I feel like I’m missing something about Trump’s appeal.

8 reasons why 71 million people see a savior in Donald Trump while I see only orange death

I feel like I'm missing something about Trump's appeal.

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I guess I don’t get it. I guess I’m out to lunch. I guess I’m an “elite.” I guess when it comes to elections, I should just stop guessing. I may not have Nate Silver’s “geek cred,” or expertise, or mathematical skills, but we do have one thing in common; neither one of us can predict an election to save our lives. What did I miss? Where did I go wrong? What am I not understanding about this country and its relationship with Donald Trump? Yes I know he lost, but he received 71 million votes. That’s a healthy dose of support. How about the senate? Democrats were sure they were going to flip it blue, and so did all of the pundits. How could they have been so wrong? Here’s two professions we’re most likely not going to need in the 21st century; Rotary telephone repairman and pollsters.

Unless “Count” Giuliani finds some irregularities in the myriad of states that Donald Trump lost, Joe Biden will be the nation’s 46th president. Still, one cannot deny that most “experts” got this one wrong. As I try to piece this thing together, I’m left wondering, what am I possibly missing about Donald Trump? Why do I believe in my heart and soul that this political figure is the most heinous and horrific as well as incompetent leader the United States has ever elected to this grand office, and yet so many in our nation are either comfortable or downright in love with him and his leadership style? He’s an awful public speaker with a sophomoric command of the vocabulary. He’s a serial liar, he has been accused of sexual assault by countless women, and for all of his bloviating, he’s nothing more than a rich boy who has ruined almost anything and everything that has been handed to him. He’s a serial philanderer, a cheat, a runaway narcissist, and now it would appear to nobody’s surprise, a very sore loser.

This is Nate Silver, the “nerd” with all of the data. Nate’s website, 538.com supposedly predicts elections. I’m not so sure. Based on what they were touting on their website for the past three months compared to what transpired on Election Night, Nate might want to find a new line of work. (Getty Images)

I must say I have found it amusing reading all of the anti-Trump sentiment running amok on social media. Trump may have his supporters, but he also has a large cache of haters, and they’re all celebrating the fall of the “Orange Menace.” While I found myself despondent when I went to bed on Election Night, now that it appears to be over, I don’t exactly find myself filled with glee either. Rather it is a feeling of relief that has settled over my person in the wake of Joe Biden’s apparent victory. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been around now for awhile, or the fact that I’ve spent the better part of my life studying and teaching history that I know not to get that “high” over an election result. Why? Several reasons;

1. American politics swings like a pendulum — 2008 belonged to the Democrats, by 2014, the Republicans were ascendant. By 2016, the GOP had won it all, only to lose the House of Representatives in a landslide to the Democrats in 2018. Now our government is split, and in 2022, who knows? However, my advice to both parties and their supporters, celebrate at your own risk.
2. Divided Government — Many people feel that an old-school politician like Joe Biden might be able to work out a deal with his old buddy Mitch McConnell, however this is not the Senate that Biden used to inhabit. It’s far more partisan, and far more dysfunctional. Depending on how the special run-off elections go in Georgia in January, McConnell may feel emboldened and see no reason to work with the president.
3. Problems remain — COVID isn’t going away so fast, and the economy isn’t coming back tomorrow either. Our racial divisions remain of course, but they have taken a turn for the surreal. If the exit polls are to be believed (Big if) Trump, despite his penchant for racial insensitivity, a.k.a. “racism,” seemed to do fairly well with Latin Americans and African-American men. Democrats are miffed and quite frankly, so am I. 2022 should be interesting as will 2024, and I think the one thing that everybody would agree with at this point is that Trump isn’t going anywhere and neither are his supporters, and both parties are going to have to deal with him.

Trump’s face grimaces as his colon tightens like a steel trap as the inevitability of his loss become inescapable. (New York Times)

As somebody who primarily supports the Democratic Party, I’m starting to feel a little bit like Charlie Brown as he attempts to once again fruitlessly kick the football assuming that this time his old antagonist Lucy van Pelt will not pull the football away and send old Chuck flying in the air, fooled again. I thought that after a devastated economy, violence in the streets, rising crime rates, and a little pandemic that has killed over 220,000 Americans, coupled with a runaway infection rate due to the ignorance and incompetence of one particular political party, the American people would say “Enough!” Silly me. Apparently as I stated earlier, I just don’t get it. People were not ready to turn the entire apparatus to the Democrats. Why not? As “Orange Mussolini” himself would say, “What have you got to lose?”

1. One word: Abortion — For many Americans, especially those in the South and the Midwest, Trump’s alleged stance against abortion is all it takes for them to push the button for the GOP. While it’s probably a safe bet that Trump has had many lawyers pay off many a fair maiden’s abortion procedure, his public lies that he is against it is enough to send the faithful to the polls.
2. Guns — What a surprise, gun sales are up! As soon as a Democrat takes the White House, the gun ghouls emerge from their fox bunkers and buy up every gun in sight. They don’t want Joe Biden, a gun owner himself, to steal their gun. Yes, that will definitely happen, said only people who are recovering from a lobotomy.
3. Runaway Socialism — Trump and the GOP successfully pinned the dreaded label of Socialism on Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris. Nevermind that most of the more popular programs provided by the United States government such as Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and all of the checks that Trump handed out to all of the farmers whom he single handedly ruined with his grossly unsuccessful trade war with China, are all socialist in nature, anytime a politician can pin that label on their opponent, they can use this as a wedge between them and their more moderate voters. As the geniuses from the “Tea Party” used to yell at their rallies, “Government, keep your hands off of my Medicare!”
4. AOC — You know you’ve arrived when all you need to be recognized by is your initials. Unfortunately, the fame cuts both ways. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become for better and worse, a rallying cry for Democrats and Republicans. Yes she brings in the cash as well as provide a lot of the progressive energy that the Democrats desperately need come election time, but she has also become a boogey-woman (I don’t mean on the dance floor) to be used by Republicans across the country to scare swing voters from voting Democratic. Many in the Democratic party have pointed the finger at AOC as they did Bernie Sanders four years ago when Hillary Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump. Whether that’s fair or not remains to be seen, but AOC is in the Democrat’s tent, and she’s not going anywhere.
5. Judges — People love to point out how Trump used the Republicans to acquire power, but often miss the fact that they used him as well. As opposed to running away from the “Orange Menace,” they embraced him into the cockles of their hearts. Why? As Trump would understand better than anyone due to his transactional personality, he was a means to an end. Trump along with an assist from old “Black Hands” himself, Mitch McConnell, packed the courts with hard-core Conservatives in the federal judiciary, including naming three right-wing justices to the Supreme Court, giving Republicans control of the courts for the foreseeable future. A Faustian bargain with the Devil if there ever was, and the Republicans, and apparently many Americans couldn’t have been more pleased.

Apparently for many Americans, this 30 year-old ex-bartender turned member of Congress is a far more threatening creature than “Orange Hitler.” Like I said, I may not agree with everything Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says, but her story is literally the “American Dream.” Many of us who are descendants of people who came here from somewhere else in order to make a better life for themselves can certainly identify with AOC’s story than Trump’s. (Getty Images)

Now we are faced with the proposition that Donald Trump, after being handed a solid if narrow defeat at the hands of President-elect Joseph Biden, is apparently doing what I and others easily predicted he would do, staying. By crying “fraud,” before the first vote had even been cast, Trump did what he intended on doing for the past four years, cast doubt upon the legitimacy of his defeat, without of course one ounce of evidence, credible or otherwise. Once again, his blind and obedient followers, all 71 million of them, believe that he has been wronged, and once again, even though I predicted it, I still can’t believe it. 230 years of peaceful transfers of executive power, the cornerstone of our “experiment” as it was known in 1789, are about to be upended by a game-show host masquerading as a leader and quite frankly as a human being.

Yes, I most definitely don’t get it. However, if I were to take a guess, I’d say that people would seem to prefer attempted Fascism to alleged Socialism, racism to inclusion, win-at-all-costs to bipartisan solutions, fearmongering to calls for sacrifice and understanding, and lest we forget, incompetence (220,000 dead and counting, over 100,000 new cases per day, mostly in states that have leaders subservient to Donald, Trump) to science, logic, experience, and sober, yet sensible calls for common sense solutions. But all is not lost, because while I may not understand what 71 million sycophants see in this miserable excuse for a man, 76 million, myself included, saw something quite different, and you know what? Anyway you slice it, the side that is opposed to all that is Donald Trump, is in the majority, and that means that Donald Trump lost! If there’s one thing that I, a lifelong fan of the New York Jets can spot, it’s a loser.