Unlike Obama, who was very predictable regarding how he would govern and approach the executive office – only those blinded by their overt partisan sympathies and sentimental liberal pieties and those who lost all access to objective reasoning by actually being so foolish as to think that electing the first black [somewhat black] president meant anything other than that when there was absolutely no reason to presume any other ‘great’ or propitious thing beyond that one rather mundane fact bloated into hyper relevance by astounding idiocy – only those delusional souls thought Obama was anything other than an arrogant left wing ideologue who would govern exactly as one would expect an arrogant left wing ideologue to govern – to wit, badly.

Unlike Obama, I think sincerely we do not know what to expect from Trump – it could go horribly wrong and it may not – so far the signs are provisionally good, but the tea leaves are far from clear, and one suspects that president-elect Trump can turn into candidate Trump at any moment. His comments on Castro’s passing are very encouraging – he seems to be virtually the only world leader to speak the truth about the malignant tyrant, a man who urged Kruschev to start a nuclear war over the fate of his wretched little gulag island – that there are leaders out there actually praising the man and expressing grief is truly depressing – so Trump’s honesty is wholly refreshing.

It’s with the possible nomination of Romney to State that the conundrum of what to expect reveals its inscrutability. I think Romney would be a good choice both optics wise and policy wise – but why is Trump making the offer? Is it to rub Romney’s nose in the shit he tossed Trump’s way? Or is it because he realizes that his campaign was an anti-establishment performance that of course would rub many establishment types the wrong way – but now is time for governing and holding petty grudges will not prove helpful. If it’s the former, I’d say that does not bode well – if it’s the latter, that’s promising. That we can’t know what the truth is takes us back to the beginning – it’s virtually impossible at this time to know what to expect from a Trump presidency.

Suppose I have to be counted among those who got Trump wrong - not wrong about his flaws, which are still operative and liable to becoming issues - but wrong as concerns his chances of winning. I mean, I suggested the GOP had no choice but to dump him after the Access Hollywood debacle - and had the Democrats not put up such a flawed candidate themselves whose corruptions ineluctably terminated in the actions of Comey, the ‘pussy grab’ may have indeed sunk Trump’s chances. But the dems did manage to nominate someone worse than Trump and so here we are.

Still, you have to give the man credit - it was his decision to explicitly target frustrated white middle class voters in the Rust Belt, and to do so by deliberately using ‘politically incorrect’ language that strongly appealed to them, that made victory possible. No doubt no other GOP hopeful thought that a strategy that could work - especially since a high proportion of these pivotal white voters ended up being people who twice supported Obama. Which raises an interesting question: were these people swayed by Trump or driven to him by how awful Clinton was and Obama had been? Or did the two forces feed off each other?

It raises another interesting question - with the pro-Trumpers gloating as if their man was the only viable choice for the GOP, are there any numbers out there that might tell what could have happened had Rubio been the choice? Fair to say he wouldn’t have had the same appeal for these new ‘Reagan democrats’ as Trump did - although who really knows - but would his appeal to other demographics have easily compensated for that? In terms of popular vote, probably yes I’d say - in terms of electoral college, that’s tricky. But if the key hinge around which all views of this election must pivot is the awfulness of Obama/Clinton, then I have to believe it’s legitimate to wonder if someone with less flaws than Trump might have done better than he - even though, strictly in electoral college terms, he did pretty damn good.

Still, it’s an important question to ask since going forward - assuming the Trump presidency isn’t a compete disaster - going forward the GOP has to figure out how to keep these new Reagan democrats while still reaching out to the key constituencies of the erstwhile leftist dream of a permanent hold on the White house - minorities, millennials and women. The GOP doesn’t need to make huge gains here, just enough to hobble the Democrats electoral strategy for a permanent governing majority - something that is definitely doable if you can keep these white voters Trump has turned - and therein lies you’re trouble. What if only Trump can keep these voters? And what happens when the Democrats run a candidate who isn’t a corrupt mess with no personality - how quickly will these voters Trump has turned turn back?

As for what to expect from President elect Trump, it’s pretty much just a case of wait and see. Since the man said so many confusing and contradictory things on the campaign trail, made so many promises that are gonna be very difficult to keep and is clearly no ideologue it’s impossible to know how he’ll govern. So far he’s shown a willingness to work with Ryan, which is a very good thing - but will it last? Will he simply reward loyalists with this appointments, or will it be more of a grab bag of good, bad and iffy choices? So far kind of looks like both - Priebus is an ok choice, Bannon highly problematic, Sessions good but with question marks, and Flynn - I dunno, agree with how he speaks about islam but there’s some red flags fluttering around this guy. Let’s see what happens with Defense and State and Commerce etc etc and take it from there - not problematic yet that all his appointments are white guys, but getting close.

well, that was fun. Thought a narrow victory was possible and narrow it was when you look at popular vote. Key for me was GOP holding the senate – GOP now has a huge opportunity to start undoing the immense damage of the Obama years – but if Trump tries to govern the way he campaigned that opportunity will turn to dust. It’s now all about a wait and see – who does he name to key cabinet posts, what does he signal he’s gonna do in his first hundred days, who does he nominate to the Supreme Court – once those things become clear we can adjust our expectations accordingly. Right now, with extremely guarded caution, I’m hopeful. But this could all go horribly wrong.

Much will depend on how good Pence is at ‘guiding’ Trump’s decision making. Paul Ryan may be set to become the most important politician in the country – if he can find a way to work in a constructive way with Trump that would be an extremely positive sign – on the other hand if Trump indicates he’s not going to wholeheartedly support Ryan as Speaker that would be the first indication of the Trump presidency going in the wrong direction.

Most surprising thing – looks like Trump won about 30% of Hispanic vote and 35% of Asian – much better than Romney – not huge numbers but given his rhetoric you’d have expected something else - don’t know how to interpret that but it’s definitely interesting.

Without TV and an internet connection hard for me to gauge so far just how nuts this result is driving the left – no doubt they’re blaming Comey. Comey no doubt played a part – but that’s entirely Hillary, the DNC and the corrupt Obama DOJ’s fault – not his. She clearly broke the espionage law – from leaked emails it also looks like she broke racketeering laws – the liberal elite bet that media bias would protect her from being too damaged by this corruption and the many lies she’s thrown at the problem – they were wrong.

That Obamacare is turning into the dumpster fire conservatives predicted certainly didn’t help – nor did Hillary promising to fix it by doubling down on it. Nor did it help Obama going before the cameras last week and saying that the problems were overstated – this as close to 10 million Americans are about to see their premiums increase by as much as 50% and insurers are leaving the program in droves. Arrogant dissimulation like that, which Obama excels at, really pisses people off.

I’d be tempted to say Obama’s horrible foreign policy practice is a contributing factor – but tend to agree most people don’t pay much attention to foreign policy – except in this case when it comes to Islam. Trump’s popularity really spiked after he threatened to ban Muslims from the country – most interpret this as a consequence of racism – not surprisingly, I never saw it that way – rather what I saw was a reflection of people thinking it absurd and dangerous that Obama continues to think that Islam has nothing to do with the consequences of Islamism, a patently ridiculous point of view that the left clings to in a desperate attempt to avoid acknowledging how flawed their ideas are.

In the end, Trump wins because Clinton was an awful candidate representing everything people hate about Washington, elites and the media and many in the electorate were very much in the mood to take a giant shit on those things, and for very justifiable reasons – and because it looks like indeed there were a lot of untapped white votes out there. Would Rubio have done as well, worse, or better without those hidden white votes? Might have been a blowout win with Rubio at the top of the ticket – but who knows.

In short, for this to work out Trump will have to give his supporters just enough to keep his base in line while at the same time showing the willingness to disappoint them – otherwise it will prove a Pyrrhic victory – the Rush Limbaughs of the world will claim this win proves them right, a spurious yet not entirely unjustified claim - Trump will feel much pressure from these people, if he caves don’t expect good things will ensue. Pulling this off will not be easy to do – maybe impossible. But Pence working in unison with Ryan might be able to do it. Rush et al will interpret this as a mandate – when you lose the popular vote it clearly is not a mandate. Yes, much of the left has clearly gone insane – but Trump will have to keep moderate liberals and independents ‘interested’ otherwise his winning coalition will be undone when it faces someone not as compromised as Clinton – and just as Obamaism didn’t work without Obama it’s very likely Trumpism won’t work without Trump. Conservatism is still facing a demographic time bomb possibly only momentarily defused – ignoring that reality will not lead to good results.

If Trump blows this it will ruin the GOP and possibly pave the way for a president Elizabeth Warren in 2020 - something that would truly be a disaster.

To all those foreign news agencies out there who can’t fathom this outcome and think America has just taken leave of its senses, I ask only this: name one thing Obama has done right, one policy initiative of his that has worked out. Can’t be done. Other than the Trans Pacific trade agreement there’s absolutely nothing there – and even when it comes to the trade pact he utterly failed in convincing his own party to support it. Just an awful president – so why are you surprised by Trump? Might want to try stepping outside that little left wing echo chamber you’ve mired yourselves in.

And finally – how dangerous an ex-president will Obama be? I’ve been saying for a while that he will be an extremely active ex-president, and that will not be a good thing. Just heard him make his remarks re Trump and he was very generous – that was a complete lie and classic Obama – act as if you’re a completely pragmatic moderate in order to cover for your ideological orthodoxy, outrage and overreach down the road. You know the media’s gonna play along – the media can enable so much bad behavior – and I expect a lot of bad behavior from Obama. Which is why I believe Ryan and possibly Pence, who I’ve heard are close friends, are about to become the most important politicians in the country – so much will depend on how well they manage the various forces tumbling down the road towards them.

[along those lines watch for Obama doing something utterly incendiary at the UN regarding the Palestinian question – if he crosses that line, and there’s certainly indications that he’s flirting with the idea, then that will be a very clear declaration of just how dangerous an ex-president he intends to be]

Haven’t heard anyone float this idea – but what if Comey was willing to walk away from the illegal server for pretty dubious reasons because he knows they’ve got her on influence peddling at State? They’ve been investigating the ‘charity’ for I believe about a year now – which means they must have a good idea of what they’ve got – Obama’s DOJ has funneled the case to a court sympathetic to Lynch – since there were other courts much more fitting, sending the case to this court only makes sense if you’re trying to bury it – you’d only be trying to bury it if you feared there was something there that needed burying. 

One can understand why Comey would not want to involve himself in the election, especially if Obama’s DOJ had made it clear to him they would not prosecute – and thus him taking a pass on the server case – but from what I’ve read about Comey, I get the feeling he would only be comfortable with talking a pass, since she clearly broke the law, if he thought he had her on something else, a much bigger something else that doesn’t stick him with screwing with the election.