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Opinion: Why Trump’s win could be a good thing

So the day everyone feared has come. Donald J. Trump is president of the United States and Hillary Clinton is in second place. Again!

What IS it with Hillary? She always seems to be second best. You can like or dislike her, but you have to give her credit for working hard and being intelligent. Yet somehow she always loses.

20734564355_fc65f93247_bMy husband and I watched two out of three of the U.S. presidential debates. I clearly was rooting for Hillary over Trump, but she made some huge mistakes and I wonder how no one on her staff advised her to rectify them. Her tone was calculated and emotion-free. No one likes that. No one. That is not how you sell.

You need to sell yourself first and then the product.

The second mistake that my husband pointed out (and this is a big one) is, she always played Trump´s game. This was a game between a politician and a salesman and Hillary let him impose his rules on her in the games of politics. Instead of re-directing him to important topics, she let Trump accuse her and then responded to accusations the whole time.

I had the feeling I was at my daughter’s kindergarten and the kids were complaining about each other. “She did this” and then, “But he did this .…”

I wished she’d said, “Thank you Donald for these interesting stories of yours but let’s talk about .…”

That is how you win an election – by making him play your game, not vice versa.

Facebook is full of jokes about the U.S. election, my favorite being “U.S. has electile dysfunction.”  This is coming from a Bosnian; making fun of U.S. elections makes us forget about our misery a bit.

The fact is, Trump IS the president of the U.S. 

And while everyone is running around hysterical – either from happiness or from fear – let me look at the bright side and tell you why it could be good that Trump is the new president:

urlDonald Trump is all talk and no game. And that is why this is the worst thing that could have happened to him. Now he has to deliver, but is not capable of it. If Trump had lost, he would have criticized the election until the end of his days and his base would have supported him. Now his supporters expect results. Yes, Donald Trump can say, “We will build a wall with Mexico and they will pay for it,” but honestly who can make that happen? And then, as Ricky Gervais said, “Canada will be jealous and they will want one too,” so double the cost .

Donald Trump could – and I strongly say could – make the U.S. relationship with Russia better. That could consequently make a lot of things and relationships better. Imagine if U.S. and Russia had the same goals and actions in Middle East? A lot could get done in a positive direction.

The victory of Donald Trump breaks the grip of the families who have ruled America over and over again. I have a feeling it has become almost like a kingdom in the U.S.: George Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr., Hillary Clinton. (Obama was a really nice interlude to break it up). What could have been next? Jeb Bush, Chelsea Clinton and so on?

If you ever look at water just before it boils, it reaches a transitional state of total chaos just before. At that point the conditions are unstable and there is no order in which the bubbles move to the surface. And then it reaches the boiling point, the chaos disappears and the bubbles come to the surface in a certain order.

We all witnessed the total hysteria after Brexit: The big words and promises before; the fear after the results were known and then? Nothing. This election reminds me too much of the Brexit situation.

Yes, everyone is scared. That is how Donald trump won the election … by fear propaganda. If you let the fear influence you and if you act based only on fear, they win.

I spent my childhood in Bosnia during the war.

aaeaaqaaaaaaaanbaaaajdqxogizyzm4ltfmywetngfjyi05mgmzlwziztlmnwjiztmynwThere were three groups of people during the critical situation:

  1. People who froze
  2. People who ran, letting panic and fear steer them
  3. People who thought, “Ok, so this has happened. How do I ACT on it in order to minimize the damage?”

Needless to say, the people of the third group became leaders and got us all alive through the war. These people were not necessarily politicians, generals or directors, but  they acted on every level.

They were neighbors helping you through the day; medical personnel helping you through the pain; kids showing you there still is enough beauty in the world worth fighting for .…

I believe there are enough Americans who can do the same for the U. S. and help the U.S. “boil” and reach a state of certain order.

Maybe Trump is a transitional state, a push everyone needed in order to shake things up. Because clearly the system is broken … clearly a country as big as U.S.A. needs more than two candidates (let’s be honest the other two never had a chance).

nina-avramovic-trninic-foto.1024x1024With only two candidates, it almost resembled a dictatorship and many Americans including an ex-president George W. Bush showed their discontent by voting with an empty ballot.

And if you do not see yourself in any of these three groups, Europe is a great continent and Dispatches Europe can show you and help you to start something new – maybe something even better – here.

About the author: Nina Avramovic Trninic is a civil engineer, and an expat originally from Tuzla, Bosnia. (Send comments to: [email protected].)

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