Majority in Battleground States and Trump Knew Country Was Headed in Wrong Direction

Why did Trump Win?  Because majority of voters in battleground states knew country was headed in wrong direct?   In poll after poll, nearly 70% of voters in these states said so.  It was a stark statistic, and it rarely changed  by more than  1 or 2 percentage points.

Voters knew something had to change.  And this lust for change elected Trump.

The number foretold where the majority of people stood and how they are likely to vote.

People knew the sluggish economic growth of 2% was wrong.

People knew taxes were too high and regulations were too burdensome for  economic growth.

People know transferring  jobs abroad made no sense.

People know opening up borders to illegal immigrants was misguided.

People know abundant fossil  fuels, especially natural gas and even coal

made for affordable energy and was the engine of American prosperity.

People knew doubling and even quadrupling of health premiums coupled with unaffordable deductions made seeing a doctor, even for routine care, was virtually impossible.

Who, in the main, were these people?  They were the people of Middle America-  skilled workers, small businessmen and women, the common folk – the glue of American society.

The people yearned for straight talk rather than the politically correct jargon of the elite.

The people knew the U.S. Constitution guaranteed that American government was of the people, for the people, and by the people, not of the elite, for the elite, and by the elite. The elite were D.C. politicians, the well-to-do in bicoastal population centers, the newly rich in Silicon Valley,   academics in universities, the college educated and those with advanced,   the heads of corporations, health system, and above all else,  liberal journalists, and media moguls.

Fly-Over Country

The intelligentsia, , concentrated in major cities and on both coast,  spoke mostly to one another.   They were doing fine, getting richer and richer.   They regarded Middle American as fly-over country, populated by consumers of their products and message, a swamp of mediocrity, full of evangelicals deplorables, bigots, misogynists,  racists, homophobes,  none of whom recognized the glories of upper-crust compassion,  globalism,  apps, algorithms,  and the solutions offered by sum, wind, and  fossil-fuel shutdown as the solution to climate change.   They looked upon the middle of America and its ignorant middle class as swamp – a swamp that needed to be drained and converted to higher causes.

The Swamp Fox

Enter the Swamp Fox, Donald Trump..   As a longer-term charter members of the wealth elite, he knew the thinking of the political and commercial establishment.  He sense that that a populist movement as afoot in Middle America- the center right of American politics.  He could feel it in his bones.  He sense in the huge throngs that flocked to his rallies.  He knew that a mix of patriotism,  and a desire for pride in American, and identify as Americans was in the air.   People wanted a return to economic prosperity which he, and he alone, could unleash through tax reductions, loosening of regulations,  repeal of ObamaCare, a plan to make America energy independent ,  and making America proud and great and secure. 

Keys to His Campaign

The keys to campaign were to make Americans proud of themselves,   to promise economic prosperity, to assure them that nationalism transcended globalism,   and to ridicule and outfox his opponents through manipulation of the media.     He mocked his opponents,  lambasted the media, and made himself a constant presence on TV,  social media, and on Twitter.   He questioned the conventional wisdom.  He  declined conventional  funding sources,   he said he did not want to be anybody’s puppet or to be beholden to them.    He financed much of his campaign.  Somehow he became known as the blue-collar billionaire,  the champion of common people.  And, first and foremost, he vowed to drain the swamp  of the  corrupt establishment in all of its form.

ObamaCare

Trump promised to retain Medicare and Medicaid, the faster growing segments of the national debt, while opening up health car to market forces  through expanded health savings accounts and erasure to state line.   A competitive system, he maintained, would be wonderful.     He did not say just how – how to cover the 8 million uninsured now insured in health savings accounts, how to  finance th 12 million who joined Medicaid.  He would delegate Medicaid to the states through block grants, and somehow the states would expand access while reducing costs.

According to an ancient sage,  the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog, who is closer to the gou8nd, knows one big thing.  What is the health system’s one big thing?  What combination of government programs and market-based cased will work for the benefit of all?  What will be Art of the Health care deal?  Time will tell.