a “joke”, a publicity-grabbing reality show bloke using his billionaire’s clout to thrust himself into the US presidential race, found himself within the year to be the Republican Party’s official nominee for the contest. So, there’s no knowing to what extent Donald J. Trump could have hurt his chances in the election after his audio tape of 2005 surfaced in which he has made lewd talk, spoken boastingly of sexual assaults on even married women, and sounded lascivious about his own daughter. In the second presidential debate on Sunday night, Mr Trump made light of the dirty conversation, dismissing it as “locker-room talk”.
We hope American women — about half the voting population — hear the voice on that tape, and not soundbytes from the presidential debates as they go to vote. We have to grant, however, that American society looks to be cleaved, structurally speaking, and this accounts for the maverick Trump’s staying power in the race. The Republican Party grandees, who were never comfortable with Mr Trump’s views on a variety of subjects as these appear to be of a variety that would give comfort to those on the fascistic side of the social or political divide, have been quick to decry his talk on the tape and even called for him to leave the Republican nomination.
The question however is, is this how the Republican core voter — the white working class American male and the average American who didn’t make it to college — also thinking? If so, we may safely conclude that Mr Trump will be miles from the breasting tape when the race ends. If not, then God help America. Of one thing there can be little doubt. If a candidate like Mr Trump had come this far in India, an unlikely event, he would find himself in jail on the evidence of that sex tape alone, so drastically have our laws pertaining to sexual assault changed after the Nirbhaya case. The Americans seem to be more forgiving. They’d let a billionaire run on even if he is caught not having paid tax for 18 years, and all but molested vulnerable women.
But should there be a President Trump, God forbid, he may be quite certain that women political leaders and ministers around the world would avoid shaking hands with him even to maintain protocol. Just having a candidate Trump has cost America. Its values are now a suspect. The US is still the world’s most powerful country, but not the most influential any more. The reason is that there exists a society out there that can throw up some very creepy leaders.
