Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj, in his analy­sis of the out­come of the re­cent Unit­ed States pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, which saw Don­ald Trump win a land­slide vic­to­ry in swing states, says the Re­pub­li­can’s sec­ond term in of­fice will ush­er in a new pe­ri­od in pol­i­tics.

“We are now en­ter­ing an era of the pol­i­tics of Trump­ism,” he said. By de­f­i­n­i­tion, the move­ment in­cor­po­rates ide­olo­gies such as right-wing pop­ulism, na­tion­al con­ser­vatism, neo-na­tion­al­ism, and neo-fas­cism. Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at his Mar­aval of­fice, he said, “What we saw on elec­tion night is the av­er­age vot­er in the US and glob­al­ly is con­cerned with re­al is­sues, is­sues like the cost of liv­ing, the cost of en­er­gy, the cost of food, things that will im­prove their lives.

“We all are vic­tims of a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign and so­cial me­dia analy­sis, and that dri­ves pub­lic opin­ion to a point, but what in­flu­ences the vot­er at the end of the day is mon­ey in my pock­et, which leader can im­prove my life. And that is the re­al­i­ty of to­day.” 

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­samooj, Trump was able to cap­ture vic­to­ry by be­ing able to con­nect to the elec­torate.

“We all got caught up in the Hol­ly­wood, Bol­ly­wood, di­va-style pol­i­tics and be­lief that en­dorse­ments by big names would give cred­i­bil­i­ty, but peo­ple re­al­ly want, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, a leader who can im­prove qual­i­ty of life di­rect­ly. When you fail to de­liv­er that, you pay a price,” he said.

Ram­samooj not­ed that giv­en the glob­al sig­nif­i­cance of the po­ten­tial poli­cies to be rolled out by Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion, there was no time to be wast­ed for the Gov­ern­ment. 

“It is im­por­tant that di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween both lead­ers oc­curs that will safe­guard our short- to medi­um-term eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests, with spe­cial em­pha­sis be­ing placed on the en­er­gy sec­tor, our fi­nan­cial cred­it­wor­thi­ness as a coun­try, and to see where eco­nom­ic syn­er­gies can be col­lab­o­rat­ed on,” he said. Ram­samooj al­so ad­vised vig­i­lance on Trump’s po­si­tion on Cari­com. He said, “We must re­mem­ber that right to bear arms is a very dom­i­nant space in the think­ing of the Amer­i­can econ­o­my and peo­ple, so there­fore re­strict­ing or curb­ing that econ­o­my would not nec­es­sar­i­ly au­gur well. The le­git­i­mate gun trade is part of the le­git­i­mate trad­ing be­tween the US and Caribbean. It is the il­lic­it gun trade that is of con­cern. You have to know your cus­tomers, how much Cari­com works as a group or coun­tries work uni­lat­er­al­ly to ne­go­ti­ate with the US au­thor­i­ties.” Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad stressed that with a gen­er­al elec­tion loom­ing, there were ma­jor take­aways for those gear­ing up for lo­cal bat­tle. “The econ­o­my is a crit­i­cal fac­tor, and while eth­nic­i­ty is crit­i­cal be­cause it al­so fac­tored in the US elec­tion, I think now peo­ple are look­ing at their eco­nom­ic well-be­ing, un­em­ploy­ment and se­cu­ri­ty, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al, and for us, a na­tion­al is­sue and the prop­er­ty tax, which is part of the eco­nom­ic prob­lem.” 

Ram­per­sad fur­ther ad­vised that care­ful at­ten­tion be placed on the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s poli­cies re­gard­ing im­mi­gra­tion and ef­forts aimed at transna­tion­al crime. 

“One would want to reach out to his Gov­ern­ment to as­sist in al­le­vi­at­ing transna­tion­al crime, which im­pacts us and af­fects our drug trade and arms trade. We need the as­sis­tance of the US. They have been as­sist­ing, but it has not been ef­fec­tive. Nei­ther Har­ris nor Trump re­al­ly played that for­eign pol­i­cy to the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca on their plat­form or cam­paign trail,” he said. Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James cau­tioned that Trump’s win­ning strate­gies may not yield the same re­sults for this coun­try’s con­tenders.

“If he thinks he can say what he wants, de­vel­op poli­cies that he does not dis­cuss with the peo­ple first, that he can con­tin­ue with ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty, a cer­tain au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism that al­most every­one ac­cus­es him of and get through as Trump has, I think he will be in for a great shock,” said James.

He al­so added that Trump’s for­eign pol­i­cy, and in par­tic­u­lar his po­si­tion on the Venezuela and Guyana im­passe over the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion, are sig­nif­i­cant for T&T.