America, what have you done?

From all the reports I’ve read Donald Trump won the Presidency because people wanted a change from the insider politics of Washington. The more offensive he was, the more bigoted and misogynist his public statements, the more he turned his back on mainstream policies. the more he reinforced his standing as an outsider and so increased his support.  Throughout this process people found an outlet for their  deeply felt but undefined dissatisfaction.

And so we’re left with a man in the most powerful office in the world who has no experience in politics, commands the most powerful armed force in the world yet has no military experience,  thinks climate change is a hoax, wants to launch protectionist trade wars, has little interest in the economic and military security of the world, and whose solution to the global refugee crisis is to literally put up walls and withdraw. All this was ignored because he was an outsider. He didn’t, for example, receive one question on climate change during the debates. Yet when the euphoria of his victory dies down it is real policies addressing real problems that will count.

Who knows? Perhaps he will rise to the occasion and surprise us all.  Given his campaign was a policy vacuum his vacillations suggest that in many areas his ideas are unformed. If he appoints good advisors and a strong cabinet he has the chutzpah to reverse position and implement good policy. On the other hand, we may just be left with an  erratic billionaire narcissist.  I pray that it is the former rather than the latter.