Somewhere between 10 p.m. and midnight on Election Day, it was apparent Hillary Clinton had lost this presidential election.
It was stunning.
This is the first presidential election where I actually followed Big Data, which gave Hillary 2 to 1 odds for winning, so like many I feel blindsided, but here is what I learned:
- Emotions rule. Political positions are based on a feeling — a gut instinct.
- I’m not good at predicting. I thought Hillary would carry 30 percent of the vote in my county. She carried 21 percent. Trump carried 75 percent. For comparison, Mitt Romney carried 67 percent in 2012.
- Nate Silver misread the swing states.
- Only a handful of voters matter. National elections come down to a relatively few voters in a few places.
- Most voters decide early on who they will support. They spend the rest of the election season finding ways to justify their decision.
- Social media is a problem. It brought the bar room drunk to the center of the stage.
- Politics is all about the win. Politicians shift, align and re-align as needed to stay in power.
- There is a large portion of the population that does not trust anyone or anything. I am amazed at the number of people who simply do not believe legitimate news organization and conversely how many are willing to believe stories with anonymous sources.
- Courting oppositional thinking works.
- American politics is built on places, not people.
- We expect too much from the process.
- There are only a handful of issues that should be in the public square.
- Politics is a spectator sport. State results are returned in a game-like fashion to keep the audience entertained.
- Low voter turnout works for the GOP.
- The world is watching.
- Marketing works.
- It is the era of fear, anti-establishment and anti-intellectualism.
- The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.
- I don’t want to live in a Red Zone anymore.
Charlie R. Claywell 
Agreed, agreed, agreed. As a New York resident, I’m always left feeling like my vote doesn’t matter in a state that goes to the democratic candidate. But my relatives in Florida and Pennsylvania can make this decision every year, and unfortunately they don’t usually vote on the side of reason, or what I would consider reasonable. I’m beyond furious at the outdated electoral college system…there were more people in the country who chose her, and it didn’t even matter. It’s just infuriating.
I’ve been sick over this all day. I’m not sure where we can even start to rebuild from this. I guess we have to wait and see what he destroys, then we can think about how to build it back up the next chance we have. I’m sorry you’re in a red zone…I can understand the desire to get out of there. My only comfort at the moment (and I admit it’s petty) is that I voted in Queens County, Donald Trump’s home county, where Hillary took 75%. He couldn’t win his hometown and I’m proud of that!
I’m not proud of anything else in America right now. I’m so sad and disappointed and scared.
I didn’t realize Trump lost in his home county — a small win, but today I’ll take it. I am not sure where to start either, my only hope is my generation fades into political insignificance soon, because too many of my peers are afraid of anything they are not familiar with — and as a father of a teen daughter I can only hope I taught her to be kind and to embrace the differences in our society. It’s what should make America great, not some billionaire with a plagiarized tagline spreading fear and hate while at the same time setting back our society by 50+ years.