The Election

I've kept quiet about the election results on my blog because I was still processing everything. It was, to put it mildly, a different election than we're used to. So I took some time to ponder, reflect, and read what others were saying. I don't like to stir up controversy; I'm very aware that my readership spans the political spectrum. I write about my opinions today in part to help myself remember later on what I was thinking about in November 2016.

I'm no political scientist. One of the most challenging courses I took in grad school was in the PolSci department. But let me just offer a few observations.

I am scratching my head over the primary nominating process of the major parties that allowed Clinton and Trump to emerge as the nominees. They both had such strong unfavorable ratings. I haven't been voting all that long, but I can't recall another election where both candidates were so...hated.

On the Democratic side, I really think they underestimated the intense, seething disgust that people outside their inner circle felt for Hillary Clinton. I think it was hard for her to win over undecided voters because almost everyone already had a gut-level opinion about her.

For the Republicans, at first I thought Trump was just running as a joke, or to boost his reality TV ratings or something. In a really crowded Republican field, he was able to differentiate himself early on by saying outrageous things. I wonder if people who voted for him in the primary really liked him, or if they just thought it was funny to vote for him. Maybe they wanted to see how far the rabbit hole would go. But I'm still surprised he got the nomination because he's really not much of a Republican.

In hindsight, if you ask me, the Democrats should have nominated Bernie Sanders. I can't tell you how that would have actually happened with the DNC thwarting his campaign behind the scenes, but what the election results show is that people wanted a change, not a 3rd term of Obama. I bet that voters who chose Trump for economic reasons would've been open to considering Sanders as well. Sanders wasn't as well-known before the election, so he would've had a lot lower negative rating to start with. It might have been a more substantive campaign if Sanders were the nominee. Plus, let's be honest, I liked a lot of his policy proposals!

I'm not sure who the Republicans should've nominated. It seems like a lot of Republicans disavowed Trump during the campaign, but now that he won, maybe they are happy to be in control of both chambers of Congress + the White House. I had imagined they would nominate Jeb Bush or someone kind of boring/safe like that. I guess the Republicans knew that the Democrats would nominate Clinton, so they needed to pick someone who could beat her. Oh yeah, Kasich, I forgot about him. He seemed pretty normal. Too bad he was up against bombast and Twitter-speak.

I seriously have a hard time comprehending how the religious right embraced Trump. I was a teenager during the Bill Clinton sex scandal. I recall quite clearly evangelical leaders turning apoplectic at his behavior with Monica Lewinsky. They tossed about terms like "family values," "think of the children," "role model," "disgrace," etc. But now, 20 years later, some of those same people said, oh yeah, I'm totally supporting a thrice-married casino owner who brags about his sexual conquests...what in the heck? Are we living in the Twilight Zone now where wrong is right and up is down and orange is the new black?

As to why Trump beat Clinton, that's already been analyzed to death. I have nothing new to add. I'm disappointed in my country and the collective forces that allowed someone as unqualified as Donald Trump to ascend to the highest office in the land. But I'm not giving in to hand-wringing. Two days after the election, I drove over to the nonprofit where I teach English to refugees and immigrants. We all sat around a table together and practiced pronouncing words with "TH" sounds, like Thursday and thank you. We worked on numbers. We learned "there is one book/there are three pencils." And we did so in an environment of mutual respect and care for each other.

In my own small way, I continue to subvert the dominant paradigm.