The Science of Conspiracy Theories

The Election

The Election

Now that the dust has settled, I thought that I would discuss the election we just had in a more analytical manner. For many people it was a WTF moment, and like many people I felt disappointed by the result. However, I think that this election provided Americans with a chance to see that the election system in this country is flawed. As it turns out these two flawed candidates opened up a lot of people's eyes to the glaring problems with the presidential election process. This was probably the worst election we've seen in quite some time. How did this happen?

There are many reasons, enough to fill several books. I will try to be brief and concise.
This election is yet another case of how Americans fail to learn from their mistakes. If you go back to President Obama's first election campaign eight years ago, you should remember that his main message to the American people was that he planned to make major changes to fix America. That's what people want to hear, especially after a two-term president of the opposite party. Guess what? That's exactly what Trump did. You would think that the political parties would remember this. People want change because they perceive that their present situation is never good enough.

The Democratic Party seemed to think that people would accept the same old. That's not what people want to hear. They want change, even though the change probably won't be delivered. This is how politics works in this country. Change is the name of the game.

Another Democratic mistake was to play the class culture conflict game, claiming that the rich are evil. People don't hate the rich. They want to be rich. Trump's promise to help them achieve that status by lifting them up economically resonated with a lot of his supporters. There's also the fact that people felt that Obama had not helped them achieve prosperity. They just didn't want this situation to continue.

The Democratic Party's support switched from the blue collar urban and country folks to a more suburban educated elite crowd. Trump took advantage of this glaring opportunity by speaking directly to the blue collar and backcountry people that felt abandoned by the big government and the so-called greedy politicians. Many of this constituency had lost good jobs when companies closed and moved offshore. Trump promised to revoke the trade deals that cost them their jobs. He reiterated the belief that they had been left out of the Great Recession recovery, and he told them that he would right that wrong. The Democrats failure to address these people and their plight had a lot to do with the ultimate Trump victory. It robbed Clinton of the down state rural votes that had came out more for Obama in his last election.

The other glaring problem was that the media indicated a Clinton victory according to the various poles. The Clinton campaign took this as gospel and went on to thinking about her transition as president. Obviously, the poles were wrong. I think this election will destroy the validity of election poles.

Some people have a hard time understanding how a man who insults woman, minorities and immigrants could possibly be elected president. The fact is that despite his loss of educated women voters Trump still got votes from women in the economically abandoned areas in the South and even in the rural areas of rust bucket states like Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. The people in those regions saw him as being flawed but at least he was talking to them and their situation. Clinton failed to do this. She spent too much time berating Trump. Obviously, her problems with past sins also added to her defeat. She carried too much baggage (the missing emails) and it hurt her. Trump's baggage was more of a personal nature. People tended to overlook that, especially if they were male. Evidently, some women also overlooked his insulting comments.

Another factor is the fact that Clinton made derogatory comments about Trump's supporters. She labeled them as deplorable. That was a tactical mistake. It turned off many people that could have switched to vote for her. Often times this politically charged rhetorical language fails.

What's even more surprising is the fact that in some of the border states like Texas and even Florida both male and female Latinos voted for Trump. This happened despite the Democratic Party's much larger presence in those places. Trump didn't need the on-the-ground organizations that Clinton had assembled. He had the message these people wanted to hear, and it appeared to work.

What must come out of this crazy election is the fact that the two parties must come up with a better method of selecting their primary candidates. Many prominent Republicans ended up abandoning Trump, splitting the party in two. I believe that this helped his cause. People saw this inter-party snub as a good thing because those prominent Republicans represented the status quo in Washington. Trump's supporters liked the fact that he was not an insider. They didn't care that he had no political experience and didn't seem to know what was going on internationally. They assumed that he would be uncorrupted and not subject to taking bribes. He had plenty enough money. Yes, he had a potty mouth, but a lot of people excused that flaw as being not important compared with the economical issues that they were faced with.

A similar problem plagued the Democratic Party when Sanders' supporters abandoned Clinton. I don't know if Sanders could have done better or not, but at least he didn't have the baggage that Clinton did. I guess will never know how that would have worked out.

Interestingly enough, this was another rather rare case where the looser led in the popular vote but lost the Electoral vote count. Unfortunately, this is a part of the constitution. Some people think that this system is bogus, but it's not likely to ever get changed. Changing it would require an amendment to the Constitution, which is a very difficult and lengthy process.

I doubt that the country will collapse or anything dire will occur. Obama has promised to make the transition orderly. This is the one thing that the United States does right. Power is handed off in a calm manner. Eventually, people will get over it. We've had more controversial presidents in the past; although, not in modern times. Somehow the country survived those presidents and went on to better world. I'm sure that this new president's term will be the same. It may be a bumpy ride, but it will still go forward. Trump's advisors will steer him through the difficult waters of political intrigue. Instead of his changing Washington, Washington will change him. That's been the case with every president.

Thanks for reading.