What Now?

I don't know how this happened. You could see it was close, there were plenty of reasons to panic, but generally speaking, the polls still favored Clinton coming into yesterday, and everything I could see that might not show up in the polling seemed to favor her even more. Turnout - her GOTV operation, and general campaign competence - early voting - the increased numbers of blacks and hispanics voting, the gender gap - all things that might not be obvious, but should nudge the numbers a little bit her way.

But none of them paid off. What happened? I don't know - all I have are that white people really are evil, and more of them are evil than I thought... and decades of making politics seem meaningless have paid off in an electorate that places identity politics and weird talk about "change" or whatever the fuck Trump people voted for ahead of self-interest. That core of poorer, less educated white people that voted for Trump are hard to take - they will suffer and suffer badly in the next four years, and they will probably still find ways to blame the Democrats. I think the core of this problem is that Trump convinced people it was more important to make the other guy suffer than to benefit yourself. That and working very hard through the years to obscure the policies that do benefit people, and how they benefit them. Well - they will have to live with their votes now - though I'm sure the GOP will continue to work very hard to make them blame someone else, while the people in charge clean out the till.

As for the results: good god this is terrifying. The markets are already plunging. I don't know if it would have helped Hillary Clinton all that much to run on the fact that Wall Street wanted her to be elected - but - the economic and financial professionals obviously did want her elected. She did promise as much stability as a government is able to give to the economic world - easy as it is to demonize capitalists, money is going to change hands - keeping that system functioning is a good part of what governments do. What will happen now? It's hard to see any good coming of it: the GOP is likely to gut many of the safeguards against economic collapse, they will certainly stop the progress being made toward a real economic recovery (like movements to raise the minimum wage). The recovery is decent, but it's always been fragile, making do without the kind of help governments should be providing - now, the government will begin actively working against it - it bodes ill. I think the question is not will there be a recession, but when will the recession start? and will it turn into a depression? Republicans have no idea how to handle economic collapse - they turn to "austerity" and make them worse, almost by instinct.

Or maybe worse. Maybe Trump isn't as stupid as he acts - maybe he (like more conservatives than are willing to admit it) knows perfectly well that Keynsian economics works, that you spend your way out of a depression. But the right wing method of spending your way out of a depression is to start a war - at least, ramp up your military. They are as Keynsian as any liberal, when push comes to shove, but they have to wrap their spending in the prospect of killing foreigners. This is not a recipe for long term success as a country. Who will we invade? Mexico? Syria? Iran? Jesus Christ....

That is that. Let's attempt something optimistic: how does this not end in the apocalypse? (I guess people were right about the Cubs and the world series, huh?) Well - this is certainly going to heighten those contradictions - 4 years of Trump and the GOP could bring out Democratic voters in droves. It's happened before - Hoover led to FDR, Bush led to Obama - that, plus the natural tendency of politics to oscillate could have the Dems back in charge of the Senate by 2018, and might bring another Democratic landslide in 2020. It's possible... Or - being forced to govern might change the GOP, or more likely, break it. It's one thing to obstruct and resist and manipulate voter anxieties for your own electoral gains: it's another entirely to make the decisions and have to face the consequences. If they repeal Obamacare, and people see just how much good it did for them - they might find out you don't always want what you think you want. Or even before - it's not as easy as they think to go after social programs - Bush couldn't do it after 2004, even with all three branches of government - being in charge again might start breaking up some of the party discipline the GOP has maintained in the last few years. Could happen. Add in the fact that Trump is incompetent, lazy and likely to wish he'd lost before the week is out, and things might not degenerate as much as they could.

But those are thin threads to hang on. And looking at this election, the lesson the GOP might take is that they can do absolutely anything, cause any amount of suffering, and be able to blame it on Moslems or Mexicans of blacks or Jews, and keep their core voters voting for them.

That is terrifying.