NYT had given Trump just 8% chance of winning in Oct, Huffington Post had given close to 2%. Polls for ABC News suggested 61% of voters considered him unqualified to be president; only 34% said he had the right personality and temperament. Yet, Donal trumped Hillary. Whole of media came onto Trump with ruthlessness. They chose insulting the other side. In the process of spewing out self-acclaimed opinions, they lost their credibility.
Hillary, despite her limitless funding, her established credentials, support from various celebrities, and a well established professional campaign network was still unable to beat Trump – who did not even have unanimous support from his own party. So why did all of this happen?
This election wasn't the people supporting Trump. It was a mandate against the political establishment. The fact that many republicans opposed Trump, infact helped him.
The liberals thought calling Trump supporters as bigots, mysogynists or xenophobists would make them see their point. After Trump won the primary by a huge margin, they still failed to see that their efforts to deride Trump was infact turning back on them. They were just soothing their hurt pride and Trump numbers kept increasing. Infact, I hope that Trump just saw through this and took advantage of it and played to the gallery by inciting controversy, and he in reality, would not be so serious about it. The fact that Bernie almost won shows that people were largely in favour of Anti-Establishment. It was a vote against the Republicans, against the democrats, against the liberal media hegemony, against the intellectuals who keep passing judgements from their altars.
Trump won even with disapproval ratings of more than 50%. Of course, the democrats realize now what Bernie had been saying all along. Only an outsider like him could beat Trump.
There was a backlash by people who were constantly told by the intellectuals that they were the worst kind of humans.
"What we do know is that people like me, and probably like most readers of The New York Times, truly didn’t understand the country we live in". – Paul Krugman
There has been a rise of anti intellectualism with the rise of information media. People now are tired of being ignored and belated and prefer to actively understand world events and have a strong opinion, however skewed the understanding may be. This was seen in the results of #Brexit as well as the rise of Right-wing parties in Europe. The left, liberal, intellectuals - whatever you call them are just aliens to the general masses. Individualism is the norm now. They just can't dismiss reality and then camouflage their mistakes by calling half the population as extremely stupid and ignorant; and also expect to get away with it. They need to come out of their ivory towers and work with the public. The results was a revolution by the masses in a sense. Something the leftists always expect from the masses. IT just wasn't what they hoped the revolution would be for.
Trump was
trolled both on live television as well as online social media indiscriminately. He was treated as a
joke. The masses could relate this with themselves. Things took new low when Obama, having nothing to lose started trolling Trump even in official dinner parties. Now we know who is having the last laugh.
After the results, in Oakland, a mob took to the streets crying “not my president”. California is asking for #CalExit. This further shows the arrogance of a few sections of society who believe that majority of people are indeed stupid and that there is just their way of things. The whole process was fairly democratic and democracy being highly valued in the USA, Trump needs to be acknowledged. Yet, many people still are living in oblivion, even after getting a hard kick up their asses.
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About The Author:
Niteen Bali is a graduate of NIT Karnataka, Surathkal. Post which he got into IIM Calcutta. He does not like to take a firm stand on any spectrum of political nor economic scale, since independent criticism is curtailed in that case. Right now in search of Ithaka and reading 'Love in the time of Cholera'. If given a wish, he would want to become Chandler Bing.