There was a fun conversation here within the YNaija editorial team on Monday morning. We had joked about Florida (calling it Flo-rida). But we never really imagined a Trump win in the State. We weren’t unaware of how important Florida is. The votes in Florida have decided the elections for America more times than they haven’t since 1972.
And now that Florida has been called; for Donald Trump (as well as for Mark Rubio) and real time analyses from America shows a Republican cycle based on the Senate results alone, it’s time we go back to the drawing board to reconsider where we had underestimated Trump’s performance.
If any part of the most recent analyses of this year’s election is undeniable now, it’s the fact that the effect of the Trump tapes had worn off considerably towards election day. What this means as we can see is that the core Republican votes are back in his favour. And it looks like the core republican votes plus the votes of the deplorables the non-college educated whites and Americans who long for the return of the life they had or have been told about (50s) are pouring in strong. Even more so because that demographic was seriously underestimated during the campaign.
“And this is true”. Because Florida hasn’t been the only deciding state that has come in for Trump. He’s also turned North Carolina, Ohio, and Iowa. Before you slept, the swing states were Florida and North Carolina and they have both chosen Trump.
It’s definitely true that 2016 has been the year of disruptions -Brexit and now America choosing Trump?
We argue though that what looks like the American choice might actually not be as surprising as the Brexit vote. American may just have been over-confident of having left a time of their lives in a dark past -a time when the “deplorables” (what Hillary called Trump faithfuls) out numbered the “condescenders” (what Hillary’s supporters have been called).
America might have just shown, while you slept that there’s still a large portion of patriarchs, uneducated and disadvantaged, anti-elitist, those who tilt towards xenophobia and racism and those are wary of the current authorities. Basically, every demographic America could have boasted didn’t form a large portion of their country. They weren’t gone. They just weren’t polling. Or maybe they had been so marginalized by high-end progressive-thinking that no one thought to take their polls.
Yet they have voted.
Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.
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