How did Trump, a candidate who decisively lost the 3 presidential debates, who was to face charges of raping a child (click here) but charges have been dropped by the accuser (click here)*, who talks the talk and allegedly walks the walk on molesting women (click here), who has built some sham businesses and who seems to have a tenuous relationship with reality get elected?
Perhaps one reason why Trump was elected is that the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate repeated the same mistake that many Republican elites committed when they were trying to stop Trump's bid for the nomination: they never admitted the failures of the establishment. And it would be difficult for Clinton to do that since she was enjoying President Obama's full support. But failing to admit the failures of the establishment meant that many voters could not believe that she was going to bring the change they wanted.
Perhaps another reason why Trump won was because of the magical and escapist thinking exercised by many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians who placed their faith in Trump because he was a Republican and he is not Hillary. Yes, we need change. But not all change is good. And these fellow believers exercised an aversion to thinking through issues and weighing the trade offs of their voting decisions. Please realize that a number of politically and religiously conservative Christians opposed Trump. But overly simplistic, one issue thinking resulted in many other religiously conservative Christians choosing Trump and choosing to believe that God will preserve us despite Trump's immorality and narcissism up close and presidential.
And just perhaps Trump's election is the result of America remaining fully committed to the two party system so that instead of voting for the candidates we wanted, we ended up voting against the candidates we didn't want.
Whatever the reason(s) why Trump got elected, we chose poorly and will now have to face the consequences. And whether we will choose another Trump in the future depends on two factors. First, will we face our own responsibility for the consequences we must now face? Second, will we survive Trump's presidency?
* The additional report that charges have been dropped is a correction based on updated material. Originally, only the report that he is facing charges was part of the original post.
No comments:
Post a Comment