Now, it is real time to talk about why instead of whom. Of course, we always try to focus on why (we should support this person, not that one) before the election, but in the end, we always end up talking about whom (because we are forced willy-nilly to choose one of them). After the election, however, we are free from that burdensome, inevitable choice. What is done is done. At this point, talking about why one candidate is better than the other is belated as well as meaningless, but talking about why this particular candidate becomes our next President is timely as well as meaningful. We can talk about why in the context of the things passed away, not the things coming up, and hindsight always makes us wiser, while foresight often betrays us miserably, as we witnessed in this very election.
Sorry for our next President, Donald Trump, and his supporters, he did not win the election. Sorry for Hilary Clinton and her supporters, that does not mean that she did not lose this election; she lost. Again, sorry for our next President, I do not think he won because he was a better candidate than his opponents. His words are crude and vulgar; his policies are unclear and superficial. He won because he succeeds in wrapping himself as a candidate for people who are fed up with collectivism. He won because he appears to be reasonably selfish; he is not one of those abundant hypocrites in Washington D.C. claiming that we are hungry now, but we should still help other hungrier people out there. He won because he seems to put individuals ahead society, trust individuals more than society; he is not one of those nagging, patronizing politicians thinking that we are too careless or dangerous to carry guns or that we are too irresponsible or irrational to prepare health care for ourselves. Hilary Clinton lost because she appears to be irrationally unselfish; why should we give illegal immigrants legal opportunities and protections while we offer various ways to immigrate legally? Why is our tax money spent for them? She lost because she failed to see that we are no longer to be deceived a fantasy of altruistic collectivism; Do you want to expand Medicaid? Allow some moratorium on student debt? Believe in climate change and preserve our beautiful Earth? Great! But at whose expense?
I am not sure yet whether Donald Trump is a true objectivist who believes that rational selfishness is the basis of individual happiness and the key for prosperous society. He could be a false objectivist who cleverly glorifies his greed and prejudice making it look like rational selfishness. However, one thing is for sure, at least; we should and could make this election a victory of objectivists. Let us not it be remembered as a victory of “a basket of deplorables.” What is done is done, but what can be done is not.