But some people could never forgive her for being a woman, for being a liberal, for being married to former President Bill Clinton, or for staying married to him through all his infidelities.
Then there were those media outlets that actually promoted Trump, because they either had a financial interest in a close election, or actually wanted a conservative to be President, or wanted the "entertainment" of a Trump Presidency. For the ratings, therefore for the money. You know, like when the entertainer Ronald Reagan was in office. In each of these cases, you people know who you are. And we will not forget.
An idealist might say that he wanted to draw a contrast between himself and "globalists," people who want to bring the world together; that a "nationalist" was someone who was for his own country first. A cynic would say that "nationalist" was short for "white nationalist," and that "globalist" really means "Jew," and that both terms are bigoted.
The Republican Party's nominee was Donald Trump. He was, beyond any question, the most underqualified candidate ever nominated for President by a major party. He had never held public office, either elective or appointive. He had never served in the armed forces, much less held a command in them, like some other men who were not previously politicians. This, alone, should have convinced people that he wasn't fit to be President.
As if that wasn't enough: He was a pathological liar, a known bigot, and a damn fool. Having grown up watching the New York local news, and having seen him on it for over 30 years, I could legitimately tell people that, in spite of being 70 years old, which would have made him the oldest first-time President ever to that point, he was not in mental decline: He was always an idiot.
Even the main argument in his favor, that he was a successful businessman, should have worked against him. For one thing, running a government -- national, state or local -- and running a business are two very different things. Businessmen don't know a damn thing about governing. In other words, even if Trump were a good person with good intentions, he would still have been a lousy President, because he wouldn't have known what the hell he was doing.
For another thing, he wasn't a successful businessman. He was a real estate mogul, and lost money on just about every building he built. He built and operated casinos, and lost money running them. How the hell do you lose money running a casino? And he bought a professional football team, the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League, and ended up destroying the entire league.
As they used to say on the TV show Match Game, Dumb Donald is so dumb!
But not completely dumb. He tapped into the anger that some people had at Hillary. And he let the nation's bigots -- whether they hated people because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any other category -- know that he hated the same people, and would hurt those people at the benefit of those who hated them. It would be government by spite. Essentially, he was giving them permission to be openly bigoted again.
And there were enough people who ate that up that, when combined with those people who, whether they liked Trump personally or not, or whether they thought he was intelligent enough or mentally stable enough to be President or not, were going to vote for the Republican nominee no matter what, because they wanted tax cuts, deregulation and right-wing judges, that he had a chance.
In the election, Clinton won 65.8 million votes, to Trump's 62.9 million. She won 48.2 percent of the popular vote to Trump's 46.1 percent. Gary Johnson, a former Republican Governor of New Mexico, nominated by the Libertarian Party, won 4.5 million votes, or 3.3 percent. Jill Stein, a doctor and the nominee of the Green Party, openly appealed to the supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, who finished a distant 2nd to Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, and got 1.4 million votes, or 1.1 percent.
So, nearly 63 million people saw that he was unqualified, dishonest, stupid, and bigoted, and voted for him anyway. Or, as someone else put it, not everybody who voted for Trump considered themselves racist, but they knew that he was, even if they weren't willing to publicly admit that, and they did not consider that fact to be a dealbreaker.
But, fairly or not, it's the Electoral Vote that matters. Clinton won 20 States, plus the District of Columbia, for 232 Electoral Votes. Trump won 30 States, plus 1 Electoral Vote in Maine, for 306. In the end, there were "faithless electors" who voted for candidates other than those for whom he popular votes in their States said they should, so the final count was Trump 304, Clinton 227.
Two Electors in Texas refused to vote for Trump. One voted for a Republican former Congressman from that State, Ron Paul, who had run for President in 2008 and 2012, and whose son, Rand Paul, was now a Republican Senator from Kentucky, and had run for President in this election. Another voted for Governor John Kasich of Ohio, another of the Republicans that Trump had defeated in the 2016 Primaries. An Elector in Hawaii refused to vote for Clinton. Instead, he voted for Sanders.
And 4 Electors in the State of Washington refused to vote for Clinton. Three of them voted for former General and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had considered running for President in 1996, and had endorsed Clinton in this election.
The other voted for Faith Spotted Eagle, at the time a 68-year-old member of the Yankton Sioux Nation in South Dakota, who had been among the leaders of the attempt to block oil pipelines being built through Native land in her State. She thus became the 1st Native American ever to receive an Electoral Vote, and along with Clinton 1 of the 1st 2 women to receive one. She had run for the State House of Representatives in 2006, coming in 3rd in a Democratic Primary, and went on to repeat this performance in 2018.
Trump won 6 States that the outgoing President, Democrat Barack Obama, won in 2012: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Florida. And some of those votes were close enough to be suspicious: Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes, Wisconsin by 22,748, and Pennsylvania by 44,292.
Those 3 States were won by a total of 77,744 votes -- less than the seating capacity of MetLife Stadium. In Michigan, Johnson got 172,000 votes, Stein 51,000. In Wisconsin, Johnson 106,000, Stein 31,000. In Pennsylvania, Johnson 146,000, Stein 50,000.
Had Hillary gotten another 11,000 votes in Michigan, 23,000 in Wisconsin, and 45,000 in Pennsylvania, it would have swung the Electoral Vote in her favor, 278-260 (not counting faithless electors).
And as the votes climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite, I developed a headache. That's right: Donald Trump literally makes me sick.
Why did Hillary "lose"?
Say what you want about Trump, and I have. But, however despicable, his racist/populist campaign was very effective. It brought out people who had never voted before, because even the Republican nominees weren't bigoted enough for them. Had any other Republican been nominated, these people wouldn't have voted at all.
Trump also had outside help: Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, and Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks (pro-Russian, and therefore nicknamed "RusskiLeaks"), fabricated statements that spoke to the "Crooked Hillary" lie, and a bunch of gullible people believed it. Furthermore, Russians hacked America's voting machines. This is not, as Trump called it, a hoax: The U.S. Senate confirmed this. The Republican-controlled Senate, mind you.
Then there was James Comey. The Director of the FBI, in effect, turned the election with 2 weeks to go by revealing... nothing at all, but raising suspicions about Hillary. Comey went on to get fired by Trump anyway, for apparent disloyalty. He is the one guy who has gone through this who became hated by both sides.
Then there was the media. They were absolutely terrified of being called "liberal," and of the charge that the election was "rigged." So they weren't willing to call Trump out on his crimes and lies, as they had been against the many lies told by John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
Then there were those media outlets that actually promoted Trump, because they either had a financial interest in a close election, or actually wanted a conservative to be President, or wanted the "entertainment" of a Trump Presidency. For the ratings, therefore for the money. You know, like when the entertainer Ronald Reagan was in office. In each of these cases, you people know who you are. And we will not forget.
As usual, conservatives said CNN was against Trump. That's insane: They wanted Trump. But if Ted Turner -- who, I'd heard, was already not well -- were still running CNN, Trump would have been properly investigated well before he was going to make it official, and would have been arrested by the FBI when he got to the bottom of the damn escalator at his candidacy announcement at Trump Tower.
But the biggest culprits of all were the progressive purists. The people who wanted Sanders, but didn't go along with him when he endorsed Hillary. The people who voted for Stein instead. The people who voted for Johnson instead. The people who were stupid enough to actually consider Trump to be more progressive than Hillary. And the people who stayed home, and didn't vote at all. Stein's vote totals, let alone Johnson's, in what turned out to be the 3 key States -- Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin -- were greater than Trump's margin of victory.
"The left" -- a term conservatives throw around, as if they have a clue as to what it means -- does this at least once every generation:
* In 1948, they refused to vote for Harry Truman, and instead voted for Henry Wallace. That time, the Democratic nominee won anyway.
* In 1968, they didn't get Robert Kennedy or Gene McCarthy, so they refused to vote for Hubert Humphrey, a champion of liberalism for 25 years, and mostly stayed home. And we got Richard Nixon.
* In 1980, they didn't get Ted Kennedy or Jerry Brown, so they refused to vote for Jimmy Carter, and mostly stayed home. And we got Ronald Reagan.
* In 2000, they didn't get Ralph Nader, so they refused to vote for Al Gore, and either stayed home, or voted for Nader anyway. And we got George W. Bush.
* In 2016, they didn't get Bernie Sanders, so they refused to vote for Hillary Clinton, and either stayed home, or voted for Jill Stein. And we got Donald Trump.
In 1968, 1980, 2000 and 2016, each time, the left caused the election of the President who was the least like the one they wanted. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me four times, and I'm a progressive purist.
Hillary got more votes than any Presidential candidate had ever gotten, to that point, except for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. So don't tell me she was "unpopular." That is a lie. And don't tell me she was "a flawed candidate." They all are. And no candidate has ever been more flawed than Trump. Does the Democratic nominee have to be without flaws? It wouldn't matter: The Republicans would make flaws up. And Hillary proved to be more popular than he was. But the Constitution says Electoral Votes matter more, and those went for Trump -- suspiciously.
In spite of the vote for Trump, the Democrats actually gained 6 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and 2 seats in the U.S. Senate. Among the new Senators elected were Democrats Kamala Harris of California, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; and Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana. He may have been a Senator named John Kennedy, but, to paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, this Senator was no Jack Kennedy.
As they usually do with the winner of the Presidential election, Time magazine named Trump its Person of the Year for 2016.
On October 22, 2018, at a campaign rally, at the Toyota Center, home of the NBA's Houston Rockets, for the re-election of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas -- who, during the 2016 campaign, opposed Donald Trump, and Trump called his wife ugly and said that his father was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- Trump told the crowd, "You know what I am? I'm a nationalist. Okay? I'm a nationalist. Use that word. Use that word."
An idealist might say that he wanted to draw a contrast between himself and "globalists," people who want to bring the world together; that a "nationalist" was someone who was for his own country first. A cynic would say that "nationalist" was short for "white nationalist," and that "globalist" really means "Jew," and that both terms are bigoted.
The problem is that it doesn't really matter if Trump is bigoted: The bigots believe he is, and thus they believe that he's with them, and that's why they chose him. Therefore, either he is a bigot, which would be a terrible thing; or he isn't one, and he's just playing the bigots to gain and keep power, in the biggest confidence game in world history, which is a different, but still terrible, thing.
On May 31, 2017, I wrote the following:
It's almost June. Let's take a look at Donald Trump's report card, shall we?
Math: F. He doesn't know that tax cuts don't increase revenue.
English: F. His grammar and spelling are atrocious, and what's "covfefe," anyway? (He had just issued the tweet that contained that word. Although he was complaining about the "press," and could have meant "coverage," as of November 8, 2022, we still don't know for sure what it meant.)
Science: F. He denies that climate change is real.
History: F. He doesn't know that antagonizing allies is not a good thing. He doesn't know that allying with dictators is bad, too.
Civics: D. He seems to slightly grasp the fact that he needs Congress to pass his plans, but doesn't seem to understand that people, including journalists, are constitutionally entitled to question and criticize him.
Geography: F. He doesn't know that Israel is in the Middle East. He doesn't know that Palm Beach is not in D.C. He doesn't seem to know that Trump Tower is not in D.C., either, and, thus, neither is his wife. (This was before he used a Sharpie on a map to make a statement he made about a hurricane affecting Alabama as well as Florida "correct.")
Physical Education: F. We went from an athlete to... this.
Sex Education: F. He still hasn't learned that you don't grab a woman by any body part unless you have her consent.
Home Economics: F. Did he sew that toupee himself?
Arts: F. It's not that he has BAD taste, it's that he has NO taste. No wonder he once sold "Trump Vodka": Vodka has no taste, either! Also, it's Russian.
Recommendation: Expulsion. Granted, this won't teach him anything, either, but it will leave the country better off.
If you had told me on the night of November 8 into 9, 2016 that Trump's tenure in office would lead to the deaths of over 1 million Americans, I would have believed it. But I would have guessed it was due to some stupid war he got us into, not an epidemic that his supporters would have been too goddamned stupid to protect themselves from. I would have guessed they wouldn't have cared about protecting others, but not even themselves? They stockpile guns and food for self-preservation, but won't wear a mask for that reason? Dumb Donald is so dumb, but his fans are still dumber.
Now, Joe Biden is the President, and things are so much better, in every way. Some of the problems of the Trump Administration are still there. But at least now, we've got a government that's working on them.
More things in America have been named after Donald Trump than any President other than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. However, he named most of them after himself, and before he went into active politics. There are no schools or roads in America named for him. And, after calling American servicemen who died in service to their country "losers" and "suckers," there will never be an American military base or ship named for him.
As of November 8, 2022, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library only exists online. That is somewhat appropriate, since brick-and-mortar libraries, and museums, encourage learning, while Trump said, the day after his "win," "We won with the poorly educated. I love the poorly educated!"
Trump followed Theodore Roosevelt as the 2nd President born in New York City, and Franklin Roosevelt as the most recent President born in, or representing, New York. But, infamously, he moved to Florida to take advantage of its lower taxes.
(UPDATE: Trump appointed Senator Marco Rubio, who ran against him in the 2016 Republican Presidential Primaries, to be Secretary of State in his 2nd term. This made Rubio Florida's highest-ranking politician ever.)
Trump played himself in movies and on TV shows before running for office. He was played by Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live from 2016 to 2020. Thereafter, on the show, James Austin Johnson played both Trump and Joe Biden.
In a Christmas 2013 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, Trump was played by "Nice" Peter Shukoff, in the Jacob Marley role. Ebenezer Scrooge was played by Zach Sherwin. The "three spirits" were played by "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as J.P. Morgan, as "Christmas Past" (even though he would still have been in Scrooge's future); DeStorm Power as Kanye West, as "Christmas Present"; and Peter again as the Grim Reaper, as "Christmas Yet to Come."
But when Trump ran for President in 2016, it was Lloyd who played him, against Kimmy Gatewood as Hillary Clinton. In 2020, Lloyd played him again, against Peter as Joe Biden. (UPDATE: In 2024, Lloyd played Trump again, against Kimberly Michelle Vaughn as Kamala Harris.)
*
November 8, 2016, like all modern U.S. Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. These 6 games were played in the NBA that night:
* The Brooklyn Nets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 119-110 at the Barclays Center. Andrew Wiggins scored 36 points for the T-Wolves, but Brook Lopez scored 26 to let the Nets to victory.
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 110-106 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. (It's now named the Rocket Arena.)
* The Memphis Grizzlies beat the Denver Nuggets, 108-107 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis.
* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 109-97 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
* The Sacramento Kings beat the New Orleans Pelicans, 102-94 at the new Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. Anthony Davis scored 34 in defeat for the Pels.
* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Phoenix Suns, 124-121 at the Moda Center in Portland. Damian Lillard scored 38 to lead all NBA players on the night.
And there were 10 games played in the NHL:
* The New Jersey Devils beat the Carolina Panthers, 3-2 at the Prudential Center in Newark. The Devils won a game in a shootout. And yet, Trump's win made this only the 2nd-most-shocking event of the night. Certainly, I approved of this one a lot more.
* The New York Rangers lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 5-3 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-2 in a shootout at the Wells Fargo Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.
* The San Jose Sharks beat the Washington Capitals, 3-0 at the Capital One Arena in Washington.
* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 7-0 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. (It's now named the Scotiabank Arena.)
* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
* The Nashville Predators beat the Ottawa Senators, 3-1 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Dallas Stars, 8-2 at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg. (It's now named the Canada Life Centre.)
* And the Arizona Coyotes beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-2 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It's now named the Ball Arena.)
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