Trump has won 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[jdoe8]

WTF have I woken up to? Everyone is calling it for trump 😭😭😭😭😭

I'm still have trouble sleeping after brexit and now this 😭😭😭😭

FTSE due to open 4% lower on pre trading, well done.

To be honest it was Hilary's election to loose, unfortunately she and her informers just read the whole thing wrong!

I head a funny comment today " he is the only man who can make a casino go broke"

but also as pp mentioned on this or another thread what ever you think of him he is a remarkable example of positive thinking. In his book The Art of the deal he ( apparently ) expounds on hyperbole, the importance of it. They say he is a marketing genius, apparently he even pretended to be his own private secretary once who then told a jounro " Trump always has important and glamours women calling him", He said he aims high, goes for the top, sometimes has to concede but usually gets what he wants.

How can we argue with this when he is now PE

He's certainly not stupid. It's a mistake to think so. He is ignorant, lacks self control and is unpleasant in a hundred ways but he's not stupid.

We need to think very hard about the societal conditions that lead to this.

How about it?
No house work, no wife work and no buying from anyone.
It's worked before.
Set a day, stick to it, Do it again, and again.
Strike.
We got the power, let's use it.
Fascists are so last century and lazy.
Let them serve themselves.
It's worked before.

I did allow myself a 20 second fantasy where I envisioned every woman in the USA packing their bags and heading to the nearest border, and claiming refugee status as it was no longer safe for them to remain. Pictures of tailbacks and lines at borders, and bewildered men and their sons left to deal. Just a fantasy, obv. And obv women voted for him too. But I did allow myself a moment of indulgence to compensate for the fact that a man who uses language and rhetoric like DT was allowed to stand for election. I mean, really, in what sort of civilized nation is 'grab them by the pussy' appropriate speech for a world leader?
I run a youth group where we talk about social media use and the importance of being aware that whatever you say and do in this day and age can be used against you by potential employers etc. Apparently those rules only apply to women. If you have a penis, feel free to brag about your assaults in public. There are no consequences.
Frankly, I'm on the right side of the border, but reading any of Justin Trudeau's social media feeds, and the comments are full of the same rhetoric. There but for the grace of God, and all that.
How was this man allowed to run? How on earth do people rationalize believing that a man as crass and vulgar and disablist and racist and misogynistic is a good representative of their country on the world stage?
Clearly they have zero interest in the world stage, but a strong belief that he really will bring back manufacturing to the rust belt. Good luck with that. I'll believe it when DT starts using national labour for his own companies instead of outsourcing because it's better business.
The capitalist running on an anti-capitalist ticket, and the USA elects the first brand president. USA Inc. Bankruptcy no. 5? 6?

Thinkof why do you think he isn't stupid?

He is.

The poorest and 'disenfranchised' did not vote trump - they actually voted for Clinton.

Actually over 40% of them did vote for Trump.

And the higher numbers for Clinton amongst low income brackets is quite easily explained by the fact that more young people voted for Clinton and young people by their very definition are lower paid because they're just starting out in their careers. But it doesn't really reliably indicate social class. Someone working 60 hour weeks in a steel mill could easily clear $50k but certainly wouldn't see themselves as middle class. Exit polls, particularly on income, are notoriously unreliable because people don't want to admit they are on low wages face to face with a stranger. The more reliable indicator of social class is level of education, and that very much puts support for Trump amongst the working classes.

There is a good deal of 'othering' of people going on in this thread and many others here on MN.

But apparently it's fine to sneer at and 'other' white men. The sheer hypocrisy on this thread is astounding. Especially people who are saying Clinton's probable lead by 0.1% is significant, when I've seen the exact same people on Brexit threads saying that a 4% lead is insignificant and should be ignored.

I think it's interesting that people on this thread are blaming the people who voted for Trump. A more sensible response would be to reflect on where they went wrong to lose to a candidate who on paper shouldn't have come close to being a serious candidate. If the Republicans had put up a more sensible candidate the Democrats would have been absolutely fucked. But it appears that the the left is intent on their path of self immolation by flinging insults and abuse at people who don't conform to their way of thinking. They won't catch many flies with that vinegar and need to start thinking about how to win more votes rather than just attacking people who haven't voted their way. Because they need some of those people to come to their side to start winning things. And flinging insults won't win any votes.

Incidentally, I'm not so sure this left wing insistence that they are always right is justified. Going back 15 years or so almost all of the left was adamant we should join the Euro. Some people voiced concerns that perhaps it wasn't a great idea to saddle our currency with much poorer economies and making it subject to the whims of often corrupt domestic governments which could do an awful lot of damage to other countries but weren't accountable to their electorates. But those people were dismissed as petty little Englanders who just couldn't deal with the Queen's head disappearing from notes and coins. And look how well that turned out eh? We dodged a bullet there. Plus it was the left in the UK who took us into pointless destructive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can whinge about how much you love minorities as much as you like, it doesn't really ring true when your side is the one bombing their home countries to kingdom come. And look at the fallout from the Arab Spring. The left were adamant it was all going to be lovely and democracy would come and all the Arabs would turn into card carrying lefties just like them. And they went in and fomented it supporting the rebels to found this new utopia. Except that it didn't work out like that did it. Because ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood, etc, etc. So the 'we are always right and you should do exactly what we tell you' schtick on this thread is a load of bullshit. The left get it wrong as much as anybody else and this insistence they are always right makes them look either deluded or dishonest.

BillSykesDog
The USA and Russia have been fighting over Afghanistan for decades. It was the CIA promoted ISIS, not the left.

People in the US like to identify as middle class.

Someone earning $50k per year in a steel mill would probably do so. People consider themselves middle class if they identify as 'hard working Americans' even if their job is blue collar. Middle class-ness is a case of identifying with the set of values that includes working hard and consistently. It is not necessarily about how much your job pays.

All politicians then appeal to the insecurity of those who consider themselves MC, because deep down, people know they are being squeezed financially, and they worry.

The Democrats appeal to the sense of middle classness by pointing to tax havens and a tax burden that falls unequally on those who work hard but can never get ahead. Democratic voters who consider themselves middle class are attracted by policies like lower university fees and they tend to support poverty alleviation measures like food stamps, free school meals, etc.

Republicans from Reagan on have tried to bring out the begrudgery of the MC - the spiel is, in general, 'You are working your tail off while 'welfare queens' (Reagan's big lie) or the 47% (according to Romney) are laughing at you'. It is similar to the Tory message over the decades. George H.W. Bush's 'kinder, gentler nation' speech at the convention that selected him as the GOP candidate against Dukakis was a conscious attempt at damage control because Reagan's callousness and the 80s era mantra 'Greed is good' had left many unimpressed and feeling there was an increasing 'them and us' to life in the era of the TV show 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous'.

....
British foreign policy is always pro American, since WW2 anyway. It always hearkens back to the distant imperial past when Britain was relevant. It is always an exercise in imperial conceit, and it has never been 'left' or 'right'. The only way to feel imperial still is to toady up to the only imperial power Britain feels comfortable with, the US. The alternative is China.

YYY, JellyBelli
The CIA supported their proxies the Afghan Mujahadeen, and they were portrayed in the west as the friends of western democracy, David v Goliath, slinging stones against the Evil Empire. The dictum, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' came back to bite them in the ass.

GinandTunic, I know it isn't new. But it most definitely is troubling. Getting the vagaries of three or four states' political dynamic wrong shouldn't be what an election swings on.

Oh riiiight. So what you're saying is that because people had died in wars in Afghanistan previously it didn't really matter if we went in and killed a few more? Germany and France have fought over Alsace and Lorraine a lot historically. Would you be so blasé if they started bombing each other and killing civilians, you know, white ones? Probably not. But then it's just a few Asians in Asia. They don't really count do they? And the left are so nice to them in the UK that they think killing a few thousand overseas is really quite insignificant when you compare that to all the hard work put in flashing their liberal credentials.

As for the left promoting the Arab Spring, Obama made rather a famous speech about it:

Obama declared that encouraging transitions to democracy was now a "top U.S. priority that must be translated into concrete actions and supported by all of the diplomatic, economic, and strategic tools at our disposal."

So they did interfere to promote it and created the power vacuum which allowed the rise of ISIS and other fundamentalist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. But anybody at the time who said they were slightly concerned that rather than left wing democracies these policies might instead promote fundamentalism was rather predictably labelled a racist by the left.

As for the CIA promoting it, yes they did. But have a look at the document which confirmed that and particularly who it is addressed to:

www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf

The department of state, the department of homeland security, the Secretary of State (i.e. Hilary Clinton) and the Defence Secretary.

So if the CIA promoted it they did it with the full knowledge and approval of the government. As you might expect from a government agency.

That document talks about the US promoting a Salafist state in the east and an al-Qaeda controlled state in the west. There's a very good article about it here:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq?client=safari

And we know that Hillary was aware and probably in favour of creating a repressive Islamist state in order to further the interests of the US and it's allies. And apparently that's all okay and condemning brown people to live in an oppressive and most likely violent state because it suits your own interests isn't racist at all? The left have a very flexible relationship with racism don't they? As long as they shout very loud about how not racist they are it doesn't really matter if they blow a few up or sell them down a river of atrocities according to them. If a right wing Secretary of State did that we'd never hear the end of the cries of racism. But apparently when Hillary does it, it's all a-okay and probably somebody else's fault? Hmmm...

The democrats are opposed to tax havens eh? Well from their list of donors it appears Clinton is quite relaxed about them...

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/10/hillary-clinton-foundation-donors-hsbc-swiss-bank?client=safari

Thats right Bill, you keep up with your agenda of blaming the Left. Forget the two Bush presidents.
Forget the fact that the USA is fundamentally right wing and run by the CIA.

Jelli, I did specify that I was talking about the UK when I referred to those wars. And it was a left wing government that took us into that. Incidentally Hillary voted for both the invasion of Iraq. And she was responsible for the disastrous surge in Afghanistan and is quite the hawk.

I believe that your opinion on the CIA is what's known as a 'conspiracy theory' and not really credible. Particularly when you take into account the fact that we can see from that document that Hillary was fully informed and it appears the CIA were working on orders from the government.

That's another thing about the left wing - they'll whine on and on about things which happened in the 80s and demand enquiries and apologies. But they never apologise for their own fuck ups. Even when their meddling leads to genocide in Syria. Then it's all 'weren't us mate, it were the CIA' EVEN WHEN HILLARY'S NAME IS ALL OVER THE BLEEDIN' DOCUMENT and she's not denied it.

It's fucking typical. Nothing is their fault. Losing the election is all the fault of stupid racists and nothing to do with the fact their campaign was shit. It makes them look inept, out of touch, arrogant and dishonest. And in the case of the CIA supposedly running America - deluded.

Oh riiiight. So what you're saying is that because people had died in wars in Afghanistan previously it didn't really matter if we went in and killed a few more?

I don't think that was either stated or implied.

Wrt parliamentary support for the Iraq War.
254 Labour MPs voted for, 84 against, 69 abstained
146 Tories for, 2 against, 17 abstained

US foreign policy has been neither 'left' nor 'right'. Just aggressive and arrogant.

HRC's tenure at the State Department revealed her to be even more of a hawk and an ideologically motivated democracy warrior than most of her predecessors, though there have been some real doozies in that job. She leaves a trail of destruction and despair in her wake from Ukraine to Libya and many points between, including Syria.

Her campaign was indeed shit, and characterised by much in the assumption column and not nearly enough in the reality check column.

The othering of US voters of all stripes is a product of general British failure to understand the US, and the tendency to view the world through a very narrow, British liberal prism.

I don't think that was either stated or implied.

Er, yes it was. I pointed out that the left took us to war in Afghanistan and that poster sought to absolve them of blame by saying it had been fought over by other countries for years. That very much implies that it didn't matter us killing a few more people.

I think that is a huge stretch.

It's true that the left is not inherently anti-war. Being anti-war is a metric of its own, independent of left / right principles. However, appeasement also leads to war, so being an anti-war government is no guarantee that there will not be any. International politics is extremely complex - what we have seen over recent decades is an hugely over-simplified narrative. Trump continues this simplistic narrative, and it will likely have negative consequences for people living in areas where tensions are high and where war already exists. Doesn't matter if he's anti-war or not. The question we have to ask is whether or not he's prepared to make the effort to understand and appreciate international relationships.

The movement Trump is spearheading is one of over-simplification across the board. It started with Reagan and now we're here, with maximum simplification. Angry people (mostly white men) who feel they've lost their place in the world and want simple fixes for all their personal problems. Sorry, it simply doesn't work like that.

Demonstrations in several USA cities going on. Mainly young, idealistic people. One girl said she did not want to see deportations - what, never, of anyone?

Don't these protestors like democracy? It seems not, unless a vote goes their way of course.

Waterwitch - That online comment you posted from the Spectator was spot on.

The (in)Tolerant Left love all diversity except diversity of opinion, and we were left in no doubt that there was only one acceptable view, one acceptable candidate

^^ ABSOLUTELY.

he IS demonstrably sexist, misogynist, racist, disablist, homophobic

And you think that Obama and Clinton, or others, are not? Are you really that gullible and shallow? They are simply better at public speaking because they have had media training. It happens here in UK too - freshly appointed MPs get sent on intensive media courses, and those who are 'taking off' in their careers receive TV training.

Math is right. Middle class is class, not money. DH said something about us not being middle class the other day because we don't have much money anymore, and I told him only half jokingly that we'd still be middle class if we were homeless in a cardboard box. And we'd still be middle class if we won $7 billion in the lottery.

People whose communities are fairly recent immigrants to the US can also be misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, etc. This can include hispanic culture, and muslim culture. Same goes for minority attitudes (i.e. African American and Asian American). Social conservatism and/or xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, etc., can also run quite deep in the rest of society of course. It is quite wrong to lump everyone who on paper looks marginalised into the social liberal category

^^ This with bells on. We see the misogyny and deliberate 'apartness' in UK as you know, from muslims of all nationalities. But they nevertheless vote Labour Party who is rabidly against misogyny-homophobia-xenophobia.

From another forum... so not my words..

(Yesterday, 07:27 am)drakes drum Wrote:
There are huge similarities between the Brexit vote and the Trump one if you look under the skin. In both cases its the white working class male that has made a big difference. For years he has been told to welcome immigration even if it costs him his job or lowers his wages. He has to accept free trade and see his job moved to China. He sees minorities winning out, blacks gays, even disabled but no one helps him. He sees bias towards women in employment but again not to him. And then he's looked down on as uneducated and told what he should think by the media and politicians. Its what drove labour voters to UKIP in the brexit vote and looks like what has driven democrats to Trump.

In both campaigns it was the anti politician that stood out - Trump and Farage. Both traded on hostility to politicians as you see every day on these forums.

In short it was a chance for parts of a disaffected electorate to say " up you"......"