I couldn’t stay up to watch the results come in. I went to sleep around 11pm. I woke up around 4am and checked my phone and saw a Business Insider alert that said:

“Trump strikes conciliatory tone in victory speech, praises Clinton."

A small bit of light in an enormous amount of dread.

I didn’t sleep much after that. I laid there and felt a weird combination of fear and sadness. But a couple hours later when I went to the gym I started to come around a bit. Here are some of the thoughts that have been rolling through my mind today.

I used to kind of like Donald Trump. I remember listening to him when he would call in to the Don Imus show many years ago. I didn’t know much about him and he was pretty right-leaning on fiscal issues but on the social stuff he was definitely a New Yorker. He was a reasonable guy and made good some good points. And I loved how positive he was. We’ve all been annoyed by his constant use of adjectives like "terrific" and "tremendous" and "unbelievable" but back then I kind of liked it.
Month after month throughout the primary and into the general election everyone laughed at the notion of Donald Trump becoming President. It was a joke. What he pulled off last night was amazing. He brilliantly tapped into a large amount of fear and anger and ignorance and was able to light a fire among a huge number of rural voters.
To light this fire he talked about a ban on Muslims entering the country, reversing Roe v. Wade, repealing Obamacare and building a wall on the Mexican border. I’d be willing to bet that not one of those things will happen. And I’d be willing to bet that Trump doesn’t actually want any of those things to happen. Those issues generated talking points that won him the election. He won. He doesn’t owe anybody any favors and he doesn’t need to do any of that nonsense. If he wants any chance at reelection he’s going to have to come way, way back to the middle.
We need to create a new word and stop using the word “racist”. It’s too strong and inflammatory and in most cases inaccurate. I don’t think Trump is racist and I don’t think most of his supporters are racist. I think they’re ignorant and uninformed and fearful of a changing world but I don’t think they’re racist. When we call them racist it makes thoughtful conversation almost impossible.
Trump is a brilliant marketer and he knows that taglines work. "Make America Great Again" was the perfect tagline for him and it’s a crystal clear indicator of his strategy. When he says this to fearful voters in rural areas what he really means is let’s go back 50 years to a time when the world was less competitive. Where automation wasn’t destroying jobs and we didn’t have to compete globally and you could stay at a job for thirty years and you didn’t need two incomes. We live in a global economy now and those days are over but that vision is incredibly appealing to a lot of people.
The most important political issue to me personally is healthcare. Throughout the campaign Trump has continuously threatened to “Repeal Obamacare!” and has received loud cheers for it. I’ll bet if you asked the people cheering what that actually means most of them would have no idea. Those that do have an idea would probably just assume he’s referring to the mandate. I really doubt that healthcare is going to be high on Trump’s list. The election is over and he doesn’t need the “Obamacare” talking point anymore. Further, there are now 22 million people that have insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act and that will be difficult for politicians to roll back. A lot of people were angry when Medicare launched but virtually nobody would advocate taking it away. And most of the payment reform has been rolled into a new law called MACRA that is separate from the Affordable Care Act. Healthcare is complicated and for the most part on a good path that should be supported by both parties (if you remove the politics). I don’t see things changing in a material way in the next four years.
You can argue that Trump has no experience but the reality is that Obama didn’t have the greatest experience and that turned out ok. What Obama did in the last two elections was also amazing. I’m a big fan of Obama but he was not the most qualified candidate when we was first elected. The presidency is now a popularity contest. We just have to get used to that.
Having said the above, I think we deserve a president that is prepared and dignified and isn’t reckless. I always thought George W. Bush was in over his head and wasn’t well prepared and was misguided but he didn’t embarrass our country and he wasn’t reckless. This is my main concern with this outcome. Being embarrassed by our President isn’t the end of the world but I do fear his recklessness. The generals should keep him in line when it comes to putting troops on the ground where they don’t belong but his rhetoric clearly can’t be contained. This isn’t about fearing that he has his finger on the button. This is about tiny groups of people all over the world looking for a reason to hate America. There is no worse time in American history in my view to be alienating our enemy. They are inside of our country and outside of our country and they have no home state and no borders and we can never find them all. Reckless, reactive, inflammatory speech from the American president is the most useful recruiting tool that Isis and other terror groups could ever imagine. I fear that he may not be able to rein this in. I truly hope I’m wrong.
As of right now it's being reported that 118 million people voted. Trump got 59 million and Clinton got 59 million. The difference is 0.3 percent. That's just crazy.
Finally, Trump is our President. Obama said this morning that we should all be rooting for Trump now and he’s absolutely right. We may hate everything he says and disagree with everything he says but like it or not he’s our President. As much we don't want to, we have to at least accept that.