A
minority of American voters have elected an irresponsible, racist,
misogynist, narcissistic, and unqualified asshole to be POTUS and are
in complete denial of how they have fucked this country.
Causes
In
order to achieve this, a number of things had to happen. I review a
few of them here. First, women and Hispanics who were presumed to
vote for HRC and against Trump did not do so in substantial numbers.
Trump could not have won without their support. Second, we learn
that the country is perfectly willing to ignore their leaders. Just
about every elite politician, intellectual and news source supported
HRC, some of them half-heartedly, and opposed Trump. Third, voting Republicans, not their leaders but the rank and file, supported their candidate
and the Democrats did not. Fourth, we, the Democrats, won the popular vote but lost
the electoral vote. We may have to do something about the Electoral
College, but that will be hard. Fifth, you can not run a candidate
for POTUS unless he/she is a superior communicator and HRC is not. Sixth, we ran a Washington insider in a year when the country seethed with anger about how the system was failing them. We had plenty of warning, see the Occupy movement and the campaign of Bernie Sanders. In other words, we, the Democrats, chose the wrong candidate.
Mysteries
I
do not understand why the Washington elite has completely failed to
understand and recognize the anger about the economy that has been
building for over 30 years.
Also, remember that the Trump vote only reflects the anger on the right. There is a similar anger but on the left, what we might call the Sanders supporters. These people were completely and utterly disenfranchised in this election being forced to vote for HRC as a lesser evil than Trump.
Also, remember that the Trump vote only reflects the anger on the right. There is a similar anger but on the left, what we might call the Sanders supporters. These people were completely and utterly disenfranchised in this election being forced to vote for HRC as a lesser evil than Trump.
There
is anger about the wealth inequality. There is anger about a justice
system that favors the rich and punishes the poor. There is anger
about a tax system that oppresses the middle class. There is anger
about a justice system that lets corporate criminals commit any crime
and go free.
The
Polls
I
do not understand why the polls were so wrong, nor do I understand why so many people, including the pollsters themselves, are in denial of the scope of their disaster. This is as bad as "Dewey Defeats Truman".
The
implications of the polling failure are not commonly recognized. For
example, you think you know what percentage of women or Hispanics
voted for Trump? Well, you don't. Those numbers come from exit
polls. The same technology that was so wrong going into the election.
The fact is that this technology is thoroughly discredited. You can
believe those numbers if you wish, but I don't.
The
Good News
There
is good news, its not all bad.
First, Washington needed a wake up call that business-as-usual does not work.
Probably nothing less dramatic would have gotten the message across
and even so it is not clear that Washington heard the message. Second, Trump is essentially a third party candidate that used a weak
Republican party to get nominated and then elected. So if you want a
path for a third party to win the White House, one has just been
demonstrated for you. Third, Trump does not exactly have the support of the Republican Party. He
will not get things all his own way in the Congress. Fourth, Trump has no track record of working with Washington. The last time
we had a true Washington outsider, Jimmy Carter, it made a very big
difference on what got done and what did not.
Conclusions
I
can only hope that this clusterf*ck that is Trump will be a wake up
call and that the principle of unintended consequences will apply
here.
In
the long run, we don't know if this is a complete disaster, or
whether it was a necessary transition to a better government.
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