November 10, 2016
Isoroku Yamamoto
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The Trumpers will be seen as the ones whose gross miscalculation brought about a disastrous defeat. The people on the right who were never pro-Trump, along with the reluctant Trumpers who held their noses and voted for “not Hillary,” will blame the wide-eyed and shortsighted GOP primary voters who took the gamble…the ones who pushed for Trump just as hard as Yamamoto had pushed for Pearl Harbor.
Yamamoto didn”t live long enough to see the bitter, ultimate fruits of his decision. More accurately, the poor bastard didn”t live long enough to commit seppuku. Should they lose, Trump supporters will certainly not fall on their swords. They”ll yell “voter fraud” and talk of “street fights” and guerrilla tactics. It”ll be to no avail; the nation”the one the Trumpers misread”will go back about its business.
But here I am, almost sounding like I”m making a prediction, something I promised I wouldn”t do. I honestly do hope for a Trump victory, because”and here is a prediction”a President Trump will be neither the hero his supporters take him for nor the villain his detractors assume he is. He will not be the race hero that the alt-right hopes he”ll be, nor will he be the “literally Hitler” that the left fears he is. The ideologues on both sides will be disappointed and demoralized, and bully for that. It would be good to see both extremes proven wrong, and that can only happen if Trump wins.
So hey”if you”re a rabid Trump supporter, and you”re reading this, and Trump has lost, well, you screwed up. You misread the electorate, you were nasty, cruel, and unfair to better candidates during the primary, you heedlessly rejected or ignored everything seasoned analysts and career politicos tried to warn you about, and you have allowed the most beatable Democrat since Mondale to win.
On the other hand, if you”re a rabid Trump supporter, and you”re reading this, and Trump has won, well…congratulations. You took a colossal gamble and you defied the odds. Your plan worked, and now you”re Hirohito receiving a telegram from Roosevelt on Dec. 8, 1943, pledging an end to the oil embargo and promising no further belligerency in the Pacific. You did it. Nothing but respect on my end.
All I”m going to say in closing is, you know how, these days, it’s generally understood that Yamamoto allowed himself to be played by FDR? Well, make no mistake. If Trump loses, it will forever become part of GOP canon that the Trumpers allowed themselves to be manipulated by the Clinton camp into pushing forward the one guy she knew she could beat (as several of the leaked Clinton/Podesta emails suggest). History will not be kind to you. If she wins, Hillary will be an abysmal president, and the response from average Americans to every foul thing she does while in office will not be “dangit, we shoulda voted for Trump,” but rather “those mutherhumpin” Trump fanatics steamrolled better Republican candidates who could have beaten this corrupt, destructive harpy.”
Just know that. You took a gamble, and like any gamble of that magnitude, you stand to win big or lose big. I”m envious of the fact that you know the outcome while I don”t. But just for the sake of ending one of the most contentious presidential elections in U.S. history on a friendly and conciliatory note, good luck.
For what it’s worth, I mean that. I honestly do.
