Camp Clinton continues dismissing the nearly 63 million Trump voters as irredeemably racist alt-righters. Social-justice warriors don’t do introspection. They’ve learned nothing from Hillary’s calamitous campaign smear of half the electorate as a “basket of deplorables.” Instead of grappling with why they lost, Democrats are doubling down on unhinged (see, e.g., the recount hijinks, the reelection of Nancy Pelosi as House minority leader, and the serious candidacy of hard-Left Islamist fellow traveler Keith Ellison for the party’s chairmanship.).
Yet Trump fans make a similar mistake in over-interpreting their man’s win as a populist revolution — even a “thunderclap.” Trump won fair and square, but it’s as razor-thin as it gets. He is to be congratulated for winning in such erstwhile Democratic strongholds as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. But a populist revolution ought to be able to claim most of the populace. Instead, 54 percent of voters — over 70 million — voted against Trump. And many of those who voted for him did so only reluctantly. The best thing he had going for him was not populism or nationalism. It was Hillary Clinton.
The most valuable lesson Trump might draw from Bill Clinton’s plurality wins is that his 46 percent of the popular vote has won him 100 percent of the presidency. That’s not a landslide, but it is an opportunity.
Most of what ails the country is cultural, not political; it can be exacerbated by Washington, but it cannot be fixed there. And debt aside, most of what will challenge President-elect Trump has not happened yet — he will be judged less by his campaign banter than by how he handles the now unknown.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member