Figurehead

I have lived in America for six and a half years now. Never have I been more sad for this country than I was on Tuesday night, as Donald Trump was elected President of the States.

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I think I disagree with Trump on many issues of policy and ideology (although I can't really be sure, as he seems to change his mind every few minutes, and he has been much more interested in "locking her up" than clearly articulating his positions over the last few months).

But I don't think we should institute a ban on Muslims entering the US. I think the US should step up and increase the number of refugees it welcomes from the world's war-torn conflict zones (cf. The Statue of Liberty). I hope that millions of people, some of whom I am proud to call my friends, are not rounded up by a deportation taskforce. I don't think Global Warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese. While there are no doubt flaws in the current implementation of the Affordable Care Act, I think that the most advanced economy in the world should provide universal healthcare to all its citizens -- both because it's morally right, and because it's economically beneficial --, and so Obamacare should be refined, not repealed. I don't think we should kill the families of terrorists (cf. The Geneva Convention). I believe that more, freer trade is not just economically beneficial in the long-run, but also leads to more harmonious relations between nations, and therefore fewer wars. I don't think that teachers should have guns in classrooms. I would give tax cuts to the middle class, but I would increase, not drastically cut, taxes for the wealthiest Americans. (I could go on).

But these disagreements are not really why I felt so sad on Tuesday.

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I think I understand why so many people voted for a candidate as temperamentally unsuited for the Presidency as Trump -- and it's (bizarrely!) the same reason why Bernie Sanders performed so well in the Democratic Primary, and why I work for Kiva.

Huge swathes of this country have been completely economically stagnant for several decades now. While CEO pay has increased by 997% since 1980, the typical worker's has increased by only 11%. And while the average wealth of the top 10% of Americans increased from $504k to $942k between 1983 and 2013, median wealth stayed flat, and the average wealth of the bottom 10% declined from positive $702 to negative $2,050.

This income and wealth inequality is staggering to me, and destructive to this country.

When the wealthy see even further increases in their income and wealth, their propensity to spend it and grow the economy is relatively low. By contrast, lower income people spend income gains on cars and washing machines. But they have not been realizing any such gains in recent decades -- perhaps this helps to explain the slow economic growth rate that Trump pointed out in the third debate. Furthermore, poverty-trapped communities have worse health outcomes, higher crime rates and lower tax revenues, all of which add additional economic burdens to federal and local budgets.

On Tuesday, this gross economic injustice became politically destructive too, as the disenfranchised and dispossessed were driven into the pussy-grabbing arms of Donald Trump.

I am confused by why blue-collar workers in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin saw the billionaire, reality-TV-star Donald Trump as their economic savior. If he had committed his entire life (or even any portion of his life to-date) in service of economic justice, then I would have understood it better. If he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps, rather than building his business on the back of his father's wealth, it would have made more sense. Or perhaps if he had shouldered his fair share of federal income tax over the last couple of decades, as his new-found voters presumably did. Or not declared bankruptcy multiple times. Bankrupting a company is not the end of the world (in fact, Trump has repeatedly claimed it demonstrates astute business acumen). But bankrupting the American economy would be more problematic -- and most economists seem to concur that Trump's tax plan would add trillions of dollars to the public debt.

But on the other hand, Hillary Clinton -- easily pilloried by Trump as Goldman Sachs' lackey, and part of the Washington establishment that had abandoned them for decades -- was not an obvious economic messiah either. At least Trump could position himself as an outsider who would really shake things up. And if you have seen your personal wealth and your community's health regress for iterative administration after iterative administration, then the justification for voting for the most radically different, "explosive" candidate is perhaps less confusing after all.

The sad thing here for me is that I don't think Trump will prove to be the economic savior he has promised to be. I'm actually more "optimistic" than most people living in San Francisco that his economic policies will give at least a short-term boost to the economy. But I think that trade wars, drastically curtailing immigration, and big tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans will make things worse, rather than better, for low and moderate income Americans over the long term. (By contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average grew by 136% in the first 94 months of Barack Obama's presidency -- compared to 215% for Bill Clinton, 123% for Ronald Reagan, and negative 19% for George W. Bush).

In 1932, the German people were gripped by hyper-inflation and faced economic disaster. They democratically elected a nationalist demagogue who promised to cure all of their economic ills. For a while, the German economy boomed. But it didn't end too well.

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So I am a little sad because I disagree with many of Trump's constantly-shifting policy positions. And I am a little sad because I think that economically alienated voters, whose plight I personally strive hard every day to abate, will be deeply disappointed to gradually realize that Trump's obscenely flippant promises of overnight economic salvation were completely hollow. And I haven't even touched on my concern that the same fingers that type Twitter tirades in the early hours of the morning, will hover over the nuclear codes.

But here is the main reason I was so sad on Tuesday -- I don't think Donald Trump has the character worthy of the office he was just elected to. Based on all I have seen over the last year (and I have watched many, many hours of debate footage, campaign speeches, interviews, etc.), I would describe America's next president as selfish, vindictive, petty and cruel. Will those same Twitter tirades continue when he is President?

In 1908, William Kent generously donated Redwood Canyon to the government as a national park, and proposed to name it Muir National Monument, after the writer and philosopher John Muir. President Roosevelt wrote to Kent offering to change the name of the park from "Muir" to "Kent" to reflect Kent's generous benefaction. Here is Kent's response:

"Your kind suggestion of a change of name is not one that I can accept. So many millions of better people have died forgotten that to stencil one’s own name on a benefaction seems to carry with it an implication of mandate immortality, as being something purchasable.

I have five good, husky boys that I am trying to bring up to a knowledge of democracy and to a realizing sense of the rights of the “other fellow,” doctrines which you, sir, have taught with more vigor and effect than any man in my time. If these boys cannot keep the name of Kent alive, I am willing it should be forgotten."

That is nobility of character. That is humility. That is the leadership I want in my next President. Can you imagine Trump writing that letter? The "TRUMP" brand stamped across skyline after skyline suggests not.

Jeb Bush told Trump in one of the Republican primary debates: "You can't bully your way into the presidency". But unfortunately, he just did.

The man who said John McCain is not a war hero because he was captured. The man who, after leading the "birther movement" for years, tried to pin the whole campaign on Hillary Clinton in a mindblowingly shamefaced lie. The man who said of Carly Fiorina: "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?". The man who said "if Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her". The man who said "You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass". The man who said "The beauty of me is that I'm very rich". The man who brought his genitalia into a presidential debate, and bragged about abusing his fame to sexually assault women. The man whose moral judgment told him it would be a good idea to bring several women, whom Hillary Clinton's husband was accused of sexually assaulting, to the second debate. The man who said he would accept the election results "If I Win". The man who brought this election to the absolute nadir of any political campaign in the long and proud history of this country. This is the man who will be my eight-week-old daughter's next president, the figurehead of her nation.

And that is what makes me the most sad of all.