When This Blows Over

What was forgotten in all this hysteria was that Trump
had brought to the race unique advantages, some of his
own making, some from finessing naturally occurring
phenomena. His advocacy for fair rather than free trade,
his insistence on enforcement of federal immigration law,
and promises to bring back jobs to the United States
brought back formerly disaffected Reagan Democrats,
white working-class union members, and blue-dog
Democrats—the “missing Romney voters”—into the
party. Because of that, the formidable wall of rich
electoral blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina crumbled.
Beyond that, even Trump’s admitted crudity was seen by
many as evidence of a street-fighting spirit sorely lacking
in Republican candidates that had lost too magnanimously
in 1992, 2008, and 2016 to vicious Democratic hit
machines. Whatever Trump was, he would not lose nobly,
but perhaps pull down the rotten walls of the Philistines
with him. That Hillary Clinton never got beyond her
email scandals, the pay-for-play Clinton Foundation
wrongdoing, and the Wikileaks and Guccifer hackings
reminded the electorate that whatever Trump was or had
done, he at least had not brazenly broken federal law as a
public servant, or colluded with the media and the
Republican National Committee to undermine the
integrity of the primaries and sabotage his Republican
rivals.