In August, Donald Trump famously asked African-American voters, “What do you have to lose?” He said his movement would fix the stagnant job growth seen under President Obama, urban crime and divisiveness of an administration elected and re-elected through sophisticated tactics for dividing Americans against one another.
While liberal elites were flabbergasted Trump might offer an acceptable alternative to their decades of failed policy, it turns out working class and minority voters in urban centers are more accepting of a Trump presidency and didn’t sympathize with Hillary Clinton’s need to maintain a failed status quo.
Trump and his team exceeded everyone’s expectations, including my own, by cobbling together an electoral map with a combination of traditional Republican and working-class voters that delivered a resounding victory.
Popular vote turnout for the Republican nominee in 2016 will be about the same as in 2012, at around 60 million people. Why did that turnout translate to a loss for Mitt Romney in one election, and in the other a victory for Trump?
There are about 6 million reasons. That’s the current number of voters in urban centers that appear to have stayed home on Election Day. Perhaps Trump’s “what do you have to lose?” message from an outsider that promised to drain the proverbial swamp worked. However, it’s also clear the corrupt Democratic stew cooked up by Obama and Clinton in the form of liberalism, double-standards and corruption lost its flavor, even with voters who twice gave Obama a chance.
Upon his victory, Trump delivered a gracious speech and hit all the right notes in promising to be a president for all Americans, asking those who did not support him in the past provide their guidance and help “so that we can work together and unify our great country.” Now it’s time for those of us who did not enthusiastically support Trump to answer his call and provide him and his future administration the help to govern justly and effectively. Now he’s our president, and he needs our support.
A few weeks ago, a pundit noted that Trump’s supporters “take him seriously, but not literally,” and his critics, including the mainstream media, “take him literally, but not seriously.” I have been guilty of that mistake, focusing on his inarticulate (and if taken literally, very divisive) rhetoric, but also not giving enough credit to the people his language speaks to and their impassioned desire for real change and solutions.
In addition to Trump’s victory, voters strongly supported Republican leadership from Congress to statehouses. We now have a moment in time to promote and implement conservative and hopeful policies that can provide freedom and the opportunity for people to improve their lives under constitutional governance.
Just as we have done for the 44 presidents that came before him, now is the time for all Americans who didn’t already take Trump seriously to come together and provide the support that he has explicitly asked for and will undoubtedly need in the coming months and years.
There will be time in the future to examine campaign tactics, the role of money and media in politics and other issues that political junkies thrive on. But before that, let us pause to celebrate this moment in American history and the movement Trump is leading. Then, conservatives should pray for wisdom and justice for all of our leaders, while at the same time rolling up our sleeves and going to work to help Trump be the great president the American people deserve.
Charlie Spies is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He previously served as counsel to the Republican National Committee, Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign and Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise USA super PAC. He currently leads Clark Hill’s national political law practice and is member in charge of the Washington, D.C. office. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
