About this time a week ago most people thought Hilly had the election in the bag and were resigned to four years of, at best, uninspired American Presidential leadership. While very few people were enthusiastic about Hilly there was a sense of inevitability about her.
And then it happened. The polls were, largely, wrong. Trump managed an upset for the ages and we now have President Elect Trump.
Several million words of analysis later we discover a couple of things. First, as I suspected, black voters did not turn out for the nice white lady in the same numbers as they had for Obama. I can’t help but think this was baked in and should have been reflected in the turnout models the polling people use. But, apparently, it wasn’t. Second, deplorables showed up and voted. Again, not surprising. Third, these two factors put states into play which the HRC campaign – pathetic as it was – believed were locks for Clinton. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan(!) all jumped to Trump. Not by much but by enough.
It turned out that the scare mongering about Trump – which, realistically, was all the HRC campaign had – played great in New York City and coastal California, but it didn’t pull many votes. Turnout, overall, was down.
This left mainstream media and the pollsters it relied on looking deeply dumb. The major newspapers and networks did not even try to conceal their support for Clinton and their contempt for Trump and his voters. While Hilly can shamble off the national stage to her well-deserved obscurity (and one hopes indictment and conviction), MSM has to show up for work knowing that it managed to get the 2016 election entirely and completely wrong.
There are, of course, assorted post-election melt downs. Apparently, a small but vocal subset of university students need grief counselling and another sub-set of alleged Hilly supporters think that roaming the streets with baseball bats will make a difference. #notmypresident had its moment and sunk.
Now the left is, rather predictably, making unsupported claims about Trump being surrounded by racist/fascist/anti-Semitic/homophobic/islamophobic/misogynists. Eviltons to a man. I suspect this will go on for a while as Trump appoints people whose positions are not congruent with the pernicious political correctness which has characterized the Obama years. The very idea that conservatives and people on the right may be part of a Trump administration seems difficult, if not impossible, for lefty commentators to accept. I suspect Trump does not care.
Trump, and the Republican Party which took both House and Senate, has received a “change” mandate. He set out policies from immigration reform to calling out the Global Warming hoax which represent a clear break from business as usual. Not only was he elected but Republicans in their droves were elected too. Now the question is will they deliver?
At this moment Trump has the wind at his back and the enormous reservoir of goodwill an incoming President always begins with. We all know that goodwill dissipates very quickly, but if Trump can work out an agenda with Congress he may be able to get a great deal done very quickly.
Of course, the Europeans are freaking out. But this is not a surprise and not really important. Putin is showing willing, the Chinese are proffering olive branches and the rest of the world seems willing to wait and see. Right now Trump can, simply by being friendly, drain a good deal of the venom which has built up over the years of incompetent Obama administration foreign policy.
The single biggest thing Trump has going for him at the moment is the ignorant contempt of the mainstream media, the left and many foreign “leaders”. By casting Trump as a Yahoo, a buffoon, they set the bar very low for Trump success. It is not that these people underestimate Trump, it is that they don’t estimate him at all preferring to cling to a caricature. This gives Trump a huge advantage.
Now we’ll see how he uses that advantage.
Jay Currie 
The media is using alt-right as it’s code word for neo-nazi, and everyone is from the alt-right. It is becoming predictable to see their reaction to the appointments. I love that the media has no clue how stupid they look as they rail against the “far right”, “white supremacists” etc. When Obama appointed actual lefty radicals to government posts there was silence in the mainstream media. The shoe is on the other foot, the mainstream media is shouting “racist”, “misogynist”, “anti-Semite” as if they don’t know that by doing this they are just continuing the same crap that failed them this past election!
It is fun to watch Obama squirm; the other world leaders squirm; the media squirm. Although Trump is already moderating his campaign promises. There will be many out there disappointed, but logic predicts that while extreme positions gain interest, the actual outcome will be watered down. My hope is that he really cracks down on the sanctuary cities, especially Chicago and Los Angeles who are doubling down. Cut federal grants after a fair warning. Lets see how these cesspits of democratic mismanagement will handle having even less money to piss away on pet projects.
Mongol General: What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Beats me how someone can work in the ‘war rooms’ and blow two consecutive Toronto mayoral campaigns (Rossi,Chow) then work on failed Hillary’s campaign and still be expected to be taken seriously.Talk about Chutzpah!