5 reasons why Donald Trump would make the perfect Malaysian politician

We’re not too sure how the laws of reincarnation work, but we strongly suspect Donald Trump must have been a Malaysian politician in a previous life.

In the short time he has been in politics, he has gained notoriety for making consistently bewildering comments that more often than not leave people scratching their heads in confusion, much like how our politicians sometimes say things that leave us wondering ‘ehhh biar betul dia ni??‘ before rushing to the nearest mamak for a glass of Teh O’ No-He-Didn’t.

It’s amazing then, that Trump was somehow able to take the lead in the GOP polls early on in the US election race, and stay there. Quite dashyat for someone who used to host a reality TV show featuring a bunch of entrepreneurs trying to destroy each other over the chance to become his ‘apprentice’. I mean think about it, this is a guy who spent only slightly more time in bankruptcy court than in divorce court!

And on top of all that, he FFK’ed the FOX News Republican debate last minute, got his own party members to turn against him, and yet somehow still managed to lead the initial presidency polls. Sound familiar??

We feel Trump possesses a colourful character worthy of our equally colourful Malaysian political arena. Somehow, you just get this weird feeling that he would be right at home in this country…

(Note: We’ll be using green for our local politicians and orange for Trump cos same color as his tan)

1. They give women ‘tough love’

Ok, we’re about to make a controversial statement here:

Donald Trump cherishes women.

Now, before you guys whip out the parangs and start going all ‘red shirt‘ on us, remember that this is a guy who married three different women (not at the same time, though we suspect he might have tried if it were legal in the US!). To put things into perspective, if you watched Star Wars three times, you must really love Star Wars, right? There you go!

However, Trump is a man who had to struggle in life to get to where he is, and so it comes as no surprise that every now and then, he gives the fairer sex a bit of ‘tough love‘ to keep them on their toes. Here are some of Trump’s quotes from Twitter:

“While Bette Midler is an extremely unattractive woman, I refuse to say that because I always insist on being politically correct.” – Twitter, 28 Oct 2012

“Ariana Huffington is unattractive, both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man – he made a good decision.” – Twitter, 28 Aug 2012

In fact, he has said so many ‘motivational’ things about women that one article would probably not be enough to cover the subject! Check some of them out here.

Now, us being Malaysians, we’ve seen our fair share of politicians trying to ‘motivate’ women in a similar fashion. Not so long ago,  Zahid Hamidi said this about DAP poster girl and unwilling simbol seks politik Dyana Sofya:

“Vote early, and vote the best person among all the good candidates. If you want to choose someone who is pretty, but cannot serve you, what is the point? She doesn’t stay here. I look at her, I faced her, I shook her hand, she’s not that pretty. In the pictures, she is a little pretty, in the television, she is only slightly pretty… Tuan Goh’s wife is prettier… when she was younger. But she is still pretty.” – Zahid Hamidi at a police event in Teluk Intan

Smooth, bro. Smooth.

2. They reinforce Jewish stereotypes

Did you know that Trump’s daughter Ivanka is a Jewish convert? Well, if you didn’t, you probably would have heard it anyway soon enough since Trump is so proud of the fact that he tells everyone. It’s a bit like that one guy everyone has on Facebook who just got into a relationship and won’t stop posting pictures with their new girlfriend just to rub it in your face (if you don’t know anyone like this, it’s probably you). He said this about his daughter’s conversion:

“I want to thank my Jewish daughter. I have a Jewish daughter. This wasn’t in the plan, but I’m very glad it happened.” – said during his speech at the Algemeiner’s ‘Jewish 100’ Gala in New York City

Besides that, he’s also a staunch supporter of Israel’s Zionist government.

“We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 per cent, 1000 per cent. It will be there forever.” – said during the same speech

With all this Jewish pride (mazeltov!), you’d think he’d at least respect the culture enough enough to actually learn the dos and don’ts of interaction with Jews right? Like, he should at least be working hand-in-hand with one of the most persecuted races of all time to dispel stereotypes and quell discrimination against them, right?

Wrong, wrong, dan salah.

“I know why you’re not going to support me: you’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. Isn’t it crazy? …I’m a negotiator, like you folks.” – said during the same speech

(In case you didn’t know, one of the Jewish stereotypes is that they are greedy and money-obsessed)

Needless to say, the Jewish community were none too pleased with his choice of words. Oy vey.

Our Malaysian politicians too have a history of Jew comments, although their style is clearly more ‘in-your-face’ dasyhat than Trump’s ‘macam Yahudi tapi bukan’ approach. Here’s what Penang UMNO delegate Datuk Ahmad Darus had to say regarding the attire of Malaysia Airlines’ (MAS) female air stewardesses:

“I watch volleyball, what do the (Caucasian) men wear? Shorts. But what do the women wear? Just underwear. This is the way of the Caucasians, the Jews… Do we want MAS to emulate the Jews?” – Datuk Ahmad Darus, said during his speech at the recent UMNO General Assembly

We’ll be honest, we’re quite familiar with a slew of stereotypes, and we could potentially offend people from pretty much any part of the world if we wanted to, but we’ve never once heard of the ‘half-naked Jewish volleyball player’!

Sacha Baron Cohen, this has to be your fault.

 

3. Their hair generates headlines. Head…lines…. Geddit?

 

 

‘Nuff said  😉

 

4. They are economic realists who care about the people (sort of)

It’s no secret that our country’s economy hasn’t exactly been doing so well lately (much like our national football team, but hey, we just learned to get used to that). Adding to the stack is the highly unpopular GST, which has definitely been ruffling some feathers ever since it was introduced back in April of 2015. So, what have our boys in Parliament been up to to try and rescue the situation?

In steps unlikely hero Ahmad Maslan with the now-famous GST-free fried rice recipe! In response to the controversy stirred up by the introduction of everyone’s favourite tax, dear Abang Lan decided to lend a helping hand to struggling home cooks everywhere:

While we’re pretty sure he had nothing but good intentions with this post, some people didn’t take too kindly to this, especially university students (See? Bad time to be a broke student right now).

But not The Donald. When The Donald wants a problem solved, he doesn’t mess around. Here’s what he had to say to OPEC in the face of rising gas prices:

“We have nobody in Washington that sits back and said ‘you’re not going to raise that f***ing price‘.” – said during a speech in Vegas

And what does he say to the Chinese (mainland Chinese, not our Chinese) when they try to play hardball with him?

“Listen you motherf***ers, we’re going to tax you 25 per cent!” – said during the same speech

Drop the mic and walk away, Mr. Trump. #swag However, given his business background, perhaps he would be just the guy to market the brand new UMNO smartphone!

 

5. They’re friends with their enemies (frenemies)!

During his campaign rallies and interviews, it’s clear to see who Trump has made out to be the enemy: Muslims and Democrats (but for this article we’ll be focusing on the Muslim part).

Think about it; this is a guy who says that Muslim-Americans should be given separate ID cards, proposes that all Muslims be banned from entering the United States, and then continues to take money from them like nothing ever happened.

He is so aggressively vocal about Muslims that even the Republicans are trying to distance themselves from him.

“To target a religion and say that regardless of whether you’re an American soldier who has fought on our side or allies we have overseas, simply because of your religion, we’ll ban you. It’s un-American, it is unconstitutional and it is wrong.” – Gov. George Pataki, Republican presidential candidate

That’s right, even Republicans! This is the party that Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson – who have been accused of making bigoted statements against minority groups – are aligned to; and whose voters were recently in support of bombing the FICTIONAL city of Agrabah (yes, from Disney’s Aladdin)  😕 !

However, for everything he’s said against Muslims, Trump seems to be really good friends with some of them. In fact, he has business deals all over the world with Middle Eastern oil tycoons and businessmen who wouldn’t look out of place at a Manchester City FC boardroom meeting. Oh, and that earlier picture of him in the golf cart with the Arab sheikh? That was taken at the launch of the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai. Oops.

But hey, guess what? Malaysia has a frenemy too! And guess who it is of all countries? It’s (wait for it)…

Israel.

Yes, you read right. The country every Malaysian knows as ‘that one we kenot go, says here in the passport maa‘.

The reason for this is because Malaysia has no formal diplomatic ties with them, because we do not recognise them as a state despite them lobbying for us to do so. On top of that, Malaysians seem to have some serious beef with Jews overall, because, well, reasons. Posted a pro-Israel message on Facebook in Malaysia? Habislah kau.

It’s quite strange then, that we, a country that basically acts like a disgruntled ex-girlfriend by hating Israel’s guts and pretending they don’t exist, were their 11th largest trading partner in 2013, and there are no signs of business slowing down between the two of us. What’s more is that Israel is not mentioned at all in our foreign trade figures, despite having RM2.8 billion worth of exports to our country in the first half of last year alone. Instead it’s all listed under “Other Countries”.

Oh, by the way, for a country that claims to hate communists so much, we’re somehow also really good friends with North Korea! We’re not kidding, Malaysia is one of only two countries in the world that do not require a visa to travel to North Korea, and we even gave North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun an honorary doctorate. Aren’t we sweet?

In fact, there are actually a lot of similarities between Malaysia and North Korea. Food for thought!

Despite the similarities, at least Americans still have a choice.

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Yeah, sure it’s funny when political figures make contradictory or sometimes downright silly statements, but the humor becomes less funny when you realize there’s actually an audience who actually take these statements as truth. 

We live in a world where there are more questions than answers, and doubt can be a powerful motivator to rally an entire people against enemies that don’t exist. Sometimes all a politician needs to do to win an election is to play to the ignorance of their audience, and this is something successful politicians do very well regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum. So in a way, it’s our own fault. The reason we keep hearing these things is because many of us are reinforcing the mindset that misinformed or inflammatory statements are okay by supporting or not speaking out against them. 

While Trump’s statements are a constant source of jokes and ridicule, there’s a very real fear that he might actually end up being the next President of the United States thanks to his promises of taxation and anti-Islamization which are highly likely to be unachievable. Politicians can promise us the world, but it’s really up to us to believe whether or not they can carry through with these promises – and we certainly hope that Americans are more critical when it comes to this.