The Woman Who Beat Hillary |
Did Donald Trump win the election of 2016 or did Hillary
Clinton lose it, or was it a combination of both? To answer the question let’s
first get past the Electoral College business. It is true that Clinton actually
beat Trump in the popular vote by less than 1% of the more than 120 Million
votes cast. But Trump won the election by carrying enough states to win by a
good margin in the Electoral college.
In the seven games of the recent World Series the Chicago
Cubs and Cleveland Indians both scored the same number of runs but no one would
ever suggest that the hard fought series ended in a tie. The Cubs were clear
winners because their dramatic victory in the seventh game of the series gave
them a clear margin of 4 games to 3. If the World Series had been decided on
the basis of total runs scored, it would have been a completely different
ballgame.
In the same way if the Presidential election was based on
the total popular vote count, the whole election process would have been a
completely different ballgame. Both sides would have mounted different
campaigns with markedly different strategies. No matter what one thinks of the
Electoral College, it is completely bogus to suggest changing the rules after
the game has been played, especially since both sides had agreed to play by
those rules. In fact, no Democrat ever complained about the Electoral College
as long as Hillary Clinton was leading in the polls.
So, what explains the dramatic result that hardly any poll
or pundit had predicted? Democrats are offering a number of explanations.
Hillary Clinton seems to blame her loss on James Comey, the director of the
FBI. She claims his surprise announcement that he was going to reopen the email
investigation after earlier indicating that it was no longer worth pursuing
stopped her momentum in its tracks.
However, as the results were coming in on election night distraught
Democrat sympathizers were putting the blame on Clinton herself. The vote
counters at CNN were forced to admit that Clinton was running well behind
President Obama’s 2012 totals among Blacks, and Hispanics. She was also not
getting the high percentage of votes she needed among women voters. Some commentators
even began to admit that Clinton was a weak, flawed candidate to begin with. This
was a startling admission for throughout the campaign none of her supporters
had ever expressed the least doubt.
I stayed up till 1:00 on Election night and flicked between
channels but failed to find anyone who would credit Trump and his strategy for the
victory. Yet, he had campaigned hard and enthusiastic crowds appeared at all of
his rallies. At a last minute rally in Michigan 30000 people waited to hear him
address them at 1:00 in the morning. He had spent all that day appearing before
enthusiastic crowds in five or six separate states. Despite his tarnished
reputation, I don’t think I have ever seen a candidate generate such
enthusiasm.
One commentator did admit that maybe in this election,
enthusiasm counted for more than political organization. In key battleground
states it is clear that more Republican and Independent voters came out for
Trump than came out for Mitt Romney in 2012. At the same time, Hillary Clinton
fell short of the votes gained by Barack Obama in 2012.
In the end, I believe that historians will look back and
find that Trump, despite his flaws, was riding a great wave that began in 2010
when Republicans won back the House of Representatives only two years after
Obama’s overwhelming victory in 2008. The House of Representatives is still the
most responsive part of the Federal government, especially since each
Representative must run every two years. Even with President Obama’s repeat victory
in 2012 the wave continued to gain momentum when the Republicans gained control
of the Senate in 2014.
Democrats and their many supporters in the media think that
demographics are on their side but they largely ignored this populist groundswell
though out the country. As I watched CNN throughout the campaign I was amazed
at how much commentators talked and how little they listened. It was not just
that pundits on both sides shouted down their opponents, but also that they
failed to use their own eyes. Viewer got opinion but little actual reporting.
For example, on almost the eve of the election one panel
worried about voter suppression tactics that they thought Trump supporters
would use to keep the Black and Hispanic vote down. During the discussion the
moderator asked a CNN reporter on the scene in either Florida or North Carolina
whether he observed any voter suppression. He said that he had not seen any and
that the presence of so many poll watchers meant that anyone who wanted to vote
would be able to. The panel brushed aside this report and continued to bemoan
voter suppression.
I don’t think that the wave that began in 2010 is
necessarily Republican or Conservative. I think it is a wave of the
under-privileged against the privileged. By under-privileged I mean those who
have come to believe that they work and pay taxes to support those who get
government benefits and privileges often without working. These people have to
pay for their own medical insurance and receive no subsidies. They do not have
the pension benefits that government employees and public service union members
enjoy. They only have Social Security.
Perhaps the most shocking statistic coming out of the
election was the vote in Washington D.C. where the nation’s Capital gave its
three electoral votes to Hillary Clinton by a 96% to 4% margin. I know that
there is a large Black population in Washington but it also appears that the
overwhelming majority of people who work for the Federal Government are
Democrats. Almost as revealing was the fact that more than 90% of the media
covering the election were contributors to the Democrat party.
The new under-privileged are caught in the middle. They pay
for the benefits enjoyed by wealthy Congressmen and well-to-do government
employees, and also pay for the benefits and subsidies that go to the increasing
number of those who do not or cannot work. They do not get food stamps,
Medicaid, or housing assistance.
During the election campaign they saw Wall Street
billionaires and hedge fund managers contributing massive amounts to the
Clinton campaign. They saw wealthy entertainers and athletes campaigning for
Hillary Clinton. Moreover, despite their hard work and patriotism they have to
stand by and hear themselves called bigots, racists, and homophobes.
I don’t believe that Hillary Clinton lost the election
because of her lies and emails. She lost the election when she spoke one line straight
from the heart. She really meant it when she called Trump supporters “deplorables.”
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Claire comments from CT:
ReplyDeleteGood analysis. You didn't mention the demonstrations after the election. The media is justifying them by invoking the first amendment. However, if the election had gone the other way and Trump supporters were doing the demonstrations, you can be assured that the media would not mention the first amendment but would say that the demonstrators were not accepting the results and were undermining the democratic process.
Jim comments from CT:
ReplyDeleteYes, yes and yes. Good piece. All during the campaign we heard about the Clinton ground game but nothing of the work that Priebus, Bannon and Kellyanne were doing. His team was considered second-rate. It was a great win. The spurned white voters of the rust belt have spoken. They never felt included in Obama's America.
Jim from CT comments again,
ReplyDeleteSo many moral maxims afforded to us from this November surprise. Never arrange a fireworks display on the Hudson before the polls close in the blue states. If you don't visit your ground game in Wisconsin, prepare to punt. Beware the other candidates campaign manager (kellyanne), she picked blueberries in the fields as a teenager - paid by the berry. Trump's campaign chief sweated like an immigrant with a rake in her hand and her knees in the bramble. Hillary's loser status is now imprinted in American political folklore. She was twice-dubbed entitled to the office and twice upended. Dems now make Comey the villain, but they fail to note that SHE was the one with the home brew server and the classified materials muddled in. She treated the Chappaqua house as an outbuilding to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Not so fast, Lady.