Friends of my wife encouraged her to join their journey to attend the Women’s March on Washington, scheduled for the day after Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. It sounded like an exercise in self-flagellation, so she declined.
She probably won’t be missed. At last count 200 bus permits have been issued for the inauguration, but 1,200 for the anti-inauguration March. Thirty protest groups have also been issued permits, and the government expects 200,000 or more marchers to converge on the Mall.
Similarly, anti-inauguration concerts are being mounted on Broadway and in Miami hoping to attract more stars and viewers than the official events, in an attempt to upstage the Trump show or take people’s minds off reality.
From here, to attend the March would have required a four-hour bus ride beginning before dawn to Fredericksburg, Virginia, the place closest to Washington that still had affordable rooms available. This would be followed by a transfer to a train into DC, a walk to the Mall to mill around feeling aggrieved, and at last a return train and bus trek.
And why? Because misery loves company? To try to rain on the Donald’s parade? To squeeze the last drops of sour grapes out of a stinging defeat? That sounds like fun. And if the point was to prove that lots of Democrats, women, minorities, and other disaffected souls don’t like Trump and wish he hadn’t won, then the election results
already reflect that reality.
Furthermore, it looks like some voters may already be having buyer’s remorse. But it’s too late for that. Trump has won the electoral college and the oath will be administered, and a new regime installed.
The disillusioned also have been moaning about that absurd artifact of aristocratic distrust of the rabble since it can be argued it, not the voters, decided the election. But the electoral college hasn’t been news since 1788. If you don’t like it, the Constitution contains the rules for getting it repealed and replaced.
And if you don’t like Trump, marching now is a little belated. Maybe you should have worked to turn out more voters to cast a ballot against him. They were there for the asking, apparently.
The first large post-election survey was conducted by Quinnipiac recently and its results announced on January 10. It showed 55% of the electorate approves of the job President Obama is doing, his highest rating in seven years. By contrast 51% disapproved of the job the president-elect was doing.
Sixty percent believed Trump will be a worse president or no better than Obama, while only 34% thought he’d be an improvement. Not a surprise, perhaps, when 53% said he’s dishonest, 52% that he doesn’t care about the average American and 62% that he’s not level-headed.
Even worse, only 27% said that thought he’d help their financial situation. The same number, 27%, said he makes them feel more safe. And sixty-four percent said he should close his Twitter account and get to work on their behalf.
So, the marchers and the counter-programmers and the forlorn aren’t in denial exactly. They are in the majority. Trump fans are in the minority, and the most rabid deplorables are a tiny fraction of the country, though a noisy and unpleasant one.
A YouTube video of the rather touching presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Joe Biden by the outgoing president attracted the usual alt-right trolls and sore winners to the comment section.
A chap styling himself Scumbag Steve said, “The people have had enough of you political hacks.” Proud Rager, perhaps a cousin of Jolly Roger, said, “They think they’re gonna get away with all their crimes. They won’t.”
Hank the Hill offered the elegant suggestion that we “screw these retards, they watched our nation burn to hell and now they’re giving each other medals.” And these were the nice ones, unlike those who called the president a Kenyan coon, Biden a pedophile and Michelle Obama a dyke.
So if these Trump enthusiasts, channelling the master’s political incorrectness, aren’t in the majority, how come he’s president and the people attending alt-left marches are stuck offering doom and gloom forecasts of the future to pollsters?
It’s easy to fault Hilary, a truly inept candidate or James Comey, but the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves. Sixty-three million people voted for Trump, 66 million for Hillary, but that only adds up to 57.9% of eligible voters. A truly dispiriting 42% or 93 million eligible voters couldn’t be bothered to go to the polls and exercise their right as citizens to cast a ballot.
As a result we will all get to live with the consequences for the next four years, or until Trump commits an impeachable offense, or starts a thermonuclear war, whichever comes first.