My take-aways from the election ...

I am glad the election is over. It was no fun being bombarded by numerous ads, targeted by robot calls, and bored by polls suggesting that Clinton had an 85% chance of winning. 

The people have spoken. Trump is the president-elect. He won fair and square by working tirelessly, albeit in a non-conventional manner.  The enormous financial advantage of the Clinton machine did not have the final impact that pundits anticipated.

The networks will speculate on a number of issues such as why the polls were wrong, what contributed to Trump’s last minute surge, and what mistakes were made by the Clinton campaign. The theories abound, but that is all we have with which to work at present.

Those who find it hard to accept the result will point out that Clinton won the popular vote. They forget that America is a federal republic, not a democracy. The framers configured the Electoral College to protect the smaller states from being bullied by the larger ones.

I have my own theories.

The polls were wrong because the sampling methods were wrong. Wrong sample = wrong results! The polls were wrong because the methodology was faulty. Many folks flat out did not tell the truth, because doing so would risk being called a racist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, a misogynist, or worse.

There was no last minute surge. The steady drip of Wikileaks revelations chipped away at Clinton’s honesty and dealings, exposing the inner working of Clinton’s staff  willing to do anything to get their leader elected.

As to the major mistakes by the Clinton campaign, my theory is that arrogance blindsided it. They were so sure that Trump was not electable that they started to believe their own press reports. After all, they went out-of-the way to paint Trump as unfit to serve because of his temperament, morals, and proposals.

The Clinton campaign and the Democrat party failed to recognize the high level of anger amongst blue-collar workers, the so-called deplorables, those lacking a college education, those who cling to bible and guns, the uninformed. Democrats turned their back on the very people that built their party – the workers. They became content to stroke one another as better educated, more sophisticated, more PC, and better qualified to render judgments.

Identity politics has its advantages and disadvantages. Dicing and slicing the electorate into analytical clusters often produces shallow conclusions. The rush to dominate one slice or another often can work against us. Not all African Americans, Latinos, women, men, etc. vote the same way. Democrats, in their search to dominate the minority vote, ignored the white majority, which accounts for 70% of the population. Major efforts by Obama and his team to encourage people to vote for Clinton were a failure. Fewer African Americans voted this round as they did in 2008 and 2012. 

People were fed up with the revolving door in Washington and an establishment on both sides of the aisle high on self aggrandizement and personal enrichment and low on keeping the promises made during the election season. Many were unhappy with the choice. There was talk of choosing Hillary because she was the lesser evil. A large number, including myself, found the argument shallow. Evil is evil. Period. So a large number did not vote this round or voted for everything else but the presidential choice.

Trump recognized the anger of the blue-collar voter from the start. That is a major reason for his triumph over 17 other formidable challengers during the primaries. His style often turned people off, for sure, and the revelations of several peccadillos surely did not help him. I personally found much about his style offensive and sophomoric.

In the end, Trump was determined and focused. He wanted to show Obama off. Why? Obama had mercilessly ridiculed him in front of thousands of dignitaries and press folks during a Washington roast for having questioned his birth place. Those who saw footage from that event can attest to watching a livid Trump absorb abuse and ridicule at the hands of Obama, while the many liberals in attendance laughed and giggled. He became determined to show that he was a winner!

Bernie Sanders exposed many holes in the Democrat agenda. Trump capitalized on some of them: the view that the system is rigged, that trade polices have been unfair and half-baked, that there is a huge gulf between the bottom and the top of the economic pyramid, and that Wall Street needs reigning in.  To me, Bernie is the unsung hero of the last election.

Impact on the Obama Legacy

Obama leaves the presidency with one of the highest approval rates in history. People like him. They like his oratory skills. They admire his fine family. They respect his authenticity. Yet, the great majority of voters feel that the country is on the wrong track, and that we continue to be a much-divided nation. Many, including me, had high expectations when he was elected.  We hoped for better race relations and for a more civil discourse. We flat-out did not get either, to no fault of his.

Voters have pretty much repudiated many of Obama’s policies. Principally:

·      The health insurance policy

·      The energy policy.

·      The foreign policy.

·      The economic policy.

·      The trade policy.

·      Executive orders to skirt Congress.

·      Immigration policy.

·      Education policy.

·      Defense policy.

In two years, there will be nothing left of the Obama legacy, except a faint reminder that it does not pay to “lead from behind.” We have ample data to show that timidity is not what the nation needs. What it needs is a compelling vision followed by bold actions. A lesson from an old Arab proverb applies here: A strong horse is better than a weak one. 

God Bless America!