In a surprise upset, Republican challenger Donald Trump has emerged victorious over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the U.S. election. 

 The inevitability of a Clinton victory was anticipated by most pundits beforehand.  Yet had she won as expected, the U.S. would have been stuck with a president who should have faced criminal charges for gross negligence in handling classified material.  Of course, during her campaign, Clinton had attempted to evade the messy matter as a mere “Republican sideshow,” but despite her elite connections, she lost.  Why?  Perhaps because she came across as too elitist, too well-heeled, or too manipulative for the public to believe her.

Take the FBI non-investigation, for starters.  Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton had classified information on her private email servers, this flagrant security breach did not warrant charges, as U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chief James H. Comey stated in a July 2016 letter to congress.  After new evidence arose on a laptop owned by the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, FBI chief Comey announced on October 28 that a further investigation was underway, but within a week, Comey caved in to political pressure and called off the inquiry.  “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July,” Comey stated in his letter to congress, recommending that no further action be taken against Clinton.

Comey’s de-facto acquittal of Clinton two days before the election reeks of covert conniving by Potomac plutocrats at the loftiest levels to place their candidate in a more favorable light.  And for a wider margin of safety, the state department has asked the court for five years to review 31,000 pages of Clinton emails from her tenure as secretary of state before turning them over to the FBI for examination.  If Hillary had won the election and informed sources had been correct in predicting a one-term presidency, the state department’s review would not be completed before she vacated the White House for the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Then there was the matter of the candidacy of “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders.  Many viewed him as a genuine democratic alternative to Hillary Clinton, but upon closer examination, Sanders appeared to be playing the part of a theatrical foil.  For instance, he did not make an issue of the disclosure of the hacked DNC emails, in one of which, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chair, refers to him unflatteringly as “doofus.” Instead of a head-on confrontation, which any sincere candidate for office should have launched, Sanders merely brushed the issue aside, remarking cavalierly, “That’s what happens in campaigns.” 

Perhaps more insightful for clarifying Sander’s role in the Clinton presidential offensive is his comment that he was not shocked to learn the DNC favored Clinton. “That’s something we knew from day one,” Sanders conceded.  In April 2016 during a debate in New York, when pressed by moderator Wolf Blitzer on whether Clinton has the qualifications to be president, Sanders responded unhesitatingly, “Of course she does.”  Neither did Sanders seriously take her to task over her paid speeches, reportedly netting $225,000 each, at the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs. 

Lastly, Sanders came to Clinton’s defense during a debate in October 2015.  Harshly rebuking democratic hopeful former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chaffee’s focus on the Clinton email server debacle, Sanders declared, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails. ... Enough of the emails. Let’s talk about the real issues facing America.”  Sanders properly concluded his performance by endorsing Clinton for the presidency on July 12, much to the disappointment of his supporters.

Clearly, the military heavyweights wanted Hillary to win. While it is true that Trump had 88 endorsements from fairly high-ranking military officers, none were combat commanders or service branch chiefs. Clinton, in sharp contrast, not only managed to collect a greater number (over 95), but also her support was from among the highest ranking, such as retired Marine Corps General John Allen, former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and Army General Wesley Clark, former supreme allied commander of NATO. 

Additionally, Clinton was endorsed by former deputy defense secretary James Clad, a Republican, and 50 other Republican national security officials who warned that Trump would “be the most reckless president in American history.” Endorsement by senior military officers and officials is highly significant, since, as diplomatic and military historian Andrew J. Bacevich points out, the American public still perceives that “the military is an institution that is above politics, that is untainted by politics.”

Then there is the “gender card.”  It was high time for the so-called leader of the free world to have a female as its president, since Washington regularly criticizes other nations over human rights issues, particularly when it comes to women’s rights and gender inequality issues.  How embarrassing for the Washington regime as other nations begin to suspect there is a “glass ceiling” blocking women who aspire to the White House.  Incidentally, women in the U.S. were not granted the right to vote until 1920, and only 31 have served in the august U.S. senate.

And now, Clinton has failed to break through it, thanks, in part, to her masterful guilt offensive pressuring women to vote for her.  Feminist Gloria Steinem suggested that young women only support Sanders because “the boys are with Bernie,” while former secretary of state Madeleine Albright threatened, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

Last but not least, this election was more easily manipulated than previous presidential races since the federal oversight mandated by the 1965 Voting Rights Act was struck down by a supreme court ruling. This means that the U.S. department of justice only sent one-third of the observers it had sent to oversee the 2012 election.  And foreign observers were not welcomed, either.  In fact, 14 states prohibited the Warsaw-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from observing their voting activities. 

But even with OSCE oversight, “black-box” voting in the U.S. with its fractional votes could have been easily manipulated to give either candidate a believable plurality, in case of loss in a given precinct.  Keep in mind that the six key states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Arizona all used electronic “black box” voting with no possibility of verification.

It was apparent that some very powerful political players were determined to place Hillary Clinton in the White House.  So the defeat of the United States’ first female presidential hopeful from a major party is a great shock.  One female columnist insisted that Hillary Clinton had to “pull out all the stops to prove she’s far more qualified to be president” than Trump, and she appeared to have convinced the Wall Street elite that she was their “man,” judging by her favorable coverage in the mainstream media.

Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton lost and now, it remains to be seen how much of president-elect Donald Trump’s racist and Islamophobic campaign rhetoric against Muslims and other minorities will be put in effect.  Likewise, Iranians can expect the worst from Trump, who has declared his intention to cancel the JCPOA.

YAW/YAW