Trump’s Election: Struggling With Meaning.

This election week has been a struggle for me. That’s unusual, because I don’t struggle with anything. I make a serious effort to remain centered around my God which by default means I am also centered around my principles. The sorting and ranking of my moral imperatives has been going on for fifty-plus years and by this time requires only the mildest of teaks now and then.  While I have resolved the bulk of the conflicts between my principles, I occasionally face a divergence of principles.   Usually, I can execute a solution swiftly and without drama.  I know what’s under my control, and maintain peace with that which is not.

Donald Trump, President-elect.

I am struggling with the election of Donald Trump. And I voted for him. My distaste for Hillary Clinton is no secret.  This is known by anyone who follows my blog and views my YouTube channel (both of you).  Never-the-less, I did not go public with my decision to cast my vote for Trump prior to November 8^th.

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Dispensing With Stupidity.

First, let’s get the following out of the way: Trump was not “the lesser of two evils,” he was the better candidate, pure and simple. Donal Trump is not “deeply flawed,” certainly not in the way of the drug addicted Kennedy or the unalterably racist Wilson.  And don’t get me started with the rapidly ailing Bill Clinton, and whatever pathogen is ravaging him from within.

The field started with nineteen republicans and six democrats if memory serves, depending on whom you count. Add three candidates from the Green party and three from the Libertarian party. That totals thirty-one viable candidates. Scoff if you want.  The names of these candidates appeared on the ballots and no one had a gun to your head forbidding you to change your party affiliation during primary season. To say that none of these highly committed men and women “had a chance” is an insult to yourself and an admission that you are weak minded. I would sooner appear in front of an investigating committee and admit that I was too stupid to master a butterfly ballot.

My struggle with this is not with Trump himself, but with the State of the Nation that created him and the Nation’s reaction. To that end, I took a step away from some social media for a couple of days – Facebook in particular. I wanted to internalize the reaction from both those who voted for him but particularly those who did not.

The Appeal of Trump.

The Necessary…

Look at America and look at her population. You’ll see beyond the donor class, and beyond those at the public trough, there are the producers. Men in hard hats stringing power lines in the dead of winter. Drivers taking freight from where it’s plentiful, to where it’s scarce. Researchers, trying to come up the next technological break-through.

Police, Fire, EMTs, and other men and women devoted to public safety. Soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen, projecting the power of this nation overseas.

These are people in the real world.  They who do not live in a political bubble, do not determine interest rates, and understand that life consists of long periods of drudgery punctuated with enormous joy.

… And The Superfluous.

None of them appear on PBS, CNN or FOX with the rest of the chattering classes, and unless they happen to be in the right coffee shop in New Hampshire in February every fourth year, the powerful will never ask their opinion.

On the contrary, the “opinion shapers” tell the rest of us what our opinions should be.  They excoriate the masses as racists, bigots, haters, and xenophobes if their opinions don’t conform.  This is a class of people who every day silently confront those with no moral dilemma over getting them fired, ostracized, in effect making them homeless for the crime of independent thought.  The elites gleefully inform them that dissent is the highest form of patriotism except when it comes to objecting to the confiscation/transfer of 60% of the family income to the state. Their reward? To be mocked (guns and Bibles, anyone?) condescended to, and to be told they weren’t giving enough. They are the unprotected class, and Trump resonated with them.

Trumps enemies certainly thought they mattered.  They told us they mattered.  The donors, the chin waggers on broadcast news and entertainment, the establishment in both parties, and the education industry all informed the rest of us that our opinions should be their opinions.   everyone who treated the unprotected class with disregard and contempt.

For the first time in recent memory, the unprotected class had someone who would take it to the smug, condescending elites on their behalf, and they loved him for it. Trump got into their little faces, refused to accept their premise, and didn’t back down. Trump “miss-stepped” often. And every time the elites would inform us that this time, it would finish him. Wrong.

Clinton’s Failures – The Condensed Version.

The variables are difficult to quantify, but Clinton’s failings fall under 5 generalizations:

She Could Not Escape Obama’s failures.

The War on Islamic Fascism or the Global War On Terror (GWOT) had a number of fronts. The two most famous by any metric was the Iraqi Front and the Afghan Front. Both fronts were winding down – pacified by pre-surge standards – upon Obama’s assumption of office. His infantile insistence to hand his predecessor a defeat, the removal of all troops from Iraq, and his failure to re-negotiate a status of forces agreement in response to the conditions on the ground led to a catastrophic collapse and ushered in the Islamic State.  Obama sabotaged national victory for political reasons.  At least half the electorate understood this.

The list of foreign policy failures also includes the collapse of the “Arab Spring,” the rise of domestic terrorism, and of course the “Russian Re-set” which devolved into an Onion-level parody.

The economy is limping along at an anemic growth rate, peaking at 2.9%. The Obama administration will have the singular distinction of overseeing an economy that never broke 3%.

Obama The Divider.

The Nation is clearly divided between the producers and the non-producers.  National policy has ignored the The parable of “The Cart” far too long.  There are those who pull the cart, and those who sit in it.  The Democrat scheme to put enough people into the cart to guarantee perpetual victory has failed because they’ve run up against the laws of physics. Will future promises of putting additional voters into the cart work? Only time will tell.

She stayed too long.

It didn’t matter how many “reintroductions” her shepherds orchestrated.  Americans were reluctant to elect someone who had been running for the presidency for forty years.  Just ask Al Gore.

She is clearly ailing.

Even her supporters knew this. No dosage of whatever Vitamin D cocktail got her through the debates, and no amount of  time stretching out in the van away from prying eyes could convince enough of the electorate that she was up to the job. Her chronic fatigue was our chronic fatigue.  I’ll allow that Mrs. Clinton succumbed to pneumonia on September 11^th of this year in the way that a senior citizen who has never set foot on a treadmill suddenly attempts to run a marathon  One is going to get sick. The entire nation bore witness to the immediate actions drills, the seizures, and security guards standing by with epee-pens. Mrs. Clinton who does not have a reputation for health and fitness, is likely in the early stages of organ failure, and possibly dementia.

The Competence Gap.

Hillary Clinton made her reputation as a “power lawyer” by litigating in front of regulators appointed by her husband, then governor of Arkansas. This connection created a great deal of value, allowing her to make partner at the Rose Law Firm, and ascend to a directorship at Arkansas-based Wal-Mart.

Relationships like this fabricate strong assumptions which in turn mask severe deficits in knowledge, organizational skills, and synergy.

When actually given tasks: socializing medicine, The Russian “Re-set,” international relations – her lack of depth and her lack of understanding with respect to organizational theory and human nature became exposed. When the overhyped 3:00 a.m. call finally came, she slept through it.

Election Reaction.

Temper Tantrums.

I could not be less surprised and more disappointed.  For the first time in my memory, Americans are protesting… Americans. They are not protesting politicians, or policies, they are protesting the sovereign right of their fellow citizens for exercising the franchise. Someone needs to tell these people that an election has consequences.  The weeping and gnashing has morphed into rioting, assault, and property damage. Despicable.

Allowance For Embedded Fraud.

As of this writing, Clinton leads the popular vote count by 500,000, according to the NY Times Election Webpage. I would not blame anyone for being just a little bit pissed, if that told the whole story.  But it doesn’t: Democrats start with a 3% voter fraud advantage baked into the cake.  There’s no arguing this.  In this election, this means that out of over 120 million votes cast, the Democrats were able to mobilize nearly 3.6 million dead, double, “found,” “car trunk,” and otherwise fraudulent votes. This is without the illegal aliens.

Let’s take just the state of California with its 2.67 illegal aliens. Assume half are children. Of the remaining, 1.34 million, if only half of them voted, that adds 667,500 additional votes giving us a grand total of 4.27 million fraudulent votes.

Clinton did not win the popular vote in this election. She lost it by over 3.75 million. And that’s just including the illegal aliens from one state.

But let’s assume that the popular vote totals are accurate. Why does the Electoral College take precedence? Easy.   The five largest cities don’t get to choose the president for the rest of us. The State of California doesn’t get to choose the president for the rest of us. California will never succeed from the Union, peacefully, or otherwise.  But in the unlikely event that it is compelled to split it’s electoral votes, no Democrat will ever get elected president for the next 100 years.

They Still Don’t Get It.

Look at this video with Martha Radditz. This is what an abusive mother looks like who just realized that her 17-year old son has out-grown the regular beatings.

When you are tempted to feel sorry for the Leftists “coming to terms” with this election, approach it from this perspective: they hate you.  They need you – someone has to empty the office recycling bins at night – but they hate you.  More than that, they hate the idea of needing you.  They hate that you won’t just sit down and shut up and let them give you your opinions.

I was listening to NPR on the way into work last week.  The newsreader could not mask the sneering contempt from his voice. “Donald Trump likes to build things. Big things.”   Like he’s a big kid playing with Tonka^TM Toys.

We don’t expect a lack of introspection from among the chattering classes.  It’s still remarkable, though.

Update: Leslie Stahl’s pleading with President-elect Trump to not pursue criminal charges on Hillary Clinton was nothing short of pathetic.  Watch the 60 Minutes interview, he even gets her to admit the Clinton engaged in “very bad things” (i.e., criminal behavior).  

Further Brain-Droppings

There’s a lot to admire about Trump, but I’ll just focus on his resilience and allow one of America’s greatest folk heroes to articulate it.

No one has ever taken this many punches during a political season and kept moving forward.  No one.

Barack Obama’s post-election speech was unusually gracious.  In fact, it left me wondering where this guy has been for the last 8 years. The absence of the usual pettiness and chronic narcissism was a refreshing change.  Still no mention of the elephant of in the room, of course.

But lest you think this new-found humility will last longer than Tony Romo’s next series, keep in mind the Obama’s decision to remain in D.C. until their daughter’s “high school graduation.”  That’s right.  The Obamas are remaining in the capital.  At least, that’s the plan.  I don’t know if we can take them at face value, or if they plan to set up some bizarre “government in exile.”

One thing for sure: only an ego the size of… well, the Obamas could be incapable of conceiving of a United States that will get along just fine without them.

Clinton’s future post-election is anyone’s guess. The cleptocratic Clinton Foundation will likely experience a decline. Without the presidency, or the promise thereof, the ability of Clinton, Inc. to service the petroleum princes of the Middle East or the puppet masters on Wall Street is severely truncated. The Clintons built an empire on their ability to rig the game for others.  Continued participate in the election process remains key.  With that ability diminished they may soon find themselves with fewer and fewer friends which may send them to the college lecture circuit permanently. Their singular product is providing influence.  This makes the pathetic hail-Mary pass of running Chelsea for the congressional seat currently occupied by Nita Lowey understandable.

Conclusion

The Left is rushing to their fainting couches, and its fun to watch.  Whether it’s Harry Reid’s incoherence over “white supremacy,” or the hysterical Rachael Maddow breathlessly keening over how “this is happening,” there’s no denying the schadenfreude.  One can only hope it lasts.  Elections do have consequences and I’m just glad we only have to go through this every four years.

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