Why was Trump elected President?

I wrote this on Tuesday, in part as a way of coping with the distress of the choice Americans were making.  It's now really time to move past why they did it, and on to dealing with the fall-out, but it remains relevant as to why Trump was elected in the first place.  Dealing with him as President and living with half a nation of supporters will require some degree of understanding and acceptance.

Note that this has nothing to do with Buddhism.  Some aspects of coping may; I might get around to another post.  For now this post is just about why he was elected.

November 8th, 2016

Trump will be President, elected just now.  I'm a bit shocked by that, and sickened, really.  I was in the camp of people thinking he was probably the least qualified Presidential candidate in the history of the US, clearly unfit to lead the country on so many levels.

My own opinion and which parts I think are gaps are sort of secondary to what I'll write about here.  It's too late to do much with defending Hillary, or explaining how much or little of what was said about her seems accurate, or which parts seemed to only be spin.  The FBI came out last minute and said the email issue was nothing, in results from a second round of investigation, but people didn't care.  They weren't voting about that.  So why were they?  I really don't know, but writing about it seems therapeutic, so I'll pass on my take.

1.  Rural, racist white Americans elected Trump

Of course that's partly true; he swept the white racist vote, but that must only be a part of the story.  I must admit I am a bit put off by Trump coming across as so clearly racist as he did, but it was never a central selling point.  Trump was slow to reject a KKK endorsement, until noticing not doing so played badly, called illegal immigrants from Mexico rapists, drug dealers, and criminals, and his election was praised by David Duke as a victory for "our people," which it really was.

The real story is about why anyone that isn't uneducated, or white, or who doesn't dislike minorities or Muslims also voted for Trump.  As I see it anyone who is Mexican, Muslim, black, gay, or female shouldn't have voted for Trump, based only on self-interest, but votes from plenty of people in those groups pushed him over the edge.

42% of women voted for Trump, per CNN poll.  really?!

The best article I've read explaining more about this was How Half of America Lost It's F***ing Mind.  The explanation is simple:  there is a divide between rural and urban American culture, the establishment and outsiders, and Trump exploits that by appealing to the "other half."  He's definitely not one of them, he's a billionaire from the city, but his message works, to some degree even for non-whites.  There is something to that, or maybe that's most of it.  A map of voting by county seems to point to that being it:

voting by county:  cities blue, all else red

The theory isn't quite as simple as rural people resent urban control and influence, a close parallel to the rich versus poor story line, but that's part of it.  I'm from the country, from rural PA, but it's hard for me to completely relate to a general worldview from back there.  But then, my parents are well educated, and to some extent that alone brings in a divide.  I was taught to be intolerant of racism; that's a bit outside the norm where I'm from.

But the author tried to explain the perspective, and I sort of get it.  Most of the people I grew up with didn't "get out" quite to the same extent as I did, to other countries in addition to other places in the US, and the changes that came along with that they didn't experience.  The same is true of my parents, just in a different sense; they made it to college, and broadened worldview.  But few of my old high school friends live locally now, so they're sort of all over the place related to which "traditional" perspectives stuck (no good way to put that; I don't mean if they still like the Christmas season).

It's almost as if I'm saying that the Civil Rights Movement never happened for many people, and I'd love to be writing out a different kind of post now, about how reason and broader perspective prevailed.  But it didn't.  Somehow a black person was elected President (half black; just as black as MLK to those that see it as negative though) and for whatever reasons some relatively opposing views took hold instead.  It might not be as simple as push-back about race, or an anti-political-establishment trend, or a woman not being fit to be President, in this case.  I'll review a second possible explanation.

2.  Authoritarian explanation

For many Trump sounding a lot like Hitler was a strong negative, but this article explains that may be exactly why he is so popular.  Here I'm not talking so much about the Hitler trend to kill all Jews, but the more general tone, about taking an oddly structured approach to problem solving.  The theory is that when people feel unsettled they tend to gravitate more towards a strong leader, or someone that projects that image, that is based on that type of authoritarian stereotype.  Such a person would advocate using force instead of reason, would blame a minority instead of looking for real, complex solutions, and would use fear to trigger people to respond in ways they normally wouldn't.  It's supposed to sound exactly like Hitler.

Mind you I'm repeating a theory, one possible alternative suggested by people that were already into the study of "authoritarian" behavior patterns.  It could be partly this, or maybe the urban/rural trend fits better, or perhaps most likely different patterns worked together.

Why are people open to such triggers now; why would fear play such a role in their decision making?  What threats cause them to feel a level of instability that would enable a turn to simple, irrational solutions to complex problems, even if they violate their own typical beliefs?  9/11 was awhile back,  ISIS is as quiet as they've been in awhile, and the US economy is ok now, per most indicators, at least.

That part isn't completely clear.  Different kinds of threats might work, per this theory, so terrorism or economic uncertainty could do the trick, or both.  It really could just relate to exposure to ideas that support these triggers.  Constant exposure to these ideas, via the media coverage of the election, or due to popular right-wing media, could help plant enough of this line of thought that for half the public impending economic and terrorism threats are real.  Or maybe the long term trends towards expecting the end of the world were a part of that, a cause in addition to an effect, for awhile only from a fringe, but developed to become more mainstream.  Hard to say.  I'm starting to drift a bit with this speculation, but the stress of the election process itself may have triggered responses normally reserved for reacting to specific fears.

3.  Anti-Hillary

Why did this take?  Was it ever even a factor?  It seemed completely clear that she won all three debates, that put in the same room to discuss issues she prevailed.  She seemed to know a lot more about running the country, seemed clearer, a better communicator, and much more stable.  But then, problems the country faces or policy positions didn't come up much, since the debates were over who is a worse candidate.

That always felt like a potential gamble to me, that she never really tried to split the topic set into why Trump was a worse choice, his faults, and also develop why she is better, to focus on the issues.  Some might claim, of course she did that, but it sort of seemed the parts about issues were filler in between the jabs and baiting, even if those were offered in a much more composed fashion by her than Trump.

To me almost all the most serious accusations against Hillary were just spin.  She might have had that one guy killed (per Wikileaks), but all that seems like speculation, with even "evidence" posted by a biased source not covering much that is incriminating.  I read a number of the transcripts of Wall Street speeches that were supposed to be damning, and there wasn't much in those at all, some general ideas about developing the economy.  If someone extrapolated that to define policy statements--stretching it a good bit to say what she didn't actually say--and compared it to Obama's policies they don't match.  So what?  Ideas like "I hope someday we have free trade in the region" couldn't possibly be incriminating.  It seemed like they relied on people to not actually read the content to make the points, but then that always was a safe bet.

I'm reminded of the idea of "which candidate would you rather sit down and have a beer with?"  Wasn't that mostly from the George W election?  Are people really that shallow, that in the end gut feel for how much you would like a candidate in person is the overriding deciding factor?  Maybe.  She isn't warm, in terms of public persona; it's not one of her things.  I find Trump despicable but I get it that opinions vary on that.  Maybe if I'd liked the Apprentice more.  But to me that really was the deal-breaker; how could people watch that show and say this guy should be the President?  He was mean spirited, irrational, petty, condescending, and nearly incoherent.  Or was that just my take?

I almost left out the most obvious point to be made:  she's a woman.  To me that makes no difference, but if was a deal-breaker for 8% of the people outside Trump's core group that's the entire swing.  Or it could have shifted half that number over, or multiple factors including that could tie together.

4.  Anti-Bill Clinton / Obama

You might say, but those guys aren't running, it really shouldn't matter.  The connection to Obama is clear enough; she was part of his cabinet.  I think a main thread beyond those first two different theories, and also the third potential factor, is that ordinary reason can take a back seat to gut-feel.  Trump definitely used Bill Clinton as a defense for his own issues, specifically related to a tape one could easily interpret as him claiming he routinely commits sexual assault.  Maybe Bill did commit some heinous crimes; it never seemed relevant enough to sort through the two versions of spin in the media.

The general impression of Obama seems positive at this point, but I'm not so sure; that's likely not true among the 47.5% that voted for Trump.  In terms of stats an Obama Presidency was very successful, but I think the people that care about that level of reality were already voting for Clinton.  The most committed racists were definitely not voting for anyone associated with Obama, but again that's the minority on the other side, already committed.  None of this seems to explain the middle-ground support, as the first two theories may.

It's possible that other factors acted as triggers, but in a different sense than the authoritarian explanation.  For some gay marriage may have been too much, or Obama-care never working out, and that may have set off a reaction against Obama and Hillary Clinton.  One friend seems to have based his entire opinion on Benghazi, about an attack on US staff in a diplomatic compound in Libya.  The idea there was that she was personally responsible for a terrorist attack for not ramping up security, related to a perceived threat.  It seems unlikely there was any tie to her (see a British newspaper source summary), but this seems to be how spin works, a core of some sort of truth can be turned into something else.

5.  Anti-establishment

This article on how to cope with Trump's election (short version:  just relax) they propose one core reason:


In their case, it's a belief that the system is fundamentally broken and that Hillary Clinton would have been more of the same. Trump rode a wave of support from people who've spent the last eight years watching terrifying nightly news reports about ISIS and mass shootings and riots. They look out their front door and see painkiller addicts and closed factories. They believe that nobody in Washington gives a shit about them, mainly because that's 100-percent correct.


Hard to argue with the last point; it's something I've believed for the last 25 years.

Thinking Trump would be any better is really grasping at straws, but maybe for some they were just down to that.  In practice he could be much, much worse, because he has his own relatively unbalanced perspective and agenda, and all the parts that might help the average person probably won't work out.  Even one point alone seems a deal-breaker to me; ignoring climate change at this critical time is only going to make the disaster that is definitely coming that much worse.  But all that is another subject.

Maybe beyond Obama not implementing "change we can believe in" people were just sick of the political system.  Hillary is a clear part of that, Trump a clear outsider, and voters were willing to overlook any other differences and go with that.  Maybe, or so the story goes.  I kind of doubt it being as much a factor as the rest, but I'm going to keep saying maybe the factors all mixed together.

There is no clear reason why people would want to vote for a non-politician now more than at any time in the past.  Combined with people believing some of the other spin, about her ties to Wall Street (she does make lots of money speaking), it sort of could be a factor.  But George W Bush came from an oil industry background, and invaded a country that produces oil on clearly false premises, with business associates earning a fortune in the rebuilding process, and he was re-elected, after doing all that.  So speaking fees are worse?  Maybe the idea is that GW never received anything himself, which would be a bit naive.

It makes a lot more sense than the rest, related to racism, or the negative spin about Hillary sticking, or fear triggering people to turn to a leader that's clearly not qualified.  But my intuition tells me that reason wasn't a big part of what happened, that choice for President.  People voting for Bernie--the figurehead for the more liberal version of anti-establishment sentiment--didn't switch to vote for Trump.  Or did they?

The latest count was 59,698,506 for trump (47.5%) to 59,926,386 (47.7%) for Hillary; odd Trump lost the popular vote, but then so that can go.  That's a lot of people, that first Trump count; they had to come from somewhere, and surely that can't all be conservative, right-wing Republicans.  So back to the same question, why would a middle-ground voter support Trump?  It seems crazy but maybe some Bernie Sanders supporters could have flipped all the way to far right.  Nah...  Maybe...

6.  Other 

Really, what the hell were all those people thinking?  

Half the leaders in the Republican party either didn't endorse Trump or endorsed Hillary, because he was that far from being a plausible candidate.  Both former President Bush's endorsed Hillary.  It just makes no sense.  This would tie back to the anti-establishment theory, though, that if the Republican party would reject Trump he must be doing something right.

Both of the first two articles and theories predicted that those inputs didn't need to make any sense at all, that it wasn't one bit about that (those related to a rural vs. urban and authoritarian explanations).

Or could it have been a perfect storm?  A percent here or there most influenced by this or that, amounting to a narrow win?

Whatever it was media spin definitely played a role, on both sides.  From what I was seeing online major papers clearly backed one candidate or the other, with bias clear in their reporting, even choosing poll numbers that supported "their" candidate.  That was always true of Fox news, but in this case no sources seemed clearly impartial, except maybe the BBC and such, those outside the country.

It would be odd if the factors played out such that neither candidate was at risk of losing their 40% of the vote, but somehow the anti-Hillary spin clicked better than the anti-Trump spin.  Shows like Saturday Night Live ridiculed Trump, but while the spin on the other side focused in on Trump's own words (Mexicans are rapists, grab them by the...) Hillary's claimed she was behind murdering people, most likely dark stories spun out of thin air.

I have no idea.  The people spoke; that's it.  It's too bad that a slight vote-count minority spoke louder through the electoral college system, or that the people said a clearly unqualified candidate should be the President, but that's democracy.  Either Trump really will make America great again or the country really did just take a big leap backwards, and he might help trigger a major recession or start another war.

About climate change, it's really too bad we're back to the US rejecting that, letting scientifically proven knowledge drop, potentially dooming the planet.  Really we're already doomed, it's down to a matter of timing, but that's no reason to stop trying.  Making an enemy of China would be a nightmare, and high on his list is targeting their monetary policy for fixing exchange rates.

As for the rest just as likely things will land in the middle, and the usual ups and downs will continue.  As they said in the one article, to some extent it will be necessary to just relax, even if things seem to keep taking a turn for the worse.