Okay, the presidential election is over and your side didn’t win.
I’m sorry. It’s painful. I know how losing feels. I’m a New York Jets fan.
If you want to be sad because our country elected a childish, unqualified sexist who knows less about geography and history than I do, then go ahead. That’s fair.
If you want to be sad because you think President Trump will outlaw abortion, oppress the LGBT community, and put Spanish-speaking people in internment camps, then go ahead. But be aware that you are being ridiculous. The President has neither the power nor the inclination to do those things.
I predict that President Trump will be unable to accomplish anything significant during his four years in the White House. However, just by winning, I think that Trump has already changed our country in three significant ways.
1. Trump Has Made the Democratic Party Liberal Again
Millions of primary voters and the entire Democratic Party leadership chose Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. It’s not because they all love globalization and Goldman Sachs. It’s because they assumed that moderate Clinton was more electable than progressive Sanders. Whoops.
For a generation, the Clinton family has ensured that the Democrats are the party of Wall Street, wealth concentration, and war. Principled Progressives are rightly angry. All the rigged primaries and super delegates in the world aren’t going to be enough to stop the Democrat electorate from nominating an actual liberal for president in 2020. We may actually have a two-party system again.
2. Trump Defeated Big Money
“I turned down a meeting with Charles and David Koch. Much better for them to meet with the puppets of politics. They will do much better!” – Donald Trump on Twitter (July 30)
Since the beginning of the primary season, Donald Trump has faced one heavily-funded candidate after another and triumphed over them.
Trump wasn’t David defeating Goliath. He was David defeating all of the Goliaths. Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz. He annihilated the Bush dynasty. And then he annihilated the Clinton dynasty.
Trump’s campaign war chest was half the size of Clinton’s and it was filled mostly with the small donations of private individuals. Donald Trump defeated Citizens United with his force of will. He proved that fame, charisma, and passion are more powerful than mountains of dirty corporate money.
3. Trump Humbled the Media
The happiest thing for me about Trump’s triumph was imagining all of the miserable journalists.
Every journalist who does not, in fact, work for Breitbart.com attacked and defamed Donald Trump. They woke up Wednesday morning in shock. The election of Trump proved that voters do not read their propaganda. Or even better: people still read the propaganda but they see right through it.
For the record, I’m not talking about the Liberal Media; I’m talking about the Establishment Media.
National Review, The Weekly Standard, and the Atlantic were every bit as hard on Trump as CNN and Michael Moore. If not harder.
The Establishment Media can no longer pretend that they are respected and believed. That makes me gleefully happy.
I’m not going to convince you to like Donald Trump. And I’m not trying.
I’m just observing that Trump’s election has changed three things, probably for the better.
Candidate Trump was a powerful bringer of change. President Trump is a neophyte moving into a gridlock-paralyzed city where both sides hate him. He’s not going to be able to change anything else. You don’t really have to move to Canada.
