Introducing to you, the President of the United States of America — the leader of the free world — Donald J. Trump.
I think many Canadians are as surprised as anybody that President Trump won the American Presidency. Morality in American politics, albeit hard to find at the best of times, at this point doesn’t exist.
There are two main reasons, in my opinion, Trump won the American election: Clinton’s failure to appeal to key demographics — perhaps complacency due to her predecessors successes — and a part of the United States’ electoral system called Electoral College.
The idea of Electoral College is to give more proportional representation — in the form of 540 electoral votes spread across the United States based on population — more votes to states with higher populations than states with lower populations.
For instance, California has an estimated 39 million people — equating to 55 electoral votes — compared to Wyoming estimated at just fewer than 600,000 people — translating to three electoral votes.
With 600,000 people in Wyoming, one electoral vote is represented in every 200,000 people, so in order to win the state a presidential candidate would need to win (roughly) 300,001 votes.
With 39 million people in California, each electoral vote is represented in every 709,090 people, so in order to win the state a presidential candidate would need to win (roughly) 19,500,001 votes.
The American Presidency is given to the candidate with the most electoral votes, which in 2016 looks to be Donald Trump, winning 290 electoral votes, 20 above the 270 majority needed to win.
Trump won the votes where he had to — in what American political experts call swing states — such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California, which is where the low voter turnout in key demographics comes into play.
It was reported by various sources, including vox.com, and the New York Times, that voter turnout in 2016 was lower than recent years, which might have contributed to Trump’s win in a few key swing states. The voting numbers are not yet official.
Early polls, as reported by Vox, suggests 55 per cent voter turnout overall.
Black voters made up 12 per cent of the national electorate, according to the New York Times, which is roughly the same as 2012.
Clinton won 88 per cent of the black vote, compared to Obama’s 93 per cent in 2012.
The same truth could be said of Clinton’s appeal to young people, based on the New York Times reporting.
People under 30-years-old made up 19 per cent of the national electorate, and again, it’s roughly the same percentage as 2012.
President Obama won 60 per cent of the young vote, while Clinton received only 54 per cent, according to the Times.
Because Hillary failed to do as well as her predecessor, Obama, with these key demographics, I believe she failed to win the presidency. People that could have and arguably should have supported her either chose Trump, or apathy.
Trump actually only had 37 per cent of the young vote, according to the NYT — the same number as Mitt Romney had in 2012. Most outlets are reporting by the time the total votes have been counted, it’s quite possible President Trump will have received less total votes than both Romney in 2012 and McCain in 2008, both of whom lost to President Obama.
It’ll be only the fourth time in American history that a President won the Electoral College, while acquiring less votes than their counter-part.
To the people who are saying Hillary lost because she was running against a man: I disagree. America is more than ready for a woman to become President.
Though a woman was running against a man maybe have played a role for some, there were greater issues at hand. I believe we are not far away from the first female American President.
Again, this is just my opinion, but the American population was more disappointed with Hillary’s lack of integrity, and frankly, insidious nature then they were fixated on her gender. I don’t think being the wife of President Bill Clinton helped her cause much either.
It’s widely known, partially because of Trump shouting from the rooftops, as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton deleted 30,000 emails from her own private email server. Legislation states she should have been using a government account for record keeping purposes, and yet, she will likely not be charged — unless Trump follows through on a few of his debate threats.
It’s worth pointing out that many government politicians have secrets and do not follow protocol as closely as they should. It could be, that Hillary’s time as a public figure had simply expired.
I digress, but there have also been reports of as many as 30 of those deleted emails contained information regarding a 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, an attack that killed four American diplomats.
The investigations regarding that attack are a thing of the past, but will we ever truly know if Clinton cooperated with investigations at the time? What was she hiding?
I am in no way a supporter of Trump, but I do believe he represents a broken system, a system the American people are fed up with. They’ve turned the system on its head.
Hillary Clinton has, since losing, said, “He deserves the chance to lead.”
Whether you agree or disagree with that statement, he’s going to get that chance.
I don’t believe Trump will be as evil as some people believe he will be, but I don’t expect things to improve for average Americans. Why would Trump start giving now?
I don’t necessarily feel optimistic for the progression of human and/or minority rights, unfortunately. Why would Trump start feeling compassion now?
But, time will tell. President Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America, pending he has not been charged with fraud, on Jan. 20, 2017.
