A teacher of political history in the Hanover School Division says he is surprised by the results of the U.S. presidential election. Michael Zwaagstra, who teaches at Green Valley School in Grunthal, says the pre-election polls had indicated that Democrat Hillary Clinton would win, but Republican Donald Trump proved the polls wrong. Zwaagstra adds, because the Republicans also won control of Congress and the Senate, the party will now be able to push through a number of changes. However, Zwaagstra says that doesn't give Trump a license to do everything he promised during the campaign.

"That does not necessarily mean that Donald Trump is able to do everything that he would like because not all Republicans agree with each other on everything. And one of the prime examples is that of trade. Generally speaking, the Republican Party is very pro free trade. So, while Donald Trump himself may not be pro-free trade, he will find very quickly, as I'm sure he already knows, that a significant number of Republicans in the House and the Senate do support free trade."

Zwaagstra believes there are a few things that Trump will push through soon after he is sworn into office.

"One of the first is that Donald Trump will appoint a judge, who is conservative in judicial philosophy, to the Supreme Court. We can also expect that the Keystone XL pipeline is going to be approved. Donald Trump has said that he favours that pipeline. The Republicans and Congress have approved the pipeline multiple times, it's President Obama who has vetoed it. So that will most certainly go ahead. And, we'll likely see Trump push forward various tax cuts. There's a reasonable likelihood that those could get approved."

Overseas financial markets plummeted Tuesday night as news coverage showed Trump winning the election. Zwaagstra says traders don't like surprises and Trump's win was a big surprise. He notes the markets settled down after Trump gave his acceptance speech in the wee hours of the morning.

"The speech that Donald Trump gave on election night was very conciliatory, frankly, surprisingly conciliatory in that he praised his opponent and talked about being a President for all Americans. Obviously, only time will tell what type of President he will be. He certainly is one of the most unpredictable people ever elected President but, at the end of the day, if he continues on a reasonably conciliatory path, that would certainly be good for the markets."

Zwaagstra says Trump displayed many character flaws during the election campaign including his treatment of women and the use of coarse language. He adds, while that's not good, unfortunately, there have been quite a few presidents in U.S. history that have fallen into that category. Zwaagstra says it is possible to rise above one's flaws and still do good things.

"I think that Americans, however they voted, are hoping that Donald Trump will rise above his character flaws and bring America together and implement his agenda in a responsible way."