America is great, with or without Trump
Florida was a major stop on Tuesday night’s nightmare tour for the Democrats, because for days it had been seen as a major cause for hope. Early voting numbers were through the roof, and they suggested a surge of Hispanic voters, especially in Miami-Dade County. Cuban-American affinities for the GOP aside, that was widely seen as excellent news for the Dems.
“Basically … one in three Hispanics didn’t vote in 2012 in Miami-Dade and have already cast a ballot,” University of Florida political science professor Daniel A. Smith told Bloomberg News. “I have a hard time believing that many of these firsttime voters are in the Trump camp.”
Indeed, they were not. Clinton got 81,000 more votes in Miami-Dade than Barack Obama did in 2012, and 225,000 more across the state.
“We had record-high Hispanic turnout (in early voting) — it wasn’t just cannibalizing votes that were cast on election day in 2012,” Smith said Wednesday.
“(Hillary Clinton) actually had close to a million votes cast by Hispanics prior to election day, and 36 per cent of those were by people who didn’t vote in 2012. She expanded her base, she expanded the Democratic coalition during early voting, and maintained much of Barack Obama’s base.”
Only Trump brought out even greater numbers: he won 428,000 more votes in Florida than Mitt Romney in 2012, and lost votes in only three counties to Clinton’s 40.
Older people, whites, Cuban-Americans, men, the wealthier, the evangelical and the college-educated all broke for Trump in greater numbers than anyone anticipated. The demographics Clinton needed to step up for her, notably white women, couldn’t close the gap.
The result in Florida wasn’t shocking, but it reflected a nationwide phenomenon that few saw coming and left the world, justifiably, in shock.
A madman, or someone who very convincingly portrayed a madman for 18 months, is headed to the White House, with a Republican-majority House of Representatives and Senate. One might take solace in the thought of those chambers repudiating some of his totally un-Republican ideas — abandoning NATO, rejecting free trade — if only so many of their members hadn’t supported him.
One might take solace that until quite recently, Trump’s politics seemed fairly moderate: amnesty for some illegal immigrants; pro-choice; he still talks up gay rights. But surely all that only invites further uncertainty as to what comes next.
Many Americans have very serious reasons to worry: about abortion rights, policing and basic civil rights, about emboldened extremist groups, about being deported, about job losses if Trump’s gonzo economics don’t work out. This is one of the craziest things to happen in my lifetime, and I’m suspicious of anyone who’s genuinely elated. No one, surely, knows where this is going.
I headed out into the Miami sunshine Wednesday morning in search of normalcy, and found it. On the beach, men who have no earthly business wearing Speedos were wearing them; elderly brown-leathery couples were strutting around mostly nude; as I parked my car, a methamphetamine enthusiast narrated everything I did. (“Locks the car! Forgets something, so he’s going back!”)
The famous Café Versailles in Little Havana was the scene of a raucous Trump celebration Tuesday night. (One reveller told local news she hoped Trump would help out honest, tax-paying illegal immigrants.) Wednesday lunchtime, patrons in a lengthy lineup laughed at and took selfies with a pickup truck festooned with Trump/ Pence paraphernalia and information about the UN’s plan to “take control of our local law enforcements and create a global police military.”
“Dios mio,” a woman in pink medical scrubs declared on seeing it, rolling her eyes.
“This is a very scary day,” a barista in South Beach told a regular customer in a mixed English/Spanish conversation. Soon, they were joking ruefully about moving to Mexico or Canada — but they were, clearly, joking.
America is not this election campaign. America will be fine — as fine as it was, anyway. I have so much time for this country, despite its innumerable, maddening, sometimes sickening flaws, which often grate against its most excellent founding principles. Its people are so open and friendly and optimistic, even in the worst of circumstances, that Canadians are often reduced to accusing them of being irresponsibly optimistic. Americans won’t stand for the worst President Trump might unleash. I have faith in that.
But still … President Donald J. Trump.
“The path that this country has taken has never been a straight line,” President Obama said Wednesday. “We zig and zag, and sometimes we move in ways that some people think is forward and others think is moving back. And that’s OK.”
Well no, it’s not “OK.” Those zigs and zags can be god-awful: pointless wars, torture, mass incarceration, and that’s just in recent years. But it was amusing during the election campaign to see Canadians tweeting their appreciation for the U.S. under the hashtag #TellAmericaItsGreat — the idea being there was no need for Trump to make it so “again.”
That’s not something Canadians would typically go out of their way to admit, but it’s true. America is great: it is large, it is important, it contains multitudes and it fails as big and hard as it succeeds. Trump’s campaign was beyond the pale. Many of those who supported it absolutely are not. But the republic faces a serious challenge, and the entire world must now contend with how this extraordinary outcome plays out.