AND THERE’S MOORE…
By Cliff Moore, Account Director, Deep South Media
Just when you thought 2016 couldn’t get any stranger along comes Donald to Trump the lot.
This year we have lost a host of stars from David Bowie and Prince to Alan Rickman and Terry Wogan, along with Muhammed Ali, Victoria Wood, Caroline Aherne and Johan Cruyff.
Then there was the Zika virus, North Korean nuclear testing, Brussels terror attacks, the Orlando nightclub shooting, earthquakes in Italy and Bob Dylan winning a Nobel Prize.
And that’s without mentioning Brexit and all the political shenanigans and social ramifications faced by Britons after the June 23 vote that now seems both ancient history and inconsequential in world terms.
However, the election of Donald Trump to succeed Barack Obama as President of the United States is surely unbeatable in terms of strangeness.
The New York hotel developer, who will be 78 by the end of a second term, is surely already the most divisive character to have held such high office.
And his pre-election political pronouncements – to repeal Obama’s executive orders, build a wall on the Mexican border, cancel UN climate change programme payments and remove two million ‘criminal illegal immigrants’ – send shivers down many spines.
It could be argued that he is simply the epitome of the American dream that anyone can become President (which other country would elect Trump to follow Obama?) and he should be applauded for his tenacity in reaching the White House.
His astonishing victory over the unloved Hillary Clinton is no mean feat for a candidate who had previously vowed to self-fund his campaign before being adopted as the Republican candidate.
This was a man who inherited money, became a successful hotel tycoon, was involved in a messy divorce, courted controversy with Scottish golf courses, established a failed university and became a reality TV star with The Apprentice – and yet was still best known for his crazy comb over.
As I said, it was an astonishing achievement for someone outside the cosy political establishment.
Now we wait with bated breath and no little trepidation to see what will happen after his January inauguration and just how the world will be affected.
There will certainly be interesting (if that’s the right word) times ahead although there were some signs of conciliation in his New York acceptance address. Or has he realised he must be statesmanlike?
And, although the Republicans control both Congress and the Senate he won’t have an easy ride because many don’t like him at all and thus his more outlandish proposals may be watered down.
But he remains an unpredictable loose cannon.
In commerce terms it is always good to have a maverick in a business to spark ideas and upset the proverbial apple cart.
But I don’t think that’s necessarily a good mould from which to cast the leader of the free world.
And don’t let him get anywhere near that button.
