By Andy Brack, Charleston, S.C. | Wasn’t the presidential election supposed to be rigged?
Had Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who garnered just over 350,000 votes more than the GOP’s Donald Trump out of 120 million cast across the country, won the electoral college, we wouldn’t hear the end of the election being rigged.
Talking heads keep pointing fingers at angry white blue-collar males as being a big key to Trump’s victory. Maybe they were, as typically blue states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin narrowly went for Trump. But things easily could have turned out differently. Had Clinton garnered about 150,000 more votes in just two states, Wisconsin and Florida, she’d be president-elect. And Fox News would be apoplectic.
The anger in America that Trump used and fomented is temporarily at bay as his supporters are giddy at the prospect of controlling all levels of the federal government. Democrats, going through all seven stages of grief, need to confront a reality that most people aren’t facing: Trump didn’t so much win as Clinton lost.
It was a numbers game, as one Facebook friend pointed out. Trump got about one million votes less than GOP nominee Mitt Romney did in 2012. Clinton? She got about 5.6 million fewer votes than President Barack Obama four years ago.
In short, lots of Democrats stayed home. Over the long term, the numbers game favors them as the contingent of angry white men won’t increase. As places like Georgia, now just 56 percent white, get browner, Democrats will start winning national elections again. (Trump won Georgia by just 200,000 votes out of almost 4 million cast.)
2016 presidential election results with numbers reflecting the electoral votes for each state. Source: Wikipedia.
But that’s in the future. What has people like me worried is what happens now as Trump, who has never held an elected office, prepares to take the highest office in the land.
I worry that millions of Americans, particularly those who are poor, neglected and disadvantaged, will be hurt in new ways as Trump tries to push through tax cuts for the rich and slash programs that help those who need it most.
I worry that Trump doesn’t have the savvy to deal with the nuclear codes and may make rash, impetuous decisions that impact my daughters.
I worry that those who have been angry will become angrier when they realize the system isn’t going to put more money in their pockets because Trump and the Republican Congress will tinker around the edges of the old trickle-down economics, but will do little that’s innovative.
I worry that Democrats will become so disenchanted that more won’t participate when, in fact, now is the time to get more active to combat changes that will hurt the nation.
I worry that America, particularly in rust-belt states, has forgotten the Greatest Generation notion of common good – to work together to improve the country – and have supplanted it with individual good, also known as greed.
America has gambled on Donald Trump. But he has not been elected king. He’s accountable now to all of the American people, despite bluster, bravado, a great number of flaws and a record of making intolerant, racist, and misogynic comments to inflame people. Let’s hope he’s successful in moving America forward and isn’t the biggest con man of them all.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report, a South Carolina legislative and policy forecast. Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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