XPost: alt.politics.election, us.politics.elections, alt.politic   
   .socialism.democratic   
   XPost: alt.philosophy   
   From: bankrupted@nytimes.com   
      
   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   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)