“Where Are The Trump Cards That Earned Donald Trump Victory In 2016?”
In a seemingly well researched article titled, “The Improbable Demographics Behind Donald Trump's Shocking Presidential Victory”, and authored by Joel Kotkin in Forbes Magazine edition of November 9, 2016, four years ago, on what led Donald Trump to victory in the presidential election that culminated in his present incumbency as American President, his opinion indicated that the population was one of the Trump Cards that went for him. For the sake of clarity, and for the phrase, “Trump Card” not to be mixed up with the name “Trump”, it is expedient to say that lexicographers defines Trump Card as, “The winning card”. They further explained that “If you play a trump card during a game of Spades, it means that you take the whole trick. In other words, you will pick up every card on the table. Any card game in which one card or suit ranks the highest has a Trump Card; the card that wins a hand”.
The analyst averred in his opinion that the populations and geographies barely seemed to belong in the same country, if not on the same planet. Ostensibly standing on the pedestal of his Findings or rather Observations, he asserted that the electorates were so divided that many states went for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton by lopsided margins. To buttress his view, he asserted that the Northeast was solidly democratic, with Clinton winning New York, Massachusetts and Vermont with three-fifths of the vote or more, explaining that Washington, D.C., which is heavily black and the seat of the bureaucracy and pundit class, delivered an almost Soviet-style 93% to 4% margin.
He went on to say that on the other side were series of states where Trump won just as easily, including Tennessee and Kentucky, with three-fifths of the vote, and West Virginia, by a margin of two-to-one, higher than those attained by 2012 GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.
Kotkin buttressed his Findings as expressed in his analytical view by saying that much of the rest of the map followed the usual patterns with particular reference to the democratic domination of Illinois and the West Coast while Republicans held the South. He noted that where the election was decided was in previous battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina and Ohio.
To him, America is a nation of many economies, and those that produced real, tangible things such as food, fiber, energy and manufactured goods went overwhelmingly for Trump. According to him, “He won virtually every state from Appalachia to the Rockies, with the exceptions of heavily Hispanic Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, and President Obama’s home base of Illinois.
He added that some of Trump’s biggest margins were in energy states where the fracking revolution created a burst of prosperity, and that the more carbon-intensive the economy, the better the Republicans did. He added, “These states include Ohio, Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, Idaho, and especially West Virginia, where he won by a remarkable margin of 68% to 27%. The energy industry could well be the biggest financial winner in the election.
Ostensibly to make his view crystal clear, he said, “Clinton’s support for climate change legislation, a lower priority among the electorate than other concerns, was seen as necessary to shore up support from greens threatening to attack her from the left. Yet the issue never caught on the heartland, which tends to see climate change mitigation as injurious to them.
The foregoing views are just a tip of the iceberg of many favorable factors that collectively stood as an advantage for Donald Trump in 2016, and eventually which led to his victory to become the American President today.
At this juncture, it is expedient to ask, “Where Are The Trump Cards That Earned Donald Trump Victory In 2016?” The foregoing question, which is invariably the title of this piece, no doubt, is expedient to be responded to as his performance in the ongoing election is likely not going to earn him victory going by the updates been released minutes-by-minutes concerning his performance in the election.
Regrettably, it is not an exaggeration to say that all the Trump Cards that earned him victory to the White House in 2016 seem to be no more in the ongoing presidential election as it appears he will not win his closest opponent, Joe Biden, in the ongoing election.
In fact, opinions are rife that President Donald Trump gestures (body language) during a campaign rally on Oct. 18, 2020, in Carson City, glaringly pointed to the fact that he would lose in the election.
They went on to say that every measure that political operatives, academics and handicappers use to forecast elections, the likely outcome is that Joe Biden will win in the race to the White House.
As at the time of typing this view, the Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden was racing ahead of US President Donald Trump in key state such as Georgia and managed to narrow gap in Pennsylvania. He continued to lead in Arizona and Nevada, thereby widening the path to the White House. Going by the trend as at the time under reference, the US elections 2020 appeared to be inching closer toward the outcome. A candidate needed 270 to win the electoral votes to capture the US presidency.
While no winner has been declared as at the time of writing this piece and while the results from key states were trickling in for one of the most bitterly fought elections in US history, the event has somehow turned into an embarrassment of sorts. In Michigan, the Trump campaign had sought to stop counting of absentee ballots, while in Georgia it was alleged that even improper ballots were being counted. On Thursday, America witnessed a range of protests from both pro-Trump and anti-Trump groups. Meanwhile, 19 former United States attorneys, all of whom served under Republican presidents, released a statement on Thursday calling President Trump’s legal threats, claims of fraud and false declarations of victory “premature, baseless and reckless.
At this juncture, it is expedient to ask again, “Where Are The Trump Cards That Earned Donald Trump Victory In 2016?”