The media elite (and I know them well from a decade in Washington. D.C.) spent several post-election days blaming pollsters for bad predictions, other media for failing to call out Mr. Trump for his many misstatements, and the “dumb” voters who didn’t see reality, but some are slowly coming to accept the cold hard fact that two Democratic party actions did more to elect President Elect Trump, than all the wild rhetoric from Candidate Trump.
Personally, I don’t think the email debacle killed the Clinton campaign, although it certainly didn’t help build trust in her – it was stupid, not criminal, and actually endangered no one. Her server was never hacked, which you can’t say for the State Department or even Pentagon systems.
I See Two Main Reasons Mr. Trump Won
First, by far the most important reason Mr. Trump won is because President Obama was a total and complete failure when it came to keeping all the promises he had made during his election campaign. Even his much touted health care reforms, almost the only promise he was able to keep, failed to live up to expectations.
Candidate Obama had tapped into the massive economic and social discontent in this country and it carried first to an amazing initial victory, and later still held enough promise to get him elected a second time.
But once in office, Mr. Obama proved incapable of working with Republicans to get anything done. Yes, much of the blame there lies with the Republican Congress which blatantly opposed any, ANY attempt at compromise by the Obama Administration, but nevertheless, after raising up the hopes and aspirations of so much of the nation during his campaigns, he completely failed to follow through with the revolution he promised, instead falling into the Washington, East Coast elite trap of believing that because things are going well for Democrats in New York city, Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley, it must also be looking pretty rosy in the old rust belt of middle America.
If there is one thing worse than ignoring their distress and failing to improve people’s lives, it has to be first promising them that you will do so and THEN failing.
After rallying around the political newcomer and overcoming the vast obstacles involved in electing the quintessential outsider, the first Black President of the United States, can any outsider imagine the overwhelming let down felt by millions when they saw that all the promise of his campaign really was nothing more than mere promises?
The fact that many if not most of these voters were actually independents made the threat even more obvious if you were paying attention.
In large part, Mr. Obama and his lackluster administration must take the blame for electing Mr. Trump who grasped the core rebellion of the Obama revolution and promised that this time, THIS time, at last something would be done about bankers getting rich instead of getting jail time for destroying so many lives and politicians doing business as usual.
This time he would “drain the swamp” of Washington insiders and lobbyists.
THIS Time It Would Be Different.
But after years working in Washington I know it probably won’t be different this time and more than I worry about some of the things Mr. Trump has said he will do and who some of his supporters are, I am much more concerned with what could happen to the country if once again a politician so ready to make grandiose promises, fails to follow through – no matter what the reason.
There are a lot of very angry people out here in middle America.
I believe that a lot of the campaign rhetoric which raised so many eyebrows when Mr. Trump made outrageous statements, was just that, campaign rhetoric and that he will probably try to be a moderate president.
As for Secretary/Senator Clinton, it is difficult to believe that even the most deluded worker in the Democratic National committee couldn’t see that a person who made tens of millions of dollars by simply giving the same speech over and over to other rich people would win the hearts and minds of baby boomers who have to live with their parents because they owe a fortune in student loans and can’t do better than getting a service job at a nursing home or flipping burgers.
Democratic Elite Failure
Secondly, but still important, the way the Democratic elite on both coasts first ignored Sanders voters and secondly, shamefully and blatantly discriminated against Senator Bernie Sanders in scheduling events and actively working to discredit him.
It now seems obvious that with the regular Democratic vote ADDED to the populist vote which went almost entirely to Mr. Trump but much of which would very likely have gone to Sanders, Senator Sanders would today be President Elect by a large margin if he had not been downright cheated out of the Democratic nomination.
If Senator Clinton had ONLY picked Sen. Sanders for her VP she would be celebrating today, not sulking.
Blame or Thank Obama for Trump
So, if you are among those looking for someone to blame (or thank) for the Trump Presidency, don’t blame the media, or the uninformed, unwashed of middle America farms and rustbelt. Look instead to the fabulously wealthy Democratic elite and the Republican political elite for their failure to respond to the very badly hurting families who didn’t run giant corporations but, instead, lost their homes and farms to what they surely see as blatant political and financial corruption.
