by Dave Roberts » Thu Nov 10, 2016 7:07 am
I think this may have less to do with Hillary's failures or Donald's successes than it may have to do with the nature of American politics. One of my history profs in college, Dr. Robert Burts, taught a theory of history in terms of pendulum swings. He used American elections as the bellwether for his theory. If you look back across the twentieth century, with the exception of the FDR/Truman years, we have a pattern of one party holding the levers of power for a period before we swing to the other side. Whatever has been the goal of the first, it swings to the second. For example, following Woodrow Wilson's great progressive crusade, we had the 1920's with very conservative Republican approaches. After the progressivism of FDR/Truman, we had the Eisenhower years of GOP control. Following Kennedy and Johnson, we swung back to Nixon, then to Carter. From Carte we went to Reagan and Bush 41. Clinton followed for 8 years of more progressive concerns followed by W. After 8 years of Bush 43, the country swung to Obama. The almost natural swing moved back toward the right again.
I realize there are many factors in this election, but my suspicion is that after 8 years of an African-American in the White House, the country swung toward a white male over accepting another radical change in having a woman serve as President. My suspicion is that after a Trump presidency, the time may be more ripe for a woman to take the White House. My possible candidate would be the newly elected senator from Illinois, Tammy Duckworth. With both a military and congressional background, she might be more acceptable in 4 to 8 years.