Hillary Clinton supporters are still in shock at their candidate’s surprising, ignominious defeat. She was supposed to win after all. She had all the credentials – long service in government, White House experience, and a woman to boot. She would make history.
www.huffingtonpost.com
Not only that, she was running against a caricature – a buffoon; and a homophobic, misogynist, racist one at that. There was absolutely no chance of losing, and she would soon assume her rightful, entitled place in American history.
Hillary’s faithful are in such wretched mourning not just because she lost; not just because her liberal agenda would not only be discarded but scrapped; but because she lost to a man who represents the worst of America – greed, arrogance, image, and idolatry. It is bad enough that Donald Trump represents backward and ignorant social views that will set the cause of civil rights back to the Fifties; but the fact that this son of Hollywood and Las Vegas, this carny barker, and hero to the nouveau riche is bringing his outrageous taste, bourgeois sensibilities, and arm-candy glitz to Pennsylvania Avenue is more than they can take.
www.gettyimages.co.uk
Up until his election, his opponents could only hope that once within sight of the White House with its long history of traditional power and American cultural values, Donald Trump would quiet his rhetoric, look to compromise and negotiation, and be a President for all Americans.
This hope has been quickly dispelled. Not only does his Cabinet not ‘look like America’; it looks like Wall Street and the Pentagon. Powerful men from Goldman Sachs will be Trump’s advisors on economic and financial issues. Generals will direct the national security apparatus; and the Prince of the Court – the Secretary of State – will be the former CEO of Exxon Mobil. There is not one departure from the new President’s radically conservative national and foreign policies. At one fell swoop, Donald Trump has put in place an Administration which will so completely dismantle liberal progressivism, that after eight years few people will remember the politically correct years of Barack Obama.
www.forbes.com
It is a juggernaut; and no Administration in recent memory represents such a restructuring of the institutions of American power and a reconfiguring of the social landscape.
“All that we have worked for over the last fifty years is now history”, said a well-known Washington progressive whose commitment to liberal causes began with nuclear disarmament in the 60s, deepened during the civil rights era and the protests against the Vietnam War, and hardened in recent years over demands for increased women’s rights and Black Lives Matter. “We have been dismantled, shunted aside, and discarded.”
All liberal anxiety is well-founded. American foreign policy will leave presumed American exceptionalism aside and adopt realpolitik as principle. America’s economic and financial interests will be defended and promoted with little regard for moral concerns. Presidents Putin and Assad – evil enemies of the Obama Administration – will be congenial allies in the war against Islamic terrorism. Far-right governments in Europe will not be marginalized for their resistance to multiculturalism, but embraced. The world will be seen once again as a collection of competing national, religious, and ethnic interests to be assessed, used, or counted in light of American demands.
Marine Le Pen www.document.dk
Public education, welfare, and social services will finally be given the scrutiny which they have avoided during years of entitlement and cultural diversity. No longer will communities be given a free ride because of ‘institutional racism’ but will be held to task and made accountable for their actions. The failure of public schools will be recognized, accepted, and challenged. Rather than basing policy on a priori assumptions of the inherent good of a public system, the Trump Administration will demand performance and an open door to the private sector.
Regulations will be lifted from economic enterprise from Wall Street to small scale entrepreneurs; and the natural market forces which have always been the regulators of productive activity will be restored.
Contentious social issues such as abortion and gay rights will be rightfully returned to the states and to their constituents. Trump understands that abortion is not simply ‘a women’s issue’ but has profound religious and moral significance. Roe v Wade contested by many may well be overturned and the debate finally and once again opened to all. Trump has restated his commitment to gay rights and understood that most Americans have no animus against homosexuals per se,. Nevertheless he also understands that gay marriage is far less a civil act than a revolutionary moral one. Many Americans, taking their inspiration from the Bible, see any disruption of traditional marriage as wrong.
Under Donald Trump the balance between police and perpetrators will be reset. No longer will the rhetoric of Black Lives Matter be accepted as legitimate, but only subject to scrutiny. Few ordinary Americans dismiss – as progressives do – that claim that the rise in crime in major cities like Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit has nothing to do with less aggressive policing. Civil society means a polity and a respectful balance of interests, not separatism.
Immigration reform actually has a chance under a Trump Administration; but once again the expected crackdown on ‘safe spaces’ and sanctuaries and harsh treatment of illegal aliens will not be taken lightly by progressives who have invested moral and political capital in ‘absolute diversity’.
Everything about the Trump White House will be different – its policies, culture, and image. More than anything else Donald Trump will be different. He has already shaken up the political establishment by refusing the mainstream media in favor of Twitter. As he found in his electoral campaign the best way to eliminate media bias (the New York Times admitted their bias and departure from a long history of political neutrality and factual reporting) was to appeal directly to voters; and his Twitter offensive as President-elect is a continuation of the same strategy.
Donald Trump will refuse to be shackled by tradition. He may well spend much of his time away from Washington in Trump Tower or Mar-el-Lago. His wife may never reside in the White House and assume First Wifely duties. His daughter will one of his principal advisors. His press conferences will no longer be the carefully managed say-nothing events of the past. His public persona will be no less big, confident, and outrageous than it was during the campaign.
www.quotesgram.com
His White House parties will not be the Camelot-era events – no Pablo Casals or Robert Frost – nor will they be Ronald and Nancy Reagan Hollywood galas. They will be celebrations of money, success, beauty, and a glorious un-PC Washington rave.
So, no wonder why half the population is not only disappointed by Hillary Clinton’s lost but grieving. Progressives lost their causes, their identity, and their purpose. Of course they will continue to fight, at least for a while; but the radically conservative Trump juggernaut will only gain in inertia; and dissension will prove fruitless.
Hold on to your hats.
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