Well, Donald Trump again exceeded expectations and won the
presidency, and by a decisive margin, despite the predictions of the (mostly
liberal) media and most of the pollsters (and note that in the end Scott Adams
was right again!). And he clearly outsmarted and outmaneuvered the entire
Washington establishment, both Republican and Democratic – that is an amazing
performance which I didn’t really expect. I’m sure the numbers will be
dissected in detail ad nauseam over
the coming months, but here are my immediate take-aways from this result:
1) The
shopworn old Republican promises – never kept – of less government, lower
taxes, less regulation, “family values”, etc, etc simply aren’t selling
anymore. And Republicans need appealing new ideas, not just opposition to
Democratic ideas. This has been clear ever since Trump buried all the
establishment candidates in the primaries.
2) Hillary’s
big mistake was not to learn from Bernie Sanders’ unexpectedly good performance
in the primaries that part of the traditional Democratic base – the blue collar
workers – were not on board. Instead, once she had dispatched Bernie, she simply
ignored him and his proposals and steamrollered her way to the nomination.
3) The
Democrat’s’ big mistake in the first place was to field a candidate as
unpopular and scandal-tainted as Hillary. Or perhaps their mistake was to allow
the Clinton “machine” to so thoroughly dominate and control the nomination process.
4) The
liberal’s “identity politics” didn’t work very well for them in this election. Latinos
didn’t vote for Hillary in a block. Women didn’t vote for Hillary in a block. African-Americans
didn’t vote for Hillary in a block. In fact all of these groups voted pretty
much as they normally do.
5) The
establishment politicians of both parties have clearly gotten out of touch with
their bases. In particular, the liberal elite have not succeeded (nor even really tried) to sell their view of a globalized world with open boarders to the average American. Instead they have arrogantly assumed that any "right thinking" person would agree with them, and that everyone else is a racist, Islamophobic or sexist "deplorable". This is not a way to win a democratic election.
I expect major civil wars within both parties
over the coming year or two, as they try to figure out how to respond to these
events. It will be interesting to see
how they reshape themselves.
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