President-elect Trump
The Republican establishment couldn’t stand Trump. The Democratic establishment mocked him. The Republican nominee didn’t even really seem to have much of a campaign. He spent more on “Make America Great” hats than on polling. If you don’t count Newt Gingrich — and I don’t — only one major political historian, Allan Lichtman, had predicted that Trump would win. … But then the impossible happened.
When Trump beat 16 seasoned pols in the Republican primary, Kevin wrote, that should have sent a clear message that the public was fed up with political insiders, including Hillary, who “has been in the public eye for 25 years,” with an image “cast in concrete.”
Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
You aren’t going wherever the heck you say you are moving to now that Donald Trump is going to be president of the United States of America.
What we all do is this: We stay and fight.
First, we wait and see. Even Hillary Clinton said Wednesday, “We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead.”
But if we don’t like what happens, we fight it. We take to the streets and rekindle memories of the anti-Vietnam War protests and civil rights marches. We don’t run and hide. We don’t abandon America.
I feel, strangely, not what I thought I would “the morning after.” I’m more patriotic than I was yesterday. More in love with my country than I have since, I guess, Sept. 11, 2001.
Everyone walking around like it’s the end of civilization now that Trump is in? It’s not. We’ve been through far worse. A perceived threat is not as bad as a punch in the face.
Michael Krikorian
The Los Angeles Times
Two weeks ago, I began saying that Trump would win, whether I liked it or not. Today, I offer a clarification: He didn’t win the election. Clinton lost it.
For voters who couldn’t stand Trump, she was a terrible alternative. Never a great candidate, she was also, tragically, a Clinton when people were ready to move on. She received several million fewer votes than President Obama did in 2012.
The 2016 election was as much a referendum on Obama’s legacy as it was on the candidates themselves. When people want the country to change course, they don’t typically vote for a third term of the current president.
Kathleen Parker
The Washington Post
America spoke and demanded change to the status quo. After an exhausting election season marked by stress and cynicism, today should be about optimism.
This paper called for Trump to step aside. Although we will never condone the behavior and comments we condemned, today we congratulate him on a stunning victory won against tough odds.
Now it is incumbent upon Mr. Trump to show he is up to the task of leading the most powerful nation on earth.
Millions of voters who supported other candidates are undoubtedly disappointed with this outcome. Yet, Americans should accept the results gracefully and now work to support the nation’s newest leader.
Deseret News
We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. …
Alas for the Trump voters, the disasters he will bring on this country will fall more heavily on them than anyone else. The uneducated white males who elected him are the vulnerable ones and they will not like what happens next.
Resentment is no excuse for bald-faced stupidity. America is still the land where the waitress’ kids can grow up to become physicists and novelists and pediatricians, but it helps a lot if the waitress and her husband encourage good habits and the ambition to use your God-given talents and the kids aren’t plugged into electronics day and night. Whooping it up for the candidate of cruelty and ignorance does less than nothing for your kids.
Garrison Keillor
in The Salt Lake Tribune
Donald J. Trump is president-elect of the United States. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.
Mr. Trump will become this country’s 45th president. For me, it is a truly shocking fact, a bitter pill to swallow. I remain convinced that this is one of the worst possible people who could be elected president. I remain convinced that Trump has a fundamentally flawed character and is literally dangerous for world stability and injurious to America’s standing in that world. …
I strongly support and defend the peaceful transfer of power in this country and applaud the current administration for doing what is right and normal in America, what every prior departing administration has done: to make sure the transfer of power is as smooth as possible.
Charles M. Blow
The New York Times
