It’s been a few days now since the world stood still and witnessed one of history’s greatest upsets, with Donald Trump becoming the President of the Unite States.
I didn’t like any of the candidates but I wanted Hillary to win. How could anyone vote for the demogorgon that is Trump? However, in saying that, I don’t feel bad for Hillary or the Democratic National Party for losing. Because it was their fault.
Ignoring the obvious email scandal and FBI investigations, how was it that she shot herself in the foot?
Firstly, when Trump played the underdog card to the media Hillary played it right back, saying she was the underdog for being a woman politician. This is a lady who has been in or around the oval office for over 20 years. It was during this time that the main Trump voter (white, middle-aged men and women) was growing up seeing the power and influence that Hillary possessed.
Hillary was even in the war room when Osama Bin Laden was assassinated – this isn’t the resume of an underdog. It would be like if I were to fight Connor McGregor and during the lead up to the bout, he was saying that he was going to lose. No Hillary, you have the most experience of any potential candidate ever and with every media outlet supporting you, no one will believe you are an underdog.
Secondly, she made the mistake of calling out half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables”.
It’s true – a very vocal percentage of Trump supporters can be described as this. There’s no lie about it and they make me sick, but branding all Republican voters as “deplorables” sounds awfully similar to branding all Muslims as terrorists because of a small population of extremists. Hillary unintentionally divided a nation with her comments.
Furthermore, she created an army of people not with Trump, but still against her. These are supporters who might have voted for Bernie Sanders, and who voted for Obama. These are people who care about the economy more then gay marriage, and in those swing states such as Florida or Pennsylvania, might never have even come out and voted.
But they saw a woman who was hand picked by the DNC, someone that had her presidential acceptance speech written four years ago, someone who had labelled Trump supporters deplorable, someone who had been a politician for their whole life. And they silently voted against her.
This silent majority voted against the establishment, something Bernie Sanders hit home on many times during his campaign. Sadly, the establishment’s only competitor was Donald Trump. Trump voters might not have even been Trump supporters, but they might have been sick and tired of politics being run the same year after year. They might have seen Trump as an escape even if he isn’t.
Yes, I am scared of a Trump future, not only for America but also for deals regarding us here at home. He has the same level of political experience as me, his policies are backwards, his stance on minorities is even worse and his Vice President might actually be crazy.
However, the thing about democracy is that it is final. Hillary was up against a living meme and lost. For the sake of the free world I wish Hillary had won, but instead of backing yourself, your career and your people, you got Jay Z and Beyonce to talk for you. Fingers crossed the world bands together and the next four years go quick so we can do this all again with Kanye West.