Lumps-taking by Kyle A. Lohmeier
So, turns out that I was wrong about a great many things.
First, it apparently doesn’t matter much to the oligarchs who lives in the White House; this would explain why the top 100 donors who fund the majority of all political campaigns tend to hedge their bets on both sides of the aisle. Secondly, despite my massive cynicism, it appears our votes for president do actually count; whether or not they matter remains to be seen. Thirdly, it is ostensibly possible for a dastardly scheme decades in the making and hatched by one of the nation’s most powerful and corrupt political families to be undone by a reality TV star striking a populist chord.
Needless to say, I was stunned watching the returns last night. My jaded-prick-everything-is-rigged-don’t-be-a-dupe side kept imagining DNC operatives busily stuffing ballots marked for Clinton into boxes in Detroit while that city held its polls open late so everyone could vote. I became increasingly convinced Michigan would be called for Clinton and then so would the rest of the states she needed to win as her path to victory narrowed while Tuesday night gave way to Wednesday morning. Yet, Michigan wasn’t called for Clinton, and I finally went to bed only to awaken to find that Donald J. Trump was indeed the President Elect of the United States.
The implications of this are rather stunning. With both the popular and Electoral College votes being neck-and-neck, Trump can’t ride into town next January with a legitimate claim to a “mandate” from the electorate to enact the radical changes and policies he’s proposed. Hell, he can’t even count on the support of his own party, as he’s battled with prominent members thereof almost since the beginning. It will be interesting to see what, if any, of his policy proposals will make it to a vote in congress.
I’d be stunned if he gets a wall built on the southern border; and there’s no way Mexico is going to pay for it. Hillary Clinton isn’t going to be indicted; likely no further probes or investigations into her or other remnants of the outgoing Obummer regime will take place.
And the reason is actually fairly simple. As crazy insane as today is, it does have a familiar feel to it. In fact, it was eight years ago to the day that America celebrated exuberantly as we expected all manner of hope and change. Eight years later and our young men are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan – and we are in fact killing people in parts of the world Bush had left untouched. Gitmo remains open. Not a single person – aside from members of the Obama regime itself – is better off today than they would have been without Obama. Obama’s failure of a presidency brought about no meaningful change – only the worst economic recovery in history and one that benefitted only the one-percent, not surprisingly (they tend to benefit regardless of who is in charge). Trump’s election too carries with it an expectation of radical change – hell, in recent weeks he’s described his plans for the presidency as “draining the swamp” – and, just like it was with Obama, what, if any actual change that happens won’t live up to the lofty expectations.
“It’s like de ja vu all over again,” – Yogi Berra
While I don’t expect the election of Donald Trump to bring about much meaningful change for the average American, it will, however, likely mean significant change for both political parties. Why more than a dozen more-or-less establishment candidates couldn’t derail the Trump Train at any point along the way will be something the GOP needs to address, even as it looks forward to having both houses and the White House for the first time in ages. Supposedly “evangelical Christian” voters turned out in droves for a guy who’s not militantly anti-gay-rights, whose personal conduct is boorish at best and whose stance on abortion toes the party line, but doesn’t go beyond. While that demographic continues to shrink, it is also apparently moderating its views – or is at least more willing to compromise them than sit out an election. This ought to send a signal to the GOP to pare back the pandering to said demographic.
Thing is, this election should also send a message to the Democratic Party. Well, maybe more like a shockwave through it than message to it. Their most experienced and connected political operative was just defeated by a guy everyone had written off, by a guy who Time Magazine twice devoted covers to so as to pronounce his “meltdown” and then “total meltdown.” I, at the very least, am not alone in the sea of pundits, amateur and professional, who pronounced the Trump general election campaign dead on arrival from the convention in Cleveland. That I was miles off is rather inconsequential. That the DNC completely misjudged its own party and the mood of the electorate they thought they had sewn up is rather consequential to Democrats. Had Bernie’s campaign not been torpedoed by the DNC itself at Clinton’s behest, he might have actually been able to defeat Trump, particularly if he put Elizabeth Warren on the ticket as his VP. Instead, the DNC did what it could to ignore, if not outright crush, the groundswell of popular support the professional bum enjoyed. Sure, the prevailing theory at the time was that Sanders couldn’t possibly win the presidency. Of course, the prevailing theory at the time about Trump’s chances was about the same.
Or, maybe the DNC was right and Sanders couldn’t possibly have won a general election; there is merit to that theory. If Sanders succeeded in pushing Hillary to the left on issues, he might have in fact pushed her too far to the left – which made her more popular with Bernouts, but less-so with people who work for a living. Whatever the case, all across America, people whom pollsters and pundits ostensibly didn’t know existed turned out to vote; and not just for Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton, but for something completely different and against more of the same massive government expansion that the Obama years have given us.
As for what the implications of a Trump presidency might be, that’ll have to be a topic for another time. As for now, I’ve a steaming plate of crow to get to while I attempt to wrap my head around what the hell happened last night.
Leave a Reply