Posted on 12/19/2016 5:28:22 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Today, Monday, December 19, electors will be meeting in the 50 state capitols to go through the formality of casting their ballots and officially making Donald J. Trump the president of the United States. Itis almost certainlytoo late to stop Trump, though groups of protesters were still trying as late as last night at candle-lit "vigils" all overthe country where people called upon red-state electors to break ranks and vote against Trump, as a few already have sworn they would do. It's just the latest, and likely last, expression of a sentiment shared by anti-Trump conservatives and liberals alike: This guy can't be president, right?
Trump's entire year-and-a-half-long campaign unfolded in a bubble of unreality. Before the primaries, when he was leading in the polls, it was dismissed as a blip. When he won a whole bunch of primaries, people noted he still wasn't on track to secure a majority of GOP convention delegates. When he did win a majority of the delegates, anti-Trump Republicans talked about using last-ditch maneuvers at the convention to stop him. After he accepted the nomination, everyone who knew about such things looked at the polls and figured he couldn't win. I sure didn't think he could win. Then he won. (Expletive)
In such a close election—Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million more votes nationwide than Trump, but lost thanks to a combined margin of less than 100,000 in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—breaking down the causes can be tricky. But Trump was aided at every turn in the process by a pervasive attitude that he couldn't become president. The establishment Republican candidates didn't realize the threat he posed to them fast enough to coordinate any kind of response; instead, he took advantage of a crowded field, building a sizable delegate lead without winning a majority of votes until the New York primary in April. Clinton's campaign was so convinced of Trump's vulnerability that they looked forward to facing him (or Ted Cruz or Ben Carson) rather than someone like Jeb Bush. The media didn't take Trump seriously until he had steamrolled the Republican Party—important stories about Trump's lack of proven charitable giving and his habit of not paying contractors didn't come out until he had the nomination locked up. Before then, Trump was regarded as a sideshow and given heaps of coverage, most embarrassingly when he got major coverage of a fundraiser he put on for veterans instead of participating in a primary debate. And in maybe the most damning example of overconfidence dooming Clinton, her campaign failed to pay enough attention to Michigan because it was certain of victory there.
It's hard to blame anyone for not taking Trump seriously, since it's not clear how serious Trump himself was about actually becoming president. One former campaign staffer said in March that Trump was supposed to be a protest candidate, and after the election a Chris Christie aide told CNN that Trump thought he'd be done by October 2015. Like a sitcom character caught in an escalating series of fibs, Trump took things further and further. Meanwhile, anti-Trumpers gawked in horror at his nativist rhetoric and fact-free bluster while simultaneously reassuring themselves that this guy really, really couldn't be president.
That's why Trump's election hit so many people like a personal trauma—for months, the possibility had seemed both remote and disastrous, like being crushed to death by a falling piano. A Trump administration was never contemplated as an actual reality, and so when we found ourselves suddenly living in that world it felt so much worse. Trump's victory still feels impossible, hence the last-ditch vigils, the demands for electoral defection, the posts on Facebook and Change.org and Medium.
Absent some unlikely last-minute legal chicanery—maybe there's something written on the back of the Constitution we missed?—the electoral votes will be formally counted in Congress on January 6, and Trump will take the oath of office on January 20. After that, people will have to start treating the Trump administration as a reality, because it will be.
This means not engaging in impeachment fantasies—incredibly unlikely with a Republican congress—or continued demands for go-nowhere recounts. It means operating from the assumption that Trump will be the president for four years, because that's what's going to happen.
There's been a lot of talk of how "normalizing" Trump only plays into his hands. But live with anything awful long enough and you know that it does become normal. Losing an arm is normal. Being so broke you can barely eat is normal. Getting cancer is normal. Watching your friends die because of suicide or drugs or both is normal. Your mind naturally dulls the pain of trauma, because otherwise how could you get through the days? That doesn't mean those who oppose him won't continue to pursue every avenue available to block any of his harmful policies, but they will be doing it with the acknowledgement that Trump is officially the president of the United States.
The other path, to continue to deny Trump's legitimacy, to decry him as an outsider hell-bent on destroying the republic, grants him that same aura of impossibility that helped him so much during the campaign. Trump is very good at playing a cartoon, a tabloid star so ridiculous the rules of ordinary morality don't apply to him. Low expectations helped him cruise to the nomination, while hysteria during the general election just affirmed his narrative that he was coming to break apart old Washington, DC and drain the swamp. Going forward, any expression of rage at Trump—however justified—will be used by him as proof of the irrationality of his opposition. (He's already making those sorts of remarks on Twitter.)
So treat Trump as what he is: a politician who caught a sh*t-ton of lucky (and occasionally Russian-aided) breaks and wound up in the White House. Call out his failures and any corruption that emerges, note the damages his policies do to the poor and the vulnerable. Don't dismiss him as a buffoon or imagine him to be the Julius Caesar to America's Roman republic. He's just a man with ugly hands who we have to deal with for the next four years.
While the press always characterized his campaign as chaotic, it actually seemed well planned. He planned strategies against every one of his opponents, he planned in phases of the campaign for the primaries, for the general election. He was not doing it on a whim.
Sorry, Hillary’s excess popular votes were ENTIRELY in California which she won by 4.5 million votes which gives her this phony 2.8 million vote “lead”. Subtract weirdo California (and its illegal alien voters that are automatically registered to vote when they get a driver’s license)and you have a Trump 1.7 million vote victory in the national popular vote.
Very funny!
The college student next door who has never worked a day in her life told me he was unfit; it must be so...Her tattoos and facial piercings lend weight to her opinion...
I don’t usually waste my time reading an entire liberal bloviating bag of wind like this but I’m glad I did. This is how these people think and it’s good to always remember they do suffer from a serious mental disease.
Those are known as Tantos, I believe.
Or will the Left vilify the name as being oppressive to Native Americans?
I am looking forward to full employment for Americans and no more H1-B visa engineers and programmers.
I thought I would send this post to my entire BUMP list.
I am grateful to have seen this election turn out the way it did. It was an answer to prayer.
We have placed the only individual who was on the ballot who was saying he would do most of the things we need done in the position to do them...and we had God’s help in doing so.
I have told all my kids and my grand kids who are old enough that this out come was a miracle given to us for a lot of hard work...but also from God in Heaven.
All those states coming together as they did, with the slim margins.
God is giving us the opportunity to turn things around...and we need to thank Hi and continue to honor Him and His ways so that we can see the turn around continue.
As He says in II Chronicles 7:14.
Anyhow, I thank God for it, and that I have lived long enough to see it. I am not sure how much more time I have...3-4 months, maybe a little more...it is in God’s hands. But I got to see this victory...this new chance for our nation.
I also saw Mrs. Obama showing her card hand when she said last week that having Trump win shows us what losing hope is like.
She professes to be a Christian...and she says this?
My hope is in Christ Jesus. Through Him I know I will go on living an ultimately be resurrected and live for ever with my Savior and my loved ones. No political outcome...no financial calamity...no sickness...no frigging LIONS ATTACK AND MAULING can take that away from anyone who has given them self to our Savior Christ the Lord.
America has always had great hope precisely because a majority of its citizens had THIS hope in Jesus within.
And we will continue to do so as long as we keep that hope alive.
God’s speed to you all my friends.
I hope to have more time.
But if I do not...and it looks like I will not...then I will continue on the other side, across Jordan to do whatever I am allowed to do to influence and watch over my family, friends, and all of those who have aa love of God in their heart.
Jeff
www.jeffhead.com
“In such a close election—Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million more votes nationwide than Trump, but lost thanks to a combined margin of less than 100,000 in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania ....”
The God given assurance of our (His, psalm 51) salvation and the boldness to preach it.
You're stealing MY thunder, brother ... that's what I wanted to say.
If anyone reading you cannot feel the Love, they are not saved.
Truly, with no writer's license ... God Speed ... we'll meet again.
Jeff, you are, and will always be, a great man. Thank you for keeping the faith, the true faith, and inspiring the same from others.
Because when you are going to disembowel yourself with a 24" wakizashi, you really don't want to cut your fingers as well!
Prayers that you can be with us on this side long enough to see Trump’s first 100 days and the establishment arse he will kick during that time.
God bless you Jeff. You have been a faithful servant, I have no doubt where you will be going.
...who screamed hysterically at the Wisconsin Delegates as they cast their votes for Donald Trump: Woman Snaps At Wisconsin Electors: "You Don't Deserve To Be In America!" "This Is Not America!"
You’ve lived to see miracles, Jeff. Here’s hoping you live to see many more.
And if that is not to be, you’ll see the greatest miracle of all.
Bless you, FRiend, and Merry Christmas.
Vice is a cable channel devoted to perversion. I watch it for intel. I like to know what the enemy is thinking.
That doesn't seem like too much to ask does it? But man the forces of gloBULList evil are strong.
Bless you!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.