Is Trump America’s most unconventional president?

Washington, January 20

Donald Trump, a colourful billionaire, tapped into the disillusionment of blue-collar voters by his controversial anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric that makes him the most unconventional presidents in US history after one of the most divisive contests.

New York’s best-known developer and reality television personality, 70-year-old Trump was often synonymous with controversy during his bitterly-fought presidential campaign against Democrat rival Hillary Clinton.

The real estate mogul turned to politics announcing his candidacy for president on the Republican ticket in 2015, joining a crowded field of more than a dozen major candidates.

Once considered a long shot, Trump won a majority of the primaries and caucuses by defeating sixteen well-known politicians of his party. Trump, 70, became the official Republican Party candidate for president on July 19, 2016.

During his election campaign, a number of women accused him of sexually assaulting them. He hogged headlines for several suggestive and denigrating remarks against women, including his own daughter.

Most prominent was a video that resurfaced after 5 years, in which Trump is heard boasting about being able to sexually assault women and get away with it for being “a star”.

Trump had teased the idea of running for the presidency since 1987, but many feel the final straw for him was the 2011 White House Correspondents’ dinner when he was made the unwitting target of President Barack Obama’s pointed jokes.

The incident had unfolded amid Trump upping the ante on the birth row, as he questioned whether the US President was an American citizen.

The annual dinner had taken place just a couple of days before the US Navy Seals raid that killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in May 2011 in Pakistan.

The killing of the man who masterminded the 9/11 terror attacks unified the nation and Trump faced a backlash for questioning the nationality of the President who took the world’s most wanted man out.

Four years later, the tycoon entered the crowded field of the Republican Party’s presidential campaign, but his candidature was instantly dismissed as a reality stunt by many, including his own party members as well as Obama.

But far from being entertaining, the Trump campaign shocked people with divisive statements that threatened to undermine the long-cherished secular and Democratic American traditions.

Trump was also criticised by his party for insulting the parents of a decorated Muslim-American soldier who died in the line of duty in Iraq.

Such was his rhetoric in the campaign that top leaders of his own party, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Ted Cruz, did not endorse him till close to the end of the election cycle.

Trump’s rhetoric, however, resonated with the American working class, who were fed up with the establishment and the Washington elite and were also angry at losing their jobs to immigrants or to companies shipping work abroad.

The real estate mogul ran an unconventional election and will be the most unconventional president in US history. — PTI