The 2016 Presidential Election (An Analysis).

The 2016 Presidential election in America was one of the most controversial and important elections in human history. It was filled with debates about economics, emails, social issues, and foreign policy matters. It had an overload of media coverage, Internet discussions, and issues of tolerance. Trump presented a right wing populist campaign with the message of “Make America Great Again” and he criticized political correctness. The term MAGA is oxymoronic since it ignores the troubled history of America during the past and present. We don't want to revert to a time where minorities had their rights completely violated or when slavery was legal. He or Trump opposed free trade agreements not for economic rights reasons, but for xenophobic reasons. Hillary Clinton called many of Trump supporters bigots, which is true. Hillary Clinton wanted to expand President Obama’s policies. She wanted progressive policies on racial issues, women rights issues, LGBT issues, and she wanted an “inclusive capitalism.” Capitalism without any regulations is abhorrent. The 2016 Presidential election allowed people to witness many candidates competing to lead America in the post-Obama era. The result of the election was a great tragedy. The results came about because of both financial angst (and populist acceptance) and the massive embrace of racism found in certain segments of the American people. Many Trump supporters are overt racists since they voted for a racist xenophobe Trump. We have to analyze the election from 2016 chronologically in order to see it for what it was. The election was emotional and very personal from the beginning. As early as November 2014, the moderate Jim Webb of Virginia started an exploratory committee for a positive run for President. Former Governor from Florida Jeb Bush formed a political action committee or PAC for a possible run the Presidency.

As 2015 continued, many more candidates rose up from Democrats and Republicans like Chris Christie, Martin O’Malley (a former Governor of Maryland), Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, George Pataki, Ben Carson, and other people. By March 5, 2015, Mark Everson, former Commissioner of Internal Revenue, formally announced his candidacy for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. On March 18, 2015, Donald Trump, CEO of The Trump Organization since 1971, formed an exploratory committee in preparation for a possible run for president on the Republican Party ticket. Ted Cruz ran for President on March 23, 1015. In early April of 2015, Rand Paul (who is known for his non-interventionist foreign policy views) and Lincoln Chafee ran for President. Rick Santorum decided to have an exploration to see a possible run for President. On April 12, 2015, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. She sends out a video to outline her goals and her story. He goes into Iowa to campaign. Immediately, Hillary Clinton received tons of support. On April 30, 2015, Bennie Sanders officially launched his campaign. He goes after oligarchs, lobbyists, super PACS, and economic inequality. He wants a political revolution to transform America in many ways. From the start, neoliberals and the far right hate him because of his progressive views. Bernie Sanders did the right thing in promoting economic justice. He did the right thing in allowing society to witness the economic, health, and educational disparities among the poor and the super wealthy. His weakness was that he struggled to connect the intersectionality of economic injustice, racism, and sexism. Oppression comes in many forms, and you have to make that complex connection in order to make the plan of action work more comprehensively. For example, the criminal justice disproportionately sends harsher sentences to black people, poor people, and other people of color more so than white Americans (as proven by numerous sociological studies). Hillary Clinton had many strengths in her campaign, and her weakness was that on some issues, she aligned with the establishment from a hawkish foreign policy to other moderate positions. Many Wall Street interests funded the Hillary Clinton campaign. Also, Hillary was critiqued fairly, and criticized unfairly via sexist attacks from many quarters.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida officially ran for President by April 13, 2015. In May of 2015, Carly Fiorina of California, Ben Carson of Maryland, former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, and others ran for President on the Republican side. Martin O’Malley increases his campaign race. Lindsay Graham, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and Jeb Bush ran for President in June of 2015. One June 16, 2015 was when Donald Trump of New York officially declared his candidacy for President. From the start, his campaign was filled with hated, bigotry, and lies. His first campaign speech slandered some undocumented immigrants as rapists and heinous criminals. The Republican side had more people like Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Jim Gilmore from Virginia. Republican candidates debated each other by August of 2015. They discussed about many issues. By August of 2015, Republican candidates debated on C-SPAN in New Hampshire (at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Goffstown, New Hampshire), and later at FOX News. Simi Valley California was where another Republican debate existed. At first, many Republican candidates didn’t take Trump seriously. Later, that would change. Trump would disrespect the Republican candidates personally about their wives, their fathers, and on other issues. Trump would disrespect Jeb Bush's wife and Ted Cruz's father. The first Democratic debate was held in Las Vegas, Nevada at Wynn Casino on October 13, 2015. From the start, the race had the two front runners of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Sanders attacked Clinton as too moderate, and Clinton attacked Sanders as promoting unrealistic proposals. For a time, the campaign was very personal as Hillary Clinton said to Bernie Sanders to say those criticisms about her to her face. To this day, many Hillary supporters can’t tolerate Bernie supporters (and vice versa). By the end of 2015, the Presidential race was unlike any other before 2016. By early 2016, more Democratic and Republican debates existed. Hillary Clinton won the Iowa Democratic caucus on February 1, 2016 and Ted Cruz won the same caucus on the Republican side in Iowa. Older Democratic people supported Hillary while Bernie Sanders had massive support among progressives including younger Americans. Super delegates supported Hillary Clinton massively in 2016. It is no secret that members of the Democratic establishment didn’t like Bernie Sanders since he criticized capitalist exploitation and wanted democratic socialism to be praised. Hillary Clinton was criticized for calling black children “super predators” and voting for the Iraq War. Bernie Sanders has his imperfections, and Bernie Sanders opposed the Iraq War. Also, it is important to note that many of the Bernie Bros. have issued sexist remarks against Hillary Clinton, and that is wrong period. Sexism is totally evil.

By February of 2016, many Republicans candidates ended their campaigns like Rand Paul, Rock Santorum, and Mike Huckabee. While Bernie Sanders won many primaries in Vermont, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Colorado, etc., Hillary Clinton won more primaries in more states like Massachusetts, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, etc. Bernie Sanders had large rallies in the Bronx and in other places nationwide. While this was going on, Trump continued to spew division, hatred, and ad hominem attacks on his opponents. Bernie Sanders fought until the end. By July of 2016, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump won the Republican primary and decided to get Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his Vice Presidential running mate. Mike Pence makes no bones about his very conservative views. Hillary Clinton chose Virginia governor Tim Kaine as his Presidential running mate. Time Kaine was the mayor of Richmond too, and he has a center left side. Donald Trump had his Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio. It was filled with paranoia, xenophobic rhetoric from Trump, and fear mongering. The Republican speakers there loved the extreme rhetoric from Trump. It is no secret that Donald Trump provoked violence at his rallies or violence occurred at his rallies. Trump explicitly said that he wished for protesters to be beaten up. Protesters were opposing Trump’s agenda on July 12, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. On August 25, 2015, during a press conference, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos began to question Trump since before being called on. After being told "Sit down! you weren't called" and "Go back to Univision", Ramos continued to protest Trump's plan to deport undocumented immigrants and their children born into citizenship in the U.S. Trump motioned to his security, with Keith Schiller removing Ramos from the event. Trump later met with Ramos alone. Keith Schiller also punched a protester on September 3, 2015.

In Richmond, Virginia, people clashed among protesters and Trump supporters on October 14, 2015. On February 29, 2016, at a rally, veteran photojournalist Chris Morris was grabbed by his throat and thrown to the ground by a member of the Secret Service. On March 1, 2016, a black woman named Kashiya Nwanguma attended a Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky, with two anti-Trump signs. She reported that Trump supporters ripped her signs away and shouted insults at her. On March 10, 2016, as Trump was being led by police from a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, an African American protester was punched by a Trump supporter. Charges of assault and battery were filed by the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office. A protester being led by police from a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was sucker punched by John McGraw, a Trump supporter. McGraw later told the media that the next time he saw the protester, "we might have to kill him.” McGraw was subsequently charged with assault and battery and given 12 months of probation. That assaulter receiving only probation exposes the brutally racist criminal justice system. On Meet the Press, Trump said that he had instructed his team to look into paying McGraw's legal fees and said, "He obviously loves his country." On March 11, 2016, during a rally in St. Louis, at which Trump was "repeatedly interrupted by protesters, violence broke out between supporters of Trump and protesters, resulting in 32 arrests.” A planned event for later that day in Chicago drew confrontations between supporters and protesters in the arena at the University of Illinois at Chicago before Trump could come out to speak, due to an unusually large number of protesters, and the campaign cancelled the rally due to safety concerns. Trump stated that he made the decision himself, commenting, "I didn't want to see people get hurt [so] I decided to postpone the rally." Protests existed in New York City and all over America.

Later, The Democratic National Convention has held in July 25-28, 2016. It was held at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton accepted the nomination as the first woman to win the Democratic nomination in American history. The Convention had a large amount of diverse human beings. It was a ground breaking convention.  The Green Party and Libertarian Party existed with their candidates. Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka were part of the Green Party. Evan McMullin ran as an independent. The first presidential general election debate was held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. (The first debate was originally going to be held at Wright State University, but the location was changed due to rising security costs that were being incurred by the school). Hillary Clinton ends up taking the majority support after the debate. By October 7, 2016, Trump’s campaign almost ended with the tapes leaked out form Access Hollywood. It showed Donald Trump and Billy Bush talking about exploiting women in vulgar, sexist terms back in 2005. Trump bragged about grabbing women by their private area. Criticism was fierce. Trump has been accused of sexual harassment by many women. Later, WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of emails from the personal Gmail account of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, revealing excerpts from Clinton's paid speeches to Wall Street. The Hillary email scandal hurt the Hillary Clinton campaign too. Hillary Clinton was a better debater than Donald Trump. Trump used personal insults. Gary Johnson ran on the Libertarian ticket. One event that contributed to the defeat of Clinton was when on October 28, 2016; James Comey announces that the FBI will be investigating newly discovered emails pertinent to its previous investigation of Hillary Clinton's private server.

Hillary's lead in the polls dropped heavily within days. From that point onward, it was the beginning of the end. By November 6, 2016, James Comey told Congress there is no evidence in the recently discovered emails that Clinton should face charges over handling of classified information. By this phase of the election, scholars and journalists question whether Russians and Putin are influencing the election. We know now that Russian intelligence is complicit in election meddling during the 2016 election. On Election Day on November 8, 2016, it was a shocking event. Hillary Clinton won the majority of the popular vote, but Donald Trump won most of the Electoral College. Therefore, Trump won the 2016 Presidential election. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan voted for Trump while Virginia voted against Trump since Virginia has a large minority population. Also, Virginia is a more progressive state politically than 20 years ago. When you look at demographics, most liberals and moderates voted for Hillary Clinton while most conservatives voted for Trump. 58 percent of white people voted for Trump, 88 percent of black people voted for Hillary Clinton, 65 percent of Asian people voted for Hillary Clinton, and 65 percent of Hispanic people voted for Hillary Clinton. The vast majority of white men and white women voted for Donald Trump. The vast majority of people from 18-39 years old voted for Hillary Clinton while people 40 and older voted for Donald Trump. The election results was a product of the paradox of many Obama supporters supporting Trump since they believed in his right wing populist message, and Trump appealed to the latent (plus overt) xenophobia plus racism found among many Americans. Donald Trump is a billionaire demagogue whose policies would lead into class war, national chauvinism, militarism, and the expansion of police state power. Trump hypocritically claimed to be for the common people, but he had elected a cabinet of far right ideologies, corporate leaders, criminals, and those who endorse oligarchy. That is why Trump passed his massive tax cut for the super wealthy. Donald Trump is a racist, white supremacist. Since 2016, we have seen the growth of radical, far right movements and the resistance against such evil being advanced too.

By Timothy