Trump's visit to India--uh, not as great as he thinks, anyways

Here are some headlines from the presidential visit to India:

 

“U.S. president (fill in the blank) greeting the massive crowds in India” proclaims one headline. “(Fill in blank) Visit Attracts Huge Crowds in India,” says another to underscore the obvious. “US president (fill in the blank) began a landmark visit to India on Sunday with a bear hug from prime minister Narendra Modi” proclaims another. Again: “(Fill in the blank) Visit Attracts Huge Crowds in New Delhi.” “(Fill in the blank) feted in Delhi as US cements closer ties with India.” And: “In a ceremony reminiscent of past centuries, cannons boomed and (fill in the blank)’s limousine was escorted by scarlet-uniformed cavalry down a red-clay path during the official welcoming ceremony in New Delhi on Monday at Rashtrapati Bhavan, India’s presidential palace.”

And these:

“(Fill in the blank) Repeatedly Butchers Words During Speech In India As Crowd Walks Out” and “India Loves (fill in the blank) For Some Reason, Is Welcome To Keep Him.” 

The headlines in the first paragraph, from ABC in Australia, NBC, The Guardian and Reuters, are referring to Barack Obama’s visit in 2015. Those in the second paragraph, from Inquisitr (quoting from a BBC report) and Wonkette are referring to Donald Trump’s visit. According to the BBC, while reading from a teleprompter Trump “struggled to pronounce several Indian words - from Ahmedabad, the city where he was speaking, to Swami Vivekananda, an Indian philosopher, greatly admired by Mr Modi. He also called the Vedas - ancient Hindu texts – ‘Vestas’…He spoke after Mr Modi, and crowds began leaving mid-way through the US president's speech.” 

The Washington Post pointed out—unlike the Obama visit, where Indians turned out by the hundreds of thousands to see a black American president—“tens of thousands” of supporters of Modi in his own home state turned out to see him hobnobbing with this oddball American president they had heard so much about. The BBC noted that “Inside the arena Mr. Trump was welcomed warmly, but the biggest cheers were for Prime Minister Modi - no surprise, this is his home town.” 

The BBC also wondered what Trump was expecting to get from his brief visit. For one thing, unlike the reception he has received from other countries—especially in the West and very likely would in any Latin American country, a part of the world he hasn’t visited even once—did have suitable-for-Trump optics. But it was Modi, whose Hindu nationalism was blamed for the killing of 2,000 Muslims in 2002 when he was governor of Gujarat, who was actually the “star attraction” of the visit, not Trump.  The BBC noted that it was unlikely that any of Trump’s other excuses for the visit would materialize, particularly in regard to trade.

The Associated Press noted that while fans of Modi helped with the optics—Modi introduced Trump in the “world’s largest cricket stadium” like Elvis introducing second-stringer Carl Perkins—elsewhere it was a different story: “But miles away in the capital of New Delhi, police used tear gas and smoke grenades to disperse a crowd of clashing protesters hours before Trump was due to arrive, as violence broke out over a new citizenship law that excludes Muslims. Anti-Trump street demonstrations also erupted in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Gauhati.” No such protests occurred during Obama’s two visits to India.

It was suggested by the BBC that Trump—like after his visit to Israel—hoped to entice more support from a domestic voting demographic. However, this seems unlikely; Indian-Americans in general “favor social welfare spending," said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside, who noted that if there is any change in voting patterns—only 16 percent of Indians voted for Trump in 2016—it would likely be on the “margins” and not likely to last much longer than his trip. 

You can say one thing for Trump: he always finds a way to muck things up for himself. Maybe his “base” won’t care, but the rest of us ought to get a few laughs once those videos of him making an idiot of himself again appear, along with shots of those disappearing crowds while he was still speaking.