Matthew Fisher: No matter what the result of the U.S. presidential election, this genie is not going back in the bottle
Matthew Fisher
Monday, Nov. 7, 2016
The National Post
DALLAS, Texas — The one constant inside the Washington Beltway and in five states that I have hopscotched across during the past three weeks is that a substantial majority of American voters are so openly contemptuous of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump that they will almost literally hold their noses when they vote for the next president.
That was the lament of a small-town newspaper editor in West Virginia, a computer expert in Maryland, a Marine colonel in Virginia and a vivacious 90-year-old black woman who came out of mass on Sunday in Dallas waving her arms in disgust and reflecting in a soft Louisiana drawl about how seriously the candidacies of Clinton and Trump were flawed and wondering what fresh indignities and intrigues were in store for Americans after Nov. 8.
Whether deserved or not, Clinton is so despised by Americans of every political stripe — including many Democrats — that the Republicans could have easily beaten her by running any candidate except Trump. But the Republican party hierarchy long ago lost control over its nomination process, allowing Trump to run amok, delighting or discomforting just about every American political constituency, with bombast and false claims masquerading as policy. Unable to get a word in edgewise, less controversial and in a few cases vastly superior candidates fell away one by one, leaving a survivor who is totally unsuited by temperament, education and experience to unite the United States or, to use his own turn of phrase, “make America great again.”
On the other hand, Trump is so reviled by Democrats and a large number of Republicans that the Democrats could have easily beaten him by running almost any candidate except Clinton. However, the Democratic machine decided long ago that whatever Clinton’s problems with the truth and however spotty her record as secretary of state, she had to be their nominee.
Competent potential rivals saw no point in running because the fix was in, so they never put their names forward. The flirtation with Bernie Sanders, who came out of left field with a sheaf of feel-good ideas that were often as wacky as Trump’s, never came close to interfering with what the elites and Clinton considered to be her due.
For their sins, the insiders who have dominated political life for several centuries in Washington have been stuck with two candidates who much of the electorate are uncomfortable with. The Republicans are sure to be at each other’s throats after the election because the pro- and anti-Trump factions are already at each other’s throats now.
But the Democrats are trapped, too. Clinton’s prospective victory will elicit none of the sense of wonder that followed Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008.
Clinton has been by turns defiant, evasive and, ultimately, not nearly sufficiently contrite when pressed about her cavalier handling of classified state secrets. Equally damning, she continues to remain ethics-free regarding such hot potatoes as the Clinton Foundation, which seems to have been purposely built to enrich her and her family in return for favours, or at least facetime with affluent corporate donors and foreign governments with sketchy histories.
Barring a major misreading of the polls — which as several recent elections and referenda in the Americas and Europe have demonstrated is possible — Clinton will win Tuesday’s election because she has the most votes in the electoral college, which is an arcane way to apportion support for the presidency on a state-by-state basis rather than according to the popular vote, which is likely to be far closer.
Watch out for an extreme reaction from Trump hardliners if their man actually get more votes than Clinton, but loses because she ends up far ahead in the electoral college.
There are so many imponderables in so many different parts of the United States on the eve of the ballot that making a prediction about who will become the 45th president is a mug’s game.
If Clinton wins, it is highly likely she will enter office next January as the most mistrusted president in the country’s 240-year history. If Trump wins, he is certain to further inflame racial and ethnic passions at home and deepen anxiety about him almost everywhere else except in Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran.
Most unusually for so late in the campaign, as many as 15 states were thought to still be in play on the eve of the election.
Could a surge in the turnout of Hispanic voters, who will overwhelmingly vote for Clinton, be enough to secure her a narrow victory in Florida, North Carolina or Colorado? Could Hispanic voters there and elsewhere compensate for the relatively tepid response of black voters to Clinton when compared with their mighty embrace of Obama during the past two elections?
The bigger problem for the U.S. and such countries as Canada who depend upon America for trade and defence, is that Trump’s candidacy has revealed drastically different views about this country’s future. It is sheer stupidity for the elites and the media in the U.S. and elsewhere to be so censorious of Trump’s bull-in-the-china-shop approach to public life or to dismiss all those who will vote for him as lunatics. They ignore at their peril the reality that he has exacerbated a sense of rage and exclusion that has almost every American voter in some kind of tizzy. Many of those voting for Trump are far from being deranged. They are sensible, hard-working folks who are fed up with Clinton and her ilk and genuinely feel their country has lost its way.
It would behoove righteous progressives to look past Trump’s farcical maunderings or to not dismiss his followers as rabble. Far better for them to ponder how try to reach an accommodation with many of those who are for Trump, while remaining true to their own principles, because there is no putting this genie back in the bottle.
Clinton will start her likely presidency in a difficult spot. Can she be magnanimous in victory? Will Trump go quietly into the night?
Talk of an insurrection if Trump loses is far-fetched. But there may be isolated moments of fury and agitation. Many elected Republicans will probably make good on their vow to attempt to unseat her through impeachment.
The vein that Trump has tapped into is now wide open. Without goodwill that is not evident anywhere today, the American political system is likely to bleed for a generation.
