In the not-too-distant past a record of public service as an elected official or a distinguished military career were considered pre-requisites for aspiring commanders-in-chief. But now it appears starring on reality TV, marketing numerous products with one’s name on them, and displaying the ability to navigate public life without shame, impulse control or a conscience are more important qualifications. 

Give the president-elect and his handlers credit; his winning America’s highest elective office involved bucking tremendous odds. He did get a big assist from one of America’s two major political parties, although ironically it wasn’t the one under whose banner he ran.

The Democrats did their nominal GOP rivals a series of huge favors, starting with a clumsily transparent predetermination of their nominee before the primaries even began. That choice alienated much of the party’s base, particularly when Bernie Sanders emerged as an unconventional but attractive and plausible alternative to the baggage-laden choice of the party establishment who was ultimately anointed as planned.

That candidate was, in spite of her quaint belief in the value of substance over style, detested by an alarmingly high number of Americans who already saw her as deplorable, even if up until recently they hadn’t heard the word. Despite her impressive record of public service, many saw the Democratic nominee’s too-frequent lack of complete candor as an issue. And as last week’s results confirmed, in contemporary American politics perceived dishonesty is far more toxic than the actual kind.

Another blunder was descending into the gutter alongside the GOP with their ads and in the debates.  That decision was pure folly, particularly given the Republican nominee’s proven skill in the mud-slinging department. Pointing out his misogyny was wasted effort; he merely winked and acknowledged it. Citing him for non-payment of taxes let him chortle gleefully about how smart he was. Calling him out for his dog-whistle racism merely encouraged even more ardent support from the lunatic fringe portion of his coalition. As an anonymous Spanish philosopher once said, “Nunca se mete en un concurso de orinando con una mofeta.” (Translation: never get in a pissing match with a skunk.) 

Ratings-obsessed electronic media outlets kept cameras and/or microphones on the Republican nominee 24/7, keeping him in the spotlight while not coincidentally creating a gushing revenue stream far more relevant to the corporate puppeteers behind the coverage than journalistic quality ever was. The mainstream media’s campaign coverage ranged from superficial and compliant (most major networks) to duplicitous (Fox and friends). 

Other winners last week included Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence, and Chris Christie, each of whom gambled on a long shot that came home first. But really, what risk was there for two unpopular, lame duck governors and a pair of long-ago office holders who had been politically irrelevant for years? 

But Democrats weren’t the only losers. Spineless GOP opportunists like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, all of whom harbor presidential aspirations of their own, now must re-calibrate yet again after the man they had (in order) enthusiastically endorsed, piously disavowed, cautiously defended, backed away from a second time, and ultimately unenthusiastically embraced stunned them by emerging triumphant. The list of nationally prominent Republicans courageous enough to acknowledge their party’s candidate as unqualified, immoral, boorish and demagogic begins and ends with Mitt Romney, whose reward for his honesty is permanent residence on the same political scrap heap from which Gingrich and Giuliani just re-emerged. Maine’s senior senator was one of a few others who spoke out, but her weak-kneed, timid denunciation was as impotent as it was tardy.

Many horrified Americans are still processing the results of last week’s events, convinced a misguided minority of the country’s voters have unwittingly given virtually unlimited power to an arrogant, erratic, narcissistic and vengeful bully. 

There’s no doubt plenty of challenges await America’s next president, including skillfully backtracking from some bizarre campaign pledges he made while pandering to frothing hordes of extremists that now correctly feel they helped put him in office.  However, those expecting him to quickly cut taxes while simultaneously deporting millions of swarthy-looking illegals, locking up his just-defeated opponent, and building a 1,989-mile border wall (paid for by our neighbors to the south) are likely to be disappointed. 

But those underestimating this president-elect do so at their peril. At his campaign’s outset no one took his candidacy seriously, nor did anyone rational give him a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning his party’s nomination, let alone the general election. He may be egotistical, thin-skinned, incurious, and unscrupulous, but anyone who can get evangelical Christians to embrace a thrice-married serial liar, big business to back a many-times bankrupted huckster, and the unemployed and/or underemployed to think a billionaire is “one of them” clearly knows something the rest of us don’t.

— When he isn’t teaching at a local high school, Andy Young is trying to figure out when it was that arrogance and entitlement began trumping facts and civility.