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From Clinton lovefest to Trump victory, a day of whiplash

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BY LINDA ROBERTSON
lrobertson@miamiherald.com
NEW YORK -- Whiplash.

That’s the right word to describe the surreal 30-hour experience 
of attending a Hillary Clinton lovefest on Independence Mall in 
Philadelphia on Monday, then witnessing Donald Trump’s raucous 
victory celebration inside the Hilton ballroom in midtown 
Manhattan on election night.

Like a crash test dummy, America’s collective cranium was flung 
violently back and forth upon impact with the most shocking 
presidential election outcome of modern times.

President Donald J. Trump. First Lady Melania Trump. The White 
House redecorated to resemble Versailles. The spray-tanned 
leader of the free world tweeting from the Oval Office about 
Miss Universe contestants or his pal Vladimir Putin. Yes, the 
gusher of material for “Saturday Night Live” is going to flow 
for four more years. And yes, democratic values such as decency, 
fairness, opportunity and civil rights are going to be 
dismantled and replaced by a con man’s platform of xenophobia, 
resentment, greed and incivility.

President Obama compared Trump’s provocative, preposterous, 
polarizing campaign to a “parody of a reality show.” But this is 
actually happening: On Jan. 20, the first African-American 
president will hand the keys not to the first female American 
president, but to the first celebrity real estate mogul American 
president with a brand name.

“It’s going to be a beautiful thing,” Trump said of his 
administration.

“USA! USA! USA!” Trump supporters chanted at 3 a.m. Tuesday when 
returns confirmed what few had imagined 17 months ago as Trump 
squared off against 16 Republican rivals in what seemed to be 
another compulsive publicity stunt. He had defeated Clinton in 
swing state after swing state, including Florida.

His loyalists, wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps and 
pink “Hot Chicks For Trump” buttons, whooped, high-fived, 
clinked Heineken bottles and waved “Hispanics For Trump,” 
“Bikers For Trump,” “Silent Majority For Trump” and “Deplorable 
Lives Matter” signs. The tone was more hostile than exuberant, 
as if everybody was itching to extract revenge. They posed for 
photos next to a large cake baked as a bust of Trump, and it was 
difficult to tell which was more lifelike — Trump’s hair or the 
elaborately coiffed frosting.

As the crowd swayed and bounced, a few of us in the journalists’ 
pen noticed an obese red-hatted man groping the rear end of a 
woman in front of him. When she turned to see who was emulating 
our new president, we identified the groper to a cop, who 
escorted him out of the ballroom.

Two proudly conservative college students rejoiced as Trump 
spoke from the stage. As for Trump’s vulgar, misogynistic 
comments about women, “Oh, that’s just locker room talk,” said 
Mark Pawelec, 19. “All guys say stuff like that.”

Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer waved her hand when asked about 
the women who accused Trump of sexual assault.

“So long ago,” she said. But what about his rants against 
Muslims and Mexicans, his mocking of people with disabilities? 
Brewer smiled. “This is a movement. This is Reaganesque.”

“LOCK HER UP!” people shouted as Fox News flashed a photo of 
Clinton and a commentator spat out the idea that her loss 
represented “a big F-you to popular culture” and pro-Hillary 
stars like uppity Beyonce. There were hints of the ugliness that 
erupted at those disturbing, barnstorming campaign rallies, 
where Trump stoked believers who wore “Trump that Bitch” T-
shirts --but this was a suit-and-tie and designer high-heels 
crowd. What would those small-town folks think if they could see 
Trump mingling with his VIP insiders?

Cheers rose as Trump drove home his central point.

“The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no 
more,” he said.

Trump’s words rang true with Pax Dickinson, a 43-year-old 
college dropout and son of hippies who is CTO of a startup 
website and lives in rural northeast Pennsylvania, the 
battleground state that helped clinch victory for Trump.

Dickinson showed five men in his town how to register to vote. 
They had never voted in their lives.

“They never had a candidate who spoke to them, so they never 
bothered to vote,” Dickinson said as the Rolling Stones’ “You 
Can’t Always Get What You Want” played over loudspeakers.

Those men, most of them unemployed, alienated and angry, are the 
forgotten Americans Trump marshalled to his side.

“The elites and the media in New York, Washington, D.C., Los 
Angeles and San Francisco live in a bubble and have no idea what 
real America is about,” Dickinson said. “They don’t even like 
real America. Real America didn’t go to an Ivy League school and 
doesn’t commute on the subway. Real America is out there in the 
fly-over zone. A massive number of people have lost their jobs 
and given up finding another one. Immigrants don’t get jobs as 
lawyers or Wall Street brokers so they are not a threat to the 
elites.”

But isn’t Trump the epitome of elite, the billionaire son of 
privilege born and still residing in a gilded Manhattan 
penthouse? Isn’t Clinton the daughter of working-class parents, 
and didn’t she choose to represent the poor and neglected in her 
early career? Weren’t Bill Clinton and Barack Obama raised by 
single mothers?

“We’ve had Republicans and Democrats in the White House and 
people are not better off,” Dickinson said. “Trump was the only 
one who said something new. This was about change.”

Trump, his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, possible Interior 
Secretary Sarah “Drill, Baby, Drill” Palin and possible Attorney 
General Rudy Giuliani waded through the crowd shaking hands. 
When asked how the mainstream polls could be so wrong, Conway 
replied: “Mine weren’t. I’ve been talking about the closet Trump 
vote for months.”

How did this happen? Flint filmmaker Michael Moore warned that 
“Rust Belt Brexit” and the “Jesse Ventura Effect” would put 
Trump over the top. The smug scene inside Trump headquarters 
proved he was right. White males who hated having a black man in 
charge couldn’t stomach the idea of a woman and then, what’s 
next, a gay president? Fed-up Americans voted for scam artist 
Trump the same way they voted for a professional wrestler to be 
governor of Minnesota -- to thumb their noses at the political 
establishment.

Trump once gave me a tour of the Mar-a-Lago mansion during an 
interview, pointing out the ornate flourishes of the “very, very 
first-class” refurbishment he had overseen. In person, he wasn’t 
the same cartoonish actor he is on stage. He had a self-
deprecating sense of humor. He wanted to be liked. I asked him 
about his golf resorts and why he was such an avid player of the 
game. “I like to win,” he said, in a sort of summation of his 
reason for being. “Losers don’t know how to win.”

Here I was, observing his ultimate victory. I had gone down a 
rabbit hole to the alternate universe of Trumpland, where the 
next president of the world’s most powerful nation is a tax-
dodger endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.

Less than two miles away at the glass-ceilinged Javits Center, 
stunned and tearful Clinton supporters departed what was 
supposed to be a historic party. The Empire State Building, lit 
up in red, white and blue, went dark.

“Trump’s success reveals how deep the strain of venomous bigotry 
runs in our society,” said Clayton Cameron of Harlem. “Trumpists 
are voting for a person who builds country clubs that exclude 
them. I feel like I’m stuck in a Franz Kafka novel, or the 1960s 
when I was taking acid trips. It’s like these people are on 
acid!”

Whiplash.

The previous night I had found myself awash in good vibrations 
at the rally in Philly, where there was a buoyant sense that a 
Clinton triumph was a foregone conclusion. With Independence 
Hall as backdrop, Clinton supporters sang, danced and waved 
“Stronger Together” signs as Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen 
performed — and urged them to vote Democrat.

Bill and Chelsea Clinton spoke of Hillary’s devotion to others. 
Barack and Michelle Obama gave stirring speeches about Hillary’s 
qualifications, compassion and never-quit commitment to her 
country.

“We deserve a leader who sees our diversity not as a threat but 
as a blessing,” Michelle said. “You can say that this country 
has always been great, a country where a girl like me from the 
South Side of Chicago, whose great, great grandfather was a 
slave, can go to some to the finest universities on earth, where 
a woman determined to do all the good she can can break the 
highest, hardest glass ceiling and become president.”

Emotion was palpable as the world’s coolest First Couple said 
farewell and prepared to pass the torch.

“I am betting you will reject fear and choose hope,” said Obama, 
praising Clinton’s resilience against “vicious, crazy attacks 
and double-standards.”

Clinton was hoarse but inspiring.

“I regret how angry the tone of the campaign became,” she said 
as an audience member shouted, “Not your fault!” “The real 
question is what we want to be and what kind of future we want 
to build for our children.”

Thirty thousand rapturously confident Clinton fans left the mall 
walking on air.

Whiplash.

On Wednesday in New York, the morning after was gray compared to 
the golden autumn glow of Election Day. At Public School 166 on 
the Upper West Side, where voters had chatted excitedly while 
waiting in line to cast votes on Tuesday, glum parents dropped 
off their kids, then hugged each other as if in mourning. Moms 
who had planned on electing the first mother to the White House 
were sad and incredulous.

“I’m numb,” said one.

“Horrifying for New York,” said another.

“We’ve got to keep fighting,” said another. “Stay strong.”

On Fifth Avenue at Trump Tower, a protest was mushrooming. A 
woman wearing a “Trump Will Never Be My President” sign talked 
heatedly with a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” button 
about abortion, the Supreme Court, gay marriage, gun control, 
mass deportations, police brutality, climate change, tax cuts 
for the super rich. People held up posters: “Black Lives 
Matter,” “LGBT Rights Are Human Rights,” “Orange Is NOT The New 
Black,” “Keep Your Small Hands Off Me.”

“Don’t make America hate again,” a young man yelled.

New York’s ubiquitous Naked Cowboy, a muscular dude in tighty-
whities and cowboy boots, strummed his support for Trump on his 
guitar.

It struck me that many Americans voted as if they were watching 
a reality show, and now we’re stuck in one until at least 2020.

Around the corner at the Peninsula Hotel, Clinton practiced her 
moving concession speech. It’s become fashionable to label her a 
“flawed candidate” (as if anyone isn’t?) and blame her for 
botching the election, just as she’s been blamed for everything 
from Vince Foster’s suicide to the creation of ISIS. But the 
truth is, she won the popular vote by a quarter million ballots. 
The smarter, tougher and more empathetic leader wasn’t doomed by 
Trump’s revolution but by indifferent turnout in key precincts.

On the front page of the New York Daily News the headline “House 
of Horrors” was superimposed over a photo of the White House.

Back home in Miami, my daughters -- whom I had planned to take 
to Inauguration Day -- were distraught. A kid whose parents 
voted for Trump had shouted “Heil Hitler!” in the hallway of 
their high school, where 90 percent of the students are Hispanic 
or black.

A jogger from the Netherlands asked me how to find Strawberry 
Fields in Central Park. She wanted to go contemplate John 
Lennon’s song “Imagine” and “say a little prayer for the United 
States.”

“The same thing is happening in Europe, and it’s scary,” she 
said. “Angry white men. Brexit. Border fences. Extremists.”

Whiplash.

Where were you when Donald Trump was elected president? I was 
surrounded by mad red-hatters. I wanted to witness history in 
New York, and I did. Just not the kind most of us were expecting.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-
government/election/article113735134.html
 

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From Clinton lovefest to Trump victory, a day of whiplash "In The Bag For The Hag" <bankrupted@nytimes.com> - 2017-01-19 23:43 +0100

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