Well, the fat lady sure has sung.
Last Tuesday, America finally decided on a new commander-in-chief, and his name is Donald J. Trump. Partisanship aside, Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton will go down as perhaps the biggest upset in political history, as the Manhattan real estate mogul shocked the world with his lopsided electoral college victory. In a crazy election year where we've seen a candidates under FBI investigation, accuse other candidates’s family members of murdering JFK, and even a VP nominee shill for another candidate, here are my three takeaways from this years election:
1. Thank you, Evan McMullin
As a member of the so-called #NeverTrump movement, this year was difficult. As awful as Hillary Clinton was, I could not find myself allocating my vote to Donald Trump for a number of reasons, but mainly because he is simply not a conservative and my belief is that he has a chance of squandering whatever is left of conservatism on the right into a pseudo-populist movement, which is not conservatism.
While it was difficult to not root for the enemy of my enemy, many did, either voting begrudgingly for Trump to stop Hillary, or voting for Hillary to stop Trump. I, for one, did neither, and can proudly say I felt like a million dollars walking out the voting booth after casting my vote for conservative third party alternative Evan McMullin. Not because my candidate had a chance of winning, he only made the ballot on 11 states, but because of what my vote means.
As someone who values my vote as a moral and political endorsement, I felt proud to cast my vote for McMullin, a former House Republican staffer and CIA agent, McMullin’s conservative principles and policies made him, on paper, a considerably better candidate than either Clinton or Trump, and definitely better than dopey candidates Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. While he didn't fulfill his upset chances by failing to win Utah, McMullin’s run was far from a waste as he gave thousands an opportunity to vote their conscious and give America the principled conservative candidate it truly deserved, and for that, I am very thankful and look forward to seeing more of McMullin in the near future (senate run 2018?).
2. Why the left failed
This election year proved to be a complete repudiation of the left, and the writing on the wall proves it. While President Obama spent the past months campaigning for Hillary, speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards in September saying it would be 'personal insult' to his legacy if black voters don't back Clinton, nobody seemed to listen. Blacks, hispanics, and younger voters failed to show up for Hillary, and Trump outperformed Mitt Romney’s 2012 numbers in those categories.
Why?
Hillary was, and still is, a horrible candidate.
People expected voters to come out in droves for Hillary just as they did for Obama when he ran his 2008 campaign based on “Change”, but after 8 years of failed Obama policies, voters simply did not believe Hillary was going to bring the change that is now needed. Why the DNC believed they could rig the election against Bernie while attempting to morph Hillary into some kind of super-progressive, youthful, embodiment of decent character, was counter-productive, and the voters saw right through it and proved it with their votes.
Hillary was always a candidate that made it hard to rally behind, with her elitist lifestyle, constant lying about multitudes of issues such as the FBI investigation and policy stances, and an inability to relate to the average American. Her ceiling was apparently low, and the societal left didn't help her cause, either. With the media, Hollywood, and universities all fully giving in to leftism, the idea that all that felt strongly against the lefts policies were “racist, sexist, bigot, homophobes” eventually got old, and everyday Americans’ tolerance for these attacks slowly grew weary. While the left continues to bombard the street in protest of a fair, democratically held election, Trump supporters protested on November 8th with their vote, and that’s the only protest that counts when it comes down to it. If the left continues to behave itself the way it is, they could be in the process of re-electing a President Trump for a second term.
3. Now what?
As a member of the so-called #NeverTrump movement, to say that I was greatly surprised by Trump's win would be putting it lightly. But I didn’t refrain from voting for Trump simply because I believed he was going to get clobbered. While that was certainly one of my gauges, the willingness to put aside principle and vote Trump in favor of defeating Hillary whom I believed would obliterate him, it was not the telling factor. My deciding factor in voting against Trump was simple: Come January 20th, I did not believe Donald Trump would be a efficient, successful, conservative president.
All of that is irrelevant now.
Trump won, and, in theory, #NeverTrump is no more. Protesting, fear mongering, and shouting “#HesNotMyPresident” are all ridiculous. There’s nothing to protest, fear mongering is an evil and nasty trait, and claiming “#HesNotMyPresident” only shows the teachers leading some of these protests that they need to march those students right back into class and give them a proper civics lesson, because Donald Trump IS now the president-elect of the United States of America, for EVERYONE.
Now, for those who don't like it, thank God America grants its citizens the freedom to travel and move elsewhere!
For the rest of us who choose to remain in the greatest human experiment of all time known as America, we will continue to live our lives while playing close attention to the upcoming Trump presidency. At this point, Trump needs not be the God-King he so thinks he is in order for him to be a decent president. As long as Trump can play the role of responsible businessman, as in a delegator, Trump has the chance to be successful. With Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon reportedly battling it out for the role of Chief of Staff, Trump’s first battle will be a telling one. If he chooses Priebus, it's a sign he's serious about getting things done with Republicans to improve the country, such as repeal and replace Obamacare, secure the border, and nominate conservative supreme court judges, among other things. If he chooses Bannon, its more likely he's looking to further implode the Republican party even more than it seemed he was doing throughout the primary.
Regardless, President-elect Trump was voted in as the President-elect on November 8th, no matter what our political affiliation or beliefs are. Trump will have to work with Republicans he once called out such as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and others if he wants to make an actual positive change for the country. Being who he is, as well as what he's set himself up to be, his feet are already held to the fire as far out as they can be by the general public and the media. Whether we like it or not, Trump #IsOurPresident, and it's now only in our best interests to hope for the best for our new President, and I pray to God he proves me wrong.
