Saturday, November 12, 2016

The World Turned Upside Down

When the British forces surrendered to the rebels after the Revolutionary War, they took out their frustrations, not by rioting, but by instructing the fife and drum corps to play "The World Turned Upside Down". Never had any colony rebelled successfully from the Mother Country, and it was quite a blow to the powerful monarchy to be beaten by a rag tag army of farmers. So much so that the British successfully invaded the US in the war of 1812 and burned down the White House in a failed attempt to get us back.
Thankfully President Madison's wife Dolly, saved the portrait of George Washington.

History has a habit of repeating itself.

The reason that imperious Hillary Clinton lost the election is exactly that, her attitude of privilege (she hasn't driven a car in 35 years and spent millions on crystal stemware for the State Department). She thought it was her turn to be president, and if you were not a deplorable or a redneck, you would understand that and get on board. After all, look at all the foreign dictators and terrorists who had already paid to play, betting on her future presidency. Surely the following groups would fall into line as they had for Obama; blacks. Latinos, college educated women, and union members.

She couldn't have been more wrong. Her canvassers, according to the WSJ often ran into voters who intended to vote for Trump and inadvertently motivated them to get to the polls. White working class voters who turned out for her husband were sick and tired of Obama's political correctness and bullying of those with traditional moral values, like the Little Sisters of the Poor. They were desperate thanks to their factories leaving the US and poor economic growth and Trump's railing against the system which caused their misery was just what they needed to turn out in record numbers and vote.(Michael Moore accurately depicted their rage in Trumpland)
The Dems thought they had it sewn up, and their relatives in the media and academia perpetuated the myth that the Queen must have her coronation. All the people in their liberal enclaves in New York, DC and Hollywood agreed and so did most of the pollsters.

They never saw it coming.

So, what happened to the people Hillary relied on? Trump convinced larger margins of blacks and Latinos to vote for him, Perhaps they finally grew cynical at the cyclical promises of Democrats who never really improve their lives. She lost union members like police, hurt by Black Lives Matter protesters, and laid off factory workers who were opposed to TPP (which she approved before she opposed it!) Fears of terrorists entering the country en masse and causing more carnage like Orlando and San Bernadino were more widespread than Hillary thought. Trump was speaking to their fears by promising to be Defender in Chief.
Even we college educated women turned out a bit more loyal to Trump (despite the best efforts of my public school teachers and university professors, I learned to think for myself in college, apparently I was not the only one)

And, my personal favorite, the sleeping giant, the traditional religous coation: Evangelicals and faithful Catholics who were galvanized by her extreme view on abortion. See my article on that here.here Thank you Chris Wallace for making Hillary express her view that every abortion, until birth is to be legal and paid for by Christians! That was the last straw!


So, after all the dour faces on Fox News on election day, we were afraid to hope until around 10PM, when the New York Times reversed its prediction that Trump had a 20% chance of being elected to Hillary's 80% on election night, giving Trump an 80% then 91% chance, I knew that we were upending the tables in the temple. The impossible had happened. Trump was leading in electoral votes and Hillary was losing the election. The dam had indeed broken (thank you Pat Cadell for predicting this!)

Yet even at three AM Hillary seemed to be holding on to some hope that somewhere in Michigan (Detroit perhaps?) someone had found some misplaced ballots. She sent John Podesta to stall the election results till she could come up with a plan. ..
Then Pennysylvania fell to Trump. Was it the Amish? Evangelicals? Catholics? Yes, yes and yes, a coalition of the disaffected religious voters, poor and displaced workers brought down the corrupt and arrogant House of Clinton.Not ti mention this Catholic, college educated woman married to a Latino.

Here's to the revolution! Que viva!