Opinion digest: Dynasties and democracy don't go well together
Speaking about the recent US presidential elections on Vikerraadio’s Sunday broadcast of "Samost and Rumm," hosts Anvar Samost and Hannes Rumm recognized that Donald Trump’s election win is being considered as the destruction of two political dynasties there, however democracy and dynasties don’t go well together anyway.
Speaking about the recent US presidential elections on Vikerraadio’s Sunday broadcast of "Samost and Rumm," hosts Anvar Samost and Hannes Rumm recognized that Donald Trump’s election win is being considered as the destruction of two political dynasties there, however democracy and dynasties don’t go well together anyway.
According to Rumm, in the course of his campaign Trump managed to destroy two of America’s political dynasties — that of the Bush family during the Republican primaries and thereafter the Clinton dynasty in the general elections.
Samost found and Rumm himself agreed, however, that dynasties and democracy don’t go well with one another anyway.
"If we don’t consider the US elections solely from a narrow, Estonian security policy perspective, then it can indeed be said that democracy won for Americans and they elected as president someone who the majority of those who voted wanted," noted Samost, adding that Hillary Clinton was a stereotypical candidate of the elite which the people did not want.
According to him, there were now concerns that due to the fact that so much attention both in the US and elsewhere was paid to Trump’s more comical statements during his campaign, his more substantive views did not receive any attention at all.
"Now we have to go back and look for what he has said — and this has been very actively dealt with for the past couple of days already — and already calmer responses to recent events have appeared than ‘I’m moving to Canada’ or ‘I’m jumping out the window,'" said Samost.
According to the radio host, it should become clear within the next few weeks what Donald Trump’s administration will shape up to look like. "There may be good news but there may be very bad news for Estonia or the Baltic states," admitted Samost. "We don’t know that and it is pointless to speculate here."
Rumm found, however, that one thing already became clear following Trump’s election as the next president of the US — that in the contest between the elite and the common man, this was yet another victory for the latter.
Editor: Editor: Aili Vahtla