Namma Chennai diary: PIOs, NRIs view Trump with trepidation

It’s summer out here. It’s still only spring in most parts of the USA from where many kin have been dropping in for their annual family stop in good old Chennai. It is strange how universally unpopular Donald Trump has been among the expats. Not one of them had anything to say in his defence, even partly while discussing a gamut of issues. It’s true he has had only 100 days in the White House, minuscule compared to the nearly 1,461 days they get to occupy the office of the leader of the free world. It has been something of an obsession around the world to scrutinise Trump’s presidency rather than regimes of our own leaders. But then how many Chief Ministers can have much of a say on global security, even one from Tamil Nadu who, like those of the states on the borders, have also to deal with the fallout of policies being pursued in lands beyond our own. What Trump has done in each one of those 100 days has been something of a fixation. What about Trump promising to reduce taxes drastically – down to 15% for corporate and a dip in taxes for everyone in each tax bracket – to please the flock who voted for him?

There was healthy skepticism even there as a relative pointed out that Trump may not be able to get away with this as there are laws that deal with budget deficits in the US which will not allow an extremely liberal tax policy potentially taking away revenue from the kitty that goes into public spending. So, not even what would have seemed a very populist measure to at least a few crore tax payers of India was mercilessly shot down by this anti-Trump feeling so prevalent among the NRIs, who it must be said regardless of their pigmentation are a non-white race and so not so high priority for the gentleman from Pennsylvania Avenue. It is possible to surmise that the non-whites must be feeling the anxieties the most although Trump may have made no move to oust anyone who is legally present in the US and has been targeting only immigrants. Regardless of who they voted for, it appears the Indian diaspora is nervous and understandably so. 

The jokes on Trump still get the most laughs out there and the stand-up comics of British origin are the ones putting out the most rib-tickling pantomimes on Trump. A popular stand-up Indian origin also had his sights set on Trump because he skipped the annual Correspondents’ dinner over the weekend. And mind you no one since Ronald Reagan has skipped this high-profile event whiuch has an Oscars-like pre-event red carpet. Reagan’s absence was understandable as he was then recovering from an assassination attempt. “We’ve got to address the elephant that’s not in the room,” cracked the entertainment headliner, Hasan Minhaj of The Daily Show on TV’s Comedy Central. “The leader of our country is not here. And that’s because he lives in Moscow. It’s a very long flight. As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke”, AP reported. Trump was indeed in Pennsylvania, having scheduled a rally to mark his 100th day in office.

He began his remarks with a lengthy if familiar attack on the news media while dismissing the dinner and its participants. Trump chose to celebrate his 100 days away from journalists whose pet project is to roast rather than toast the man with unusual views on truth and ‘fake news’. “I am what I am”, Trump has been known to say. That should be a perfectly acceptable argument if he were not pretending to be the leader of the free world while setting off 59 Tomahawks in the direction of Syria, the “Mother of All Bombs” towards Afghanistan while, quite ironically, making the false claim that a US aircraft carrier group was steaming towards Korea while it was then heading in quite the opposite direction. He is promising the world a war now against North Korea, to put down its asinine young leader’s bluster. If only Trump had ever heard of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace who once said that if man insists on taking an eye for an eye all of us will be soon blind. But then Trump may not have been the most intelligent kid in class even if he was the smartest kid on the block in knowing how to make money. Like it or not, Trump is in charge for the next 1,361 days at least and the world must wish itself good luck.