Let us examine a word for a minute, shall we? The word is deflection. Why do I want us to focus on this word? Because after Tuesday’s historic election, there has been a monumental amount of deflection among those who wanted to see Madame Secretary Clinton win. All throughout Tuesday night, Wednesday, and Thursday (and well into the upcoming weeks I’m sure) I have seen a litany of tweets posts and protests all saying the same thing. Their main message is how this is an example of racism alive and well! How America is clearly bigoted, that this is “whitelash” against eight years of Barack Obama, and how this is ultimately an anti-women vote. Now, were there a few racists emboldened by Mr. Trump? Of course. Did some people vote for him because he wasn’t a woman? Sure, but those people are what we call “idiots.” I bring up these as examples of deflection because those who cry out about this are missing, or ignoring, one critical factor: Hillary Clinton was an awful choice for the Presidency in her own right.
This is truly an inescapable fact. Want proof? Look at who we elected. Donald Trump is arguably the most flawed candidate to ever to run for the presidency. This is a man who questioned the heroics of John McCain and mocked a disabled man among other things. All Hillary had to do was simply be more desirable than Trump. Even with the name recognition, the high-profile surrogates, the vaunted ground game and hundreds of millions of dollars, Hillary Clinton was unable to argue that she was a better candidate. That says it all. It’s like the scene where the Grinch looks down upon Whoville shocked that despite his best efforts, the Who’s still banded together against everything. Deflecting to the easy “America is bigoted” is far too simple an explanation as to why Hillary lost. The Democrats nominated a candidate under an FBI criminal investigation. Twice. While they never officially charged her, the FBI certainly never cleared her of innocence as Director Comey went on to explain in vivid detail the mishandlings by Secretary Clinton. This essentially led to one of two conclusions that either Hillary Clinton was blatantly guilty but got out of anything because she is too high up, or was dangerously incompetent at basic email skills. Leading many to wonder which was actually worse. You might be mad that Director Comey reopened the investigation 11 days before an election, but that is not on him. That’s on your candidate for continuing to find herself in compromising situations that she repeatedly put herself in. Yet the Democrats still stood behind her.
The email debacle might be the icing on the cake, but it’s hardly the only questionable thing that frustrated the country. What Americans had decided in this election was that they have had enough of the Clinton Dynasty and all the baggage that came with it. Whitewater, Sidney Blumenthal, Monica Lewinsky, Pay-To-Play at the Clinton Foundation, and of course Benghazi. Whether or not you believe Hillary and Bill to be completely innocent and subject to constant misrepresentation, the shady optics still remain. They proved to be inescapable.
The fact of the matter is that Americans weren’t voting for Trump because they thought he was spectacular. This election has always been a referendum on Hillary Clinton. A referendum on the status quo, a referendum on liberal economic policies, a referendum on tolerance to corruption, a referendum on the barrage of insults hurled at average Americans, a referendum on pretty much every other stereotype that many have chided as “propaganda from the right.” Well, this referendum turned into a rebellion of the elites as Americans voted in the furthest thing possible from Hillary Clinton, the epitome of the establishment.
The party elites have proven to be living in a bubble, much more out of touch with the needs and desires of millions of Americans. The Democrats took a core base of their constituency, white working class men and women, for granted. The loss of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin serve as evidence to this claim. Ronald Reagan in 1984 was the last year a Republican candidate to win all four of those states. In 2012 and 2008 all those states helped deliver President Obama two victories. Think those men and women are racist? I don’t, but don’t just take my word for it. Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore agrees with me. “You have to accept that millions of people who voted for Barack Obama – some of them once, some of them twice – changed their minds this time. They’re not racists. They twice voted for a man who’s middle name is Hussein.” The fact that every single person was dead wrong about those four states showed a real life example of the “Bradley Effect”, where people outright lied about voting against Donald Trump. Why would they lie? Because the Democrats, high horse social justice warriors and supposedly “tolerant” liberals continually vote shamed anyone who might think about casting a ballot for Mr. Trump as a bigot. Did everyone who voted for Hillary do that? Of course not, but enough did. These men and women clearly grew tired of those claims and took a long, hard look at where their lives were at after nearly a decade of liberal policies. They looked at our rising debt, their vanishing jobs, and insurance premiums doubling under Obamacare. Democrats failed to realize this, and it has cost them dearly. Their inability to look past their bubble proved to be their Achilles heel.
Speaking of a bubble, let’s also talk about the media here. I have tried my absolute best to refrain from damning the media and their bias. It is a narrative that even I tire of. However, allow me to bring up their role in this by their failure to hold the DNC accountable. For years now, all we have heard was how much of a dumpster fire the Republicans have become. How they can’t get their act together, how they are losing control over everything and how this might be the death of the party. Funny, I don’t recall the RNC ousting their chairman for rigging the primaries. I don’t recall their interim chairman being fired from a network for leaking a debate question to their candidate. I don’t remember the GOP losing countless Senate, House and Legislature seats across the country. I don’t remember the leadership using easily hackable gmail accounts, which, shocker, didn’t get hacked. The media hardly covered any of this, leading many to believe the Democrats were buttoned up. The complete Republican sweep proved this to not be the case.
Ultimately, what made Hillary Clinton a horrible candidate was not just the scandals, because it’s not like Trump was a peach who didn’t have any himself. No, what was the final nail in the coffin was that Mrs. Clinton was uninspiring. Trump, for all his faults, had tapped into an excitement, an energy that propelled him to victory. Something that the Democrats had completely failed to notice. I live in a union-town on the west side of Washington State. One of the most overly progressive liberal states in the Union. We are ahead of the curve in LGBT rights, minimum wage increases, and even legalized marijuana before California. As I spent the past few months driving all across the state, north and south between Portland and Seattle along with east and west to Spokane, I have seen countless Trump signs. I can’t go 20 minutes without seeing the trademarked “Make America Great Again” somewhere off to the side of the freeway. Know how many Clinton signs I have seen? One. It was next to the Gary Johnson 2016 sign. Of the many “Bernie Bros” I have as friends, I heard nonstop how Senator Sanders would have been a much better choice for the nomination. I didn’t believe them at first, but the fact that the establishment candidate couldn’t pull through against Donald Trump only brings legitimacy to their claims.
While I may defend those who held their nose and voted for him, I have plenty to say about Mr. Trump. “How can you defend his voters,” you might ask, “their vote for him is simply a vote for all the horrible things he stands for!” Is it, though? Hillary was one of the most unpopular candidates of all time, not everyone who voted for her was a passionate supporter. For those that were, I respect that you found your champion. I am sorry for your loss, but please try to remember this is how many of us felt four and eight years ago. For the rest of you though, the dissatisfied progressives and disheartened Democrats, why did you vote for Hillary? Was it because you were ok with her borderline criminal behavior? Or was it because you simply could not stand the opposing candidate? Try to walk a mile in their shoes, you will realize there is not much difference between you in that regard.
So as your protests turn into violent riots that prove nothing but how much of sore losers you are, ask yourself this question: Why am I not protesting my party? Seriously, why aren’t you? This election was a slam dunk for the Democrats. They just had to nominate someone more likeable than Donald Trump. How hard is that!? This is a man who has hurled horrific insult one after the other at virtually every group in America. There are legitimate claims to him being a racist and a misogynist to simply name a few. The Democrats could have easily tied every single Republican to him. The Presidency and the Senate were theirs for the taking. What happened? They choked. Plain and simple. This was their version of the infamous 3-1 lead. This was them on the two yard line choosing to pass instead of handing it off. Decades from now, historians will look upon this election as the most embarrassing, most complete, and most devastating loss any political party has ever faced. The Democrats, Hillary Clinton, and the media, have no one to blame but themselves.
For those of you still temendously hurt and bitter by the thought of President Trump, I leave you all with this: we will be fine. The United States is a resilient country filled with resilient people. It is no accident we have lasted this long. We are established by an amazing constitution, one that has helped preserve this great nation through our darkest hours. A constitution that provides plenty of checks to power. We have fought bloody battles, both foreign and domestic, to earn what we enjoy today. There is still a long road ahead, a road that might seem pretty bleak to you. There are deep wounds that must be allowed to start healing. The only way to do that is to give it a chance to start. If you think this is one of the worst things to happen to our nation, take solace in the knowledge that we have survived worse. Much, much worse. Our system, and country, is stronger than any one man, believe me.
