In a couple of weeks, two months will have gone by since the election and there is still much wailing and crying about the result. Even esteemed outlets like the Washington Post are running op-eds from individuals living in fear of a President Trump. The Left has tried recounts, threats against electors (to no avail), and even a bizarre idea to have the Democrats hijack the Senate on procedural grounds and install President Obama’s pick to the Supreme Court, to try and stop Trump or mitigate the perceived damage that his Presidency might cause (from their perspective). While these antics are disturbing in that many of these folks seem to think that they have the right to overrule an election result simply because they don’t like it (rather than that the result itself was caused by fraudulent activity such as voter fraud), it might turn out to be for the U.S. as a whole that Trump ends up being better than Clinton for the following reasons:

1.)    Trump didn’t NEED to be President. Clinton HAD to be President.

The fact is that it is dangerous to hand power to people who lust after it. Clinton had been running for President for 25 years. Everything in her life was done with an eye towards being the first female President. Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to have really intended to be President until about 9 months ago. True, he was running for the Republican nomination, but his campaign (if you can call it that) seems to have largely been about promoting himself, having fun throwing rhetorical bombs, getting everyone stirred up, and perhaps putting some of his ideas into the national conversation. It doesn’t appear that he desired to actually get elected. It wasn’t until February or March of 2016 that something seemed to click inside of him and he realized that he might actually win the nomination in spite of himself. Once that happened, his competitive streak kicked in and he started going all-in to win.

The point is that we have a President-elect who, up until 9 months ago, would likely have considered his life complete without ever sitting in the Oval Office. Clinton, on the other hand, appears to feel that she was ‘robbed’ of something to which she was entitled. An entitled personality like Clinton is at least as likely (and probably more likely) to abuse the powers of the Office of the President as Trump.

2.)    Hillary Clinton just isn’t an effective leader. Donald Trump might be.

The fact is that we don’t really know what Donald Trump is going to be like as President. As President-elect, he has backed off some of his campaign rhetoric. He could be an effective President, or he could be a total disaster. We just don’t know at this time. However, Trump does at least have a history of making things happen. To put it charitably, Hillary Clinton does not. Clinton was an activist First Lady for 8 years, a Senator from New York for 6 years, a Secretary of State for 4 years, and a candidate for President twice. A what does she have to show for it? Not much. Even her most ardent fans couldn’t think of really any accomplishments beyond just reciting how many miles she logged traveling around the world as Secretary of State. The fact that her march to the Presidency was almost derailed by an aging socialist backbencher and that she needed some internal Party shenanigans to solidify her victory is a sign that she just isn’t effective.

3.)    Trump’s overreach will be opposed by Democrats and some Republicans. Clinton’s would have been opposed by some Republicans.

As strange as it may seem, Donald Trump is likely to be better long term for American unity than Clinton would have been. A lot of that statement is undergirded by the fact that Trump’s cabinet and judicial picks are likely to be within the legal mainstream, a mainstream that has protected certain rights that American’s have enjoyed for over 200 years. The fact is, whether one wants to admit the truth of it or not, that there is a concerted attack coming from the Left on rights like religious freedom and gun rights, just to name two. Left-wing activists have been using the court system to force private businesses to engage in activity that they find morally reprehensible as a condition of being allowed to stay in business (in contrast to singers and entertainers refusing to perform at Trump’s inauguration, who have faced no calls to have them put out of business for refusing to engage in activity that THEY find morally reprehensible). The same is true for gun rights, against which the Left is trying to use the legal system means to remove those from responsible gun owners as well.

The point is that explaining to people that rights which they thought that they had (and which generations of American before them had) are now no longer valid is not something likely to lead to a stable society. The Left thinks that once it gets something declared the law of the land by a court, then they have won and the question is settled for all time. The problem is that it is one thing to use the courts to grant rights (like same-sex marriage), and it is something else to take established rights away (or to explain how no, you silly person, you don’t SERIOUSLY have those rights your parents/grandparents told you that you did). A Clinton Administration would have been more likely to push certain large segments of the country to the wall. The result would have been a loss in legitimacy for the government and long-term instability.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, America had a choice between a couple of unappealing options. While the Left and media focus on Donald Trump’s incendiary comments, the fact is that Clinton, with her “basket of deploreables” comment along with the Democrats and the media’s defense of that comment, means that Hillary Clinton likely sees roughly half of the country as deserving of being second-class citizens and would likely have continued (or intensified) the institutional attack (see IRS and Tea Party) on those segments. If one looks at Donald Trump (erratic personality aside), one sees someone who appears to have no problem with same-sex marriage, transgendered bathrooms, is perhaps flexible on abortion, and seems to be more of a traditional center-left person on trade (for better or worse). While his rhetoric may be uncouth, most of his other positions, including border enforcement, are largely within the conservative Republican mainstream. In short, those on the Left are more likely to come out of a Trump Administration unscathed that those on the Right would have fared under Hillary Clinton.

If this turns out to be the case, then Trump will turn out to have been better for the U.S. than Clinton.  

So, we are now done with the electoral challenges in Pennsylvania, Michigan, as well as the recount in Wisconsin (nearly), and it appears that Donald Trump has slates of Republican electors totaling 306. However, in the time since the election on November 8, the U.S. has resembled more unstable former Soviet Republic than the United States that has existed for most of our lives.

While there was much wailing and courtroom maneuverings in the aftermath of the 2000 election, at least that had the virtue of being an election where it was A.) extraordinarily close, and B.) where there were legitimate questions of who voted for what. In the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, there were some who claimed that rigged voting machines cost John Kerry the election in Ohio, and thus, the Presidency (although nobody disputes that George W. Bush won the popular vote). And in both cases, the inaugurations were marred by protests.

Today, since the election, there have been protests, cry-in’s on university campuses (not to mention unhelpful tweets from the President-elect himself), attacks on people for their political views, media claims of a vicious racist undercurrent, recounts demanded in 3 states by someone who received 1% of the national vote, harassment of the electors themselves to change their votes from Trump to (preferably Hillary, but another Republican if they must), yelling about co-called ‘fake news’ (including a member of the White House press corp intimating that the government should crack down on it) and now claims that Russia has ‘hacked’ the election (coupled with assertions that the Electoral College should make sure that Trump doesn’t become President).

While none of these gambits is likely to be successful in preventing Mr. Trump from taking the White House (nor should they), the fact is that the employment of these tactics reminds one of the banana republics that we like to deride for their backwards and corrupt political systems. None of these actions is remotely legitimate, nor are they likely being employed for altruistic or public-spirited reasons. In other words, the folks doing this would not be doing this if the election had gone the other way. In addition, the fact that they have gone here increases the likelihood that they will be used in future elections as a method of delegitimizing the new President (whoever he/she might be).

The fact is, what this election is revealing is that we have a large segment of the center-left that only accepts a system as legitimate if it gives them what they want. The Electoral College is illegitimate if it elects Bush or Trump, but legitimate if it were to elect John Kerry (in which he lost the popular vote). The Supreme Court is illegitimate if it sides with the center-right on the Citizen’s United case, but legitimate if it requires same-sex marriage or upholds Obamacare. In order to maintain a democratic-republic, you have to stand up for the system, even if it does things that you disagree with. By and large, the center-right has done this (I don’t recall any protests being organized against either Obama election). The center-left, on the other hand, doesn’t seem willing to follow this philosophy. Consequently, they will engage in destabilizing actions when they don’t get their way.

Expect a U.S. that will look more and more like unstable political systems around the world going forward, with predictable negative consequences for investment and economic growth.

Although the election is all over but the shouting (of which there is more than normal), one question that seems to have outsized importance this election season is that of the fate of the industrial (white) working class. The election of Trump seems to have focused minds on this segment of the electorate, although Bernie Sanders and others on the left had been talking about this forgotten group for some time. The fact is that jobs have been being outsourced for a generation, rates of private sector unionization (something of specific concern to the left) have been steadily declining to the point of being almost microscopic, and working class wages have been stagnating for a generation or more. So what has been causing this economic decay that has been largely invisible to those outside of the major metropolitan areas where culture and public policy are produced?

The first cause that should be highlighted is increasing environmental regulation. At the time that the EPA was founded in 1970, it was responding to real environmental problems. Pollution was visible in the air in many places, rivers were catching fire, and even littering was something of a problem. However, as the EPA has expanded, the air has become cleaner, as have the rivers. The EPA has focused on less visible concerns such as ozone holes and global warming/climate change. However, the regulatory burden on the overall economy has steadily increased over time, along with compliance costs. As this happens, industrial firms have been offshoring production to countries with less stringent environmental compliance regulations. While some environmental regulation was and is still necessary, the steady increase over the last 45 years or so is one factor that has driven good factory jobs off shore.

The second cause is that the U.S. has been the indispensable player in the international system which has been in place since WWII. As part of this, the U.S. has been encouraging expanded trading relationships as a way of managing a peaceful world order. The idea is that if countries are fully integrated into the international trading system and have a stake in the continued existence of a stable trading system, then they are less likely to engage in warfare that would upend the system. During the Cold War, the U.S. used its influence and economic might to bind countries to it in order to oppose the Soviet Union and China. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the international trading system managed by the U.S. simply expanded to include many former Soviet Bloc countries. One part of the strategy is to lower trade barriers and create free (or freer) trade areas. The result of this is that a company could offshore its production to say, Mexico, and then reimport those goods back into the U.S. for a fraction of the cost. This increases employment in Mexico and makes it less likely to engage in activities that would result in its access to the U.S. markets getting closed off. The U.S. consumers would win too, as these products would show up in the stores at a lower price. However, the cost of these gains, as real as they are, has been the American industrial worker.

The third cause is automation. In the industrial sector, the ability to automate has meant that it takes fewer workers to produce the same amount of output than it did at earlier periods in history. This is called productivity and is what is responsible for higher standards of living in society. However, in economic theory this should be a good thing because the displaced workers will move into other, more labor-intensive sectors and produce even more goods (and services) making the citizens in the economy even better off. And in a perfectly free economy that might actually happen. But no economy is perfectly free, and the displaced industrial workers are not finding jobs that pay as well or better because they don’t exist. Consequently, you have many communities where the best days are in the past.

The fourth cause is declining unionization of the private sector workforce. With a significant fraction of the working population unionized, this raises the overall wages in the economy. However, this also raises the cost of doing business. With the U.S. opening up its markets over the last 2 generations, the competition faced by the American worker has increased. This leads to lower (i.e. stagnating) wage demands as the workers rightly fear that their jobs could be outsourced. In fact, it is not hard to see that the one area where unionization is still relatively strong is in government and utilities, two industries that don’t lend themselves to being easily outsourced.

Increased immigration (legal and illegal) has also had a negative impact on the industrial worker. While many immigration advocates have argued that illegal immigrants only take jobs that Americans won’t do, this is misleading. For one thing, anyone who remembers the real estate boom a decade ago won’t forget the crowds of migrant workers (of questionable legality) standing in Home Depot parking lots waiting for someone in the construction industry to show up an hire a few of them on the spot for a day. These fellows, as industrious as they may have been, were in competition with American workers for the same job. While it is hard to tell how many illegal aliens are currently working in the U.S., many are employed in industries in which there are also Americans working. These folks are increasing the competition for jobs faced by those at the lower end of the scale. In addition, they are also helping to hold down wages in those sectors, thereby contributed to stagnating American wages.

In short, the economic decline of industrial working class has been caused by a combination of factors over a long period of time. While new jobs that didn’t exist in 1970 have risen to take the place of ones that have disappeared, it is clear that one segment of the U.S. population is doing worse off than it was a generation ago. The fact that many Americans feel that their children will be worse off than they are is a pessimistic feeling uncharacteristic of the historical American experience. Because much of this decline has occurred outside of the major metro areas, it has largely gone unnoticed and unlamented by the cultural, economic, and policymaking elite of this country. In the last election, this class asserted itself in rather spectacular fashion. Until a policy mix is found to help reverse this decline, we can expect this demographic to continue to vocal in politics for some time to come.