President-elect Trump: Surprised, Shocked, But Should Have Saw it Coming

This began as a Facebook post, but ended up being too long, so I am putting it in a blog. It is a quick, stream of consciousness monologue:). 

I’m thinking about President-elect Donald Trump as I have done so very often since his election. I watched his 60 Minutes interview and commented on it in a separate post. But what he said about attendance at his rallies is what I want to focus on in this post.  Trump said that at midnight (morning of Election Day) that had a rally in Michigan scheduled the day before. Over 31,000 people were in attendance, according to Trump. When Trump first announced his candidacy, he started drawing very large crowds, including a large crowd in Mobile, AL.  I said, sure, he can draw large crowds off his celebrity, but will his audience go out to vote.  We will see when the first vote takes place during the Iowa Caucus.  He came in second in Iowa.  And then he wins New Hampshire, and South Carolina, as I recall, which means that the evangelical community embraced him,  and then, at that time, we should have realized that he had a momentum that Obama had after winning Iowa, that this is what his supporters needed to see to stay with him.  

So he wins the nomination and then we said  yeah, he won the primaries, those are hard core members of his party and other excuses for his win, but we concluded that he could never win a general election voter base. He did. Trump, we have to admit, ran an amazing campaign as a candidate.  A slogan that his supporters could relate to, and anti-establishment sentiment, an anti-immigrant sentiment, economic angst, racial angst (yes, I said it, when the response to the concerns about police brutality and the criminal justice system that disprortionately impacts the Black community, is treated with a counter movement that seeks less to understand the issues that have been present for decades, this takes us back to a consistent backlash that African Americans have experienced when they've tried to advocate for justice and equality) the perception that Pres. Obama has made American weak and so on. His rallies became a place where like-minded supporters could feel good and comfortable supporting someone that they may not have really felt had the temperament nor the preparedness to be president. 

I vehemently disagree with the way he campaigned- this is why so many people are protesting- you can’t walk back the blanket statements about immigrants, a religion, the sexism and misogyny, the assumptions about Black people and their living conditions, racial anxiety (again, yes, I said it- to think that White Lives do not Matter when people say Black Lives matter is truly not understanding the history of this country and the allocation of justice in this country) and so on. First of all, only he and his supporters can get away with saying that America is not great. And one still has to explain to me which era are you referring to when you say “again.” Perhaps Steve Bannon will enlighten us on thatJ. Obama has to run on hope and change, if he added- because American is not great right now, he would have received such a backlash.  “If you don’t think America is great, then leave.” I saw people post that a lot on their facebook posts in response to angry Clinton supporters and I’m sure the persons saw no irony in their post.

In sum, people will be studying the Trump campaign for many years to come.  Dissertations and books will be written about it.  He left no vote unturned, as he and his family stated during the campaign, Trump himself (not surrogates) went from state to states- sometimes several in a day during the latter stages of the campaign as they did not assume that they had any state.  Trump said that he had 31,000 people at his rally at midnight (day of the Election) in Michigan- at state that is still too close to call, right. That should have been Clinton’s state to win outright. Trump, who received no major newspaper endorsements (I think he had 2 endorsements total), who didn’t receive public support from the Republican establishment, who would not back down from his more controversial comments, won the presidency at the end of the day.  As American citizens, we have a right to be upset, to protest, to feel sad (just as Trump supporters would feel and act had he lost), but, for better or worse, he has won the presidency, and he has a Republican Congress. Will he keep his campaign promises? He is already adding an addendum to his repeal Obamacare message. 

President-elect Trump will be our president for at least 4 years, unless he resigns or is impeached. We should not wish anything bad on him, just like would did not want anything bad (and you know what I mean) to fall upon President Obama.  2020 is around the corner, 2018 is even closer, and your local elections are even closer, in the meantime, if you are a political junkie as I am, for a couple of months, find a hobby, take some time to yourself, go on vacation if you can, because after January 20^th, 2017, it is going to be quite an adventure seeing how President Trump (not campaigner and celebrity Trump) will really deal with these urgent domestic and foreign policies.  It makes me a bit nervous, but maybe now Trump will start to sound and be presidential. I personally wish that his cabinet picks were not ideologues and Washington insiders- maybe even a couple of Democrats- oh, but only Obama was expected to carry out that team of rivals stuff- you know, so you wouldn’t be frightened by how he governed. 

That’s all.  

Peace,

Artemesia Stanberry

My previous post on this blog: http://alabamajustice.blogspot.com/2016/07/black-lives-matter-protests-and.html