Posted on 11/08/2017 8:57:15 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Richard Warnica: Everything I saw in person, over months, looked good for Trump. But I never fully bought into any of it not the enormous crowds or the enthusiasm
I recently found a copy of the notes I made the first time I saw Donald Trump in person. It was at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, in January 2016. Even outside, it was the strangest thing I had ever seen in politics. Hundreds, maybe thousands, were queued up in the cold. A whos who of through-the-looking-glass Americana stretched over the yellow grass while reporters from all over the world buzzed the line, gawking at the scene.
There was a paradox there, even then, with the reporters, myself included. Trump was the biggest story going; we all wanted a slice. But at the same time, we were sure we were convinced that he wouldnt matter in the end. His movement was something, I figured then. Trumpism was a thing. But Trump himself was definitely not. He was a carnival, a nationalist clown. But he wasnt serious. He would never be the nominee, let alone president. That would be absurd.
How could I have been so wrong?
Its been a year since Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and Im still struggling with that question. Im not the only one. Since last November, How Trump won has become a publishing genre unto itself and a full-time journalism beat, up there with cops, courts and city hall. Very good reporters like Jane Mayer, Alexis Madrigal and Joshua Green have thrown themselves at the project. So have essayists including Ta-Nahesi Coates and David Frum. Politicians, including Clinton herself, have had their say. Even the guy behind Dilbert took a turn....
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
People have been craving a genuine non-politican as POTUS for decades.
1)
“through-the-looking-glass Americana”?
Nope. No bias there.
2)
“Trumpism”?
Odd thing to call patriotism - unless the speaker is a complete stranger to patriotism.
They lead insular lives.
What is not understood is how sick and tired tens of millions of Americans are of their government selling them down the river at every turn.
Sick and tired of political correctness.
Appalled we are no longer the land of the free; the home of the brave.
We aim to set things right. And Donald J. Trump is only the beginning.
Those who can’t figure out how Donald Trump won the presidency are a large part of the reason he won the presidency!
Someone like Trump would inevitably win because the people had started to reject Globalism in the 90’s. But their elected leaders continued to cram it down our throats. Blowback was inevitable. It would have happened in ‘92 of Ross Perot had been sane.
Is too hard to figure out Hillary is a repugnant person? While she has managed to escape prosecution Hillary has committed enough crimes to make John Gotti look like a choir boy. She lies when it doesn’t benefit her yet lie she does
It just goes to show that journalists aren’t very bright.
It shouldn’t be all that complicated. All of the states that flipped have been moving that way for years, and Trump better represented the energy behind that shift than anyone else.
Because you all smoked your own dope.
The Democrats underestimated Trump in 2016, and so they got lazy. That won’t happen again in 2020.
Exactly! Hilliary lies when the truth would serve her better! That’s pathological!
Had to happen
Trump was the guy who knew that and played them for it.
Ta-Nahesi Coates doesn’t ponder anything that has to do with a white male because Coates only has the race card to play and does it very inelegantly. Of course, the usual suspects among white liberals admire the press of his pants and his radical bona fides with a Black Panther for a father.
Why "everyone" missed the "surge" presupposes that there was a significant surge to begin with, and that pre-election public polls were not (as they were) products of wishful thinking and public relations. That's as may be, but the most cogent explanation of why the Clinton campaign missed the correct numbers in their private, "internal" polls is that they stopped looking. Hubris will do that.
What is most arresting when reading this sort of journalistic navel-gazing is what is missing: did the author ever attempt to find out what made Trump voters tick by simply asking them? The notions that they were motivated by "anxieties", racism, sexism, cultural recidivism, etc, etc, are not observations, they are speculation and amateur psychiatric diagnosis. Nobody should still be asking those questions, and anyone who still is wasn't looking for straight answers in the first place and probably isn't now.
Sometimes one is so invested in an outcome that one psychologically cannot afford to consider the viable likelihood of any other outcome.
Hillary was the Left’s only option. With her political machine in gear, they didn’t have a choice of candidate. Being the deeply flawed representative of their highest values, they had to cling to her - and having no way to resolve her vast flaws, vs the imperative of ensuring her win, cognitive dissonance set in with the one perspective whereby she would assuredly win: Trump couldn’t.
Everybody knew she couldn’t win on simple sexism. She had no significant gov’t experience; held titles, yes, but was in no way arguably outstanding. Her baggage was enormous. That “it’s her turn” was a serious final contender for campaign slogan shows how little she had to offer. Crowds drawn were paltry. But...there was no Left-leaning alternative, her political machine having destroyed anyone in her path.
Having nothing going for her, but being their only way, the Left convinced themselves that her opponent was even less electable. She being such a poor candidate, he had to be so bad that he simply couldn’t win. Well, giving him a 0% chance was unreasonable, but (say) under 9% chance was so small as dismissible. He didn’t look, speak, act, think, move, eat, drink, party, etc like a Leftist ... so there was no chance that any of the left half of the political spectrum would vote for him, so there was no chance he could win. Trump being dubbed “can’t win”, then it was a comforting sure thing that Hillary would win.
The resulting Leftist echo chamber drove out anyone not in agreement of Her inevitability. All they heard was “Trump can’t win [therefor Herself will].” The staggering difference in rally attendance had to be because of ... something, there was some reason, because “Trump can’t win”. Her health couldn’t matter because, well, it. couldn’t. matter. Because “Trump can’t win”. Of course she was likable, unlike that orange-haired “can’t win”.
Hillary couldn’t win.
But the Left was so invested in her winning, that the only way they could see Her winning was “Trump can’t win”.
But then he did.
And a year later they’re still cognitively dissonant.
Trump won because American citizens finally had an option of keeping their country and the rule of law.
BOTH parties had been denying us that opportunity.
BOTH parties had been preventing us from stopping the illegal alien inundation.
BOTH parties had been advocating amnesty and open borders against the will of the citizens.
I am sick and tired of hearing Trump’s victory being described as a “surprise” or “unexpected” or “the political upset of the century”.
Hillary Clinton was one of the most politically incompetent, repulsive candidates I’ve ever seen. She couldn’t fill a small high school gymnasium at a time when Trump had enormous crowds waiting to get into already filled-to-capacity stadiums. Even the far-left “stalking-horse” candidate Bernie Sanders was beating her.
The only question for me on election night was whether Hillary would be able to throw together enough illegal alien/dead votes and rigged voting machines to steal an election she had clearly already lost.
Because you are so arrogant as to think you're right.
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