You know every time there’s a tragedy somewhere in the world, or countless times throughout the coming of the election, there would be messages and/or images circulated over the internet with the message that “love will prevail?” Usually a lot of rah-rah positive rhetoric about how humanity needs to stick with one another and together, overcome the influences of the world that are motivated by hatred, greed and other negative connotations. The message is always delivered with the best of intentions, and I have to imagine that most people who see it probably want to believe it.
The problem is that not everyone is going to see it. Despite the fact that the world has advanced leaps and bounds technologically throughout the decades, in spite of popular opinion, the whole world isn’t connected to the internet all the time, and not every single American has a reliable data connection, a smart phone, or even a computer.
But most every single American has a television, or access to television. The radio. Physical newspapers. No matter how big or small the markets, there are mediums that have transcended the generations, in spite of how often the technologically advancing want to anoint them as dying or fading into obscurity. And these are the mediums that statistically have the greatest chance of reaching the largest contingents of American citizens, no matter how much the Googles, Comcasts, Verizons and other telecommunication companies would prefer it that everyone plugs in and gets with the program.
What I’m getting at is that all throughout the night of the decision, I heard the phrase “secret Trump voters” repeatedly, to justify the surprising number of voter turnout that pushed the button to vote for Donald Trump. That phrase was as arrogant as it was ignorant, because there was no secret at all to who these voters were, and anyone capable of rational thought could quickly get the point to what turned out to be a pretty competent plan for the Trump camp.
“Arrogant” is also a very accurate word to describe the mentality of the faction of America that believed that a Hillary Clinton win was a layup, a chipshot, a meatball or a foregone conclusion. Arrogance is what leads Bryan Cranston and Lena Dunham to proclaim their intention to “move to Canada” if Trump wins. Arrogance is what leads to people all across liberal America to go to and check-in to parties and bars and gatherings under presumptuous names all but celebrating the inevitable defeat of Donald Trump. Arrogance is what made liberal websites like the Huffington Post compound cherry picked data that at one point, proclaimed a 93% chance that Hillary Clinton will win the election.
And it’s arrogance that completely and overwhelmingly underestimated and did not consider the presence of Middle America, the white working class without college educations, with beliefs and political leanings passed down generations without justification other than that it’s “what we’ve always done.” There’s no such thing as a secret Trump voter; there are voters who simply don’t poll, don’t boast, or don’t even talk about their political preferences. They are voters who make their choice, whether it’s through their own rational decision-making, or it’s because it’s what they’ve always done; unfortunately it counts just the same, but they simply go out and vote for Trump, without a peep, and when a severe fuck ton of similar people do it in the same quiet manner, then those votes add up, and then those votes begin to sway an election.
As election night progressed, and the initial Trump lead went from “oh it’s just the redneck red states with only a few electoral votes,” to “oh shit, the number of states is dwindling,” to “oh my god, is this really happening,” I began thinking about the tactics of both parties, and how the election turned into what it did
Team Trump clearly took a gamble, alienating minorities, the LGBTQ, women with brains, and those who can check multiple boxes. Talking about building walls, grabbing pussy, and other inflammatory remarks, whenever people thought he might’ve said too much, instead of even remotely trying to retract or defend, Trump just kept doubling down and stayed on the offensive.
However, throughout it all, he never once alienated the white working class with low-ceilinged educations. They loved his remarks soaked in racism, sexism and xenophobia. He was telling it like it was. He wasn’t bullshitting. Women of this faction chalked up grabbing pussy and not being able to be a ten without large breasts as locker room talk, and completely harmless. Even countless accusations of sexual assault “couldn’t be true.” And they all absolutely loved the idea of keeping the filthy Mexicans out, and their jobs protected.
He also had a catchy catchphrase.
Meanwhile, Team Hillary clearly aimed for just about everyone else Trump alienated. The African-American vote, the Latino vote. The LGBTQ vote. The female vote. Young voters, tech-savvy voters. “Urban areas.” New money, anyone with a shred of liberalism.
But it just seemed like to me, that Team Hillary just didn’t give enough attention to white America. While Democrats were pushing the importance of voting to demographics known for lower numbers, Republicans seemed to have an easier job of just reminding people to do what they’ve always been doing, with consistency and regularity: vote red. Also, they spent way more time calling Hillary a crook, and chanted “EMAILS” so much, it became a word more offensive than the N-word, or any remark meant to offend minorities, women and/or gays.
Team Trump reached for the low-hanging fruit, and grabbed as much of it as they possibly could. Team Hillary reached for higher-hanging fruit, and even if she succeeded in getting a lot of it, there simply was way more of the low hanging shit, as well as what was probably already laying on the ground.
As the map of the United States gradually filled up more and more red, and analysts occasionally broke down the states themselves, I couldn’t help but think about how just about every single state was a microcosm of the country as a whole: despite the power of the blue, it’s still widely and overwhelmingly surrounded by red. Take Virginia, for example; NOVA, Richmond, Charlottesville and the Tidewater regions were these oases of blue, amidst an overwhelmingly red state; yet due to population density and financial influence over the rest of the state, Virginia was declared a win for Hillary. Despite the fact that in the grand spectrum of square mileage of the United States was red, it still went down to the wire before Trump was declared the winner. It just so happened that Trump was targeting these wide swaths of red the entire time, and succeeded in getting their support.
If I can futilely try and take solace in anything, it would have to be Georgia; for a state that’s been auto-red over the last few elections, the fact that Trump won the state’s popular vote at “only” 54%, did prove that tremendous minority numbers did represent and make a good effort, but when the day is over, as dense as the populations are in Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, Augusta and La Grange, there are still widely more people voting Trump in the rest of the state. Getting the minority vote seems kind of useless if alienated white voters have no incentive to go blue as well.
I thought about making an analogy about how historically at one point in time, a slave was declared 3/5th of a man, but that’s just what this election felt like. The reality is probably closer to that for every three minorities that showed up to vote, there were five white men without college educations that did as well.
It was more like a nationwide implementation of the Jordan Rules; Trump let Hillary score as many votes as she wanted with Jordan (minorities), Pippen (women) and (LGBTQ) Rodman, but he would have control of the entire Bulls’ bench (Kerr, Kukoc, Longley, Purdue, Armstrong, Paxson, Coffey, etc, etc.).
As Florida fell red, I couldn’t help but feel tremendous disappointment at the numbers of third party libertarian Gary Johnson, and the convenient coincidence that if his numbers were tacked onto Clinton, it might’ve been enough to swing the state blue. Obviously, this isn’t to place blame that Hillary’s failures lie solely with the presence of the third party, but it’s not just that those votes could have helped defeat Trump, it’s the fact that when the day was over, all the analysts and experts as well as anyone with a modicum of a brain could see the narrative of the whole election as plain as day: too many votes were cast out of spite, to prevent, rather than votes cast because people believed.
Unfortunately for Democrats, the number of people who hated Hillary was just a little bit higher than those who hated Trump. Honestly, it really didn’t matter if Hillary won, because hatred still would have won, because hatred is what kept the election as close as it did the whole time, and it’s not like Trump would have gone down quietly without a tremendous, 2000 Al Gore-like fight.
Regardless, the election is over, and I for one am thankful and relieved, in spite of how I feel about the result. I’ve never really been passionate about politics, but I admit that I paid way more attention to this one than I have the other four I’ve been eligible to vote in; perhaps it’s something that comes with age, or maybe I’m just overall fascinated with the behavior of people in the midst of a frantic, socio-economic divide.
Ultimately, now I really question if President Trump can really be as morally deplorable as Candidate Trump. A part of me feels like Trump said and did whatever it took to get into office, but now that he’s succeeded, he might actually have to temper his behavior to be somewhat socially acceptable, on a global scale. The media and social media will have you believe that Armageddon is en route, but who really knows what is going to happen over the span of the next four years. Will Trump go all dictator on the country? Will he use his political position to broker and posture future business deals? Will his inflammatory behavior expedite another World War? Who knows. But the next four years will be likely traversed on egg shells.
The bottom line is, that for the immediate, the knee-jerk, I do feel like the country did not make the right choice. I can only hope to be optimistic and hope for the best, but even that will require more effort than I’d typically approve of giving. I feel like voters voted too much based on denial, spite and outright trolling, rather than doing what they thought might actually be best for the country’s interests.
A man who has been outright flamboyant in regard to his overt discrimination towards minorities, women and the LGBTQ community won because ultimately, his female opponent had involvement in a singular attack on a U.S. facility and was repeatedly declared a criminal for it. Somehow, permanent negative beliefs is preferable over a singular indiscretion, although more educated people can probably easily give me a laundry list of additional reasons why Hillary is the devil.
But take it for what it’s worth: hatred won the 2016 election. Hatred for either candidate is what led them to pick the other, hatred is what drove them out to the voting stations, and it was hatred most people were feeling when they were pushing the buttons to vote red or blue (and sometimes foolishly, third-party). Hatred for the other party is what people were celebrating or bemoaning about throughout a chaotic and emotional election day.
Love does not always prevail, and this election was proof of it. Every great story has a great villain, and maybe the story of America is trying to have an epic chapter. However, make no mistake, for one unfortunate election, hatred most certainly prevailed.
