Sailboat Racing, Current, and Trump

A while ago I was crewing on a racing sailboat; at the start of the race, there was very little wind and a strong current flowing directly opposite the direction we were trying to sail.  We made it almost up to the starting line, and even though it was a fast boat, and we were moving nicely through the water, the water was moving at the same speed, so the boat was standing still.  No matter how carefully we trimmed the sails, the bow of the boat stayed just about two feet from the starting line. 

This was frustrating.  We were sailing the boat well, the boat was moving through the water, and we were getting nowhere.  The skipper in particular was getting very frustrated.  He said, "This isn't working, let's tack."  If we tacked, the boat would no longer be pointing into the current, but would be pointing across the current, so the flow of the current would be hitting the side of the boat.  A couple of us said, "No, don't tack!"  We knew that if we stopped sailing directly into the current, we would just get pushed farther away from the starting line. The skipper didn't tack, but after another minute or so, he wanted to tack again - he just wanted to do something, change something.  Once again we talked him out of it.  But by the third time, there was no talking him out of it, so we tacked, and promptly got shoved sideways by the current  back the way we came, away from the starting line.  In seconds we lost 40 feet.  We had to tack back to our original heading and try to slowly crawl our way back up to the starting line. The only plus was that most of the other boats had similar problems, and the race was cancelled.

I think a lot of people who voted for Trump were feeling the same way as the skipper - they were feeling frustrated, feeling like they were getting nowhere, feeling like they needed to change something.  So even though they were told (and maybe even agreed) that Trump was a jerk and a racist and a sexist, they voted for him anyway.  Not because they thought he was a good candidate, not because they were racist or sexist, not because they believed or agreed with everything he said, but because he represented change. 

Voting for Clinton was like staying in the same place, no matter how well you sailed the boat.  So even though they knew that voting for Trump might make them worse off, they just could not sit there going nowhere any longer.  Unfortunately this race is not likely to get cancelled, and we will get pushed back.

p.s. at some point when the current gets too strong and you are being pushed backwards, it is better just to anchor, so you can hold your ground and not get pushed back any farther.