Commentary

Election Aftermath: The U.S. Is A Changed Country

by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, November 9, 2016

You were right.

The right-wing media that saw a clear path to the presidency for Donald Trump were right. Authoritarianism trumped decency; the strongman without a shred of public service beat the more-qualified woman with deep experience.

Most importantly, Donald Trump was right. His unique outsider approach to campaigning won him the Republican nomination and the presidency.

American voters — in a tight race and deeply divided nation — decided that Clinton was too much of an insider, too tarnished by self-interest or simply uninspiring. This was the ultimate anti-Washington vote. (The defeat was aided by the FBI director's no-new-evidence email leaks and Gary Johnson's key support in battleground states, which, by any measure, drained Clinton of her victory margin.)

The DNC’s inner-workings exposed by Wikileaks, courtesy of Russian hacking, didn't help, either.

And the vast majority of the media was oh so wrong. Pollsters were wrong, again. Liberal pundits were wrong. Those of us living in our blue-state cocoons were wrong, probably for the same reasons voters in many big cities in the UK simply couldn’t believe that a Leave vote would actually happen.

I couldn’t help but think of Michael Moore last night, as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin became the final bricks to fall in Clinton’s crumbling firewall. He was one of the few liberal commentators to call out the polls and reject conventional knowledge.

Trump ran on being the change candidate, just as Obama had eight years ago. Admittedly, the change they proposed was radically different. Obama doesn't insult and degrade women, immigrants, Mexicans, Jews, Muslims or the disabled. He sought to lift up ("Yes, We Can"), not put down.

The political pendulum in this country has swung in the same direction as much of the rest of the world.

Populist, divisive, anti-immigrant and nationalist political parties are gaining across the globe. Duterte in the Philippines exemplifies this, as does the exceptional rise of fiercely nationalist politicians in the Netherlands, France, Poland, Austria and the ever-present Putin in Russia.

The question is: can Trump govern after the campaign he ran? If his concession speech is any indication, hopefully, his tone will change. Maybe his election persona was just that, a fabricated persona to mobilize white working-class votes.

So many other questions: What happens with Paul Ryan? What happens with the DNC? What happens with NATO? What happens to the “mainstream media” now that Breitbart's baiting and outright lies have distorted the notion of a free and fair press?

campaigns, events, international, politics

5 comments about "Election Aftermath: The U.S. Is A Changed Country ".

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Micah Touchet from NewBirth Creative Design Agency, November 9, 2016 at 1 p.m.
That high-pitched whine you hear is the sound of sore losers.
Reply

Linda Moskal from WNPV Radio, November 9, 2016 at 2:06 p.m.

In tribute to the 1968 song by Four Jacks and a Jill ... "It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack!"

Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, November 9, 2016 at 3:24 p.m.

I think it was Thomas Jefferson in one of his tretises that he said the makings of democracy works because information getting to people is so slow, people will have time to digest it (paraphrasing). Whether it is digesting or finding and accepting truths takes patience. The expectations of immediacy without patience defies good science and government. It took 8 years to get us and our economy to where it is now with the world doing 180's at an alarming pace and it would take another 8 years on this path to get us close to what we need and want. It will take 6 months to revisit 2008 and 1808.

Bob Gordon from The Auto Channel, November 10, 2016 at 12:25 p.m.

why "deeply devided" when your side looses?

Phillip Nones from Mullin/Ashley Associates, Inc., November 10, 2016 at 7:40 p.m.

I think your point about Hillary Clinton being “too tarnished by self-interest” explains the single biggest reason for her election loss. Both candidates had deep flaws. But to my mind – and those of many of my colleagues and friends – the most egregious of them was the Clinton Foundation pay-for-play exposé.

Thanks to the 13-page private memo written by Bill Clinton’s chief rainmaker Douglas Band that outlined the entire scheme (made public courtesy of Wikileaks), the structure and process of what was happening was laid bare. Trading dollars for favors based on power and position in the State Department, while enriching the Clinton family to the tune of multi-millions of dollars through quid quo pro speaking engagements at $250,000+ a pop, exposed the extent of the corruption in the starkest terms – and in a manner that anyone with half a brain could understand.

Meanwhile, the exorbitant salaries and benefits earned by the Clinton loyalists and minions parked at the Clinton Foundation – a veritable “administration-in-waiting” for 2017, coupled with international travel, lavish gifts and high-on-the-hog expense account living, goes well-beyond anyone else’s fondest dreams of avarice. (It also explains why less than 10% of the Foundation’s charitable dollars have actually made it to the people they're intended to help.)

Pulling the lever for anyone “tarnished by self-interest” to such a degree was a bridge too far for many people.