Sorry, Hillary, winning isn’t enough
Defeating Trump accomplishes nothing.
Actually, that’s not fair. Keeping him out of the White House probably delays the risk of a tweettriggered nuclear holocaust. Sad to think that a tiny-member meme could bring about Armageddon, but such are the times in which we live.
The fact remains that aside from dodging our outright extinction, beating Trump on Nov. 8 will resolve very little. If anything, it will leave the United States in a place that you might even describe as deplorable.
Here’s why: Trump will lose with the votes of 60 to 65 million Americans in his pocket. Even an outright pounding will only give the Democrats a plurality of five to 10 million votes. And that’s a big If. This week CBS News showed Clinton with a national lead of a mere four per cent — after Trump experienced what most observers described as the worst week of self-inflicted gobsmackery any presidential candidate has endured in memory.
Think on that. Mere kilometres to our south there exists a virtual nation of Trump voters that is nearly twice the population of Canada. These are people who have demonstrated, by virtue of conscious effort, their desire to place an orange-faced loon in charge of the world’s most potent military. And they’re permitted to roam around freely without ankle monitors or court-ordered medication.
Think I’m being an elitist snot? Or exaggerating? Here’s a quick sample of what respected sources such as Pew, YouGov, the New York Times and PPP tell us about the very sizable group of citizens who support Trump:
69%
believe that immigrants are a burden to America;
33%
believe Hillary Clinton worships Lucifer;
62%
believe that President Obama is a Muslim; 59% believe he was born outside of the United States;
24%
believe that conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia was murdered;
69%
believe that if Trump loses, it will be because the election was rigged;
33%
believe gays and lesbians should be barred from entering the United States;
70%
believe that the Confederate Flag should fly atop government buildings in the Deep South;
20%
believe it was a mistake to have freed the slaves; and
53%
believe that Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zant was the Archangel Gabriel Of these many statements, I made up only one. It wasn’t about slaves.
The point is that a lot of these people believe damned strange things, sometimes scary things. And a bunch of them are raging angry. Can you guess what’s not going to take the edge off that ire? How about four years of Hillary as president?
It might come off as a joke, but it’s not. Leading a nation that is half-composed of people who feel so aggravated, so threatened, so left out of the middleclass bargain that they’re willing to turn to the likes of Donald Trump is a very serious cause for concern. And Clinton needs to take it more seriously than anyone. Because as president, it will become her burden.
A full month before she even wins the Oval Office, the fundamental task of Hillary Clinton’s presidency is therefore already clear — she must stanch the crazy.
She must lead tens of millions of Americans — all of whom will have voted against her — away from anger, irrationality and ugliness and toward something more accepting, inviting and constructive. She needs to address rather than dismiss those forces that make Trump supporters so distrustful of the status quo.
Above all, she must avoid inadvertently pushing these people to even further extremes — with, for example, the kind of snark that began this very column.
And she’ll have to act fast, because whatever charlatan inevitably fills the void that Trump leaves behind, it’s a safe bet they’ll arrive sooner rather than later.
Encouragingly, history shows that this can be done. In the 1930s, FDR was confronted with a country shred by economic despair and social incohesion. Then, like now, millions were attracted to small leaders who made big sounds about restoring lost pride and returning order to America. FDR had the skill and the wit to let men like crypto-fascist Charles Lindbergh undo themselves. He offered practical hope to those who felt disenfranchised and gradually restored public confidence.
Over time, he led most of those alienated Americans away from the margins and back toward the great middle. Of course, he had the rallying cause of a world war to fortify his efforts. But he proved it’s not impossible.
Can Clinton follow his example? She has no option other than to try. Contrary to what the Democrats have been telling us, Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to be a change agent. She’ll need to be a calming agent. America needs settling — and that means its president must find ways to defuse and diminish the ranks of the agitated.
Defeating Trump isn’t the end of this effort. It’s merely the start.
If that all sounds daunting, just consider the alternative. Trump could still win.