"Donald Trump brought to the attention of the American people a business style that bordered on the unsavory."
Almost exactly four years ago, the eligible voters of the United States were made to choose between a woman and a man as to who should be the 45th American president. The woman, the candidate of the Democratic Party, was Hillary Clinton. She came to politics from the world of public service. The man, who represented the Republican Party, was Donald Trump. He came to politics from the world of business.
The choice between Clinton and Trump should have been easy for the voters to make, given the sharp difference between the two candidates in virtually every respect – education, intelligence, experience, and personality. Clinton was the better choice in the minds of most Americans and many foreigners, but that is not how things turned out. She won the popular vote, but because of the coming into play of the electoral college system, the small majorities that he managed to eke out in several “battleground states” caused Trump to win the election.
The heir to a real-estate fortune put together by his father, Donald Trump brought to the attention of the American people a business style that bordered on the unsavory.
The steady expansion of his real estate fortune was fueled by heavy borrowing and financial leveraging. He was not a good borrower – he declared bankruptcy no less than five times. And in the real estate community of New York City, Donal Trump, early on, developed a reputation for being a racist landlord. Black tenants were known to be unwelcome in Trump properties.
One of the biggest red flags that appeared during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was his remarkable refusal to make public his personal tax records. No presidential candidate had ever refused to divulge his or her personal tax dealings to the American people. trump’s assertion that his “tax records” being under Internal Revenue Service audit was regarded with skepticism; most Americans suspected that the Republican Party’s candidate was trying to hide negative information such as tax evasion.
In contrast, Hillary Clinton, who was America’s First Lady during her husband’s two terms (1992-2000), had a powerful curriculum vitae. A graduate of Yale University Law School, Hillary Rodham Clinton cut her teeth in social work and community development during her days as the first lady of Arkansas when her husband was its governor. From the state capital, Little Rock, the next stop in Hillary Clinton’s life journey was Washington D.C.
Impressed by the smart governor of Arkansas, the Democratic Party gave Bill Clinton its nomination as party candidate against the re-electionist George H. Bush. The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.
When her husband left the White House at the end of two terms, Hillary Clinton ran for one of New York’s Senate seats and won. But it was not long before Bill Clinton’s wife would be back on the national scene. After serving as Secretary of State – the first woman to hold that key post – Hillary Clinton was able to clinch the Democratic Party’s nomination as presidential candidate against Trump. Although the entire American nation gave Hillary Clinton a popular-vote majority of around 3 million votes, their compatriots in several battleground states did not give her votes sufficient to win those states’ electoral college votes. Hillary Clinton lost the election by only close to 50,000 votes distributed over several states.
America’s voters learned soon after the 2016 election that they had made a grave mistake in making it possible for Donald Trump to take the White House. They were determined to correct that mistake.
And so we have Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the incoming 46th President of the United States.