On Understanding the Election of Trump

I am trying--still--to make sense of the election of Donald Trump as president. In a way it seems simple, yet in another way it seems complex and made up of lots of footnotes, and parenthetical statements within those footnotes.

I guess I could sum up my view in that there was a core group (a larger one than thought) of people looking for change and they went with the major populist candidate, one who came across as "not caring who in government he pisses off."

Bernie Sanders also ran as a populist. But there was more--at least this time in history--people on the right looking for change. Right after the Gilded Age or the Great Depression, it was mainly people looking for a left-of-center candidate.

The trouble I see is that populists are good protesting against things, it's just when they are in power they usually don't have a clear vision, and get stuck.

That's what I see will happen to President Trump. That coupled with his many questionable statements and actions, he's almost guaranteed to be in a virtual tailspin. Also, and this is not talked about a lot (at least in a negative sense), but with no government experience, it's like walking into any job where you have no knowledge of the field. Usually that doesn't bode well.

For instance, many, including myself, thought Ray Nagin as mayor of New Orleans would be a great idea. He was a successful businessman, he seemed motivated, he had charisma and was engaging, and New Orleans was ripe for some "new blood."

Unfortunately, it ended badly. A city that seemed to go nowhere under his administration, and him, ending up in prison.

The new blood was worse than the old blood.

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