WOW! That is the best I can do for an opening line. Who would have thunk it? A week ago at this time Hilary was planning her grand entrance and picking out furniture while the Donald was on the ropes. Now many of you thought it was a race of personalities. Others the fine art of distinguishing bad from badder. After a few days I look at it in a different way.

It was appropriate that in our technological age that the internet should play such a predominant role. Just not in the way people thought. In Obama vs Romney most thought that Barak’s geeks got the best of Mitt and they were probably right. Worked for him so it had to be so for Madame Clinton. Not exactly.

The most unlikely master of cyberspace was Trump. It is ironic that Silicon Valley was so against him and it proved to be their foil. Twittering until all hours of the night Orange Man kept his name in the forefront day after day. The more outrageous the better off he was. It is estimated that he derived anywhere from $2-3 billion of air time for free. He did the same with TV where the anchors from all stations couldn’t wait to update you on the latest shenanigans and react with disdain and horror. And he laughed all the way to the bank.

I think this really leads into what I will call the idiocy of the elites. Joe Scarborough pointed out in the day after that one could drive West after leaving New York and not encounter another blue state until Oregon. Both coasts were Democratic but the midsection of the country was red. And that is where the country is fed up.

The cognoscenti really took their lumps. The algorithms and what ifs did not take into consideration the ire that has gripped the not so educated. Plain old Americans have seen their type of country go up in smoke. They are hard working, church going families with a husband and wife present and accounted for. They have lost their jobs and have seen the country lose its morality. Gun violence and drugs have a stranglehold. The status quo no matter who was putting out the Kool Aid has seen no sign of growth in 25 years.

Hilary was the establishment in so many ways. She was preaching more of the same. Throw more money at it and it will get better. The Great Society has disproved that theory. But then again Bernie was successful. Why? Because he was plain and simple different. It is almost as if people were grasping at straws. Anything new. Anything refreshing and yet the pros didn’t see it coming.

There is a condescending attitude that pervades the East and Left coasts. Just sit back and let us run things. They ran a lot of people out of a job. Just send us your money and we will provide…for the party hacks and K Street lobbyists. The voting public never see their representatives except at election time. The pols are too busy doing the work of government whatever the hell that is.

It is not just the politicians but the titans of industry and finance who cause people to bristle. How many of the cognoscenti told their clients to sell when Dow futures were down 800. Better yet how many told them to buy. Oh yeah, I forgot buy and hold. Companies pay outrageous amounts of money to the CEOs and the rest of the corporate suite. What do they do? They lay off people for efficiency and bringing down overhead. They have replaced workers with robots who run 24/7 without complaining. Have to take care of the stockholders you know.

Therein lies the saddest part of this farce. Both the Donald and Hilary said they would create jobs…out of thin air. For the most part there are no new jobs. Factories and furnaces have gone the way of the Dodo bird. Even if we retrain there are only so many new industries to absorb millions of laborers. Universities for profit thrived in the initial foray and now they are dropping like flies with them all the hopes of Joe Six Pack.

In an absurd way Trump is just like Obama. Both preached change to get elected and one has already failed miserably. Maybe we have a miracle man on our hands and I for one hope we do. But if we come back to my elitist theory we are going to get nowhere. Most of us would yearn to see the whole thing blown up and start over again. But there are so many fiefdoms and seats of power who can pull the levers to be obstructionists I have my doubts.

The last straw of arrogance in this campaign occurred last weekend with the glitterati coming out of the woodwork. I am as open minded as any man but do you really think that I am going to vote for someone because the Boss or Cher or Beyonce told me to. If you don’t think that pissed off middle America even more then you really don’t have a clue.

We ALL need a giant dose of humility and realism and my senses tell me that will not come from His Hairness nor the powers that be. We have to understand that just because you don’t have a college education that does not mean you are any less a person than you or me. We have to come down from our ivory towers and finally get that our current way of life is not working for a lot of people. By that I mean over 50 million who voted one way. I don’t care how smart you are that is not just a drop in the bucket and we better take heed.

My final takeaway is that we need so much and it will take a superhuman and sobering effort on everyone’s part to go forward. One group has already discovered that. I wonder if all of us highly educated snobs can come to the same obvious conclusion.

As always
Ted The Great

Factoids:
None. Why confuse the issue with facts.