I watched the presidential election coverage on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC on Tuesday evening all the way through to Wednesday morning.  Immediately after Donald Trump was declared the winner by these news stations at approximately 1:30 a.m. North Dakota time, many television journalists began saying that the United States is now deeply divided.  This was stupid and irritating to me for several reasons.

The television news journalists who immediately began making statements that the United States is now deeply divided, were acting as if they knew what the people in the United States were thinking, which was not the case because these journalists had no idea that Donald Trump could win the presidency.  The fact that Donald Trump did win the presidency, shows that there was a consensus of opinion, that he should be the president.  People were in agreement on this, not in disagreement, or he would not have won the election.

No matter what people in the United States “want”, the election results show that most of the people in the United States do “believe” certain things:

• The standard of living of people in the United States has been decreasing since the 1970s.  Possible causes are loss of manufacturing jobs due to lower production costs overseas, unfair trade practices, U.S. corporations not being able to bring money back into the U.S. without huge taxes, high tax rates for U.S. corporations, tremendous spending on wars and aid to foreign countries.  Whatever the reasons, something needs to be done.

• The United States has a border, and the United States has immigration laws.  The border can not be open, and the immigration laws need to be enforced.

• Everyone would like to have access to good health care.  With Obamacare, it was beginning to show that the health care was not going to be good, accessible, or affordable.  To some, it would appear that the Federal Government is not efficient at running anything, and that it can not be the provider of health care.  Whatever the reasons, something needs to be done.

• Though there is a difference of opinion on whether the U.S. should be involved in foreign wars, there appears to be a consensus that if the U.S. is involved, there should not be half-measures, wasted money, wasted lives, uncertain objectives, and uncertain commitment.  Even if we will always have dissenters in the U.S., we probably all recognize that it is better to have a strong leader that will not waiver in his commitment once a decision has been made.

• Most U.S. voters have lived through a previous Clinton administration, a Bush administration, and an Obama administration.  Many people recognize that the same things appear to be happening again and again.  The Veterans Administration does not help Veterans enough.  The Transportation Security Administration continues to have a 95% failure rate at threat detection.  Elected representatives continue to be involved in scandals that show they believe that they are above the law, and that they gained political office in order to unethically make money.  Voters have seen and recognized these things, and are looking for candidates that are not career politicians, and candidates that appear to want to end government inefficiencies, incompetencies, and corruption.

With the election of Donald Trump as president, it shows that people in the United Sates are in agreement mostly.  They are not divided.