Who pays attention to the polls anyway,apart from the people who get paid to run them? I've never been polled.Have any of you? Who do they ask anyway?
First, I stand corrected on MIckey Mouse, thanks. Learn something new every day. As someone who may (or may not) understand the result a bit better from being in the country that gave it... On first glance: we elected a fat, hideous blowhard who made his money via millions from his dad plus playing three card monte with the bankruptcy laws. For the US, yeah, that's about the leader we deserve. Second, many if not most Trump supporters may have felt that Trump sucked, but Hillary was even worse. Considering how little I think of Hillary, that isn't so incomprehensible. We might do well to blame the leadership of the Democratic party for putting its collective thumb firmly and publicly on the selection scales to make sure that no trivial matter like the voice of the people would interfere with the coronation of Our Girl, who was next in line to the throne, after all. So if our worst fears are realized and Trump does turn into Putin, someone might remember that it was the Democratic leadership who flouted the popular will first. The fact that the last socialist in captivity trounced both her and Trump in the polls might have served as a warning. As it stands, it may make a bit of a case that the American people aren't idiotic all the time about everything. They seemed to say, Sanders upholds principles I don't. But at least he has principles, and for that he's better than Trump or Hillary. Hillary traded her peacenik principles for the magic beans of jumping on W's Iraq war bandwagon. She was a really remarkably bad candidate: absolutely despised by many, liked by few, respected by fewer, and almost miraculously uninspirational. She portrayed herself as the steady hand on the wheel, which was wrong, first, because people wanted a major change of course, and second, because her hand was in no way steady. She has poor judgment, is scandal-ridden and gaffe-prone. She displayed exactly one good political quality, that she's fairly good in a debate, but proved an awful leader of a political campaign. She managed not to take to heart the words of two presidents, one of whom happened to be her husband. "If you have the choice between hope and fear, you'd better choose hope." In the last days of the campaign, Trump had an ad or two which could be seen as offering something resembling a positive vision for the country. Hillary stayed in the sewer of mudslinging, ignoring the words of, I think, Calvin Coolidge. He was asked why he never commented on his opponent's scandals. "Never shoot a man," he said, "who's in the process of committing suicide." Finally, consider the fact that two of our last six Presidents have been third rate celebrities. Part of the reason, I think, is that the way politicians campaign and portray themselves, giving long speeches to crowds, is a method of interaction thousands of years old. It makes them look like fossils. Third rate celebrities understand how to interact with a camera. The deliberative style political parties use is also hundreds if not thousands of years old, and looks equally old and tired. It's also profoundly elitist. Anyone like Trump who rejects it strikes a popular chord.
I got polled once. They asked me about the Gulf war. They asked if I supported US and UK invasion or if I supported a UN invasion. When I said neither they ticked "don't know". I went nuts and said I did know, I was anti the war and that putting down as don't know was dishonest as it implied I supported the war in some way. He just kept saying that there was no option for being anti war so I told him to tear up my response. Never trusted the ****ers after that.
As for the US election I do not understand how it is a voted against the establishment. If I wanted go vote against the elite political establishment I would not vote for a Billionaire playboy who has wined and dined with the elite political politicians for decades. It seems like a hateful vote which targets some of ghetto weakest in society. I dislike the rise in racism after the EU vote and it was concerns about this possibility that made me decide to vote stay. However I can see why people would vote out which was nothing to do with racism so never thought it was a hateful vote. But I can not see anything positive that Trump said in the election so think that there must be a lot of people who agree with his hateful politics rather than people voted for him because he was anti establishment. Hope that make sense
A crude appeal to racism was a if not the keystone of the Trump campaign--as it has been to most, if not all, Republican presidential campaigns since 1964 (I'm tempted to except W., when I think about it--he was conspicuous for speaking Spanish). Consider working class whites. Fifty years ago it was typical for them to make the equivalent today of $100/hour (it's incredible, I know, but I've done the math). And most were racist and felt superior simply based on the amount of melanin in their skin, on top of their financial superiority. Today with the unions mostly gone the typical blue collar worker in Pittsburgh might make $12 an hour, maybe $16. (And many might make 8 or 10).Trump appealed to them first by promising persecution of brown-skinned people, making their whiteness feel superior again after eight years of a brown skinned family in the White House. Then Trump offered them what Islamic fundamentalists offer to their downtrodden: the ability to turn back the clock to the good old days (in Trump's case) where blue collar work was plentiful and paid very well. The clock, of course, does not turn back. But most professionals I know don't get how desperate and angry the white working class are. Their status in their own eyes and others is in free fall, along with their income and prospects. A terrifying number of people in this country are obsolete, with nothing to offer that machines can't do better and cheaper, and the number is growing exponentially. Most professionals see them as stupid for voting for Trump. I don't. At least he thought to offer them something, however ugly or far-fetched. What did Hillary offer them, or, for that matter, Obama? I'm trying to think of something the Democrats have done which didn't amount to cozying up to the powers that are in this country and am drawing a blank. You can't have a party which consists of doing what the other party does, not as hard. But that's the Republican LItes aka the Democrats. How is it that the only men who seem to have understood how to be president were Theodore Roosevelt and his cousin? You bang your fist and rail at "malefactors of great wealth." Of course, the malefactors don't end up getting hurt, only gently reined in occasionally, but you make the public think you're fighting for them, that makes them think the system is working, and everybody wins, including, oddly enough, the malefactors of great wealth. It's a modern day kingship. You make the peasants love you by tripping up the nobles occasionally. Is that enough bloody explaining?
I wrote this to an ardent Hillary supporter/Trump hater earlier : "It's all very well to simply blame and 'hate' the politicians who were elected on the kind of mandate that Trump was. To an extent, all such politicians are doing, is tapping into existing sentiment. That sentiment tends to be a reaction to something. Something which the "deplorables" consider themselves to be unreasonably affected by. Rather than sit back and scorn, what the "good guys" ought to be doing, is having a long, hard think about the causes of that malcontent, and recognising that they arent the only people in the world who have views and sensibilities. Half of America has spoken here and said 'we are not satisfied, we are angry, we want something different'. Things can go one of two ways from here : 1. Hillary supporters can accept that there is a widespread sentiment other than their own. A widespread disaffection. They can listen to it and try to understand it. They can recognise that it exists, and that it exists to the extent that the electorate has voted for a politician who they think will address it. They will allow Trump to lead as per his elected mandate. They will allow him to heal, and bring people together whilst addressing the concerns of those who elected him. 2. They can have a tantrum, in which they continue to not recognise the concerns of others, in which they continue to insist that they are in the right, and the other half are simply "deplorables". They can reject Trump's leadership and not allow him to represent the people including those who have elected him. And in doing so, in their conceited ignorance and selfishness, they can cause a spiral of hatred that results in civil war."
It should be noted of course, that the other "third rate celebrity" to get elected, is now widely remembered as the greatest President of modern times.
Am I wrong? I always thought Bill Clinton was the best President USA had had for a long while and if Hillary followed in his footsteps,with him giving her advice,it couldn't be bad for America if she won. It seems,there might have been a lot of jealousy involved here and being a woman many became turncoats. By the way,does Trump own the National Enquirer.Every week they had Hillary on the cover and responsible for everything,from WW1 to Pearl Harbour and visitors from outer space.Any crap would do!Seems it paid off!
Republicans, though they'd call him a socialist nowdays, in all likelyhood. It's owned by David Pecker, who's his mate. Allegedly paid a model for her affair story with Trump and then buried it.
I wouldn't exactly disagree, though I think Kennedy would edge him, if you include his era as modern times. But it should also be noted that the effects of his economic policies were disastrous. He did three related things, crush unions, inaugurate the practice of running up really massive deficits, and make Republican administrations mechanisms for looting the country on an unprecedented scale. The first drove money out of the hands of people who could sustain real economic growth, the second robbed the country of the ability to finance growth in the public sector and the third ensured the money which Democratic administrations restored to the country would get sucked up by the Republicans and their allies when they next took power. The last round ended with the crash of '08. Since Trump is the rapacious businessman par excellence the chances of a repeat don't seem too far-fetched. In Reagan's defense, he was dead shrewd in his foreign policy adventures compared to W and Obama, sticking to wars so small the US could win them. He was a first rate front man for the looting of the treasury which he oversaw, the president as Mr. Smith in Washington, and many people love him for it. It was certainly much better acting than he ever did in Hollywood. The problem is that behind the illusion of morning in America, he was making it morning in China. For all their faults, every Democratic president since the civil war has left the economy in better shape than he found it with the debatable exception of Carter (**** when he got in and **** when he left). Every Republican president since Eisenhower has left it in worse shape with the debatable exception of Reagan (the economy was in better shape, but at the price of running up a huge deficit; it was a recovery "financed on Mastercard.") But, hey, maybe Trump won't keep that trend going. Maybe he's gone through all this crap for some reason other than to loot the country again.
For what it's worth, Clinton got 230,053 votes MORE than Trump. I think our electoral system is broken but the US one may be worse. It regularly produces a president who has less votes than the other candidate. Ridiculous that a two horse race can give the prize to the horse coming second. Been hearing a lot about people in the States should respect democracy and not be upset at the result, but I would suggest that they have every reason to when it ignores the will of the majority. Basically Trump was elected by the electoral system and not the electorate. Can you imagine if the Brexit vote had meant that the decision with the least votes was the one implemented!
If this country elected Trump, I would be on the streets protesting. Not that he had been elected but about a number of his policies. As much as elections are part of a democratic process, so is peaceful protest. Given his apparent rejection of climate control arguments and trade protectionism, we could be in this with them. Trump won but it was no landslide majority, as Vimhawk rightly says, he polled less votes than Clinton. He and his supporters have to understand that this is no game show or sporting contest where winning is everything. Now, he has to govern for all and understand that even among his own voters, there are many who want his domestic reform but not his stated foreign policy and vice versa. If he can't deliver something that the majority will accept, then he has 4 years of strife and misery ahead of him. If he strays too far from what amounts to 'consensus', then he will have divided a nation, even further than it seems to be right now. Personally, I think he'll have to throttle back on the election promises. Very few politicians deliver what they said they would. I will be amazed if a wall is built. He won a popularity contest. The real battle is yet to come. No matter what he promises or does, he won't be able to turn back the clock for long, if at all. Time, tide and a receding hair line wait for no man.
I blame @Spurm for this. He did a runner from Brexit and got Trumped, instead. Please don't continue this train of destruction by going to another country.
Meanwhile on this side of the pond, the following stories have all been buried... 1. The homelessness charity Shelter reported that 120,000 children will spend this Christmas homeless, and that the new lower Tory benefit cap will end up impoverishing an estimated 319,000 children. If it wasn't obvious before, it's crystal clear now that Tory austerity policies end up economically punishing children for the "crime" of being born into poor families. 2. The Tory assault on children's rights suffered a setback in the House of Lords where peers voted against the Tory plan to allow local governments to opt out of child protection measures. This Tory effort to build a "bonfire of children's rights" is clearly designed to make the privatisation of child protection services more appealing to corporate outsourcing giants like G4S, Capita and Serco. This vote in the Lords is more of a setback than a defeat though because Tory ministers can always simply reinstate the clause to scrap child safety standards when the child and social work bill returns to the House of Commons. 3. The latest figures from the Trussell Trust food bank showed that the increase in food bank dependency in the UK is still continuing. The charity handed out a record number of food parcels in 2015-16 and their evidence shows that two of the three leading causes of food poverty were benefit delays and Tory welfare cuts, accounting for over 40% of referrals between them. 4. A long-awaited report from the United Nations absolutely hammered the Tory government for their savage mistreatment of disabled people. Not only did the report find that Tory welfare cuts have disproportionately impacted disabled people and hindered their rights to live independently and be included in their communities, the report also found that disabled people in Britain have suffered a barrage of right-wing anti-disability propaganda that has routinely portrayed disabled people as "dependent or making a living out of benefits, committing fraud as benefit claimants, being lazy or putting a burden on taxpayers". 5. Theresa May's government suffered a humiliating setback in the Supreme Court where the High Court ruling that Tory "Bedroom Tax" discriminates against disabled adults and children was upheld. 6. The Brexiter argument that the collapse in the value of the pound has been a great thing for exports took a massive blow when it was revealed that the UK trade deficit has widened significantly to £12.7 billion. Not only did the vast gap between imports and exports grow dramatically, the volume of UK exports actually fell by £200 million. The Brexiter argument that a collapsing currency is great for the economy is utterly daft because the UK continues to import vastly more than it exports, but when the economic evidence shows that the collapse in currency value has coincided with a significant decline in exports, even the argument that it's good for the export sector begins to look incredibly weak. Even though the economic evidence shows that this Brexiter delight at the collapse in the value of the pound is misguided, we can look forward to Theresa May and the Tories continuing to spread the ludicrous myth that a weak currency is good for our (import dominated) economy. 7. The Bank of England responded to Theresa May's ignorant blame-casting rhetoric at the Tory party conference by releasing a report on the relationship between inflation and interest rates that demonstrated that Theresa May simply doesn't know what she's talking about when it comes to monetary policy (which is no surprise given the economically illiterate myths about monetary policy spread by her predecessors Cameron and Osborne). 8. The Institute for Fiscal Studies identified a £25 billion black hole in the UK public finances. 9. The Crown Prosecution Service are considering a "corrupt practices" case against the Vote Leave mob (which included high profile Tory government ministers like Boris Johnson) for lying to the electorate over claims like the "Let's give the NHS the £350 million a week ..." lie and their false claims that "Turkey is joining the EU". 10. Theresa May visited India in order to beg for some kind of trade agreement with them, but ended up getting her ear bent about her obstructive attitude towards Indian migration and the "detrimental" immigration policies she implemented during her time as Home Secretary. Additionally Theresa May didn't even bother to schedule a meeting with the Indian conglomerate Tata to discuss the ongoing crisis in the British steel industry while she was in India. 11. After returning from her failure of a trip to India Theresa May continued the Tory policy of sucking up pathetically to the Chinese communist government, even allowing herself to be lectured about the importance of "mutual trust" by the Chinese when one of the contractors they lined up to build the UK's rip-off nuclear infrastructure for us has been charged with nuclear espionage in the United States! 12. The hope that the Tories are finally going to bin their economically ruinous ideological austerity agenda in order to pursue a sane investment led recovery strategy took another blow with the announcement that the rail electrification project for the South West of England has been indefinitely suspended.
There are a lot of the factors present now around the world, which were present in the '30s and led to the likes of Hitler being elected to power. The most significant are i) there has been an economic slump around the world, which has resulted in areas of relative poverty in even the wealthier western countries and ii) there has been a rise in nationalism and mistrust of certain groups of foreigners, who people are readily willing to accept are to blame for most of their ills. Just as in the '30s, there is fertile ground on which an extremist like Trump can sow his policies based on fear, anger and frustration. It's no different here; we have a government who can target immigrants, the disabled, the disadvantaged etc with unfair and unjust policies knowing that there is no appetite from the majority for compassion, tolerance or sympathy for others. Fascism always surfaces against when there is general feeling of dissatisfaction to be laid at the door of groups in society held to be wholly responsible. History does have a tendency to repeat itself.
