What an absolutely incredible night of television. The whole debacle was fascinating to watch on every different channel. From the left slanted crew at NBC, to the somewhat right wing Fox News, to the CNN crew that seemed to be behind everyone else (and seemingly holding out hope that Clinton could win states that had been called by other outlets).
The biggest thing that came out of last night is how out of touch with middle America the two coasts are. The big cities voted majority Democrat. The rural heart of America voted Republican. And the Democrats did not motivate their supporters enough to actually get out and vote.
In fact, in Wisconsin alone, Trump had fewer votes in the state than either Bush in ’04 or Romney in ’12, but he won the state and they didn’t. Pretty amazing to see, actually.
Trump won Wisconsin because Dems didn’t turnout: Bush 2004 – 1,478,120; Romney 2012 – 1,410,966; Trump 2016 – 1,407,401— Real Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) November 9, 2016
This was the equivalent of App St beating #5 Michigan back in 2007. Or 1-3 Stanford as 40 pt underdogs beating #1 USC 24-23 in LA (where the Trojans had a 35 game winning streak) in 2007, with a backup quarterback.
This was not supposed to happen.
The only person that said that Trump had a shot was Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com. The majority of the other news sites had already given the election to Clinton as early as Monday. Like the Huffington Post here:
That’s a big upset. Oh, and they got the senate wrong as well…
But, enough of that. How did we get to this point?
First off, the polling was incredibly wrong. Just flat wrong. And it hasn’t come out exactly how it was done. Some polling is done in exit polls, some is done by phone (and who has a landline anymore). Was it done in larger cities, where the majority were Democrats? Trump supporters, I believe, were so scared of the repercussions of admitting their true vote (being labeled a racist or sexist, rather than being able to explain their true thoughts on the candidates), that they just did not talk to pollsters. Very few people would want to admit to it because of the backlash.
The Democratic party was stunned at the results. But that is what happens in an echo-chamber… when you only surround yourself with people of like-mind, you don’t ever hear the other side’s thoughts, or how many of them there might actually be.
Football states decided this election. Did the Kaepernick national anthem protest swing people? Is this what’s actually happened to television ratings for the NFL? Were people in these football states finally fed up with the political correctness swing in this country? The vocal minority screams that they’re offended by everything. We have safe spaces on college campuses now. People get their feelings hurt all the time. And leaders in this country have facilitated it, and it’s causing things to cripple. Just take a look at the University of Missouri: www.outkickthecoverage.com/mizzou-freshmen-enrollment-plunges-after-fake-protests-050216
So here’s how things swung the way of the Republicans last night:
Donald Trump won every Big 12 state, every traditional Big 10 state (sans Illinois & Minnesota) and every SEC state. Add in North Carolina, and the football states went completely red. The key states were Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were all supposed to be blue states. ALL of them went Republican.
This whole thing came down to who voters connected with – and the majority of rural areas never felt like Hillary Clinton was on their side. In the image above, look at all of the red. Then look at the blue. The blue are big cities. “Progressive” areas. The middle class made sure that their voices were being heard as well, because the media skews more towards big city ideology. The working class felt they were not represented, and they flipped the script in a way that we haven’t seen in decades.
But hey… the election is over, and it doesn’t matter who you voted for or who won, because the sun will continue to come up, you’ll continue to go to work and earn a living, and this country will be fine. Because it always has been and it always will be. So long as we treat each other with respect and appreciate the little things in life. All last night did was prove that we, the citizens, do have a voice… and sometimes we have to listen to other people, and we don’t always win.
Even better than that, we get some great football this weekend, and we get to watch Conor McGregor fight Eddie Alvarez. So be excellent to each other and go about living, because it’s all gonna be alright.
