Photo © 2016 Paul L. Gleiser

Listen To You Tell Me Texas Friday 1/20/17

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Despite cries from the left that his victory is not legitimate, Donald Trump will take the oath of office at 11:00 a.m. Texas time Friday morning and in that moment become the 45th President of the United States. Five hundred eighty-four days ago, no one thought such a moment would ever come. It was June 16, 2015 when Donald Trump rode the escalator down into the lobby of his headquarters building in New York City and announced his candidacy.

Nearly every political expert, pundit, TV network, newspaper editorial board and political party insider dismissed the announcement as either complete farce or, at best, a brilliant publicity stunt. The most common reaction to Trump’s announcement was derisive amusement. Almost no one gave Trump a chance. (One notable exception was Ann Coulter, who three days after Trump’s announcement, nailed it.)

Election Day shocked nearly everyone. Hillary Clinton and her team, together with essentially every legacy TV network and cable news network reporter, went into the evening hours of November 8 convinced of a Clinton victory.

That’s when the vast heartland of the American continent found its voice.

Many in the lefty chattering class, still in shock, have been openly questioning the “legitimacy” of the election. They nearly always cite the fact that Hillary won the popular vote by some 2.8 million votes – a number that sounds meaningful until you look one level deeper.

Donald Trump’s victory was, in the only sense that matters when it comes to picking a president, massive.

Trump won the majority of the votes in 2,600 counties across the United States as compared to Hillary Clinton’s majorities in just 500. On a geographic basis, Trump was selected over Clinton in 84 percent of the country.

But for 88 of the 100 most populous counties out of more than 3,100 in the U.S., Donald Trump would have beaten Hillary Clinton by more than 11 million votes. (Did Russian ‘hacking’ really change the minds of 11 million voters?)

Hillary Clinton won by a huge margin in New York City. But she lost most of the rest of the State of New York. She won the area immediately surrounding Detroit. But she lost most of the rest of Michigan. The same can be said of Chicago vs. the rest of Illinois, Seattle vs. the rest of Washington and Portland vs. the rest of Oregon.

The only state in which Hillary Clinton won a significant number of counties not anchored by large urban metros is California.

If you look at a county-level electoral map of the United States, you see scattered lakes and rivers of blue, next to or surrounded by an ocean of red.

Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton because most of the people in most of the counties in most of the states in the union made it clear that they were fed up.

Donald Trump won a massive victory and it remains to be seen what he will do with it. But one thing is certain – Trump’s victory could not be more legitimate.