Analysis of An American Election

I feel sad....that sort of sadness one feels when someone - someone you don't know very well but who you have known for your whole life, dies. There is a general sense of something lost, of something that may never ever be the same again - although you can't exactly explain what it is.

In reading the various bits and pieces on my traditional media sites as well as the social media sites, it seems as if many observers are blaming Trump's election on misogynistic and racist voters. There is a general sense that somehow Trump just barely got in by some sleight of hand, some trick that he used to fool easily mislead voters. Others argue that Clinton just did not have what was needed to mobilize the opposition. One Facebook posting even suggested that if the Democrats had allowed Bernie to run - this would never have happened. But such comments avoid the truth of the election.

It is no doubt true that a  number of Trump's most ardent and vocal supports were white males who were poorly educated and under employed. It is equally as true that a number of them are racists, misogynists and angry that they have lost their elite status in their world. It is true that Trump spoke directly to them and promised them a promised land just beyond the next election. BUT not only did Trump earn almost 50% of all votes (in Canada any party getting 50% of the popular vote would be deemed to have won by a landside), the Republicans won the majority of seats in Congress and in the open seats in the Senate. They even won seats in ridings where the Republican candidate denounced Trump. The Republicans won the presidential race as well as in both houses in spite of the fact that the leadership of that party were less than enthusiastic about their presidential candidate.

Almost half of the American people who voted, voted for a political ideology that argues that those that have - should keep it; that if corporate America becomes untaxed and unfettered by regulation - then all will prosper; that a specific group of voters have the right to prosper and to be considered elite, and if they lose that status then it is someone else's fault; that the very people who are marginalized by class, ability, religion, ethnic origin, gender or race are somehow responsible for their own marginalization and that failure is always the fault of the person except when it happens to them; that more guns will mean that communities are safer; that only the self designated elite should have access to services and that their version of the Christian God is always on their side. Trump may have played out that hand in a particularly virulent manner, but half of the American public were just waiting for someone to publically head off in that direction.

Trump is the personification of the "me first" philosophy. But he did not invent it - he just said what approximately half of the public who wanted to vote were already feeling. While we should be concerned and even alarmed at all of the dangerous possibilities that may confront us as neighbours and as world citizens, we need to be careful that we do not vilify Trump while absolving those who elected him. Trump is the President-Elect perhaps in part because there was not a more palatable  alternative but primarily because nearly half of the population who voted agree with him and what he said. And while we should be deeply concerned as to what Trump may do, we should be even more concerned about the values of the American voters. When Trump does not deliver on what he promised- who will they chose next?