Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States - despair for many, hope for others.
I voted for Hillary. Many of my friends also voted for her. For us, she was clearly the better choice, though she has many flaws. For us, Trump - the American Berlusconi - is too dangerous for the presidency. But the people decided otherwise.
Unfortunately, there are bigger issues in America after this election than Trump being president.
- Many Americans are more sexist than racist, and many are already terribly racist. They would rather elect a guy who is sexist, racist with bad temperament, who flipped flop throughout his campaign than a woman.
- We, the Silicon Valley people and many people who live in metropolitans who voted for Hillary, did not understand the rest of the country. There are two versions of America in this election, and it had been like this for some time. There was a large population of Americans, many are whites who did not go to college, who suffered with jobs, who demanded a patriotic and hawkish image of America, voted for Trump. If we wanted to change the country for the better by voting for Hillary, we must understand the people who voted for Trump.
- The internet and the media gave the Clinton’s campaign and Clinton’s supporters the wrong signals - they predicted that Hillary Clinton will cruise herself to victory. The result on Election night told us otherwise.
- In the startup world, we rely on the data to measure and understand customers’ behaviors and to figure out solutions. Clearly, data science did not work in this election. Many Trump supporters were clearly embarrassed about his personalities, and did not publicly show their support for him. They however decided to look past his personal flaws and elected him. The data of Trump’s preference was hidden and invisible. How could we detect this signal must earlier? And what could we do if we had learned sooner about the hidden preference of Trump’s supporters?
- Many Americans preferred entertainment over news and facts. This election result proved that many were sick and tired of the American political correctness. Trump was not dumb, he understood what people wanted to hear and he played his entertainment cards to maximize his chance. It was a double-edged sword but in the end he won. If people were looking at facts, data and how he had lied throughout his campaign, they would not even picked him to be the Republican nomination.
The New York Times forecasts of the 2016 Presidential Election
The result stunned many. But given how we elected presidents in the past, it was not a surprise to see an underdog, a fresh face being elected president - that were how Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, George W Bush and Obama got elected in the first place. What shocking this time was that the American people were willing to elect a sexist, racist demagogue like Donald Trump to be president. Why? Because for many, this was hope. And what was there in life if there was no hope.
For those who believe this election result is a disaster, there is still a silver lining here. Trump is right and blunt about many things, he now has to come up with solutions for them. Even if he does not, democracy has taken its course, and we can all hope that it will correct itself.