Former “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe explained what he believes led to Donald Trump’s surprising Election Day victory, describing the president-elect as an “authentic” candidate who appealed to Americans who felt unheard.

Mr. Rowe, former host of CNN’s “Somebody’s Gotta Do It,” wrote a Facebook post Thursday comparing Mr. Trump’s White House win to his 2003 “Dirty Jobs” pilot on The Discovery Channel.

“It wasn’t pretty or careful. It took place in sewers and septic tanks, and featured a subversive host in close contact with his 8-year-old inner child who refused to do second takes,” the 54-year-old wrote. “Everyone agreed that Dirty Jobs was totally ‘off-brand’ and completely inappropriate for Discovery. Everyone but the viewers.

“Dirty Jobs didn’t resonate because the host was incredibly charming. It wasn’t a hit because it was gross, or irreverent, or funny, or silly, or smart, or terribly clever,” he continued. “Dirty Jobs succeeded because it was authentic. It spoke directly and candidly to a big chunk of the country that non-fiction networks had been completely ignoring. In a very simple way, Dirty Jobs said ‘Hey — we can see you,’ to millions of regular people who had started to feel invisible. Ultimately, that’s why Dirty Jobs ran for eight seasons. And today, that’s also why Donald Trump is the President of the United States.”

Mr. Rowe assured readers that the United States endured 44 presidents and would survive another. He rejected the idea that Mr. Trump’s supporters are “racist, xenophobic, and uneducated misogynists” and condemned people who have thrown away friendships over the election.

“Are my friends turning into those mind-numbingly arrogant celebrities who threaten to move to another country if their candidate doesn’t win?” he asked. “Are my friends now convinced that people they’ve known for years who happen to disagree with them politically are not merely mistaken — but evil, and no longer worthy of their friendship?

“These two candidates were the choices we gave ourselves, and each came with a heaping helping of vulgarity and impropriety,” he wrote. “Yeah, it was dirty job for sure, but the winner was NOT decided by a racist and craven nation — it was decided by millions of disgusted Americans desperate for real change. The people did not want a politician. The people wanted to be seen. Donald Trump convinced those people that he could see them. Hillary Clinton did not.”

Mr. Rowe then made an offer to President-elect Trump, with the help of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, to assist in “any attempt to reinvigorate the skilled trades, and shine a light on millions of good jobs that no one seems excited about pursuing.”

Mr. Rowe made the same offer to President Obama in 2012, he said.

His Facebook post was shared more than 88,000 times by Friday morning.

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