Why Trump had to win US presidency

By Robert Atuhairwe

I was one rare and brazen pundit who accurately predicted a win for Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, as American president in the November 8, 2016, despite all the conventional odds blocking his way. My prediction came on June 12 on one of the interactive groups to which I belong (Ugandans-at-heart) and members took it on with animated gusto. Most of them shot down my foresight; most being pro-Hillary Clinton (Democrat) while others simply didn't know which way to go.

My prophecy, like all accurate ones, relied on open-mindedness. That is to say, I am "Republican-at-heart" but it's known that Trump's journey to the top caught many Republicans on the wrong side of history. That way, I was able to fairly assess things whenever the Hillary camp made admirable moves such as at the debates where she mowed down her Republican rival with incredible clarity and lucidity, I always duly noticed and credited her. All I knew was that she wouldn't make it.

Also, I hold a personal record for similarly spot-on predictions including the closely-fought Uhuruto-Raila Odinga race in 2013; the 2006, 2011 and 2016 Ugandan presidential elections and outcomes in various constituencies at main and bi-election level. I also already know the outcome of the next general election.

But I also had strong reasons for believing in a probable Trump win, weaving through all the fear of the scandals that popped from all corners around him (including the infamous tapes, tax returns saga) with undaunted confidence because I could see the end result and I had strong reasons for that faith.

The American system is closed; that is to say, it's structured with "legal and practical valves" that make it impossible for one political system to stay on "indefinitely" unlike the Ugandan situation where term limits are non-existent. But more specifically, the mind of Americans has been engineered to expect and work for change at every turn of a term or two-as with Bill Clinton, G.W. Bush and Barack Obama. Individual brilliance doesn't apply! In fact, it's as if there is a super machine in the system which ensures a synchronized, no-compromise pattern that expects one leader to go and another to ascend to power and further to that, the Republicans and Democrats have monopolized the cycle.

The only way alternative contenders can bypass the Democrat-Republican syndicate is to form coalitions and alliances. It's the closest they can hope to upset the apple cart. In 2016, Democrats had had their 8-year turn and it was the Republican's. Trump's personal eccentrics aside, how he switched from "stranger's" position to rumble through the Republican primaries to a point of giving the entire establishment including the incumbent, Obama, and the whole world someone to talk about hinted that he wasn't going to be stillborn.


On top of that, Ms Clinton was regarded as an "incumbent" having been in power circles since 1993 when her hubby, Bill, first became leader of America. And then recent events in the world of politics had tended to make leadership at the very top risky business for women. Look at the case of Dilma Roussef in Brazil, Joyce Banda in Malawi, Cristina Fernandez; these women had only recently been treated shabbily yet the world is already short of females heading states. Even now, the imperceptible chauvinist movement against women is still raging with South Korea's Park Geun-hye impeached for shady reason in December. Now she is an isolated, lonely pack of disillusionment handing on a thin string. Even gender specialists are, queerly, silent.

Hillary would have had to be exceptional to escape the gender trap but instead, she was bedeviled by her own scandals-the illicit emails and other personal foibles-and the history of Bill.

Trump's chances were further brightened by the rise of rare forces on the global map that saw Brexit in U.K, the rise of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines-I consider him an oriental twin of Trump. It was therefore easy to tell that the American's perceived bad side was likely a sign of belonging to a new movement that defies traditional norms and this he hinted about in his victory speech on the night of November 8.

The shortcomings and or extremities of the Democrats aside-like smiling faces and reigns of terror in Syria and Libya, failed promises-the American system is most efficacious when it comes to deciding who actually wins and leads and that's through the Electoral College system. That system composes of electors from the states who determine the winner. They tend to most conservative and these were more likely to vote Trump who led his campaign with the "Make America Great Again" watchword.  While Hillary could count on rhetoric of tolerating "illegal" elements of society to shore up her numbers-as indeed she later won the popular vote-Trump would be the preferred choice of the more established and nationalistic electors and they saw to that bit- Trump 290 and Clinton 248.

As Trump swears in, let's make America great again and the world greater!

The author is a member of the Commonwealth Writers Group