Friends:
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to
you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the
Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing
news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched,
ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our
next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be
saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP.”
Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than
I do right now.
I can see what you’re doing right now. You’re shaking your
head wildly – “No, Mike, this won’t happen!” Unfortunately, you are living in a
bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber where you and your friends are
convinced the American people are not going to elect an idiot for president.
You alternate between being appalled at him and laughing at him because of his
latest crazy comment or his embarrassingly narcissistic stance on everything because
everything is about him. And then you listen to Hillary and you behold our very
first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart
and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy because that is what
the American people clearly want! Yes! Four more years of this!
You need to exit that bubble right now. You need to stop
living in denial and face the truth which you know deep down is very, very
real. Trying to soothe yourself with the facts – “77% of the electorate are
women, people of color, young adults under 35 and Trump cant win a majority of
any of them!” – or logic – “people aren’t going to vote for a buffoon or
against their own best interests!” – is your brain’s way of trying to protect
you from trauma. Like when you hear a loud noise on the street and you think,
“oh, a tire just blew out,” or, “wow, who’s playing with firecrackers?” because
you don’t want to think you just heard someone being shot with a gun. It’s the
same reason why all the initial news and eyewitness reports on 9/11 said “a
small plane accidentally flew into the World Trade Center.” We want to – we
need to – hope for the best because, frankly, life is already a shit show and
it’s hard enough struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck. We can’t
handle much more bad news. So our mental state goes to default when something
scary is actually, truly happening. The first people plowed down by the truck
in Nice spent their final moments on earth waving at the driver whom they
thought had simply lost control of his truck, trying to tell him that he jumped
the curb: “Watch out!,” they shouted. “There are people on the sidewalk!”
Well, folks, this isn’t an accident. It is happening. And if
you believe Hillary Clinton is going to beat Trump with facts and smarts and
logic, then you obviously missed the past year of 56 primaries and caucuses
where 16 Republican candidates tried that and every kitchen sink they could
throw at Trump and nothing could stop his juggernaut. As of today, as things
stand now, I believe this is going to happen – and in order to deal with it, I
need you first to acknowledge it, and then maybe, just maybe, we can find a way
out of the mess we’re in.
Don’t get me wrong. I have great hope for the country I live
in. Things are better. The left has won the cultural wars. Gays and lesbians
can get married. A majority of Americans now take the liberal position on just
about every polling question posed to them: Equal pay for women – check.
Abortion should be legal – check. Stronger environmental laws – check. More gun
control – check. Legalize marijuana – check. A huge shift has taken place –
just ask the socialist who won 22 states this year. And there is no doubt in my
mind that if people could vote from their couch at home on their X-box or
PlayStation, Hillary would win in a landslide.
But that is not how it works in America. People have to
leave the house and get in line to vote. And if they live in poor, Black or
Hispanic neighborhoods, they not only have a longer line to wait in, everything
is being done to literally stop them from casting a ballot. So in most
elections it’s hard to get even 50% to turn out to vote. And therein lies the
problem for November – who is going to have the most motivated, most inspired
voters show up to vote? You know the answer to this question. Who’s the
candidate with the most rabid supporters? Whose crazed fans are going to be up
at 5 AM on Election Day, kicking ass all day long, all the way until the last
polling place has closed, making sure every Tom, Dick and Harry (and Bob and
Joe and Billy Bob and Billy Joe and Billy Bob Joe) has cast his ballot? That’s right. That’s the high level of danger
we’re in. And don’t fool yourself — no amount of compelling Hillary TV ads, or
outfacting him in the debates or Libertarians siphoning votes away from Trump
is going to stop his mojo.
Here are the 5 reasons Trump is going to win:
1- Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt
Brexit. I believe Trump is going to
focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the
upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four
traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican
governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In
the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the
Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of
Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied?
How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well
maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA
helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to
hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that
have royally screwed the people of these four states. When Trump stood in the
shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan primary, he threatened the
corporation that if they did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that
factory and move it to Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built
cars shipped back to the United States. It was sweet, sweet music to the ears
of the working class of Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple
that he would force them to stop making their iPhones in China and build them
here in America, well, hearts swooned and Trump walked away with a big victory
that should have gone to the governor next-door, John Kasich.
From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the
middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn
across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle
Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by
the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a
good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist
from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room.
What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here. Elmer Gantry shows
up looking like Boris Johnson and just says whatever shit he can make up to
convince the masses that this is their chance! To stick to ALL of them, all who
wrecked their American Dream! And now The Outsider, Donald Trump, has arrived to
clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have to like him!
He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the center of the
bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR MESSENGER!
And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney
lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry,
as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to
Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs
these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado
or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put
him over the top. This is how it will happen in November.
2- The
Last Stand of the Angry White Man. Our male-dominated, 240-year run of the USA
is coming to an end. A woman is about to take over! How did this happen?! On
our watch! There were warning signs, but we ignored them. Nixon, the gender
traitor, imposing Title IX on us, the rule that said girls in school should get
an equal chance at playing sports. Then they let them fly commercial jets.
Before we knew it, Beyoncé stormed on the field at this year’s Super Bowl (our
game!) with an army of Black Women, fists raised, declaring that our domination
was hereby terminated! Oh, the humanity!
That’s a small peek into the mind of the Endangered White
Male. There is a sense that the power has slipped out of their hands, that
their way of doing things is no longer how things are done. This monster, the
“Feminazi,”the thing that as Trump says, “bleeds through her eyes or wherever
she bleeds,” has conquered us — and now, after having had to endure eight years
of a black man telling us what to do, we’re supposed to just sit back and take
eight years of a woman bossing us around? After that it’ll be eight years of
the gays in the White House! Then the transgenders! You can see where this is
going. By then animals will have been granted human rights and a fuckin’
hamster is going to be running the country. This has to stop!
3– The Hillary Problem. Can we speak honestly, just among
ourselves? And before we do, let me state, I actually like Hillary – a lot –
and I think she has been given a bad rap she doesn’t deserve. But her vote for
the Iraq War made me promise her that I would never vote for her again. To
date, I haven’t broken that promise. For the sake of preventing a proto-fascist
from becoming our commander-in-chief, I’m breaking that promise. I sadly
believe Clinton will find a way to get us in some kind of military action.
She’s a hawk, to the right of Obama. But Trump’s psycho finger will be on The
Button, and that is that. Done and done.
3- Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump –
it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is
untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really
believing in anything other than what can get you elected. That’s why she
fights against gays getting married one moment, and the next she’s officiating
a gay marriage. Young women are among her biggest detractors, which has to hurt
considering it’s the sacrifices and the battles that Hillary and other women of
her generation endured so that this younger generation would never have to be
told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that they should just shut up and go
bake some cookies. But the kids don’t like her, and not a day goes by that a
millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for her. No Democrat, and
certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8th excited to run out and
vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became president or when Bernie
was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isn’t there. And because this election
is going to come down to just one thing — who drags the most people out of the
house and gets them to the polls — Trump right now is in the catbird seat.
4-
The Depressed Sanders Vote. Stop fretting about
Bernie’s supporters not voting for Clinton – we’re voting for Clinton! The
polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year
than the number of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for Obama. This
is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the
average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat
reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what’s called a “depressed vote” –
meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He doesn’t
volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in
an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. A depressed voter.
Because, when you’re young, you have zero tolerance for phonies and BS.
Returning to the Clinton/Bush era for them is like suddenly having to pay for
music, or using MySpace or carrying around one of those big-ass portable
phones. They’re not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but
many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton is going to have to do something to give
them a reason to support her — and
picking a moderate, bland-o, middle of the road old white guy as her running
mate is not the kind of edgy move that tells millenials that their vote is
important to Hillary. Having two women on the ticket – that was an exciting
idea. But then Hillary got scared and has decided to play it safe. This is just
one example of how she is killing the youth vote.
5-
The Jesse Ventura Effect. Finally, do not
discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any
millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and
are all alone in the voting booth. It’s one of the few places left in society
where there are no security cameras, no listening devices, no spouses, no kids,
no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’ time limit. You can take as long
as you need in there and no one can make you do anything. You can push the
button and vote a straight party line, or you can write in Mickey Mouse and
Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so
many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for
Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or
ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the apple cart and
make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re standing on the
edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel
like to go over that thing, a lot of people are going to love being in the
position of puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see what that
might look like. Remember back in the ‘90s when the people of Minnesota elected
a professional wrestler as their governor? They didn’t do this because they’re
stupid or thought that Jesse Ventura was some sort of statesman or political
intellectual. They did so just because they could. Minnesota is one of the
smartest states in the country. It is also filled with people who have a dark
sense of humor — and voting for Ventura was their version of a good practical
joke on a sick political system. This is going to happen again with Trump.
Coming back to the hotel after appearing on Bill Maher’s
Republican Convention special this week on HBO, a man stopped me. “Mike,” he
said, “we have to vote for Trump. We HAVE to shake things up.” That was it.
That was enough for him. To “shake things up.” President Trump would indeed do
just that, and a good chunk of the electorate would like to sit in the
bleachers and watch that reality show.
I am one of millions of Republicans who voted for Hillary Clinton because much of what I heard Donald J. Trump say on the campaign trail was nonsensical as well as hurtful to many Americans. But I take some comfort in thinking, while he will have to overcome many hurdles to be a good president, he can avoid being a bad president for two reasons.
First, he would not have gotten this far — he is the first non-politician to be elected president since Dwight Eisenhower — if he were lacking in intelligence.
Second, he very likely knows what the rest of us know: Most of the things he promised to do in order to get elected make no sense. And for that reason alone he may not do them. There is also the fact that even a Republican Congress may very well resist his policies, by, for instance, refusing to fund construction of the proposed wall bordering Mexico
Lets start with Mr. Trump’s trade policy. He may not negotiate new trade agreements as president, but it is highly unlikely that he will back out of existing agreements. He probably knows enough economic history to want to avoid the disastrous protectionism of the 1930s that prolonged the Great Depression and doomed the Republican Party to oblivion for two decades. China, Mexico and the Middle East are places where American businessmen, including Mr. Trump himself, make money. He knows, as just about every economist knows, that global trade creates far more jobs than it destroys, and that growing the middle class while cutting off trade is impossible.
Same for immigration. Mr. Trump pandered to nativist instincts, but he knows, as most American businessmen know, that immigration fuels our economy. The United States is the richest country in the world in large part because immigrants, including Mr. Trump’s own grandfather, came here to build businesses and work for businesses, including those owned by Mr. Trump himself. Indeed his wife, our future First Lady, is herself a recent immigrant.
As for foreign policy, Mr. Trump has already rejected the interventionist agenda of spreading “American values.” That was one of the few areas where his campaign positions made sense. He will hopefully not get the United States involved in new quagmires that cost money and lives. His willingness to work with important allies — such as NATO and Israel — has yet to be tested, and his confrontational talk is not encouraging. But he has also spoken of getting America’s allies to share more of the burden of global security. In order to do that he will have to work with them, just as any businessman would work with partners to get the job done.
In order to stay out of trouble in the Middle East and much of Asia, he will also have to be far more accommodating, and respectful, of the Muslim world than he has been on the campaign trail. Discerning between a vast majority of Muslims who want to live in peace, and a small minority who support extremism, is the work of diplomats, generals and presidents, even if opportunistic politicians can hurl bigoted insults at Muslims on the campaign trail.
The last good news from a Trump presidency is that it marks the decline of “religious conservatism” in American politics, which has done much damage to the Republican Party among well-educated voters, particularly women. Not only did Mr. Trump soundly defeat the hero of religious conservatives, Ted Cruz, at the polls; he also does not personally believe, or at least he certainly does not live by, religious conservatives’ agenda.
The fact that religious conservatives backed Mr. Trump in such large numbers shows how desperate they are. Many voters — including myself — attend church regularly but have no interest in using government to deny civil rights to gays and lesbians, control women’s health care choices, or tell people where to go to the bathroom. Aspiring bathroom police hoping for jobs in the Trump administration will be disappointed; he has already said that people can use whatever bathroom they please in the Trump Tower.
Many of us who voted against Mr. Trump because of what he said during the campaign — and his appeal to voters who have a very different vision for our country than we do — will have to wait and see. Our hope is that he will run the country in the practical, if far from perfect, manner that he has run his businesses. (He will certainly need to have a better relationship with the nation’s creditors than he has had with his own.)
We also hope that he will not use government to antagonize and discriminate against the very people, including Latinos, with whom he has made money for so many years. We hope that if anyone has been conned by Mr. Trump, it is the people who deserved to be conned, because their own agenda is so antithetical to the national interest.
Mr. Trump knows that America is already a great country and that, for better or worse, we will survive his presidency. He just needs to forget what he said, and do what he knows are the right things to do.
