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The Trump triumph

By Everald Compton - posted Saturday, 12 November 2016


Donald Trump ran the smartest, most unorthodox election campaign I have ever seen and he won an astonishing victory.

Hillary Clinton did the exact opposite. Her campaign was a stunning disaster that totally lacked political nous or any understanding of voter sensitivity.

Pollsters were discredited forever.

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The sun came up yet again the next morning.

There will be another Presidential Election in four years.

In the meantime, we will survive.

So, with positive minds, let’s have a look at what happened and talk about what we do next.

Never in my life have I seen a Presidential Candidate with such an incredible capacity to get on the front pages every day without fail and say outrageous things people will never forget.

Not once have I seen such an infamously rabid and rude capitalist with no evident compassion for others suddenly transform himself into the friend and saviour of the downtrodden, doing it is such a way that they actually believed him.

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Even more incredible is the way he was able, time and time again, to overcome dreadful black marks on his character (such as being proven to be a sexual predator on multiple occasions) yet rise in the polls the next day and stay there.

Some months back, I wrote articles and made radio broadcasts saying he would win, even though I hoped he wouldn’t. I based my argument on the belief that Clinton was doing everything she could to lose as she made blunder after blunder.

The fragility of her campaign was revealed in the Primaries. She lost 26 states to Bernie Sanders and, in all 50 states, he won 80% of the under 30’s vote even though he was a 72 year old socialist. Most of those young people stayed at home last week.

They would have come out to vote had she appointed Elizabeth Warren as her running mate. Warren espoused the same policies as Sanders. A dual female ticket would have been a glamour team, but Clinton picked a dull white male who had no capacity to help her.

Then, she called Trump supporters DEPLORABLES, as dumb a political comment as I have ever heard. It become a status symbol to declare you had joined the Deplorables.

All the way, the pollsters told her she would win and she believed them, taking her foot off the pedal, even though they had been badly wrong over Brexit (another revolt by the ordinary guys).

Over and above all of this, she was the shining beacon of the Establishment, a governing elite that middle class America despised. Over and over again, Trump declared them to be corrupt and out of touch, which they were. He said he would ‘drain the swamp’ but never ever said what he would do next.

When Hillary lost, many declared it to have been the result of gross misogyny. It was in part, but the inescapable fact is that 53% of white women voted for Trump.

So, what sort of President will Trump be? No one knows. Neither does he.

If he honours his promise to rebuild America’s ailing infrastructure, a necessity that is glaringly long overdue, that will create millions of jobs. Australia should do likewise.

But, if he goes ahead with tax cuts, he will repeat the disastrous error made by Ronald Reagan. His cuts created a lot of wealthy people, but none of that wealth trickled down to the poor and America’s national debt rose astronomically.

We have no option but to wait and see, ever prepared to react sensibly and without panic no matter what happens.

In the meantime, there are lessons for Australia from the Trump Triumph.

Voter backlash here has been growing steadily, as revealed in the return of Hanson and the rise of Xenophon. It will now be energised enormously by Trump having shown them that they can win.

In the 2017 State Elections in WA and Queensland, the major parties will be decimated because they are seemingly oblivious to the obvious danger that assails them. More worryingly, they give the appearance of being incapable of doing anything about it.

I do hope that the good guys in the main parties survive as there are some standouts who are well worth keeping. No one will weep for the remainder.

I am going to plan my future in a way that will enable me to survive independently even if governments do nothing for me.

As an old guy, I intend to devote a lot of time forming partnerships with the young as the future will be based on combining wisdom with enthusiasm and tech-savvy to advance society despite whatever politicians may do to us.

We can be assured that sometime soon the political landscape will be transformed by the arrival of a new wave of Abraham Lincolns.

It could well start with Michelle Obama in 2020.

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This article was first published on Everald Compton.



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About the Author

Everald Compton is Chairman of The Longevity Forum, a not for profit entity which is implementing The Blueprint for an Ageing Australia. He was a Founding Director of National Seniors Australia and served as its Chairman for 25 years. Subsequently , he was Chairman for three years of the Federal Government's Advisory Panel on Positive Ageing.

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