To my friends who are feeling frightened and damaged by the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency in 2016, I offer the following thoughts.
First, the people have spoken. Virtually the entire American establishment–mainline politicians, the media, the major religious leaders, Hollywood, the pundits of both parties, former and current national security personnel, the diplomatic corps, the leaders of major foundations, etc.–banded together to warn the American people not to elect Trump. It was perhaps the greatest show of mainline solidarity in American history–several newspapers and magazines devoted whole editions to denouncing Trump–and yet a man with no experience in government, no military service, and no interest in constitutional norms was elected to the presidency. Against this unprecedented phalanx, warning the citizens of the United States in no uncertain terms that Trump was utterly unfit to serve as President, Trump’s victory on November 8 must be seen as a resounding, almost unbelievable victory. The people have spoken loud and clear. They are dissatisfied with the status quo. They want change. They want change so completely that they are willing to elect to the Presidency someone even his most ardent supporters regard as a highly imperfect embodiment of their ideals.
Second, it seems to me clear that the American people have declared emphatically that they do not want Hillary Rodham Clinton to be their President. The election was a resounding vote of no confidence to Hillary Clinton, and probably Hillary and Bill Clinton. Given the chance to prefer a solid political heavyweight over a man who demonstrated no political discipline whatsoever, a man who has never bothered to pay his dues in the American political system, they rejected her in a way that must be almost unbearably hurtful to Mrs. Clinton. My view is that the FBI Comey intervention, less than two weeks before the election, saying that a new cache of emails must be examined in the unfinished investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s irresponsible mishandling of her email accounts, will be seen as a decisive moment in the election of 2016. Leaving aside the propriety of Comey’s letters to Congress, the effect of those pronouncements was to trigger a vast “Clinton fatigue” (Whitewater, Vince Foster, Monica, impeachment, Paula Jones, etc.) in the consciousness of the American people. It made millions of people who might otherwise have voted for Hillary Clinton think: “really, do I want four or eight more years of the Clintons, with all the controversies, investigations, special prosecutors, misstatements, etc., that we remember from the first Clinton era? A very large majority of the American people have made it clear that they regard Hillary Clinton as dishonest, corrupt, lacking in integrity, prone to playing by rules that ordinary people might go to prison if they followed.
Whatever the precise train of events and public responses, the American people have spoken unambiguously: they do NOT want Hillary Clinton to be their President.
Third, we will survive this crisis. I believe that a very large percentage of Trump supporters voted for the New York real estate mogul thinking they were casting an essentially non-binding protest vote. In other words, they did not really think he would win the Presidency. In fact, I believe it will be shown that Trump himself did not think he would win the Presidency. But he did. While it is tempting to say, “Beware of what you ask for,” or “Now look what you have done,” or “seeds planted by the Republican party for forty years are now bearing a very dark fruit,” it would be wiser to consider just what a Trump Presidency is likely to do to America.
We have had problematic Presidents before. Some of them have proved to be ok, even popular, sometimes even outstanding Presidents. Thomas Jefferson looked upon the candidacy of Tennessee’s Andrew Jackson as very alarming. He regarded Jackson–a duelist, a savage soldier, a man of doubtful literacy–as wholly unfit for the Presidency. Jackson’s partisans trashed the White House on the day of his inauguration in 1829, fouling the carpets, stealing loose items, standing up on the sofas, tearing down the draperies. But Jackson turned out to be a much better and more important President than anyone could have anticipated.
When FDR died on April 12, 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt told Vice President Harry Truman that she felt sorry for him, trying to fill such giant shoes without having had any substantive communications with the aging FDR. In fact, on the day he became President, Truman learned for the first time of the existence of the Manhattan Project, whose first two devices he would have to decide to drop over Japanese cities within four months of his unexpected ascension to power.
John F. Kennedy’s dark side was unknown to the American people. He suffered from potentially life-threatening Addison’s Disease, about which he lied to the American people; his complete lack of sexual self-restraint led him to a priapic career of increasingly reckless womanizing, including girlfriends of Mafia kingpins being investigated by his brother’s Justice Department, including Marilyn Monroe, who was threatening to go public just before her “suicide” on August 5, 1962, and an East German spy, who could have brought down his administration had the liaison been disclosed.
President Reagan was suffering from Alzheimers’s Disease for much of his second term. By the end, he was virtually an American analogue to the old notion that Soviet Premiers were comatose and dying men propped up for photo ops by the Soviet propaganda machine. Mrs. Reagan actually consulted a California astrologer before she allowed her beloved Ronnie to schedule major events, even diplomatic summits. When Reagan was elected in 1980, his detractors regarded his advent as the death of the American republic. He turned out to be an essentially moderate conservative, and today he is beloved well beyond the Republican Party.
Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke for a significant portion of his second term.
My point is the the American Constitutional system is solid, stable, robust, and self-correcting. The work of the Founders has been vindicated again and again in American history. Richard Nixon left office peacefully in 1974 after the “smoking gun” Oval Office tape was released. He may have been the most corrupt President in American history (he has a number of rivals), but the country survived, the progressive agenda of empowering and protecting wider and wider sections of the American population moved forward in spite of his bigotries and his crimes.
We will get through this.
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, and a large percentage of the American people believed that he was about to bring on a golden age of American life, my friend DS said, on the day of his election, “He is going to break many hearts.” And I said then, as I say now, “His agenda involves trying to turn the Titanic around in a bathtub.” Our system, designed by the great Madison and his colleagues in the age of Isaac Newton, is designed to absorb blows, waves of fanaticism, war fever, ignorance, mediocrity, criminal behavior, corruption, and much more.
Finally, no matter what you think of him, Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. Try that sometime! To become the President of the United States, you need to convince a majority of the American people (at least a majority in the electoral college) that you are the better choice over a very wide range of other people, some of them deeply ambitious, well-funded, and clever. It would be very unwise to sneer at the Will of the People.
In fact, like him or not, there is something breathtaking in the election of Donald Trump. He could not have achieved the Presidency without the vote of almost 50 million people. He was opposed not only by the highly-sophisticated, well-oiled, and ruthless Clinton Machine, one of the most effective political organizations in American history, but by the entire American establishment. In some sense, we must say hats off! And it is never a good idea to question the potency of the American people when they become frustrated enough.
Our duty is to try to read and understand the rage that elected Trump, and to find ways to channel it into a productive and constitutional future for the United States. This can be done. But it cannot be done if the losers in this election refuse to take Trump and his movement seriously.
I do worry about people of color; people born in another country; the LGBT community; Muslims (deeply); the disabled, and the reproductive rights of women. If Trump is serious (probably not, but who really knows?), and if he can convince Congress to go along with him, we could see the dismantling of the American Enlightenment. I do not think that will happen. I believe the forces of Enlightenment will find a way to check his excesses. More than that, I do not believe the American people will actually permit Trump to turn back the clock on the widening gyre of American progressivism. This may be a mid-course correction, as it is certainly a setback, but I do not think Trump can shatter the post World War II American “settlement.” We will survive.
And we will all owe an immense debt of gratitude to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson’s collaborator and closest friend.
csj
Clay,
When a candidate wins the popular vote, I hardly think the American people have emphatically rejected that candidate.
It may be the antiquated Electoral College system that gave a no confidence vote to Hillary Clinton, but not the American voter. But I guess that was what the Electoral College was designed (by white male land and slave owners) to do–prevent anyone not from that ruling class to rule.
Well, according to the internet, that all-knowing entity, a total of 119,862,916 votes were cast for both Hillary and Donald, Hillary receiving 280,646 more than Donald, or .234139% more. Hardly a mandate. Of course they’re still slogging away in California, counting madly. Who knows, the percentage may rise to a whopping .3% or beyond. Your comment about those pesky male land and slave owning Founding Fathers sounds a little waspish. It sounds as though you would have been all for the system if Hillary had amassed enough Electoral Votes to win.
Blah blah blah racism, blah blah blah white people. Clinton isn’t from the ruling class. Are you insane?
Your little “nod” to the people you worry about speaks volumes to your position as a financially comfortable liberal white male. As a poor white politically radical female, I could also shrug this off as the oligarchy having a bad hair day, but then I notice that my Hispanic and gay friends are justifiably frightened. Whatever this “American Enlightenment” is that you speak of, I suspect it is largely theoretical. Maybe you need to get out more.
You mention Obama trying to turn the Titanic in a bathtub, but it is the very turgidity and bulk of “our system” which you praise so much, which makes countries like the US into behemoths unable to control their own limbs; who lumber dangerously about the world stage, endangering their weaker passengers and innocent bystanders at every turn.
Perhaps it’s high time we tried something that involves a bit less reverence for our “forefathers” and their various documents, and tried something more fitted to our needs. Perhaps it is, indeed, high time that the US was broken up into several countries of more manageable size and slightly greater cultural cohesion. Will Trump push us a step closer to that?
Wow. It does make one ponder. It seems this divide is hard to swallow.
And there are many who consider Reagan an important player in our tragic boom of mass incarceration of people of color. Some presidents ruined more lives then other. Some citizens don’t benefit from the original documents very well at all without some ratification (women & blacks people’s right to vote)!
I do appreciate Clay’a attempt at trying to reassure. It is indeed easier to find that reassurance when cloaked in privelage.
You are correct about Reagan, but don’t forget it was Clinton who dismantled welfare. As you say, some presidents do more damage than others.
Actually it was the Republican Congress that dismantled Clinton’s welfare reform by turning it over to the states to mishandle.
We tried breaking the country up in to smaller pieces…1861-65. It didn’t turn out so well for either part.
Perhaps that’s because the break wasn’t successful.
A poor radical liberal… aren’t all three of those things your fault? We’re supposed to shatter the country because you’re salty?
Thanks, Clay. I’m searching for the right attitude for how to move forward. It’s hard.
“. . . the American people have spoken unambiguously: they do NOT want Hillary Clinton to be their President.”
Unambiguously? Did you miss the news that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote?
Also, your historical references, while useful and somewhat reassuring, may not be appropriate analogies when considering the power of a president in this nuclear-armed country.
In any event, thank you very much for your beautiful and learned writing. I always enjoy it.
Please see my reply to Clarence about the popular vote.
Clay,
This article gives me some hope. However my biggest fear is his temperament and the fact that he displayed authoritarian tendencies during the campaign, threatening to jail his political rivals, calling for the Muslim Ban, etc. I guess we will find out how much was campaign bluster and how much was real. My fear is that it is real.
He will. It be able to deliver on the promises he made. Those manufacturing jobs are not coming back and when he does not deliver and his base gets upset he will start to blame minority groups and the next thing you know we are Germany in the 1930s.
I am 40 years old and have never been less optimistic about the future and right now I have lost all hope. I fear this is the end of the republic and that we may indeed have voted for the last president we will ever be allowed to in our lifetimes. I fear for my kids and the world they are going to have to grow up in now.
For crying out loud, Jack, I am 75 years old and pretty positive I won’t be doing a whole lot more voting. Let’s see, you were born in 1976 or so? By that time I had been through the cold war, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Lyndon Johnson’s horror that was Vietnam, and Richard Nixon’s Watergate fiasco, not to mention all the other political slings and arrows that fly around all the time. Guess what? We’re still here. Compared to all that stuff that is merely something you read about to you, but reality to me and a whole lot of others, Donald Trump’s election is merely a blip on the screen. And, by the way, a not unwelcome blip to quite a few millions of people.
Hi, Mandy. This is exactly how I have been viewing this. In the past two days Trump already sounds different. He may have looked in the mirror Wednesday morning and thought “now what”? It appears that the pursuit was the thrill for him. Without giving him a chance, though, we cannot declare this as “the worst thing ever”. I find his opinions repulsive; that changes nothing. He is the president now. We have to believe that the system which has been in place for over 200 years, will continue to work. I am surprised at how quickly our history of recovery and correction has been forgotten; abandoned for panic and alarmism. We will be fine in the long run.
Mandy and Laura,
I hope indeed that you are correct and that this is not the end of the republic. I do have very serious concerns about his rhetoric on the campaign trail though where he talked about suing newspapers and “opening up libel laws”. Our freedom of the press and freedom of speech is the most important thing we have. He also talked about banning entire classes of people from the country. The hate groups who supported him already feel emboldened by his win and attacks of minorities is on the rise. I am concerned that a new wave of race riots or even an all out race war may take place in the next four years. I truly hope that most of what he said on the campaign trail was mostly bluster and talk but I am not sure. I did not see any of the strongman tendencies in any of our previous presidents or candidates. I also doubt that the congress has the spine to stand up to him either.
The thing which is most upsetting to me the more I think about it is what damage this will do in regards to Climate Change. I happened to be in Boston the day the Paris Treaty was announced. I was spending the day touring the city. For the first time in my life I was truly optimistic that people were starting to take it seriously and that governments around the world saw the need to do something about it as it is a threat to all of humanity. Now that optimism is completely shattered. Our new president is a man who has called Climate Change a hoax that was invented by the Chinese. Based upon my reading this morning the Chinese are still dedicated to solving the problem and they are the largest polluter in the world. But I fear that this whole thing is going to fall apart and we will continue down an unsustainable path. This election will do irreparable harm to the planet. I worry for my children and my unborn grandchildren and the future generations now more than I ever have before. It appears that the fight against global climate change will be set back decades at a time when it could least afford it.
I look forward to reading everyone else’s thoughts.
Clay, I enjoyed your article very much, however when I hear that he may appoint Giuliani attorney general and Gingrich secretary of state I think a 24-7 retreat to Lochsa lodge might be the answer.
We can all meet at the hot springs.
Dear Clay,
You quote Jefferson “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
Uninformed citizens today routinely vote against their own self interest and that of the nation as a whole. They often elect officials who perpetuate poor quality of life. Unlike in Jefferson’s world now these decisions have apocalyptic implications beyond their small corner of it. Trump’s election is an example.
Most anything an elected official does during office can be undone in following elections by new office holders. Nuclear war…not so much. Jefferson could not have imagined global capacity of destruction from a man with poor impulse control. We may return to shopping for bomb shelters and school children hiding under their desks during air raid drills. Now Trump’s hubris has our military for his toy and human beings for canon fodder.
In my opinion … a president whose only solipsistic experience before election has been to enhance his commercial “Brand” has a poor probability of contributing to the Commonweal. More likely, Trump sees the presidency primarily as a pathway to further enhance his “Brand”. Rather listening to what he has said; observe what he has done with his failed businesses and relationships with partners/contractors/women. As a demagogue he has been successful with ignorant voters.
Think about Climate Change which requires long vision leadership. Trump’s stated vision is his instant gratification mentality worrying about the next quarter’s profits.
In the 21st Century, our ignorant voters have global impact.
Very astute analysis, my friend. I hope (and also believe) that Trump won’t start a nuclear war. However, his determination to destroy the environment via fossil fuel, and probably also privatisation of public lands, will probably get roughly the same job done, it will just take a little longer. He also appears to have plans to complete the destruction of the US educational system, thereby perpetuating the problem you have addressed.
And so, perhaps we have identified the two areas where those of us who are not ignorant must concentrate our efforts. Attempting to save nature, in spite of any personal risks we may incur, and looking for ways to educate ALL the people, of all ages, in how the world works – from society, to ecosystems, to infrastructure.
Bitches about uninformed voters, voted for Hillary.
Yeah… I can see why Clay harvests these marks for $125 a piece.
“Our system, designed by the great Madison and his colleagues in the age of Isaac Newton, is designed to absorb blows, waves of fanaticism, war fever, ignorance, mediocrity, criminal behavior, corruption, and much more.”
You hit the nail on the head. No matter your view of Trump, or Obama, or Bush or Clinton or Reagan…Wilson, Taft, or that crazy nutjob Teddy Roosevelt. Our constitution and its checks and balances is a thing of beauty.
The belief that we will be ruled by a new dictator, forcing his evil will on the American people, is just as dumb today, as it was in 2008 when the other side of the internet, was saying the exact same thing about our newly elected leader that year.
Thank you Clay.
Please, please could someone make the distinction that we are NOT a democracy. We are a Republic. The founding fathers provided a very different foundation for this country than a democracy. Democracies implode. They don’t last long because they are mob ruled. If we could get this right, maybe we would have a different reaction to this election. Maybe we would not be hysterical if we knew that we have an executive, legislative and judicial, checks and balances, to prevent a King Trump! Please if we revised our framework to Republic, our responses woul be different.
It is asinine to say we aren’t a democracy. I don’t know why people say this, I hear it all the time. I guess they think it makes them sound smart. Of course we are a democracy. A democracy is where the power ultimately lies with the people. What you mean, I believe, is we are not a direct, or pure democracy. Our democracy is one where we outsource the governing decisions to our representatives, aka a republic. Thus, we are both a democracy and a republic.
Democracy is mob rule.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, therefore, it was NOT a resounding defeat for her. I believe that the electoral college voting system is antiquated and needs to be done away with. I am so very sad for our country, and indeed, the entire free world, because it is not only the United States that will have to deal with the fallout of this election. I hope and pray that this president elect, a man I find to be utterly without honor, integrity, intelligence, respect and tolerance for others, or a conscience, turns out to be better than I think. I pray that the House and Senate have the strength to stand up for what is right, and not just follow his whims. I feel sick when the only foreign leaders cheering for this election result are the Russians. I hope that you are right, and that we, a country that has always served as a role model to others, survives 4 years without permanent damage. One thing is certain, we will never be the same.
As much as I dislike the results of the electoral college (assuming that the delegates follow the mandates of their states in voting) this time around, I would hate to eliminate it. I believe that it could come into play for good reasons as one of the “checks and balances” built into the system.
I, for one, will do a small part to protect women. I will donate (autopay) to Planned Parenthood. If we all contribute, we can keep women’s right to choose and healthcare alive. In Trump’s first 10 days I expect federal funding to PP to be cut off. We can pick our pet projects and save some from the guillotine. Maybe we should hide DREAMERS and DACAs in our basements
My hope is for the Republican and Democratic congress to join together and form a firewall around The Donald and not let lunacy leak out.
Wise words, Clay. However, the only “crisis” here is that a conservative has been elected. That is hardly revolutionary. I don’t know why the liberals are freaking out. If he does what he promises, he’ll do what he can to stop illegal immigration and secure our borders and deport known criminal aliens. Oh, the horror. And he won’t allow for the migration of immigrants from known terrorist hotspots. They’ve had great success in Europe with the whole intregation into western civilization thing. Hell, for all we know, he will revert to being a Democrat again.
And it was a clear repudiation of Clinton and her baggage. She succeeded in losing firm blue states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, states that reliably put Obama in office. She couldn’t even crack 60% in New York state. Of course, she didn’t have Obama to thank for the political advantages Obamacare offered. How many elections have been lost in the last 6 years due to that monstrosity?
Liberals, if you want someone to blame, look in the mirror.
David, you are perpetrating the same junk as Trump did when it comes to immigrants. First deportation, if it follows the law, is a slow process. The current administration already prioritizes the deportation of “criminal aliens, ” so that is nothing new.
You say that he will not allow immigration “from known terrorist hotspots.” Where else would refuges come from?? Canada allowed 25,000 refuges and plans to add another 25,000. Sweden allowed 100,000. We settled 6,000, but Trump and followers think that was too many for a country with perhaps 10 times the population of these two countries. In addition, these 6,000 were thoroughly vetted and something like 80% women and children.
Further, even Trump says that our invasion of Iraq caused the unrest in the Middle East– but we have no responsibility for the refuges?? This is disgusting!!
Guy Benson
Our friend Mr. Madison was well schooled in Aristotle and to design a system where the Whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
That being said we were all on the Titanic as it turned in that bathtub and it was frightening. Finally, the ship has been righted and now we’ve gone to the bilge and turned off the pump.
Well written, sir. However, I question the intelligence displayed in the Will of the People. If the scientists are right, climate change is such a looming monster, it doesn’t matter much if one is a liberal, a conservative, or anything else. Our children’s children’s children won’t give much thought to November 8th, 2016. They will have greater concerns.
Thank you, Clay. Your words help. My heart is heavy with shock, grief, and dread. I know, though, we will get through this… this, too, shall pass.
What concerns me is the way he’s been picking his cabinet and advisers like a monarch would. Loyalty and appeasement is his criteria, not ability and experience.
Here is the question many of us should ask… why should we vote? This election has shown that our votes don’t count and that we have no say in this democracy.
As I write this, Clinton has more votes over Trump than Kennedy over Nixon in 1960, Nixon over Humphrey in 1968, and Carter over Ford in 1976. More Americans voted for her than any other candidate for the highest office other than Obama (in 2008 and 2012). And this marks the 6th time in the last 7 presidential elections that the Democratic candidate has received more votes and yet we are entering our third Republican administration over the same period.
On election day my wife (rightly) asked why she should take time out of her schedule to vote. It wasn’t like we had any other offices at stake (neither of our senators were up for election) and so all her vote would do is run up a tally which would be ignored anyways.
I admit to my political naiveté. I grew up in the 20th century, a period in America where (unlike the 19th and 21st centuries) we had an unbroken string of elections where the popular vote and the electoral college outcomes matched. I’m still (hopelessly) foolish enough to think my vote counts. But there are young citizens who are watching the second time that the people’s vote has turned out to be meaningless (unless you live in a small fraction of states). How do we convey the importance of participation in our democracy when experience shows it to be a fruitless effort? Gerrymandering has all but forfeited the House of Representatives (which was supposed to be the body that represented the people) and the Senate has become impotent unless you can get a 60+ vote majority.
You talk about “millions of people” not voting for Clinton as a referendum on her, but the reality is that fewer than 110,000 votes stood between Clinton and Trump, meaning that had slightly more than half of those people voted for Clinton it would have thrown enough electoral college votes in her favor to have the outcome match the popular vote.
You don’t like Clinton, which is fine… but the real reason she lost is that for most Americans voting is a pointless exercise. For vast segments of our population on the west, no one even cares enough to wait for the polls to close before the outcome is announced. If you don’t live in one of 13 states, you have no voice in this country, and if you didn’t live in three states you had no chance of effecting the outcome.
As of today 132,562,640 Americans voted, Clinton got 1,720,053 more votes than Trump, but Trump won because he got 110,000 of the ‘right’ votes to effect the election. I wasn’t one of those people on election day, my wife wouldn’t have been one of those people if she had voted either.
Here is the lie of America… one person, one vote.
And let us not forget the last president who entered office without the popular vote… we ended up in two wars and faced the greatest crisis since the Great Depression under his stewardship. Surely we shouldn’t worry about our chances under Trump.
The people have spoken, but in America of the 21st century that doesn’t really count (even to you). The electoral college represents the “coat” of our nation’s youth, should we really be required to wear still this “coat” which no longer fits us?
We have, as a nation, committed suicide. We’re just waiting for the Moron of Manhattan to pull the trigger.
Clay, sir, there is no excuse for what we have done. The Republicans have won and will happily oversee the destruction of all legal and civic norms. I will never have Social Security or Medicare. The LGBTQ, minority, poor, veteran, women and elderly communities will have to fight once again to have even the most basic freedoms the white men of America lord over us all. We are finished.
I don’t know who is on my side any more; who stands for decency and compassion. Certainly no one with an R after their name. And the Democrats were warned plainly and repeatedly that Hillary Clinton was a dead-end candidate. Had she prevailed, it would only have been to preside over complete gridlock. (This is NOT a plug for Bernie!)
We are now in the hands of a racist, fascist, tempermental, lying man-baby who feels the need to brag on himself after he takes a leak. I see a vote for him as the same as having committed a hate crime.
America used to be a place of hope — always needing improvement, but one of hope for a better future. That is now gone forever. I had hoped you’d have something more substantial to say. Sure, we survived Jackson and Truman, etc., but this is very, very different and dangerous. I don’t think you fully grasp that.
Good luck to you sir. Hopefully I will be able to live out my days in some other place away from this insanity or come to a quick and peaceful death sooner rather than later. That is how bad I see things going.
Things are pretty dark now. The excesses of Clinton, Jackson, are quaint. I give your 2016 assurances a sad and wistful sigh. But I hope on the end you prove right.