Democracy Could Be Messy Business,
But Donald Trump Won Fair and Square!
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
Democracy means people picking their leaders through some kind of a balloting process. Candidates for office run and campaign and the electorate -- The People as the Qur'an calls them -- then vote and pick winners.
Campaigns rage on all sides. Voices rise. Truth gets mixed with falsehood, just like the Qur'an says, and camouflages reality.
Money, personal ambition and political partisanship churn and muddy the waters. Scandals and personal failures become fodder to the mill of rumor mongering and mudslinging.
In the end, of those who run for office, some win, some lose. Losers make a phone call and concede and victors give a speech and claim victory.
The way the process unfolds, anyone can see that it is far from tidy. In fact, democracy is messy business.
And as someone once said, democracy is perhaps the worst form of government except for all the others.
But messy or not, Donald Trump won presidential elections 2016 fair and square. At every stage of the game, all the usual and tested rules were in play. And, at the end of the day -- or should I say night? -- Donald Trump emerged the winner.
And decisively so.
But a Trump victory was never a forgone conclusion. In fact, the night of Tuesday, November 8, 2016 started with Hillary Clinton Campaign Headquarters looking every bit like a victory party. That is how sure the Clinton camp was of its victory.
After all, theirs had been a marquis campaign. Not only did they have and spend most money -- to the tune of $2.5 billion -- they also had the most stars and celebrities campaigning for them: Michelle Obama, Jay Z, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Cher, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, you name it, they were all there.
Clinton had them all.
And no sitting president in the entire history of the republic ever burned the campaign trail with the vigor and rhetorical ferocity President Obama put on display during the last phases of the campaign to help elect Clinton as his successor.
So, if the Clinton camp was ready to declare victory and go home, not too many people would have picked a fight with them.
The nearly 40,000-strong Philadelphia gala the previous night with President Obama and the First Lady in attendance was nothing short of a victory celebration.
But as the polls closed Tuesday night and the results started to trickle in, the mood in Clinton Headquarters grew somber and then by 10:00 PM devastation was writ large everywhere.
Trump emerged victorious. Clinton lost -- once again.
She blamed it on the glass ceiling that keeps women from becoming president.
She blamed it on FBI Director Comey with his hot finger on the computer churning out letters to Congress about Clinton e-mails.
But she did not blame her private server. And she did not blame Anthony Weiner of the sexting reputation.
But the fact is that Clinton was a very flawed candidate to begin with. And, on top of that, she ran a very flawed campaign. And given the way the Democrats handled things, the outcome could not have been different.
And now, for the past three or four nights, there are demonstrators on the street. There was also a fatality when an unknown assailant shot one of the protesters.
In some places, the police were describing the protests as riots.
The question is who are these protesters and what are they protesting?
This is how things work in a democracy. Not very clean always. But the results were crystal, based on all the rules that were in place. And Donald Trump won.
Naturally, there will be those who will be devastated by this outcome. There always are in any election. But there is not much they, or anyone else, can do about it.
The People, as the Qur'an calls them, and as the Constitution refers to them, have spoken. End of story.
Not a happy ending to be sure for many people. But not all stories have a happy ending. But the script is an authentic one. That is what the Moving Finger wrote this time around.
So, what do these protesters want? And how come no one is calling on President Obama or on former candidate Clinton to denounce these protests and ask the protesters to go home?
Just for a moment imagine the opposite. Imagine Clinton had won and Trump had lost. And then Trump supporters were doing what the other side is doing now for the past several nights, how would the nation react?
And how would the national press?
Not a very good commentary on our state of democracy, is it?
END
