Weather or Not

Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

Independent, Mixed Assessment of Trump Presidency

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Now that some weeks have passed, and some emotions have cooled, from the tumult surrounding the wild ending of the Donald Trump presidency, I’ll offer an assessment of the short but eventful four-year period. This comes from someone who, as a registered Republican voter with ardent libertarian leanings (but not a member of the Republican Party!), was strongly outspoken against their nomination of him for the office. As such, I voted Libertarian at the top of the ticket in 2016 and 2020, being duly repulsed by both Trump’s egregious incompetence and immorality, and by the horridly corrupt, truly toxic policies and radical-left extremism of the Democrat Party.

For background, I saw the possible Trump nomination coming 10 months before the election and staunchly opposed it then. Here are some things I said about him before the 2016 election, on this BLOG:

Trump is not a true conservative, in any way, shape or form, but instead an opportunistic, bellicose, vague, frighteningly ignorant celebrity pretending to be a meaningful presidential candidate. He is better-suited for a pro-wrestling charade or “reality show” than any sort of serious public office.

On every issue he “discusses”, at least one of the other candidates has a more thoughtful, detailed, specific idea. His foreign-policy naivete, on a different end of the spectrum, is nearly as egregiously lacking as Obama’s.

On the fiscal front, Trump is precisely the embodiment of the wealthy oligarchy the Tea Party ideal is supposed to mistrust…all while posing as some sort of “outsider” in your best interests. How can he help to pull our country out of crippling debt when he acts as bankrupted his own businesses?

On the moral front, Trump’s behavior has been nothing short of deplorable. His bullying, threatening attitude is well-known and even legendary. Trump’s exaggerations and brazen dishonesty alone should disqualify him (as Hillary’s lies upon lies upon lies should disqualify her too, in fairness). … The guy has opened and operated giant gambling casinos (and tried to open others before lying about it), has had suspicious dealings with mobsters, has had three trophy-wife marriages and at least one adulterous affair, and has contributed money to known adulterers, and other sexual deviants, and subsidized to the tune of millions those who advocate the murder of unborn babies (many Democrats).

With regard to conservative principles, surely heavy monetary support for Democrats for years isn’t part of the ideal. He only draws upon the Bible and Christianity when convenient. He panders to shortsighted, flavor-of-the-moment, celebrity-obsessed foamers with ten-second attention spans.

Whatever Trump is promising, his dishonest track record means he cannot be trusted to deliver. Fellow conservatives, wake up! Get away from the Kool-Aid. Stop this Trump nonsense before you damage the cause for decades.

I don’t hate to say, “I told you so,” and I do say it with brutal honesty and straight at you. But it wasn’t all bad, contrary to the shrill whines of the hyperpartisan left, nor the “greatest ever”, contrary to the worst MAGA foamers.

The Trump presidency was so eventful on so many fronts that it would be a Herculean task just to comment on it all. More happened (especially domestically), in the least time, on the most fronts than any other four years of an administration. It’s just too much. Instead I’ll touch on some highlights and lowlights. I’m fully aware that many events are not covered here.

THE GOOD:

Four months in, I had this to say in another, otherwise unflattering essay (among several I did on the topic of Trump before and since the election):

I Told You So, Now Trump Must Go

“The only substantial things he has done right were to choose Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court and James Mattis for Defense Secretary.”

His most positive and enduring governmental legacy likely will be those three quite solid and highly qualified, if unspectacular, Supreme Court picks — Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Barrett. I am most grateful, for they tilt the high court in favor of a generally conservative (though not as much as I’d like), somewhat Constitutionally beholden slant that will be needed as a bulwark against the coming invasion of radical-left-related cases of First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendment violations sure to flood into the court from challenged to new left-wing edicts, much like illegal aliens in the Dems’ open-borders vote pander.

I say “somewhat” because I see no evidence that these three are as originalist as Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito, or the late, great Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch probably comes the closest to being dependable in that regard. In a Supreme Court where these appointments have flipped John Roberts into a squishy, spineless centrist, however, the conservative shift is a massive, massive plus, and much-appreciated bit of good for this republic, for Constitutional freedoms, and ultimately, for the lives of unborn babies herein. I’ll include here the confirmation of over 200 federal judges as well, who will rise through the court ranks with solid impact for generations to come.

The Abraham Accord was a truly monumental foreign-policy victory for the U.S. and the world — an unparalleled and unprecedented deal of cooperation and friendship between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Morocco, Oman and Sudan since have normalized ties with Israel. This in total may be the greatest U.S. foreign-policy accomplishment of any kind since Reagan stared down the Soviet menace and drove them to ultimate breakup, and arguably may be our most unlikely and astounding foreign-policy feat since the Marshall Plan. If carried out, can serve as a model for Mideast peace and economic and technological cooperation for all time. I cannot understate the potential here. Now will the parties involved fulfill it?

Jerusalem has been the nexus of Judean (Jewish) cultural and spiritual identity since David made it the capital of his kingdom in 1003 BC. As the native people of the area, the Jews deserve to have their rightful capital formally recognized. It’s a sad testament to our leadership’s craven cowardice (both parties) that this didn’t come about until 6 February 2017. Recall that during the 1992 presidential-election cycle, Bill Clinton said that his administration would “support Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel” — didn’t happen. G.W. Bush criticized Clinton for that in 2000 — and did nothing about it after becoming President. Obama in 2008, as a candidate, referred to Jerusalem as the “capital of Israel” — and failed to follow through. That’s 24 years of broken promises and lost opportunity, for no good reason whatsoever.

The U.S. Embassy was ordered moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv also, and reopened in May 2018. Though the majority of American Jewish organizations supported the recognition and embassy move, the gaggle of spineless and meddlesome globalists on the U.S. Security Council disapproved by a ratio of 14/15, which further validates the administration’s decision in my book. Here’s a glass raised to Trump for following through on that promise, at least.

The factually Wuhan-originated coronavirus pandemic was an awful thing worldwide, and remains so, having killed millions. That this happened on his watch was a monumental stroke of misfortune in a presidency already bogged down by other troubles (many of his own making). The Chinese Communist Party ultimately bears full moral responsibility for this disaster and its worldwide carnage. Here, Trump’s handling of it was a mixed bag, but here’s the good: Operation Warp Speed, that enabled science to give us tens of millions of lifesaving and innovative mRNA vaccines in record-setting time, with FDA emergency-use authorization. This part of the pandemic response will have a long-lasting, positive legacy in medical science and more importantly, lives saved. See below for the flip side.

Trump signed a bill into law to lower personal income taxes until 2025, cut the corporate tax rate to 21%, increase child tax credits, and raise the “death tax” estate exemption to $11.2 million. I’d personally prefer to see personal income taxes disappear altogether, replaced by a simple flat tax, but in the net, anything that lowers the tax burden on the People is a good thing. Debt reduction should start by limiting government, not gouging the People.

THE BAD:

Well, I mentioned Mattis being a great pick. Trump ran the guy off, insultingly. He did so with several other well-qualified picks that he made. It’s a testament to Trump’s wholly unsuitable personality and demeanor for the office that he would make these selections, tout how wonderful they are, then trash them upon slightest hint they weren’t going to be his sycophants. What man of dignity, what diplomatic leader of the free world, behaves that way? The cabinet was a veritable revolving door throughout his presidency, too many to mention, and that’s ridiculous.

I value honesty and integrity above all else as a personal attribute. I’ll hang out with a brutally honest asshole any day before I would want to be around a lying nice guy. Trump has been the worst of both: dishonest, and an asshole. I cannot even begin to count the hundreds upon hundreds of untruthful things he spoke and tweeted throughout his presidency. His continual rain of lies and factually wrong statements were so numerous as to make us numb to them, and were decidedly unbecoming a leader at any level. All of us should have seen it coming too. It was readily apparent to me. In fact, those times he did tell the truth, that was quite remarkable. If this petulant bonehead just mustered the self-control for one thing — stay off Twitter — he might have won re-election by a decent margin. But no. He had to make it all about “me, myself and I”.

The Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, outside Operation Warp Speed, was slow, horridly messaged, and a truly bungled endeavor. His lack of both humility and scientific understanding cost him hugely here, and the mixed messaging (e.g., “Don’t wear masks”, “wear masks”, “wear two masks”) from officials like Fauci were decidedly unhelpful. So was his own personal example, with his public and private expressions differing, until and even during when he contracted the disease himself, much to some of the Left’s glee. Notably, he could have, and failed to, shut down all air traffic from China the very moment intelligence informed him of a new, nasty virus spreading there. That would have slowed the spread and bought more time for understanding and better treatment.

Every expert at crisis-management communications will testify that mixed messaging, ambiguity, and lack of direct, honest leadership, will lead to chaos and confusion. No surprise: it did. We needed a strong, dignified, serious President who would guide us through the crisis with science-based, consistent, crystal-clear messaging, and that simply did not happen.

Trump utterly bailed on his campaign promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years. Instead, when he left office, it had exploded to $27.75 trillion, the highest ever, with the highest ratio to GDP since shortly after World War II. He showed himself to be just another big-spending Republican, signing massive spending bills before the pandemic. What an onerous failure!

The 22 December 2018 government shutdown, after Trump threw a toddler-sandbox hissyfit over the Mexican border wall, resulted in 380,000 government employees furloughed and 420,000 more (including storm forecasters) working without pay. The Congressional Budget Office estimated a permanent loss of $3 billion to the U.S. economy from that needless and childish tantrum. I supported strict border restrictions — and still do — but that was not the way to gain them.

Trump played kissyface with an unstable, megalomaniacal North Korean dictator, with three meetings and no tangible result favorable to the U.S.

He lost both the popular and electoral votes in the 2020 election, but continued to claim victory, falsely. Despite armies of lawyers and PR people involved, he also never was able to substantiate claims of vote fraud at massive enough levels to change the election (though we all know from many documented instances across multiple elections, that the Left’s claims that voter fraud doesn’t happen are themselves grotesque lies). In doing so, he caused an eruption of sociopolitical chaos that was so outrageous as to defy ready description, and led to what’s next.

Not long after, I had a lot more to say about the capitol rioting during congressional election certification, and won’t belabor that here. Suffice to say, that ugly episode in American history marked the low point of the entire Trump Administration, right at the end, and now that a couple months have passed, I’m confident that it’s not just recency bias to say so.

Although he did not literally incite the riot, and did (belatedly) tell the hooligans to “go home with love & in peace,” he said and did far too little to both prevent and stop the lawlessness. Trump — portrayed as a “law and order” kind of guy, simply failed at it here, badly. The supposed tough guy got soft and complacent. He should have rained the full, all-out force of Capitol Police and all other available law enforcement down on the thugs who busted into the building; instead the cops weirdly stood down, and let rioters waltz right into the Capitol before the violence began. It was a bizarre and semi-anarchical event, farthest from stern law and order. Regardless of whatever else happened, this awkward (at best) and grossly negligent (at worst) handling of the Capitol invasion forever will serve as an indelible stain on the Trump legacy.

NET RESULT:

Now, through the lends of passing weeks, and though I would have pronounced it a slight net negative anyway, that final event at the Capitol, and his abject weakness in dealing with it, ratchets his four years from “poor” to “bad”, straight into the “solid negative” category. I rank Trump’s a tie for worst Presidency of my lifetime, right alongside Carter’s and a notch worse than Obama’s and Nixon’s. [Ronald Reagan’s was, by far, the best.] Donald Trump’s presidency did yield some good things, which the delusional secular cult of “Woke” radicalism would either oppose or never admit, but it was a net setback for our nation, contrary to what the delusional MAGA-herd lemmings would say. This presidency, as I feared, set the noble cause of conservatism back decades, wrecked the Republican Party, and carved deep wounds in our national cohesion (the latter a shared blame with the extreme-left Woke Cult).

It took the scandals and excesses of Obama to beget Trump, and indeed, Obama shares a nontrivial share of responsibility for awful policies and arrogant, insulting statements (by him…”Clinging to guns or religion” and “You didn’t build that!” and Hillary…”basket of deplorables”!) that elicited the Trump-populist backlash. No wonder the mood was ripe for taking advantage by a loudmouthed, neonationalist, populist blowhard. Yes, Obama shares some blame for Trump, and that’s a bitter pill the Left needs to swallow. [Here’s more I wrote between the 2016 election and Presidential changeover on how that all went down.]

Election 2016, Part 1: Trump Wins. How?

In the very same vein, the backlash to Trump begets what’s shaping up to be a Biden administration that is hapless and senile at the top, and dangerously, subversively radical (but in am underhandedly corportatist, neoliberal, passive-aggressive way) beneath. These wild, reactionary electoral backlashes are bad for our nation, not just in terms of governance, but divisiveness and discord. To a similar extent as four years before, the prior administration will shoulder some blame for bringing about the reactionary lunacy of the next.

In one of the BLOG posts linked above, I wrote: “Worse, Trump is going to hand our government over to the radical-leftist, tax-loving, debt-growing, social-engineering, Constitution-hating, moral-anarchist freakazoids, on a shiny silver platter, for decades to come…”. I hope that’s wrong, though I’ve been right about most else regarding this era. We have four years of the left’s parasitic feeding frenzy against the People to experience anyway, at a minimum. Thanks a freaking lot, Trump, you sorry loser.

Will we ever again elect a united and not a divider, a morally and ethically upstanding, intelligent force of dignity, with steady, strong and trustworthy leadership, to that office? Or will these continue to be the contests between cults of personality to which elections have devolved since 2008?

Election 2016 Part 6: State Initiatives, Final Thoughts

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In the previous and penultimate post of this six-part series on the 2016 election, I covered the more necessarily (and needed) aspect of the fallout: left-wing self-examination, with trails of hope leading to what I hope is a hill of humility for the left wing. Alas, more recent events (one tip of iceberg, and another) leave me highly skeptical such humility is prevailing over bitterness and resentment. It’s as if two wrongs (Trump’s online dishonesty and insults, followed by the left’s) do make right?

Regardless, the passage of time will reveal a lot more about both Trump and the left, and we’ve got four years to address such. In the meantime, I want to take a relatively brief, final look at the election through the lens of subnational initiatives, specifically those in Oklahoma. A few of them are most interesting and have both Okla-centric and possible regional ramifications.

State Question 792

As a social conservative and spawn of the inner city, where the problems derived from alcohol abuse were numerous, obvious and devastating in surrounding streets and households, and who has dealt directly with the destruction caused by drunk drivers, I’ve long stated that I would eliminate all alcoholic beverages with the snap of a finger, for ever and ever, if I could. Not blessed with that power, we have to decide what to do with them.

In time, government has proved to be a terrible legislator of alcoholic beverages, with Byzantine, illogical, inconsistent (in space and time) and sometimes unconstitutional rules for them. Even nationally, the vacillation has been ridiculous; witness the 18th Amendment designating Prohibition, only to be followed by the 21st Amendment’s repeal of the Prohibition. That’s embarrassing on the world stage, not to mention a massive waste of time and tax dollars, to amend then un-amend one’s own Constitution on the same subject, in short order. Get it right the first time or don’t bother!

Ultimately I realize that the responsibility for responsible consumption is up to the individual. Laws against drunken behaviors exist for a good reason and should be enforced with fierce rigor. In Texas, full-powered beverages long have been sold in grocery stores, unlike Oklahoma, and liquor stores (much to my dismay) still exist and thrive after all these decades.

When I first got to Oklahoma and learned of the horrendously complicated Blue Laws and varying regulations revolving around 3-point vs. full-strength beer, and in what sorts of stores each may be sold, and on what days at what hours, my first thoughts were: “What kind of hopeless and stupid labyrinth of rules is this? Who does it benefit? Liquor stores and their lobbyists of course — certainly not consumer choice! What does it prevent? Certainly not drunk driving, which is a notorious problem here! ” My vote:

Over three decades too late, but better late than never, voters resoundingly approved this state question, which the liquor-store industry fought against even putting before The People. The fact that The People weren’t trusted to exercise the sovereignty of The People over themselves and their government told me all I needed to know about how to vote, aside from my objections to the stupid rules themselves.

While the change did not go far enough toward simplifying liquor laws and leveling the playing field between types of businesses, it’s great progress. The worst part is the timing — not until 2018! That’s crap. It should take effect immediately. Damn the liquor stores and their hollow victimhood-whining and booze-sale-funded lobbying. They should have seen this coming and been prepared years in advance, using successful Texas counterparts as templates. Foresight, foresight, foresight…

State Question 780 and 781 (dependent on 780)

These collectively changed a variety of low-grade drug crimes to misdemeanors from felonies and redirected incarceration savings to rehab and mental-health treatments. For similar reasons as above, I hate the fact that mind-altering drugs, including pot, even exist. Their very use outside medical purposes is selfish, often destructive and expensive to society at large, and immoral; and I would make them disappear in an instant if I could. But that’s not happening, and we need to concentrate law-enforcement efforts on the supply side with education and rehab opportunity in mind to reduce demand. My vote:

Prison overcrowding is a major problem here as well, which was a motivator behind this and another part of the proposal that increases the monetary level of some property crimes needed to trigger a felony. I’m glad this passed also. The most appealing part is a surprising bit of ingenuity (for here anyway) that prison-cost savings could be claimed by privately run rehab organizations. Good move.

State Question 779

This measure would have increased some of the already highest state and local combined sales taxes in the nation another penny to THE HIGHEST IN THE NATION (see previously linked graph and compare at the 9.77% level). Why? Supposedly to fund public education. First of all, the current education-funding problems were brought about by a lack of rainy-day foresight over many years on the part of the legislators and both Democrat and Republican governors. And we’re supposed to pay the price for the shortsightedness of these dolts? Then came all the pleas to emotion and whiny sob stories designed to psychologically manipulate voters into supporting “the teachers” (when actual benefit to teachers would be minimal). My easy vote on this:

Go back and do it better, and smarter, than this knee-jerk, regressive crapola. One place to start: low-population Oklahoma has over 500 school districts for 77 counties! Ridiculous! They’re not still running the Pony Express north of here, nor do we get around on horse-drawn carriages and convey fastest messages by telegraph. There’s no good reason, in this era of instant communication and online education, to have more than 10 counties or school districts. Consolidate school districts and eliminate all that repetitive overhead and bureaucracy. Then go from there toward taxing mineral revenues at levels comparable to similarly oil-endowed, socially and fiscally conservative states like Texas and North Dakota.

Furthermore, why does anybody trust the state government to get this right, be honest and allocate such funds as stated–much less those who are most often hotly critical of state government for being untrustworthy? Remember how the state lottery was supposed to save education and ended up way oversold and offset by cuts elsewhere? Why is anyone so naive as to think this would be any different? Give a bunch of bureaucrats and politicians an inch, and they’ll take a mile.

There’s a good reason a lot of rank-and-file teachers (as opposed to their dues-collecting unions or out-of-state meddling busybodies) opposed this measure. Their own taxes, and those of their friends and loved ones, would have increased as well–and regressively in the form of a sales tax, no less.

Last Words on 2016 Election
Finally, as promised, I chose the most conservative down-ballot legislative candidates; nationally those choices won, statewide there were no senators up for election in my district, and my most-conservative state-representative candidate did not win (likely since this is a slightly left-leaning university town). So that goes.

Whatever else happens with Trump and the G.O.P. Congress, good or bad, I can take some consolidation the confidence in the most important legacy action (aside from the dealing with the national debt, which likely will be avoided): Supreme Court nominations. The more strictly Constitutionally constructionist and originalist, the better on this, since the Constitution is the first, last, and only binding legal word from the great Founders themselves on the role of Federal government.

While even Scalia and Thomas sometimes wandered too far off the literal words of the Constitution for my taste, they have represented the closest possible in the modern era to the true purpose of our highest jurists — not to interpret the Constitution, but to apply it. The two terms are not synonymous, and the Constitution’s black-and-white words are quite straightforward. Those words don’t need interpretation; they need application to problems of governance and federalism. With conservative and relatively originalist justices, we can shift the Court back off its dangerous, falsely fluid-Constitutional, trend- and fad-based, subjective, social-whim-based, interpretive leftist slant, hopefully for the remainder of my lifetime with a couple of justices roughly my age currently under consideration.

Election 2016, Part 1: Trump Wins. How?

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Folks have been asking for my thoughts on this election, probably anticipating thundering hammers of prosaic smack talk or “I told you so!” gloating. If that’s what you expect, you are going to be disappointed, so stop here and go chew happily on some caramel candy. If you expected fast reaction “insta-punditry” catering to ten-second attention spans, it already is obvious by the passed time of thoughtful reflection that your wish will not come true. However, I respect the intellect of my audience, and unlike some disturbingly melodramatic Hillary supporters I’ve seen, I have confidence you can cope with some temporal delay to process this mess in a more deliberate manner.

Issues this weighty don’t deserve an “insta-pundit”, and if you have read anything of the sort, flush it down the toilet, because no such elaboration can be delivered with credibility of analysis, nor careful consideration to the forces at work here. Hell, even after over a week, there is far too much to examine to do this situation justice. “Insta-punditry” is for shallow, simpleminded fools. Read this slowly: it takes time.

Now, some time has passed — probably still not enough. Here is what I have digested and processed so far, standing off to the side of the partisanship this cycle, and observing the foolishness foisted by both sides.

First, “President-elect Trump”. Damn, that sounds bizarre, even after over a week to get accustomed. I didn’t think it was possible. I believed that his awful campaigning and oratorical abilities, and the shameless selling out of most media for the Clintons, combined with the usual small but potentially meaningful number of voting improprieties, would ensure her victory, if by narrow margins. I was dead wrong. I take no pride in the other things I said that have come true, while also fully admitting I did not anticipate this result. As noted above, I thought the Clintons and their machine, combined with The Donald’s own disturbingly self-immolation tendencies, would halt his best effort to grab the working-class votes in key states, thereby inflicting upon us her brand of banana-republic rule.

Wrong. [Take note: when I am wrong, I damn-well admit it!] Instead we’ll get Trump’s own brand of banana-republic tomfoolery, which has begun in his highly disappointing selection of fringe nutjobs, Washington political insiders, and Wall Street oligarchs — the very people he seemed to oppose throughout the process. Trump is betraying you already, fellow conservatives who voted for him, and don’t say I did not warn you of this. He is not conservative, and has no integrity.

There was no self-interest on being right about him. I couldn’t stand the idea of a Clinton II presidency either, for reasons that I won’t elaborate more than briefly below, as they are now moot. The thought of Trump in the White House, while marginally better in some ways such as the higher probability of a conservative Supreme Court for many years beyond the coming presidential term, was (and remains) frightening for the sake of safety from both nuclear war and Big Brother intrusion into private lives. Plus, the guy has behaved in reprehensibly irresponsible and immoral ways.

As I’ve promised for months, and firmly held through the voting process, I voted third-party at the top of the ticket (for the first time in my life!), then true to form, the most conservative candidates at every position on down. In summary, I selected neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump due to:

  1. The Clintons’ inconsistency with issues, inattention to national debt and domestic spying, untrustworthiness, dishonesty, corruption, blind ambition, ruthlessness, cunning, cold-bloodedness, corporate globalism, audience-pandering, inauthenticity, greed, pretension, grossly insulting words toward segments of opponents (more below), willingness to stomp on whomever they could to gain power, and overall personal immorality and lack of professional ethics.
  2. Trump’s inconsistency with issues, inattention to national debt and domestic spying, untrustworthiness, dishonesty, corruption, blind ambition, ruthlessness, impulsiveness, carnival-barking idiocy, lack of even temperament, incoherence, impracticality, greed, pretension, grossly insulting words toward segments of society, willingness to stomp on whomever he could to gain power, and overall personal immorality and lack of professional ethics.

Wow, they really weren’t all that different after all, were they? No wonder they were the two most unpopular candidates in history in several polls. Personally, I found both candidates so repugnant, so loathsome, so bereft of personal and professional morals and integrity, that to pick either was thoroughly unconscionable.

Yet Trump somehow came across to just barely enough people, in just the right states to get Electoral College advantage, as being a little less evil than Hillary, a little more sympathetic to the commoner. That was important, or as he would say, “bigly” and “yuge”. What else happened?

I won’t waste time to explore a thousand speculative avenues here, because the answer logically is straightforward and should be clear to anyone paying attention. Bottom line: Trump won the Electoral College by flipping Rust Belt industrial states that went for Obama four years prior. In short, he somehow turned a lot of Obama voters into Trump voters.

Or did Obama himself turn his own voters into Trump voters through his own actions and failings? Valid question! Think about that.

This table from NPR reveals the game changer, in stark numbers:

THOSE WITHOUT A COLLEGE DEGREE IN INDUSTRIAL NORTH

MINNESOTA
2012: 53% of electorate, 52-46 Obama
2016: 44% of electorate, 55-38 Trump (net gain: R+23)

WISCONSIN
2012: 58% of electorate, 51-47 Obama
2016: 55% of electorate, 56-40 Trump (net gain: R+20)

IOWA
2012: 57% of electorate, 52-46 Obama
2016: 57% of electorate, 54-40 Trump (net gain: R+20)

MICHIGAN
2012: 54% of electorate, 56-43 Obama
2016: 58% of electorate, 49-45 Trump (net gain: R+17)

OHIO
2012: 60% of electorate, 53-46 Obama
2016: 56% of electorate, 51-45 Trump (net gain: R+13)

PENNSYLVANIA
2012: 52% of electorate, 57-42 Obama
2016: 52% of electorate, 52-45 Trump (net gain: R+12)

In more detail, NPR claims that Clinton effectively lost nearly 5 million votes that went to Obama and Trump effectively kept Romney’s. [This is numerical, in bulk, not the same individual voters of course!] Simply keeping Obama’s black-voter total from 2012 would have won her Michigan and Wisconsin. She obviously failed to inspire that level of support. This is squarely on her, though Obama’s festering disaster of a presidency did her no favors.

No, I declare firmly, it wasn’t just “bigots, racists and homophobes” that made the difference, as the left likes to claim with glib self-righteousness. Rather inconveniently for their arguments, a lot of the same blue-collar, ex-union (or even current union, if still employed) industrial workers who used to pull a rote vote for Democrats, as demanded by their labor leaders, have gotten laid off, denied economically the promise of the nation’s founding right to pursue happiness, and flipped Republican. Many of them voted for Obama; and one does not vote for a dark-skinned man with a middle name of Hussein if one is racist in America.

As a final nail in the coffin of the false narrative that bigotry was the reason for Trump’s success, please slowly and carefully consider this story of a left-wing, dark-skinned, Muslim, immigrant, woman voter who picked Trump. She was not an isolated instance either, even if her combination of typically Democrat-voting characteristics was rather unusual for a Trumpling.

Trump carried a higher share of minority and blue-collar votes than Romney. Had the latter not run such a squishy campaign, nor come across as a distant and detached rich oligarch, we would be entering the second term of President Mitt right now. Instead we have another rich oligarch who is pretending not to be distant and detached, but who will sell out to assimilate into the very same Borg he claimed to be fighting.

So much of this was a backlash to a backlash to a backlash too, as I have pointed out before regarding the last midterms. Thanks a lot, Mitt. Thanks a lot, Obama. Thanks a lot, W, a good man who was terribly misled. Thanks a lot, Slick Willie the sexual predator. Thanks a lot, President Read My (Lyin’) Lips, a good man who learned too late not to make promises he couldn’t keep.

Enough of the logistical, logical answer, let’s look at the emotional one, because (sadly) emotion plays a role in this too. Hillary truly lost this election the moment she callously referred to Trump voters as a “ basket of deplorables“. Never mind that she was talking about the (smaller than the 50% “half of” that she thinks) fraction of them who are racist or sexist, the perceptions was that she was insulting anyone even considering a Trump vote. That included a lot of women, as well as a surprisingly large minority of minorities. “Deplorables”, all — in a world where, too often, perception is reality.

This was her version of Romney’s “47% moment“, but worse. This is because she had the bulk of corporate mass media blatantly and unapologetically on her side, and still couldn’t overcome a great gaffe that (unlike Romney’s) her legions of fawning “journalistic” sycophants were trying to ignore or gloss over as trivial. It was the same short-fused, shortsighted, ignorant intemperance that led her to refer to Bernie Sanders supporters as “basement dwellers” — a needless insult which many of them did not forgive.

Collectively, bigger mistakes seldom have been made in electoral politics at this level, in one campaign. You do not, I repeat, DO NOT, insult both your opponent’s supporters and doubters on your side that you hope to bring into the fold! She paid the price. Because of how revolting her opponent was to so many people, and despite her own nearly-as-bad level of disapproval in polls, this election was hers to lose. In a close game, team Hillary’s quarterback then fumbled the ball to Team Trump inside the one-yard line with first down and seconds to go, no Trump timeouts, in a scenario where all she had to do was kneel down on the field and it’s game over. Team Trump returned it for a touchdown with no time left. Unfortunately, in a game between these two, we all lose, regardless of the winner.