Uncomfortable Truths

by Deacon Blues

In the New Year, I’m hoping to see less and less stories like this one, which demonstrate the pettiness of both the Clintons and the Trumps. Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll get to see less and less because our next president is an attention addict with delusions of grandeur, fed by a mass of sheeple who will enable the man to do the same things they falsely believed Hillary had already done. Yet to the victors go the spoils, and Trump is correct in his criticism.

Hillary lost the election for three reasons:
1. The Russian campaign against her and in favor of Trump;
2. James Comey and the FBI’s role in tipping the scales against her while soft-pedaling negative news about Trump; and
3. Team Hillary's overconfident abandonment of the swing states to chase red states, yet without a “kitchen table” message.

Go back to the days right after the convention when Hillary went dark for much of August, when she decided to raise money for the party. A conscious decision was made to raise cash and trash-talk Trump’s fitness for the job, rather than use that time to cement into place a narrative built on jobs, unions, and Main Street. Yes, Trump won the White House by less than 200,000 votes across several swing states, and did not rack up a “landslide” as he repeatedly claims. And yes, they were probably as surprised as anyone at their election-night victory. But at least his campaign took nothing for granted, and instead went head-first into her swing state firewall while she visited red states.

We’ll now reap the aftermath of a minority-support president acting like he has a mandate. We’ve been here before and seen how this play ends; usually badly, like 2005-2008. But just like Barack Obama was a response to the Bush/Cheney years, Donald Trump is for better or worse a response to Barack Obama. He represented something she did not: change, perhaps dangerous change, but change nonetheless. He now must deliver with his business-as-usual cabinet what the working class thought it was voting for. The fact that he can’t and won’t shouldn’t surprise anyone except the millions who were lied to once again.