Phew. The 2016 presidential election is finally, mercifully over. The angry, bitter fighting is over for the candidates, if not for those who supported them.
The votes have been cast and counted, and we are now faced with at least four years of the unthinkable. We will all be living in the age of President Trump.
Good God.
Who could have predicted it?
Not the pollsters, not the pundits, not the press.
Not even, if the New York Times is correct, Donald J. Trump himself.
The Times reports that on the day after his shocking victory in the 2016 presidential election, Trump huddled in his midtown Manhattan offices with his family and his top aides. Those few insiders who managed to get close enough to speak with him reported that Trump was unusually subdued as he faced the monumental task of moving from the campaign to the Oval Office.
Throughout the campaign, both Trump and his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, had closely followed the polls in the national press as well as their own internal polling.
By all accounts, both of the candidates went into Tuesday evening with the belief that Hillary Clinton would emerge as the victor.
Well, surprise!
Apparently the President-elect was as shocked by the vote count as the rest of the nation and, indeed, the world.
Sources close to Mr. Trump report that he had gathered a team of political policy experts to begin thinking about a transition from campaign to governing, but he had remained largely detached from that group. They had been pretty much working on their own, away from the candidate.
He said that he was superstitious about meeting with them before the election.
We have to remember that Trump went into election day insisting that the whole election was “rigged.” If he really believed that the system was working against him, it makes sense that the Donald was shocked to win.
Some people wonder if he ever actually intended to win.
Right now Trump is just as shocked as the rest of us. This was just supposed to be promotion for his BRAND. He was never supposed to win.
— Max Booth III (@GiveMeYourTeeth) November 9, 2016
I bet Trump is as shocked as we all are. Nobody can convince me he really expected to win. He wouldn't have been talking about rigging
— Chris Antenucci (@chrisantenucci) November 9, 2016
As the afternoon of November 9th wound down, some of the future President’s key advisors were seen leaving Trump Tower, but none had much to say. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, given the task of leading the transition team, only told the assembled press that there would be “No interviews today.”
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Al) has been a close ally of Trump throughout the campaign. As he came out of a meeting with the President-elect early on Wednesday evening, he said:
“I’ll just say the team has done what transitions traditionally do at this point.”
While history has shown that previous presidential election winners have gone into the transition period with a fully formed team of professionals, Trump has so far avoided that.
Trump is probably about to win this… holy cow. I'm truly shocked.
— Ryañ Swiñdell (@swindelly) November 9, 2016
It is clear from the evidence, that the President-elect of the United States was as shocked as the rest of us when it started to become obvious that he was headed for the White House.
We can only hope that we was somewhat less horrified by the outcome than we were.
Featured image via WikiMedia Commons.
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