Well,  America has elected a new president after months and months of media election reporting and it wasn’t as close as had been predicted.  The majority of Americans (who elected Trump) are rejoicing and the rest of American voters are worried about disaster. Garrision Keillor’s wrote his reaction to Trump’s election:[cartoon by Greg Perry The Tyee]

“So America has gone and done it, elected the evil grandpa, which goes to show that literacy is in serious decline. Nobody who read the transcripts of Trumps two-hour rants would want this old man in the White House. I’ve been reading them with fascination for the past couple months and they are beyond description, the anger and violent obsessions, the confusion, the incredible frequency of blatant falsehoods, the absence of any coherent philosophy, but now the Secret Service is going to have to guard him on his daily golf round, probably requiring the help of the Army and Marines, and who knows if there will be another election in 2026? Congress will be deadlocked, the man owns the Supreme Court, who will stop him if he declares the name of our country is now United Trump?”

Immediately after the results, we had all the experts offering their analysis. There are likely a whole lot of reasons for the outcome, but I believe the most significant reasons included the grocery store as a daily reminder that inflation had changed day-to-day life in America. Food cost too much, gas and energy cost too much, and transportation cost too much. In addition, the average working family voted in their own self interest.  People felt like they had been left out of any voice in government activities and Trump offered them a voice. Add to that, the primitive brain drive for survival that involved a number of biases, people of color, women in control and especially anger towards immigrants. Measured against these factors, it didn’t matter that in Trump’s previous four-year term as president he had been twice impeached or nor that he  continually exhibited  any of the other disqualifying character and moral failures. What did matter to the voter was self preservation motives and a variety of bias attitudes.

Whether it would have made any difference regarding the outcome or not, some additional factors were involved in his election.  Among others, they include issues like had Biden decided not to run for a second term or had he dropped out of the race much sooner, or whether the candidate been a white male instead of a woman of color and whether a different campaign than the one Harris ran would have made a difference in the outcome.  There are some obvious other factors as well. For example Frank Luntz, an established political and communications expert, believes Harris made a significant mistake in focusing on Trump instead of focusing on the issues that concerned voters. He has said:

“Whoever told her to focus on him committed political malpractice because in the end, you can not change someone’s point of view on him. It was all about him.” Luntz is not alone in his post-election analysis. Harris campaign aides along with advisers and strategists revealed to The Washington Post that there was too much of a focus on Trump while the party failed to focus on the fundamental concerns of the average voter.

An equally important factor has been pointed out by longtime Democratic strategist James Carville. He has claimed Kamala Harris’ failed campaign is illustrated by  her answer on the television program  “The View” when she was asked what she would have done differently from President Joe Biden. “That’s the one question that everybody wants to know the answer to and you freeze, literally freeze.”  He noted that Harris, when asked the question, paused a moment, as if she was reflecting. and answered: there that there was  “not a thing that comes to mind” as far as what she would’ve done differently from the president. Carville cited an NBC News poll in which 65% of registered voters said the country was on the wrong track which obviously was a huge issue in the campaign.  “That’s the most devastating answer you could imagine.” Instead of  “walking around eggshells” not to criticize the president, the right thing to do was to explain how she would do everything to turn the economy around and take care of the immigration and the major concerns of voters.

Well, in the words of Willie Nelson’s song Nothing I can do about it now:

“And I know just what I’d change
If went back in time somehow
But there’s nothing I can do about it now”

Buckle your seat belt and hang on for the ride, but remember to pray!