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Cheap Seats 2016Post-Game Wrap Up - 11/16 By Rich Trzupek
Did not see that coming. Not at all.
I was completely prepared to write a post-election column that would be published by The Mighty Examiner on November 16, 2016 following what I had considered to be the inevitable, unavoidable Hillary victory.
It was to be a column aimed at my conservative/libertarian readers, urging them to avoid the fear-mongering and anger that many on our side of the aisle would urge them to embrace.
Hillary, in my view, would not have been as good a President as Trump, but she would have been a better – and in the case of foreign policy, far better – choice to lead the nation than Obama. I expected another corrupt Clinton administration, but one that would at least recognize the need to pivot domestically toward the center again and that would be little more realistic when dealing with the mullahs.
But, amazingly, that speculation is no longer relevant. While I expected to be writing about a portion of the right flipping out, I instead must write about a portion of the left flipping out.
Let’s start with those two words: “a portion”. Just as the number of people on the right who would have lost their minds and said crazy things had Hillary won would not have represented the majority of my side of the aisle, nor do the incendiary actions and words by some of those on the left reflect what the majority on the left believe to be an appropriate response to a disappointing result for them.
I understand that my friends on the left and those on the left who despise me and everyone in between on that side of the aisle are not happy about the results of the 2016 Presidential election. I understand that they believe the consequences of a Trump Presidency and Republican Congress will be disastrous. But, there is a big difference between expressing one’s unhappiness like a rational human being and doing so by making threats and rioting.
Most on the left are dealing with this election in the same way most of us on the right dealt with the last two Presidential contests: by re-evaluating what voters want, by reconsidering their party’s message and by reviewing how they approach a campaign. What matters and what works in the arena of American politics are constantly in flux. One side is always ahead of the game and the other is always playing catch up. And, given the nature of the beast, the major parties tend to switch positions rather frequently in our modern world in which the way we communicate with each other changes almost daily.
This election is not the end of America as the fanatics on the left would have us believe, but nor is it the ultimate triumph of conservatism as many on the right would like us to think. It’s just another waypoint in the meandering road that is American politics. If we flash forward twenty years, I guarantee you that about one-third of those college students raising hell and trying to set a world-record for shouting the f-word by way of protesting Trump’s election today will be embarrassed when asked to recall their behavior, one-third will say that their protests didn’t go far enough, and the last third won’t care about ancient history all that much.
The post-game wrap-up after Election 2016 is the same as the post-game wrap-up after every major election preceding it. It seems more intense because we are so much better at projecting hyperbole, but the vast majority of the craziness is still just that: hyperbole.
In that context, I offer this challenge to you Examiner fans and/or enemies: make five predictions that you believe will be true by the end of the first (not necessarily last) Trump administration. The only rule is this: each prediction must be based on a metric that is objectively, independently verifiable. Thus, a subjective metric like “America will be more sexist” will not be accepted. An objective metric like “the inflation-adjusted income of American women will decrease over the next four years” is absolutely acceptable. If you want to play, send me your predictions and – assuming they meet the objective criteria I just described – we’ll publish them and then get back together to see how right or wrong we were in 2020.
I’ll start. When we revisit this story in 2020 (God Willing) I predict the following will be true:
1) Roe v. Wade will not have been overturned.
2) African-American underemployment will have declined by at least 25 percent compared to 2016 statistics.
3) The United States’ national debt will have declined in terms of constant dollars as a percentage of gross domestic product.
4) United States’ aggregate generation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions will be lower in 2020 than they were in 2016, continuing the declining trend in American GHG emissions that began in 2008, while GHG emissions from China will have increased at a rate that exceeds the rate of US reductions.
5) US life expectancies will be greater in 2020 than they are in 2016.
Agree with or don’t like the Cheap Seats’ focus? Drop us a line. We’ll be happy to publish your predictions if you’re willing to follow the rules of this particular game/policy discussion. Hope to hear from you and hope to live in a better and better world, agree with me or no.
Cheers,
Rich
e-mail: rich@examinerpublications.com
www.threedonia.com
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