Why Trump?: Explaining the US Election
The 2016 US presidential election was a turbulent time of wild accusations, fiery punches and bombshell email leaks that sent Brexit-like shock waves around the world. After the election, I was approached by a Korean friend who asked me, “Why did America elect Donald Trump?”
I paused, not sure how to answer the question adequately and just said, “I don’t know.”
The reality is I know the United States’ election is not only hard to explain to Koreans but to Americans as well. So, in order to help everyone understand, I want to concisely address three reasons Trump won.
First, America is not a pure democracy — it is a democratic republic. Our Founding Fathers, like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, advocated a system of “Checks and Balances” that divides up power into three branches of government: executive, judicial, and legislative, in order to mitigate against the rise of government tyranny. But another ‘check’ is the controversial “Electoral College”. Originally placed into the Constitution because of fears of the “Tyranny of the Majority,” the Electoral College system is supposed to offset the possibility that a popular faction will take over the country. So each of the 50 states are awarded an ‘elector’ based on population, plus 2 for each Senator. For example, California has 55 electoral votes while South Dakota has 3. The presidential candidates must win 270 or more of the 538 electoral votes. Trump won 30 states and 306 electoral votes, even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. But there is an inherent weakness in her popular vote victory, because it originates out of only two states, New York and California, where she pummeled Trump by nearly 6 million votes. What the Electoral College did was give a voice to the other 48 states. This will make 2016 the fourth time in American history that the president has been elected based on the Electoral College.
The second reason Trump won was his economic message. Breaking with the establishment, Trump campaigned on an “economic populist” message of higher tariffs, stronger borders and renegotiating free trade deals. The reason this message resonated so well was that millions of Americans felt abandoned by the Bush Republican party and thought Barack Obama had not helped them either. Despite America’s stock market being at all-time highs, the auto industry recovering, and unemployment being at 4.5 percent under Obama, millions of Americans were left out in the cold to struggle with stagnating wages, closed factories, and no opportunity to learn new job skills. These forgotten middle class American workers were overlooked by most pundits as a serious political voice, but the American workers helped maintain Trump’s momentum despite political headwinds. Also, giving credence to Trump’s economic message was the opposing Democratic candidates who both came out against the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). And Bernie Sanders, despite being an unknown candidate, managed to get a surprising 13 million votes, 43 percent, in the Democratic Primary with a similar economic message highlighting economic disparity. In an ironic twist, it was Bill Clinton in 1992 who beat Republican George Bush Sr. in part on the campaign slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid”.
The final reason Trump won was the failed media. FOX News and AM talk radio are expected to lean politically right while CNN, NPR, and the New York Times (NYT) are expected to lean left. Everyone who reads the news or studies politics accepts this paradigm. But during the 2016 campaign season there was a major shift in political bias and collusion by some major media outlets who published misleading polls showing Hillary leading by huge margins (one of the only media outlets to consistently show Trump winning was the LA-Times/USC poll.) Today, just as Korea has had its own political turmoil because of leaked information, America is now going through a crisis of journalism as more information leaks about the media abandoning all pretense of objectivity in order to support one candidate. The violations of reporting ethics were so bad that after the election journalists have publicly admitted that they failed. In a surprising move the NYT has now apologized and their Public Editor, Liz Spayd, appeared on FOX news to discuss the problem. This crisis in journalism is still ongoing today and has degenerated into a shouting match over which news outlets are “Fake News” and calls for both Facebook and YouTube to increase censorship. The problem with American journalism needs to be corrected before 2020 or the next election will be another ‘surprise win’.
I fully understand that other issues were involved and many people will bring up Obamacare, WikiLeaks, Russia, the FBI, or voter fraud. But what is important in giving an objective response to the question “Why Trump?” must center around American democracy, the economy and the media. These issues had the most impact and will continue to do so in 2017 and beyond.