“Sure I talk large when I’ve  got nothing to back it up, but I’m not talking wild just the same. I know I can fool them—-I know it—and that’s backing enough for my game.”

“Aren’t I the Emperor? The laws don’t apply to him….There’s little stealing….and there’s big stealing….For the little stealing they get you in jail sooner or later. For the big stealing they make you Emperor and put you in the Hall of Fame when you croak.”

– Brutus Jones, in “The Emperor Jones” (1920)
Eugene O’Neill (language updated from dialect used by O’Neill)

Trump is our Emperor Jones, a person who has successfully built an empire on lies and deception, and pulled off the biggest lie of all—getting elected president while losing by almost 3,000,000 votes, making him President of the most important nation on earth while, in reality, being a ‘loser’.

There have been analyses of the ‘perfect storm’ aspect of the 2016 election that resulted in Trump being elected president. That phrase first entered the English language in the eighteenth century, and generally means a combination of circumstances that drastically changes the course of events for the worst. The election was one that everyone expected Clinton to win. Let’s examine all that went ‘wrong’ for her—-and the nation. Had any of those factors been different, Clinton would be president now.

The Perfect Storm of the Election

Unforced Errors of the Clintons:

1. The email fiasco. Clinton narrowly lost the presidential nomination in 2008, but became Secretary of State. She must have considered the possibility of succeeding President, but chose to not comply with State Department policies regarding the use of a private email server, leading to charges that stuck—that she acted as if she was above the law. She didn’t kill the issue quickly, and the media, which loves controversy and loves to bring down front runners, made the charge look important.

But what was the big deal? Little came of the extensive FBI investigation except a conclusion of sloppiness, not intentional violation of law, and no evidence that secret information was exposed to others. Trump urged Russia and WikiLeaks to hack into the Democratic party and U.S. government computer  systems, and indeed they did that—seeking to determine the course of our election. The use of the home server seems to be a minor issue—in comparison with many of Trump’s issues, but it fed into the long-time story line that the Clintons cut corners.

2. Bill Clinton Visits Attorney General Lynch. What was Bill Clinton thinking when he entered Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s plane to talk to her during the endless email investigation? Did he consider how that looked to the press? Did he even consider that it might look like interference in the investigation? And why did Lynch even allow him on the plane, or meet with him at all? Apparently neither of them could figure out how damaging such a meeting would be to Clinton’s campaign and the integrity of the investigation and of the Justice Department.

That led to Lynch delegating her authority to make any decision on the matter, and instead of delegating her responsibility to someone in the Justice Department, she delegated her authority to the Director of the FBI, James Comey, whose jurisdiction is limited to investigating only and not to determining if a matter should be taken to court. Why was that decision made by her?

Bad Decisions by the FBI and Justice Department:

3. Comey Blunder # 1. Comey then decided that “while improper”, there was no crime. But the FBI Director has no authority to opine on such matters—he could and should have just reported that bringing charges was not justified. Instead, he blasted Clinton for being “extremely careless”. He had no authority to comment other than to state that there were no charges being brought. Trump, the Republicans and the media interpreted those two words as if a serious crime had taken place. Comey violated FBI policy that the agency should not take any action that would have an impact on an election.
4. Comey Blunder # 2. Comey compounded his error by going public eleven days before the election (the “eleven day bomb”) with the announcement that he was reopening the Clinton email investigation due to Clinton emails being found on a server that Clinton’s key aide Huma Abedin shared with her disgraced husband, former Congressman Anthony Weiner. Why was Abedin sharing a server with anyone? And why with such a wild card and cad as Weiner? Another unforced error.

Then, three days before the election, Comey announced that the further investigation had not changed the FBI decision not to bring charges. But Comey had irreparably changed the dynamics of the election and its coverage. Instead of continuing the massive media attention to Trump’s predatory sexual behavior, which had caused him to plummet in the polls, all attention now turned to the email controversy, which continued for the remaining eleven days of the campaign. Doubts settled into the minds of millions of voters, and the race tightened. Again Comey violated FBI policy by taking action that would have an impact on an election, and it had a decisive impact.

More Clinton Errors:

5. Bad Campaign Polling and Priorities. The highly vaunted and overrated Clinton campaign, supposedly a juggernaut of efficiency and expertise, missed the boat. While they saw what was happening with white working-class Americans in small towns and rural areas, they never came up with a strategy to address the fears, needs and concerns of those voters. They passed up the clear opportunity to propose a desperately-needed immense infrastructure plan for the nation, with an emphasis on creating jobs in the rust belt; and such a proposals had been submitted to the campaign but were disregarded.

Instead, they relied on what they expected to be a very large Clinton vote among middle-class and upper class suburban voters, many of them Republican, who were repelled by Trump. That strategy seemed to be working—until Comey dropped his eleven day bomb.

However, once that happened, Trump and his people analyzed it correctly and he spent the last two days campaigning in Michigan and Wisconsin, both of which he won. Clinton and her campaign had pretty much disregarded those safe so-called “blue wall states”. Hoping for a broad victory, Clinton’s campaign spent time and money in certain other states that might have led to a Democratic-controlled Senate. Clinton’s campaign pretty much took the blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for granted, thinking suburban votes would make up for losses among normally reliable blue-collar voters. The Clinton campaign never saw the need to cement their support in those states. How come?

Further Terrible Decisions by the FBI and Justice Department:

6. The Government Knew about Russian Interference in the Election—and Did Nothing Because they Did Not Want to have an Impact on the Election. With much evidence of attempts by Russian intelligence services, in conjunction with their ally, WikiLeaks, to affect the U.S. election, the FBI, Justice Department, and apparently with the approval of the White House, did not announce their ongoing investigations into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. Why did Comey follow FBI policy of avoiding comment on a matter that might have hurt Trump, but did not follow that policy when it would hurt Clinton? And clearly did.

With Trump now having appointed Sen. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, doubts exist as to how effective the U.S. Government will investigate the Trump-Russia connection. Sessions, Trump’s foremost supporter in the U.S. Senate, had met with the Russian Ambassador during the Republican convention, and on other occasions. Many other Trump campaign leaders and business associates had close and dubious connections with Russian government operatives, which had raised FBI and CIA suspicions as early as 2015.

What connections are there between Trump, his campaign and business associates, and Russia? Does Russian influence on Trump explain his attacks on NATO, Australia, Canada and other democracies? What hold, financial or otherwise, does Russia have over Trump? Will the Republican-controlled committees of the Congress run real investigations into this unprecedented interference in U.S. elections? Russia’s goal has been to interfere with and weaken Western democracies, and promote Putin’s authoritarian style. It appears that Russia has succeeded in placing just such a leader in the U.S. White House.

Something is terribly  wrong with an electoral system in which Clinton does not win the presidency after the unforced errors, the Comey blunders, the Justice Department avoidance of acting effectively on the Trump-Russia connection, the suppression of voting in many states, and yet, still beat Trump by almost 3,000,000 votes.

This is a Cassandra Warning—Repair American democracy and voting systems or witness the failure of democracy in America. And remember, ultimately, Emperor Jones turned out to be a loser too…

–Cassandra