I went to bed a little after midnight still clinging to some hope that the Trump march would be stopped and she might come back. It did not look good but at least she had not lost at that point. I thought even if she won it would not be a favorable outcome because it would have been by a razor thin margin which would be a recipe for turmoil.
I woke at 3 am. I went to a Boston Globe site to see if anything had changes. The first thing I saw was a map that indicated some states had not yet been counted so I thought there was still some hope; I then looked at a chart that had the number of electoral votes and saw Trump still had more than Hillary. In my half awake state the numbers did not mean much to me but that little green check mark on Trump’s side of the ledger gave me a little bit of the shivers. I knew that it meant he won. I had a feeling of depression and sorrow. No other presidential election had left me with such a feeling.
I had some emails that I read: John was nice, Rather talked about me eating crow, and there were others. One blamed me for Hillary’s loss. I bet you never knew I had such influence in the country that I could bring down the Clinton political team.
As you know I voted for neither. Both were flawed candidates. Trump won because of Hillary’s flaws; had she won it would have been because of his.
Hillary’s sex had little to do with her loss. Those who voted for her because she was a woman were willing to overlook that she was a woman with a lot of problems in her background. From the start she was looked upon unfavorably by a majority of the Americans. Her connection to shady characters such as her husband did not help. Her foundation, even though it did some good work in Haiti, appeared corrupt because the contributions to it seemed to be in exchange for favors from the American government.
As for Bill having hurt her, his giving the finger to the American people with his pardoning of Mark Rich in exchange for a half million dollar gift to his library was well remembered by some. His tawdry behavior in the White House made others unwilling to let him back onto those premises. Then there is the Amendment that limits presidents to two terms that made some feel that putting Hillary in would be giving him a third term. Add to all that the idea she was going to be able to stack the Supreme Court with progressive judges made many feel frightened that the America they knew would vanish; after all, we have seen that the Supreme Court is the most powerful branch in our government since the executive willingly follows its dictates and it arrogates to itself to interpret the plain language of legislation in ways that have little to do with the intent of Congress.
Trump is a blank slate. You can write anything you want on him. Some suggest he will not bring us into wars; if he is true to his word he will be immediately in conflict with Iran by tearing up the treaty. I expect to see more death and destruction with him since he is a vengeful petty man. We will get the first taste of him today at 9:30 when the market opens. It will be downhill after that.
You who voted for him I am afraid will live to rue the day that you wanted him to win. Putting him in the presidency is like putting Bill Buckner in at quarterback for the Patriots. He has surrounded him with jackasses. He may or may not listen to them as they bray. He will make us yearn for the days of Obama when things were relatively peaceful and calm.
I hope I am as wrong about what he will be like as president as I was about his being elected. I never gave him a chance. Now that he has I tremble for our nation. We will face days of reckoning for this tragic step which cannot even be imagined at this time. It’s a dark day in America.
The only policy that matters for the long term is the policy on climate change. And because the GOP will have the power to increase our emissions and cancel research, we’ve spelled our own doom, regardless of anything else.
Nit picking: Conscience makes me point out that Mr. Trump is President Designate; he is not President Elect until the Electoral College sends its votes to the House of Representatives. They vote on 19 December.
An important legal distinction, but unlikely to make any difference.
Henry:
I’m over it. Time moves on. I never liked the power-hungry old bitch, anyway.
Khalid, counseling is available should you need help to get through this period.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3922344/Boston-schools-offer-counselling-students-Trump-s-win.html
Khalid: There were riots, of a sort. Riots by the privileged classes, not rioting by the poor.
http://nypost.com/2016/11/09/protests-erupt-in-california-after-trump-victory/
Henry:
Interesting to see who is upset but isn’t that expected. Keep in mind though most uprisings start with the students. However, the present day students seem too soft to really maintain anything like a long term protest.
I’m still waiting for just one national news commentator, even Rachel Maddow, to say “Bill Clinton is a sexual predator.”
Of course, that would depend on what ‘is’ is and whether there is a Biblical injunction against the behavior. Alleged behavior, of course, a legal distinction not provided to Trump.
Henry:
They tried to hide Bill’s peccadilloes but many have a long memory and found little comfort in thinking he would be using the Lincoln bedroom again especially when Hillary was out of the house. “Have some Madeira, my dear. The president is away on business” said the president.
Yes, we were told that Hillary was running and not Bill so it was not right to criticize him. But there was no doubt the standard for Donald was different.
Henry:
Things won’t really break loose until the next police killing. I don’t take tonight’s anti-Glorious Leader demos, very seriously. It’s as you said, disappointed white folks running around. The actual uprising will look quite different. You’ll be able to distinguish the difference by the fear in the faces of establishment media. When quintessential bourgeois, Rachel Maddow, looks frightened, you’ll know the revolution is here. Two steps forward, one step, back. All power to the dialectic!
Nah! All power to the dielectric!
Khalid
Want some real comedy?…..watch HLN Network and listen to their political commentary……I had to yesterday, but not by choice. It was funny.
The mass high school walkout is a joke.
Now there’s a movement with teeth……..LOL.
I’m with you NC. One of the happiest days of my life. God bless America !!!
JPC:
Did you mean God help America?
God helps those who help themselves.
Everything else is just chance.
Matt,
Maybe President Trump will have pity on the old sea-hag and give her job back as Secretary of State……
Do you think our country would be safer or better off ?
She will be lucky to avoid indictment. Trump can’t follow through on his debate promise (threat?) personally but a US Attorney can appoint a special prosecutor who can, correct Counselor?
Bye-Bye Crooked Hillary.
Rather:
The best thing for Hillary is to let her go off and live with herself. This is the second go around for her when she thought she was a shoe-in for president. Bill told her she had it made; he was anxious to get back into the White House. The first time was when Barack won. He was worried about her so to keep her out of his hair he made her Secretary of State. Time passed. She was again the shoe-in to be elected in her and Bill’s mind. They thought people forgot about him; they remembered well.
Trump could never give her the job – how could he trust her. Would the country be better off? Who knows – we survived John Kerry –
Obama is expected to give her a pardon the way the Ford pardoned Nixon. He should give one to Bill also on the stipulation they go back to the hills of Arkansas, find a nice home on a hilltop high, and Bill and Hill can live out their lives in peace while Chelsea gets ready for her run against some guy named Bush.
Matt,
Love “The Appeal To The Great Spirit” by Cyrus Dallin, which is at the MFA (also sculpted the “Paul Revere” statue in the North End, for more info. go to dallin.org or Cyrus Dallin Art Museum), that you used as lead-in picture. Many are perhaps doing that now, praying to any spirit of choice for help through the next 4 years.
Some might even be giving thanks that Hillary didn’t make it. That would include me. My standards for the first woman president are much higher than HRC. Some one like George Washington, who was known for “never telling a lie”.
PEH:
I felt like that Indian sitting on his horse appealing to the Great Spirit when I saw the result. I hope America’s future will not be as bad as his was.
I agree with you about a woman president. I would like one to rise to the top without all the baggage. Hillary never did it on her own; her husband was president and having her become one was more like we see in South America – you do recall Evita Peron.
There are a dozen women senators – many would be good candidates as long as they have not claimed any Indian heritage.
That statue outside the MFA is of a Native American, Matt, not an Indian. You don’t want to be accused of ‘racism.’ by using an insulting description.
The title is “Trump Wins: America Loses”.
No. This is a zero-sum game situation. Trump wins. Clinton loses. America trudges on despite either one winning or losing.
Ed:
I suppose no matter which one of those darlings won America would have been the loser. The question is where is America trudging on to.
Happy days are here again.
NC:
You’ll live to regret those words.
All I can say is Thank God it’s over. So much negativity! I remember it was this way in 1960, too. That Kennedy guy, a Catholic, would be the ruination of the nation. Cardinal Cushing at the Inauguration was the sign that the Pope was on the way. A Catholic had his finger on the button! Parochial schools would be funded by Congress. Ho hum.
As for US cities exploding because Trump is President, I think that’s doubtful. I didn’t know Trump was opposed to ‘weed;’ seems to be a major part of Khalid’s concern. How is it in ‘free’ nations like Canada or Mauritania?
No matter. As Barack said, “The sun will still come up tomorrow.”
Henry:
The sun did come up today. It was surrounded by a red glow. I could only think of the maritime saying: “red sun in the morn, sailors be warned”. America is beginning to trudge down hill. Stay where you are.
Henry:
I used to work a piece on Spyrock Rd., about twelve miles from Satanville. What’s Glorious Leader going to do about the Infernal Regions? It’s a question that weighs heavy on my mind.
Guessing moves in the weed market is like watching a commodities market on acid, lots of numbers swirl around in your head. You have this buy, buy, sell, sell, buy, sell, techno-color hallucination, playing on the insides of your eye-lids. Take the pill, Henry, you’ll see.
Matt: We learned the media was wrong, as were the pollsters and exit pollsters. We learned that no one can predict the future. You are right, Trump is a very flawed personality. The outcome was astonishing. I hope he rises to the office. His acceptance speech is a good indicator. His selection of Mike Pence and his list of potential court nominees are other good indicators.
THERE IS HOPE, as Paul F. Mahoney said.
With Trump-Pence, there is hope: Hope for the Supreme Court; hope for the unborn; hope for fewer abortions and increased respect for human life; hope that the Hyde Amendment will endure; hope that illegal immigration will be controlled and sanctuary cities will end; hope for an end to Obamacare; hope that government will be smaller, government will get off the back of businesses, regulations will be cut or pared down; hope for the American worker; hope that more jobs will be brought back to America; hope that Clinton-type lobbyists and the Wall-Street Clintonites will lose power; hope that the swamp will be drained; hope for less foreign interventionism, less globalism, less foreign entanglements; there’s hope for detente. At the same time, there’s hope for more support for a stronger U.S. military (defensive, preventative) and more support for our local police.
Matt, I understand your sentiments. If Hillary had won, I would have called that “a dark day for America” and probably said we’d “rue the day” we put Hill and Bill back in D.C.
The America people voted Trump-Pence, and re-made the Senate and House Republican. Harry Reid is gone in 2017, replaced by Nevada’s first Hispanic-American U. S. Senator. Rubio won. Some say conservatives won; an editorial this morning claimed conservative Catholics and Evangelicals won.
From the conservative side of the political fence, there is hope. That’s all.
2. I watched T.V. to about 1:30 A.M.; still in doubt; woke up at 6:00 A.M. in amazement at the upset.
3. I’m not too good at prayer, but I’ll say these: God bless America! May God guide the Trump-Pence administration. May God thicken Donald’s skin, deflate his ego, remove any trace of bitterness or vindictiveness, surround him with good advisers, open his ears, calm his temper, caution his tongue, control his twittering fingers, and teach him the virtue of reading his teleprompter before shooting from the hip.
4. My one bit of advice to Trump (Pence does not need it): Stay on message and avoid Ad Hominem attacks; to wit: Principles over Personalities.
5. Can a 70-year old mend his ways? I hope so! Like I said, there’s hope!
Bill:
I cannot disagree with much of what you wrote but if you read it you are hoping against hope that Trump will turn into something that he is not.
The NT Times and Washington Post and the major media outlets made the huge mistake of believing their readers represented America. That is why they and their pollsters got it so very wrong.
I just hope you are ready for Trump to start showing his liberal credentials and prepared to see him back off many of his stands. He knows it was all a big con; the business of America is governing and compromise. No wall paid for by Mexico, no throwing out the immigrants or tossing people out of having medical coverage, no change in abortion laws (his late life conversion was a political move) The one good thing is the court will not go over to the far left; but we still have to see who he will appoint. He should tell us about that soon.
The big question is foreign interventions. He is tearing up the Iran agreement, taken money from Adelson who wants us to attack Iran, has talked of carpet bombing, has shown a willingness to let other countries imprison free people. You forget the life we have and the people of Europe and Asia have is because America was willing to keep people free. Reagan was a staunch supporter of freedom; nothing out of Trump’s mouth shows that.
You are gambling that his desire to reduce taxes on the wealthy like himself, to build up the military (for defense?? – who is planning to attack us?) and to build up the infrastructure etc., that it can be done without any tax increases. I would think by now that you would have figured out that someone has to pay the taxes and the rich can more easily afford them than the middle class.
As for Reid’s replacement you should know “Catherine Cortez Masto, seeking to become the first Latina elected to the Senate, has won the endorsement of EMILY’s List. The group that supports Democratic women who back abortion rights hailed the former Nevada attorney general as a champion of women and families”
How you could ever think the election of Trump was a Catholic win escapes me. The last I knew the Catholic Church preached compassion for the poor and immigrants, most of who are here from Latin countries are Catholics.
2. I was not amazed but disappointed although I did not want Hillary either.
3. You do notice that God was absent in both campaigns. You do also correctly point out the many deficiencies in Trump. You are asking God for an awful lot for a man who has led a pretty godless life from what I can tell.
4. Your advice for Trump will go where all advice to him goes – on deaf ears which is his greatest failing.
5. When BC hired Addazzio there was hope – they continue to hold on to him hoping – you don’t get anywhere with hope unless it is connected with love and charity both of which Trump is missing.
my bad.
“Is Glorious leader going to hammer…”
Khalid: Americans don’t want to “burn”! They want to “learn” and “earn”.
I respectfully suggest you immerse yourself in the writings of Thomas Sowell: I first became captivated by his brilliance in the 1980s with his “Ethnic America”; he is always insightful, challenging and thorough. “Cosmic Justice”, “Cultures & Conquests” etc, and in his book I’m now reading “Wealth, Poverty & Politics”, he writes at length about the Dunbar High School in D. C., a school comparable to Boston Latin.
I like Sowell’s quote: “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
He promotes opportunity and achievement via hard work and education, and vilifies the “gangsta culture.”
PEH,
He should have put today’s lead-in yesterday and vice -versa,….much more appropriate.
Now, moving on to the “business” of running America…..we now have the most successful businessman ever (to hold the office of POTUS) having a whack at it……and a NON-Politician who grew up middle class and saw the American Dream realized before his very eyes at an impressionable age and was “guided” and funded by Dad initially (1MIL…?) as a result of that but became and stayed (NYC R.E. game 70-80’s?) successful and generated and retained increasing wealth in a rigged system and political environment….and did it masterfully.
NO regrets here.
Change is good.
We’ll see Bill. Things look restive in the cities, already.
Dems regret they didn’t go with Bernie. Too late. Greedy, Clintons, good-bye.
Oh, that I could be in the room, when, they show/tell Pres Trump what’s happening in the Mideast/South Asia.
On the domestic side, I wonder how long it will take the cities to explode? People of color won’t take it, anymore, Obama’s gone. The mass of black folks no longer has a stake in society. I remember LBJ sending the 82nd Airborne to quash the Detroit Riot. After unplugging the supposed welfare state, what will Pres Trump do, when, a half-dozen LAs, simultaneously, ignite?
Glorious Leader will be the fiery touch that lights the fuse of 21st century urban renewal. What we know will burn, baby burn, while, he tweets.
Is Glorious Leader is going to hammer the weed business? Now that he’s the federal authority, all that states’ rights nonsense is as dead, as, Jefferson Davis. The true authoritarian covets any un-taxed revenue streams. A renewed “war on weed” would please the prison industrial complex. They could triple-bunk all the institutions to handle the over-flow of people who thought they were doing something legal. It all depends on what Glorious Leader peruses in his bowl of alphabet soup. It’s a good time to be a letter of the alphabet. Who knows how things will get spelled out.
Adios, Jimmy Stewart, Potterville here we come!
Like you Matt,I didn’t vote for Trump,nor did I vote for Hillary.Lets wait and see what type of individuals he selects for his transition team and then his cabinet before glooming and dooming too much. We will probably see a subtle change to the center-right.Most important of all,we have the court.There is room for hope.
Paul:
True – for the Court the defeat of Clinton was good; for the country time will tell but I expect we will need more than hope. I too am looking to see who he selects to oversea the various departments — something tells me his conservative allies will be a little disappointed.
Matt, regarding your post–
Hillary could (but never would) quote Neil Diamond: “Well, except for the names and a few other changes, you could talk about me–the story’s the same one.”
America truly lost when Trump and Clintons were confirmed nominees of their respective parties.
Still, let us remind ourselves this morning that the election of Trump means there will NOT be 4 years (or more) of Clintonian poisoning emanating from the White House.
GOK:
Trump represented the far right; Hillary the far left. No one represented whatever is between those positions if there is anyone there.
True there is always a little little something that can be recovered from a disaster. One the Supreme Court may not become the repository for feeling good leftist laws; and the other is perhaps the Clintons have taken their final bows.
Sometimes you amaze me..Trump was reviled by the far right..you’re right so often that when you drop a stinker like that, it’s very surprising. That’s a complement…kindasorta!
Declan:
Did I say that?
No…poorly written comment…He WAS reviled by the far right…you said the opposite in your comment (above) “Trump represented the far right”. In fact, the far right rejected Trump as being too moderate..BTW, the stock market seems to be doing just fine, despite the fainting couch types hoping for a crash. Does that make you feel a little better?