Well that’s the world buggered then.

[Mittens67]

Goodbye to any hope of peace and safety for the world, or saving the climate, women’s rights and ending racism.
Poor Ukraine will be the first casualty.
Putin will be breaking out the vodka and caviar today.

Sounds like Russian propaganda to me

Things don't usually get that bad overnight. Last time DID have terrible long-term consequences, only fully seen after his term had ended, due to the 3 right-wing nuts he put on the Supreme Court. Which also means that there'll be less restraint on his actions from the judiciary.

Have you not listended to him?

No thank you

How has Trump changed how politics is done in America? During his last time in office, I don’t think he changed how politics was actually handled. The only thing I can think of that he did was make a speech that called on people to march on the Capitol. Was there anything else you were thinking of too?

I have not heard anything that indicates that he will and can remove the democratic process in the USA. What exactly had he said that you think indicates he will and can?

Whilst I’m worried about what he might do, I agree with this. To back that up, we had Boris Johnson for 3 years (2019-22) and he was absolutely shit during Covid and took us all for fools, but we survived.

Despite the fact the Republicans have majority control over the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the judiciary, I don’t think Trump will make himself president for life. I don’t think he can - it will be hard for
him to do that because the US does still have a lot of checks and balances. It’s not like Russia, for example, where it was transitioning from the Soviet Union to a new political order and Putin took advantage of that fragility (and then took around 20 years to properly take all the power for himself, when he did his 2020 referendum to keep himself in power till 2036).

The point I’m trying to make is it takes a long time to seize absolute power in a country, and it is very hard to do in a reasonably healthy democracy like America. It’s nowhere near as fragile was when Putin took over in Russia (for example).

Also, Trump is old (78!!) He won’t be around forever. Yes, he might make himself ‘president for life’ and appoint someone like JD Vance as his successor for after his death, but I doubt that will happen, because I think there would be a massive national and international outcry and it would possibly lead to a civil war.

^ this. I wouldn't have voted for Trump if I lived in the US but sick a tired of thread titles like this one. My DD (13) came home today repeating 'well, that's world war three scheduled then'.

It was covered in a documentary about him, that for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of (not an excuse, old age!)

It’s terrifying isn’t it. We have young people declaring themselves homeless due to domestic abuse because their parents told them they believe there should be limits put on immigration. Such views are abusive apparently.

I miss the old labour/left views of supporting working people of your country. I don’t what has taken over, but it isn’t good.

people couldnt vote for Kamala, as she couldn’t speak in public, and you just felt that the husband would be running things instead, and who wanted that.

she was a poor VP, and would be a worse president

it will all be fine.

@PatChaunceysFruitCake perfect opportunity for a chat on critical thinking and engaging in informed, well articulated discussions rather than echoing air headed memes and sound bytes. Your dc will have got this from social media or their friends at school who got it from social media.

Trump is not the problem per se, technology and lack of critical thinking on the other hand......

Ask them to explain why "world war three is schedule" when is it exactly scheduled for, who is doing the scheduling, tell them to be precise, what do they think and can they back it up with facts. If they can, that's great. Ask them what they can do about it as individuals, as communities or we as a country. Don't let them get away with fatalistic superficial comments, engage them in how they can contribute to change and if not directly, what they can do to educate themselves properly.

And the number of posters shouting this is not democracy, well it literally is representative democracy in action. Saying "not my president" is rather undemocratic rhetoric and oh so childish. It's the same for those who said "not my president" about Obama. And all those references to the orange muppet, sure great, it's a little simplistic, right, why make fun of how someone looks instead of intelligently debating their policies and behaviour. It's as if not many people actually can articulate what's wrong.

Ha ha @GreenTuesday, that is what followed. After she'd been treated to my rant on how 'if I'd had £1 every time I'd heard that starting with how I felt at her age when Iraq invaded Kuwait'.

I agree with everything you say. You are right that allowing your opinions to develop by reading social media memes is the problem here and that applies to both 'sides' of this debate.

Trump won’t affect much. The world will carry on much the same as it would have done under the Democrats.

I think that it is really complicated.

I don’t think there is any doubt that Trump has a dubious personality. On the other hand he does seem to ‘get’ why a large proportion of the electorate is disaffected or at least acts like he does, whereas Kamala basically told them to be happy with their lot.

I do think that both the left and right wing have anti democratic tendencies. Trump is more out and proud about his but Biden somewhat let the cat out of the bag when he called Trump supporters ‘the deplorables’. If you despise the demos in a democracy, you can’t expect them to vote for you!

There has been a massive tendency in Europe, especially, but also in the U.S to prioritise what those really struggling might call luxuries: green energy investment, foreign wars, rights of asylum seekers, ‘woke’ priorities, limits on experimentation on genetics and AI etc etc. Lots here will think my list aren’t luxuries but necessities. But who is really paying for them? If energy goes up 10% and it is 5% of your budget, you don’t really feel it, but if it is 30% of your budget and all your discretionary expenditure, it becomes a major issue and ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ makes a lot of sense.

And the 2008 bailout, QE, Covid subsidies to the rich followed by rampant inflation really broke the contract between the governors and the governed.

Trump is unashamedly isolationist and pro growth. He wants to build and manufacture in the U.S. That is horrible globally but it isn’t if you are a low to medium skilled worker in the U.S who wants the dignity of an honest job.

The liberal left needs a radical rethink as to how they can sell ‘safe’ low growth policies to the poorer. They either need to be far more radical on tax and redistribution or they need to curb some of their more ambitious ideas. They should also be an awful lot less smug! They lost and it wasn’t the stupid electorate; it was because they failed to even try to sell their ideas to whole swathes of voters.

then you have the whims of the general public, and as a result, donald trump

He wasn´t born in the US, like Schwarzenneger, so can´t run for President.

Whims of the general public? In other words democracy. Trump or Boris today, Obama or Keir tomorrow. C'est la vie démocratique.

I don't want some corrupt experts exerting my right to vote in the democracy that I am a citizen of.

Best way to protect democracy and improve things is to invest in education. Critical thinking and teaching and enabling the next generation to be productive and thinking citizens, not entitled, passive, moaning, instant gratification seekers.

I am not a Trump supporter and am appalled at many of the things he has said and done. He doesn't represent my values. But populism drives everything on all "sides" now, so if we don't engage in actual meaningful and respectful discussion in real life or online but throw around memes and extreme insults or cancel people, there is no alternative to this in politics anymore, as everyone is behaving in a superficial and simplistic manner, probably driven by Twitter's* *character limit and its success.

I don't care about shallow quick retorts e.g. from Obama on Twitter, I want sophisticated comments that demonstrate and promote humanitarian values and applied human decency from leaders not mud slinging in the media, left or right.

Emilia Maitlis said ‘This is batshit, I can’t believe what he’s saying, this is gonna be the end of him’ during the election coverage. It's unprofessional, as a journalist, surely she could have expressed this more eloquently? Batshit is Mumsnet level not national news level.

As someone rightly pointed out somewhere this type of alarmist narratives were detrimental to the Democrats. I really hope people learn from it but so far do not see it.

That pisses me off so much. The amount of anxiety inflicted on teens with this nonsense.

Modern media shapes public perception through simplified, emotionally charged content, often reinforcing biases and limiting critical thought.

Yep Plato and Socrates etc would be so proud of todays population , bravo

I think there is a small risk he will react unexpectedly in a tense situation with China, North Korea or Russia and we will end up in a terrifying situation that nobody wanted.

Because he is very unpredictable.

However, other leaders know this and also know that he likes bribes, and they are much better at this than he is.

So I think it's more likely that Taiwan will return to China, Russia will take Ukraine and possibly start to look for other targets in the area.

I did not see a path to a good outcome for Ukraine anyway, unfortunately, given they are not allowed to hit targets far inside Russia with NATO weapons.

I also fear he will pull the US out of NATO, which has kept the peace (mostly) for so many years. Who knows where that will lead.

I think there is something to be said for the idea that Europe should look to its own defense and not be so reliant on America. But the original motivation for extending the security guarantee to Japan and Germany after WW2 (I believe) was that we wanted those countries NOT to have serious armed forces of their own...

They should also be an awful lot less smug! They lost and it wasn’t the stupid electorate; it was because they failed to even try to sell their ideas to whole swathes of voters.

I agree with this @Newbutoldfather , I hope that the fairly decisive outcome will make them have a think rather than trying to find other things to blame.

I would add that they failed to control inflation over the past 4 years as the other significant factor. (Hard to do during covid of course but the people just see that everything costs more).

Unfortunately I fear people are in for a nasty shock regarding inflation when Trump gets started on his combination of trade wars and tax cuts.

I don't remember him doing anything very bad. And he certainly did not start an insurrection.