Contradiction — the essence of politics

The US seems a good case in point.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton seems to possess much that is pleasing: a woman with the world of international experience, wife of the iconic former president Bill Clinton, articulate, full of money for her campaign, and, critically, with mainstream media at her side.

Yet there is much like a yoke around her neck, like the perception of her stealing the primary from Bernie Sanders, or her email scandal involving the compromise of classified information and her less than honest attempts to deal with it, the “pay for play scandal” surrounding the Clinton Foundation and the US State Department, so much so that the general feeling, according to the polls, is that she is not to be trusted and that she is a compulsive liar.

Yet she may well win the election because of the uncompromising support of minorities such as blacks and Hispanics, the first group being traditionally anti- Republican and pro-Democrat, although the question of the continuing suffering of blacks under the Democrats is a hot topic, and the other, because of Republican candidate Donald Trump’s wall and his strong anti- immigrant stance. Of course there would be many pro-establishment white voters who will vote for Clinton.

As to Trump himself, he has been demonised from the beginning as not being qualified or having the temperament to be president and this continues to be the centre of Clinton’s line of attack, the latter adding to his negative image by describing his supporters as being misogynistic, xenophobic, and the like.

Trump’s initial behaviour in the primaries may have been, admittedly, erratic, but for many that style is a reflection of Trump’s anti-establishment stance and his refusal to be politically correct for its own sake.

Again, what the Democrats and Clinton want to portray in Trump as racism, for many is a realistic approach to the real problems facing Americans, like the impact of illegal immigration on jobs etc and the ever present danger of the Islamic State on American soil among others which have appeal to the average American, now reflected in the polls. But with Clinton having the black and Hispanic vote together with the whole establishment and the media on her side, can Trunp ever prevail? Only time will tell.

The point though is that what seems OK to the average onlooker in the politics may not be so on closer scrutiny, and similarly for the opposite when the seemingly bad may not be so ugly, evidentially so in our own country.

Here for the informed, the present experience of job loss and higher taxes seem at variance with the flattering promises of the election campaign and the other side since its ouster, has, from captain to cook, been slowly “legitmising” its role in governance, with the one “consulting” on crime and holding the government to ransom on a finance Bill, and the other pontificating in Parliament on national issues, when a dark shadow hangs over both. And both sides in their contradiction will get by, for such contradiction is the essence of politics.

Dr Errol Benjamin via email