Bob Tis: Americans Don't Like to Be Bullied

Posted November 14, 2016 12:01 am
By BOB TIS Smooth Sailin’
SMOOTH SAILIN’: Americans don’t like to be bullied

I’ve watched some interesting elections.

I covered a close race for mayor in a fairly major city up in New Hampshire back in the 1980s. There was an upstart politician challenging the incumbent. That sitting mayor was fairly popular at city hall and involved in the community theater. Right before the election his challenger put out a flyer stating that the incumbent was a “known thespian.” He had the gall to knock on doors and hand the pamphlet out. He ended up stealing that election and being a pretty good mayor.

Trump is a bad actor but maybe a better politician than anyone gave him credit for. And this was an historic election.

My takeaway from the results are probably impossible to impart without sounding sexist, but the Smooth Sailin’ column was born on thin ice. People, I believe, just didn’t like Hillary.

I don’t think it was that we as a country were not ready for a woman president. A woman president would have been fine, but just not Hillary. Somehow along the way, she bothered a lot of us in a part of the brain that we don’t travel to very often and would like to avoid.

I cast my lot early with Bernie. I think the Democratic National Committee must feel stupid now that they never took the Senator from Vermont more seriously. But Trump is what you get when you fudge the primary.

The reason I think Bernie might have been able to beat Trump is because he is a nice man. That is rare in politics. Trump obviously has a lot of racist and sexist qualities. I want to believe that America wants a president they like and imparts their values. But the campaign wore us down. The elongated stumping made it feel like Hillary had been yelling at us for years.

Our lovely city, inside our very conservative county, is actually a pretty good microcosm of America. Also, St. Augustine’s mayor is a gem. She was getting attacked by her opponents right toward the end of the campaign but took the high road. Nancy Shaver has always put the city and its issues first and, despite having some touch-ups with her fellow commissioners, she never yelled at us. She was very professional, sweet even. And obviously very electable.

The opposite of Hillary.

Now this is where I go out on a limb that is very hard to climb back from. I think the American voters, both male and female, deep in their psyche, do not like being scolded by a mother or grandmother figure. It is like a bad dream of being back in elementary school again and failing miserably at something or getting caught with a bloody finger in a broken cookie jar. You know they are right. You realize you messed up. Hillary was probably right about most every platform she was running on. The voters just didn’t want it rubbed in their face. They chose instead to move on from their mistakes without being reminded about them.

I am not saying this is healthy in any way. But I do think there is a kernel of truth in the fact that Americans do not like to have a finger waived at them. We live in a great country and we are happy to forge ahead and make our own new mistakes.

Just don’t remind us what spoiled children we once were. We don’t like that.

We will take our ball and go play with the rich slumlord’s son from the city. It might just be for four years. How much trouble can we get in?

Bob Tis is a former Record reporter.