Some thoughts before I pretend I can go to sleep…
Pundits seem to be scrambling to come up with one reason why so many people voted the Trump-Pence ticket. I can't believe there was one reason for everyone or even that most people only had one reason. And yeah, there were some who voted for him because he was white and/or male but that's not the whole story here. And if you want to understand as much of the whole story as it's possible to understand, you have to start by not thinking there was only one reason and everyone had the same one.
People also seem to be trying to predict what will change in this country. I don't think even Trump and his crew know that. They might know some of the things they want to do…but a criticism of Trump that even my friends who backed him thought was valid was that his plans about a lot of things were vague — he'll replace Obamacare with "something great" — or in some cases, his promises were contradictory.
What we have here is a lot of uncertainty. The reason the stock market is way down is largely because of uncertainty. A broker once explained to me that the market prefers bad news to uncertainty because you can plan for bad news if you know what it's going to be.
As I said, those who think Bernie Sanders would have won might be right but I don't believe that's anywhere near certain.
And I honestly don't understand what those who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein or wrote in "Porky Pig" thought they were going to accomplish. I could see myself getting behind a third-party candidate if I thought (a) the candidate in question was a wonderful leader or (b) a better-than-expected showing would make that party more viable for future elections. But I didn't get that anyone really loved either Johnson or Stein. Those who voted for them just seemed to be sending a message of "I can't vote for either Donald or Hillary."
Maybe their parties qualified for some matching funds for the future but what good is a third party if it all it can do is barely qualify for matching funds so that next time around, they can again barely qualify for matching funds? Can anyone name a way in which the causes of Libertarianism and protecting the environment have been advanced in the slightest by this election? Or come to think of it, the last few?
Once the vote totals are firm, someone will figure out a way in which, had not Johnson or Stein been in the race, certain states would have flipped from Trump to Clinton and she'd have won. I am dubious of most of these "What if?" scenarios. We have no way of knowing how many of the folks who voted third party would have simply not voted had their candidate not been in the race…or who they would have voted for if they did vote anyway.
One year ago, if I had told you there was a G.O.P. presidential candidate who wouldn't disclose his finances, had avoided taxes, filed multiple bankruptcies, had many business associates who thought he was a crook, was clueless about the Bible, insulted minorities, set new records for lying on Politifact and other fact-checkers, considered Global Warming a hoax, had multiple divorces and marital affairs, not so long ago was pro-choice and favored the Democrats, is facing a fraud investigation and has said demeaning things about women including that he liked to grab them by the pussy, what kind of odds would you give me that this man could win the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency?
And as near as I can tell, the people who voted for him don't dispute most or in some cases any of the descriptions in the above paragraph. They just decided that the good that could come from him in the White House was so great that those things could be ignored. I sure hope they're right.
I'm not one of those guys who when their side loses an election, prays for there to be so much destruction and disaster that "they'll be sorry they voted for him." For one thing, I don't want to see destruction and disaster. For another, how many people have you ever met who, after the person they voted for had been in office for a few years or even months ever says, "I wish I'd voted for the other guy"? Usually, it's "The other guy would have been even worse."
Finally for now: I'm curious how a guy who (last time I checked) had around a 60% disapproval rating got around 48% of the vote. Did a fifth of the people who voted for him just happen to be from the smaller group that liked Hillary Clinton less? I suppose we could ask a pollster to find that out for us but it's going to be quite a while before any of us are going to trust one of those people again. Good night.