Forgotten people betrayed by blind elites to the bitter end

We arrived in Washington the night before, to stay opposite the White House. We came for a holiday but popped a few days on to it here first, just to watch Donald Trump win. It seemed like a fun thing to do, to be part of history. Two friends did the same. On election night, we all watched CNN together in the hotel, drinking, shrieking, gasping and laughing.

Foolishly, my husband made a substantial election wager with me, and lost. He has no interest in politics, and fell prey to the shouting from the hysterical media.

It was always obvious Donald Trump had a good chance of winning. All the signs were there, but only those who weren’t caught up in juvenile name calling, pathetic abuse and snotty, contemptuous ridicule could see them.

America is not as great as it used to be, not as great as it could be and not as great as it should be. America has some problems. Trump acknowledged these problems, and offered solutions. Trump is a master salesman, and a sale occurs when a salesperson offers a person with a problem a feasible solution.

For months leading up to this day, all the evidence showed the electorate were in the mood for change. In response to this mood for change, the Democrats offered a request for a third term, so they could dish out more of the same. All they had to push their case was the proposition that Trump was a horrific bogeyman, a racist monster, a drooling lunatic, a crazed groper, a gibbering fool who would race into the white house and set off an atomic bomb. It was fascinating to watch so many in the media, here, and at home, fall for this idea.

For any political party, a third term is a lot to ask, even during good times, and the times, over here, are not so good. People are hurting. For decades now, incomes have stagnated, jobs have been lost, and Obamacare is a sad joke that many can’t afford. In the last eight years, voters were asking, how had the Democrats, who supposedly “care” about the working class, the poor, women and minorities exactly improved the lot of these people?

Many Americans feel a ruling class have been living for a long time in another world, a better world. Seeing as they can’t gain entry into that world — not for lack of hard work; Americans are no slouches — they decided to blow it up. Trump was the bomb they sent to Washington. This is how he sold himself: he asked them to send him there, to “drain the swamp”, to destroy the cosy privileged lives of the corrupt, morally superior, smug elite. Can you blame the people for sending him? I can’t. None of us has the right to sneer at him, or judge them, do we? Who among us can claim even a fraction of his success, of what he has achieved?

The butt you kick today can be attached to the feet you have to kiss tomorrow. Think of the Australian elite, those who have publicly said awful things about the man who is soon to be the president of the United States. Did it not occur to these brainiacs it might be best to sit back and watch this play out? At some stage some humble pie will need to be eaten. That will be fun to watch, too.

So many people who should know better have been so busy grandstanding and name calling (bully, bigot, racist, sexist, homophobe, insane lunatic) that they didn’t see what was right in front of their noses. Anyone who tried to say that Trump would win was shouted down, abused and ridiculed. It was simply not worth sticking your head up.

Today, a lady confessed to me she was ashamed to be an American because the election had been so ugly. I told her never to be ashamed, to be proud. She lives in a great country, the greatest on the planet. She works two jobs to get by, and this is hard, but in Australia, she could just have a bunch of kids, sit at home doing nothing and be paid by the government more than $50,000 a year, tax free.

She regarded me with shock and disbelief. How could this be, how could any country do that, why would they do that, surely that is insane? I had no answers for her, and then I was the one who felt ashamed.

Australia is not as great as it could be either, we have our own swamp that needs to be drained. Who is going to do it for us?