Well, what a night!
It was fascinating watching the results trickle in and seeing Wolf Blitzer get way too excited about a 10 vote swing in Fiddle-Faddle County North Carolina and CNN with their magic wall and talking heads and pundits and smug Canadians like me and people around the world telling everyone in the United States how to vote.
And that is exactly what they did. In big numbers. In surprising numbers. In surprising ways. Some people got the result they wanted. Some people got the result they never wanted. But you know what? They voted. And the people spoke. And they said:
Donald Drumpf….
What???? Seriously? Wow – did everyone, including me, totally blow that call!
So what now?
Republican or Democrat it is time to do a little self-reflection.
Notwithstanding that they now control both the executive and legislative branch, Donald Drumpf and his team need to understand that 47% is not a resounding popular mandate and that this campaign has created some major divisions in the country.
The Democrats need to understand they got royally thumped and they need to figure out how they lost an election that shouldn’t have been close and I don’t think it as all about the candidate. There is a reason Donald Drumpf resonated so strongly with certain economically marginalized constituencies and if I’m a Democrat, I’m looking to figure that out because that should also be one of my core constituencies.
There will be lots of time to review the results and parse what happened, but really, no one saw this.
Most of all, it is time to move on and heal a deeply divided country. This has been a massively divisive campaign that laid bare a lot of what is ugly about the United States for all to see. It can’t be glossed over. It needs to be worked on, patiently, methodically and with determination and grit. This is likely not Donald Drumpf’s strength but it is now his job.
I have children and I like to think everything is a teachable moment, so at the end of the day, I need to talk to my daughters about this because they were really interested in what was happening and don’t understand the process that yields a result like this and they don’t understand why someone who has said such hateful things about women and other races would get the support of millions of people.
Kids don’t do nuance very well. They don’t understand that people will often vote their wallet over their conscience. They don’t understand blind partisanship. What they do get is what we told them this morning: You get what you get and you don’t get upset.
This is the opportunity to let them know that the voters always get the government they deserve. The wisdom of the ballot box is what democracy is all about. And the only way to change results and make a difference is to participate and vote. It matters. It did today. It will tomorrow. It will when it’s their turn. Keep informed, keep active, keep participating.
It may not be what “we” wanted, but it is what a whole heck of a lot of others did.
So welcome to your new job Donald Drumpf – best of luck, you will need it. Don’t screw it up.
And by the way, if we are going to be subjected to at least four years of this, I need to know, what’s in it for me?
When do I get my pipeline?
