The next 4 years will be interesting for all of us

Pete O'Mara
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There is Proverb that starts, “He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool; shun him …” Which leads me to ask, how can a fool win a contest as great as the presidency of the United States?

I’m not trying to be hyperbolic here. I’m simply applying this template to the current situation we find ourselves in. And I will remind everyone offended by my calling the president-elect a fool, this is someone who has said far worse of others. At least I have grounds on which to base my remarks.

But back to my question, how did this aberration happen? I think to answer that you need to look at who Donald Trump is, and not as we may see him, but how he sees himself.

Trump’s father, Fred Trump, encouraged children to be what he called, “killers.” Donald himself often boasted that he was a killer. The thing about killers, though, is that by definition they are destructive. And that is exactly how Trump ran his campaign. Not by building up a vision, but by tearing down and bullying others.

Another self-described dimension of Trump is that he is a businessman who will run the country like he runs his company. Well Donald, only kings and dictators run countries. The president of a free society leads the country.

Trump has a sense of entitlement and even before the election he said he would refuse to accept the outcome unless he won.

Many on the right criticized Hillary for getting emotional during her concession speech and sneered that Donald would never do such a thing. No, indeed he would not. He would have thrown a temper tantrum instead.

Elections are often won by the smallest of margins and once again even though the Democratic candidate won the popular vote, the contest is handed to the Republican. Fair enough, those are the rules of the contest. At least the losing candidate in this case had the civility to behave with grace and dignity.

Let’s be honest here, most people who voted for Donald did so because of the (R) after his name just as most voted for the Hillary for (D) after hers. And that’s OK because those parties in large part reflect the political beliefs of those who support them.

But to win an election you need to reach beyond that political base.

President Obama, for example, encouraged more support from black and young voters which gave him the edge.

Thanks to Trump’s campaign manager Kelly Ann Conway’s advice to let Donald be Donald, they were able to court a group of people who either typically didn’t vote or supported obscure third party candidates. The group that so enthusiastically embraced Donald’s message and helped push him over the top was the xenophobic, homophobic and racist Alt-Right.

Just as Trump refused to accept the legitimacy of President Obama, I and millions of others refuse to accept the legitimacy of a Trump presidency. He demanded that President Obama show his birth certificate. Well, we demand to see Trump’s full and complete tax returns. We demand the disclosure of his worldwide business dealings. We demand that his assets be placed in a blind trust and not in the control of his children. And we demand that he publicly recant and apologize for threatening to have his political opponent thrown in jail.

No matter what political leanings we each have there is one thing we can all agree on. In the next four years we will all learn just exactly “what the hell we had to lose.”

Pete O’Mara of Croswell is a Times Herald community columnist.

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