This past first week since Donald Trump was elected President and Hillary Clinton lost the electoral college has been an emotional roller coaster for Hillary supporters leaving many of us Democrats shaking our heads in disbelief and frustration (and some downright nervous about the future of this country and the world). A country turned upside down is exactly how it feels with Republicans gaining control of the House and Senate and the fate of the Supreme Court and almost 250 years of this nation's progress in their hands. Yet as I and many fellow Dems deal with the puzzlement of how such a man could be elected President of the United States and as protests and demands for the President-elect's resignation grow around the country, I am beginning to go through my last and final stage; understanding. (Not to be confused with acceptance.) I now understand how such a man could possibly be elected to ANY position not just the most powerful in the world. The answer, people who voted Trump into office are SMARTER than we are. That's the only explanation I could find.
How are those who voted Trump in office "smarter" than those who voted for Hillary you ask? Simple. They see something we don't. We see a man who is going into his first elected position ever and first ever service to our country position with 75 law suits pending against him. His supporters are better than us in that they are much more forgiving than we are. They see a man who is going to make America great again (which we all know is secret code for make America 'White' again like it was in the '50s) and are willing to forgive him for a life filled with discriminatory actions against struggling Americans of color and gender and his racist ideologies against Latinos and Muslims which the cabinet he brings with him (like that lunatic Giuliani, corrupt Christie and that Aryan looking Vice President, Pence who is already giving many Black, Hispanic and LGBT communities nightmares) also share in their own "special way".
Whether it was an irrelevant and archaic electoral college system that helped elect Donald Trump or "White-lash" or the rising of the voices of the "forgotten ones" (sorry, I laugh in my Dave Chappelle and Richard Pryor voice every time I say those two words) on Election Day, they saw someone who stood for THEM and what THEY needed to be "great again".
We as Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton saw a New York City billionaire who has never shown any history of helping anyone have a better life (outside of a million dollar business deal) and they (many of them struggling lower middle class white families who had lost hope in government ever helping them after the Republican led Congress blocked so many attempts by President Obama and Democrats to make their lives better with road building and affordable health care initiatives, ironically everything Hillary Clinton stood for and spent much of her political career fighting for) saw someone who could help, simply because he said he could. They were able to blame her and see her as part of a system she fought so hard against; a system run by Republican Presidents who historically cut social programs for them and Senate and Congressional majorities who blocked any attempt at helping these "forgotten people". We couldn't see that in him. They did.
They saw past a man unfit in every way to be President. A man with racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and sexist ideologies, who discriminated against people who did not have the means and money to fight him in court. They saw past a proven bully who, if he didn't get what he wanted, would call his lawyers to take care of the job of destroying anyone who stood in his way. They saw past a man who's own wife, now the First Lady, plagiarized another's speech in front of millions. They saw past a man with questionable business dealings we still wait to see what they entail and strange friendships with heads of government no American President has ever had including dictators and rulers accused of serious war crimes against their own people and other countries.
I believe if the folks (women and mothers included) who voted Donald Trump into office and the political party that they voted to now represent them can see past all those things and more, then they must have the vision to make America great; a vision that must be a better one than any of were able to see Hillary and Democrats delivering and certainly any of us could've imagined would be led by "the orange Trumpkin man".
I now understand. We were defeated by people much smarter than us.
