Last month, an Irish Times poll showed that 82% of Irish people supported Hillary Clinton in the US election, compared to 6% who backed Donald Trump.
To say his victory hasn’t gone down well here would be an understatement (though the bitter tears of disillusioned European liberals will make victory all the sweeter for the Trumpsters).
But not as badly as it has gone down with Clinton supporters in the States, thousands of whom took to the streets to protest. You might ask what exactly they are protesting against. Their fellow citizens who voted for Trump? The 44% or so of Americans who didn’t bother to vote?
It’s arguable their energy might be better spent registering new voters in preparation for the mid-terms in 2018 and Trump’s re-election bid in 2020. Or asking how a candidate that so many people found so objectionable managed to win the votes of 63% of white men, and 52% (fifty-two per cent!) of white women, despite his odious comments. Or why he got a higher share of the Latino vote than did Mitt Romney. Or why African Americans and Millennials failed to support Clinton as strongly as they did Obama.
There are complaints, too, about the Electoral College. “Hillary won the popular vote, it’s not fair”, etc etc. Three points occur to me. One, if the result went the other way, if Trump won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College, the self same people would be defending the institution and the Trumpsters would be wailing how unfair it was. Secondly, there is a reason for the College – it was designed to make sure the smaller states wouldn’t be ignored as candidates concentrated all their attention on the more populous ones. If there was ever a directly elected EU President, we would, rightly, insist on something similar. Thirdly, that’s the system; the Democrats failed to construct a strategy to deal with it.
I came across another dispiriting development yesterday, when a man I usually admire tweeted a raunchy picture of Melania Trump from her modelling days, with a disparaging reference to her being the new First Lady.
Others then piled in, commenting on her appearance with the usual lewd remarks. What some might call “Locker Room” talk. You do realise who you sound like, don’t you lads? You do realise you’re not part of the solution; you’re part of the problem?
The irony of such casual, unthinking misogyny on the part of people who condemned Mr Trump for the same thing is striking. (The Tweet was removed after this was pointed out, restoring my faith in the original tweeter).
So instead of complaining, maybe those Americans disgusted by Trump’s election should start thinking about how they can persuade their fellow citizens to change their vote next time round. Perhaps they should take the advice President Obama gave when Trump (falsely) complained about the system being rigged against him: he said Trump should “stop whining and go try to make his case to the voters”. Or the advice of Trump’s first wife, Ivana, whose motto after he divorced her was: “Don’t get mad. Get everything.”
