My feeble attempt to explain why Democrats were shocked

Some have said that the reason many Democrats were shocked by Donald Trump's election was that we assumed that Hillary Clinton was automatically entitled to win.

As a Democrat who voted for Secretary Clinton, I don't think that that's the case.

I think that there were questions of judgment for both candidates.  Regarding Secretary Clinton, there was the issue of her use of a private e-mail serve while Secretary of State.  Regarding President-elect Trump, there was the issue of how someone who claimed to be such a master businessperson could have run several businesses into bankruptcy.

I don't think that the judgment issue was the main cause of our shock.

I think that there were also questions concerning both candidates' possible violations of the law.  Regarding Secretary Clinton, there was the e-mail issue, as well as questions regarding the Clinton Foundation.  Regarding President-elect Trump, there were questions about both the Trump Foundation and the so-called Trump University.

I don't think that the legal questions were the main causes of our shock.

Even differences in policy were not the main causes of our shock, in my opinion.  After all, there have been plenty of instances in the past in which a candidate with views opposed by Democrats won an election, but we never saw protests in the street against the results of an election before, to the best of my recollection.

I think the reason why so many of us Democrats were shocked was that so many voters were so determined to end "politics as usual" that they did the one thing that we never expected:  They chose arrogance over competence.

Our President-elect, who told his supporters, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” and who famously proclaimed that he knew more about ISIS than the generals did, will be the only president in the history of the United States of America to be elected with neither political nor military experience.  You don't have to take my word for it:  See here and here.

Not only does Donald Trump have no idea how government works, but, during the campaign, he showed no interest in learning, either. Khzir Khan's question "Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?" may turn out to have been one of the most defining questions posed during the entire campaign.

So now we have a no-nothing President-elect choosing a no-nothing staff.  Or not choosing, as the case may be.   There was a report on MSNBC last night that Trump's son-in-law asked how many West Wing administrative staffers would remain on staff and was actually surprised to learn that each incoming president replaces all of them.  These folks have about two months to appoint literally thousands of administrative staffers for the White House, State Department, Defense Department, and other agencies, and they neither knew nor had planned for that?

At this point, I'm concerned not only about Trump's policy agenda, but about whether the government will still be functioning after Trump is sworn in.

I pray for the welfare of my country.