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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~
The road traveled
and the path ahead
If we really want to be honest with ourselves,
the outcome of last week’s presidential election
was inevitable.
The chief slogans of the Ronald Reagan’s victo
rious campaign in 1980 (“Are you better off than
you were four years ago?”) and Bill Clinton’s 1992
win (“It’s the economy, stupid.”) are memorable
because of their brilliance and their relevance to
today’s political landscape.
People vote with their wallets and pocket books
and the country’s leaders have been failing the
American middle and working class for a long
time. Health care costs are soaring, millions more
Americans are out of work
and those who are work
ing, on average, are logging
more hours for less pay.
That’s not necessarily
entirely the fault of the cur
rent administration or even
the one before it, but per
ception is often reality in
politics.
People are fed up, and
Donald Trump was master
ful in his exposition of those
feelings throughout the cam
paign. And that led to the
biggest political upset in our country’s history. The
celebrity business mogul took down a well-oiled
political machine while shattering the expecta
tions and conventions of modern-day elections.
Maybe that’s why it blindsided so many people.
They either couldn’t see it or didn’t want to.
Most polls suggested a fairly comfortable victo
ry for Hillary Clinton. The conventional wisdom
tossed around was her ground game organization
was vastly superior to anything Trump could
muster.
How quickly people have forgotten that we live
an age of mass, instantaneous information and
that the best possible ground game out there in
2016 is social media, of which Trump has proven
himself a wizard.
As evidenced particularly by his surprise vic
tories in the upper Midwest, Trump, using his
uncanny ability to boil down complex issues
into short slogans, tapped into the frustrations
of everyday workers. And while his rhetoric at
times pandered to xenophobia and racism, to
say his campaign was about that or that half of
his supporters advocate such beliefs shows the
willingness to keep one’s head buried in the sand.
As much a victory as it was for Trump and as
much a middle finger as it was to the political
establishment, this election was also a day of
reckoning for the Democratic party. In addition
to losing the presidency, it will also remain the
minority in the House and Senate and is now sub
ject to a record number of Republican governors
and legislators at the state level.
There has been commentary that this is a repu
diation of President Barack Obama’s legacy, but
that is premature as Obama still enjoys a respect
able approval rating.
What it did exploit is the notion that the party
continues to lose touch with the middle class that
it always claimed to champion.
Without a President Hillary Clinton, the party
suddenly will be without a leader and without a
face when Obama leaves office in January, and
that’s mostly a result of its own doing.
Clinton was a terrible candidate in many ways
— probably the worst possible one to run against
Trump, who championed himself as the agent of
change taking on the status quo. Many indepen
dent voters, not just right-wing Republicans, could
not bring themselves to trust her sincerity.
Her failure to galvanize black voters, which
helped lead to defeats in Pennsylvania, Michigan
and Wisconsin (three traditionally reliable
Democratic strongholds) effectively cost her wins
in those states and the election. Her inability to
capture enough young voters also should not be
overlooked.
And so now the party must rebuild itself and
craft a new vision. The loss will probably empow
er the progressive wing of the party, which could
argue Bernie Sanders might have had a better
chance of defeating Trump because he does not
carry the same baggage and also had been suc
cessful at talking about the problems facing the
middle class.
But a move further to the left hardly seems
consistent with the apparent wishes of Americans
given the election results around the country.
The path forward
After a long, tumultuous and bruising campaign
filled with personal attacks, America remains a
divided country in the aftermath of Trump’s vic
tory and would have been so after a theoretical
Clinton win as well.
Clinton supporters and staunch Trump oppo
nents have taken to the streets and to the Internet
to protest. The hyperbole that we are on the brink
of a dictatorship doesn’t serve any good. There
are legitimate concerns about Trump and his
capabilities, but our republic is built to withstand
a despot.
And with Clinton poised to win the popular vote
— only the fifth candidate in history to do so, but
See Thompson on Page 5A
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What Trump’s election
will mean for Georgia
For both Georgia and the United
States as a whole, the election of
Donald Trump as president is going
to mean some major changes in our
lives.
For a start, you can expect to see
more air and water pollution,
more closings of rural hospi
tals, and more people without
access to health insurance
under the new administration.
The most concise blueprint
of what lies ahead comes from
Sen. David Perdue.
In a radio interview last
week, Perdue predicted
that Republican members of
Congress will quickly repeal
Obamacare, the Clean Power
Plan, and the “Waters of the
United States” water quali
ty rule. They will also approve the
Keystone oil pipeline that would
extend through the massive Ogallala
Aquifer — one of the world’s largest
underground sources of fresh water.
“All four of those things will get
signed into law by President Trump,”
Perdue said. “All four of those things
will get done in the first 100 days.”
The widely expected repeal of the
Affordable Care Act effectively puts an
end to any talk of Medicaid expansion
in Georgia.
Gov. Nathan Deal could have brought
more than $9 billion in federal funds to
the state if he had agreed to Medicaid
expansion in 2013, but he declined the
opportunity because of his political
opposition to the Affordable Care Act.
There had been talk in recent
months of easing into Medicaid expan
sion in 2017 and bringing some of
that federal money to Georgia, which
would have gone to hospitals and phy
sicians that treat Medicaid patients.
With the repeal of Obamacare, that is
a dead issue.
The big losers here will be financial
ly stressed rural hospitals that treat a
large number of indigent patients who
can’t afford to pay their bills. Without
the hoped-for influx of Medicaid
expansion funds, you could see as
many as 15 to 20 of Georgia’s rural
hospitals forced to shut their doors
because they can’t afford to stay in
operation.
In addition to that, the end of
Obamacare will leave more than 20
million Americans without health
insurance.
In Georgia, more than 580,000 peo
ple get health coverage through the
insurance exchange that is part of the
Affordable Care Act.
Once the act has been repealed,
they will be without insurance as well.
The repeal of the Clean Power Plan
will be a financial boost to Georgia
Power, which will be able to keep
operating coal-fired power plants that
spew greenhouse gases into the atmo
sphere.
Georgia Power could even reopen
some of the coal-fired facilities it has
closed in recent years because of the
clean air standards.
House Speaker Paul Ryan of
Wisconsin has proposed for years that
Social Security be privatized and that
Medicare be terminated and replaced
with an insurance voucher system.
Social Security, in fact, has been a
target of the Republican party since
the program was first implemented in
1935. One of the GOP’s
most cherished goals
has been to reverse the
New Deal that President
Franklin Roosevelt put in
place.
“If you’re going to
repeal and replace
Obamacare, you have
to address those issues
as well,” Ryan said last
week. “Medicare has
got some serious issues
because of Obamacare.
So those things are part
of our plan to replace Obamacare.”
Once you replace Medicare with
an insurance voucher plan, senior
citizens will have no choice but to
pay whatever premiums are demand
ed by private insurance companies.
They very likely will pay more money
for less coverage because vouchers
will not be able to keep up with the
increasing cost of health insurance.
With a Republican president and
GOP majorities in both houses of
Congress, Ryan should be able to
accomplish his long-held goals of dis
mantling Social Security and ending
Medicare - if not in the first 100 days
of the new administration, then short
ly after.
Trump’s strongest support, of
course, came from voters who are
age 65 and older - they are the ones
who would be directly affected by the
elimination of Medicare and Social
Security.
It will be interesting to see how
quickly, or whether, the new president
signs legislation that would have such
a negative impact on his staunchest
supporters.
Trump voters said they wanted
changes, and they will get changes
beyond anything they may have imag
ined.
Whether they like those changes is
another matter entirely.
Tom Crawford is editor of The
Georgia Report, an internet news ser
vice at gareport.com that reports on
state government and politics. He can
be reached at tcrawford@gareport.
com.
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Some final
thoughts on
the election
There is so much to talk about with the
Trump/Republican victory last week.
Where in the world did all of these
whiners and cry-babies come from with
Trump’s election to the Presidency?
The response from the left has been
unbelievable. Actually, some of it has been
cruel and down-right mean. This has cer
tainly been the year of political un-civility
(on both sides).
Remember when, after winning the
Presidency, Obama
reminded John
McCain during what
was supposed to be
a joint dialogue on
healthcare, “John,
the election is over
and we won.” He
did the same with
Tennessee Senator
Lamar Alexander in
response to a ques
tion, “Elections have
consequences.”
The shoe is now on
the other foot and the Republicans and
conservatives in Congress should remem
ber the treatment they received over the
past eight years.
For nearly a decade, Washington has
been a one party town and would have
remained so for at least another four years
or longer if Hillery had won.
President-elect Donald Trump has won
the office on a mandate of the people,
not just any mandate, but a whopping
mandate. The Democrats got a deserved
public spanking!
The American people demonstrated
what they think of Congress, liberals, and
the status quo. It’s time to move on and
I believe Trump has the ability and the
knowledge from a large select group of
people that can put the train back on the
track and build up a full head of steam.
It will not be easy for the liberals based
on their news stories and comments this
past week.
Jay Bookman is an opinion writer for
the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I bet he
hasn’t slept since last Tuesday. I hope not.
The AJC can find better writers.
In last Sunday’s AJC, Bookman had
the audacity, or the ignorance, to say that
Trump is following a scandal-free Obama
administration. I read it twice to be sure
my eyes and the print were in line with
each other.
He went on to say, “...Trump will bring
such a wave of poorly vetted crooks and
charlatans into power with him that it’s
going to look like the Oklahoma Land
Rush invading Washington.”
Bookman continued his rant saying,
“They won’t know the rules, and they
won’t care about the rules. They are there
to break the rules. The remarkably scan
dal-free Obama administration...will be fol
lowed by one of the most corrupt adminis
trations in American history.”
If we’re lucky Bookman will join the 23
celebrities who said they would leave the
country if Trump was elected. And, shame
on the AJC.
In case you did not hear the story, 23
celebrities announced plans to leave the
U.S.A. if Trump won. Among them, are
Amy Schumer, race baiter A1 Sharpton,
Spike Lee, model Amber Rose, Cher,
Barbara Streisand, Whoopi Goldberg,
Miley Cyrus, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
I’m offering my time to help them pack
and will make a contribution to their out
ward bound travel plans. Good riddance.
Half of them are fouled-mouthed, crude
performers that we won’t miss anyway.
Gail Collins, a columnist for The New
York Times, wrote last Saturday calling
Trump, “...a spawn of Satan...dimwitted,
mean-spirited spawn embodying the
nation’s worst flaws, failings and night
mares.”
I think she is confused with her adjec
tives between the liberal left and conserva
tive right. Maybe she will add her name to
the list that is leaving. In her column, she
suggested everyone start with a night of
“heavy drinking” to get ready for the new
Presidency.
The media continues to feel the pain as
it should.
Brittany Hughes, writing for MRCtv on
November 10, said, “...the poor melting
snowflakes over at CNN and MSNBC spent
the next two days sorting through their
misery...(deciding) their only explanation
for Trump’s win was that America is full of
racist, sexist bigots who hate black people
and women.”
She added, “Never mind that 29 percent
See Terrell on Page 5A
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