A vote for self-interest and against progress

Just when I allow myself to think “people ain’t so bad” they go and do something that proves they really are that bad.  The night after the results came through, I didn’t sleep well and I woke up the next morning with a screaming headache.  Thanks America.  The US election result is all sorts of terrible on so many levels that the awfulness of it just fills me with foreboding like no other election result ever has.  Hyperbole on my part?  Sadly no, it’s probably going to be even worse. 

Trump's win has also seen a frenzy of analysis/retrospective soothsaying (and I'm going to join in).  Many are pointing to voter anger at the political establishment which simply doesn’t listen to them. Kind of like the time my cat didn't like the housesitter I'd arranged and weed in her bag to let me know.  It is certainly a factor – I’ve said it myself – especially in the states picked up by Trump, where the manufacturing industries have declined, leaving workers without job security.  Thing is, exit polling is telling a different and unsettling story.

Those who voted for Donald Trump in big numbers were not those on lower incomes, nor did they uniformly come from areas of high unemployment.  They were older people on middle to high incomes.   Like the Brexit vote, this election was won by older (aged 50 +) voters.  Hillary Clinton was popular with low income earners and younger voters but they didn’t bother to vote.   The Trump vote was up in areas with low unemployment.  White men voted for Trump.  White women voted for Trump.  I have no explanation for this, except some sort of roundabout double reverse sexism.

How the Future Voted.

In fact Trump attracted white voters by the bucketload.  This doesn’t match up to the current thinking of a working class revolt.  This was a victory for reactionaries.  It was a vote for a return to the status-quo by people who have benefited the most from the ways things were and see no imperative for change.  A conservative constituency rose up to protect themselves and their primacy.  They voted for a racist, sexist man because either they agreed with him or they just didn’t think racism and sexism (and any other -ism you’d like to add) was problematic (for them anyway).  Equality for minorities is all very well but not if the majority might have to give something up.  Yes, I’m quite contemptuous of them.

The conclusion I can draw from the demographic breakdowns is that enough people voted listening to the worst angels of their nature.  A phrase that popped into my head was by Gough Whitlam “The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.  In some ways “self-interest” is understandable (not acceptable but understandable).  We live in scary times so people circling the wagons and deciding to protect their own is not unexpected.  But decisions made in fear are rarely good decisions. 

If I was to give them the benefit of the doubt, I would say voters are angry about the priorities of the successive governments (because the money gets a seat at the table).  Trying to be empathetic, I can kind of see how the constant discussion of the difficulties faced by minorities and the epithet of “white, male privilege” must have rankled white men who found themselves on the unemployment scrapheap.  Of course I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time and can give attention to systemic disadvantage wherever it is found.  What I do know is that voting for someone who has every privilege and who looks like appointing a cabinet made up of people just like him, and whose policies will at best further entrench the wealth where it already is and at worst collapse the world economy is probably going to make things worse (unless you're a rich, white dude). 

It wasn’t a landslide win by Trump, just a truly horrifying one.  Voter turnout was low-ish (on percentages, not voting for anyone won).  Within 24 hours of the result, there were major protests in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, which made me like Americans again.  The outcome was equivocal, in that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 1.3 million votes.  Just not where it was needed. 

Another explanation for the result could be more prosaic.  It could simply be that the Republicans had a superior campaign strategy; they knew where they had to get votes and went and got them.   The GOP may have been the beneficiaries of a poor campaign by Hillary Clinton’s mob who had the warning of Brexit and the main lesson of that – they needed to get youth vote (if more people under the age of 45 had voted, Britain would have remained with the EU) – perhaps wasn’t heeded.  Maybe they thought that the very idea of Donald Trump being President was so self-evidently ludicrous that they got complacent.  And the rust belt states were feeling unheard and taken for granted but despite that, Clinton did not visit them which kind of proved their point. 

And what of Hillary Clinton?  When Bill Clinton was being impeached over the Monika Lewinsky affair, I remember hearing (and I can’t source this at all sorry) that it wasn’t just about the GOP getting Bill Clinton, it was about chipping away at any future tilt at the Presidency by Hillary.  They were playing a long game and it worked – I doubt there’s been a candidate for President who has been under as much scrutiny for so many years as Hillary Clinton.  No one has ever really pinned anything on her but by the time she got the nomination, there were so many whispers around her that people couldn’t help but be suspicious.  Yes, she told fibs and yes, she made deals and compromises but that means she’s a politician.  Basically, and this is brilliant strategy now that I think of it, in a time when there is anger at the political machine, Hillary Clinton’s main strength – her experience – was made her greatest liability.   And the history-making aspect – the first woman president – was turned against her as well (we voted for Obama - that's enough progress for now). 

There will also be people who say that Bernie Sanders would have won it.  I guess we’ll never know but the polls* showed he didn’t do as well against Trump as Hillary.  There is much in Bernie Sanders’ platform that I would agree with but if greed and self-interest were the main motivators in this election, the Republicans, who are as cunning as shithouse rats, could easily have painted him as a tax and spend socialist who wanted to take your hard earned money and give it to the underserving.  And we would still be here, shellshocked and uncertain, trying not to think about the ramifications for climate change (except to say any hope we had of mitigating it has probably disappeared.  We are at the point of ‘last chance’, too).

And yes, like everyone else, I called it incorrectly but I was right in not trusting the US polls*. Although the good folk at Merrium Webster dictionary seemed to know something.  

What I am correct about though (and have been saying for a while) is that the conservative side of politics is gradually been taken over by crusading zealots who would like perpetual right wing governments and are trying to make it happen (mainly through gerrymander in congressional districts); they would see nothing wrong with elections and the opposing party being reduced to token gestures.  Too much power will bring them undone though.  It always does.

Mainly if you win one US Presidential election, you are a sure bet for a second term.  Jimmy Carter was the last one-term president (and if you want to feel good about humanity, read up on Carter’s post-Presidential achievements – he’s awesome).  But the Republicans might want to read up on recent Queensland political history.  Campbell Newman was an outsider who made a virtue of being a non-politician who said it like it was and who could get things done.  He won government with a record breaking vote.  But combined with his abrasive personality, his unpreparedness for the job, plus adopting an ultra-conservative policy direction at odds with pre-election promises, he was tossed out after one term.  

There has also been some talk of “could it – an ideologically driven far-right wing government - happen here?”, from people who have forgotten Tony Abbott was Prime Minister.  Can’t blame them for the selective amnesia – we’ve all tried to block it out.

So what now?  There’s another quote by Gough Whitlam which is helpful: “Maintain the Rage**” Thanks Gough.  For the quote and everything else.

And if that doesn’t lift your spirits, there’s always the Joe Biden memes...or Justin Trudeau.

* which were wrong, wrong, wrong but technically within the margin of error but consistently with Clinton ahead, so therefore, wrong, although she did win the popular vote so may be they were a little bit right but misinterpreted or not asking the right people.  I will now look at them as being only a bit less useless than the UK polls (which don’t seem to be even within the margin of error).

** actually the quote is “maintain the rage and enthusiasm” but “maintain your enthusiasm” doesn’t have quite the same revolutionary ring to it.