One of the things that actually does make America great is the way checks and balances are in place, built into the constitution, so that someone like Donald Trump could get to be president, and yet still have no major deleterious effect on the country as a whole.
Far be it from us to interfere with US politics, or even proffer an opinion. But which way would technology vote, if it was a straight fight in the US between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. Tech might vote no, out of self-preservation, but operators might vote yes.
We have seen visionaries promise to turn the clock back before and invariably they cannot. We have seen law and order candidates end up with little more than overcrowded prisons, and yet more ills in society. So what has Trump promised at it relates directly to the technology industry?
Last week he accused Jeff Bezos of using the Washington Post to express his own political, anti-Trump opinion, and promised Bezos and by association Amazon, “problems” when he comes to power. In December he said he would get Bill Gates to switch off the Internet to prevent radicals spreading their ideas. That’s an interesting take on the First Amendment, it’s okay for people expressing the same bigoted opinions as Trump, but not if it means alternative opinions can be given oxygen. And in the Summer he targeted US tech firms like Facebook for employing people from overseas, when qualified US people were idle, suggesting that he will put stricter controls on issuing the H-1B visas which tech firms use to bring in overseas staff. He also wants Apple to be forced to employ more US manufacturing staff, and not make the devices in China. Perhaps as Trump comes to power there will be a run on Apple stock.
People against him will worry that Trump wishes to get rid of illegal or unregistered minorities, stop outsourcing cheap jobs to China, and to prevent rich US people publicly disagreeing with him (that sounds ominously like China). Let’s be honest, most politicians would love all of that.
If you have a social conscience Trump in power is fairly unthinkable – but if you are a Trump follower, you might suggest that he doesn’t really mean he will build a wall between Mexico and the US, and won’t actually stop US immigration or switch off the internet. Because those with whom he has to share government can only let him do what the constitution allows, and he will be harried and slowed down throughout his term.
We suspect that operators, terrified of foreign ownership and cut price competition, will embrace Trumpism, as a way to ensure a ten year break from real competition and an end to the ambitions of overseas competitors who want to go to war with the AT&Ts and Verizon’s of this world.
Those who argue that he will never get into power, in part because no-one in any of the racial minorities would ever vote for him, must remember that 50 million Hispanic speakers in the US barely record a vote during US elections. Some are simply not registered, with undocumented pasts, and others occupy their own communities and care nothing for English communities. Of those who are second generation and feel American, the majority have come to believe that immigration reform in the US is necessary, now that they are already here and the candidate that will deliver that is Trump.
Recent research suggests these people feel the same way about US problems as everyone else. They want more jobs, a stronger economy and say the country is on the wrong track. About 65% of them were born in the US and think only of their country, not their racial relationship with Latin America.
Out of the 21 million eligible to vote, only 11 million are registered and of those last time only 60% voted. That 6.6 million are not going to swing the vote and anyway in 2004 some 4.4 million of them voted for George Bush.
It does not help that the US media fawn over Trump because he makes good copy and barely mention Hilary Clinton because she is a safe pair of hands.
Which brings us full circle. We don’t think, that with all those checks and balances that Trump or any president alone has the power to revoke GATT, prevent multinationals from opening up in other countries, or halt immigration stone dead, or get the internet switched off. We’re counting on it. However, we cannot promise that he would not put the US into a war with prominent Muslim countries or invade North Korea – for that we are just crossing our fingers.