The FBI "reopening" their inquiry into Clinton's email was the type of late in the game event that the Clinton campaign wasn't prepared for, whether the FBI's actions were intentionally political or not. As I woke up on 11/9/16, into a world where President Elect Donald J. Trump was a real thing, not a punch line, I shot off a series of tweets, giving my "hot takes." I did that, more than anything, so that I'd have a launching point for this post. Then a month flew by. It seems like it has been so much longer than a month and three days since election day. But here I am, ready to finally lay this post out there for those who care to read it. Before I really delve in, let me tell you a few things.
1. Some of you, perhaps all of you, who read this will get upset. I'm going to call it how I see it. I'm not the smartest person in the world, nor the most "in the know." But my undergraduate degree is in Political Science, and I'm still relatively well connected with that world of study. I understand how news gets slanted, and I understand the difference between an "opinion" column and actual news reporting. You can choose to disregard that if you want to, but I don't pull my analysis from the fake news that infects Facebook and the rest of the internet, nor from the partisan fantasy world of Fox News and/or MSNBC. I follow news sources that 90% or more of the world considers reliable. If you choose not to that is 100% your choice, and I respect that. But realize that if you take the position that news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal (among others), as well as the academics who study politics for a living, are not real or are "in on the conspiracy" ... well, you are statistically as significant as those people who believe Adam walked in the Garden of Eden with T-Rex, that we faked the moon landing, and that global warming is a hoax. You don't believe in facts, research, or anything that you don't want to. I get it. We all have a choice to make: believe in journalistic and academic ethics or not. I choose to be a careful consumer, but a consumer nonetheless. You can choose to be in a group where most of your peers probably believe we live in the Matrix.
2. I am not a Clinton supporter or apologist. I voted for Gary Johnson and the Libertarian ticket because I couldn't believe that a plurality of primary voters in this country left us with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as our major party choices. I also voted Libertarian because in the DEEP RED state of Indiana, my vote for Johnson was every bit as valuable as anyone else's vote. We were going Trump no matter what. The majority of this country said that neither Clinton, nor Trump was a good candidate for President and then went out and voted for one of the two. Until we start pushing the envelop and insisting on a third option, we will continue to get these types of choices. So I decided I could afford a protest vote. Had my state been close, had there even been a chance that my state would have been close, I would have begrudgingly cast my vote for Hillary Clinton as the least worst option. But I was perfectly happy to be able to vote for a third party and not have to support either of the flawed candidates that the primary season gave us. And, for the record, I voted in the Republican Primary and supported Kasich. Here is to hoping he will mount a primary challenge to Trump in 2020.
3. If you didn't vote in the primaries, you should have. That's how you can participate in an attempt to avoid a Clinton v Trump catastrophe. But if you didn't vote in the general election, then as far as I'm concerned, you actively decided to give up your right to complain. Democracy is a participatory process. You're not going to find me complaining about the Electoral College; it was the system given to us by our "iconic" founding fathers. Yes, it was because they didn't trust us, the "common white man" to decide on president, let alone everyone else who they didn't want to ever vote. But it's the rules of the game. Complaining about Clinton winning the popular vote and not winning the election is like complaining that your baseball team had the most hits, but still lost the game. You play by the rules of the game: hits, not runs, EC votes, not popular vote. But if you don't play the game, which in this case means you didn't vote, then you have no right to this conversation. You chose to not participate in our democracy and gave up your right to complain. Whatever happens, sit back, enjoy the next four years regardless of what happens, and stop complaining. You disenfranchised yourself.
4. If nothing else, read this article that gives you the full quote of Gregg Popovich's take on this election. This is real; this is where we are at with our country. We elected a guy who says and does things we would NEVER accept out of our own children. Good job America.
With all of that said, this is going to be my analysis of how we got here, what it means, and what my "take aways" are. Let's start with a simple fact, brought to us by exit polling on election day:
More than 60% of people who voted in this election believed that Donald Trump was unfit to be President.
Hold on, let's get one more fact brought to us by the vote count, as of today:
More than 46% of people who voted for President voted for Donald Trump.
Let's let that sink in for a second. That means that over six percent of people who voted for Trump believe that he is unfit to be President. Not that he was probably a little over his head, or wasn't their top choice ... he was considered unfit, unqualified to be president. Using a little back of the napkin math here, that means that roughly Eight Million, Five Hundred Forty Four Thousand, Three Hundred people who voted for Trump thought that the man was not qualified to be President. Who knows what led those people to vote for a man they felt was unfit to hold the most important position in the world, but boy would I like to know. Because I, for the life of me, can't imagine what logical, rational reason their could be.
Now let's delve a little deeper into the question about how Trump won. I hear quite a bit from Trump supporters that he won because he "brought out" the vote. Or, if they are being a bit more honest with their thoughts, they'll say he brought out the "Reagan Democrats," which is really code for "White Working Class America." You hear a lot about this in places like where my wife grew up, in Macomb County Michigan. Well, let's look at actual data to see if this narrative of Trump "bringing out the base" is reality or fake news fantasy.
As of today, Trump has just under 62,800,000 popular votes; by comparison, Romney had just under 60,800,000 in 2012. Promising in terms of validating this argument. But let's delve a little deeper. What you find when you go state by state is a much more muddled picture. Some states, like Pennsylvania, seem to agree with this narrative to a point: Trump drew out around 2.912 million voters to Romney's 2.680 million. Others, like Wisconsin, go against that narrative; Trump took home around 70,000 fewer votes in Wisconsin than Romney did. The aforementioned Michigan? Pretty close, with Trump having around 150,000 more votes than Romney. In other areas of the country Trump held steady where he should have gained (Texas), made a small margin up (New York) or lost a ton of ground compared to Romney (California). Simply put, this narrative isn't very accurate at all.
A far more accurate narrative, however, and the one I would posit as being the major factor in electing Trump is this: Democrats stayed home. But not nationally, just in crucial areas. Let's look at raw vote totals from the last three elections (keeping in mind that going much further back gets tougher to compare as it doesn't factor in population increases).
- Democrats: 2008 - 66,882,230, 2012 - 65,455,010, 2016 - 65,432,202
- Republicans: 2008 - 58,343,671, 2012 - 60,771,703, 2016 - 62,793,872
You see these totals holding mostly steady for the Democrats, while steadily increasing for the GOP. But the key is where the votes were and were not. As we noted above, Trump had some increases in crucial states, but Clinton had major increases in states that did not matter. In Texas she picked up over half a million votes from where Obama was in 2012. But in Pennsylvania she was down over 150,000 votes from where Obama was. In Michigan she lost nearly 300,000 votes from where Obama was, and in Wisconsin, where Trump did worse than Romney? Roughly 240,000 fewer votes for Clinton than Obama had in 2012. The map didn't break well for her, but she also didn't campaign much in Michigan until the last week, and didn't campaign at all in Wisconsin. She was fixated on expanding the map to states like Georgia and Arizona, and expanding the Democrat's footprint in places like North Carolina. Meanwhile everyone laughed at Trump for campaigning across Clinton's "Blue Wall"... but he knew that his long shot presidency included two things. The first was picking up a small number of more voters in those areas than Romney did. As we've established above, he did that. What was the second thing?
Simply put, he needed Democrats to stay home. With more nuance, however, he needed people who didn't like Clinton to stay home. They didn't have to like him, at least not enough to vote for him, but they needed to not like her enough to not vote ... or to be one of the eight million plus who voted for a man who was unfit in their eyes to be President. In this regard, Trump won. But how did he win? He did it in a number of ways, and in doing so he proved how efficiently and effectively our entire political system could be gamed.
First, he established early and often who it was he wanted his "base" to be. He actively and aggressively courted uneducated white voters with promises of things going back to how they were before, back when America was "great." This message was particularly powerful behind the curtain, inside of Clinton's "Blue Wall" in the upper mid-west. This area hasn't been "great" since the 1960s, and people still cling to the idea that it can be for the country and the world what it was in the two decades following the end of World War Two. Of course, this is a fantasy of the highest order, equal with believing that spewing CO2 into the atmosphere isn't going to have a negative impact on the world's temperature. But these people don't care. They are desperate for something, anything, and ultimately, anyone who will tell them that it will all be all right again. That the jobs will come back. That the wages will come back. That the "middle class" existence for a skilled laborer who didn't graduate high school will come back. I won't spend too much time delving into this, but simply put this cannot and will not happen, regardless of who is president, because the world is fundamentally different than it was in the decades following WWII. Back then we were the world's lone super power, and the only major nation that had left the previous decade unscathed in our homeland (short of Pearl Harbor, of course). We had the industry, it was already fired up from our war production, and everyone else's economy was in disarray. We had an economic monopoly on the world, and we prospered accordingly. Those circumstances are as far from today's world as transportation today is from transportation in the 1600s. So, in sum, Trump played to his desired base by telling them lies, sweet little lies, that gave them hope for a future that he knows will never come. But, of course, the future doesn't need to come ... the idea of the future simply needed to carry him to the White House. And the upper mid-west, the rust belt, was an area that was particularly vulnerable to this fantasy.
Second, Trump could only pull this off if his opponents were divided, as they were in the primary. He needed them to be unable or unwilling to call him on his lies and factual inaccuracies for fear of upsetting the very base he was building, who they, too, would need if there were to win in November. After accomplishing this with very little resistance (major kudos here for John Kasich for refusing to budge and give in to Trump), Trump then needed another miracle. He needed the Democrats to nominate someone as unlikable and flawed as he was. Fortunately for him, the Democrats were so thin that the best they could come up with was the second most unlikable presidential nominee in history behind him. And all the Democrats could do to try to avoid this was run an aged socialist against her. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: the two most unlikable, flawed candidates in modern political presidential history. And remember, likability matters quite a bit. Obama was likable; he seemed like a guy you'd shoot hoops with or watch the NCAA tournament with. George W. was likable; he was a guy you'd have a beer with. Bill Clinton? Likable, especially when compared with George H.W. and Bob Dole. Reagan? Likable, because he communicated warmly and optimistically. Likability matters, so when you are considered by the majority of the voting population to be unlikable and unqualified to be President? Well then, you better have someone who is nearly equally unlikable and considered to be unqualified as well. Trump won the veritable lottery here.
Third, Trump needed to appeal to a portion of the voting public that neither side had appealed to in some time, at least since the 1960s and 1970s, and that was the racist, sexist, xenophobic base. He went after this voting block with extreme intensity, from the day he launched his campaign. Be it the wall to keep out Latinos, a ban to keep out the Muslims, or his routine insinuations that Hillary couldn't do the job because she was a woman, Trump appealed to another block of white voters in a way that they hadn't been appealed to in a generation, since George Wallace ran for President in 1968. This approach helped him in two ways. First, it brought out voters to the polls for him who otherwise were likely to stay home because the major parties didn't buy into their world view. Secondly, it spoke to some Obama voters who were okay with a black man as President, but still had a misogynist view point and couldn't take the jump to a female candidate. Those voters didn't necessarily have to vote Trump, although likely some of them did. They could just stay home as well. Trump's margins didn't need to be big, and they weren't. He was beaten soundly in the popular vote, but he held on to narrow margins where it mattered. A relatively small number of voters voting for him or staying home rather than voting for Clinton benefited him disproportionately.
Fourth, Trump needed to not be caught peddling in lies, and to not be viewed poorly for peddling in fears. In this regard he won big going away, for one simple reason: every time the media called him on his lies, tried to fact check him, or to hold him accountable for fear mongering, he simply changed the story. Often to make the story about the media's "unfair" coverage of the election. What this showed was how many voters were able to be seemingly held captive by his lies and his efforts to play to their fears. This happened because, sadly, his worldview fit many of their worldviews. When he said incendiary things about Islam and talked of Muslim registries and Muslim bans, it played to a portion of the population's fears. This isn't a new strategy; Hitler did the same thing with Judaism and the Jews, and the US did it in the same era with the Japanese and our internment camps. What was amazing was how defensive Trump supporters got if you acknowledged the stark similarities to what Trump was saying and prior instances of xenophobia in history. Playing to fears, coupled with an amazing ability to lie, gave Trump an edge. His ability to pin it back on the media anytime that they tried to hold him accountable is what should scare everyone moving forward.
Finally, he needed a miracle. That miracle was something that would pull the polls close enough that they were within the margin of error. Close enough that people who despised Clinton would come out and vote for him, but with enough of a margin for Clinton that people who didn't really like her could talk themselves into staying home rather than voting "because it's alright, she'll win anyways. That death blow was delivered by FBI Director James Comey when he instructed his agency to reopen their previously closed investigation into Clinton's email server. Now, mind you, Comey could have legally and ethically done this quietly, having his team review the new information, and only go to Congress, and therefore public, if there was something new there. Instead, Comey came out and made a big theatrical production about it ... only to later determine that this was nothing new, and that the conclusion was the same: Clinton had done nothing criminal. There is little doubt that Comey reopening the investigation did for Trump exactly what he needed it to do: it closed the polls, particularly in those crucial upper mid-west states, to within the margin of error, firing up Trump's base while leaving enough room for some likely Clinton voters to remain apathetic and stay home. Trump needed to thread the needle, and the Comey letter was the Hail Mary pass that Trump needed.
And so, here we are. President Elect Donald J. Trump. A man who would be worth more money if he had taken his dad's loan and inheritance and simply invested it, rather than doing what he's done with it. A man who was a Democrat until it became politically advantageous to become a Republican due to the divided nature of the party. A man who quite literally seems to have no real policy position, or interest in learning about policy, either foreign or domestic. A man who does know show business, and uses that to position and stage things like keeping job in Indiana ... by having me, my wife, and countless other Hoosiers pay for a tax break for the company, while having all American's pay for them to have fat government contracts ... and then watches the company still ship the majority of the jobs they already were going to out of the country anyways ... and then Trump declares it victory.
Simply put friends, much of what Trump said in the election season was complete and utter lies, intended for the simple sake of publicity. That is the likely outcome of this. As he comes into office he will likely come back to the middle; reality is that he already has on things like The Affordable Care Act, the Iran Nuclear Deal, the Muslim Ban and our defense commitments to NATO and other partners. Now, there is a real risk here in that he could, and very simply should, upset his base. But he is banking on something else: that those people will keep listening to Fox News, keep reading fake news on Facebook, and keep going to the Breitbart "news" network for their news rather than going to real journalistic sources. Because if those people do that, they'll hear how it's the Democrats making him not be able to do these things. Or the Republicans. Or both. He's banking that his bread and butter base, the uneducated white person, will stay uneducated. That they'll see Carrier keeping a few hundred jobs here for millions in tax breaks and billions in defense contracts ... and not that Carrier takes all that money and still sends over a thousand jobs to Mexico. He's banking that his base will still see minorities of any type as a part of the problem, not as fellow men and women. He's banking that the Democrats, with a bench so thin that Joe Biden, who would be 77 in 2020, is seemingly the best option out there, will be unable to find anyone capable of dethroning him. He's banking that his base won't notice, or won't care, that he lied to them throughout the primary and general election season ... as he gently drifts towards the middle on many things.
The alternative, quite frankly, is much more scary. That involves him going through with what he said he would. That alternative is very much in play, as neo-fascists like Steve Bannon continue to have the President-Elect's ear, as anti-Muslim individuals like General Michael Flynn get nominations, and as his cabinet becomes filled with the same Wall Street insiders he condemned during the campaign, and individuals with ties to Russia so strong that you have to wonder if Trump is just going to have a live G Chat with Putin 24/7. If this scenario, that the Trump of the campaign is the Trump who takes the Oath of Office, comes to reality, then there is one hope in the next two years: that the GOP members that have control of the House and Senate do what they didn't have the fortitude to do in the election season: stand up to Trump and force him to stand down. Block some of his nominations if they are unfit for the job or potentially compromised by ties to Putin and Russia. Moderate his policies. Show America that "conservative" doesn't mean "fascist." Prove to America that conservative answers to problems don't have to mean ignorance, fantasy, and putting the top one tenth of one percent's well being ahead of the rest. Needless to say, however, I'm not overly optimistic that the GOP will suddenly find the fortitude to stand up to Trump. They could have done it when he was a weak sideshow. Where are they going to find the strength now that he has become what he has become?
And so now we see, in plain daylight, the depths of this man and his campaign's ties to Russia. He outwardly encouraged Russia to commit espionage, and then benefited when Russian espionage undermined his opponent. He clearly plans on blowing up US - China relations, starting with Taiwan, and ending with tariffs and taxes (side note: go out and buy your cheap flat screen TV soon ... they may not be cheap much longer!). He is bent on putting the extreme fringe, the radical fringe around him in his cabinet and west wing, and is making it well known that he plans on being a care taker President who generally lets his people do their things and just makes things look good. We've seen this before with Reagan and George W. Bush, but at least they had some people around them who knew what they were doing. Thus far Trump hasn't nominated anyone who has broad bi-partisan support for their nomination. That should scare everyone.
At the end of the day, I go back to something that a person far more qualified to be President (but far too smart to run for President!) once said about invading Iraq: you break it, you own it. As Colon Powell said then, I say now in a different situation: we the people, because we don't want to honestly work on our imperfect union and would rather be divided and unable to see others as worthwhile, elected Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States of America. He is unquestionably the most unqualified President-Elect of modern times. As we head into his Presidency, we all need to work together to try to manage to weather the likely storm ahead. We need to work in our communities across the aisle. We need to get past who we voted for, and find common ground. The extreme fringe who voted for Trump needs to be dealt with kindly and empathetcally, but in a way that makes clear that xenophobia, racism, sexism and fear of science and facts is not in any way the future of this country. My high school history teacher once said that he believed this was "the greatest country ever conceived on this earth, warts and all ... and there are a hell of a lot of warts." That statement is true, irregardless of who won this election. But it's time to pull together. If Trump runs to the middle, respects the rights of all people, and moves forward with a modern agenda that acknowledges science and the real state of the world, he should be acknowledged for it. But if he governs as he campaigned then we all have an obligation to do everything we can up and down ballots in 2018 to neuter him, and then to toss him and his government of closed minded, hateful people out of government forever in 2020. Either way, we as a country need to do this together.
In closing, the best way I could describe this election between two awful choices was this. Hillary Clinton was like playing a lottery ticket. You knew that you were likely going to lose, and not be better off. But you also knew you probably wouldn't lose too much, and there was at least a chance that things would turn out a little bit better. Donald Trump is like playing Russian Roulette. The likely best case scenario involves an empty chamber full of a bunch of hateful rhetoric and bluster, but ultimately our collective heart rate will come down and we'll be all right. But if the chamber isn't empty ... well, none of us will be here to chat about it. Here's hoping the chamber is empty, because a relative handful of people in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are clearly bigger gamblers than I am. Welcome to the Trumpocalypse. This is one of the darkest times in our country's history, that much seems certain. But the beauty of this country has been that we come through the dark into the light of day. Let's go out and do it.
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