I remember the time around 2015 when Trump's name first came up. Until then, many of us in the rest of the world could barely register his existence and if at all, remembered him around swim-suit clad models in some beauty pageant. At that time, he was introduced by the American media as a joke candidate. And that’s not such a big deal in itself, it happens everywhere. I remember at one time, how Darth Vader was contesting elections in Ukraine which garnered headlines.
And then, it started to become more ridiculous as time passed. You see, unlike US perhaps where (I hope) that people tend to watch the entire Republican and Democratic Presidential debates (read Sarcasm), we in the rest of the world, only get the important noteworthy snippets that the American media doles out on news channels and YouTube. So, it was a bit unnerving, that the only newsbyte that we got from these debates seemed to be the outrageous claims Trump made, of making a HUGE Wall at the Mexico border. even as the candidate pool started getting narrower and narrower and the joke candidate started gaining momentum.
And I guess it was at this time that many of the journalists, and Talk show hosts who had been getting ready-made content from the debates realized, "Wouldn't it be great if Trump were one of the candidates for the 2016 Presidential elections? The Celebrity who ran for POTUS!" After all, they had Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton on the other side, so the election results were a foregone conclusion, but wouldn't it be great if this guy got so tantalizingly close to the top spot? And slowly but surely, as the American media started hyping him up and indulging him ever so more, everyone in the US and the rest of the world, bought into that ostentatious experiment which made the Trump Presidency into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Of course, when they realized that the experiment had gone a bit too far, to the extent that the Trump Presidency seemed looking like a real possibility, they tried a dramatic course correction by linking him with the Russians and ridiculing him to the point that the entire narrative seemed biased instead of being funny. This was followed by fervent appeals by journalists and Talk show hosts to the American public to make an informed decision on who should have their finger on the nuclear button. By then, it was evident that the entire news media had taken sides and that objective journalism was out of the window.
Fast forward to now, when Trump has been defeated and all we see on American news and Talk shows is how best they should punish and make an example out of the joke candidate that they themselves are responsible for having allowed to reach such heights. They mock the Trump supporters and the protestors who breached the Capitol on a daily basis but forget that the people who voted for Trump haven't disappeared with the end of Trump presidency. And it is not as if he himself, or through a proxy candidate, can't run for presidency again (Believe me, that happens all the time in the Rest of the World). Trump "may" try something if he is not hounded and convicted, but "definitely will", if he is. It will be better if Trump were allowed to go into oblivion so his supporters can be dished out a new, more reliable leader who can also be acceptable to the Intelligentsia as well as the rest of the world.
The best way to deal with a joke is not to take it seriously. Now, that you have a new President who is a reliable, seasoned politician, it will perhaps be better to look ahead and let Trump be, while preserving dignity for both himself and his supporters, lest Trumpism becomes a permanent feature in the US politics.
