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.