Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
By P.J. O'Rourke
I have to admit, this is fun!
I'm not a big Trump fan, but nonetheless, I woke up Wednesday morning in an oddly good mood.
(Although, with a slight headache from staying up too late watching election results and medicating myself with too many antidotes for political commentary – on the rocks with a splash of soda.)
Speaking of good moods, I hope you readers made some money and picked up some bargain stocks Tuesday night when gold soared and shares tanked. But you had to move fast. By midday Wednesday, markets had already decided that they're OK with a Trump presidency.
And I'm OK with seeing the smirk wiped off the face of people who consider themselves to be America's elite… starting with the Clintons.
The election may have been won by Trump, but it was lost by the smug look worn by everyone in the Clinton camp.
And "everyone" was in the Clinton camp – every sanctimonious celebrity, preachy egghead, public goody-two-shoes, plaster saint pundit, simon-pure editorial writer, and mealy-mouthed business bigwig. The Clinton campaign was a who's who of the self-righteous and a what's-what for the holier-than-thou.
About time somebody let the air out of them.
I'm also enjoying watching the Clintons and their clique try to blame the election loss on something – anything – other than the Clintons and their clique.
There's the FBI excuse.
But it's not like Hillary's e-mail scandals hadn't been front and center throughout the campaign. And FBI Director James Comey let Hillary off the hook – again – four days before the election. Comey put the spotlight on Hillary's aide, spooky-ooky lost-member-of-the-Addams-family Huma Abedin and her obviously insane estranged husband Anthony Weiner.
Voters were thereby given a timely reminder of just how icky things can get in the Clinton inner circle. This, however, does not account for Hillary's loss. After all, the ickiest reminder of all – Bill Clinton – had also been front and center throughout the campaign. Ever since Monica Lewinsky, it has been impossible to look at Bill and not see an entire presidential administration in its tighty-whities.
There's the "glass ceiling" excuse.
"Americans are just too backwards to elect a woman boss."
But people all over the world – some at least as backwards as Americans – have elected women.
Aung San Suu Kyi runs Burma. Angela Merkel runs Germany. Theresa May runs Britain, and Margaret Thatcher used to. Then there was Golda Meir in Israel and Indira Gandhi in India. Gandhi was first elected in 1966, at a time and in a place that was far more sexist than the U.S. here and now.
It wasn't "a woman" American didn't want to elect. It was Hillary.
And there's the "whitelash" excuse.
"Trump was elected by grumpy old white guys, and nobody but grumpy old white guys."
This doesn't add up. I've done the math. In the three generations of my immediate family, we have nine people and only a third of us qualify as grumpy old white guys. And one of us has been dead for years.
Trump was elected for the simple reason that the federal government is broken and everything we've tried to do to fix it hasn't worked. When everything you've tried doesn't work, try something different. In this case, very different.
The big top has collapsed on the political circus, so let's go to the real circus instead.
We don't know whether Trump can remove the red nose, get out of the giant shoes, doff the fright wig, scrub the greasepaint off his face, and become an effective ringmaster. But it will be fun to watch him try.
Meanwhile, in other ways, I'm disappointed with the election results.
For one thing, I'm disappointed with the Libertarian Party. Here was a chance for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld to go to Washington and paint the town red. But their campaign was like watching paint dry, except they forgot to bring any paint.
More to the point, I'm disappointed because I'm a conservative/libertarian/sort-of Republican who is convinced that this country is headed for disaster. And I wanted a left-wing/liberal/for-sure Democrat to be in charge when things went to hell.
And things will go to hell. This is because of the Big Bang speed of expansion in the size of our government... and the Deepwater Horizon oil slick spread of that government's scope... and our fat deficit, morbidly obese debt, and free-lunch monetary policy.
I don't think Trump can or will reverse these trends, not even with the help of a solidly Republican House and Senate and the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court full of Scalia clones who live to the age of Methuselah.
The reason I don't think so is because the Republicans have been here before. From 2003 to 2007, the GOP dominated all three branches of government and showed no sign of getting that government to slow down, clean up, or get fit. From 2003 to 2007, the national debt grew by $2.2 trillion.
And that was back when Republicans were made of sterner stuff. Not like the Trump Brand™ "Big Promise Populists" who will control Congress for the next two years. They'll be too busy vowing to build a wall here, raise a tariff there, and find a "better" replacement for Obamacare someplace else. (In the language of politicians, the word better always means "more expensive.")
My personal strategy for the 2016 election was to see Hillary and the Democrats get elected, thereby hastening the crisis and getting the going-to-hell over with sooner. Let Hillary and her party take the blame. My hope was that the Democrats would join the Federalists and the Whigs in the American political party recycling bin, and that "Hillary Clinton" would replace "Millard Fillmore" as America's punchline president.
But the electorate has decided otherwise. It's all over for the former First Lady and Secretary of State. The electorate has decided to leave Hillary only wishing that she could go down in history for being as illustrious and well-remembered as Fillmore.
And I, for one, honor the electorate's decision.
Regards,
P.J. O'Rourke