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The Editor Speaks: If it works for Trump then play the trump card

Social media seemed to work for Donald Trump when against all the odds and the recognized US media outlets, who were nearly all against him, he won!

Now social media, Facebook seems to be the favourite, the Cayman Islands candidates for the May General Elections have also adopted it.

It’s cheaper for one thing – very cheap indeed – and it’s personal. You don’t have to slog around door to door anymore and you can reach more people in a miniscule of the time it takes to use some physical exercise stomping the streets.

This is where the younger candidates, the Kenneth Bryans, Ellio Solomons, etc.will most likely catch more votes than the older established politicians.

There also seems to be a distinct shift away from the party system, turning the page back to when people were independent but had an “understanding”. The “understanding” was so apparent it might just as well have been a party.

With Ellio saying he has dumped McKeeva and running as an independent, Bryan running against his former Progressives leader Alden McLaughlin, former Progressives founder Tony Eden deserting his ship and campaigning for two independents (one of which was also a former sailor of the ship), the political party system doesn’t seem to be so attractive.

Of course, all this will help McKeeva, who publicly has said the country must have political parties, but will be pleased to welcome any independent under his armpit, no matter what his views are.

McLaughlin is more cautious. He knows he can fall when too many independents are just that. They will not knuckle down. Collective responsibility is a thing of the past. Walking across the floor is the ‘in thing’ when once it was political suicide.

The voting public in Cayman has changed. It has got younger. That does not mean wiser.

I haven’t heard anything from the C4C (Coalition for Cayman) group that was so prominent leading up to the 2013 elections.

I am surprised Dr Frank McField is standing alongside Bryan against the premier. I believe McLaughlin is much stronger now than he was in 2013.

The older of us voters do not use social media as much as the younger, although even quite a lot of us have Facebook accounts. Twitter, as far as I am concerned, is just for the birds – or Donald Trump.

I am sorry to have to warn you there will be a lot more Editorials on the election as we approach May 24th.

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