Navigate / search

President-Elect Donald Trump

I can’t honestly believe I even typed those words as the title for this post.  I naturally tend to be one who distrusts the mainstream media and polls because I feel like they know the impact they can have on persuading elections and they take advantage of that.  With that being said though, I still didn’t honestly think this would happen.  As I sat watching the news last night while the numbers were coming in, and then this morning as I tried to sink in what all of this meant, I had a few conclusions as to what this election even means.  In my first post in a long time, I wanted to share those and get some feedback.

**Just as a note, I did not support Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton in this election.  I shared that sentiment with apparently the majority of general election voters.

The American People Are Tired of the Status Quo

i heard an exit poll last night on CNN which stated that 66% of Trump voters and 54% of Clinton voters were actually not satisfied with their vote.  That’s a staggering number.  While it speaks to the dislike of both candidates, I couldn’t help but think about the bigger picture.  In a Republican primary field that started with 16 candidates, some of which who were considered rising stars or had famous last names, the fact that Donald Trump was able to come away with a landslide victory spoke volumes to how at least the conservative base of the country feels about the current direction of the country and the political leaders who are driving it.  On the flip side, the Democratic side of things seemed pretty hell-bent on ensuring that Hilary Clinton was their candidate, although there were a lot of questions and concerns around this.  It seemed as if no attempt from Bernie and his supporters was going to thwart the efforts of the DNC and political powers from putting their buddy up for the ticket.  In the end, that could be the decision that hurt them the most.

What you find though in the end is that as much as 66% of the people who voted for Donald Trump (roughly 35 million people) were not pleased with their vote, yet voted for him anyway.  You can argue that it’s just political partisanship or whatever you want, but ultimately the people have spoken and they want change.  They’re tired of politicians who overpromise and under deliver.  As a result, they were willing to vote for a very questionable candidate whom they don’t fully trust, yet feel they have the best chance of seeing change take place in this country.  Whether these efforts work out or not will take a long time to be seen.

People Are Voting Against Barack Obama and His Policies

I’ll get some disagreement here I know because currently as it sits, President Obama has a favorability rating just above 50%.  Some would argue that it has nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with Hilary. I think though if you look at everything Trump ran for (halting illegal immigration, better trade agreements, lower taxes, repealing Obamacare, etc.) these were all a reaction to the last 8 years of policies that we’ve seen.  It definitely didn’t help that recent news showed that Obamacare premiums would be spiking soon and that many of the largest health insurance companies were getting out of the exchanges altogether.  People who are seeing their jobs being shipped overseas or down to Mexico, or replaced by illegal workers, are tired of it.  Nothing seems like it’s getting done to fix it, so many Americans feel like drastic measures needed to be taken.  No one in the political spectrum could be trusted to do what needed to be done, so Trump got the nod.

Polls and the Mainstream Media Need to Re-Evaluate Themselves

Every poll since the beginning of the general election cycle just about has had Hilary Clinton in some lead.  Her campaign didn’t even visit Wisconsin because the numbers showed that as pretty much being a lock for her.  In the end, she lost some key states that Dems haven’t lost since Ronald Reagan.  The mainstream media, on the other hand, got exactly what they deserved.  The mainstream media fell in love early with Trump because of the ratings boost and likely felt he was not someone who could ever seriously win.  I’m sure the day he solidified the Republican nomination, many leaned back in their chairs and put their hands behind their heads and claimed that this one was in the bag.  What they didn’t realize they had done was created a monster that they couldn’t contain.  In the end, the coverage they gave him I believe helped him to solidify the Republican nomination as well as the White House.

Conclusion and Predictions

In the end, I’m still stunned that Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. Americans have no one to blame but themselves, on both sides of the aisle.  We need more informed voters.  We need people who care more about changing the political spectrum and holding public officials accountable.  We don’t need politicians getting lost and distracted by issues that aren’t relevant to their duties.  We need Americans who will refuse to vote for corruption.  There are a lot of changes that need to be made in this country and some of them are going to hurt, but they must be made to ensure the financial stability of this country.

We are currently into the second longest bull market in the history of the US, following only the bull of the 90’s.  Regardless of who was elected president, it’s VERY likely that in the next 4 years (probably the next 2) we’ll see a market recession (market’s dropping 20%+).  This is simple market history.  Many of the measures a country can typically take to soften the blow of a recession have already been done and are not currently available.  A big example of this is the Fed Interest Rates.  We’ve kept them at practically zero for way too long and have propped up this economy so hard that when it falls, I’m afraid it’s going to fall hard.  With Donald Trump as president, regardless of what his actions are, I believe will catch full responsibility of this even though most of the damage has already been done these last 8 years.  My bold prediction is that regardless of how long Trump is in office whether 4 years or 8 years, the stock market will not be higher than it is today when he finishes.  If he takes the appropriate measures to try and fix the economy for the long term, it almost can’t.  The measures we need to take to get this country more financially stable is going to mean spending cuts and things that will hurt us in the short run, but will give us strength and stability for our future and our children’s.

It is my desire and prayer going forward that this country will no longer be distracted by reality TV and pop culture, and instead we will spend more time focused on what’s going on in our country.  The longer we sit idly by and allow our gov’t to build massive debt, the harder it’s going to be to recover from it.  Let’s get smart, come together, and make real change for the betterment of the country and the people who live in it.

Leave a comment


email* (not published)