When I decided to spend last week in my old stomping grounds in Washington D.C. to get a closer look at the U.S. presidential election, I knew I would be there to experience a historic event. It just didn’t turn out to be the history I expected to experience.
What I did find, however, from the vantage point of that nation’s capitol, was an electorate moved more by hate and fear than by hope and glory.
In a country where folks are hypersensitive about race, Donald Trump won because he activated a population of voters who are primarily white, small town and rural. They felt they were let down by big government. They wanted change.
That change came in the form of a billionaire bully who plays fast and loose with the truth and has never before served in political office.
And in spite of his history of misogyny, he captured the majority of white female voters, both the wealthy and the “poorly educated,” along with a significant number of white men of course.
Trump promised them he would “drain the swamp,” clear out Washington lobbyists, Wall Street big money men and political hacks. As it turned out, and as reported by the Wall Street Journal, Trump has re-populated that swamp with his own lobbyists, major donors and political insiders.
It was Trump’s catchy slogan to “Make America Great Again” that would inspire his supporters. They were mostly people who wanted to return to a time when whites were more securely on the top of the economic heap.
Trump’s rhetoric attracted folks who define and vilify — those who see Muslims as likely terrorists, Mexican immigrants as drug addicts and rapists, black communities as being plagued by drugs, poverty and violence, Jews as uppity and feminists as whiners over Trump’s plans to load the Supreme Court with “right-to-life” judges who will overturn the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision legalizing first-trimester abortions.
Against that, the Democrats put up a candidate in Hillary Clinton, who couldn’t be more representative of the same old, same old: part of a Washington political dynasty funded by Wall Street wealth.
Many Democrats found themselves holding their noses while voting for the lesser of two evils.
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters were inspired by his plans for change, no matter how impractical — build a wall and “make Mexico pay” for it, while deporting 10 million Latino immigrants (now reduced to two or three million), tear up international trade deals and repatriate jobs, and “bomb the s***” out of ISIS, which already appears to be happening anyway.
While Trump is at it, he plans to cut taxes for corporations and remove restrictive legislation — the Dodd-Frank Act, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act brought in as a result of the meltdown in 2008. He also promised to get rid of ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, which was already awkwardly watered down so that Obama could get it through a Republican-dominated Congress. Or on second thought, he may just amend it. One never knows.
Trump’s victory represented what CNN commentator Van Jones called “whitelash.” He added: “People are talking about a miracle. I’m hearing about a nightmare.”
While Trump didn’t win the popular vote, he did win a clear majority of the Electoral College vote. And as vague and changing as his policy objectives may be, it is no wonder people were frightened.
Even before the results were finalized, according to National Public Radio, Americans were signing on to the Canadian Government Immigration and Citizenship website in such great numbers that the site crashed and had to be taken offline for a number of days.
Traffic on the “move to Canada” sites skyrocketed over the past seven days, according to Google.
Spontaneous street protests broke out across the country and carried on for nights in a row. There is a “Million Women March” protest planned for Washington on Jan. 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration.
Typical of the disdain he has shown for criticism in general, and the media in particular, Trump tweeted this: “Just had very open and successful Presidential election. Now professional protestors, incited by the media are protesting. Very unfair.”
And this is just the beginning of what Making America Grate looks like.
@allengarr
