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Trump’s Victory: Cloud of Discontent

November 16th, 2024 by Michael Dyet

Hmmm, like him or hate him, Trump’s path to victory was well mapped out.

In January 2025, Donald Trump will officially become president of the U.S. again. It is a development many of us north of the border hoped would not happen. It looked to be a close race once Joe Biden stepped aside in favour of Kamala Harris. But in the end it was a decisive victory for Trump and the Republican Party.

Trump is now very publicly handpicking members for the key roles in his administration. These selections, to no one’s surprise, are individuals whose political stripes align with his own often radical views and who tied their wagons to his campaign. A few examples:

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Health & Human Resources Secretary
• Elon Musk (who donated a whopping $188 million to the Trump campaign) – Department of Government Efficiency
• GOP Rep Matt Goetz – Attorney General

It is safe to say that the next four years will be rocky ones for the U.S. as well as for Canada whose fate and fortune is closely tied to the U.S. Whatever happens south of the border, has an immediate and significant ripple effect up here.

I have been puzzling over Trump’s decisive victory and the factors that came into play in the election. Certainly dissatisfaction with the Biden-led Democrats was one of those factors. The Republicans may have taken over the White House regardless of who their candidate was.

It is tempting to suggest that the Republican’s victory may have been by an even wider margin with a different candidate – someone less divisive than Trump. But this may be too simplistic an interpretation.

Donald Trump’s primary base of support has always been working class whites – a group that has been steadily losing wealth and income in the U.S. Trump’s Make America Great Again platform and the policies that go with it are a rallying cry for this increasingly discontented segment of the population.

Cards on the table: I do not like Donald Trump. The way he conducts himself, the things he says and some of the actions he takes are offensive to me. At times I wonder how those who voted for him can excuse these behaviours. But that is an outsider’s point of view.

Discontent is a powerful force – a grey cloud that hangs over the heads of those who feel pushed aside. Their collective desire to be out from under that cloud is, I believe, what got Trump elected. Trump promised, albeit often in unsavoury terms and with radical actions, to blast that cloud away and bring back sunny conditions for his base of support.

Like him or hate him, Trump’s path to victory was well mapped out from day one. We can argue with his politics but not with his strategy.

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

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