From Deplorable To Neanderthal Thinking

By Murali Venugopalan, Johanna Venugopalan and Mundiyath Venugopalan

From Deplorable to Neanderthal Thinking is what a family of three authors saw, heard, read, and wrote during the election of nonpolitician businessman, Donald J Trump, his one-term presidency, and multiple failed efforts under the leadership of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to remove him from office.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781639855148

Book preview

From Deplorable to Neanderthal Thinking

They saw, heard, read, and wrote

Murali, Johanna & Mundiyath Venugopalan

Copyright © 2022 Murali, Johanna & Mundiyath Venugopalan

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2022

All the pictures in this book were listed as public domain and extracted mostly from Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. Their original sources are acknowledged in the legends.

ISBN 978-1-63985-515-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-63985-514-8 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgment

Preface

Chapter 1: A Surprise Beginning

Chapter 2: Businessman Trump’s Presidency

Chapter 3: From Ukraine to Russia, Russia…

Chapter 4: 2018 Midterm Election

Chapter 5: Ukraine Sequel to Failed Russia Hoax

Chapter 6: Democrats Impeach President Trump

Chapter 7: Senate Trial and Acquittal of the President

Chapter 8: COVID-19 and China, China…

Chapter 9: Amid Pandemic, What Else? Nihilism?

Chapter 10: Trump’s Major Accomplishments

Chapter 11: 2020 Presidential Election

Chapter 12: A Surprise Ending

Bibliography

Photo Reference

Index of Topics

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank President Donald J. Trump for the story of this book that began with deplorables and ended with Neanderthal thinking.

Beginning June 16, 2015, we began making notes on our computers as events occurred. But various Internet media published news of the events the same day or the next day and we ended quoting them in our story. We want to thank all those media, especially Wikipedia.org, WebMD, ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC, NY Post, NYT, WaPo, PBS, and Politico. Their reporters were on the spot when campaigns, inaugurations, hearings, trials, pandemics, and mayhem took place. We have acknowledged their courtesy at the source in the book and we apologize if some sources got omitted by our mistake.

The authors also wish to thank our friend Judy Bailey for her comments on many parts of the original manuscript, the staff of Fulton Books.com, especially literary development agent Trae Lynne Atchison for the encouragement and patience during the long writing period, the copy editing team for their meticulous review and valuable suggestions, the page designers for transforming the copy edit into book form, the cover designers for making the book look professional and eye-catching, and publication assistant Samantha Confer for the successful publication and marketing of the book.

Welcome at the Capitol in Washington, DC, January 20, 2017 (public domain photo by Staff Sgt. Marianique Santos)

Preface

After attaining the status of professor emeritus in Illinois, Mundiyath started writing his autobiography so his Indian family have an account of his life after 1951 when he left Cochin in Southwest India for Banaras Hindu University nearly two thousand miles away in North India. He had just completed the writing and distributed the book to his relatives and friends when primaries for the 2016 US presidential election started. Republican businessman Donald Trump was surprisingly elected president instead of media and Obama favorite Democrat Hillary Clinton. As president, Trump changed America from last to first in four years! This book is about the election of nonpolitician businessman Donald Trump, his presidency, and the multiple efforts by the Democrats to remove him from office. Timeline for the book begins with loser Hillary’s deplorables and ends with winner Joe’s Neanderthal thinking. During this period, we watched various media on our computers, radio, and television sets for the source material in the book; and we wrote what we saw, heard, and read. Media always superseded our writing.

A Trumpian Performance

Trump succeeded in fulfilling the promises he made during the campaign and at the same time fought three years long a Justice Department special counsel and FBI investigations, followed by two congressional impeachments. He introduced the First Step Act, opportunity zone incentives and increased federal funding to historically Black colleges and universities, the Platinum Plan for Black America and tax cuts that promoted school choices. Some Blacks appreciated it, but the majority still have their plantation beliefs and support Democrats. He declared the opioid crisis a national emergency and ordered US mail carriers to block Chinese shipments of the most dangerous opioid, fentanyl.

Trump upgraded the economy and diminished unemployment as never before. Military and its ammunition that had deteriorated under the Obama years were replenished, and he created the Space Force. As a law and order president, he did his best to curtail domestic violence, although Democrat mayors and governors resisted by proclaiming their jurisdictions and doing nothing. He reshaped the federal judiciary by nominating and succeeding in Senate confirmation of three conservative justices for the Supreme Court and nearly three hundred judges at lower levels. A majority of the registered voters said they were better off economically when compared to their Obama years!

Trump was able to control the surge of asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) by getting Mexico to control their southern border with Guatemala using Mexican National Guards and expand the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a program commonly known as Remain in Mexico. Under MPP, some of the migrants crossing the border to request asylum in the US were sent back to Mexico to wait for their day in the US immigration court. Mexico deployed guard members near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala and patrolled the northern part of Mexico on its side of the US border often alongside our immigration enforcement agents.

Trump stopped North Korean threats of nuclear war his predecessor was afraid through personal negotiations with their leader Kim Jong-Un. In February 2020, Taliban signed a peace agreement suggesting that partial troop withdrawals from Afghanistan may occur after nearly two decades of war. But disagreements over a controversial prisoner swap stalled the next stage, as did violence in Afghanistan. The first peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban began again in Doha, Qatar, after months of delay and complete troop withdrawal was scheduled for May 1, 2021. President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. delayed it for the twentieth anniversary of August 31, 2021, but Taliban attacked and took over Afghanistan early on August 15. President Ashraf Ghani handed over the government to Taliban and left for the Emirates. Following that, a Taliban official said they will soon declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the presidential palace in Kabul.

Unlike previous presidents, Trump did not start any wars, although he destroyed ISIS’s caliphate and got its founder al-Baghdadi killed. He withdrew from the bad Iran deal, the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the poorly negotiated Paris Climate Accord. He replaced North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with United States Mexico Canada (USMCA), imposed sanctions on Iran and Russia, and controlled China by imposing tariffs on their goods. He brought peace to Kosovo and Serbia through the Balkan Peace Accord. The Middle East had also become somewhat peaceful with the Abrahamic Peace Accord among Bahrain, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Israel. These peacemaking efforts had earned him three nominations for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, but Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia were awarded the Nobel.

Among major failures in performance, we consider his not replacing the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) as one even though he did have success in dismantling parts of the law. His tax bill included a rollback of the tax penalty for those who did not enroll in health care.

Pandemic Riots and Impeachment

As fourth year of his presidency commenced, the coronavirus that originated in China spread creating the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and around the world in nearly 195 countries. Contrary to what the American fake-news media and Democrats say, Trump declared a national emergency, improved testing methods, advised the use of masks and safe distancing. On the day Trump left office on January 20, 2021, there had been more than 24 million confirmed cases and nearly 400,000 reported fatalities in a year in the US. During the following 6 months of Biden’s efforts to stop the pandemic, there were nearly 10 million more confirmed cases and 200,000 more deaths! As President Trump was pursuing the production of gowns, masks, ventilators, therapeutics, vaccines, and even building hospitals to fight the virus, Democrats elected in 2018 to the congressional House pursued his impeachment on orders from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, assisted by Congressmen Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler. But they could not get the Senate support and failed in removing Trump from the Oval Office. And Operation Warp Speed enabled Trump to get more than one COVID vaccine ready in few months to protect our health!

In the midst of the pandemic, rioters, looters, and anarchists had set fire to at least twenty-four major Democrat-run cities in our country. To us, it looked like a copy of the Bolsheviks in action prior to and after World War II, and Democrats called it summer of love. This followed Memorial Day of 2020 when a White police officer and his accomplices were accused of murdering a Black man in Minneapolis. Race relations erupted, and violence followed everywhere in the country in the name of Black Lives Matter (BLM) whose founders in 2013 claimed they were trained Marxists of the Obama era in our country. As time progressed, some of their leaders left the organization having realized that BLM had publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers’ union and that BLM had little concern for rebuilding Black families and improving the quality of their children’s education. Nevertheless, BLM served the Democrats for making protests.

Woke is a term originally used largely by Black people in activist circles to signify a consciousness around racial issues in America. Its use has now spread across the country particularly in schools and media. Those critical of so-called woke ideas often say that they are being canceled or are victim of cancel culture. Withdrawing support (canceling) for classic literary works, public figures, and companies after they have done or said something considered by some as objectionable or offensive has become a popular practice of cancel culture.

Antifascist (Antifa), a political protest movement comprising autonomous groups affiliated by their militant opposition to fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing ideology was also active. Their mayhem had resulted in blocks of Democrat-controlled cities of Portland and Seattle being named as Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone. They had demanded defunding police departments, and some cities had complied.

Biden Elected and Our Capitol Stormed

In the 2020 election, Trump sought reelection for four more years. Obama’s vice-president, Biden, and progressive senator Kamala Harris became the Democrat opposition. They declared that they would not take the Trump vaccine, but once they got elected and vaccines became available, they were the early ones to get vaccinated. They both got two jabs of Trumpcine and said that they trusted the scientists, not Trump who made the vaccines possible. They campaigned on a promise to stop the pandemic, but claimed that to do it, they first have to remove Trump from the Oval Office. Once the latter happened, they retracted the former, saying, Nothing we can do. We were fooled! And there had been 9 million more confirmed cases and 200,000 more reported deaths in their 4 months of government! And the pandemic continues!

In addition to the pandemic and vaccine dispute, there was a scandal about Biden’s son Hunter relating to a money laundering FBI investigation revolved around Republicans in Democrats’ campaign. We saw on TV Biden threatening to withhold 1 billion of our taxpayer money in loan guarantees to pressure Ukraine into firing their prosecutor Viktor Shokin, so as to prevent a corruption investigation into Burisma to protect his son Hunter successfully. In an interview clip released on April 2, 2021, Hunter Biden said that the laptop first reported on last fall by the New York Post could be his, potentially casting doubt on past comments from President Biden that the laptop was Russian disinformation.

Voting started early by mail and was heavy on Election Day, November 3, 2020. Next day, Trump claimed victory, but more votes started coming in for Biden, and he began leading in popular and electoral votes. On November 7, media declared Biden president-elect. President Trump did not concede, and he appealed the media decision to courts in several states unsuccessfully. One case jointly from 18 states was rejected by the Supreme Court stating Texas did not have standing to bring the case. On December 14, 2020, all the states’ secretaries certified the electoral results—306 for Biden and 232 for Trump. The actual vote counts showed that Biden got 7 million more than Trump’s 74 million votes. Subsequent Trump rallies in Georgia did not help to elect their two Republican senators and Democrat Chuck Schumer took over the equally split Senate leadership on January 5, 2021.

Then there was a Save America rally of several thousand on January 6, 2021, morning in Washington, which President Trump addressed. Following the rally, about a thousand from the rally stormed the Capitol where the senators and representatives were counting the votes sent to them from the various states. Vice President Mike Pence was there, and rumors spread that it was a coup on him. Apparently, he wanted to follow the law and had not agreed to Trump’s desire that he decertify the illegal and corrupt results or send them back to the states for change and recertification or send them to the House of Representatives for the one-vote-for-one-state tabulation. In the beginning, Capitol Police could not counter the protestors and rioters effectively. The vote counting had to be stopped, and the National Guard took over. In the encounter, one Air Force veteran was shot and killed; one Capitol officer was wounded; and three medical emergencies ended up in the hospital. The police officer died later. Late that night, the vote counting was completed. More about the rally and insurrection later.

Because of reports that Trump instigated the storming, Pelosi and Schumer wanted Vice President Pence to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and remove Trump from office before Biden’s inauguration, although they preferred a second impeachment that would disqualify him to run for any office in our country. Trump left for his home in Florida in the morning of January 20, 2021. Biden was sworn in at noon the same day as the forty-sixth president and moved into the White House. We had hoped he will challenge the teachers’ unions, get the schools opened, and save the career of our children who have lost a year of proper education in the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, he opened our southern border and built reception centers to welcome amigos.

Snap Second Impeachment and Trial

Vice President Pence told Speaker Pelosi that he will not invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, as lawmakers flooded into the House chamber for a vote on Tuesday, January 12, 2021, night on a resolution calling for him to do so. In a letter to Pelosi, Pence wrote, Just a few months ago, when you introduced legislation to create a [Twenty-Fifth] Amendment Commission, you said, ‘[a president’s] fitness for office must be determined by science and facts.’ You said that we must be ‘very respectful of not making a judgment on the basis of a comment or behavior that we don’t like, but based on a medical decision’ (https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/politics/pence-letter/index.html).

While the resolution passed, Pence said going along with it wouldn’t be in the best interest of our nation or consistent with the Constitution. As the House of Representatives began debate on the process to impeach President Trump for the second time, Republicans in both chambers of Congress were split on their support for it in the tumultuous final days of the Trump presidency.

The article of impeachment against the president accused incitement of insurrection and passed in the House on Wednesday, January 13, 2021, with all Democrats and ten Republicans supporting it. Just before 7:00 p.m. on January 25, the House of Representatives’ impeachment managers marched the article to the Senate side of the Capitol, officially triggering a trial of a former president that could result in him being barred from holding office in the future. That outcome appears unlikely with more and more Republican senators coming out to say they are against holding an impeachment trial in the first place citing because Trump had already left office.

Senate minority leader Schumer announced the trial would start on February 8, 2021, after then president-elect Joe Biden was in office. According to Article II, Section 4 of the US Constitution, the president of the United States (not a former president!) shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes, and misdemeanors. But Trump was no longer the president. Some constitutional scholars said Trump does not have to be the sitting president for the Senate to hold an impeachment trial; then after a potential conviction, the Senate could hold a simple majority vote to bar Trump from holding office in the future, potentially clearing the field for other Republicans to run for president in 2024.

While a majority of the Senate voted down Senator Rand Paul’s resolution challenging the constitutionality of an impeachment trial against a former president, the 55–45 vote was well short of the two-thirds that would be required to convict Trump. Therefore, two US senators, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Susan Collins, pursued support for a vote to censure the former president. Adoption of the censure resolution could prevent Trump from holding future office, but legal scholars weren’t so sure from reading Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On Friday, January 29, 2021, Senate Republicans muscled through a resolution that paved the way for President Trump to be acquitted. The Senate voted along party lines 53–47 on the resolution, with every Democrat senator opposing it after Republicans rejected allowing witnesses or documents as part of the trial. Under the deal reached by Republicans, the Senate reconvened on Tuesday, February 9, 2021, when House prosecution began their arguments for the impeachment with the sound and fury of the videos of January 6, and Trump’s defense team countered their arguments with videos of some Democrat representatives and senators screaming impeach 45 (meaning 45th President) over the past five years. Once that was finished, both parties presented their closing arguments, and the prosecution again called for witnesses. Senate first voted for witnesses, then nixed it, and proceeded to vote on the article of impeachment. The vote was 57–43, 7 Republicans voting with all the Democrats, and Trump was acquitted on Saturday, February 13, 2021, because the prosecution did not receive the required 67 votes for a guilty verdict. He became a twice impeached, twice acquitted first-term president of the United States of America. And Speaker Pelosi failed twice to remove Trump from the presidency.

Big Tech Bans President Trump Their Media

Former First Lady Michelle Obama called on social media oligarchs to permanently ban President Trump from their platforms in the wake of the mob attack on the US Capitol. First, Twitter and Facebook complied, and then Google and Instagram followed.

As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me—and YOU, the 75 million great patriots who voted for me, the president tweeted from the Potus account instead of his personal realDonaldTrump account, which he almost exclusively used before the ban. Twitter may be a private company, the president continued, but without the government’s gift of Section 230, they would not exist for long. Twitter quickly removed the tweets from the Potus account, citing its policy on banned users trying to circumvent it via other accounts. President Trump accused Twitter of working against free speech and instead promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely. Some people are concerned that Section 230 immunity (a section of Title 47 of the US Code enacted as part of the US Communications Decency Act that generally provides immunity for website platforms with respect to third-party content). Big Tech has extended far beyond what Congress originally intended and needs to be corrected (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/19/what-is-section-230-and-why-do-some-people-want-to-change-it.html).

On May 5, 2021, the Oversight Board of Facebook ruled to continue the suspension of President Trump from using their platforms. On hearing this, we googled and found out that the board as constituted by CEO Zuckerberg is international in composition with twenty members and many lawyers but little representation for our country. Should a private Silicon Valley company located in Menlo Park impose an international decision on one of our citizens, especially a conservative former president?

Our Current View of the Country

In the 1970s, an academic movement made up of civil rights scholars and activists in the United States sought to critically examine the law as it intersects with issues of race and to challenge mainstream liberal approaches to racial justice. In the early 1980s, students of color at Harvard Law School organized protests regarding Harvard’s lack of racial diversity in the curriculum, among students, and in the faculty. From reworking theories of critical legal studies with more focus on race emerged a critical race theory that examines social and cultural issues as they relate to race, law, and social and political power. To the dismay of many, it has now infiltrated into our colleges and schools in a detrimental way. Social expectations of gender, language, behavior, or morals are examples of this found in school and college curricula. Academics like us have realized that college has become now a place for ritual indoctrination into a cult of mindless conformity. It has superseded our faith in the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our grandchildren tell us that they are taught 1619 (when the first enslaved Africans arrived in the Virginia colony) is the birth year of our nation, not 1620 (arrival of the Pilgrims in Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts) and not 1776 (Declaration of Independence). Parents are now protesting in many school board meetings, which have ended in violence and police action. Parents want education, not indoctrination for their children by the school board. Teachers, beware; our tax money pays your salaries.

Racism is universal and shows up in our lives across institutions and society, but there is very little evidence for systemic racism in our country. Disparities exist along nearly every facet of our life, including employment, wealth, education, home ownership, health care, and incarceration. We can keep trying to minimize them, but we will never succeed in eliminating them. Ideas cast as woke to signify a consciousness around racial issues are often coming from progressives and involve identity and race. We do not have an Uncle Tom, but we have a lying Uncle Joe! Our generals are promoting wokeism in the military that was trained to protect us, actually to kill our enemies. Our media copying the Big Techs serve the stupidity of their rich owners who have political ambitions. Who will be our masters remain to be seen—a mindless woke?

From our own experience, we realize how ignorant our citizens are in civics and general knowledge to say the least. Political indoctrination of students in primary and middle schools by teachers and of students in colleges and universities by professors has reached a very high level. Teachers and professors often find it difficult to encourage critical thinking, the objective analysis, and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment among their students. Early disciplinary action is called for even though their teachers unions don’t like it and asks for more taxpayer money. Weaknesses in family structure and corruption of our education system by foreign powers also contribute to the poor performance of students. It seems there is a preponderance of leftist mentality, anti-Russian but pro-Chinese among the intelligentsia who claim China will take over world leadership in 2028. Some congressional intelligence committee members have been known to associate with foreign spies, and their leadership has ignored it. Academia and media lefts are surely guilty for this. They have forgotten why their ancestors escaped to this country.

On the governmental level, our country is divided—half the population is capitalistic; the other half socialistic approaching bolshevism if not communism. Is our country on the verge of splitting up? Unfortunately, the latter group appears not to have enlivened the benefits of the system they are desperately trying to spread in the country. In the midst of a pandemic, we have a financial crisis despite money pouring into elections from domestic and foreign sources unchecked. American citizens are well aware of the toll it has taken on the economy—broken supply chains, record unemployment, failing small businesses, and teachers’ unions keeping schools closed! Our country has been flooded with liars and cheaters who have gone unpunished at all levels of government that appears to be at war with its own people. There is a rumor that about one hundred corporations are plotting to take over or control government. Perceived symptoms of corporatocracy include income inequality, effective corporate tax rates, stock buybacks versus wage increases and corporate concentration infiltrating the decision-making power of elected governments.

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and others owned by billionaires have become powerful for thwarting competition, shaping public opinion and culture, tainting the country’s standing in the world, and controlling one of our most basic freedom—free speech. It’s our view that this warrants congressional intervention. Our print and other media concoct fake news. For example, the Russian bounty program was reported in the media in 2020. It became an issue in the presidential election campaign when Biden accused President Trump of not sanctioning the Russian military intelligence for paying bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill American and other allied service members in Afghanistan. Defense department officials had reported that US military intelligence was unable to corroborate the bounty program. And after Biden won the election and was sworn in, the US government reported that the US intelligence community had low to moderate confidence in the bounty allegations.

We wish everyone ambitious and those capable pursue genuine higher education, research, and explore the unknown so America remains first and not become last. Under our Constitution, only Congress can enact legislation to stop White privilege; help small business; regulate Big Tech; solve the immigration and governmental problems, media corruption, and dishonesty; promote family structure and children’s education for a career; correct and improve performance by schools, colleges, and universities; encourage occupation following graduation; and help raise a family and life well planned for retirement. For all this, we need a nonpartisan Congress that will work with any president who has not been in the swamp for a long time. Historically, it has not been possible. Will it ever be possible?

Chapter 1

A Surprise Beginning

Down the golden escalator in the New York Trump Tower came a candidate for the Republican nomination of 2016. It was businessman and TV personality Donald J. Trump accompanied by his beautiful wife, Melania. His slogans America First and Make America Great Again attracted crowds in the tens of thousands at rallies during primaries and the general election. Silicon Valley’s Big Techs and Wall Street banks joined Democrats and fake-news media networks to attack him and his supporters whom Democrat opponent Secretary Hillary Clinton named as deplorables, despicables, and irredeemables.

In the primaries, Hillary Clinton won the Democrat nomination by defeating Bernie Sanders. She chose Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. Trump was one of seventeen candidates vying for the 2016 Republican nomination. At that time, this was the largest presidential field in American history—nine former governors, five senators, a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and a world-famous pediatric neurosurgeon. There were three distinct phases to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign that could be seen through his top-level staffing decisions—the Corey Lewandowski campaign, the Paul Manafort campaign, and the Steve Bannon campaign. As Bannon became chief executive, he promoted pollster Kellyanne Conway to the role of campaign manager.

To our surprise, Trump won the Republican nomination by defeating Ted Cruz. He chose Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate. They won the general election of 2016 by defeating Hillary Clinton in a landslide in spite of FBI Director Comey’s Crossfire investigations.

220px-Donald_Trump_and_Mike_Pence_RNC_July_2016

Trump and Pence in 2016 (public domain, photo by Ali Shaker/VOA)

Trump was sworn in as our forty-fifth president on January 20, 2017. His four years in the White House was marred by a special Counsel investigation of collusion with Russia that turned out to be a Rosenstein-Mueller hoax. It was followed by Speaker Pelosi’s congressional investigation and impeachment for a phone call he made to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Nevertheless, he fulfilled the promises he made to us during the election making many to say that we are better off than four years ago!

Obama’s term as president expired on January 20, 2017. His vice president, Biden, had ended months of intense speculation about his political future on October 21, 2015, with a sudden announcement that he wouldn’t seek the presidency, putting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a stronger position to capture the Democrat nomination.

2016 Presidential Election

A former first lady or businessman?

Our television showed programs about Obama’s first secretary of state and two-time New York Democrat senator Hillary Rodham Clinton becoming the likely successor to President Obama to promote his policies to socialize our country for at least a third term. Some years ago, she was First Lady and was well familiar with the White House. Not unanticipated, there appeared a socialist senator Bernie Sanders to oppose her in the primaries among few Democrats. Prior to this, he had lived in Russia for some years! He often mentioned Cuba and Venezuela as countries we should emulate. Senator Jim Webb, Governor Martin O’Malley, and Mayor Lincoln Chafee also opposed her but they quit early. On July 12, 2016, Sanders officially endorsed Clinton at a unity rally with her in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Down the golden escalator in the New York Trump Tower came a candidate for the Republican nomination of 2016. It was businessman and TV personality Donald J. Trump accompanied by his wife, Melania. His speech on the occasion saying that some Mexican immigrants were bringing drugs and crime, and they’re rapists became the subject of discussion on many TV programs and in newspapers. Nothing more. He was a graduate of the Wharton School of Finance and a world-renowned builder. It is difficult to avoid a Trump tower or golf course in most world cities. Soon, he was opposed by a bunch of former Republican governors and senators, world-famous pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and fired CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina.

Democrats’ primaries

On April 12, 2015, Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2016 election. She had a campaign-in-waiting already in place, including a large donor network, experienced operatives, and political action committees. The campaign’s headquarters were established in Brooklyn. Focuses of her campaign included raising middle-class incomes and taxes, establishing universal preschool, and making college more affordable, and improving the Affordable Care Act. Initially considered a prohibitive favorite to win the Democrat nomination, Clinton faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from socialist senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont whose longtime stance against the influence of corporations and the wealthy in American politics resonated with a dissatisfied citizenry troubled by the effects of income inequality in the US and contrasted with Clinton’s Wall Street ties. To the young millennia, Bernie promised everything free!

There were many debates and town halls that included Senators Jim Webb and Bernie Sanders, Governor Martin O’Malley, and Mayor Lincoln Chafee. A scandal broke out that CNN reporter Donna Brazile leaked to Clinton a question that was to be asked in a CNN-moderated debate. Donna was fired from CNN, but was soon rewarded by appointment as acting chair of the Democrat National Committee.

In the initial contest of the primaries season, Clinton only very narrowly won the Iowa Democrat caucuses, held February 1, over an increasingly popular Sanders, making her the first woman to win the Iowa caucuses. In the first primary, held in New Hampshire on February 9, she lost to Sanders by a wide margin. Sanders was an increasing threat in the next contest, the Nevada caucuses on February 20, but Clinton managed a 5-percentage-point win, aided by final-days campaigning among casino workers. Clinton followed that with a lopsided victory in the South Carolina primary on February 27. These two victories stabilized her campaign and showed an avoidance of the management turmoil that harmed her 2008 effort against Obama.

On Super Tuesday, March 1, Clinton won seven of eleven contests, including a string of dominating victories across the south buoyed, as in South Carolina, by African American voters and opened up a significant lead in pledged delegates over Sanders. She maintained this delegate lead across subsequent contests during the primary season, with a consistent pattern throughout. According to mainstream media Sanders did better among more rural and more liberal younger White voters and in states that held caucuses or where eligibility was open to independents while Clinton did better among older and more Black and Hispanic voter populations and in states that held primaries or where eligibility was restricted to registered Democrats.

By June 5, 2016, she had earned enough pledged delegates and supportive superdelegates for the media to consider her the presumptive nominee. On June 7, after winning most of the states in the final major round of primaries, Clinton held a victory rally in Brooklyn in which she became the first woman to claim the status of presumptive nominee for a major American political party. By campaign’s end, Clinton had won 2,219 pledged delegates to Sanders’ 1,832, with an estimated 594 superdelegates compared to Sanders’ 47. A superdelegate is an unpledged delegate to the Democrat National Convention (DNC) who is seated automatically and chooses for themselves for whom they vote. These Democratic Party superdelegates (who make up slightly under 15 percent of all convention delegates) include elected officials and party activists and officials. Clinton received almost 17 million votes during the nominating process, as opposed to Sanders’ 13 million votes.

At the National Convention of Democrats, WikiLeaks released emails that suggested the DNC and Clinton campaign tilted the primary in Clinton’s favor. DNC chair, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, was replaced by Donna Brazile. Clinton was formally nominated at the 2016 Democrat National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016, becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major US political party. Prior to the convention, FBI director Comey had cleared Clinton of email charges relating to national security when she was working as secretary of state for President Obama. Her choice of vice presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, was nominated by the convention the following day.

Republicans’ primaries

On June 16, 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States at Trump Tower in Manhattan. In his speech, he discussed illegal immigration, off-shoring of American jobs, the US national debt, and Islamic terrorism, which all remained large priorities during the campaign. He also announced his campaign slogan Make America Great Again. Trump said his wealth would make him immune to pressure from campaign donors and that he was funding his own campaign. In the primaries, Trump had nicknames for most of the contestants—for example, little Marco, lying Ted, and so on. When we wake up in the morning, often Trump was on the phone with friendly Fox and Friends, CNN’s New Day, and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, but Greg Gutfeld of The Five on FOX attacked him, and at first Sean Hannity supported Senator Ted Cruz.

Trump’s campaign was initially not taken seriously by political analysts. He quickly rose to the top of opinion polls. We saw his rally in Mobile, Alabama, that was planned for the Mobile Civic Center but was moved to the Ladd-Peebles football stadium for 43,000. Trump’s personal Boeing 757 plane flew low around sizing the crowd around 30,000 before landing. We knew right away he would be a crowd-pleaser and our next president. Some people traveled from as far away as California to attend the rally, one of the greatest events Mobile ever put on aside from Mardi Gras. Trump, clad in his Make America Great Again (MAGA) baseball cap, won the backing of Senator Jeff Sessions, a hometown hero in Mobile. A small plane with a banner supporting former Florida governor Jeb Bush flew by the stadium, proclaiming Trump 4 higher taxes. Jeb 4 Prez.

The ten candidates in the main Republican debate were citizen Donald Trump, former governors Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, and John Kasich; senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul, and Dr. Ben Carson. The moderators were Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace from Fox News. Frontrunner Donald Trump’s overall performance was criticized as rude and erratic by many pundits while others said his comments were popular and his criticisms were overdue, including his criticism of Bush’s description of illegal immigration as an act of love. Cruz, Rubio, Christie, and Huckabee received media praise. Notable conflicts between candidates included Rand Paul versus Chris Christie over the NSA surveillance program, Rand Paul versus Donald Trump on the latter’s possible third-party run, Paul versus Trump on health care, and Christie versus Huckabee on the issue of welfare reform. Trump also clashed with two of the moderators, Kelly and Wallace, on the issue of sexism with Kelly and the issue of illegal immigration with Wallace.

Even before primaries started, the media had declared Jeb Bush, former two-time governor of Florida as the favorite to win the nomination. After all, Jeb was the son of former president G. H. W. Bush and younger brother of former president G. W. Bush. Surprisingly, US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas won the Iowa caucuses, and Trump won the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. Jeb had hoped to win South Carolina, but it did not happen, and he dropped out. On Super Tuesday, Trump won the plurality of the vote, and he remained the front-runner throughout the remainder of the primaries. A number of prominent Republicans joined and media personality like Hannity now spared no effort to promote Trump’s campaign. Some Republicans became Never Trumpers and organized protests, even demanded that Republicans vote for Clinton.

Trump rallies attended by several thousand became popular and were televised by Fox News. By March 2016, Trump was poised to win the Republican nomination. After a landslide win in Indiana on May 3, 2016, the two remaining candidates Senator Ted Cruz and Governor John Kasich suspended their campaigns. Kasich had no reason to stay in the contest as he had won only one state, his home state Ohio, in the primaries out of fifty states. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus declared nonpolitician businessman Trump the presumptive Republican nominee, although there were many attempts to pursue convention delegates to change from Trump to Ted Cruz. It was then that print media and TV channels realized how foolish they were promoting someone for fun they had hoped won’t win but did win!

One evening, Trump called Indiana governor Mike Pence and told him that he was coming to his house for breakfast the next morning, although he had voted for Cruz in the Indiana primary. On July 15, 2016, Trump announced his selection of Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate. Trump and Pence were officially nominated four days later at the Republican National Convention. The list of convention speakers and attendees included former presidential nominee Bob Dole, but the other prior nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney opposed Trump and did not attend. Two days later, Trump officially accepted the nomination in a seventy-six-minute speech. The historically long speech received mixed reviews, with net negative viewer reactions according to CNN and Gallup polls.

Some rallies during the primary season were accompanied by protests or violence, including attacks on Trump supporters and vice versa both inside and outside the venues; some were incited by Republican Never Trump people rumored to be Bill Kristol and Max Boot, some by Socialist Sanders and millionaire George Soros. Trump’s election victory sparked protests across the United States, in opposition to his policies and his inflammatory statements. Trump initially said on Twitter that these were professional protesters, incited by the media, and were unfair, but he later tweeted, Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country.

General election campaign

After becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Trump shifted his focus to the general election. Trump began campaigning against Hillary Clinton, who became the presumptive Democrat nominee on June 6, 2016. Clinton held a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016. In early July, Trump and Clinton became tied in major polls following the FBI’s conclusion of its investigation into her emails. FBI director James Comey concluded Clinton had been extremely careless in her handling of classified government material as Obama’s secretary of state, although President Obama did not think so, telling it on TV news.

In late July, Trump gained his first lead over Clinton in major polls following a 3 to 4 percent point convention bounce at the Republican National Convention, in line with the average bounce in conventions since 2004, although it was toward the small side by historical standards. Following Clinton’s 7 percent point convention bounce at the Democrat National Convention, she regained a significant lead, 5 to 10 percent in national polls at the start of August.

The debates

On September 26, 2016, Trump and Clinton faced off in their first presidential debate, which was held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, and moderated by NBC News anchor Lester Holt. The TV broadcast was the most watched presidential debate in United States history. The second presidential debate was held at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri. The beginning of that debate was dominated by references to a recently leaked tape of Trump making sexually explicit comments, which Trump countered by referring to alleged sexual misconduct on the part of Bill Clinton. Prior to the debate, Trump had invited four women who had accused Clinton of impropriety to a press conference. The final presidential debate was held on October 19 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Trump’s refusal to say whether he would accept the result of the election, regardless of the outcome, drew particular attention, with some saying it undermined democracy.

Trump’s campaign platform

The following were ten key promises in the agenda he is setting for presidency:

Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.

Temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Bring manufacturing (jobs) back.

Impose tariffs on goods made in China and Mexico.

Renegotiate or withdraw from NAFTA and TPP.

Fully repeal Obamacare and replace it with market-based care.

Renegotiate the Iran deal.

Leave Social Security as is.

Cut taxes.

Bomb or take the oil from ISIS or both.

Some of Trump’s positions are actually in line with those of Clinton, such as protecting Social Security and increased skepticism toward trade. Trump’s lack of detailed pledges and firm stances were advantageous to him.

Trump’s campaign platform emphasized renegotiating US-China relations and free trade agreements such as NAFTA and TPP, strongly enforcing immigration laws, and building a new wall along the US-Mexico border. His other campaign positions included pursuing energy independence while opposing climate change regulations such as the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Agreement, modernizing and expediting services for veterans, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, abolishing Common Core education standards, investing in infrastructure, simplifying the tax code while reducing taxes for all economic classes, and imposing tariffs on imports by companies that offshore jobs.

During the campaign, he also advocated a largely noninterventionist approach to foreign policy while increasing military spending, extreme vetting or banning immigrants from Muslim-majority countries to preempt domestic Islamic terrorism, and aggressive military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly called NATO obsolete. His political positions had been described as populist, and some of his views crossed party lines. For example, his economic campaign plan calls for large reductions in income taxes and deregulation, consistent with Republican policies, along with significant infrastructure investment, usually considered a Democratic Party policy.

In his campaign, Trump said that he disdained political correctness; he also stated that the media had intentionally misinterpreted his words, and he made other claims of adverse media bias. In part because of his fame and because of his willingness to say things other candidates would not and because a candidate who is gaining ground automatically provides a compelling news story, Trump received an unprecedented amount of free media coverage during his run for the presidency, which elevated his standing in the Republican primaries.

During his presidential campaign, Trump was accused of pandering to White supremacists. He retweeted open racists and repeatedly refused to condemn David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan or White supremacists. Duke himself was an enthusiastic supporter of Trump throughout the 2016 primary and election and had stated that he and like-minded people voted for Trump because of his promises to take our country back. After repeated questioning by reporters, Trump said that he disavowed David Duke and the KKK. The alt-right movement coalesced around Trump’s candidacy due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and immigration. Members of the alt-right enthusiastically supported Trump’s campaign. In August 2016, he appointed Steve Bannon—the executive chairman of Breitbart News, the platform for the alt-right—as his campaign CEO.

In an interview days after the nomination, Trump condemned supporters who celebrated his victory with Nazi salutes. As a presidential candidate, Trump disclosed detail of his companies, assets, and revenue sources to the extent required by the Federal Election Commission. His 2015 report listed assets above $1.4 billion and outstanding debts of at least $265 million. The 2016 form showed little change. Trump did not release his tax returns during his presidential campaign or afterward, contrary to usual practice by every candidate since President Ford in 1976 and to his promise in 2014 to do so if he ran for office. Trump’s refusal led to speculation that he was hiding something. He said that his tax returns were being audited, and his lawyers had advised him against releasing them. Trump had told the press that his tax rate was none of their business and that he tries to pay as little tax as possible.

In October 2016, portions of Trump’s state filings for 1995 were leaked to a reporter from the New York Times. These showed that Trump declared a loss of $916 million that year, which could have let him to avoid taxes for up to eighteen years. During the second presidential debate, Trump acknowledged using the deduction but declined to provide details such as the specific years it was applied. He said that he did use the tax code to avoid paying taxes.

Clinton’s agenda and deplorables

The following were the ten campaign promises that most think best define her bid for the presidency:

For families making less than $125,000 a year, she will eliminate tuition for in-state students at public colleges.

Pass comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship for keeping families together.

Stand up to Republican-led attacks on this landmark health-care law and build on its success to bring the promise of affordable health care to more people and make a public option possible.

She will do everything to overturn Citizens United.

Fight for equal pay.

She will not raise middle-class taxes.

Say no to attacks on working families, no to bad trade deals and unfair trade practices, including Trans-Pacific Partnership.

She is going to increase the federal minimum wage.

As president, Hillary will expand background checks to more gun sales.

Clinton would increase federal infrastructure funding by $275 billion over a five-year period.

On August 25, 2016, Clinton gave a speech criticizing Trump’s campaign for using racist lies and allowing the alt-right movement to gain prominence. At an LGBT fundraiser on September 9, Clinton stated, "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it (emphasis added). Donald Trump criticized Clinton’s remark as insulting his supporters, and some political analysts compared the statement to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent gaffe in 2012. The following day, Clinton expressed regret for saying half, while insisting that Trump had deplorably amplified hateful views and voices. Trump campaign invited deplorable Americans on stage and used the label against Clinton in an advertisement. On October 20, 2016, during the seventy-first Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner, Clinton joked about the phrase, telling the guests, I just want to put you all in a basket of adorables."

What are deplorables?

It’s Clintonian! In Merriam-Webster, the word deplorable is defined as an adjective. Clinton’s use in the plural deplorables marks the word as a noun. There is no such noun. We use the word deplorable in the title of the book as an adjective.

Also, there is no such word as adorables!

Trump elected 45th president

In the evening of Election Day, news anchors and pollsters had begun forecasting the results. Almost everyone was sure Hillary is the 45th president, the first woman president. They predicted an announcement by 10:00 pm. That turned out to be false. By the early morning hours of November 9, Trump had received 279 of the electoral-college votes, with 270 needed to win, and media sources including Fox News sadly proclaimed Trump as the 45th president: Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton on November 8, 2016, election. It was a political trifecta sweeping all three branches of government. The 115th Congress had Republicans strongly in the majority (241–194) in the House and remained in the majority (52–48) in the Senate.

Some on the mainstream media were angry, and some had tears. Pollsters disappeared from TV. Our TV showed Clinton embracing Obama and apologizing for the defeat by someone whom Obama had denigrated previously. Clinton then phoned Trump to concede and to congratulate him on his victory, whereupon Trump gave a victory speech. The following are excerpts from that speech we heard on our TV:

I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us—it’s about us—on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign.… Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division. We have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.

I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I reach out for guidance and help so that we can work together and unify our great country.

As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign but rather an incredible and great movement, made up of millions of hardworking men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their family.

It’s a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds, and beliefs that want and expect our government to serve the people—and serve the people it will.

Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream. I’ve spent my entire life in business, looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world. That is now what I want to do for our country. Tremendous potential. I’ve gotten to know our country so well. Tremendous potential. It is going to be a beautiful thing. Every single American will have the opportunity to realize his or her fullest potential. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

The next morning, Clinton made a public concession speech in which she acknowledged the pain of her loss but called on her supporters to accept Trump as president, by saying, We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead. Though Clinton lost the election by only capturing 232 electors to Trump’s 306, she won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes or 2.1 percent of the voter base. Bless sanctuary states California and New York for this! In her 2017 book What Happened, Clinton said that her comments on the basket of deporables were a factor in her electoral loss.

Post-Election Surprises

Following the election, there were several attempts by top bananas of both parties to change votes from Trump to Clinton in the Electoral College. On December 19, 2016, when electors formally voted, Clinton lost five of her initial 232 votes because of faithless electors, with three of her Washington votes were cast to Colin Powell instead; one was cast to Faith Spotted Eagle; and one in Hawaii was cast to Bernie Sanders. Trump won thirty out of fifty states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which had been considered a blue wall of Democrat strongholds since the 1990s. Clinton won twenty states and the District of Columbia. Trump’s victory marked the return of a Republican White House combined with control of both chambers of Congress.

Trump’s victory was considered a stunning political upset by most observers, as polls had consistently showed Hillary Clinton with a nationwide, though diminishing, lead as well as a favorable advantage in most of the competitive states. Trump’s support had been modestly underestimated throughout his campaign, and many observers blamed errors in polls, partially attributed to pollsters overestimating Clinton’s support among well-educated and non-White voters while underestimating Trump’s support among White working-class voters. The polls were relatively inaccurate, but media outlets and pundits alike showed overconfidence in a Clinton victory despite a large number of undecided voters and a favorable concentration of Trump’s core constituencies in competitive states.

Prior to inauguration, Trump delegated the management of his real estate business to his sons Eric and Don Jr. Daughter Ivanka resigned from the Trump organization and moved to Washington, DC, with her husband Jared Kushner. She was to serve as an assistant to the president, and he as senior adviser in the White House.

There were many celebrations and protest marches. One notable celebration was DeploraBall, which was celebrated by Trump supporters and several members of the alt-right at the National Press Building from January 19 to January 20, 2017. A notable protest march was the women’s march the day following inauguration.

Fake media activities

Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign and his presidency, Trump repeatedly accused the press of intentionally misinterpreting his words and of being biased, calling them fake news media and the enemy of the people. In the campaign, Trump benefited from a record amount of free media coverage, elevating his standing in the Republican primaries. Into his presidency, Trump described negative media coverage as fake news. Trump privately and publicly mused about taking away critical reporters’ White House press credentials. Trump rallies following election were interesting to watch, particularly his recalling of the general election result announcements: Trump won Ohio, Trump won Florida, Trump won Pennsylvania, Trump won Wisconsin, Trump won Michigan, and so on.

Disgusting were some TV channels that showed Trump beheaded, Trump being assassinated and so on. It was Kathy Griffin who went on late-night comedy shows holding a severed Donald Trump head and revealed what famous comedian encouraged her to get back into comedy. Public Theater in New York is refusing to back down after backlash over their production Julius Caesar that portrays a Donald Trump-like dictator in a business suite with a long tie who gets knifed to death onstage. It’s the institution that birthed the megahit Hamilton whose cast members implored Vice President Mike Pence to support diversity and where Meryl Streep donned self-tanner and a fat suit in the summer to impersonate Trump at a gala fundraiser for Clinton. The modern-day Caesar’s violent death at the hands of conspirators came not long after Kathy Griffin was widely condemned.

The Public Theater wasn’t the only theater institution that tried to address the advent of Trump. On Broadway, Jon Jon Briones, who played the sleazy engineer in a revival of Miss Saigon, made a sarcastic reference to the Trump campaign slogan Make America Great Again. The off-Broadway play Building the Wall, by playwright Robert Schenkkan, imagined the country under Trump’s campaign promise to detain immigrants living in the country illegally. And filmmaker and activist Michael Moore brought a one-man show The Terms of My Surrender taking on Trump to Broadway in the following summer. Can a Broadway show bring down a sitting president? an assured-looking Moore asked. And he got the answer—no.

Obama’s By the Book

On January 5, 2017, two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, President Obama called his staff and intelligence committees (IC) to an Oval office meeting. After the IC briefing, Obama asked Yates and Comey to stay behind and said he had learned of the information about then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn and his conversation with Russia’s ambassador about sanctions. Obama "specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter but was seeking information on whether the White House should