National Post (National Edition)
The bright side of Trump
Last Tuesday, election day, I wrote of my expectation that Hillary Clinton would be elected, but that Donald Trump’s campaign had effectively exposed the Clinton machine for the corrupt syndicate it has long has been, an admission previously ruled out-ofbounds by the Washington establishment. It turned out Trump exposed it more effectively than I had thought, for his election victory was not because a rise in Republican votes, but a calamitous drop-off in Democratic votes. Trump is president not because Americans turned toward him, but because they turned away from Clinton.
Perhaps the strangest aspect of the campaign was the constant refrain that Trump had done X or Y that would normally be disqualifying for any other candidate. True enough, but while The Donald arrived on the political scene last year, the Clintons have made a career of surviving what would otherwise be disqualifying. It’s their principal political achievement, stretching back to Arkansas, and it rendered them a leisurely and lucrative sojourn in America’s highest offices.
Despite the misgivings I had about Trump — and they are still massive — the last week has brought the compensatory delight of witnessing the establishment class achieving the rare combination of being simultaneously depressed and apoplectic. Had President Barack Obama declared a national day of mourning, it could not have been more intensely observed by the folks on CNN — and the CBC.
Trump will be president, though, and delighting in the distress of others is not nice, so here are four positive results of Trump’s defeat of Clinton, amid all the legitimate concerns.
First, the return of politics as a popular contest, not an elaborately financed consultant’s game. It took a putative billionaire to strike a blow against the big money in politics. Trump was outspent by Clinton in some places 10 to one, and still prevailed. He benefited from free media — it’s called “earned media” for a reason — and the coverage was driven by the massive rallies he staged, often many times a day, at which he would speak for 30 or 45 minutes. This was no canned stump speech for the cameras; it was as authentic an engagement of a candidate with the voters as has been seen in decades. Rarely has a candidacy been propelled by such direct contact with voters, in campaign rallies and on social media.
Second, the return of policy to elections. I oppose most of Trump’s enumerated policies — most seriously the “Muslim ban” — but it was his policies, particularly on immigration, that gave rocket fuel to his candidacy. The proof of this is the outpouring of alarm, since the election, that he would implement them. Contrariwise, Clinton offered no compelling reason at all for her candidacy aside from three matters of identity — she was a Clinton and it was time to return to the White House; she was a woman, and it was time to shatter the glass ceiling; and she was not Donald Trump. In the contest between policies of the firsttimer and the absence of policy from the time-server, policy won.
Third, the corrupting effect of the Clintons is expunged. That the Clintons are corrupt is well established — Bill Clinton was disbarred by the U.S. Supreme Court — but worse still is their corrupting effect. They soil their surroundings.
Remember how Ken Starr, the special prosecutor, became a figure of public ridicule who regretted investigating Monica Lewinsky? Feminist leaders swallowed their pride and principles to defend Bill Clinton, despite long protesting that sexual contact with subordinates by their superiors was sexual harassment by definition.
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton managed to besmirch both her charity and her department with the malodour of influencepeddling. Her run for president burned through the integrity of two chairwomen of the Democratic National Committee, Deborah Wasserman-Schultz and Donna Brazile, both caught bending the rules for her. The infamous email server investigation has eroded the credibility and impartiality of both the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Having converted much of the media into her propagandists, her election loss has exposed both their incompetence and malfeasance. Election week ended with an extraordinary confession from the publisher of The New York Times that his paper had not been objective and intends to get back to reporting the news fairly.
Whatever the Clintons touch, they diminish, and their exit from the body politic is good for America’s political hygiene.
Fourth, after 36 years of the Bushes and Clintons, the temporary setback for politics as a family business is welcome. The hereditary approach to politics is too much ingrained in the American political character — the Adams, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys — to be utterly removed, but it is unbecoming in a democracy and its diminishment is salutary.
HERE ARE FOUR POSITIVE RESULTS OF HIS DEFEAT OF CLINTON, AMID ALL THE LEGITIMATE CONCERNS.