Frank Sinatra’s definitive ode to New York said that if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere, but there is little doubt that had he been alive today he would be a very worried man. Much like any other sane person across the world, Sinatra, too, would be fretting over what lies ahead for America in the coming days and months.
On Tuesday, New York Republicans sided decisively with one of their own in brash billionaire Trump, who was born in the borough of Queens and started his personal empire in New York City.
Meanwhile, Democrats have chosen former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton who has made New York her home as she left the White House 15 years ago and represented the state in the US Senate for eight years.
The city recognised the winners by bathing the top of the Empire State Building first in red light for Trump, then in blue light for Clinton.
Trump won a convincing 60% of the vote in a victory that does not secure the conservative party’s nomination but adds to his formidable advantage in delegates to the Republican convention in July.
He won over voters in New York the same way he’s won other states - by appealing to people who are angry with Washington and who like that he is a businessman not a politician.
Trump needs to continue building momentum into the next round of primaries on April 26 in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, Delaware and Connecticut, and 10 more states culminating with colossal California on June 7.
Sinatra was an active Democrat for most part of his life although he switched allegiance in his later years, unhappy with the party’s tilt towards the Left.
But he let no opportunity go waste when it came to speaking against racism and on other social issues, unlike Trump whose brazen tirades against immigrants and Muslims are all too well-documented to be repeated here.
Sinatra campaigned actively for equal rights for blacks and immigrants and once punched a waiter for refusing to serve a black musician friend accompanying him. He also took part in a benefit show at Carnegie Hall for Martin Luther King, Jr and was instrumental in abolishing the practice of racial segregation at hotels and restaurants in the state of Nevada.
The fact that Trump convincingly won the Republican primary from New York would have perturbed Sinatra no end, and left him wishing that he could change some of the lyrics of his epochal tribute to the city, if only to taunt the business tycoon who dreams to be America’s president.
For once, he would have wished what he sung about New York was not necessarily true.