Why Trump Won

There were plenty of reasons to point fingers at some factors in this election that might help explain the Trump victory

• The Comey "October surprise" that for nine days kept the shadow of a potential criminal investigation over Clinton’s head

• The media’s relentless focus on the emails that had no real information to reveal but kept the pundits focused on her trustworthiness as they parsed her answers to the FBI and the numerous investigative committees and treated Trumps’ personal behavior and history of scandals as non disqualifying. The media’s refusal to take apart Trump’s lunatic tax trade policies and focus people’s attention on the harm they would do for ordinary people’s pocket books.

• The lack of any interviewer prepared to take on Trump and ask any follow up questions that identified the false premises and assumptions and his appalling ignorance of the world and public policy.

But all of these reasons pale in comparison to Hillary’s play it safe campaign lacked a clear message. Was she running for Obama’s third term? Did she have a plan to respond to the economic devastation following the great recession that hit the rust belt longer and harder than many in the media were prepared to recognize or acknowledge? How was she going to improve Obamacare or move to a green economy? It was not that she lacked policy ideas in these areas (there were enough policy briefs on her website to fill a bookshelf) but that she did not seem to want to prioritize any one of them or explain how and why they were important in simple non wonkish terms. Her husband tried with Obamacare but did so in a way that confused rather than enlightened. Although she won the debates she lost the argument as to what she wanted to achieve as President. It seemed she wanted to try working with people from both sides to achieve incremental change but that had been tried and failed. The GOP dominated congress was not interested in incremental change. Some in the GOP indeed were more interested in prosecuting her for alleged crimes and impeaching her than they were ever going to allow her to complete any kind of legislative agenda.

How was the electorate going to get excited about any of her ideas or if any of them appealed to them (raising the minimum wage for example) the prospect of more of the same gridlock that would lead to more hot air and nothing changing. Arguably this was the reason why many democrats stayed home and minorities did not vote in the overwhelming numbers that had led to Obama’s 2004 and 2008 victories. Although this argument that Trump was dangerously unqualified to become President won the popular vote it was not enough to bring out voters in the heartland who were desperate for some kind of change that would move them from the kind of minimum wage dead end jobs to a future where they or at least their children could dream the big American consumerist dream once again.

The Trump vote largely composed of these largely white males angry at elites came out in droves for someone their perceived would not sell them down the river by making trade deals that shifted good paying jobs either south or eastwards. The fact that these jobs had permanently left the US for a complex number of reasons due to changes in technology and more flexible global supply chains seemed to escape the media commentators. But this was an election not based on facts but on a sense of grievance that a future the white American workers left behind by globalization had been once promised and had been betrayed by the elites in Washington. Trump understood this sense of grievance more so than anyone else in the GOP and knew how to employ his brand of
aggressive macho posturing to appeal to them. Never mind that the grievance mixed in racism and misogyny, whipped up xenophobia and nationalistic emotions, they lapped it up. It seemed authentic and authenticity was something that allowed them bridge the wide gulf between the billionaire's lifestyle and their own. He was a regular guy even though he flew around in his own 727 and owned golf courses and hotels he was relatable because he shared their view about outsiders and their macho values that had conditioned them to objectify and demean women and feel superior to those of different races and religions.

Trump talked their language --it was the language of a TV talk show host --short blunt and not politically correct. Even though he was by all accounts a dishonest operator in his business and personal life his language appeared honest when compared to the political speak used by the Washington politicians.  It was the language of the outsider fueled by his anger that derived not from any of the genuine frustrations that ordinary people felt about their lives but due to a personal sense of hurt that somehow the educated and monied elites had too often snubbed him for his crassness.

What can we learn from all this? Looking back, Bernie Sanders had the clearer message that could have won the race.  His theme that the elite had engaged in unfair trade deals, that the banks should be broken up and that the bankers who caused the great recession should go to jail for their crimes was responsive to the mood of the country. It told a story, one which inspired millennials in debt to their eyeballs that they deserved a chance to move forward and were being held back by having to payback outrageous loans for college, when post secondary education should be a right available to everyone and was a good investment for the society to make in its future, a much wiser investment than the enormous sums spent on the Pentagon. Sanders was set to remake the democratic party so that it could really respond to the 21st century needs of a nation that needed to continue to invest in its future and not be so beholden to corporate interests. The centrist part of the democratic party believed that Sanders represented too much of a leftward shift and moved to stop him becoming the nominee. Hillary’s was not going to give up her fight to become the first female president of the United States and the party top brass who knew that the Clintons had more access to big donors than anyone else agreed to go along. It is speculative to assess whether Bernie could have won over the independents who would use the word "socialism" as some kind of taboo word  but it underlines the point that in a change election year --the times did demand an authentic change agent not someone who believed in incrementalism as a kind of therapy treatment for a dysfunctional congress.


Hillary turned out to be not the right candidate for the times. We must now all suffer the consequences and continue the work of rebuilding a democratic party responsive to the nations needs in a time of dramatic change.

Why Trump Won

There were plenty of reasons to point fingers at some factors in this election that might help explain the Trump victory

• The Comey October surprise that for nine days kept the shadow of a potential criminal investigation over Clinton’s head

• The media’s relentless focus on the emails that had no real information to reveal but kept the pundits focused on her trustworthiness as they parsed her answers to the FBI and the numerous investigative committees and treated Trumps’ personal behavior and history of scandals as non disqualifying. The media’s refusal to take apart Trump’s lunatic tax trade policies and focus people’s attention on the harm they would do for ordinary people’s pocket books.

• The lack of any interviewer prepared to take on Trump and ask any follow up questions that identified the false premises and assumptions and his appalling ignorance of the world and public policy.

But all of these reasons pale in comparison to Hillary’s lackluster campaign that lacked a clear message. Was she running for Obama’s third term or would she respond to the economic angst,  faults in Obamacare and the growing power of Russia. It was the reason why many democrats stayed home and hispanics as well as African Americans did not vote in the overwhelming numbers that led to Obama’s victory.  She had no inspiring vision to offer other than a steady hand on the tiller and she was not Trump.

White males angry at elites who they perceived were ready to sell them down the river by making trade deals that shifted their jobs either south or eastwards were prepared to come out in droves responding to Trump's aggressive macho posturing that he would finally even the score against a world that had taken away their sense of an American future they could continue to dominate. It appealed to their sense of grievance that their futures and those of their children were being blocked by not just by NAFTA like deals but by unfettered immigration. The message resonated, Trump talked their language --it was the language of a TV talk show host --short blunt and not politically correct. Even though he was by all accounts a dishonest operator in his business and personal life his language appeared honest when compared to the political speak used by the Washington politicians.  It was the language of the outsider fueled by his anger that derived not from any of the genuine frustrations that ordinary people felt about their lives but due to a personal sense of hurt that somehow the educated and monied elites had too often snubbed him for his crassness.

What can we learn from all this? The democrats cannot be a collection of “boutique issues”- that included a fast changing social agenda--marriage equality, LGBT rights and drug reform.Looking back, Bernie Saunders had the clearer message that could have won the race.  He had the message responsive to the mood of the times-and he inspired millennials in debt to their eyeballs that they needed a chance to move forward by having college become affordable once again. He was set to remake the democratic party as being more anti-trade and for a single payer health care system. The centrist part of the democratic party believed that it was too much of a leftward shift and moved to stop him becoming the nominee. But it was considered by the party poh bahs that it was Hillary’s turn and she was not going to give up what she felt as her historic destiny to become the first female president of the United States. It is speculative to assess whether Bernie could have won over the independents who would use the word "socialism" as some kind of taboo word  but it underlines the point that in a change election year --the times demanded an authentic change agent and Hillary turned out to be not the right candidate for the times. We must now all suffer the consequences.

Why We Must Avoid the Trump Disaster at all Costs

At the start of the summer things were going fairly normally and we were headed for two reasonably boring candidates--Clinton and if not Bush then Cruz. Trump was dismissed as a bloviating billionaire with a penchant for late night tweets, rude barbs and other nasty ways of grabbing the attention of the media. Having succeeded in getting people’s attention like the student at the back of the class prepared to mock the teacher, curse and generally make a ruckus the media then prepared to provide full coverage for his speeches given inside “huge” stadiums and aircraft hangers to mostly white males who when they were not cheering for his familiar "build a wall” line, were looking for hecklers to eject or otherwise beat up when the cameras were not around. The billions of dollars in free media attention the ratings focused media owners were prepared to donate to Trump gratis served to turn a small forest fire into a national environmental emergency. True the kindling was all around--stagnant wages, a perception that Trump helped foster that immigration both from Mexico and from Middle East was out of control and it did not help that the other GOP candidates lacked both policy ideas, passion or convincing solutions. They also had no credibility as it turned out with the mass of the electorate, just like the experts who were wheeled out in the UK’s Brexit debate to persuade the voters to stay in the Remain camp, people preferred to follow their gut that simple solutions would do the trick.--a wall, or in the case of Brexit rejecting the EU treaty. Then some more disturbing things happened. The GOP leadership in the form of Paul Ryan and to a lesser extent Mitch McConnell decided they were not only going to stand in his way to the nomination. Just like Chris Christie and Marco Rubio they folded in the wake of the Trump steamroller so despite his racist views, his counter productive terrorism strategy, his 19th century views on abortion and his efforts to undermine the NATO alliance, he managed to make the GOP into his own image. The GOP is now no longer the party of Lincoln, it is the party of Trump, a crazy megalomaniacal billionaire. Despite the fact that Trump regularly lies, has been bankrupt four times, has not read or shows any interest in reading anything that could be loosely called a briefing book, let alone a normal book, has no experience of governing, this man is now only a few percentage points (if latest opinion polls are to be believed) from winning the presidency of the United States. It is all too shocking to behold. This is a man who has no sense of shame for his lies, who has clear case of narcissism, who has no empathy for others, who created a sham university whose sole purpose was to milk old and vulnerable people of their life savings. He is a publicity seeking amoral monster the media has helped to create.

What can we do? First we all must demand:
1. Trump release his tax returns. These will show most probably the ways that Trump not only skirts the law, does not give to charity, sends jobs abroad etc
2. The media not allow Trump to avoid answering the question and insist on asking follow up questions
3. Insist that your own Senator, Congressman denounce Trump’s racism and counterproductive views on terrorism.
4. Actively register people in your community and make the argument that this is an election no one can afford to sit out.
5. If you know anyone slightly inclined to vote for Trump--that has said one or two positive things about him--please confront them with the one question that counts--would you want his small fingers on the button--they are itchy enough to send insulting crazy tweets at 3:00 am that a 5th grader would never send.

This is the election of our lifetimes. To those who try to find fault with Hillary--she has after all spent 40 plus years in the public spotlight we can only say this --there is no comparison between the kind of tried and tested temperament of Hillary as Senator from New York and as Secretary of State and Trump. Trump has never been elected to anything. He has devoted his entire life to his one object of affection--himself. The email issues have been resolved. We are talking about the future of the country here if not the world. A Trump presidency is unthinkable.