2016-11-09 By Robbin Laird
In an historic election, the American people of chosen Donald Trump as there President.
To say that there is shock in the media and among the Inside the Beltway folks would be to put it mildly.
I remember walking into the Pentagon after Reagan became President to find virtually ever office empty of political appointees.
The President fired everyone before appointing his own. I would assume we could see something similar across the board.
Earlier this year (June 12, 2016), I wrote a piece asking the question of what this election was most like in American history.
And I am going to reprint it here for it identifies how fundamental a shift we are talking about, and would suggest that of the two options, the second one is the most likely, namely the progressive movement which played out in the late 19th century happening again in the wake of the election of President Trump.
This year’s presidential election is unusual.
But what do we get from The Washington Post?
This sort of thing:
How does Donald Trump stack up against American literature’s fictional dictators? Pretty well, actually.
Or this:
Clinton and Trump are primed, but the voters are . . . perplexed
Ok let us help The Washington Post become less perplexed.
One candidate came completely from outside the normal political process to be in the position to be nominated as the candidate of the Republican Party.
Most of the press analysis has really focused on what they do not like about Mr. Trump, but miss the core point that the establishment was overwhelmed by popular support for Mr, Trump.
At a minimum, this would make him the anti-establishment candidate, and certainly one many Republican leaders are, at best, ambivalent about.
And for the Inside the Beltway High Priests, whether journalists or PhDs or former think tankers who are really simply former staffers waiting for their next job, Trump is an anathema – he is NOT one of them and they really do not know him and he reflects concerns which are not theirs.
The establishment candidate will by Hillary Clinton who made one of the most amazing comments during the campaign when she argued that as a woman she could not be part of the establishment.
This might have been true 30 years ago, but wake up Hillary and look the world in 2016! There could not be any more establishment a candidate than you are.
Which explains why a marginal candidate like Senator Sanders could mount a surprisingly effective candidate against a well-backed, well-funded and establishment orchestrated candidate like HRC.
If you put Trump and Sanders together one realizes that a strong majority of voters in the primaries voted AGAINST the political establishment.
That is the real story of 2016 and even if HRC becomes President the revolt will continue and perhaps accelerate.
This year’s campaign could well be the third wave election in American history.
The first wave was the collapse of the Democratic Party in the 1850s in front of the slavery challenge. Lincoln challenged the the political establishment and came to power as the country faced Civil War. The political process was reestablished after the Civil War but was very different from before.
The second wave was the progressive revolt of the 1890s against the corrupt political parties and the role of Theodore Roosevelt in challenging the political order and generating a process of change was significant. The parties changed again as the political process was clearly ruptured.
With significant political upheaval on the left and right and significant unhappiness with the current political parties, we could easily be witnessing a significant turning point when the ability of the political elites to ignore fundamental concerns of the publics will lead to a restructuring of the political system.
Trump clearly poses that challenge and HRC will seek to rally the forces of the establishment to defend the current structure of government.
There has been no better symbolism of pushing government down the throats of Americans than Obamacare and after all HRC was the original Obamacare advocate before Obama.
A Trump election will be a significant input to a process of change not only Inside the Beltway but within U.S. national politics.
I am asked by many Europeans to explain the Trump phenomenon to them for if they simply read the main stream media there would no way to actually understand what the dynamic is all about.
I usually refer them to Milo Yiannopoulos and this interview with Dave Rubin: