He defied the odds to become the 45th President of the United States
The polls said it wouldn’t happen this way. The forecasts said it wouldn’t happen this way. Even the betting markets said it wouldn’t happen this way.
But on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, Americans elected Donald Trump the 45th President of the United States.
Sure, there was always a chance. The British voted to leave the European Union when so few expected them to do so. Why couldn’t the same thing happen in America? That thought lingered in the back of many a mind as Election Day neared and polls tightened. Every previous prediction of Trump’s political demise had proven premature. But he had insulted so many people—blacks, Hispanics, women, the disabled, his own party’s leaders, just to name a few. He had broken so many political norms—not releasing his tax returns, threatening to jail his opponent, lying at a rate never seen in modern politics. So no one, Republican, Democrat or any other stripe, saw a tsunami of this size coming. Only hours before Trump officially vanquished Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, one prominent Republican commentator was writing a political obituary for his party’s nominee.
Establishment consensus, meet thy antidote: President-elect Donald Trump.
“Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division,” Trump, sounding quite a different tone than the man who had opened so many of those wounds over the last 18 months, told ecstatic supporters in his victory speech. “It is time for us to come together as one united people. It’s time.”
It will take days, weeks and perhaps years for Americans and their leaders to fully understand what happened on Election Day 2016. It will take longer for the country and the world to grapple with whatever happens next.Financial markets were tanking even as the prospects of a Trump victory increased, and even as world leaders terseky congratulated him, they were surely bracing themselves to deal with a man who has pledged to reconsider decades-old international alliances and trade pacts.
But one thing should be immediately clear: Donald Trump’s triumph on the Electoral College map was overwhelming. He won perennial swing states like Florida and Ohio. He won Pennsylvania, a state that has attracted the attention of so many Republican presidential candidates over the course of decades only to inevitably vote for their Democratic opponents. He won Wisconsin, a left-leaning state that was supposedly a safe piece of Clinton’s firewall. Read More...
But on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, Americans elected Donald Trump the 45th President of the United States.
Sure, there was always a chance. The British voted to leave the European Union when so few expected them to do so. Why couldn’t the same thing happen in America? That thought lingered in the back of many a mind as Election Day neared and polls tightened. Every previous prediction of Trump’s political demise had proven premature. But he had insulted so many people—blacks, Hispanics, women, the disabled, his own party’s leaders, just to name a few. He had broken so many political norms—not releasing his tax returns, threatening to jail his opponent, lying at a rate never seen in modern politics. So no one, Republican, Democrat or any other stripe, saw a tsunami of this size coming. Only hours before Trump officially vanquished Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, one prominent Republican commentator was writing a political obituary for his party’s nominee.
Establishment consensus, meet thy antidote: President-elect Donald Trump.
“Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division,” Trump, sounding quite a different tone than the man who had opened so many of those wounds over the last 18 months, told ecstatic supporters in his victory speech. “It is time for us to come together as one united people. It’s time.”
It will take days, weeks and perhaps years for Americans and their leaders to fully understand what happened on Election Day 2016. It will take longer for the country and the world to grapple with whatever happens next.Financial markets were tanking even as the prospects of a Trump victory increased, and even as world leaders terseky congratulated him, they were surely bracing themselves to deal with a man who has pledged to reconsider decades-old international alliances and trade pacts.
But one thing should be immediately clear: Donald Trump’s triumph on the Electoral College map was overwhelming. He won perennial swing states like Florida and Ohio. He won Pennsylvania, a state that has attracted the attention of so many Republican presidential candidates over the course of decades only to inevitably vote for their Democratic opponents. He won Wisconsin, a left-leaning state that was supposedly a safe piece of Clinton’s firewall. Read More...
