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There are many takeaways to process after Donald Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in the Presidential election. In no particular order, I present some observations and some opinions. This is not an exhaustive list and I will likely be adding to it in the coming days.

• The result does not give Trump a mandate, despite Paul Ryan’s statement to that effect. Hillary Clinton will likely end up with more votes in the popular count and Trump will not reach 300 electoral votes. His victory may be shocking, but it is most definitely not overwhelming. What it does highlight is a nearly-even divide in the electorate.
• While the case has been made that Clinton was much better qualified to be President, she was not a good candidate. Her public persona is neither charismatic nor audacious. In a word, she is boring. The baggage she brought with her- the investigations, the whiff of scandal (most of which were imagined), her penchant for caution to the point of being paranoid which led to missteps such as using a private email server- made her an easy target both for Trump’s exaggerated claims (“she’s the most corrupt person ever to run for President”- does he even know who Warren G. Harding was?) and the insinuations of a sensation-seeking media. The relentless, decades-long attacks on Mrs. Clinton eroded her public image (Benghazi, emails, speaking fees) so that she was seen not as a wonkish public servant, but as a scheming, corrupt self-dealer. Again, her inability to simply own up to her mistake as soon as the server issue became public contributed to the perception that she was hiding something. (I contrast this with former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford who admitted to an extra-marital affair in a press conference when questioned about his infamous disappearance.)
• This was not a “change” election. Most Congressional and Senatorial seats were retained by the incumbents, hardly an outcome that can be described as “draining the swamp.”
• To the extent that Trump’s winning coalition was mostly white points to the racial undercurrent that is an intrinsic characteristic of American society. Prior to the election, it was fashionable to describe this cohort as blue-collar whites with no more than a high-school education who, according to which polls were consulted, comprised no more than a quarter to a third of the electorate. They were purported to be the workers most hurt by free trade policies. But exit polling during the GOP primaries indicated that they were not economically disadvantaged and that many lived in areas not affected by factory closings and other economic dislocations. Beyond that, Trump retained the GOP’s usual edge among college-educated white voters, including white, college-educated women.

Manifested in this last point are the politics of resentment. The white majority in the country is shrinking. The cataclysm of the 2008 financial debacle coupled with the bailouts (begun during President Bush’s administration, to be factual) first gave us the Tea Party eruption of 2009. Cynically co-opted by the Republican establishment, the Tea Party movement was converted to GOP electoral success in 2010. But, in a massive fail by Republican leaders, who continued to spout the same talking points about tax cuts and deficit reduction, they ignored the complaints of this group. At the same time, the banks were prospering more than before the crash. In an environment influenced by the fear of terrorism, anger towards immigrants and ignorance of the true effects of the Affordable Care Act, the continuing ire of those whose middle-class status was under attack was directed towards the most convenient target, the black President. CNN commentator Van Jones, in explaining Trump’s victory on election night, referred to this racial component as “whitelash”, one of the main- though not only- factors underlying the white vote. Obama + Mexicans + Syrian refugees + ISIS + economic dislocation equated to a rise in a nativist zeitgeist that recalls the Know Nothing Party of the 1850’s.

It has been evident since the 1960’s that the Democrats are the party of diverse racial and ethnic groups. What this election made just as evident is that Democrats paid a price for ignoring the white working class, formerly a foundation group of their electoral success. This is the group that became the Reagan Democrats in the 1980’s. And this is the same group that the Republicans took for granted. It was on this group Donald Trump built his electoral coalition. Perhaps, a different Democratic message, or a different candidate (Joe Biden?) may have brought some of these people back into the Democratic fold. That we will never know.

What we do know is that the white majority will not exist much longer. And we also know that both conservative and liberal elites have just been handed their comeuppance by group of voters who are fearful of this future and the changes they see in American society. Misreading the tea leaves has become prominent among the political class- pundits, thinkers, journalists and the politicians themselves. It took a vulgar con man, separated from the nativists only by his wealth, to give voice to their resentment.