Is Obama Responsible For Making Donald Trump The 45th US President?

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Donald Trump winning the elections to become the 45th President of the United States of America.

To say that the world was shocked at Trump’s surprise win would be an understatement. Americans, non-Americans, politicians, common folks – even Trump supporters – were all visibly shocked when he won the elections despite losing the popular vote.

Even though a whole year has passed since that fateful day, the world is still trying to wrap its head around the idea of Donald Trump in the Oval Office. On his part, Trump’s animated and often unpopular statements have not made it easy for the people to graduate from denial to acceptance.

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Nevertheless, whether we like it or not, whether the American voters like or not, Donald Trump is in fact the president of the most powerful country in the world.

So, how did this happen? At what point did American politics deteriorate to a level where a man with no prior experience of governance, seriously questionable morality and a very limited vocabulary became the Commander in Chief?

As someone observing the US politics from afar, I believe the precise moment in time when Trump envisioned an America with himself as the President was the moment Obama put that idea in his head in 2012.

How? Let’s start with racism.

Racism Could Have Been a Motivation

It’s no secret that Trump isn’t the biggest fan of people whose skin colour is not white. While people started paying attention to Trump’s racist side only after he announced his intention to run for elections, the fact of the matter is that he was always an unapologetic racist at heart.

Sweeping statement, you say?

Hear this 36 second clip in which the the producer of the television reality show, The Apprentice talks about Trump’s behind-the-scenes racism.

So, – coming back to the point – when Barack Obama became the US President in 2009, Trump could simply not digest an America that was led by a black man.

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Trump’s Twitter feed is a testament of how uncomfortable he was with an African American in the Oval Office. Take a look at exhibits A, B and C.

Because the African American reference wasn’t bad enough…

And because insulting black people in general was not enough, Trump took his hatred for Obama at a very personal level with this tweet.

Given Trump’s visible discomfort with people of colour, racism, it seems became an important factor for him to consider a career in politics.

Obama’s Birth Certificate

While Trump had been ranting on against Obama for most part of the latter’s presidency, no one took much notice until this tweet came out.

Trump went on to allege that Obama was born in Kenya and was not a US citizen by birth and hence, ineligible to hold the President’s office.

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Obama Roasts Trump

Needless to say, these allegations did not go down well with (then) President Obama. Not only did he publicly release his birth certificate to hush the unfounded scandal but also went a step further by roasting Donald Trump during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2012.

Obama’s sly comments did not go down well with Trump – a man who’s known for having an ego the size of Mount Everest. each time the camera flashed on Trump, the disdain on his face was literally audible.

At one point during the roast, Obama challenged Trump to run for the presidency. He asked the the then host of Celebrity Apprentice to run for the President and bring the changes that he wanted in the functioning of the government instead of ranting away in media and on Twitter.

Also Read: Dear World Leaders, You Seriously Need to Grow Up!

They say, “Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.”

Obama had challenged Trump in jest, but Donald, it seems took the challenge quite literally choosing the White House as the setting for his poetic revenge.

Now I’m not saying that there was no way that Trump could have become the President had Obama not disgraced him so publicly. We all know that Trump, through his tweets, had been hinting about his desire to lead America. His fans had also often responded with tweets urging him to run for the elections.

However, in retrospect I can’t help but wonder if Trump would still have chosen to run for the President had Obama not hurt his ego so eloquently that evening?

What do you think?