How Trump exploited the disaffection among whites

The term Monday morning “quarterbacking” in American football describes the “day after” couch potatoes who second guess why their team lost. The quarterback in American football is the most pivotal position because he calls plays and directs the offence. He’s the goat if the team loses, and the GOAT (Great of All Time) if the team wins. Of course this is hyperbole. That’s because many factors account for why a team wins, or loses. Rarely does a team lose or win because of only one player, let alone the quarterback. Let’s find out why Hillary Clinton lost, and Donald Trump won.

CNN analyst Vance Jones, the African-American Harvard-educated lawyer, memorably opined that Mr Trump, the bombastic real estate mogul, beat Secretary Clinton because of “white-lash.” It was a cute play off the term “white backlash.” But it wasn’t off the target, although a more complex stew explains the historic loss by the first female major party nominee for President of the United States. But if there’s an overarching canopy to explain the loss, then Mr Jones was on target. A large segment of white American males has been angry ever since Senator Barack Obama, the Kenyan-American, was elected the first black President of the United States in 2008. All previous US presidents had been male and white. Let’s chew on that. As soon as Mr Obama was elected, the leadership of the Republican Party vowed to make sure he failed. They openly said it, and attempted to block virtually every item on his agenda. They encouraged the rise of a populist and fascist movement called the Tea Party whose rallying cry was to “take their country back.” They charged that Mr Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim ineligible to be US President. He and his family were subjected to unmentionable epithets. No American president faced more death threats. A large proportion of white Americans couldn’t come terms with the fact that the Obamas slept in the White House, long the symbol of white American supremacy. The Republican Party egged them on.