I'm sure many people, republicans included, are shocked at the results of the 2016 presidential election. Really, WTF!
The polls were wrong and although it's tempting to blame voter suppression and FBI interference, that would just avoid looking at the real issues for the loss. Clinton lost more than Trump won. She snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when the system was designed to put her in power. She had everything going for her - previous presidents and great surrogates, a healthier rebounding economy, a popular outgoing president.
But she blew it.
Why? Well, it wasn't just her.
The democrats have, for far too long, pandered to political correctness and minorities beyond equality. When it comes to Islam, nothing "it" can do will cause them to ever condemn it or label it for what it is. Yet any minority issue is blamed on "whitey". Not only that, but "whitey" was ignored (in states that were just assumed to vote for her) and outright insulted in others.
Maybe "whitey" got sick of it.
Van Jones described it as a #whitelash which is a pretty good description.
The trouble with creating a vacuum where people's fears are not recognized and their status is dismissed as unimportant and not relevant is that there is always someone willing to show up and lead that crowd elsewhere.
Trump is a dangerous threat to American democracy and this will set the US back many many decades IMO. But it's not his fault. It's Clinton's and the DNC. They are they ones, with so much at stake, who decided that her personal ambition was more important than so many issues that affect so many other people.
She did lie about her server, she should not get away with running her own and deleting things - if she mixes personal and state business and the state legacy should be preserved by law then unlucky, you chose to put your personal emails in that bucket so they should have been handed over.
Is it the worst crime ever though? Well the Bush administration deleted some +22 million emails including all records concerning 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq and claims of WoMDs. Seems worse, much worse. But the Democrats just mutter and move on, never prosecuting a case (like they are now deciding to ignore Bridge-gate / Christie). The Republicans never let up. I have no doubt that Trump as president will commit far, far worse crimes and the democrats will concern themselves with whether gay people can have cakes made or not.
Running a biased primary system and choosing someone so obviously flawed as a candidate was a huge mistake. Bernie should have been the nominee and would likely have become president. He was offering the voice and change that people were looking for and seem to have voted Trump for but in a rational human being.
Clinton did "well" against Trump in the debates but really, it was a low bar and his low skills flattered her performance. She really wasn't that good - as good as a decent candidate should have been given the state of the opposition. There were topics she couldn't really prosecute because they would have shone a light back at her. Pathetic. Although he's an idiot, no one can deny that he says what's in his head (usually it appeared that second). She was too scripted and always seems calculating as the email leaks showed.
What also failed was the media. Every day, they chased the "shiny thing" of Trump and played his every utterance but failed to dissect the claims and thought that being "fair" meant having someone who would take his side on a panel, allowing them free reign to peddle outright lies unchecked. The print media did better but the eyeballs were elsewhere.
So now we suffer 4 years of a Trump presidency and I would be incredibly surprised if there weren't huge abuses of power and real harm done to the economy and people's rights. Look at the crowd of people he has round him - a real rogues gallery of thugs and sexual assaulters. It looks more like the Kremlin than the Whitehouse ... hardly surprising given Putin's back-stage involvement in things.
Will Trump lock Clinton up? I doubt it, but I almost wish he would. Look at what SHE has caused to happen.
The only positives I can think of right now is at least some of the PC nonsense might be trashed (unfortunately, probably along with some genuine rights). Trump does actually seem willing to call Islam what it is. But is the price worth paying? It seems unlikely that climate issues will now be even accepted as real and watch out for any agencies that act as protection against profit being severely undermined and, probably, the legal system itself. And let's not forget that his VP is a religious extremist from the opposite end of the spectrum. When did giving political power to religious extremists ever work out well?
But hey, at least we'll get to see a sitting president appear in court for fraud ... if some Berlusconi-type laws aren't passed first of course ...