I understand why all of the often false, usually bombastic, reporting on Trump is angering me.
You know the stuff -- take a "fact," real or fully made up, and conflate it with some apocalyptic prediction. Watch: Trump alternates between wearing boxers and briefs. Will his indecisiveness cause him to pull back when America is attacked by the Russians?
The other story everyone writes now is based on the journalist's apparent post-November 9 discovery of an element of fascism, racism and/or parts of the Constitution and presidential practice. And so someone is shocked that Trump will be able to choose drone kill targets, or have access to everything the NSA sweeps up about his enemies.
The first type of stories are just pathetic, kiddies with pencils seeing what they can get away with, journalists working out in public their disbelief that someone like Trump won, people witnessing their first presidential transition and not dealing with it well. Those stories will fade away, or move to the tabloids where they'll find a home aside Elvis and Roswell.
The latter stories, the ones worrying about what Trump will do with the power of _____ are more worrisome. The ascribe fear of executive power and a government run amuck to one man, someone they loathe, Trump. They ignore that these powers, of which we should all be legitimately terrified, are not of a man but of our system.
Trump, per se, for example, doesn't control drone killings, the executive does. Bush killed, Obama killed, the president after Trump will kill. Same for the NSA -- they all had, and future presidents will have, the ability to spy on anyone.
By focusing on one man, we imagine any solutions will rest in getting rid of this man (recount! electoral college! impeachment!) That is dangerous.
Any solutions (I'm not optimistic) must be changes to the system of ever-growing executive power. In that sense, perhaps the election of someone so obvious in his erratic statements, so oafish in his behavior, may be for the best. A bucket of cold well water to the face might be what's needed for a citizenry that allowed one president to sell all his acquisition of power via a faux-sincere monologue of fear mongering, and another on the strength of his coolness and personal trust.
The change has to be to the system, not the person. In that sense, perhaps Trump will be the president we need, if not the one we wanted.