‘Tangled web’: Trump’s businesses could create conflicts

Clarke is connected enough to the Trump campaign that he was picked as a speaker at the Republican National Convention that nominated Trump, and he has been mentioned as a possible head of Homeland Security.

A whole lot of Americans would agree that something of great importance happened in the election last week, with Donald Trump’s winning the presidency. In the month before his election, Trump described North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as obsolete and raised questions over whether America under his leadership would come to the aid of a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally under attack. But rarely has an incoming president represented such potential for conflicts of interest. He called Mexicans rapists and drug dealers, made sexist comments about women, vilified Muslims and called for monitoring Muslim Americans, mocked people with disabilities, associated African Americans with poverty and crime, and overall, presented views that resemble white right-wing nationalist ideologies. I have already heard attractive stories of women in hijabs proudly wearing their full selves out there even while afraid, and I have heard stories of men of privilege putting their bodies between a Muslim woman and someone who intended her harm.

The first danger is global. If Trump takes the United States down an isolationist path, there could well be a crass wrecking of worldwide order with nothing in its place.

I voted for Donald Trump because I do not really believe the narrative that 90 percent of the media hammered us with is that he’s a racist, a sexist and all the other vile names liberals have for anyone who does not toe the line and accept their worldview. Trump’s rumoured pick for the Environment Protection Agency is Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

Last week we had school conferences where teachers used the words “kind” “honest” and “a friend to everyone” when describing them.

What can we do for each other in the face of such deep division?

The second danger is domestic. But in continuing to voice that he intends to appoint a Supreme Court Justice for whom overturning Roe v. Wade will be a litmus test, the President-elect has abandoned the rights of millions of women across our country.

Mainline Republicans are too centrist for the alt-right, which rejects the conservative establishment and American multiculturalism.

Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign sparked an increase in attacks on minorities. There is an intellectual tendency on the left, an ultra-progressive tendency that has grown accustomed to a fast-moving wave of social victory, that is only capable of interpreting all this as the pretext for a return of endemic overt racism – the monster they see under every bed.

The main factor externally is Russian President Putin. I have yet to meet a Trump supporter who is all of the things above, but I know they are out there, which is unsettling.

Meanwhile, Meyer said that the reports of global leaders bypassing traditional protocols – as in the case of the Australian prime minster – is “unusual”, but also to be expected somewhat considering Trump’s political credentials.

Overall, Trump’s rhetoric towards the Arab world thus far has been a combination of belligerence, Islamophobia, and unilateral approaches, all of which suggest further destabilisation in the region and a deteriorating state of human rights and democracy. When Christie was United States attorney for the Garden State, he sent Kushner’s father to prison. But even in his final weeks on the campaign trail, it became clear that Trump didn’t understand Obamacare when he railed on about his employees’ dissatisfaction with the plan at a Florida rally. We normalized it. We paved the way for Trump. Instead of a sea change, Trump’s electoral coalition is not cohesive, nor is it coherent. As clarification, by working class I do not mean poor. He outsmarted his opponents, came into this race being a non-politician, and had many factors against him. The Democrats can well re-energise from this defeat, whereas Trump’s cobbled together insurgent coalition will demand results and will no longer be able to paint itself in the colours of being anti-establishment.

The Obama administration, which found the process cumbersome and the government’s mechanisms for managing it outdated in 2008, has built a new software system for the president-elect to track candidates for the appointments and process those selected. So, take heart. The world has not yet ended and all things – fair or foul – must come to pass. There will always be the David Dukes of the world; however, Americans have always risen above identity politics.