THE HIGHLY PUBLICISED presidential bid by United States business tycoon Donald Trump has provided the benefit of exposing the unpreparedness of Trump’s “social type” for national leadership.
That social type can be described as the self-made businessman who equates his business success with superior wisdom.
He is disdainful of normal political processes since “this is not how it’s done in the private sector”. His political solutions to obviously complex problems are unidimensional and false. Blinded by the adulation of his small circle of private sector admirers and the forced obedience of his employees, he is blissfully unaware of his inadequacies for national leadership.
The Trump type is authoritarian and dismissive of “academic long talk” since this is the modus operandi of his private business. He is the proverbial raging bull in the delicate China shop of give-and-take and careful reasoning that are the standard features of genuine statesmanship. Nevertheless, his private wealth has furnished him with self-confidence bordering on hubris. When coupled with state power, the consequences are unthinkable.
No American phenomenon
It would be a grave mistake to assume that the Trump social type is a made-in-America phenomenon. To the contrary, we have seen and heard Donald Trump many times over in public-spirited Caribbean businesspersons whose wealth have propelled them to national prominence.
A prominent Barbadian businessman once proposed that the pay of all public servants from the “Governor General down” should be based on performance, since in his own company his own pay depended upon the profitability of his company.
The very strength of the self-made businessman is the weakness which makes him ill-equipped for the responsibilities of public office.
Accustomed to reducing public policy to the facilitation of wealth creation, the businessman turned politician is unable to develop a wider view of the role of power which includes the protection of the vulnerable, the provision of social services and all of the related and interconnected social, economic, political, global and local issues which shape the context of decision-making.
Indeed, we should not separate the new-found political confidence of the Trump types from the current dominance of neo-liberal ideology which valorises private capital above everything else.
In St Lucia, for example, Alan Chastanet – who has never won an election, cannot communicate in the native vernacular, but is the son of prominent businessman Michael Chastanet – has been chosen as the political leader of a prominent “workers’ party”.
While it is fully expected that Trump’s unsuitability for political leadership will become increasingly evident as the American presidential campaign unfolds, we should not be surprised if we witness more instances of the bold flexing of political muscles, no matter how misguided, by our Caribbean Donald Trumps.
No longer is political leadership to be left to the educated “managerial class”. Many feel it is now “their turn”.
Wake up, Caribbean working people!
* Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, specialising in regional affairs. Email tjoe2008@live.com.