The Election of Donald J. Trump

A Brief Comment on Trump’s Election to the Presidency

   Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. My immediate comment was that “the improbable has happened; the unthinkable has to be thought about. I’m glad that I’m old.” Garry Wills replied with a deeper insight, “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad."
   There is nothing phony about this victory; Trump got those millions of votes. But why wasn’t it anticipated? My perhaps oversimplified answer is that few members of the squadron of opinion writers actually talked to many members of the class who made Trump the next president. These folks were not a significant part of those writers’ audience and probably few looked at the journals in which they appeared. That white working class population was probably under represented in those polls by virtue of unresponsiveness. While relying on the polls told those pundits a lot, it was not enough to enable them to predict what this white working class population was able to do. They were able to elect Donald J. Trump to the presidency. Pray for the country.

  I now want to add a further point. The above aims to summarize a view as to why Trump's victory was not predicted. I now want briefly to add a substantive proposal as to why Trump actually won. The truth is that the establishment of the past years has not done much, if anything, for the minimally educated white class who are hurting from the loss of jobs. The cause of that loss is complicated, but if you are the butt of it, you blame whoever is in charge. In charge was the Democratic establishment that has now been swamped. Change, was the underlying cause; anything is better than what we have. Of course, that's to be seen.