Tilting at Windmills

We’re going to be subjected for decades to the slicing and dicing of this year’s election results in an attempt to explain how Donald Trump was victorious.
As I watched the tallies come in and saw states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin go to The Donald, I thought about a book published back in 2004 called “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” by political analyst and historian Thomas Frank.

The book focuses on the rise of political conservatism in the social and political landscape of Kansas, whose leaders support economic policies that do not benefit the majority of people in the state. Yet, these leaders continue to be re-elected based on their positions on "explosive" cultural issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

The most recent example is current Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, whose aggressive tax cuts have resulted in substantial budget deficits significantly impacting the state’s already lagging educational system, as well as other important services.  Yet, he was re-elected,

While there certainly was a healthy dose of economic frustration behind the Trump vote, it also reflected a variety of hot button cultural issues from immigration and the rights of those who are LGBT to gun control and the place and role of women in society.

What I wonder is how many people who supported Trump understand how much they were voting against themselves.

 So, I wonder if people in Kansas understood on Tuesday that they were voting for someone who is a vociferous climate change denier, because their state greatly benefits from the expanding renewable energy business, especially wind power.

Since 2001, 25 wind farms have been built in Kansas with six currently under construction representing in total more than 4,500MW in generating capacity. It has been suggested that for every 1,000MW, the cumulative economic benefit is about $1.08 billion dollars. To paraphrase our President-elect, that’s “huge!” 

I wonder if coal miners and steel workers in Pennsylvania and auto workers in Michigan realize that they voted for someone who has pledged -- and will have the Congressional support -- to repeal “Obamacare,” which contains a provision that forbids health insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

(I had an interesting conversation with my brother who lives in Michigan following the election. He said what befuddles him is the number of autoworkers who are now critical of the "bailout" that saved their industry and their jobs.)

With all the talk about creating more manufacturing jobs, I wonder if factory workers across the country, who supported Trump because he pledged to tear up a variety of trade agreements, understand that trade doesn't always equate to lost jobs. It can also open markets, so that there are jobs. (As long as you possess the skills needed to satisfy the demand.)

…and I wonder about all those voters -- especially in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania -- who either stayed home or didn’t cast a vote for President, because they didn’t “like” Hillary and/or found Trump impossible to support, are feeling today.

Not too good, I bet. This one's on them...

Post Script

This may be hard for some to read on the day after our stunning national vote, but election results sometimes have a funny way of being right.

Now that the 2016 political season is history, I can say this: it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that I wasn’t elected Mayor of Attleboro in 1983. (See “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory”)

Looking back, I like to think that I would have been a good Mayor, but I can also see that I was young in a lot of ways, inexperienced and probably a bit too full of myself. I certainly had more than my share of critics, who would have liked nothing more than to see me fail and been eager to help me do so.

I hope I would have been a quick learner. In the days before the election, I had been talking to people with much more experience about joining my City Hall staff. I hope I would have listened to them.

In 1985, I was re-elected to the City Council having been selected to fill a vacancy several months earlier.  But now Mayor Reed, my opponent in 1983, lost her re-election bid to former Councilor Kai Shang, who had finished a distant fourth in the preliminary two years before.

Like our President-elect, no one in the political crowd took Shang’s candidacy seriously.

His claim to fame was two-fold. Shang shot the winning basket in the 1948 “Tech Tourney” giving Attleboro its first statewide hoop championship.

He was also involved in a long running feud with the City over the fate of his business/home.  Shang operated his family’s long established downtown laundry on property mapped out to be taken as part of the City’s redevelopment efforts. He and his family lived on the upper floors.  So, in addition to those who remembered his high school exploits, he also had the sympathy of many newer residents, who saw him as a small business owner being treated unfairly by the City.

Shang’s less than effective and often confusing public speaking style only added to his everyman image, which in many ways he was. But, it also served to mask the fact that he was a very successful businessman, who owned many pieces of valuable property across the City.

He was in marked contrast to Reed’s “high society ways.” As the only female Mayor in Massachusetts at the time, she was often involved in activities outside the City and even served as co-chair of John Kerry’s Senate Campaign. When word got around that she was being taken by helicopter to events, many in working class Attleboro were not impressed.

(Reed also inexplicably decided to go back to school after taking office and began attending nearby Wheaton College.)

When her term ended, Reed stepped away from politics. In in the height of irony, Shang began working at the new City Hall, built by Reed, and located directly across the street from where his family’s business and home had stood for decades. He was, in fact, a surprisingly effective Mayor for six years concerning himself with issues that impacted the average citizen.

Like Shang, there’s no predicting what will happen when Trump takes office.  But, the country survived the Presidencies of Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren Harding, and Herbert Hoover. (Though it took a world war for us to get out of the mess Hoover created.)

Here’s hoping that President Trump frequently surprises those of us who didn’t support him and at least occasionally disappoints those who did.