Mornings after have never felt this good. I did a happy dance the morning after Hillary Clinton swept through the south on Super Tuesday. I know that tables could turn anytime as 35 states have not held primaries or caucuses yet, but I’m going to keep this little flame burning in my heart for Hillary Clinton. I have nothing personal against Bernie Sanders. I just don’t swing that far to the left. As Hillary says, “I’m a progressive who likes to get the job done!” Hillary still has a lot of hard work to do as she has not captivated young voters the way Sanders has. Also, she cannot rely exclusively on non-white votes. A good presidential candidate has to appeal to everyone across race, gender and income groups.
But more importantly, Hillary Clinton has to keep building momentum so that she gets to finally put Donald Trump where he belongs…far far away from the White House. You will find Trump entertaining if you like watching shows like Roadies or Splitsvilla. He is loud, obnoxious, sexist, racist, homophobic and a highly polarizing figure, and he lacks compassion and humility. The United States needs a great leader who respects diversity, believes in basic human decency and fights to give all people equal rights irrespective of race, gender or sexual orientation. America needs a unifier, not someone who promises to build walls.
Speaking of walls, I read an interesting article online that says ‘move to Canada’ became the most searched phrase on Google on Super Tuesday, when Trump bulldozed his rivals in seven states. If Trump becomes the next POTUS, we might see Justin Trudeau welcoming American refugees across the Canadian border. The Canadian Prime Minister is the coolest (read ‘hottest’) head of state in the world, so I can’t imagine him talking about building a wall to keep Americans out. I can however completely imagine him wearing a hard hat, apron and gloves and building homes for the homeless alongside volunteers and masons.
For those of you wondering why a desi like me is ‘wasting time worrying about America when India has thousands of its own problems’, let me tell you that there is a difference between being patriotic and a ‘kuen ka mendhak’. Just like USA can take a leaf out of Canada’s book when it comes to diversity, inclusion and immigration, I think India can also draw inspiration from other countries. We can learn punctuality from the Japanese and professionalism from the Germans. We can learn about better management of our public spaces from the Dutch, just as we can learn about being happy and not getting worked up about the challenges of everyday life from our friends in Bhutan.
India has a long history of taking the best from each culture that it comes in contact with. We don’t have to make India great again, for India has always been great. But we do have to make India even greater than it has ever been. We can start by improving our conduct in public. No hate speech, no trolling, no littering or peeing on the street. We have to maintain our jovial disposition while we parallely deal with challenges like caste based discrimination, sexual assault and domestic violence. We have to push our elected representatives to overhaul our education system, improve public healthcare facilities and most importantly, protect our environment and natural resources. To stand up for our rights, we have to first get off our asses and do our duty. For that my friends is what being a patriot is all about.
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