Work together to put America on a new road to greatness
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Although I see every one of President-elect Trump’s own character flaws revealed in the derisive nicknames he projected onto his political opponents, this election was not about character. Exit polls showed it was about Trump supporters’ desire for a change of direction.
The popular vote showed that Trump’s just over 110,000-vote victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania trumped Clinton’s over two million vote edge in other states by 20-1 only in the Electoral College. The change road need not be the opposite direction on the same road. Many other roads are possible.
During Obama’s presidency, Republican politicians in Congress successfully promoted the narrative that our country is headed in the wrong direction. They tirelessly pointed to the Affordable Care Act as the wrong direction for our health care system, a policy passed unilaterally by a Democratic majority in Congress. Tea Party Republicans ousted the Democratic majority in the House. Thus ended legislative compromise on nearly all future legislation proposed by the Obama administration. Gridlock prevailed. Politics as the art of compromise was replaced by partisanship. The right direction was marketed as the opposite of any proposal by the Obama administration.
The opposite of internationalism became Trump’s nationalism that rejected all multinational foreign policy decisions on war, trade, and defense treaties that limited unilateral decisions by the United States. This nationalism was marketed as “Put America First” and “Make America Great Again.” Trump trumpeted the message that without secure borders, we have no nation. He promised to secure our southern border by building a wall, as Israel had done as a security measure against the Palestinians.
He further appealed to nationalism with both anti-immigration and law-and-order rhetoric. He espoused a “vote your pocketbook” message to voters in the Rust Belt, whose manufacturing jobs had been shipped overseas, and he promised to bring back those lost jobs. In middle and rural America, he appealed to the erosion of traditional moral values by the legalization of abortion and gay marriage. He sided with the narrative that secularists were waging war on Christmas and Christians.
Trump has no mandate for reversing foreign policy or morality. The popular vote shows that the majority of American voters do not yet believe that the opposite direction is the right direction. We’ll soon see if Trump’s campaign rhetoric matches his policy proposals. “The President proposes, but the Congress disposes.”
My hope is that our elected president and representatives will work together to put America on a new road to greatness.
Tom Driscoll
Poulsbo
