A year ago I sat in this seat, at this desk, in this office watching the 2016 General Election returns that announced that Donald J. Trump would be our next President.
As comedian Lewis Black so often says, "You've got to be shitting me."
No, this was of course as real as it gets.
Donald Trump won because of a few different reasons.
1) Trump resonated with the blue-collar, lower-income voters that felt left behind by the Democratic Party. Trump sang the songs those folks wanted to hear, he wasn't a fancy talker like President Obama was nor was he, uh, well, black. A white guy who had some level of perceived success in business and had the TV star name recognition that blew everyone else away. No matter his ideas were fragments of thoughts, not well-thought out actual polices mind you, but his pitch sounded good enough to the voters in all the rural and non-urban environs. The Dems never found a voice, although I suppose Bernie Sanders came the closest. Close wasn't remotely good enough.
2) Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate. While likely a far better administrator, she isn't that likable, and when you factor in her self-inflicted gaff of all gaffs with the personal server and her lame handling of it, well - that was that. Some curious campaign strategy to skip various states as the campaign drew near its close and voila! Despite getting more votes, she got the "wrong votes" and you know who got the White House.
3) Not enough of us vote. Roughly six in ten of eligible voters bothered to vote, which adds up to a LOT of people not voting. Apathy is not a good strategy to advance the Country in any direction.
Other factors worth considering is the lack of outreach President Obama made in terms of developing the next generation of democratic politicians. The Democratic party's utter incompetence in terms of well, almost everything. Some will point to the 2016 general election campaign as a case-study on how to screw up an almost sure thing through a lack of vision, hubris and poor judgment.
None of this is new information and your mileage may vary as to what you think explains best the 2016 election.
I can't pin this all on the Trump effect and neither should you.
I am still unable to fully express my disappointment in how things have gone since President Obama took office, where my optimism was dashed within the first few months. For a good understanding of how quickly the Obama Administration became utterly fucked with no clue or willingness to counter punch the GOP, pick up a copy of Michael Grunwald's "The New New Deal" which chronicles the early days of the Obama first term.
As Obama said, “We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. It never does.”
The ugly business of getting the needed votes and the appalling horse-trading required for same quickly fouled the fresh air of what I hoped would be a new age in our politics and our Country. I didn't expect the loyal opposition to hand Obama everything he asked for, but my God, the obstructionism came so fast, so fiercely that even I was surprised.
So the eight years of the Obama Presidency was underwhelming and too much time was spent explaining, defending and explaining some more why his policies were generally good ones. The old saying goes "if you're explaining - you're losing" proved true and while he won re-election, he never came close to being the "change-agent" I'd hoped he would be. Obama made many mistakes and is guilty of his own elevated levels of hubris to be sure. It was foolish of him to declare - over and over again - that " if you like your health plan - you can keep your health plan". Otherwise known as Politifact's 2013 Lie of the Year.
Our politics grew more coarse, the media beat its drum dronishly and the message went out to all the land. Politicians - no matter their party or promises - all sucked and sucked hard. Trust none of them.
Right-wing talk radio, Fox News evening lineup hosts and a handful of right-leaning websites fed into this narrative that all politicians were evil, untrustworthy and basically out to fuck us all.
So, come to the 2016 General Election and who do we see on the right?
Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and John Kasich among others. What do they have in common?
They're all career politicians...
Who did we see on the left?
Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley were likewise, career politicians in one form or another.
Bernie was a breath of fresh air to some but unelectable in my mind from the start in that election cycle. The United States of America wasn't and probably isn't ready to elect even a soft Socialist into the White House.
Then there was Trump. NOT a politician.
Hmmmm...
People didn't care he was an asshole.
People didn't care he stiffed any number of contractors and small business along the way.
People didn't care he boasted about his conquests with women.
People didn't care about his divorces.
People didn't care about his very un-presidential tone and demeanor on the campaign trail.
People didn't care about when he claimed John McCain wasn't a true war hero because he had been captured.
People didn't care when he criticized the Gold Star Mother.
People didn't care about his "some very fine people on both sides" comments after Charlottesville...
People didn't care after Trump resurrected the NFL players taking a knee matter, despite a Veteran suggesting to Colin Kaepernick he do so instead of sitting in protest.
They didn't care about anything...Trump's broken promises or failed plans don't matter to the group that adoringly voted him into office. As a resident of the slowly decaying Johnstown, PA area told Politico in a sobering article earlier this week, "Johnstown and the surrounding region are struggling in the same ways and for the same reasons. The drug problem is just as bad. “There’s nothing good in the area,” Schilling said the other day in her living room. “I don’t have anything good to say about anything in this area. It’s sad.” Even so, her backing for Trump is utterly undiminished: “I’m a supporter of him, 100 percent.”
It was all fake news, made up either by radical Democrats who hate the Country or by long-serving RINO's who should've been kicked out a long time ago.
The cake was baked. From President Reagan saying "government is the problem" back in the 1980's all the way up to election day, we've been on this path where we ridicule honorable Government servants, educated policy people who are trying to improve the lives of the people in the country to college professors and anybody else who ain't singing America, Red, White and Blue is #1 songs.
Ted Nugent, Roy Moore and Joe Arpaio are now "in" while thoughtful, creative public servants and dedicated policy wonks are out.
Welcome to the Dark Ages v.2.0...
Nepotism run amuck, inexplicable staffing choices, choosing to not staff key foreign policy and State Department positions. The bullshit claims that we'd have the BEST healthcare in the world. The excuses for why the infrastructure improvements haven't begun in earnest yet. The influx of Wall Street and other billionaires into his Administration.
His reckless and incessant Tweeting of petty, foolish and self-indulgent messages at all hours of the day and night.
His dangerous handling of North Korea.
His inept handling of China.
And of course, his inexplicable relationship with Vladamir Putin and Russia.
We get the government we deserve. This is what happens when enough people take the lazy way out and listen more to know-nothings like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Alex Jones than they do to serious, educated and qualified people of knowledge and science and facts.
This is what happens when, despite all the information we could want at our fingertips, we collectively decide its too hard to read about health policy or what tax cuts mean for our deficit or what the 14th Amendment actually was trying to say when it actually said "...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
This is going to get worse before it gets better.
We deserve Donald J. Trump as our President.
We must do better.
This is NOT to say in any way, shape or form that the Country is in this fix because "my guy/girl" didn't win. If a reasonably thoughtful person like John Kasich, for example, had been elected, I highly doubt I would feel the visceral level of distress I and others do on a daily basis.
Kasich is a Republican. I used to be a Republican. That doesn't mean he could never advocate for policies I might find acceptable.
We'll do better as soon as we begin to shun the extremes in our politics and find a new, meaningful appreciation of those thoughtful voices in the Center. Nobody will get all they want, but likewise, nobody should wind up with nothing they hoped for.
There's no acceptable honest explanation for why the individual mandate, supported by minds at the Heritage Foundation to derail Hillary Clinton's attempt at health care reform was somehow tyranny and un-American when President Obama weaved it into the Affordable Care Act. How it went from perfectly reasonable to dangerous and tyrannical overreach is intellectually dishonest.
As we start Trump's second year in office, I can only imagine where our politics will be a year from now.
Funny.
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