Princeton University Seminar Examines Why Donald Trump Won And What Happens Next

Princeton, NJ -- Even as professors and journalists tried to answer questions about what happened during the presidential election of Donald J. Trump, there was one answer they had for what’s next: No one knows for sure.

They tried to help about 200 students make sense of the election during last week’s “What Happened? What’s Next?” seminar at Princeton University, according to nj.com.

Nolan McCarty, the chair of the politics department at Princeton, admitted that by placing so much attention on what was happening in the Republican Party, the strife plaguing the Democrats went largely ignored, according to the report.

This included the schism between the left wing of the party that supported Bernie Sanders and the party establishment that got behind the nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Poor mobilization and little attention paid to the Midwest helped contribute to Clinton’s downfall, even as Princeton’s Election Consortium put the likelihood of a Clinton presidency at as much as 99 percent, according to the report.

In looking ahead, Assistant Professor of Politics Ali Valenzuela said it was difficult to ascertain what Trump’s foreign policy might consist of, given his lack of details during the campaign and his notoriously bad temperament.

She also said now was the time to get politically active and start putting candidates in place at the local level who can rise to national prominence before Americans wake up one day in a country they don’t recognize.

Read more at nj.com.