Howard Stern recently said that nobody was more keen for Hillary Clinton to win than Donald Trump himself. The radio personality, who is America’s most notorious shock jock, said President Trump was being serious when he recently admitted to missing his “old life”.
In an interview with Reuters ahead of the 100-day mark of his presidency last week, Mr Trump said: “I loved my previous life. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”
I completely believe what Stern said, and I said so myself during the elections, when then candidate Trump began acting in ways that made you feel he was actively trying to lose the election. This was the period his statements became even more crazy sounding and outlandish. It was during this period that he made his infamous statement that he could shoot someone in the middle of Times Square and still be elected.
From the beginning, it was clear Mr Trump went into the campaign as a lark… joke, of a sort. It was another opportunity to put himself in the public eye and boost the ratings for his hit television show “The Apprentice.” This was something Mr Trump had always done during presidential election season since the nineties. He had either run, or he had made noises about running thereby putting himself out there and in people’s view.
It just happened, this time, that Americans had become completely disillusioned with the status quo, and wanted a change at any cost. The people had had it with the establishment and were willing to hand the presidency to an outsider…any outsider. Trump just happened, this time, through a combination of many factors, to be that outsider.
Even the Democratic National Congress (DNC) and Hillary Clinton knew that Trump was never a serious candidate, and was not serious about becoming president. This was why they felt confident enough to openly rig the Democratic party primaries in the belief that, even though the people will be disappointed and angry, they would have no choice but to vote for her because her opponent was Trump. Trump, on his own part, did everything he could in order to lose.
He exhibited such a level of arrant ignorance and abysmal lack of knowledge that it would have been impossible for him to be elected president under normal circumstances. He was making racist comments and denigrating every group of people he could think of. This was the period he made fun of a disabled journalist and mocked John McCain for being a prisoner of war.
He even praised Russian president, Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un for being strong leaders. Now, note that the merits or demerits of that praise for those enemy foreign leaders isn’t what’s being considered here, but the fact that that is something you never do when running to become president of the United States.
But, the 2016 presidential election was anything but normal. It was the election that came after progressives had watched President Obama, a man they elected to the Oval Office twice with high hopes for what he would do for Americans, leave office after eight years, and leave behind the highest level of wealth and income inequality in America’s history.
It was an election that came after Americans from both sides of the political divide had reached one conclusion: that the system isn’t working for the masses, and must change, no matter what.
It was an election that threw up a candidate who represented everything the American public was looking for after a horrible eight years of establishment politics and policies that left ninety nine percent of Americans on the brink of impoverishment while the top one percent made out like bandits.
It was an anti establishment election, meaning that the people had only one agenda: electing someone who hasn’t been a part of the politics as had been played in the past several cycles.
The primaries showed it, as all the candidates who had had any political roles to play in the past decade were knocked out, even though the media and pollsters had them anointed.
This meant that the candidates considered to be outsiders – a little known Independent Senator from Vermont named Bernie Sanders, and a billionaire businessman from New York named Donald Trump, who even though was well known, was a political outsider – became the favorites in no time, and drew large crowds of eager Americans everywhere they campaigned.
The more established candidates like the eventual Democratic party flag bearer, former first lady and Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, and former Florida governor, and member of the Bush political dynasty, Jeb Bush of the Republican party, quickly became irrelevant, even though they were being pushed and backed by the media and pollsters.
This anti establishment atmosphere was what candidate Trump wasn’t prepared for when he jumped into the race, and why he eventually became president after the Democratic party missed their opportunity by literally imposing Mrs Clinton as the flag bearer despite the people overwhelmingly favoring Sanders.
The rest is history as Mr Trump trounced Mrs Clinton in the general elections when disappointed Democrats either voted a third party or stayed at home on election day.
The DNC and their losing candidate have been trying to explain away their failure ever since with a new excuse coming up almost on a weekly basis. First was the farce about Russia hacking the DNC and exposing emails that proved that the primaries were rigged against Senator Sanders and in favor of Mrs Clinton.
Another excuse they love to trot out every now and again is that racism played a huge part in the election of Mr Trump, as his campaign had reached out to racist elements all over the country. Yes, racism played a part in the election of Mr Trump, but it was the same minor part it has always played in Republican national politics.
The truth is that there aren’t enough racists in the United States to be able to elect a president by themselves. If that was possible, America couldn’t have had two terms of Barack Obama a black American who became president.
I said during the presidential elections that Donald Trump would be elected by a coalition of the most stupid and the most intelligent American, and that’s exactly what happened. The most stupid Americans are the people who looked at Trump and everything he stood for during that election; ignorance, misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc, and chose him as someone who represents them. The smartest Americans are the ones who saw through the charade that our politics has become, where the two political parties are only a front for the establishment to elect whoever they choose while giving the people the illusion of choice.
These smart Americans decided that they weren’t going to play the game as the establishment had it set up, and said a deafening ‘no’ to the chosen candidate. They quite understood what Trump was, and still is, but remained very resolute in saying no to Hillary Clinton because of her horrible records, and her corporate politics. They didn’t vote directly for Trump but their no votes and third party votes helped him beat Clinton.
This is why it’s always a little weird to hear Democrats and Clinton supporters still making the rounds with the same stories about Russia and racism being the reason for Trump’s victory. What this means is that they either still don’t know why she lost, which will be just too bad, or they do get it but are too stuck on their lies and delusion that they don’t want to accept reality.
