People in the U.S. and the world woke up on Wed. Nov. 9th not believing what they heard on the news – Donald Trump won the election for next President of the United States. Certain polls taken the day before the election gave Hillary Clinton a 98% chance of winning. What happened?
Mr. Trump was elected largely on the support of middle-class voters, the majority of whom were white men and women, who felt neglected by their political leaders. Mr. Trump was not endorsed by leaders of his own party, the Republicans, who seemed to display embarrassment that he won enough primary delegates to be the party’s nominee.
What leaders of both parties neglected to see that voters were angry about the loss of jobs, especially manufacturing. They were angry that their wages haven’t grown in 20 years and the system seemed designed to favor the wealthy minority. They were angry about ObamaCare –
Just a week before the election it was announced that premiums for ObamaCare health insurance were going up 23% in 2017.
While the candidates spent a lot of time accusing each other of corruption or assaults on women, the voters were looking at the economy and how they were ignored. Immigration, especially the view that Democrats were supporting open borders, was an especially controversial subject. The supply of thousands of undocumented immigrants and refugees seems to have kept wages low and placed a financial burden on the government to provide welfare, education and medical expenses, leading to a higher national debt and tax burden for citizens.
Hillary Clinton focused her campaign almost exclusively on the historic theme of electing the first woman to the President and attacking Donald Trump for his comments and behavior towards women and minorities. Trump attacked Clinton repeatedly for her ‘extremely careless’ decision to use a private server for her State Department emails and for the FBI investigations that followed.
In the end, Donald Trump won because middle-class, rural voters were deeply dissatisfied with
Their government and wanted to send a strong message to the political leaders of both parties by sending a renegade to Washington to change the system. No one knows what Mr. Trump will do when he becomes President January 20, 2017, but some people take encouragement that he will select an excellent team to serve in his Cabinet and guide his policies.
Could Donald Trump be another Ronald Reagan? We will soon find out.
