OPINION: Election Realities In The US And Beyond
By Mark Scheinbaum
MIAMI (Nov. 16) In a way it was good that I was in Europe on Election Day.
I got to vote early and avoid the lines, and most of the profound political, social, and economic comments I began to write have now been more eloquently penned by others.
Thus the pieces that remain reveal the USA and Donald Trump as a single piece of a larger puzzle called resurgent nationalism. Colombians reject reconciliation with FARC.
Brexit shocks UK pundits and fuels anti-immigrant feelings. Election campaigns in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere, show public disdain for “insiders” and support for perceived populists.
In the United States Hillary Clinton supporters indicate an anti-intellectual movement and distrust of coastal elites motivated “Flyover Country” voters.
Yet, many college and even postgraduate voters I know are Republicans, and during the 16 candidate GOP primaries were attracted to Trump.
Stand asiders
Film maker Michael Moore in a long MSNBC “Morning Joe” interview talked about the 90,000 Michigan voters who filled out the entire ballot except for President.
A pro labor state with lots of traditional Democratic voters recorded 90,000 people who refused to play the Inside the Beltway Game or the crude and rude “outsider” game.
They are voters and they voted how they wanted and felt.
The Electoral College and an FBI Director will be blamed for a Clinton loss, but it seems both peaceful demonstrations and hurried up transition teams are better uses of energy than assigning blame to a campaign result you might not like.
Déjà vu
Amazingly, too few Americans seem to realize we—and they—have been here before.
Ronald Regan busted the Air Traffic Controllers’ Union and infuriated Democrats.
Ross Perot in an on-again-off-again third party garnered 19 per cent of the vote.
Harry S. Truman a once-bankrupt haberdasher kept out of FDR’s inner circle was faced with yea or nay on dropping two atomic bombs.
Ulysses S. Grant was a famous general but might or might not have been sober during much of his presidency.
If Donald Trump puts relatives on the payroll is that better or worse than John F. appointing Robert F. Kennedy as attorney general?
There are Dems who never accepted W over Gore.
There are Republicans who think Obama was the Manchurian or perhaps the Kenyan Candidate, devoted to Islam and slave to Marxist-Leninist Theory.
There are independents who feel no major party candidate should be elected without term limits. Passionate people can disagree passionately.
Those who really want to move to Australia or Canada or Cuba or Mexico might not find politics much more to their liking in the long term.
Realities
Whether you like the Trump victory or not will not change some of the realities, well my realities, at this early date in the transition:
- Trump needs to bury the hatchet with some well qualified Republicans who did not support him, but who have skills and reputations that enhance the presidency and the nation.
- These are folks with names such as Fiorina, Bloomberg, Graham, Bush and Kasich.
- As already hinted on 60 Minutes the Obamacare genie is so far out of the bureaucratic bottle that any comprehensive repeal or reform must retain coverage for pre-existing conditions and children coverage to age 26 in some cases.
- Massive federal waste must be trimmed and the public’s desire for less federal school curriculum control must be honored.
- Scapegoat rhetoric, which somehow implies that economic woes are caused by hardworking legal or illegal immigrants while subprime mortgage criminals and big bank sales promotion scammers roam free, needs to end.
- Trump will soon become our employee. If one of our workers on our payroll thinks it is cool not to pay taxes and has figured out how to do this each year, he needs to share it with us—his boss. If it is all legal, he needs to make sure that those of us who pay his salary and staff expenses get the same deal.
There is a new group of voters who are texting and trending and tweeting. Mr. Trump understands the great attraction of taking short cuts, not waiting on lines, not to analyze options, and not to trust medical, financial, entertainment or any other advice not chunked down in easy messages which fit on a handheld screen. Why drive when a robotic Uber will pick you up? Why stand in line to deposit a check when you can do it in a five second click transaction? Why attend school board meetings, run for council or the legislature, and bring meaningful input to a system dominated by lawyers and lobbyists?
If Mr. Trump confounds and astounds the nation and rises above all expectations of his critics it will be in the best traditions of the American political experience. If not, the estimated 46 per cent of the eligible voters who stayed home last week, will grow in numbers every four years—or not.
