The Cavs Crown, Tribe frown and Trump Triumph
The Cleveland cavaliers celebrate the city’s first world championship in over 50 years by winning the NBA Championship over the Golden State Warriors. More than 1.3 million attended the Cavs championship parade in downtown Cleveland.
The year of 2016 will go into the record books as the most un-Believable.
How else can anyone explain the Cavaliers climbing out of a 1-3 hole in the NBA Finals against a Warriors team that had shattered the record for most wins in a season with 73?
Who would dare think that the Tribe who eliminate both Boston and Toronto and then roar out to a 3-1 series lead in the World Series against the mighty Chicago Cubs, but then blow it at home in one of the most memorable Game 7s ever, in any sport.
The beloved losers, the Cubs would go onto to do the same thing to the Tribe that the Cavs did to the Warriors in winning their first World Series title in 108 years.
As summer gave way the fall, the miracles of ’16 continued to come. It was a year when whatever you thought was going to happen didn’t.
Businessman Donald J. Trump began his presidential campaign as a 1000-1 underdog as a Republican candidate against a field of 17.
All of the established political elites in his own party vowed to prevent him from winning the primary, fearing that he would have no shot at winning the presidency.
Thus when the Republican National Convention rolled into to Cleveland on the heels of the Cavs first title in their 45-year history, the city that no one wanted to recognize was all of sudden the talk of the universe.
The RNC would have been a big deal no matter who the nominee was from the Republican Party, but when Trump won the thing, it became a rock concert.
On his way to Cleveland he was the top attraction in just about every town he campaigned. His message of ‘Make America Great Again’ resonating from Windsor, Ohio to Anaheim, California.
Trump was not just unconventional, he was unpredictable. Often times not even his own campaign staff knew what to expect, but massive chunks of America loved it.
He took aim at Muslims and Mexicans, pledging to ban one group and build a wall to prevent the other from entering America illegally.
His presidential opponent was a former powerful First Lady whose husband was considered the first black president although he was a white man from Arkansas.
There was just no way Trump was going to defeat Hillary R. Clinton and become president of the United States of America.
No way, with the first African American President Barack Obama and his ultra likable First Lady Michelle stomping for Hillary.
If his chances were 1000-1 a year ago, it was a million to one now, but he came out of the box attacking Hillary like he did Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Jebb Bush, igniting chants of “Lock Her Up’ as her email scandal engulfed her in flames.
During one of three presidential debates, which drew record audiences of over 200 million, he called Hillary a ‘Nasty Woman’, which she coined as a rally cry for herself.
Belted with sex scandals and labeled as a tax cheat for refusing to produce his taxes, Donald Trump didn’t just survive, he won. Convincingly. One side of America is still trying to dissect what happened and how.
He will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America on Jan. 20.
Trump’s triumph uprooted the fundamentals of the political landscape.
The year claimed The Greatest, Muhammad Ali and Prince to name a few (See Lifestyles), the Cavs glory will last long, the Tribe agony will soon fade to new hope, but Donald J. Trump will resonate for many years to come.
