Well, the worst fears of many Americans were realized on November 8, 2016 with the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States.  Today, the day after, I’ve listened to the commentators who got it so wrong trying to understand “what happened?”  So far, I haven’t heard one of them refer to the reality that has been hitting me in the face for the past couple of weeks.  Trump is an authoritarian personality, he’s had the Russian government working (kind of – due to the media I’ll likely be writing about tonight) behind the scenes attempting to interfere with an American election (successfully, I might add) and then, a couple weeks ago the director of the FBI, James Comey, did the unthinkable and injected more innuendo regarding Hillary Clinton’s so-called “email scandal” onto the headlines about two weeks prior to the election.  From that moment on, the polls began to tighten and I saw polling results that suggested something above 50% of independent and undecided republican voters were swayed to vote against Mrs. Clinton because of that FBI “letter to Congress.”

Of course, a couple days prior to the election Comey came out and confirmed that there was no scandal and that there was nothing to suggest Mrs. Clinton did anything illegal, but you had crowds at Trump rallies chanting “Lock her up” and you had media commentators acting as if this was almost a non-issue.  I can tell you, I’ve read much about the history of America’s FBI and the thought that they, along with the Russian government, turning this election to Trump makes me even more apprehensive about what the next 4 years will look like.

Since it became clear to me that Mrs. Clinton would lose, I’ve only heard one commentator who I believe “gets it” when trying to understand “what happened.”  If you’ve been on this site at all, you know that I’ve railed against, to name a couple “commentators” who are supposed to be on the non-Fox MSNBC (which supposedly is left leaning), Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd.  In a recent post, I suggested that Matthews is almost as full of himself as Trump. Matthews and Todd seemed determined to legitimize Trump’s candidacy every step of the way (except maybe the day the Access Hollywood video was publicized – I don’t remember either one spending more than a passing thought on the FACT Trump’s campaign CEO is a White nationalist).

The commentator on MSNBC who seemed to “get it,” was a lady named (I believe) Joy Reid.  She is African American and, from my perspective, one of the brightest members of MSNBC’s staff (which has become hard to watch – as they CONSTANTLY propped up Trump during the campaign – presumably for better ratings – I pointed out at the time, the potential downside of them giving Trump BILLIONS in free advertising).  Reid pointed out that throughout the campaign the media, including MSNBC, portrayed Trump and Clinton as equally flawed.  I could tell, after she pointed this out, that Matthews didn’t like hearing this from one of his peers.

The reality is that they actually did just that.  Trump “got away” with unbelievable flaws that SHOULD have disqualified him from this election for all intents and purposes.  However, with the help of the 24/7 cable “news” outlets and commentators that you have to wonder what their motivation was, Trump came across – to many – as less flawed than Mrs. Clinton.  He was allowed to make one absurd accusation after another – with NO ONE pointing out the absurdity of most of them.  These people were more concerned with their ratings than the welfare of the American nation.  Because of that, the next four years of American history could go down as among the worst – if Trump achieves anywhere close to what he claimed he was “for” in the campaign.  And, I can guarantee you, there’s a large segment of his supporters that are expecting a wall and expecting “Mexico will pay for it.”  Yikes!

I can also guarantee you there is a larger percentage of the American population who are aghast that Trump managed to win and are wondering the same thing as the “pundits.”  There’s another factor here that could bring into question Trump’s “victory” in a way that would make the two “wins” by George W Bush look like child’s play.  So far, I’ve heard no one referencing the voter suppression efforts of the GOP that hit “high speed” once the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  (Trump’s “victory” virtually guarantees the Voting Rights Act will not be fixed anytime soon)  I really have to wonder about the votes in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin for starters.  I wonder if we’ll ever know how many members of minority communities or universities or elderly people were denied the right to vote based on the “voter ID” proposals that republicans predicted could keep as many as 5 to 10 MILLION democratic leaning voters from the polls.  I believe all the states I mentioned were close enough that the very reason the outcome didn’t reflect the polling may have been the number of African American, Hispanic, college students, and others who did not get their votes counted.  It certainly wouldn’t have taken anywhere close to the republican projections to make the difference in each state.  If this information is ever made public (if you recall, the TRUTH about Florida in 2000 was NEVER made public) Donald Trump’s legitimacy as president will be undermined.  I’ll be surprised if anyone in the “liberal media” ever reports on this, but until I’m convinced otherwise I will be thinking republican “dirty tricks” did us (we the people) in again!

I’ve written several times here about republican projection.  That is, if they’re complaining about something it’s usually to hide the FACT that they’re actually doing it.  Trump was constantly complaining about a rigged election.  I remember thinking (and I think I wrote about this prior to the election) that the only way he could win was if he was correct – if the republicans actually succeeded in blocking enough voters from voting to swing the election; ie – rigging the election.   So, between Russian interference, FBI intervention in the election, corporate media, and voter suppression we now have President Donald Trump.  If people ever put all this “together” “we the people” are in for a “rocky ride.”  (I suppose with Trump as president, that is inevitable)  I guess the one thing we can be happy with is that Vladimir Putin got the result he wanted.