On election eve, the TV anchors and panelists awaited the Clinton victory. The polls reliably showed that in two days she had sprung back from the Comey bombshell to leadership; all would be well. They had fashioned, out of postmodernism's premises, a narrative of the politically correct first female candidate for President, bringing us together, and her opponent, the billionaire racist, misogynist, xenophobic, cripple-teasing bigot and "divider." And they had believed this story themselves, as we believe, however improbably, what confirms our deepest assumptions, and focused on the part of their audience who also believed them. And never imagined that any serious, significant remnant of Americans would fail to accept their fable. Indeed, election eve began with New York, California, Illinois, and "Bosnywash" (the Boston to New York to Washington corridor) unassailable in the Democratic camp with well over a hundred electoral votes for Hillary Clinton. On election eve, she never got above 215. The other bastion supposedly was Florida, where the great Miami-Dade-Broward County urban area went overwhelmingly for Clinton, but the rest of the state narrowly offset this to give Trump a pivotal victory. On election eve, the panelists (as mentioned, I was following PBS Channel 13) watched anxious, then bewildered, then alarmed, then confounded as a brilliant red fire burned across America through state after state, region after region, where voters did not hear the postmodernist sirens screaming their alarm at "Miss Piggy" or the women who came out the past to charge "inappropriate touching." In one of the most indefatigable campaign schedules in history, a 70-year-old supposed "playboy" had made five campaign stops a day with high-energy, ringing appeals to "Make America Great Again." The spacious sweep of America between the two coasts heard a message that an America they increasingly could not understand, with ideals unrelated to their lives, would not in the end supplant the America they knew and loved. As the drumbeat of postmodernist alarms threatened to drown out any opposition, Mr. Trump was drawing astonishing crowds to rally after rally. In the closing days and hours, Mr. Trump campaigned for the most part alone-the media said "lonely," "isolated," "rejected," "abandoned by his party"-but his supporters watched Hillary campaigning with entertainers like Jay-Z-who supposedly represented Black Americans- rapping about "ni**ers," "pimps," and "motherfu**ers" while the media rolled on about Mr. Trump's vulgarity and insensitivity. And so, the wild red fire blazed through the evening-Florida for Trump, North Carolina for Trump, Pennsylvania for Trump, Ohio for Trump, Iowa for Trump: All the supposed "battleground states," which Trump had to sweep, fell one by one. Reliable stones in the "blue firewall" that guaranteed Clinton's victory-such as Michigan and Wisconsin-fell to Trump. I was watching the panelists literally begin to mumble, heads down, "So what went wrong...?" "We have to ask ourselves..." "Why didn't we see this coming?" They had fashioned, out of postmodernism's premises, a narrative of the politically correct first female candidate for President, bringing us together, and her opponent, the billionaire racist, misogynist, xenophobic, cripple-teasing bigot and "divider." And they had believed this story themselves, as we believe, however improbably, what confirms our deepest assumptions, and focused on the part of their audience who also believed them. And never imagined that any serious, significant remnant of Americans would fail to accept their fable. In brief, voters for Mr. Trump had heard his positions, almost obliterated in mainstream media coverage, and heard Clinton's "let us unite, stronger together," but had said, "No, we will not unite around the postmodernist slogans and goals. We will unite around, and vote for, OUR values."
About the Author: He is the author of novels, books of poetry, and memoirs. His book, "Not Half Free: The Myth that America Is Capitalist," documented the precipitous decline in economic freedom beginning with the Bush-term financial panic and stock-market crash of 2007-2008.