The impossible became the improbable, which became the unlikely, which became the “Oh my God, I can’t believe it.”
How could so many people have been so wrong? If this election proved anything, it proved conclusively that we all live in a bubble, and that often the three sources we look to for confirmation is just one story repeated three times out of the mouths of different people.
So, let’s all step back and try and take a look at this election objectively and figure out what it proved and what it didn’t prove. This election was close — very close — and it was decided in certain battleground states: Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In every one of those states, the vote difference was just about one percent. We are a country so evenly divided that any puff of wind blowing in any particular way can swing the election right or left. That said, we are still a winner-take-all country and whether you win by one vote or a million votes you get the prize, and it is every bit legitimate. So, for those out protesting in the streets that he’s not our president, the truth is that he is our next president and next time get out there and vote while the election is still going on — not protest when it’s all over.
One hundred and twenty one million people voted in this election and the preliminary analysis, which is still coming in, says that Clinton won the popular vote by a couple of hundred thousand but Trump won the electoral college and that’s where a president is chosen. Trump got about the same number of votes as Romney, but Clinton fell short of reaching Obama’s total. This election was won or lost depending on how you look at it in the rust belt of America, the states of the industrial Midwest, with a largely blue collar white population who were formerly Democratic, who have seen their hopes crushed, their communities decay, their jobs vanish to other countries, their homes worth less, their downtowns boarded up and an explosion of opioid users. Worse yet, they were simply ignored; no one talked about them, they didn’t even rise to the level of being considered a problem and they felt and truly were abandoned by the political system. Then along came Trump, the Pied Piper of anger and resentment, but for most of them also hope that things could change. This wasn’t necessarily racism or nativism, although some were that, but in the main a vote for a change. Most of them knew what Trump is, and his flaws, but he was the only one who held out hope for them so they took a flyer. In one of the exit polls — I think in Ohio — a woman who said she voted twice for Obama because she thought he would be an agent of change and this time she voted for Trump for exactly the same reason. Whether that will be remains to be seen.
Come January, we will have a new president and we’ll soon know if he can bring about some change as he’s promised. He’s going to face enormous obstacles, some personal, some political, some international. He’s new to this, new to government, and there is going to be a steep personal learning curve — first and foremost, deciding what you really believe in, whom you listen to and whom you trust. Seldom has a new president come into office surrounded by a group of prima donnas like Trump. With a group like Priebus, Bannon, Giuliani, Gingrich, Sessions, Flynn, Bolton, Christie and now Lewandowski, he’s going to spend a good part of his day refereeing battles. They’re also going to need a bigger cabinet room to fit all of those oversized egos into one space and it’s going to take Trump a while to figure out who stays and who goes.
Politically, many Republicans and all of the Democrats are going to have their knives out, so he’s going to get hit from a dozen different directions. If there was ever such a thing as a honeymoon period, it’s become an anachronism because they’re already after him and the poor guy hasn’t even been sworn in yet.
Lastly, while he’s trying to learn the job, develop a program, figure out whom to trust and get people in place, the world will continue to go on and it’s a guaranteed bet that someone is going to make some sort of a move. Whether it’s going to be China or Russia or North Korea or some Mideast terrorist group, it’s going to happen and he’s going to have to be ready. It’s a lot to learn in a short period of time, and the road is filled with traps.
He certainly is not the president I would have chosen, but he is the one we’ve got and we’re going to have to live with him and hope for the best.