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How Trump Will Deal With Post-Election Loss -By Bunmi Makinwa

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Donald Trump will go through post-election loss syndrome, also known as PELS, and his party will undergo transformation that will shed a new light on the United States.

PELS is characterized as anger, denial, blame. PELS includes impulses of public tantrums and claims of victory, lower self-esteem, self-doubt, shock, depression and anxiety. It is doubtful that Trump will handle PELS well by accepting responsibility for the results of the election.

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Several pointers can show how Trump will handle his PELS, both at personal and relational areas. Over the course of the U.S. political campaigns, there were many reports that assessed Trump’s personality. The reports were based on books, interviews, statements and activities that he has engaged in. Also, his future life can emerge through a comparison of Trump with what happened to some past losers of U.S. presidential elections, and the after-election life of the only independent billionaire presidential candidate, Ross Perot.

By understanding Trump’s personality, it is possible to have a fair glimpse of his PELS, which will also affect both his politics and business.

Seeking a deeper understanding of Trump, The Atlantic, a news magazine, featured an article recently by Dan P. McAdams, a professor and specialist on personality psychology. It had as its central idea “to create a psychological portrait of the man. Who is he, really? How does his mind work? How might he go about making decisions in office, were he to become president?” The article relied on concepts, tools and a body of research in psychology, psychoanalysis and similar studies.

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Absent a clinical visit by Trump, the McAdams report examined the presidential candidate in four major areas, namely, disposition, mental habits, motivations and self-conception. It summed him up as narcissistic, disagreeable, grandiose, and consumed with a streak to win at any costs in personal business matters, and in anything else that he was involved in.

“Trump’s personality is certainly extreme by any standard, and particularly rare for a presidential candidate… Across his lifetime, Donald Trump has exhibited a trait profile that you would not expect of a U.S. president: sky-high extroversion combined with off-the-chart low agreeableness…Prompted by the activity of dopamine circuits in the brain, highly extroverted actors are driven to pursue positive emotional experiences, whether they come in the form of social approval, fame, or wealth. Indeed, it is the pursuit itself, more so even than the actual attainment of the goal, that extroverts find so gratifying.” The article explained further that, “People low in agreeableness are described as callous, rude, arrogant, and lacking in empathy.”

Some reports state that Trump started his political quest for the presidency only as part of his relentless marketing and showmanship. He only probably wanted to get himself well known and push his business frontiers. He was his explosive, rude, lying, attacking usual self. It worked more than he ever thought possible.

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By the end of a few weeks of the primaries campaign for the Republican party’s nomination, more people in America and the world would have heard the Trump name more than they ever did. It would mean more money coming through so many products that will carry the Trump label. This is how Trump has always done it. To his surprise, getting rid of the political elites of the party proved much easier than Trump ever expected. He knocked the 16 other contestants off by poking and jabbing them, and messing them up in language that they had never heard used in such an arena.

Each day as the party’s primaries went on, Trump must have wondered why he was a superstar whilst all he wanted to do was have fun. Suddenly, he could see himself as potentially president of U.S. He decided to go for it. His abrasive and aggressive style of campaign continued to baffle many as it attracted a growing flock of followers.

Now that the immediate political quest is over, what will become of Trump?

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Over the past 20 years, eight presidential candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties have lost elections. They are Walter Mondale (1984), Michael Dukakis (1988), George W. Bush (1992), Bob Dole (1996), Al Gore (2000), John Kerry (2004), John McCain (2008), and Mitt Romney (2012). All of them were practicing politicians and had held elective political offices. All of them have continued to play some roles in their political parties, and some continued to occupy public offices either by elections or appointments for some time. Most of them took up teaching either as full or part-time professors in universities and colleges.

Trump had not been in politics until his run for presidential election. He has spent his career as a businessman. He appears to fit more into the mould of Ross Perot, a billionaire who ran as presidential candidate twice, in 1992 as an independent and in 1996 as a candidate of the Reform Party which he formed. Perot lost both times and continued his life in business with occasional involvement in politics by endorsing candidates. He has not spoken much on political issues and he was the 129th richest person in the U.S. in 2015.

Trump has, perhaps inadvertently, achieved several things that no recent presidential candidate can claim. His anti-immigrants, anti-Hispanics, anti-blacks, anti-handicapped people, anti-media, anti-women, anti-party rhetoric has bruised the Republican party and revealed fault lines that will not go away. A new Republican party is likely in the near future, and some writers said that it would be a culmination of the “Trumpism” effect, a “revolt” of predominantly white blue-collar workers, seeking a strong political platform for their agenda. It is doubtful though that Trump will find a comfortable room to advance such an agenda given the enmity that he created within the party’s leadership.

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According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of campaign donations, a third of the topmost Chief Executive Officers supported the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, during the 2012 election. However, none of the 100 top CEOs supported Trump, and 11 have backed Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 election.

Hotel bookings for Trump hotel chain has plummeted by as much as 60 per cent compared to last year’s figures whilst similar hotels show rising clientele. Trump’s businesses generally are showing decline performances and the Trump brand has not attracted significant sales, according to business reports.

Clearly, Trump will have to spend time to shore up his businesses and make efforts to harness whatever goodwill may remain to rebrand his name.

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The Republican party will go through surgery and resuscitation and neither the party nor its arch rival, the Democratic party, will stay the same. Nor will the U.S. be seen the same way from now on given the portrait of Trump as its possible leader.

Bunmi Makinwa is the CEO of AUNIQUEI Communication for Leadership. Formerly, he was Africa Regional Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

 

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