Initial thoughts

I need more sleep. And alcohol.

Democrats, Republican leadership, Newspapers, Columnists: “Don’t drive into that iceberg!” Americans: “Look, an iceberg! Let’s hit it!”

This was the last dying cry of the Angry White Man: “If I’m going down, I’m taking you all with me!”

I said all along that we should have nominated Bernie because too many people didn’t like Hillary and she might lose, and was roundly criticized by many Democrats for my naive view, insisting she would win. One of us was proven wrong last night.

That doesn’t mean I was right, of course, but the electorate is angry at politics as usual. It’s why Bernie was popular and why he had the enthusiastic support Hillary could only dream of. Even though Bernie has been in government for a long time, he has never been seen as the “insider.”

We saw the same thing with the GOP — they rejected all the insiders and went for the agitator, the angry guy who vowed to fight against the Washington elite (which includes the Republicans, of course).

The Democrats just always underestimate how much a large percentage of the country hates the Clintons. This same percentage rejected another Bush too, but we didn’t learn the lesson from that we should have.

The GOP ultimately only have themselves to blame for creating the atmosphere where this could happen.

Everything I was taught with my Political Science degree didn’t mean a thing this year, and it appears that every other “expert” probably feels the same way right now.

Even if I agreed with Trump on all the issues, I can’t believe people would support such a vulgar, crude, happily ignorant man. When you have an image of what a President looks like, Trump is the exact opposite of that.

Does this send a message to Republicans? “See? We should be more racist, more sexist, more crude. Clearly that’s what people want.”

This is American’s version of Brexit. Stock markets have already fallen; the economy is on its way down just in anticipation of what Trump will do to it. But of course, no matter how often that happens under Republicans, they’ll find some way to blame the Democrats.

If you are worried about a Trump presidency and you did not do everything in your power to prevent it, don’t go whining to me that you’re not responsible because you voted for a third party.

On one hand, Trump will probably just go around the country giving speeches and letting Pence run everything. On the other hand, Pence is worse than Trump in many ways, because he actually believes the crap he says.

And finally, one last thought given my lack of sleep and coffee: Given that all the experts were wrong in their predictions, maybe Trump was right about the election being rigged? Has anyone seen Putin’s computer anywhere?

7 thoughts on “Initial thoughts”

This may be an unpopular statement, and as hindsight is pointless, but here it is. The Dems should have run a WASPy, white guy, to follow up Obama. I am not racist, I am stating an opinion based on last night’s results, and something I thought back when they made it clear they would run Hillary. I always said she was too divisive, and that was, unfortunately, proven to be true. Should have run a white male now, then they should have prepped to run Elizabeth Warren in 8 years.

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Michael A. Ventrella | November 9, 2016 at 10:48 am

I think if Warren had been the nominee, she would have won.

People didn’t like Hillary OR Trump. And if we had a likeable candidate, we would only need a small percentage in a few places to win.

Warren, by the way, is older than Hillary even though she doesn’t look it. She’s not going to be running in the future, much less in 8 years.

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- Jennie | November 9, 2016 at 6:33 pm
  
  I disagree. I live in Massachusetts, and much as everyone loves Warren now, I remember her Senate race. Everyone didn’t love her then. There were plenty of attack ads, just as much Breitbart-type stuff taking things out of context … it’s easy to say that someone will win based on how they are treated and viewed when they’re not running. Let them throw their hat in the ring, and it’s a whole different ballgame.
  
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I honestly did not think Trump was serious. I know at least twenty votes in Austin he would have earned if they thought he was serious. We had a food pool on what day during early voting he would pull out and admit he was just screwing with the republicans to help his friend, Hillary.
Well, I waited until the first Wednesday of early voting because I felt bad voting for a woman I hate when there was a unicorn’s chance of McCain being on the ballot…
Um, so, I don’t have to make an Elephant shaped rum cake, I am not getting deer sausage or fresh tamales and everyone seriously underestimated how sick the swing vote is of politicians.
Holy hell, the giant Asteriod actually won.(didn’t think the people with that bumper sticker were serious, either)

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At the moment, the US stock market is up, the dollar is up, gold is down, and interest rates are mixed (lower short-term, higher long-term, which is a better yield curve). So far, the markets are untroubled by the Trump victory.

Bernie would have done worse than Hillary. Here’s why. She didn’t lose because of who didn’t vote; she lost because of who did. No one who voted for Trump would have decided to vote for Bernie instead, and many of the black and Hispanic people who voted for Hillary would have stayed home had Bernie been the candidate.

I think the biggest lesson to draw from this outcome is not to assume that everyone else (or even a majority of everyone else) thinks as you do. Bernie was popular with the far left, but nowhere else.

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