Everyone was shocked when GOP candidate Donald
Trump won the electoral college vote and the
presidency in 2016. I was not all that
surprised, though am puzzled why Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton
was partying the night before election night with Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z as if she had already won. After
being decades in politics and surrounded by expert pollsters, someone had to
know that they weren't far ahead enough of the margin of error.
Clinton
pretty much coasted most of the election season,
failing to visit key states in the Midwest and
writing off rather than reaching out to a
segment of voters. She relied too heavily on
trusting that Americans would be so personally
disgusted with Trump's antics they would
automatically vote for anyone else. Rationally,
this would make sense, but for another key
component of the upset: Clinton did not offer a
clear economic plan to ease the minds of older,
displaced workers fearing for their livelihoods.
Trump threw those voters some bones and wha-lah,
blue states turned red in spite of conventional wisdom. Other factors include
straight-party Republican voting, which absolved the guilt of voting
for someone antithetical to their morals, but who could produce a conservative
Supreme Court judge. The final factor is that many key Democratic demographics
historically do not turn out to vote on election day.
At any rate, the nation
and the world are now faced with the great unknown of what a Trump
administration will be. I personally hope that much of his campaign rhetoric was
the empty bluster of a shrewd and effective salesman...who does not view nuclear
weapons as toys.