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November 09, 2016 09:34 AM UTC

Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States

  • 13 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Your next President, America
Your next President, America

“This is the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan today. We can’t disagree.

Donald Trump is our next President. Whether he will govern as the bombastic character he represented during the campaign — or move to a more collaborative tone, as he indicated in his victory speech — is a subject for another time. Today we look around and try to assess what happened to create one of the greatest political upsets of modern times.

What happened? This question will not be answered today — even Trump’s own campaign didn’t anticipate this victory — but let’s take a look at some of the various theories floating around the political world:

From the Washington Post:

President-elect Donald Trump was right all along. He had a silent majority. The media, the pollsters and Republican elites never saw it – even though it was right in front of them the whole time…

…“Confirmation bias” is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing theories. Since he came down that escalator at Trump Tower 17 months ago, many elites could never fully visualize Trump as the president of the United States. That made it very hard to see him winning the nomination – until he did – or winning the White House – until he did. Confirmation bias does not mean one preferred a particular outcome. Rather, it is a condition of psychology: All human beings tend to put a premium on information that validates their existing expectations and downplay new data points that undermine them.

Even many members of the Republican establishment who supported Trump could never envision him prevailing. That meant that some very talented GOP operatives (who have won very big races) were insisting until late last night that the votes were not there for Trump. A Republican who won a statewide race in Florida two years ago texted after polls closed to say Clinton was going to win that state by four points. (Trump won 49 percent to 48 percent.) Another veteran Republican, who has served the Bush family in various roles, emailed in the wee hours of this morning: “I no longer need to go to Rome. Going to watch an empire fall right here in the next four years.”

How did the pundits and pollsters fail to predict this outcome? Politico attempts to explain:

Geoff Garin, a veteran Democratic pollster who worked for the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA, said many surveys had under-sampled non-college-educated whites, a group that Trump appealed to. He also argued there had been on over-emphasis on the belief that the country’s rising demographic diversity would put Clinton over the top.

“There was too great a belief that demographics are destiny, and that demographics would lead to a certain outcome,” he said. “The reality turned out to be much different that.”…

…Others pointed to the surge in momentum Trump received when the FBI announced 11 days before the election that it was reviewing new evidence related to its investigation into the handling of sensitive information by Clinton and her aides at the State Department.

There will certainly be plenty of criticism of FBI Director James Comey in the weeks and months to come, but fundamentally, Trump simply tapped into a disgruntled base of American voters. From the New York Times:

But Mr. Trump’s unfiltered rallies and unshakable self-regard attracted a zealous following, fusing unsubtle identity politics with an economic populism that often defied party doctrine.

His rallies — furious, entertaining, heavy on name-calling and nationalist overtones — became the nexus of a political movement, with daily promises of sweeping victory, in the election and otherwise, and an insistence that the country’s political machinery was “rigged” against Mr. Trump and those who admired him.

He seemed to embody the success and grandeur that so many of his followers felt was missing from their own lives — and from the country itself. And he scoffed at the poll-driven word-parsing ways of modern politics, calling them a waste of time and money. Instead, he relied on his gut.

There are undoubtedly many reasons for Trump’s shocking victory. Scientific American suggests five specific reasons: 1) a silent Trump vote, 2) Celebrity overcoming organization, 3) a populist revolt against immigration and trade, 4) an outsider vs. insider conflict, and 5) America is fundamentally a divided country.

What say you, Polsters? What happened?

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13 thoughts on “Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States”

  1. I think it's because people knew the existing system was screwing them (true). And the choice was between an unknown and the most establishment candidate ever. Hillary wasn't Obama's 3rd term, she was the Clinton/Obama 5th term.

    And the Democratic party in it's arrogance, knowing what was best for everyone, put forward the embodiment of continuing business as usual.

  2. Another thought. Never in our history has an individual been elected to the presidency owing nobody. He had no large pocketed funders. He had no surrogates (aside from a couple of washed up politicians) working their ass off for him. He had no interest groups putting feet on the ground.

    At the same time he is something very very scary to all the elected officials. He has the people in a way they don't understand. Many were elected on his coattails. The 2 close Senate races Dems won were the Repubs that repudiated him. So he has major political horsepower.

    What will he do with this? Who knows. But what to do is up to him. Scary thought.

  3. One of the things that happened is the further disintegration of the monopoly and control of the media on information.  The media was all in for Hillary.  The dems controlled the levers of power.  But wikileaks and the constant dribble of previously controllable information did her in.  Drip. drip drip about emails, dishonesty at the DNC, the media giving her the questions before debates, etc. created a narrative she could not overcome.

    1. The media was not all for Hillary. That's a right-wing, bullshit lie.

      Fox News in terms of Television, Rush Limbaugh in terms of Radio, The Christian Networks diffused very strong Trump propanda all the way.

      All the mainstream Television and newspaper outlets all used an even-handed "He-said, She-said" approach.

      There is a huge difference between propaganda and news media that actually does fact-based journalism would include major city newspapers. Right-wing, Corporate and Republican propaganda is hugely influential.

      How else do you explain how so many people don't believe in scientific facts or climate change?

  4. Identity Politics. Specifically, Rural White Working Class Cultural Identification.

    Yes, there were a lot of racial overtones, ranging from easily-manipulated stereotypes to overt, crass racism.

    The Republican Party from Reagan to Rush Limbaugh to Fox News has nurtured and fed this Cultural Identity. Donald Trump is quite good at evoking it, in particular in his use of the media and social media, and his ability to use every outrageous comment to dominate the news cycle.

    Have you ever sat through a high-pressure-cooker condo sales event? The music is blaring, and the sales pitch keeps winding up every time your attention tries to return to normal thought processes.

    We've got the demographics, if only our turnout rates were a couple of percent higher.

    The NYT maps on the front page showed the extent to which Trump out-performed Romney in Rural America (which we already kind of knew about), but also in White areas of Rust Belt states, which have long been the Democratic Blue Wall.

    In the coming years, the cities only get more and more liberal, and Florida, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina will become our bulwarks, just due to demographic change, but serious attention should go to understanding the losses in the Rust Belt states.

  5. I read this article on Monday and thought it so spot on I saved it . This is why Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States.

    Patrick Caddell:  "The real election surprise? The uprising of the American People"

    “Despite everything we are told day and night – that political battle in America is between Democrats and Republicans – two thirds of the American people believe that the battle lines are drawn between mainstream America and its ruling Political Class. THIS is the battle of 2016 and beyond.”
    Pat Caddell

    2. There was no uprising. There was a voter disengagement – from 2012, Dems down 6 million plus, Reps down 1 million plus.  Greens and Libertarians increased from about 1.5 million votes in 2012 to about 5 million. Given the increasing registrations and the even larger number in the population eligible to vote, participation will take a hit and dive back down. It is going to be close, but we may be at 100 million citizens who COULD vote but didn't.

  6. 1). Failure to call out GOP obstructionism.  Government shutdowns,  debt defaults, lack of immigration reform, etc all hurt average Americans.  The GOP paid no political price.

    2) Trump is calling for massive infrastructure spending and touting the jobs that come with it.  Hey, I like that idea!  Why didn't we offer that?  We did? I must have missed that message.

    3)Middle class tax cuts.  I spoke to Michael Bennet and Morgan Carroll directly and provided data on how much federal income taxes are paid by families making $60,000 to $100,000.  I was dismissed and ignored.  Trump is offering a similar tax cut for middle class families.  Hmmm

    I find it hard to point to how government makes a difference in my life.  I suspect most average Americans agree.  Yet another example of poor Dem messaging.  We will all soon be reminded of what government can do for us, and to us.  God have mercy.

      1. I actually agree with you.  It is disappointing that so many eligible voters sat this election out.  The lack of quality of the two major political party nominees probably was a factor.

        I remember seeing an obituary, last August, that read, in part…

        Mary Smith departed this world, on such and such a date, to be with our Lord rather than having to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for president.

        Obviously, one of her survivors had a keen sense of humor. 

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