By Edwin Cooney
I know that the Electoral College has received its instructions from the separate states and will ultimately elect 70-year-old Donald John Trump as our 45th president. I’m also aware that our newly minted president-elect has not received the majority of votes which would more permanently have sanctified the outcome of last Tuesday’s election. Thus, divided America shakes like a bowl full of Jello energized by both rage and ecstasy, as you and I struggle to grasp what it all means for our future.
Ultimately, we are left to grapple with realities rather than either hopes or fears. Should we successfully cope with these matters, America may become great in a way our newly minted president hasn’t even dreamed. Still, these realities are pretty daunting, so let’s get to them!
(1.) President-elect Trump will become our lawful leader in 65 days. His character is open to interpretation, just as his opponent Hillary Clinton’s was, and it includes acceptance and denial. My friend, who I’ll call “stern Steven,” insists that Trump followers take him seriously, but do not take him literally. Trump opponents, on the other hand, take President-elect Trump literally but not seriously. Taken together, these two social and political categories of Americans, as I see it, constitute a society paralyzed by its own emotional indolence.
(2.) Unless there’s a dramatic shift in the national mood or circumstance, President-elect Trump will take office with more unchallenged authority than any president-elect since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in March of 1933. The Congress is all Republican and the states are largely governed by Republicans. Even more, the judiciary appears likely to turn conservative, conservatism being the ultimate blessing of the GOP since the election of 1980. This reality may possess a silver lining. One of the most constant threads in our social and political history is that ideologists seldom stick together very long. FDR faced considerable insurrection in his party by the late 1930s and even Ronald Reagan faced suspicion on the part of some conservative intellectuals when he became clearly anxious to sign that Start Treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev late in his second term.
(3.) Obviously, President-elect Trump is not a social reformer. Hence, any social benefit that comes from legislation will only be secondary to the practical or monetary rewards or restrictions that emanate from legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president.
(4.) President-elect Trump may be a “business genius” but he’s far from being an international statesman. Since the core of his international proclamations during the recent campaign consisted of largely barbs to be used against President Obama and Hillary Clinton, figuratively he’s a loose cannon in international affairs. Obviously, he believes he’s the ultimate master of his lack of predictability, but it’s very possible that he’ll prove President Harry Truman’s observation in the early 1950s that (to paraphrase): “Any fool can go out and start a war. It’s making a peace that’s hard.” The question is: does President-elect Trump have what it takes to negotiate a peace?
(5.) Unfortunately, President-elect Trump is in denial on the subject of global warming and the necessity for clean energy. Climate-warming realities invariably clash with the legitimate needs of working people who are more concerned with eating and earning a living wage today. If what enables them to eat and earn isn’t maximized, they will have no future. Only a few short years ago, these people were Hillary Clinton people. Since the 1930s, they’ve given Democrats their support. In 2016, however, their anxiety over the loss of their jobs appeared to them to be of no concern to Democrats who spent most of their time listening to “elitist” climate-warming scientists. Hillary should have had an advisor like FDR’s Harry Hopkins who, time and time again, reminded FDR that “people don’t eat in the long run, they eat every day.”
At this writing, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by some 200,000 popular votes. That would appear to make the public protests that “Trump is not my president” legitimate. Ah! But if Mrs. Clinton had won the electoral vote and lost the popular vote, would a protest against that outcome be legitimate? Thus, what is at the core of many people’s unhappiness over last Tuesday’s election results?
Some of us are sorry that Hillary Clinton’s dream of becoming the first woman president is now over. Others of us are frustrated that the legitimacy of progressive issues was only secondary to the imperfections of the Republican and Democratic nominees. Hence, here is our ultimate dilemma.
For the time being, most of us with a liberal or progressive political and social agenda are not only shocked, but frozen within the body politic. We have no majorities and no one seems to want, let alone, need our counsel. The good news, however meager it may be, is that from now on it is all up to Trump versus Ryan versus Gingrich versus talk show host Republicans or Conservatives. Today, Republicans possess the brass ring of opportunity, but opportunity is very, very fickle.
Meanwhile, you the bereft, try and draw distinctions, as you evaluate the incoming political juggernaut between practical and foolish, right and wrong. When President Trump is right, support him, however hard that may be, despite the GOP’s designed lack of support for President Obama back in 2009. No reward is certain for that attitude, but at least try to seek the satisfaction of political magnanimity. Magnanimity is not surrender; it is the generosity of the noble and principled loyal opposition in a healthy and free society.
Chins up, gallant progressive liberals! Prepare for that tomorrow, however distant it may seem, to offer our principled applications to the fevered national brow. Both the Capital Building and the White House await us beyond the interminable horizon.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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