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]
