Shock everywhere as Donald Trump elected 45th U.S. president

Donald Trump will be the 45^th president of the United States – to the shock of many people, myself included.

His victory is a massive repudiation of the polling industry, the mainstream media, the Democratic Party and many Republicans, particularly most of the party establishment. The polls were all wrong. Almost every one of them had Hillary Clinton winning, right up until Tuesday morning. Trump not only won the electoral vote, which in 48 of 50 states means that the candidate with the most votes wins all the electoral votes, but throughout Tuesday night he was winning the popular vote.

He may end up slightly behind Hillary Clinton when the final vote is counted. The same thing happened in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore got the most votes, but lost to George W. Bush when the Florida result was finally decided, weeks after the election.

Because of the electoral vote system, Democratic candidates for president can be on the losing end even when they get the most votes. This is largely due to massive pluralities they rack up in heavily-populated states like California and New York.

This type of polling error is the latest in a long string of errors – including the most recent federal election, Brexit, the British election, the Quebec election and the 2013 B.C. election. Yet the media and far too many people hang onto and take to heart every detail of polls. It appears they are meaningless in the internet age.

The mainstream media in the United States, as is the case in Canada, is based in the east, in heavily-populated centres. Even after it became clear that Trump was winning, most media commentators on television and in newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post continued their patronizing ways, and attributed the Trump victory to a massive number of anti-woman, anti-black, KKK-supporting voters. One CNN commentator called it a "whitelash."

This is nonsense. Yes, there were a small number of voters motivated by such feelings. However, in my view, the vast majority of Trump supporters were motivated mainly by his vow to “drain the (Washington) swamp.”

The Democratic Party in many ways had this coming. Clinton clearly was carrying a lot of baggage, mainly due to her husband’s infidelities while in office, her deleted emails, the Clinton Foundation, the Libya tragedy and the Clintons’ rise from near-poverty to vast riches, while doing nothing other than politics for the past 25 years.

Bernie Sanders offered a much more viable alternative to a Trump candidacy, yet he was obviously shut out by the Democratic Party establishment, as Wikileaks has pointed out. His chance at winning the nomination was also shut down by the Democrats’ “super delegates,” a system which seems to be as anti-democratic as it gets.

Many Republicans are horrified at Trump’s win. He vilified his fellow primary candidates to a greater or lesser degree. He insulted party elders like Senator John McCain (the party’s 2008 candidate for president) and he made fun of far too many people along the way during the nomination fight and through much of the election campaign.

To his credit, he did tone it down considerably in the last couple of weeks of the campaign. His victory speech was gracious and he reached out to those who oppose him. Clinton showed the same graciousness in her concession speech Wednesday morning. These speeches were much-needed and should offer some relief to those who are very fearful about a Trump presidency.

Trump endured and won. He energized many people. And he spoke out for a lot of people who have been left behind by the economy, who have been forgotten by politicians in Washington and taken for granted (or mocked) by establishment figures in business, politics, law and the media.

Trump’s supporters will have high expectations of his presidency. It will be hard for him to deliver on some of his promises. It seems impossible that a wall will be built along the Mexican border, or that the U.S. will not admit any immigrants of the Muslim faith.

In a robust democracy, the person who gains the most votes (in the U.S. presidency, the most electoral votes) wins.  The people, in their collective wisdom, make the choice of which candidate they want to lead and represent them.

As I noted in an earlier blog post some months ago, they are almost always right. They all vote the way they do for very different reasons. In the very rare cases when voters collectively make a mistake, they realize it and correct that mistake as soon as they can. I’ve seen this firsthand.

What does a Trump presidency mean for Canada and, in particular, for B.C.? It will likely hurt our softwood lumber industry. The agreement over importing lumber to the U.S. has expired, and the president plays a big role in any renewal efforts.

The North American Free Trade Agreement will be closely examined. Mexico has much more to fear than Canada does, but it may hurt Canadian exports.

The federal Liberal government’s enthusiasm for a carbon tax likely will not wane, but the U.S. won’t be a part of it, or of any international agreement on reducing emissions. If Canada doesn’t change course somewhat, it will hurt our economy in a significant way. Trump has promised to approve the Keystone pipeline, which Barack Obama turned down. That could help Canada’s economy.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was very wise not to comment in any way on the U.S. election. He has already congratulated Trump, and he needs to make a visit with the president-elect a top priority. Trump will want more military spending by NATO allies including Canada, and that is not an unreasonable request. Canada has depended on the U.S. for military protection for far too long, and needs to contribute more.

Some commentators have recently suggested that Canada has more robust social programs precisely because of our over-reliance on the U.S. military and lack of military spending. That’s an intriguing thought, and it may well be accurate.

A few other thoughts on various U.S. votes Tuesday:

- California voters overwhelmingly backed legalizing marijuana, as has already happened in Colorado, Washington and several other states. This is a positive step. There is the potential for much more government revenue. The only thing that must be part of it is strict measures to keep legal pot out of the hands of minors. This will likely lead to overall legalization across the U.S. and will make crossing the border a simpler task for those who use or have used marijuana. It will also dovetail nicely with Trudeau’s plans to legalize marijuana in Canada.

My daughter-in-law's father, a retired San Francisco police officer, was actively working towards this outcome as a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). He and others who worked hard on the initiative are happy with the results.

- Washington voters have voted to raise the minimum wage to $13.50 per hour, and also voted to spend a massive sum on extending rail transit in the Greater Seattle area.
- Washington state voters also turned down, in decisive numbers, a carbon tax that would be very similar to B.C.’s carbon tax. This is in contrast to the fact that Washington voters voted decisively for Clinton, and handily re-elected Democrats to the position of governor and U.S. senator.