I have a theory. Contrary to popular belief, Secretary Clinton, former First Lady is not a politically correct figure. She has played the victim in the public spotlight and threw her old man under the bus in the process. As much as we've grown accustomed to this sort of trashy existence through Reality TV -- from which our current President Elect owes his popularity, we are all getting a little tired and bored with real-life drama, and we certainly don't want any more of that in the presidency.
HRC played the "presidential" card in a way that was seemingly effective during the final months and weeks of the campaign, but in the end analysis her abrupt efforts to smear the Donald, much as she smeared her husband during his presidency may have cost her the place in history that she so strongly felt was her destiny.
Don't get me wrong, I am no bell ringer for President Trump. I voted independent this election. I merely want to explain how this analyst scores the campaign. Clinton had the media doing her bidding almost since the beginning of her campaign. Moreover, she had the loyalists within the Democratic party - down to the last registered Liberal in the Country - eating out of the palm of her hand. I cannot tell you how much intolerance that I endured from my leftist friends who were supportive of Secretary/Senator/Former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The thought that I would not support her as I supported her Husband nearly 3 decades before was unimaginable - a point of contention and even damaged friendships and familial relationships.
Enough about me. The question that I'm here to answer is: how exactly did this Meltdown begin? First, we must recall the smear campaign that she waged against Donald Trump. All of the advertising that Mr. Trump was not a role model for our daughters. While Mr. Trump may very well not be the role model that we need for our daughters. What Father or Mother in their right mind could conclude that HRC was that desperately needed role model? Mr. Trump parried that attack perfectly, by not responding. Second, and moreover, HRC was so visible in the final days of the campaign between her truly nasty commercials and her personal appearances, that It's not hard to imagine that many undecided voters became tired of her shtick, much like many faithful NFL fans have grown weary of NFL football being broadcast live 4 out of 7 days of the week! Third, some props are due for the Donald who held his tongue during much of the waning days of the campaign. He did not try to Battle Mrs. Clinton during the final days of the campaign outside of the final debate and even then, he perfected the salesman's pitch by re-directing his opponent rather than grappling with her on her carefully prepared turf.
In the end, we were left with this:
1) Where was our favorite son, Bill Clinton during the campaign, and where was Barrack Obama -- certainly they weren't out stumping for Hillary on the campaign trail?
2) Social media did not work for HRC the way it helped Obama in 2008? There was no mistique, no grand message of "Change".
3)What we were left with in HRC, was, in the final analysis, another 4 years resembling the past 8 which were not that terrific, frankly. Most everyone, by now, considers the Affordable Care Act to be a disaster - It's the singly largest sell-out to big insurance companies and big Pharma that could ever be imagined. Not one person in the country is truly benefiting from this policy disaster and good luck trying to sign-up for healthcare on the government website that cost nearly a Trillion Dollars to build and support, but works barely better than a 1976 AMC Gremlin or a 1973 Ford Pinto.
4) We are not better off than we were 8 years ago. Inflation is up slightly, and Salaries have remained flat, while healthcare costs have run amok!
5) When people finally went to the ballots, it's clear that they reminisced the Media prince who tugged at their heartstrings when he said, "You're fired!" on his weekly television show. They considered the self-confident man who spent more time in their households than anyone who ever campaigned for the presidency; A man who was not afraid to speak his mind even if what he had to say was not popular; A man whose excesses largely mirror the excesses that pop culture has conditioned us to aspire to even if we all know that those excesses are wrong; A man who is willing to name Vladimir Putin as a problem even if it makes the world a more dangerous place. A man who is willing to spar with the Military Intelligencia, who utterly botched the Persian Gulf War and failed to provide Washington with the necessary intelligence that was required to save lives and deal with a most serious threat.
6) We all secretly want a President who will give 'em hell, and there is little doubt that The Donald will do just that. We may be frightened by the reality of it, but a little bit of fear can be a good thing.
7) When casting our ballots this year, it appears that the collective conscience of the American People was at work. We rejected the guarantee of 4 more years of Washington Gridlock and business as usual. We asserted our uniquely American idea of individuality with a collective voice so unified that we shocked the world not merely by electing the supposed underdog, but by ensuring that he led in electoral college votes from the time that the first polls reported until the end of election day 2016.
And we were left to ponder how the woman billed as our favorite daughter fell from grace so quickly -- perhaps we ultimately rejected the corruption of the campaign that snuffed out Bernie Sanders and only had to sacrifice the Democratic National Committee Chair to avoid the blemish of scandal, perhaps we ultimately rejected the innocence of HRC whose husband made famous the comment, "but I didn't inhale" and were left wondering if she had inhaled, perhaps we were confused by the absence of Bill Clinton on the Campaign trail, perhaps we found a significant void in HRCs message if not a lack of substance and in it's place a politically correct message that just didn't resound for the American People, and finally, Perhaps we soured on the more fluff than substance message that we are "better together", instead feeling that we'd like to hunker down in our bunkers and let the bastards come at us one-on-one and show them how a down and dirty 'Merican protects his home and country.
Maybe there is no explanation for HRCs meltdown, but it's clear that at least a few hundred thousand loyal Bernie Sanders supporters went all in for the other nominee!
What I can say with certainty is that on election day, my thoughts were rising and I was not swayed by any party loyalty or ideological biases. I voted my conscience and it appears that a great many Americans did as well, perhaps more than we have seen in over 50 years.
It is ironic that HRC melted down. In a peculiar way The Donald brought us together despite his now infamous propensity for divisive messages. We now know that people in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are fed up with being out of work and few job prospects. We also know that the middle class is desperately screaming for relief from wage stagnation and medical cost inflation, jobs fleeing overseas and even being filled on-shore by people who are willing to accept the work at a fraction of the salary that natural citizens had commanded for decades. We are tired of corporations getting away with felony crimes, when many of us can barely make ends meet. We are tired of the finger pointing and we recognize that the economics of this century are vastly more complex than the economics of the previous one. We also know that its not preordained that it should be thus, and we're prepared to disrupt the status quo by hacking our very system of government if need be even if it took a pompous, womanizing philanderer who is no stranger to bankruptcy in both the financial and moral sense. We applaud the fact that a man so famous for airing his dirty laundry was able to keep a lid on most of it during his campaign for the presidency, and perhaps some good will come of this cultural petrie dish and experiment in democracy if we do mix things up more than a little bit. Do we fear the concept of Donald Trump being the man who can press The Button? Not in the least. Should we? Perhaps not. After all his ego wouldn't be well served by destroying the world and the country that so gratefully stroked it for more than 2 decades.
