During the 2016 presidential election, I happened to be
speaking to a person who asked me whom I was planning to vote for. I answered
that I was planning to vote for Hillary Clinton. So I asked him who he favored.
He answered he was planning to vote for Donald Trump. I then replied, don’t you
think he is kind of crazy. He agreed. He said he thought Trump was different,
interesting, perhaps exciting. He would shake things up. It did not make sense
to me, but I think it was a major factor in making Trump appealing to enough
people to take him over the top in winning the electoral college. We hear
people say that Hillary should have done a better job in addressing the
concerns of the rust belt workers. We know that Putin sent his hackers to tip
the scale for Trump, his preferred candidate. I think those factors actually
did play important roles in electing Trump, but I think there was an additional
factor that was also important and maybe the most important of all.
When the race for president between John Mc Cain and Barack
Obama was drawing to a close, it was becoming evident that the economy was
about to crash after years of the government borrowing money to pay for the Iraq
War and more importantly income tax cuts which drained the treasury. President Bush
called both candidates to a meeting where the economic problem was presented to
them. Obama had thoughtful intelligent questions and Mc Cain did not. It became
apparent to enough of the electorate that the USA was in deep economic trouble,
and Obama was the candidate who was better prepared to address the problem.
On the other hand, after 8 years of incremental economic
growth under Obama (despite obstruction by the Republican Congress), many
people became bored. Success and the absence of turmoil can be boring. So along
came Trump, a populist candidate who complained (untruthfully) that America was
in a bad situation. Many people, especially some who had not progresses as much
as they thought they should have, believed him. Many of those same people were
major beneficiaries of programs like Obamacare. Perception trumped truth. Hillary
Clinton was portrayed as a continuation of the Obama presidency (boring). A
number of people on the Left were bored. They liked the fire and spice of
Bernie Sanders, but were turned off by the business-like approach of Hillary
(again boring) and stayed home from the election (or in some cases actually
voted for Donald) in spite of the urging by Sanders to vote for Clinton.
So what are the implications for the future? I think
there is enough of a push back in America to give at least one house of Congress
to the Democrats in 2018. But what will happen in 2020 assuming Trump is still
president and still wants to run for another term? Should the Democrats run a
boring competent candidate like Hillary Clinton or a fiery far left candidate
like Bernie Sanders. It probably won’t be those candidates. It probably will
depend on what will be happening as the election is approaching. If things
continue to go downhill as they have been doing during the first months of the Trump
presidency, a boring Democratic candidate might not look so bad. Mark Warner would
be a balanced candidate with solid ideas, but is he too boring? I like the fire
of Elizabeth Warren. As a believer in well regulated capitalism, I find some of
her ideas to the left of mine, but I think if elected she would face whatever
reality presents itself in a reasonable manner. After all, people on the extreme Left
and Right viewed Obama as a Leftist because he was Black, had a funny name, and
used active slogans to motivate his base. But from the beginning if one actually
listened to his ideas, he was and has remained a slightly left Centrist (which
is the main attribute that appeals to me).
Well we will see how things unfold over the coming 2 and
4 years. We live in interesting times. Maybe less interesting or downright
boring would be better.
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