Hillary Clinton

I spent the morning researching what it takes to move to Canada; I’m serious.

I’m so fuckin’depressed.

What gets me is that 60,000,00 people were stupid enough to elect him.

What about the supreme court?

Me? I’m not depressed, but I am disappointed. I’m disappointed that a 70 year old rich guy learned to use the internet to greater advantage than the republican and democratic parties combined. Worse, I’m disappointed that Trump’s use of the internet exploits its worst quality; that being the ability for a person to write something really shitty about someone who’s in no position to mount a contemporaneous defense.

I’m also disappointed that many of the people who supported Donald Trump don’t realize how lucky Trump is that the constitution (that old musty document they’ve never read) provided for the electoral college and that it alone circumvented the will of the people to elect Hillary Clinton, just like it did to Al Gore.

Of course, I’m also disappointed that many people are having a problem simply hoping that Trump will do a better job governing than they think he’ll do. Isn’t hope what you have left when your candidate doesn’t carry the day? Didn’t we hope back in 2008 and 2012 that those who did not support Obama could at least hope for his success, for the sake of everyone, for the sake of the country? President Obama’s efforts to do exactly that, now that the election is over, make me very proud indeed.

Pessimism serves us no better now than it ever has. At the same time, there’s nothing wrong with speaking up. As John McCain said regarding some of Trump’s early appointments, “Be very vigilant, America.”

Now let’s talk about lies and the people who tell them.

For some reason, the people who elected Trump don’t seem to care that Trump doesn’t care when he lies. They like the lie that Apple will bring its jobs back to the US from China because Trump tells them to. They like the lie that Trump will deport millions by fiat and that Mexico is busy getting ready to take out its check book to pay for the wall, I mean the fence, or whatever Trump says he’s building today. They loved the idea that the election was rigged, at least when they thought their man was about to go down in defeat. They love that Trump keeps telling them that he won big, that his victory is some kind of mandate. But, surely their favorite lie is the one that holds that sometime in the not-so-distant past an uneducated doofus was guaranteed a good job at a fair wage for doing something that didn’t require a lot of knowledge or skill. As if that day ever existed.

The best of our politicians act with what is called enlightened self interest (don’t blame me; this is a term from political science. That’s right, I said science. Sorry.). This explains why a guy like Trump (and Mitt Romney back in 2012) ran on the promise of lower taxes for the rich people of this country.

Bummer. I guess that was a bad example. Lower taxes for the rich pretty much only rang the bell for the idea of self interest. I guess enlightenment is a tougher nut for politicians.

Surely Hillary Clinton was all about enlightened self interest. I mean, she likes minorities and women, doesn’t she? Crash. There went the highest glass ceiling of all. I ask one question and one question only. Had Clinton been any other State Department employee do you think she would have dodged prosecution by the justification that carrying an extra cell phone constituted an undue burden?

Not a chance.

Hillary Clinton has nearly as poor a record on the enlightenment test as Trump. She was as tone deaf to the genuinely progressive chords struck by Bernie Sanders as she was to the non-xenophobic aspects of the populism that Trump campaigned on.

Free college tuition? Sanders’ idea. Take a hard look at trade deals? Trump’s idea.

What was Hillary Clinton’s idea? To ride into the White House on the heels of Barack Obama’s 51% approval rating under the clever campaign slogan: “You like this guy? I’m just like him. Except I’m not. By the way, please ignore the way I savaged him in the 2008 primary contest. I really like him; he’s a cool dude!”

You really have to wonder what really makes Hillary Clinton tick.

So, we are now left to face the results of our living democracy. The country has elected a man who will likely enjoy being called Mr. President far more than he will like actually being our president. He spent his first interview with 60 Minutes walking back much of the feature points of his campaign. Big surprise. This is not a man who has a problem with revision. As time passes, the people who elected Trump will come face to face with a man without a single concern for their plight. Who knows? They may finally learn the difference between the truth and a lie.

While I was watching the election results it came to me: Donald Trump is to the United States as Arnold Schwarzenegger was to California. Arnold became governor after the citizens of California voted to recall Gray Davis way back in 2003. This left a choice between Cruz Bustamante and Schwarzenegger. If you’re unfamiliar with Bustamante just imagine Hillary Clinton as a paunchy latino who was never a first lady but was the 45th Lieutenant Governor of California. Schwarzenegger had money and a dazzling level of name recognition. But, more than this, he had answers to everything wrong with California. He promised to, “pump up Sacramento.” He said that Gray Davis had terminated hope and that it was now time to terminate Gray Davis. The Governator won the election by 1.3 million votes.

Then reality crashed down on him.

Schwarzenegger had difficulty passing a budget which led to him likening California legislators to kindergarteners who needed a time out. His most memorable line was branding those same legislators as girlie men. A couple years later, after watching his popularity tumble further, he changed his tone. The very same unions Arnold had earlier dismissed so readily showed why they have been such longstanding houses of power in this state.

In the end, it turned out that Arnold’s fame and money didn’t mean he had the answers to everything that was wrong with California.

And now there’s Donald Trump…

He has money, but no one’s quite sure how much. He has experience in business, but he also had a $200,000,000 head start. And, like Arnold, Trump says he has the answers to everything that will help make our country great again. Yet, he never told the electorate when exactly the country was previously great and what had robbed its greatness.

Like Arnold, he’s adept at identifying enemies but not so quick to identify allies or to show an interest in building consensus. For that matter, he has done and said little to indicate that he thinks consensus is even something of value.

Say what you want about Schwarzenegger. He was born with nothing and built his fortune by capitalizing on his gifts. In the end, he learned some hard lessons in his time as governor. The longer he held office, the less bombastic he sounded.

We will have to wait to find out whether Donal Trump the president will be a different man than Trump the candidate. I suspect he won’t like the job. He won’t be able to free himself from the relentless schedule. There will be no reality TV shows, no openings of hotels and golf courses just the constant pull in all directions that have plagued every president since Washington.

Then, there’s his age. He’ll be the same age when he’s inaugurated as Reagan was when he took office. Trump displayed great energy throughout the campaign. But a campaign is, by its nature, founded on rhetoric. That’s Trump’s strength. Being president is a grind of details that is not something Trump would seem to enjoy, just as Reagan did not. I’m not even going to talk about the beating Trump’s golf handicap is bound to take.

Then there’s his money and his business. Even though the Trump family seemed blissfully unfamiliar with the concept of a blind trust during the campaign they will surely know all about them by the time Trump takes office. Trump’s term in office will mean he won’t be able to trade stocks or be anything like the head of his own empire that he’s been for decades.

Instead, Trump will be like Eisenhower, giving orders that no one follows.

I also think Trump will find that TV time is a lot more difficult to get when you’re president than when you’re running for president. This is man who needs attention like most men need oxygen. He’ll get plenty, but I’m quite sure it won’t be the kind he likes. His ideas, such as they are, will have to turn into actions at some point. And, when they do, they will be questioned by the press corp, the democrats, the people and inevitably by members of his own party.

Donald Trump doesn’t like being questioned but presidents are questioned endlessly.

I wish Trump luck in renegotiating trade deals, which may have been made without the interests of American workers’ jobs or wages taken into account. I wish him luck in dealing with our county’s immigration issues, but I know that his is the party of cheap labor and I know that minimal control of immigration helps to preserve low wages. I wish him luck dealing with foreign powers though I think he’ll soon learn that Vladimir Putin’s interests don’t align with Trump’s interests, or America’s interests, quite as often as he hopes they will. I wish him luck in lowering taxes but know that doing such constitutes a path this country has gone down before, and that it’s a path that led to massive debt and budget shortfalls. I wish him luck in battling our country’s foes. He has said he can defeat them all easily yet the forty-four presidents who came before him tried to do the same over the last two hundred and twenty seven years. Still, America has never seen a sunrise without a host of new enemies to replace our many vanquished foes.

Still, I don’t need to have faith in any one man to maintain my faith in our republic.

It will long endure beyond the time of Trump and me.

Paul Cervantes

What’s Really Bothering Everyone About Trump Being Elected?

A Lesson from the Past: Trump & Schwarzenegger