Two wrong candidates don’t make right result

As we (i.e. those of us who did not foresee this outcome) try to unpack where Donald Trump’s remarkable electoral victory came from, some critical insights can be gleaned from exit poll data.

While much has been written about demographics — that whites turned out for Trump while minorities went for Hillary Clinton — among the most glaring insights is this: that while many Americans disliked Donald Trump and thought he did not have presidential qualities, they voted for him anyway.

According to analysis by Amy Walter for the Cook Political Report, an independent non-partisan newsletter than examines US political races, 60 per cent of voters viewed Trump unfavourably. Yet 15 per cent of those voters cast a ballot for him anyway.

Sixty-three per cent of voters said they didn’t think Trump had the “temperament” to be president but 20 per cent of them voted for him regardless.

And 60 per cent of voters said they didn’t think Trump, who has never before held political office, nor served in the military — becoming the first commander-in-chief to strike out on both those counts — said he wasn’t qualified to be president.

Eighteen per cent of them voted for him.

How is that for a poke in the eye to the establishment? Imagine how fed up you have to be to look at the alternatives, see one with three decades of public service, decide that the alternative isn’t up to the job — and then go with him anyway.

Clinton, as it transpired, was entirely the wrong candidate for a nation anxious about economic stagnation, frustrated with gridlock in Washington, threatened by unchecked immigration and disillusioned with a ruling class that had taken all of the gains of globalisation while the great middle and working class was hollowed out.

Trump, like Bernie Sanders, picked the issues and promised to “Make America Great Again”.

Sixty-two per cent of voters believed the US was on the wrong track. Clinton promised more of the same.

Trump has upended conventional wisdom by winning a general election with a small (by comparison) advertising spend and without a sophisticated campaign infrastructure.

But while he tore up the rulebook on how to win power, he hasn’t (yet) taught us anything about how to wield power.

The “movement” that propelled Trump to the White House comprises people who are sick of politics as usual and feel let down by the broken promises and non-achievement.

How is that for a poke in the eye to the establishment? Imagine how fed up you have to be to look at the alternatives, see one with three decades of public service, decide that the alternative isn’t up to the job — and then go with him anyway.

So how will they react in the likely event that their champion proves a disappointment?

Making America Great Again entails bringing back manufacturing jobs from overseas, effecting the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, dismantling Obamacare and replacing it with something better, getting Mexico to build that wall, banning immigration from places where there is a terrorism risk, rewriting global trade deals in America’s favour, saving Medicare and Medicaid, defeating ISIS, boosting the military, finding more resources for veterans, aggressively cutting taxes and reducing the national debt.

Achieving even one-10th of that agenda would test a president innately skilled in pulling the levers of (limited) power afforded the office, let alone a novice such as Trump (for whom inexperience is likely among the least of his personal deficits).