Spencer | On November 9, 2016

Donald Trump
(Photo by Gage Skidmore) (CC BY-SA) (Resized/Cropped)

The left’s response to Trump’s stunning victory Tuesday night has thus far been to say, essentially, “I guess the US is made up of a lot more racists than we thought.” This excuse is nonsense. There are many reasons Trump won, and they don’t have to do with racism/misogyny. In fact, about 20% of the people who voted for Trump still had an unfavorable view of him. Most of the Republicans who voted for him said they did so more to stop Clinton than support Trump. The majority of the country opposes a border wall, and a much larger majority opposes mass deportation. Even if you view those policies as inherently driven by racism – which they are not – they are also not why people voted for Trump.

More than anything else, more than trade deals; white working class support which no pollster picked up; Clinton’s corruption; or “misogyny,” Trump won because of the left’s overreach. He won because the left and the Democratic party has gone insane. Just a decade ago, there was still a Conservative wing of the Democratic party. In Bill Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union address – thank God, the only Clinton who will ever give one – he said “the era of big government is over.” Now, 20 years later, Bernie Sanders, avowed socialist, was a viable contender for the Democratic nomination. Hillary Clinton was the most liberal nominee of any party in decades. She has repeatedly stated that she believes there should not be restrictions on abortion at any stage of pregnancy. Moderation has left the Democratic party. Apparently, ethics have as well, as no elected Democrat ever un-endorsed or refused to endorse Clinton for her blatant corruption. Tim Kaine, a Catholic, has stood by a radically pro-choice presidential candidate, and used verses from the Bible to defend his support for the systemic killing of children.

Of course, this permeates beyond the Democratic party. This morning I saw a post on twitter that said something like: “This is why democracy fails, because a political scientist gets the same number of votes as an inbred from Arkansas.” That’s it. That’s why Trump won. Because of the left’s unbearable, constant condescension. That’s probably a bigger driver of Trump’s victory than their morally indefensible positions on religious liberty, or abortion. For years, this is how the left has operated. They called Mitt Romney a hateful, homophobic racist who hated the poor. Every single person who does not agree with the entirety of their radical views on race, religion, abortion, gender, etc. is a racist homophobic, transphobic, classist troglodyte.

Viewed through that lens, and the benefit of hindsight, it seems that Trump was inevitable. At some point there had to be someone this incredibly politically incorrect. At some point people were going to rebel against the contempt and hatred of the ruling class.

Spencer