12.29.16
It’s been almost 2 months since the election and Donald Trump was elected president. As time has allowed I have been analyzing the election numbers, the demographics and the percentages to try to figure out what happened. I am surprised that Trump won the election, not only because almost every poll on TV and in the news had Hillary Clinton winning but also because Trump came across as such an objectionable, bigoted human being. Back on October 27th I made the statement –
“The presidential election has been over since the Billy Bush tapes became public on October 7th. They showed a side of Donald Trump that makes it clear what a egotistical dipsh-t he really is.”
Other than the part about Trump being an egotistical dipsh-t I was dead wrong. Like most people I believed the media and the polls. I saw other Republicans trying to distance themselves from Trump. I thought that Trump’s objectionable behavior would surely cost him the election. I think there’s a message there about how out of touch our media, pollsters and politicians are with the American people. I believed what the media was selling, and it was exactly wrong.
Of course the first thing you notice when looking at election statistics are how many people voted. In this last election about 58% of Americans went to the polls and cast a vote. That’s pretty average, it’s usually about 50% to 60%. That is actually a pretty sad number. That means four out of 10 registered voters in this country did not bother to go to the polls and vote. Even in the 2008 election when Barack Obama’s popularity was through the roof we only had about a 60% turnout. Considering some of the swing states and all their electoral college votes were decided by numbers in the thousands it is amazing to think that over 90 million voters could not show up at the polls or mail in a vote.
This has always puzzled me. Even though I’ve heard all the reasons that people don’t vote I still find it amazing that 40% of our population can’t be bothered to help decide who leads this country. And who hasn’t heard all the reasons. We hear about voter apathy, and in this election I can certainly understand that. We really didn’t have a candidate worth voting for from either party. There are claims it is too difficult to vote. I think this is BS. I don’t think that registering to vote is that difficult. It’s actually very easy for any responsible adult to do. I know that voting is not difficult as I do it every election. If you can’t get to a polling place you can vote by mail.
I think a lot of the reason people don’t vote is because they don’t believe their vote will count due to the state they live in. For instance I live in California and I know that every electoral vote, every election, is going to go to the Democrat candidate. It doesn’t matter if I vote for a Democrat, a Republican or one of the minor parties if for all practical purposes my vote will go to the Democrat. Can you think of a better reason not to bother voting than the realization that your vote really doesn’t count anyway. Now if I lived in a swing state like Ohio or Florida where a large amount of electoral votes are often decided by a tiny fraction of a percent of the overall votes cast by Americans, then my vote far outweighs hundreds or even thousands of votes in non-swing states like California or Texas or New York. Even though I have voted in every election since I turned 18 I know that the fact that their votes really don’t matter probably discourages a lot of Americans from voting.
Another thing I noticed was how Americans now identify themselves with the political parties. According to Gallup.com 26% of Americans identify themselves as Republicans, 29% of Americans identify themselves as Democrat and 42% identify themselves as independent. I hope these numbers are close to correct. If they are then this country is ready for a third major political party. I would like to see the true independents, the moderates in both parties, separate from their party affiliation and the archaic ideals of the two major political parties and form a political party that represents all Americans equally. A party that finds a way to promote prosperity for all with minimum government. A party that can figure out a way to give security, opportunity and a brighter future to all Americans without decimating our environment, taxing us into servitude or leaving the next generation buried under an insurmountable mountain of debt. Yes, a political that will stand for all the things that the two existing major parties claim to stand for, when actually stand for only their own self interests. I would hope to see a party that would abandon the extremists ideas of both existing political parties and leave the Party Nazi bigots wallowing in the hatred and extremism of their existing “good old boy” networks. Well … it could happen.
Another fact that stands out in the overall voting numbers of not only this election but of all the presidential elections of the last few decades is that the Democrat candidate has won the popular vote in 4 of the 5 last elections but has only gone to the White House twice. This does not look good for the Republican Party. It appears that the Republicans are relying on the archaic vestige of the electoral college to get their presidential candidate elected.
Most of the numbers below come from the Pew Institute.
The voting demographics of this last election are interesting. Trump carried men by about 12%, getting 53%+ of male votes compared to 42% for Clinton. That is not too surprising. Women supported Clinton over Trump by 54% to 42%, also a 12% margin. That, I think, is a very surprising number. After the Billy Bush tapes I thought that Hillary Clinton would’ve gotten the woman vote by about 3 to 1. It could be that this is the first hint we get from the election about how desensitized Americans have become about what politicians actually say and do, but that is a topic for another essay. It could be too that many women remembered that Hillary fiercely defended her husband as allegations about sexual harassment emerged during his presidency. Quite a few women spoke up about demands for favors for sex, threats if sexual favors were not granted, acts of sexual misconduct and even an accusation by Juanita Broaddrick of physical forced rape. The term in the press and on tv at the time was “Bimbo Eruptions”. Hillary did all she could to publicly and privately destroy each of these women’s lives, and she used the power of the presidency to do it. Of course the press gave Hillary and Bill all the support they needed to publicly humiliate any of these women. If Monica Lowinski had not produced “the dress” her affair with President Clinton would still be denied by Hillary to this day. Yet during this presidential campaign Hillary continually shouted that she is a champion for women’s rights. Well Hillary, maybe you’re just a champion for Hillary’s rights (aka:for yourself) and will tell whatever lie it takes to get what you want. Perhaps the average American woman isn’t the Bimbo you think she is.
College graduates supported Clinton by 9% margin while non-college graduates supported Trump by and 8% margin. While it has become increasingly advantageous to have a college degree in today’s job market the non-college educated middle-class working man or woman is still the norm in our society. About 1 in 4 American’s over 25 years old have a Bachelors degree or higher. It appears that despite the overall objectionable nature of Donald Trump most working-class Americans either considered Hillary an elitist that is out of touch with their needs and beliefs, or the issues that they thought were most important were issues that were Clinton’s weakest points. It may be that middle class America sought Trump as an agent of change to a political system that they feel as disenfranchised them. I believe that working class America voted primarily on the 2 issues they felt were most important, their finances and national security, both of which are areas where Hillary has shown herself to be less than competent.
Another interesting statistic worth noting is how many Americans voted for a candidate from one of the minor parties. 5.7% of American’s voted for someone other than Trump or Clinton. 5% of college graduates voted for someone other than Trump or Clinton. Overall Libertarian Gary Johnson got 3.2% of the popular vote, a little over 4 million votes total. When he ran in 2012 he got 1.2 million votes. I do not believe the popularity of the Libertarian party has tripled in the last four years. I believe that the large majority of the votes Gary Johnson got were the result of America’s reaction to Clinton’s incompetence and Trump’s objectionable rhetoric.
I found the Hispanic vote surprising. Almost one in three Hispanics (29%) voted for Donald Trump. Hispanics are about 11% of the total electorate, and in some states quite a bit more. In Florida, a critical “swing” state, Hispanics represent 18% of the vote. After Trump’s negative comments about illegal immigrants and a Hispanic judge, and all the press about his racist statements, I didn’t think Trump would get even 10% of the Hispanic vote. Apparently a lot of Hispanics cast their vote based on issues other than race, and many ignored the perception that the media gave of Trump. I am pretty sure that a lot of these votes for Trump are the result of Clinton’s overall weakness as a presidential candidate and the fact that many Hispanics realize that Clinton really doesn’t care about the Hispanic community, only about getting their votes. Obviously most Hispanics feel the same way about Trump.
Despite all Clinton’s flaws this election was still her’s to win or loose. I don’t believe Trump won the election, I think Clinton and her staff completely blew it and lost to Trump. Trump spent the entire primary campaign including the debates making childish insulting remarks about the other candidates, bad mouthing the press and insulting about three quarters of the country. Then he spent the national presidential campaign doing the same thing. Almost any candidate the Democrats could have run should have beaten Trump in about 30 states, yet the electoral delegate count was a runaway for Trump. Clinton did win the popular vote by several million votes, but it should not have been that close. Much of the blame for this loss may fall to Hillary’s campaign manager John Podesta. He had to completely mismanage Clinton’s campaign to loose to Trump. Even though Trump changed campaign managers in midstream Podesta and his crew did a worse job than Trump’s camp despite the chaos Trump created on the campaign trail. Podesta had Clinton basically taking victory laps a week before the election when she should have been campaigning in critical swing states. The fact that he showed that he cannot even put competent people in critical places (like…well….checking his email or securing his communications network) demonstrates how poorly he managed Clinton’s campaign.
So how did Clinton lose to Trump. Well, it kind of had to be a perfect storm. No matter how many times Trump made incredibly insulting, stupid statements Hillary’s speech writers felt it necessary to have her say something equally stupid. She came across as aloof, phony and not very likeable. It is often said that most Americans will not vote for someone unless they actually like them. For all Trump’s bombast hyperbole and all the negativity it created Clinton had to come across as equally repugnant to much of America. Her track record as secretary of state was one of incompetence and failure. Her health was a question mark, and on several occasions it appeared that she was hiding something in that regard. Her actions during Bill’s presidency may have alienated more women than anybody realized. It didn’t help that the DNC pulled some dirty dealings during the primaries that screwed Bernie Sanders and favored Hillary, and that the information became public. To top of the mess John Podesta completely mismanaged her campaign and her speech writers sure didn’t do her any favors. Whoever came up with the idea of Clinton calling Trump supporters “deplorable” probably alienated a huge voting block of middle class voters that may have been on the fence, and actually gave a rallying cry to those who supported Trump.
In retrospect Donald Trump was pretty close to the truth when he made the statement: “Without the Media Hillary Clinton Couldn’t Be Elected Dogcatcher”.
A more exact version of that statement would be “If Bill Clinton had not been president Hillary couldn’t get elected dog catcher, with or without the help of the press”. If Bill had not still been very popular in the DNC in 2000 she would not have gotten the nomination for senator in New York. If it had not been for Bill’s influence (and other good ol’ boys in the DNC) she never would have been appointed secretary of state by President Obama. If Bill Clinton had not had the influence to wrap up 500 super delegates before the primaries started, and get Wasserman-Schultz working for Hillary behind the scenes to undermine Sanders campaign Hillary probably would not have been nominated for president. What the DNC did was nominate somebody who should never have been on the ballot. Wow, and they wonder why so many Americans hate political parties.
In the mean time the Republican candidates were to busy tearing each other apart personally to even begin to discuss actual issues. Trump, Cruz, Rubio and most of the other Republicans did all they could to get some attention. Donald Trump use every childish, immature insulting ploy he could to distract and confuse the context of every Republican debate and thet rest of the Republican candidates were foolish enough to take the bait and stoop down to his level. For the most part their efforts at actual intelligent debate failed miserably and they often made complete fools of themselves. From the complete juvenile nonsense that was the RNC nomination process (back in March I dubbed the Republican Primaries “The Stupidest Show on Earth”) we got Donald Trump. So in the end we got an election with two bad choices. Now we (the American people) get to live with the consequences.
Oh yea, on September 3rd, 2016 I wrote –
“This election is a pretty pitiful affair. Hillary’s actions have proven over and over that she is not capable of serving as president, and Trump’s babbling rhetoric has convinced me that he is not either. Nothing good can come from this election. Whichever candidate we elect, we will be getting the wrong choice. No matter which one wins the election, the real loser will be America.”
Well, I may have been wrong about the winner of the election, but I was right about the results.