
Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S. - introvertmac
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/08/donald-trumps-path-to-victory-is-suddenly-looking-much-much-wider/?hpid=hp_hp-bignews3_fix-electoralmap-210am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
======
thewarrior
It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the
heels of BREXIT this is a trend.

The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to
fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia
unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The
globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population.
Whether it is for economic reasons or just plain bigotry is something for the
sociologists to study and not something I can pontificate on.

Also people seem to care a LOT about immigration and preserving their culture.
Instead of patronising these people it's time we tried to understand their
concerns and try to assuage them.

There is no genuine leftist alternative. It's a choice between center-right
"left" that's sold out to the establishment and the far right.Economists need
to stop acting like priests in the medieval ages who justified the existing
order . The rural voter who lost his job doesn't care about the theory of
comparitive advantage.

If this trend holds this will soon take hold in France and other European
nations. This is a return to the world of the 1920s. Not gloom and doom but a
much more unstable global order with every country for itself. Not what we
need when we face planet scale threats like global warming. Get out of your
bubble.

Hang out more on subreddits you don't agree with.

The divide is bridged one person at a time.

PS - Reposted my comment from another thread as it got flagged. Hope its OK
with the mods.

EDIT: His concession speech seems to indicate that he's beginning to
appreciate what he's been entrusted with.

~~~
nostrademons
Something I've been wondering about:

We're seeing this pattern where the coasts of many countries are cosmopolitan
and well-integrated into the world economy, but the interiors are very
conservative and nationalistic. Scotland & London vs. Wales & the rest of
Britain. The U.S. West Coast & Northeast vs. the Farm Belt, Rust Belt, and
Mountain states. Croatia & Slovenia vs. the rest of Yugoslavia. The Baltic
Republics vs. the rest of the USSR. Even in a Red State like Texas, Houston
(on the coast) has gone democratic.

What happens if economic ties _between_ coastal regions of major trading
partners become greater than cultural ties _within_ nations?

Here in California, some of the proposals about sending all the immigrants
back to where they came from seem absurd. The economy would cease to function.
On one of my teams of 10 people at Google, we had immigrants from Iceland,
England, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, and India, and I was the _only_ native-born
American citizen. California would sooner secede than deport all of its
immigrants.

What if it actually came to that? If push came to shove and the interior
decided to push a nativist, nationalist agenda, what if the coastal regions
that benefit significantly from trade were to say "Okay, you guys can play
with yourself, we're going to play with the rest of the world." Scotland has
threatened to do exactly that, and is planning on holding another referendum
on independence if Britain actually follows through on Brexit.

What sort of organizing principle would the world have then? I haven't seen
anything historically like that - the closest would be the Roman Empire that
rimmed the Mediterranean. For most of recorded history, the primary means of
production has been _land_ and so fights have been over _land_ , but over the
last 150 years or so (contemporaneous with the nation-state as a social
organizing principle, BTW), the primary means of production shifted to
_capital_ , and now it's shifting to _information_. What kind of social
organizing principle does that imply?

~~~
zigzigzag
London isn't on the coast. What you're looking at here is not coasts vs non-
coasts even if American maps might make it look that way. It's cities vs
everywhere else. It just so happens that in America most of the biggest/best
known cities are on the coasts.

~~~
mhandley
In Britain, at least, I'm not even sure it's cities vs everywhere else. The
large cities of the Midlands and North (Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds,
Newcastle) went for Brexit much more than anyone expected. It's more a case of
new economy vs old economy. That's not really a surprise is it? People in
places that benefit from globalization vote in favour of globalization; people
in places that have seen manufacturing or rural jobs vanish in the face of
globalization are reacting against these changes. In this light, both Brexit
and Trump, which both promise quick fixes, are not really a surprise.
Unfortunately there are no quick fixes - as technology increases, so must
specialization. There's no going back - that ship has sailed.

~~~
zigzigzag
Manchester voted 60% to Remain. The other districts except Trafford mostly
voted Leave.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-
referendum-36617781](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-
referendum-36617781)

I suspect what we're seeing here isn't actually even cities vs everywhere
else. I suspect this correlation is obfuscating the real connecting variable
which is age.

Young people live in cities. As they get married, buy houses and have children
they move out into the suburbs.

Young people tend to vote left wing and be more supportive of the 'elite'.
Older people tend to be more conservative and, apparently, more willing to
give the 'elite' a good kicking.

~~~
noir_lord
I'm fairly left wing and I couldn't care less about the 'elite' (as long as
they pay taxes at a rate that is fair given their net worth like everyone
else).

This "if you are left you support the elite" thing at least in the UK was a
way of conjoining the left and the elite into a single entity so that you
could say to Joe Bloggs "these people don't care about you" and it needs
addressing by the left.

The lefts biggest problem (here) is they simply aren't addressing the concerns
of their traditional voting block at all, they seem to be more concerned about
in-fighting and political correctness, I'm all for political correctness but
you can only focus on so many issues and some issues are simply more important
(particularly if you want to win elections and if you aren't focused on that
you are a debate society not a political party).

A simple reading of what the left has traditionally stood for should make it
obvious that the left and the 'elites' are opposed purely on simple economic
grounds, We want them to pay more taxes, they don't want to pay more taxes
(which is to be expected, who does?).

Frankly the biggest issue in regards to politics in the UK is the media (and I
don't just mean the majority of the print media that is hilariously and
obviously biased towards whatever Murdoch wants) but the media as a whole, the
drop in revenue from the move to internet news has meant that they have to
sell click bait and "agendas" to get traffic so we end up with these horrible
echo chambers of bias-confirmation.

Frankly I think we are heading into a really dark period of politics here and
I don't see any way to stop it.

~~~
ywrht
I completely agree with your assessment that the media selling "agendas" is
the problem. Not just traditional media, but social media too. Dialogue and
democracy aren't attractive anymore, we've been basically coerced into fear
and put into boxes.

From my point of view, the lefts biggest problem is that the "left" of today
is pretty much the center. I find it extremely hard to take any left-of-center
(think Bernie Sanders) position today. Anyone not in the center or in the
right and you'll have both the liberal (as in economically liberal) and the
conservative media against you. I don't live in the US/UK, but I live in an
increasingly anti-leftist country. I can't even complain that Uber eroding
worker's rights without being called a commie here. I honestly feared for my
life one time when I was wearing a red t-shirt and accidentally bumped into a
right-wing rally when I was visiting another town.

But the thing is, it doesn't take a lot of empathy to see that a lot of
conservatives are feeling the same way: they complain that the media has a
liberal-bias, they complain about not having the right to speak (because of
political correctness), they complain about persecution because of their
religion, they had their jobs taken away and the establishment (which they
perceive as being completely on the left) failed them... they have liberal
media against them. I can completely sympathize with all that.

Funny thing is that from reading comments of Trump voters, I feel as if the
more radical left and Trump voters have a lot of fears in common: automation
taking jobs, globalism taking jobs, elites raking it, the center-left liberals
being too worried about what they call "political correctness" but saying
fuck-off to workers, religious and rural people... Not to mention I can
totally sympathize with how they crave for more radicalism in politics, just
like I, as a leftist, do.

As I wrote that last paragraph, I wondered if what we're actually witnessing
is the end of that brand of centrist/moderate liberalism. I'm biased but I
think that the demise of liberalism will be that cause "dark times ahead",
unless we find a viable left to strike a balance with the current right.

~~~
noir_lord
I think your observation that the "harder left" and "harder right" have a lot
in common is a valid one, I suspect a lot of people who would have voted for
Sanders voted for Trump.

In a way I think the values of "left" and "right" don't really apply like they
did (if they ever did) anymore.

On some issues I hold views that the left would call me a right for and the
right would call me a left for (e.g. Some things the the state runs should be
private, some things that are private the state should run, not all defense
spending is bad, fairer taxes can mean higher taxes on the rich, regressive
taxes hit the poorer harder, religion has _zero_ place in the bedroom or in
reproductive rights, equal rights does not mean positive discrimination, the
right to free speech doesn't mean the right to no consequences, single payer
healthcare is not the devil (I'm British, the NHS is one of the better things
we did), a social safety net is part of the social contract, immigration is
broadly a good thing and rarely a very bad thing etc etc), corporations
_should_ pay their taxes and those found to be avoiding them should be
_punished_ in a way that actually makes it easier for them to just _pay_ , we
need to spend a lot on infrastructure (our national audit office found that
there is between a 3 to 1 and 7 to 1 RoI on infrastructure spending).

I'm all over the spectrum when it comes to left/right, what I don't like (near
universally) is the crop of politicians on either side of the old left/right.

What I'd _really_ like is a party that addresses the tough issues with
evidence led policy and the honesty to say "That's a tough problem, We don't
have a total solution but we are going to try <foo> because we think it'll
work better than <bar> because <fizz>".

There isn't enough _nuance_ in politics anymore, everything is absolutist
"This good, you bad", I want smart, articulate _thinking_ politicians who are
thinking about the big problems (where the problems aren't how do I benefit
myself).

------
acjohnson55
This is utter madness. If we're lucky, this wheels fall off this whole
enterprise and these people are discredited before they do too much harm.

It's deeply frustrating to hear so much crap analysis of what's been going on.
If we're really honest with ourselves about what's happening, we're seeing a
massive vote for protectionism of a particular demographics that have long
enjoyed it.

People talk a lot about the forgotten white working class voter. And while
that's a real thing, that's only half the story. The Trump voters are on the
whole wealthier than the Clinton voters. That means there are a whole bunch of
people with real money who've decided they can stomach the open bigotry of
Trump's campaign because they think ultimately his policies are what they
want. That's why the incumbents of the GOP largely never fled his side, no
matter how obscene his personal conduct.

To be really blunt, Trump's entire track record says "if you're white and
wealthy, I've obviously got your back", and his words have said, "if you're
white and struggling, it's brown people who stand in your way". In that way,
he's managed to get an extremely energetic white vote.

This election will be forever remembered for just how lurid it has been. From
the very beginning of the Republican primary, it's been Trump who continually
lowered the bar. God help us all if we do in fact end up with literally the
least qualified Commander in Chief of American history. Going to sleep now,
deeply discouraged.

~~~
hubert123
> To be really blunt, Trump's entire track record says "if you're white and
> wealthy, I've obviously got your back", and his words have said, "if you're
> white and struggling, it's brown people who stand in your way". In that way,
> he's managed to get an extremely energetic white vote.

yeah and exactly because of this kind of insane, bogus "analysis" you lost.
When or if you find back the connection to reality, you will realize how Trump
actually won. By talking about real issues that nobody else even dares to
touch.

~~~
pmoriarty
Since when were American politics about issues rather than image?

People who voted for Trump clearly liked his bombastic asshole style, and want
to stick it to the "liberal elite". There happened to be more of them this
time around than there were people afraid enough of a Trump presidency to vote
for a relatively subdued and conventional candidate.

That's, of course, given that there wasn't enough voting fraud to make a
difference, which with electronic voting machines in the mix isn't really a
given.

~~~
adventured
Obama popular vote 2008: 69.5 million

Obama popular vote 2012: 65.9 million

Hillary popular vote 2016: 63 million, maybe

That's why Hillary lost, the rather lame turnout by Democrats.

~~~
pmoriarty
Clinton wasn't a very inspiring candidate, that much is obvious. I think there
would have been a much better turnout for Bernie Sanders. He got people
excited (and he wasn't Clinton, so Republicans fed on a diet of Clinton hatred
for decades wouldn't have been so afraid to vote for him). But Sanders was too
unconventional for the Democratic leadership. Now hopefully the Democrats
learn that being unconventional and taking risks can win elections.

Somehow, though, I don't think they'll learn any lessons. They've dropped the
ball for too long, and played the role of the appeasers for too long. They've
cozied up to the Republicans and moved their party far to the right,
occasionally talking the talk but rarely walking the walk. This is what they
get.

~~~
adventured
Sanders fully understood what was going on with the voting base. He got that
the middle class is upset and wants the national priorities focused back on
improving the American standard of living, not on nation building / war /
foreign meddling / boosting globalist policies, et al.

Hillary on the other hand is a classic globalist, backed by Wall Street and an
endless parade of billionaires. She was the establishment in an anti-
establishment election.

~~~
tunesmith
The problem was, if that is true, then Trump already defeated Bernie in the
primaries. Those voters weren't going to vote for Hillary, Bernie needed them,
but they were already attending Trump rallies.

~~~
pmoriarty
Only about half of those voting the general election voted in the primaries.
The other half (far, far more than the margin that Trump won over Clinton by)
had yet to make their choice known by then.

Further, if Sanders had gotten the Democratic nomination, the debates, issues,
and media coverage would have been far different, perhaps even swaying those
who had wound up casting an anti-Clinton vote by voting for Trump to instead
vote for Sanders.

One other thing to keep in mind that the turnout for Trump may have been much
smaller had his opponent not been Clinton.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
> ...swaying those who had wound up casting an anti-Clinton vote by voting for
> Trump...

Why do people only seem to consider TWO candidates. There was a third on the
ballot to be considered. I wonder if these people did that at all.

Note: My point only is did they consider the third candidate. Not that they
should have voted for him.

~~~
skykooler
Because, like it or not, there are not enough Americans who will vote outside
party lines to give any third-party candidate a chance of winning.

------
nostromo
Such a watershed moment. A few things strike me:

* A Republican just won without being very religious and being wishy-washy on abortion.

* The loser out-spent the winner by huge amounts. Does money really buy elections? Maybe, but not this one.

* The rich abandoned Republicans, but many poor and working-class abandoned Democrats. [1]

1:
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/elections/e...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/elections/exit-
poll-analysis.html)

~~~
woodpanel
Yep.

Been following the coverage since the primaries and though I don't know who I
would have voted for, seeing the self righteous intelligentia being so
blatantly wrong on the election outcome gives me an embarrassing satisfaction.

None of the established media did even try to keep a disguise of neutrality.
Not in the US, not the BBC or here in Germany.

You can be against Trump all you want, but where has "journalistic standards"
been gone? If your whole organization is made up of individuals who see
themselves as morally-superior while being a Clinton-biased - how realistic is
it that this organization is able to get a realistic glimpse at the outside
world?

~~~
sdegutis
The media is entirely biased towards moral liberalism and I thought it was an
"open secret" that only the most self-deluded didn't know about. Of course
they're going to be biased towards Clinton, she's the morally liberal
candidate. That's their job. If they don't go along with it, surely they get
fired. They provide an avenue for confirmation bias, which is interesting
because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, considering most people are liberal
because of the strong influence of the (biased) media on them.

~~~
pedalpete
I believe Fox is the most watched news channel and Fox is the 2nd most popular
network behind CBS
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_television_networks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_television_networks)

So not all media is as liberal as you say. The sad bit is that the source of
media is so partisan that we only listen to what we want to hear (that goes
both to the right and to the left).

~~~
kristopolous
I think it's disingenuous to characterize a political stance of a continuation
on policy as "liberal". That's what "conservative" means by any dictionary out
there. These terms have become utterly useless.

~~~
pedalpete
Can you expand on this? I'm not grasping what you're saying but am curious.

~~~
kristopolous
if conservative means "don't change things" and liberal means "try new things"
then an establishment candidate which espouses to not change things would be
"conservative" while a candidate that wants to do dramatically different and
new things would be "liberal".

So what are we left it?

------
harry8
Obama rode to power on change ticket and immediately abandoned it, wholesale.

OK that didn't work so who else you got? Bernie, outsider with nothing, no
money, no establishment friends, too old, been a democtat for 5 minutes and
nearly got the democratic nomination and the dem establishment hate him and
broke the rules fighting him. Donald has fame and got the republican
nomination. Republican establishment hate him.

American voters want change. Change at any cost right now. And they'll keep
trying for it.

There has been no meaningful political reform. Regulatory capture and
gerrymander are the norm. People hate it. They genuinely hate the status quo,
the political establishment. Really hate it.

Whoever is judged the most likely to do something, anything, in the way of
reform has a huge advantage. You can be inexperienced and African American,
you can be a blow-hard who inherited a billion dollars. Doesn't matter if
people actually believe you are more for change and reform than the
opposition.

It's not the only important thing but having credibility as an agent for
change is extremely valuable. Hilary had precisely no credibility on that
count and was proud of it .

~~~
Brakenshire
> Obama rode to power on change ticket and immediately abandoned it,
> wholesale.

He had two years where he had legislative power, and spent that time shoring
up the US economy after the financial crisis and passing healthcare reform.
Had he passed political reform instead he would have been accused of putting
elite concerns before the practical things affecting ordinary people.

One of the problems in the US seems to be that the President has all the
rhetoric of a ruler, but in fact only has power with Congress.

People invest an enormous amount of hope and effort into the federal system,
but in fact it's mostly ineffective, if the two parties are at one another's
throats no one is capable of action a majority of the time. The system is set
up to rely on the states for action, but people move around so much the states
aren't seen as worth the effort (because you might be taking a job on the
other side of the country in a year or two). It's a system which doesn't
really match up with how people live their lives.

~~~
pjmorris
> He had two years where he had legislative power, and spent that time shoring
> up the US economy after the financial crisis and passing healthcare reform.

Respectfully, he shored up the banks that had precipitated the crisis rather
than the people most affected by the crisis. Some will call that virtuous and
necessary, or 'deeply unfair' and necessary (Timothy Geithner), but the people
who benefited are not the people who voted last night.

As for healthcare reform, he chose health insurance rather than health care.
From the point of view of most of the people who voted last night, that means
another bill to pay, not better healthcare.

He invested his power, to the degree he had it, more in keeping things the
same than in the change people voted him in for.

~~~
beerbajay
Obamacare is a compromise and it's a compromise required because of the
Republican party, there was never enough votes to get real health care
legislation. So: not Obama's fault, though it is the fault of the Democratic
party letting the Republicans gerrymander themselves to a consistent house
majority

~~~
pjmorris
Until 2010, the Democrats held control of the House, Senate, and White House.
At least consider the possibility that they accomplished what they wanted to
accomplish.

~~~
maxerickson
Procedural rules in the Senate gave a lot of influence to the marginal votes:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Afforda...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#Senate)

Which depending on which 'they' you are using, may or may not contradict your
point.

------
smackay
Jeez, everybody is all bent out of shape on this. The Republican establishment
hate Trump nearly as much as they hate Clinton so with Republicans controlling
The House and The Senate how much "damage" is President Trump going to be able
to do.

The really interesting part of all this was reading Scott Adams blog who
proposed the idea that Trump is a master persuader (probably this is just a
fancy name for populist). He has been blogging about persuasion techniques and
about cognitive biases and how humans are irrational creatures 90% of the time
and are open to persuasion techniques.

This seems to offend everybodies sensibilities but for me it's been
fascinating and a real eye-opener. The reaction (bias?) in the media has been
particularly interesting and has forever changed my world view.

If you have the time it's probably worth reading the posts for the past year
or so, [http://blog.dilbert.com/](http://blog.dilbert.com/) It won't be so
interesting now that we know the result but the ideas and methods of
persuasion he talks about will shape the future for a long time to come.

The cognitive dissonance being shown by the media is particularly funny. It's
amazing that they really don't understand that a large percentage of the
population voted for Trump because he probably represents for them a
reasonable hope for change. I'm waiting for somebody to suggest that nobody
actually voted for him and instead he rigged the election all by himself.

~~~
chc
Media bias? If anything, the media has been weirdly accommodating to Trump.
Trump literally hides his tax returns and they just kind of go "Oh well, guess
that's that," but they kept reporting on Clinton's emails ad nauseum no matter
how many times it was established that there was nothing there. When Comey
broke protocol and commented on her emails again a week ago, the story was
not, "Look how the GOP is trying to rig this election with a false scandal,"
the front page stories were once again credulous acceptance that there was
something fishy about Clinton. And when Comey once again failed to find
anything, that was a much smaller story.

IMO the media's hunger to appease Trump is one of the most interesting
contributors to this result.

~~~
mrweasel
Part of it is also that Hillary's emails was pretty much handed to the media,
with very little work required from their part. Digging into Trumps taxes or
other scandals would require actual work.

As for Comey, he had a lose/lose scenario. If he didn't go forward with the
new emails, and it had turned out that there was actually something worth
investigating, he's would have kept important information from the US public,
just before an election.

While Trump perhaps isn't exactly the ideal candidate for the US presidency, I
have the same take on him as I did on the Brexit: The world is simply to
boring a place for this to become a major issue. In the long run everything
will be fine.

~~~
chc
It's only been about a century since the Great Depression and the World Wars.
I think it's a little early to say tragic outcomes are off the table now.

~~~
mrweasel
True, but it also a little to early to assume that Trump will turn the US into
a 3. world country. Most of the things happing right now is due to people
panicking about a future that is now perceived as more unstable, compared to
if Hillary had won.

It's my belief that most of the short term problems that will arise from
president elect Donald Trump is because people make wild speculations, and
less because of his actions.

------
nopinsight
Brexit and the Trump election share the same root causes:

* Inequality within developed countries, leading to dissatisfaction among working-class voters.

* Globalization benefits accrue largely to capital owners, leaving a lot of workers behind. Many blame immigration since it is the most visible cause. The blame is partly backed by human's xenophobic instincts.

Ironically, Trump's tax plan will mostly benefit the rich. Instead, we need a
much better system to mitigate hardships from job losses to globalization and
technological change. The 2017 Congress will be very unlikely to enact such
policies.

I wonder how this tension will play out in the future...Thoughts?

~~~
BlackjackCF
Well, there's that saying about how the poor in America think of themselves as
temporarily embarrassed millionaires...

~~~
mistermumble
Poor whites in America seem to identify with rich whites more than others from
different races who are working (or unemployed) right next to them.

To them, Trump is like the star NFL quarterback that everyone wishes to be,
and wears that star's jersey on their back. Even if the fan is overweight and
can barely waddle across the parking lot.

Except that in reality Trump does not have the skills necessary to do the job.
(He is a great candidate, but will likely be a terrible president). Someone
observed that Trump is a poor person's idea of a rich person. He is
unfortunately likely a disenfranchised person's idea of an effective
president.

------
bdrool
This event and Brexit are proof that you cannot shame people into voting how
you want. Calling them bigots over and over just galvanizes them if anything.

~~~
henrikschroder
It's more of a case that us upper-middle class liberal elites _think_ we are
shaming this segment of the population when we are calling them bigots and
racists and stupid and uninformed and homophobic and hicks and white trash,
because those are horrible things that _we_ don't want to be called.

But a large part of the population don't share that sentiment, they're not
shamed, they don't care that you're screaming "RACIST!" at the top of your
lungs.

And when you address their actual concerns that globalization and automation
are killing their jobs, killing their communities, and killing their people
with a shrug, with an "I'm so sorry, move to the cities, get an education!",
they'll get angry. And political. And here we are.

~~~
tajen
Would you like to know how a normal person gets to vote for Trump?

I'm a male French, in France, and I intend to vote FN (extreme right). I have
higer education, 10 years of experience in programming, including 5 in 3
different countries. I have social values, like companies should take care of
the humans behind the employee, and we should give our maximum to include
everyone _who wants to be included_. I turned my back on leftist movements
because no matter how generous I was (e.g. thousands donated to charities,
>1200hrs of volunteering, engaged in social causes, etc), leftists always find
a way to depict me as a spoiled child with rich parents, and they dismiss any
good work I've made as a result of luck.

Oh and my 8-year old cousin was raped by an Arab teenager – I still don't know
whether that's due to probability or whether he identifies to the Arabs-
against-whites cause. It did change a lot for me.

So now that I'm freed from liberal shamers, I've decided to vote depending on
only one criteria. In my whole professional experience, promotions were given
to women, to the point that it was unfair to me; In my whole life women have
been bitter to me. I'm pretty satisfied that there are currently hundreds of
laws in favour of women which offset any inequality they can claim; The only
party which proposes to _keep_ those existing laws and not adding new ones is
FN, the extreme-right French party.

All in all, what you need to gain back someone like me is love. Give me luck
with finding a girlfriend, give me a fair treatment at work, recognize my
social engagement and the positive parts of my values, stop assuming all my
rationale is just raw racism or raw machism, stop assuming I've just been
lucky with work, and you'll get me back among the centrist voters.

But as long as it's not possible to expose my problems without hearing
generalizations and shaming, I'll keep voting FN.

~~~
whostolemyhat
So in summary, you're voting for an extremist far-right party because:

1\. You don't have a girlfriend

2\. You blame an entire race for your cousin being raped

3\. Women were promoted

4\. You feel society owes you thanks and praise.

But you're not a spoiled child.

~~~
NhanH
> 2\. You blame an entire race for your cousin being raped

You are putting words into his mouth. His description of the event was
entirely about a fact.

Quote for reference.

> Oh and my 8-year old cousin was raped by an Arab teenager – I still don't
> know whether that's due to probability or whether he identifies to the
> Arabs-against-whites cause. It did change a lot for me.

~~~
tajen
I'm GP: The race of the person is a data point, because it is entirely
probable that the rapist identifies to Daesh. Remember the 8 terrorist attacks
we've had in France between 2014 and 2015 and the Cologne rapes: It's entierly
plausible that Daesh had a strong support among the Arab community in France,
and no-one can neither deny nor confirm this _hypothesis_. Also, why does a
random rape have to be an Arab person, just 3 weeks away from the Cologne
events? Last point, I considered him as a friend of mine because I valued
inclusion, I invited him to my birthday party and trusted him like I would
trust any friend. Turns out I was wrong, and the result is a rape. A rape! The
height of the risk is so high, so Earth-shaking, I feel guilty of overlooking
our differences. I will keep trying to include people, but not as far as this
time.

I'm entierly entitled to evaluate several hypothesis from this event (4
exactly: Teenage, earning power, education, and cultural community differences
where race is one data point), and take resolutions to avoid getting in this
situation again.

Anyway, if you're not happy with that, don't rape people.

------
ctvo
Grew up in the US. I'm a minority. I think this is the only time in my life
I've ever felt like I didn't belong in America.

Tonight a large portion of the country confirmed that the US is for whites.
That it's not a melting pot. This demographic has been angry for a generation
because they've felt like their culture, their socio-economic status and way
of life is slipping away and this election (after 8 years of a black
president), the line in the sand would be drawn. The numbers don't show any
division in voting based on class, but an entire chunk of whites (women, men,
making under or over 100k+ a year, college education or not), all voting for
Donald Trump.

I don't know what the future looks like now for America.

~~~
ericras
I'm a white Trump voter in flyover country. You belong in America as do all
Americans. This was a push back against an out of touch corrupt elite in
Washington and mass immigration. Not all immigration, but the massive
increases of the past several decades. Yes, we do want to preserve the culture
- not white culture but American culture. I fully expect that Trump will reach
out and moderate. If not, there's always another election that's just two
years away.

~~~
Quarrelsome
and if he does what he's said and re-implements stop and frisk and every non-
white citizen has to frequently deal with the indignity of being searched all
the time? Your sentiment while delightful isn't in line with the sort of
policies Trump has been promoting during his campaign.

~~~
steveeq1
Ok, non-white writing here. I've never been stopped and frisked and neither
have most of my non-white friends. And it certainly doesn't happen "all the
time", at least to me in my part of town. Although anecdotal, admittedly.

~~~
Quarrelsome
I'm just reminded of a story shared in New York in the 80's where a teacher
asked his mostly 14-15 year old African American class if they had been
stopped and frisked and every single one of them held their hand up.

~~~
steveeq1
Well, me and my friends have different experiences then.

------
jrockway
Who knew that not paying any taxes, asking your "second amendment people" to
finish off your opponent, and using your position of power and authority to
sexually assault people could lead to becoming the most powerful person in the
free world.

We live in the darkest of times.

~~~
gragas
You're delusional. Trump has paid more in taxes than you will make in your
entire life. Perhaps not _income_ taxes, but some form or another.

He'd be in jail if he broke the law.

~~~
mikeyouse
Yes, we all know that the extremely wealthy who break financial laws always
see justice and punishment.

------
dang
It pains me to see HN serving pages so slowly, so I'm going to try an
experiment and bury the current thread for a minute or two. Don't worry, we'll
restore it or an equivalent; momentous stories like this one (or Brexit) are
exceptions to the general rule against politics here. I just want to see if
not having to render 2000 comments so often will let us catch a breath.

Edit: ok, that definitely helped. I think the easiest solution might be to
post a different story, let that one make the front page, and link to this
thread from there. The WaPo article is a bit old at this point anyhow.

If you'd like to be a good citizen—and what would be a better time for
that?—then please log out to read HN today, unless you want to comment. Then
we can serve you from cache and HN's single-core Racket process will creak
slightly less under the strain.

~~~
ohyoutravel
I am logging out to read as requested, but out of curiosity, why does logging
out help the page loads?

~~~
elsurudo
Probably due to caching. The page looks exactly the same to all logged-out
users, but need customization for logged-in users.

~~~
piyush_soni
I still don't get it much (not a web developer). The only customization that I
see is probably in the top bar. Can nothing be done that the page contents are
still loaded from the cache but the top bar is loaded separately and
customized for logged in users?

~~~
thesmok
Not just the top bar: Upvote/Unvote buttons on each comment are different for
logged-in users.

~~~
piyush_soni
Oh yes, I missed that. So that makes the whole webpage different.

------
sho_hn
So as a European ... Clinton didn't spend enough time in the Upper Midwest
expecting to carry those states, but Trump had an actual message for them
(NAFTA, etc.) while Hillary didn't, and they don't care that he is racist and
sexist, they want their jobs back, so the election was called by a 40+ white
demo in an economically depressed region just like old Middle England called
Brexit. About right?

~~~
thomasahle
Upper Midwest? Wasn't it just a question of Florida and North Carolina?

~~~
Kadin
Florida and North Carolina were considered competitive or "tossup" states,
while several of the upper Midwestern states were considered fairly safe
Democrat territories, probably because they were historically dominated by
unionized manufacturing workers. That latter assumption has proved to be very
unsafe, and it's become apparent that many of those formerly-reliable Democrat
voters have switched sides, at least for this election.

~~~
Godel_unicode
The point is, if she had carried Pennsylvania and Florida, she would have won.
The mid-west states she lost don't make up that gap.

------
l33tbro
Call Trump what you will, but he played the media like Hendrix. They took the
troll-bait and reported every outrageous soundbite gleefully, all in pursuit
of a few clicks and ad-bucks. Meanwhile, Trump gained more and more of a
platform and eventually established a cult of personality.

~~~
estefan
Given all the barefaced lies told during the Brexit campaign and the US
campaign it does lead to questions about democracy, i.e. should the average
man on the street really decide?

To be sure I'm not advocating Communism but perhaps up until 20 years ago the
lack of social media helped contain outright lies and extreme views, perhaps
with people asking the intellectual(s) in their social circles about
candidates. There was also the social engineering aspect of TV soaps (e.g.
featuring gay characters to make homosexuality more accepted). Social media
has done away with that and allows anyone to broadcast to the world.

The media report the lies and it's impractical to research everything
politicians say. Even if someone reports that the lie was a lie, by then the
damage is done. Trump played this game all the way through. He knew what he
said would be reported far more than the accuracy of the statements.

This result raises a lot of questions, few of which I suspect will be answered
and will lead to even fewer changes I imagine.

~~~
Taek
I've never been in favor of democracy. We live in a world where specialization
is a requirement to function. Politics really shouldn't be any different.

I know a lot about cybersecurity. When it comes to encryption, cyber warfare,
anything cryptocurrency, you want me voting because believe me, I know more
than 99.9% of the US population on those topics. It's an informed vote.

But for education, immagration, healthcare, gun law, it'd be dishonest to say
I'm informed. And people who think it's my duty to be informed are being
unrealistic. The number of significant issues make being fully informed a full
time job. I'm not ashamed to not know what Aleppo is. I recognize that it's
important and would like to yeild my vote to someone who knows more than I do.

There are other topics like energy and drugs where I would consider myself
well informed, but perhaps just well informed enough to want something stupid.
Should I be voting on those topics? Honestly probably not.

~~~
djhn
Hence we should form alliances with people who we judge to be experts in their
respective fields, and pursue a shared platform. Oh wait, we just invented the
political party system.

~~~
Dylan16807
Parties would work pretty well if we had several viable ones. And that in turn
only takes a few changes to the voting system.

------
PeterStuer
I personally believe Clinton was almost uniquely qualified as the only
democrat that could lose this election from Trump. The political establishment
underestimates the underlying resentment. "The winners know that they’re
winning but have been very slow to realize that the losers know that they’re
losing and are enraged about the fact." The linked article, put in hash words
but look beyond that, was written after the Brexit poll, but it is as relevant
here: "Corrupt elites always try to persuade people to continue to submit to
their dominance in exchange for protection from forces that are even worse.
That’s their game. But at some point, they themselves, and their prevailing
order, become so destructive, so deceitful, so toxic, that their victims are
willing to gamble that the alternatives will not be worse, or at least, they
decide to embrace the satisfaction of spitting in the faces of those who have
displayed nothing but contempt and condescension for them.

"There is no single, unifying explanation for Brexit, Trumpism, or the growing
extremism of various stripes throughout the West, but this sense of angry
impotence — an inability to see any option other than smashing those
responsible for their plight — is undoubtedly a major factor. As Bevins put
it, supporters of Trump, Brexit, and other anti-establishment movements “are
motivated not so much by whether they think the projects will actually work,
but more by their desire to say FUCK YOU” to those they believe (with very
good reason) have failed them"

[https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-
lates...](https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-latest-proof-
of-the-insularity-and-failure-of-western-establishment-institutions/)

~~~
rafinha
Very true. Allow me to add the fact that it has been shown (via wikileaks)
that Hillary and the DNC conspired in the primaries process, specially against
Bernie Sanders, invalidating her even more in the final voting.

------
rdtsc
Also this wasn't as much a vote _for_ Trump it was a vote _against_ Hillary.

The Democrats had this election in their pocket, if it only wasn't for their
corruption. They should have really stopped and paid attention to what
happened with Bernie Sanders. That wasn't just something to shrug off, it
should have been a stopping moment. I believe Bernie would have had no problem
winning against Trump.

Also I really liked the media in this campaign, I watched it for
entertainment. Some channels thought they were helping by pretty much becoming
an off-shoot for DNC and Hillary's campaign. But it blew up in their face,
because people saw through that, so it had the opposite effect.

~~~
ainiriand
Yes, I agree completely with what you say. It is my impression that picking a
fight against Trump by someone like Hillary is a poor choice. There is no way
of beating him in its own ground, so Hillary was a poor choice. Someone like
Bernie Sanders would have been a good rival because he is not involved (as far
as we know) in dirty secrets or messy politics.

------
cryptica
I'm surprised by how many of my non-US friends are calling Americans 'Stupid'
right now on social media for voting for Trump.

I think that the Trump victory actually shows the opposite; that Americans are
smart enough to think for themselves regardless of what the media tells them.

They got to the meat of the information without buying into all the spin that
the media put around it.

I strongly disagree with several things that Trump stands for but I think that
overall this is a really good outcome. It shows that the people are still in
control - Not the media, not the celebrities, not the elites.

That is reassuring.

~~~
angry-hacker
While I never ever wanted Trump because of the geopolitical situation in
eastern Europe, I can understand Americans who voted for him.

You can't turn a dead eye on half of the population, call them stupid, racist,
bigoted (heck, some even argue here democracy doesn't work and the people who
voted shouldn't be able to vote, go figure.) and then expect the worst
habitual liar, a psycho candidate to win.

It was literally the easiest elections in the history for the Democrats, but
somehow they were able to fuck up. Let's see what the future brings.

From a personal point of view, I hope Nato stays (somewhat) strong. Again, I
understand the anger of your people for us, Europeans, outsourcing the defense
budget to American taxpayers (while it does come with some benefits).

~~~
chillwaves
> I understand the anger of your people for us, Europeans, outsourcing the
> defense budget to American taxpayers (while it does come with some
> benefits).

This is not an act of altruism. US global hegemony dictates our military
spending, regardless of what Europe does. We (at least the select few elite)
reap the benefits of this arrangement. Hell, even the folks complaining in
America aren't complaining about the money being funneled into the MIC in
their district that creates good jobs to build weapons of war.

~~~
angry-hacker
I guess I'm in strange position wanting U.S to police the world. Only because
of Russia. But with Trump we will see, hopefully it's not new molotov -
rippentrop.

------
pasta
To me this shows how hard it is to come up with good solutions for problems.

I think both Trump and Clinton know what the problems in the US are. The
difference is: Trump is naming all problems but doesn't provide real
solutions, Clinton is only naming problems she has a solution for.

That's why the working class votes for Trump because he is the only one who is
talking about their problems.

The same is happening here in The Netherlands. Politics doesn't likes to talk
about problems with immigration. Wilders does. That's why he is very popular.
But just like Trump his solutions are unrealistic.

This is also why I don't think a lot is going to change in the US. The
unrealistic solutions are what they are: unrealistic. So the Mexican wall is
never going to be build.

The only sad outcome is that this populistic talk is dividing the nation.

~~~
d33
There are at least two problems here: one is figuring out a solution and the
other is communicating it to the general public in a politically correct
manner. Perhaps if we agreed to talk in a more straightforward fashion without
making it kind of a "who's going to feel offended first" contest, things would
improve faster...

------
noir-york
It is fitting I suppose that on the anniversary of the 18 Brumaire, Napolean's
coup d'etat, we should get a Trump presidency.

And it doesn't end there, you need to look at the entire ticket; it is a clean
sweep by the GOP who also have control of the Senate and the House. The GOP
will be able to pass any legislation unimpeded, such as repealing Obamacare.

More consequentially, Trump gets to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. The
effects of that will last for a generation, way beyond his presidency.

Elections have consequences, and this election has significantly shifted the
political landscape.

------
redial
Peter Thiel is not looking so foolish right now...

~~~
M_Grey
The man who thinks that young blood (literally) is going to keep him alive?
That Peter Thiel?

Yes he does.

~~~
jules
Believe it or not, there is a fairly solid scientific basis for that.

~~~
M_Grey
No, there is some evidence that geriatric mice sharing a circulatory system
with juvenile mice achieves that end for a while. The difference between
sharing a circulatory system, and getting some transfusions really can't be
overstated.

------
esja
I didn't want this to happen, but I believed it would. There were a lot of
signals, for those ignoring the group-think. e.g. Clinton needed a lot more
help than Trump to get big crowds to her rallies, and Obama had to get
involved at the last minute in allegedly "safe" states.

There is deep frustration with our economic system, which isn't being
addressed. Clinton is unfortunately a very clear embodiment of the current
system.

Trump is far from a perfect vessel for his messages, but he only needed to be
better than Clinton, and he hit the key notes (e.g. regarding trade and jobs)
over and over.

Sanders would have won.

~~~
esja
Just to add:

Trump won despite being massively out-spent, despite his party being against
his nomination, despite the entire mainstream media being against him, despite
his business "issues", and despite all the publicised gaffes and scandals. In
the face of that he seems to have won significantly more of the "white women"
vote than Clinton.

Anyone seriously believing he won due to bigotry etc. needs to reassess. The
USA is a better country than that, and he has won convincingly.

Edit: I forgot Wall Street. Almost unanimous support for Clinton.

~~~
Ygg2
Trump played as an outsider. And media, his own party and everyone treated him
as pariah or an outsider. This just confirmed Trump's credibility in eyes of
voters looking for outsiders. I'd say that's a large part of why he won.

EDIT: Sorry, hard to detect sarcasm.

~~~
esja
More than a second actually. If you read both my comments, I think we agree.

The Democrats managed to persuade themselves that the public would elect the
most "establishment" candidate imaginable. This after their own anti-
establishment candidate had done incredibly well in the primaries (and had
been polling above Trump). Books will be written about this self-delusion.

------
Houshalter
I hate democracy. Most voters aren't informed at all. Attractive candidates
win 2.5 times more often than less attractive ones. Money and crappy 30 second
ads apparently influence the outcome. First past the post voting means no one
can even vote for what they really want to begin with.

It wouldn't be so bad if the president didn't have enormous power. And they
aren't supposed to. But it's been growing so much over the years. Maybe now
people will understand why its so important to limit it.

~~~
mikeash
I'd like to offer a more optimistic view.

The true advantages of democracy are things that are rarely talked about and
which people are mostly unaware. In my opinion, they are:

1\. The availability of non-violent ways to push for change and seek redress.

2\. A way to reliably and peacefully transition from one leader to another.

These are big problems with non-democratic governments. If people don't feel
like they have a chance to change the system from within, they'll eventually
resort to violence. If there isn't a widely agreed upon way to choose the next
leader and transition power to them, then there will be succession struggles.

In a healthy democracy, people are encouraged to seek change politically, and
the people accept the outcome whatever it may be.

As Scott Alexander put it in his Anti-Reactionary FAQ: "If you remember
nothing else about the superiority of democracies to other forms of
government, remember the fact that in three years, we will have a change of
leadership and almost no one is stocking up on canned goods to prepare for the
inevitable civil war."

Note that these advantages _do not depend on making good choices_. They only
require the _availability_ of choices, and widespread acceptance of the
outcomes. Obviously, making good choices would be really nice, but they aren't
the best feature of the system.

This is actually what troubles me most about Trump. Bad policies and terrible
morals are one thing, but he directly attacked the very notion of democracy
itself. All the talk of the election being rigged and perhaps not accepting
the results is setting up his followers to reject the entire system, not just
his opponents. And I find myself sincerely wondering if he'd willingly leave
office in 2021 if he loses the next time around, or in 2025 if he wins.

~~~
Houshalter
No I agree. Democracy is better than monarchy. But that's a super low bar to
pass. Not something to be proud of. I think there are alternative systems that
are even better.

Just as a start, switching to an alternative voting system would be amazing.
It's been shown that systems like approval voting are a better improvement
over plurality voting, then plurality voting is over monarchy
([http://rangevoting.org/UniqBest.html#HugePos](http://rangevoting.org/UniqBest.html#HugePos)).
And that still works in the framework of democracy. I'd ideally like to get
rid of voting entirely and replace it with something like randomly sampling
representatives from the population.

~~~
mikeash
I don't think it's a such a low bar to pass. Historically, it's been a common
and major problem. Overcoming it is both tough and significant.

That said, I don't mean to dismiss concerns beyond that. My point is really
just a long-winded "well, it could be a lot worse."

------
throw2016
I honestly thought the Trump presidency attempt was a big internal joke. I
didn't think Trump himself believed he would become president ever.

This guy is clearly a sociopath lacking in empathy typical of the american
elite and his behavior has just been rewarded. It's really troubling what this
means for Americans who are not rich or white. It also troubling we celebrate
wealth to an extent we do not view having an elite class of extremely selfish
and self serving individuals as a problem which has directly got us to the
Trump presidency.

Hilary Clinton was completely untrustworthy and tedious so the alternative was
a bad choice. The democrats have themselves to blame for not taking their own
policies seriously, posturing, paying lip service to the poor and unprivileged
for decades, and failing completely to put up an inspiring candidate. They
have supported and built the surveillance state, ignored the poor and
destroyed millions of lives in the middle east.

I don't think Trump can be called a good person. His perspective on life is
shaped by wealth, privilege, ego and acqusitions. It all economics and very
little humanity. Some of his positions are unquestionably racist and
unpleasant.

It's troubling and telling that a majority of this country thought such an
individual should 'lead' them. All pretensions are off, the mask has dropped
to reveal the deep ugliness within. All those smug comedians making fun of
Trump look like clowns themselves.

------
dibstern
Honestly Brexit and Trump both tell me that democracy doesn't work, because
the majority of the population is undereducated, bigoted, and has absolutely
no idea about how to run an economy - it makes no sense for the working class
who don't understand the most basic of economic concepts to influence how the
economy is run.

I hope he doesn't screw America's economy by preventing skilled immigrants
coming in and helping the tech industry, and by screwing up America's free
trade deals. The return of protectionist & economically idiotic policy could
truly screw the US.

~~~
jakebasile
Can you cite an example where a modern dictatorship substantially improved its
subject's lives?

This kind of demeaning talk is what got us here. Most people are, by
definition, of nearly average intelligence. And someone's intellect doesn't
preclude them from the right to have a voice in how they are governed just
because they disagree with you.

I voted for Clinton, so I'm just as disappointed as you are. Let's work to fix
it, not further divide our already fractured country.

~~~
catshirt
> Most people are, by definition, of nearly average intelligence

that's... optimistic. doesnt that also mean half the population is below
average intelligence?

~~~
mdpopescu
Yes, but on a bell curve the majority of the population is concentrated close
to the average.

------
Gatsky
The general sadness is unwarranted. Trump has already toned it down in the
acceptance speech. There is no better way to sedate a demagogue than to let
them gain office.

There are two types of elections these days - those where candidates are
career politicians that are rather moderate, and opposing parties have very
similar policies. These elections are always very close, nobody gets much of a
majority, and nothing is achieved. The second type is where demagogues talk a
lot of nonsense with impunity, and get voted in because of vague notions about
their ability to disrupt 'the system'. They usually espouse conservative,
paranoid, xenophobic views. They also don't achieve anything substantial,
because fundamentally, they don't see running the country as their job, their
job is to win, and whatever happens after that, well who cares? The weird
leadership vacuum after Brexit was a classic example of this. Trump will
probably fall into this second category, but there is a small chance he could
actually turn himself into effective President. The most likely outcome though
is 4 years of aimlessness. I also doubt he will get 2 terms. I think as an
incumbent, the advantages that helped him win this election will probably
evaporate.

~~~
kayamon
I doubt he wrote that speech. Don't believe for a minute that he's had some
kind of change of heart.

Just listen to the non-scripted stuff he's been saying at his rallies lately
-- that's the guy we're going to get.

~~~
dennisgorelik
It was a competitive game for Trump. Election campaign was one stage (that
required being aggressive). Actually running a country is another stage, so he
is using a different tactic (cooperation with other politicians).

------
gotofritz
I think it boils down to Clinton not being a good candidate - she's "the
establishment", a woman, and has no charisma. You can't have all three and
still win.

Obama had the "handicap" of being black and "a funny name" but has plenty
charisma and was seen as an outsider. Trump has charisma (for some) and is an
outsider. Clinton has no redeeming quality in the eye of the electorate, even
many who voted for her did so to stop Trump, not because they believed in her.

------
adt2bt
I, like many, did not see this coming and I am truly afraid for the future of
the USA. We sure showed up Brexit, though.

~~~
snag
I don't care much for america. after all they are consenting adults who voted
for the best candidate they had. I am more concerned about the consequences
for the rest of the world.

~~~
thesimpsons1022
goodbye baltic states. you had a good run. im sure putin will enjoy his
empire.

~~~
Strom
I assume you're referring to Trump not being happy with NATO members
freeloading on USA. Estonia spends >2% GDP on military [1] as the NATO
guidelines say. Thus, at least in regards of Estonia, Trump should be
satisfied.

[1] US, Greece, UK, Estonia, Poland are the only NATO members who pay at least
2% GDP in 2016.
[http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_0...](http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_07/20160704_160704-pr2016-116.pdf)

------
mindcrime
Threads here are all over the place, and I guess there's a lot that can be
said in response to Trump's election. So I'll just chime in with this, which
is a hasty, from-memory, partial rehash of something I posted on Facebook
earlier.

If you have a problem with Trump being elected, or with our political system
as it is in general, consider this old saw

 _" If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've
been getting."_

Now, full disclosure, I'm a "third party" guy (Libertarian, specifically)
anyway, so I am absolutely biased, no bones about it. But I believe that part
of doing something besides "what we've always done" means starting to vote for
3rd party candidates. Screw Duverger's Law, forget "lesser of two evils"
voting, and quit voting out of fear. I posit that people need to start voting
for candidates they support instead of voting against candidates they are
afraid of.

Along with that, of course, belong efforts to switch voting systems to
approval voting, or Condorcet voting, etc., as well as efforts to eliminate
restrictive ballot access laws, open up the debates, etc.

Basically, we have to break up this duopoly that has been in place for 100+
years, or nothing is really going to change. Of course my hope is that all
this will lead to more Libertarians in office,but even if you don't support
the Libertarian viewpoint, I hope most everybody can agree that the current
system isn't working as it should.

~~~
dmux
>"If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've
been getting."

In George Carlin's skit about not voting, he says "garbage in, garbage out"
when referring to our politicians. We get what we deserve.

------
simosx
Both the BREXIT campaigners and Trump over-promised on how they will fix the
financial crisis.

Neither started to deliver yet, and will be seeing what they can actually do
in 2017.

It kinda does not make sense because their promises are either mutually
exclusive (strict fiscal policy but spending) or do not play well with the
rest of the world (tariffs and other trade restrictions which eventually would
be matched on the other side).

In many smaller countries, the politicians would run a whole campaign on the
disaffected feeling and over-promising on how good they will be in fixing it.
Once they were in power however, they would not achieve much and the next
party would over-promise in order to get elected.

In the following years we will witness how over-promising will play with a
super-power.

~~~
intoverflow2
>Both the BREXIT campaigners and Trump over-promised on how they will fix the
financial crisis.

Important to keep in mind that even large amounts of the pro-Brexit campaign
didn't _actually_ expect to win, it was meant to be a bargaining chip.

------
rl3
This election proved that virtually the entirety of the election prediction
space has no idea what the hell it's doing.

We live in a world of big data with vast computational resources, and this
outcome is somehow an upset—a totally unexpected surprise.

~~~
Strilanc
538 gave more than 25% chance to Trump winning. That's losing two coin flips,
not "totally unexpected".

~~~
rl3
The degree by which Trump won is the "totally unexpected" part.

~~~
OscarCunningham
Only just? He even lost the popular vote.

------
incogitomode
Absolutely the most depressing political event of my life. I would have
generally written off an outcome like this as a product of personal
mosanthropy and pessimism, only held in check by past results that surprised
me in a good way.

While my filter bubble isn't solid enough to not understand this, I truly wish
it wasn't the case.

As our new president-elect says; so sad.

------
Fifer82
America's greatest outcome today was their shunning of the Media. I am so
proud. As a Skeptic and outsider, 95% of the media was anti trump. America
made its own choice, and it has the balls to stand by it and make a success of
it.

------
jroseattle
Big data and big polling (Nate Silvers) took a major credibility hit in this
election. People will be studying this for years.

Of course, it's not that big data itself was to blame, just the interpretation
of it. Nate, not sure what to tell you but that was a significant miss in this
election, going all the way back into the primaries.

~~~
dagw
Fivethirtyeight said the odds for Clinton where about 70-30 and trending
narrower. Given how close the final win was I wouldn't really call that a
miss. The miss where the models that where calling it 90+ for Clinton

~~~
Shivetya
well it simply comes down to they aren't much better than other groups and its
most likely because they stopped being really objective. for those who have
followed that site its not been fun to watch

~~~
FrojoS
Not true. Fivethirtyeight said repeatedly that Clinton's lead was within a
standard polling error and that hence a Clinton defeat was about as likely as
a Clinton landslide. They also pointed out over and over again, that the
uncertainty in this election was higher than e.g. 4 years ago (Romney was
given a 9% chance).

"To be honest, I’m kind of confused as to why people think it’s heretical for
our model to give Trump a 1-in-3 chance — which does make him a fairly
significant underdog, after all. There are a lot of ways to build models, and
there are lots of factors that a model based on public polling, like ours,
doesn’t consider.3 But the public polls — specifically including the highest-
quality public polls — show a tight race in which turnout and late-deciding
voters will determine the difference between a clear Clinton win, a narrow
Clinton win and Trump finding his way to 270 electoral votes."

\-- Nate Silvers on Nov 6

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-dont-
ign...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-dont-ignore-the-
polls-clinton-leads-but-its-a-close-race/)

~~~
794CD01
Which is still inaccurate. Trump didn't narrowly squeeze by to 270, he's on
track to clear 300.

~~~
OscarCunningham
The number of electoral college votes is not a good measure of how close an
election is. Like getting 50.5% of the vote in Florida rather than 49.5%
increases your number of electoral college votes by 58.

A better measure of closeness might be how many votes would have to change to
change the winner. I think by that measure this election is incredibly tight.

~~~
bpicolo
Yeah. That number is what, like 200,000 at most?

~~~
mikeash
The electoral college system means most elections are pretty close if you
consider how many votes could theoretically flip the result. About 70,000
votes would flip Florida this time, for example, and about 35,000 votes would
flip Pennsylvania.

Of course, nothing is likely to come close to 2000, where changing a mere 269
votes would have changed the outcome.

------
criley2
I hope everyone in this thread realizes that what they do: writing software
and creating machines to replace uneducated lower income white workers -- is
probably the single greatest driver to white economic anxiety and the rise of
modern white nationalism.

The scary thing is... none of us will stop. Our software, our robots, our big
data, how many millions more will be displaced by the next election? How long
until taxis and trucks are being massively displaced?

With automation we're digging a grave and the people whom are getting put into
that grave will turn to anyone -- anyone -- who promises they can change it.

Donald Trump will be the first of many populist white nationalists in the West
who meekly promise they can stop globalization and automation.

They can't. Those jobs are dead men walking. The white working class is a
zombie, undead, going through the motions, with twenty million more jobs on
the cutting block in the next decade.

A billion guns, a hundred million angry poor white people, and all we're doing
is displacing them and validating their anger. What an industry.

------
welanes
Will the people who denigrated his supporters so vehemently here and on
Twitter pause to ask themselves why Trump won so convincingly, and whether
their reflexes to publicly shame his supporters may have played a role in the
outcome?

I'd hope they would. There are many important conversations to be had but we
need to begin by understanding and respecting the opinions of the other side.

------
ipsin
I have to readjust my own mental model of what it means to be an American.
It's not the end of the world, but shit, what happens to the Supreme Court
will have implications for the next few decades.

------
lis
This is one of the issues that the social media bubble creates.

We don't reach people that are different, neither do their voices reach us. We
are all so connected nowadays and yet so separated.

~~~
PerfectElement
How did you reach those people before social media?

~~~
lis
I'm not sure if we did, but we didn't forget that they exist. We focussed so
much on publishing facts (and rants) on social media, instead of talking to
the people directly.

There are zero Trump supporters on my timeline, everybody is shocked and
horrified. I would bet that there are people out there who have a
diametrically opposed timeline with zero HC supporters. We need to get those
people together instead of further alienating and separating them by "better",
more personalised and targeted algorithms.

------
eva1984
Several things come to my mind:

1.It marks as the final blow to US hegemony ever since USSR clashes. It is
hard for me to believe, after this election, US will still be hailed as THE
example that others should follow. Too many scandals and ugliness have been
unleashed. That era is now officially over.

2.US will start look inwards other outwards. I mean globalization will halt to
correction, or we will see the start of reverse of it.

3.Immigration will be tamed, across all level of skills. There will be more
political pressure and obstacle for company to absorb foreign talents. Not
good news for developers to seek job here in US.

4.History will not end after all, human as species is too complex for that.

5.Last not least, this election breaks a lot of values, or the illusion of
having them, but fails to bring up its own. This is the ultimate devastating
part. The boundary between democracy and populism is vaguer than ever, and its
benefits, other than a national ritual to legalize a new administration, is
putting under questions.

------
nabla9
Trump is not an isolated event. Populism is growing everywhere

\- Italy: Silvio Berlusconi era (- 2011)

\- Philippines: Rodrigo Duterte

\- Hungary: right wing populist party in charge

\- Poland: populist Law and Justice party in charge

\- Britain: Brexit, Boris Johnson

\- Turkey: Erogan

~~~
V-2
"Populism" is sort of a weasel word, but Law and Justice (in Poland) is
arguably less populist than the party they replaced at power (Civic Platform),
and certainly much less corrupt, whether you like their conservative outlook
or not.

~~~
d33
Ah, the ultimate PO vs PiS discussion ;) I would disagree. They keep coming up
with ideas and not implement them later because despite having enough
resources to pass any law they please. It just shows that their ideas cannot
actually be translated into legislation. PO, the previous party didn't have a
clear vision either, but I don't recall as much "breakthrough" changes being
announced back then.

As for being corrupt, keep in mind they're completely bought by the church.
This by itself is a huge red flag of corruption for me.

~~~
V-2
"Bought by the church"? In what sense? Financial, I assume? What indicates
that?

The populism exhibited by PO was of a different sort, of course. We can
probably agree about it.

Despite being "civic" and all, they actually set out on explicitly
discouraging any political involvement - with the slogan that went "let's not
make politics" and the infamous "how water in taps" rhetorics.

They refused to acknowledge every major problem the country faced, dismissing
any voices of discontent as mere frustration (or worse). Painting a rosy
picture of "the best times in a 1000 years", dismissing international security
concerns as baseless fears (eg. in president Komorowski's speech not long
before the invasion on Ukraine) etc.

At the same time they were - and still are - a chameleon party, perfectly able
to flip-flop on every issue overnight, solely for PR reasons... All this is
100% populism. A teflon variety, of course.

~~~
d33
> "Bought by the church"? In what sense? Financial, I assume? What indicates
> that?

They seem to use church as a way to get as many votes as possible while
balancing between many political options. There's a lot of cases where they
publicly suck up to Rydzyk, but when there was a political discussion about,
say, abortion - they "negotiate" with the church trying to avoid annoying the
general public. It's a weak party, trying to buy everyone's votes but not
really showing any real intent of improving things in the long term.

As for your perspective on PO, I agree. Just keep in mind that it's PiS that
passed the recent police surveillance law, so they don't look so good in terms
of comparison to "dismissing any voices of discontent as mere frustration (or
worse)". Also, the constitution crisis tells a lot about their attitude as
well.

~~~
V-2
> _They seem to use church as a way to get as many votes as possible while
> balancing between many political options_

Well, it's a conservative party in a mostly catholic country. What else would
they be doing? You just described the most reasonable political strategy such
a party could employ. I really fail to see how this constitutes "corruption"
by any definition of the term.

It's also funny how they're being interchangeably accused of being inflexible,
diehard fanatics consumed by ideologies - and at the same time, "balancing
between options" every time they aren't totally rigid but pragmatic about
something. Fanatics! And sell-outs! Rinse and repeat :)

> _Just keep in mind that it 's PiS that passed the recent police surveillance
> law, so they don't look so good in terms of comparison to "dismissing any
> voices of discontent as mere frustration (or worse)"_

But, while deserving criticism, this was actually the legislation started by
the previous government. Which granted extra powers to several agencies (NIK,
revenue), used anti-terrorist squads for arresting bloggers in their homes
(the "Antykomor" case), tried to censor the internet access etc.

Yet the mainstream media didn't make a big deal out of it back then; neither
did the EU nor its affiliates. Why? Because they had the backing of main EU
countries. And why did they have it? Because unlike Law and Justice, they were
fully submissive to international corporations who finance political campaigns
in Germany, in France etc. That's the whole secret. That's all there is to it
really. The rest is smokescreen.

------
JumpCrisscross
How does this change Silicon Valley'a relationship with Washington and the
American cultural narrative? In an world where urbanisation, diversification
and a global American technological hegemony are "good" American values,
Silicon Valley for right in. But now our values are under fire and our titans
likely liable for payback.

Does this restructure the entrenched powers? Or merely force them to rebrand
as rebels?

------
defen
I take this as the ultimate vindication of pg's "It's Charisma, Stupid" essay
from 12 years ago
[http://paulgraham.com/charisma.html](http://paulgraham.com/charisma.html)

------
michaelvoz
Been living in the Bay Area for 17 years. Nothing will change.

~~~
M_Grey
Only if you believe that the Supreme Court has no impact on your life, which
would be... an interesting position to take really.

~~~
andars
.

~~~
M_Grey
Citizens United.

~~~
nostrademons
Citizens United has had basically zero effect on my life. Before it, rich
folks controlled politics. After it, rich folks controlled politics. The only
difference is that now they can do so more overtly, and everybody knows that's
how the system works.

------
einrealist
A President who considers Climate Change a hoax. I am now really afraid for
mankind.

~~~
adrr
Irony is Florida voted for Trump. They have the largest risk for rising sea
levels.

~~~
swalsh
The Irony is that rich countries not only benefited the most of the use of
fossil fuels, we're also now in the best position to deal with changes. The
people it will impact the most are poorer countries.

------
sergiotapia
It's been an incredible journey and frankly it's amazing he managed to cross
the finish line. What a winner!

I'm excited about the future of my country. OPTIMISM! No more self loathing
and defeatism. Time to rekindle the American dream.

~~~
mark_l_watson
+1 I did not vote for Trump, but I sincerely admire your enthusiasm.

Trump's victory speech was gracious and I hope Americans rally behind him. I
intend this to be a general comment: once a candidate wins the presidency, I
think it right for Americans to offer best wishes and as much support that
they can, given their political views.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
Why? If you deeply disagree with everything the person stands for then why
would you offer anything but opposition?

I get that you think that sometimes bipartisanism is needed, but this man's
views seem so deeply offensive and dangerous to the rest of the modern world
that trying to be "balanced" is actually just making holding those views seem
acceptable.

~~~
dkhenry
When Obama entered office there was a good slice of the population that
genuinely disagreed with his policy, but because of his landslide victory and
his overwhelming support in both houses of congress he just moved forwards
with his agenda, and the opposition became very bitter, it took the next six
years for those on the other side just to listen to anything he had to say as
as a result major internal crisis were not dealt with as effectively as they
could have been.

There were at least two major issues that could have made significant progress
if Obama had tread a more middle of the road path in his first term. Gun
Violence and Police Brutality. Thats saying nothing of the immigration crisis
going on with minors fleeing south America en mass.

Later in his tenure I see a different Obama who just looks to be just as
disenfranchised with the political system of America as the American people
and I hope the lesson everyone can take away is the first priority of any
ruling party should be to build bridges to the opposition, not ram through
their policy's. If that is the case it is the job of the opposition to
facilitate finding and pursuing common ground not just opposing everything, if
you oppose everything you will just harden the differences and places where
people do agree will be ignored for the sake of signaling

------
pmoriarty
It will be most interesting to see the fallout from this on the Republican
side.

Will there be consequences for all those high level Republicans who dared to
publicly come out against Trump? Will they still be against Trump now that
he's won, or will they start supporting him all of a sudden?

I, for one, can't see any scenario where Trump is as mild and easy going once
he has power than he's been when trying to get the popular vote. If anything,
he'll be far more extreme now. Will such extremism further fracture the
Republican party? Or will they look the other way and act as apologists for it
as they have so often in the past?

~~~
jondubois
I hope they get replaced. I think that's the whole point of Trump; to give
politics a good flush.

~~~
pmoriarty
If there's one thing you can rely on in politics it's that the replacements
will usually be just as bad if not worse than those who they replaced.

As one editorial quipped, no matter what happens in this election, the
Washington elite will remain the Washington elite.

------
meddlepal
Democrats need a new strategy for middle America. Pretending the coasts and
middle America are the same or can be made the same is a failure.

~~~
adrr
What is the strategy for the blue collar workers? Getting rid of NAFTA and
other agreements doesn't solve anything. People are getting replaced with
machines and no one has come up for a solution for that.

If social safety nets get removed, they'll be in a worst position.

~~~
seanp2k2
As others have said, this is our Brexit. The manufacturing jobs aren't coming
back. The supply chains aren't here anymore. The labor is too expensive. The
environmental concerns are too grave. They'll now be left with even less than
they had before.

------
buchanaf
Whelp, on the bright side future historians will now have an easy way to mark
the decline of the United States.

I feel totally numb. As an American, I could not be any more disappointed in
the people of this country.

~~~
hyperdunc
I'm sorry to hear they don't live up to your standards.

I'm feeling rather excited that Americans decided to take a gamble.

~~~
codez4lyfe
I"m glad we didn't elect a corrupt politician. Trump's a gamble, but it's a
better choice.

#SilentMajority made their minds clear today.

~~~
buchanaf
Rather a corrupt business man with 10+ allegations of sexual assault and the
intelligence and demeanor of a young child?

------
rafinha
Bernie Sanders could have been the president, but Hillary cheated in the
primaries.

~~~
pnathan
Nah, he had no chance of building a coalition outside of the white urban
liberal types.

anyway, he's a socialist.

~~~
thecrazyone
I don't understand how socialist the way he describes it is a bad word. People
just don't listen these days.

~~~
vinaybn
It's the government stealing from you at gunpoint..

~~~
nkozyra
By this metric America has been socialist for a long time and no candidate has
proposed ending that in the last 50 years.

------
inimino
Given that this has been among the most polarizing campaigns ever, could a
new, truly centrist third party start building support among the many "no to
both" voters and have a chance in 2020?

I realize it's crazy to suggest a third party could have a chance in American
politics, but prove me wrong.

~~~
wtallis
I don't think our system leaves room for three parties to coexist for any
length of time, and with partisan identity being so strong these days the two
major parties will continue to exist in name at least. But they have pivoted
before, and in big ways. This Republican sweep has probably forestalled such a
shift, but it'll be interesting to see which factions of the Republican party
end up in conflict over the next few years, and which ones come to the fore
the next time they're up against strong Democratic opponents. I think it's too
soon to tell how the Republican Congress will get along with this Republican
president.

~~~
inimino
But this was an election where voters strongly disliked both candidates, and
voting "against" rather than "for" was at an all-time high. Doesn't that
intense partisanship pushing the two parties further apart create some room in
the middle?

------
CptJamesCook
Please stop calling people you don't agree with racist and sexist. It's wrong,
it's mean, and it does not seem to have the desired effect.

Human beings are basically good. We are trying to go about our lives and do
the best we can. The vast majority of us are neither sexist nor racist.

~~~
Mahn
Where does this rhetoric come from? Trump has made remarks that are inherently
racist and sexist, whether you agree or disagree with him.

~~~
ck425
That doesn't mean everyone who supported him is racist and sexist, just that
they have other concerns. As hard as it might be to understand there are
people who think there are most important issues than the fact Trump is racist
and sexist, even if they're still aware and disgusted by that fact. This
election has been one of the most divisive ever and the rhetoric of "all Trump
supports are racist and sexist" has only made that worse.

------
devy
Whereas almost no political pundit would expect Trump to be the president-
elect, there is one guy consistently predicted the result. His name is Scott
Adams, the creator of Dilbert[1].

Also worth mentioning is that Bloomberg ran an length article about Trump's
campaign team and how they operate. One interesting tibits was the fact that
the same team behind Brexit was also the major helper in the late stage of
Trump's campaign. That team is Cambridge Analytica[2], funded primarily by
Hedgefund manager/computer scientist Robert Mercer from Renaissance
Technologies.

[1] blog.dilbert.com

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica)

------
Artoemius
Brexit, then this. Life on Earth is becoming unpredictable again. A bit scary,
but fun. It was way too boring.

~~~
estefan
"Fun" in the "emboldens Russian aggression safe in the knowledge the US won't
back up NATO" sense? I think this is a complete disaster for world peace. I
genuinely wouldn't be surprised to see Europe involved in a major war with
Russia in the next 2 years. If that happens China will seize the moment too.

Also having someone who thinks climate change is a lie in the White House will
affect everyone. He should ask the inhabitants of Delhi whether they think
climate change is a lie [1].

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/world/asia/india-delhi-
smo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/world/asia/india-delhi-smog.html)

~~~
curioussavage
Ah yes, the return of the Russian boogeyman.

Agreements like NATO do not promote peace. It's easy to be too aggressive when
you have big friends who you can drag into your fights.

As crappy as trump is IMO there is a little more hope for peace. Hillary is
such a hawk conflict was all but guaranteed under her administration

~~~
estefan
Russian military spending has increased in real terms for the last few years
and they've ordered 2000 high-spec new tanks. What do you think they need them
for?

~~~
degorov
...and it's still 9 times less then US' military budget alone.

~~~
estefan
Well that's the point isn't it. If the US don't honour their NATO obligations,
there's nothing to stop a Russian land grab.

------
giis
As someone followed this election from India - I'll compare 2014, India's
Right-wing party election with this one , my thoughts:

* Ruling party tried to seek vote by projecting opposition candidate as evil, Instead of selling their own-accomplishment to the people. (Exactly the similar case with Current Indian PM in 2014.)

* US Main Stream Media is corrupt. They didn't understand they can't fool people anymore, thanks to social media. There is lot of way to reach out common-people using social media, rather than just MSM. IMHO, US media ran campaign to projected one candidate as very bad person. (Exactly same again, with Modi where virtually all media refute the claim 'Modi Wave' across the country in 2014). Intentionally came out fake poll reports.

* Result may look close, but I'm pretty sure, If there was fair trail of both candidates by MSM, Trump might have won by bigger margin than current one.

* Fear of minority : Once you become 'head of state'. Elected leader must adapt themselves to their new role with more responsibility. So If you found something insane statement during campaign - most likely they won't be implemented. - Its just way to polarize people behind one candidate.

* I think most people voted for Trump is fed-up whats going with-their political systems and corruption. Not necessarily agree with Trump on each & every thing he said during campaign. They might have thought, why not give him chance, if its not good. We can switch votes in 2020.

Ending note: In 2014, Tea-seller Modi was running against ruling PM (phd
scholar 2004-2014). People saw his development and anti-corruption promises
(yes there are some political gimmicks to polarize votes). People fedup with
scams & corruptions from ruling party for last 10 years, thought Why not give
him a chance? and the end result is massive 171,660,230 votes to get majority
to form the govt. In these two years, he still popular, way better than
previous 2 govt by well-educated PM. (Just yesterday he announced surprising
move to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes to eliminate black-money) .
Media still trying hard to create fake fears among minority since they want
their master to get back in power in next election. Country is largely
peaceful & economy is growing. I hope same will be case with Trump too, he
will focus on most important economic and development tasks. He wont/can't
implement this controversial plan which may affect his development plans.

~~~
anupshinde
First - Trump is not Modi. Modi is much better and experienced leader than
Trump (or Clinton). I like Trump too.

Second - The entire election season was nasty. US is now seeing the real face
of democracy with diversity.

Third - The voters did not have a great choice. If the elections were to occur
like India, it would have ended up in a hung parliament. And that would be the
worst thing to happen.

Fourth - Would you like if your job is offshored for low-costs? NO!... or
Would you like to see veterans, elders or seniors live unhappily? NO!... The
US (govt) will not be able to stop offshoring without allowing lower minimum
pay. The only way to do that is by applying protectionist measures that will
work in the short term. And most-likely that would weaken the currency over a
longer term.

~~~
john_reel
Manufacturing isn’t coming back. Five Thirty Eight has a nice explanation of
this.

------
imh
I like the new york times coverage better. It does a better job of
acknowledging Trump's supporters and why he won, as opposed to just focusing
on why Clinton lost.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/hillary-
clinto...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-
donald-trump-president.html)

------
gkya
I just want to reproduce here part of my comment on the today's AskHN
regarding Trump:

 _My interpretation of Trump is as follows, though note that I 'm not american
nor a close follower of US politics, or politics in general._

 _The main concern of his is the flow of capital out of the US, be it through
delocating companies or employment of cheap workforce mainly in southeastern
Asia. He wants to exploit the national potential of workforce and has a more
introvert, more domestic politic inclination, planning minimal involvement in
international questions. And he seeks the support needed through a populist
policy with a xenophobic and banale rhetoric targeting the unread american
proletariat, the unemployed, and the elderly who does not appreciate the today
's increasingly internationalised society and culture._

------
fgandiya
Ah well, and his party has house and Senate too. I've been looking through his
policies and I'm amazed at how he won.

I'm gonna be angry about this for an hour before I give find something else to
do.

~~~
prostoalex
> his party

That's a fairly broad statement
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Republicans_opposing...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Republicans_opposing_Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,_2016)

~~~
fgandiya
Fair enough, bit he ran under the Rep ticket...

~~~
prostoalex
That and $3.50 gets one a cup of coffee when negotiating with fellow
Republican senators and congresspeople who all have their own agendas. Just
ask John Boehner.

------
anuraj
Bernie Sanders was the candidate who could have defeated Trump. The DNC
establishment and media rigged the primaries for Clinton but failed to gauge
the anger that is building - Trump is the outcome.

~~~
ph4
Is there a clear, objective, and accurate list of the ways in which the DNC
rigged the primaries? All of my searches turn up shady conspiracy web sites.

~~~
anuraj
Rigged media coverage and polls, selective voter registration, Debbie
Wassermann Shultz incident, Super Delegates - too many to list.

------
navinsylvester
Saddened to see the world heading towards a very unsavory place. The Brexit
effect is going to take us backward and backward. We are going to see more
hatred being spread :(. How did we come down to this place?.

#1 Americans policy in the middle east is a total washout. The repercussions
of it is starting to rear its head.

#2 The rigidity of the staunch followers of religions in following the rule of
the land. I mean the stupid followers. Your country men are also your brethren
sort of attitude - not just people of your faith. In the highly inter-
connected world if we don't shed hatred and don't learn to be tolerant towards
other faiths - we will be doomed.

#3 The voting process needs a re-look. Look what happened with boaty
mcboatface, brexit and now US polls. Age shouldn't be the only criteria to
allow someone in voting process. I don't think this is a easy problem to solve
but we definitely need a rethink.

~~~
pavanred
Just curious, why is the concept of absolute majority not used a criteria? For
example, to win an election in India, you require an absolute majority (if
there are 3 candidates and A wins 40%, B wins 30% and C wins 30%, A is still
not a winner because a total of 60% voted against A). I see it in this
election and in the Brexit vote, a major decision is based on a simple
majority with <5% difference.

~~~
navinsylvester
But US is basically a dominant two party system. In India it's not the case
though.

~~~
pavanred
I think its the other way around, there's a dominant two party system because
of the simple majority requirement. If there's a requirement absolute
majority, then neither major party wins and the smaller parties and
independents that are currently considered spoil sports become very important
to form coalitions. That then gives rise to more parties catering to specific
interests, demographics and minorities which enable more representation in the
senates/parliaments fighting for their primary causes, instead of having to
choose either of two always, and any other option basically relegated to a
spoil sports.

------
Xisiqomelir
Congratulations to the President.

Good luck with your time in office, it's probably the most challenging job in
the world (after systemd debugger).

------
evils
The new MacBook Pro doesn't seem to be that big of deal any more.

~~~
Slackwise
Only because Trump also doesn't have an Escape key.

------
imron
Trump's acceptance speech was quite magnanimous.

If he can pull off the things he mentioned in that speech then it's not going
to be so bad.

~~~
hmate9
Honestly, I think that is mostly how he will behave. His "headline" behaviour
in this election has been done to get media coverage. Hillary outspent him but
if you look at how much coverage has been on Donald Trump, than it is almost
an unfair race. But now that he's president, I predict that will change.

------
sccxy
Just tell me, how all those polls got it wrong.

People were afraid of telling what they really want?

~~~
laichzeit0
The LA times poll did not get it wrong.

~~~
jonknee
Yea it did, she will probably take the popular vote. It was the state polls
that were the problem.

------
jyriand
Let's be honest, if you have to choose between two unacceptable candidates,
it's not a choice at all.

------
akerro
I still can't believe Hillary disrespected all people who supported her and
came close to her stage by not giving a final speech. Was she not paid for it?

~~~
reddytowns
The bottle was a'calling

------
unabst
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. / I do not see why man
should not be just as cruel as nature. / Great liars are also great magicians.
/ I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.

Trumps handbook. He shouldn't be mistaken for the same person, since people of
that caliber only happen once, but that is exactly how he elected himself.
Psychology wins elections. Not policy, not integrity, not even sanity. And now
he has the power.

Nothing he said or says matters. He is a magician. So I hope he's full of
white doves.

His victory speech wasn't all that bad actually.

------
pdkl95
This was ignored when I tried to post it recently, but maybe now is the time
for Brown U. Prof. of Political Economy Mark Blyth's discussion of "Global
Trumpism" \- the discontent with the establishment and general revolt against
technocracy and globalism.

Full lecture:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkm2Vfj42FY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkm2Vfj42FY)

TL;DW 4min summary:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE)

------
nickpp
I don't think Donald Trump won these elections. Rather Hillary Clinton lost
them.

~~~
Kadin
I've never been much of an HRC fan, but it's hard to see what she could have
done differently, based on the information available. Aside from "don't be
Hillary Clinton, with all the baggage that involves", of course. A candidate
less well-known to the public might have done better in a "change"-focused
election.

But she pretty much ran a campaign according to all the best practices, and
lost to a guy who basically did everything wrong (within the scope of the
campaign) that you could do wrong. The problem wasn't in the Clinton campaign.
The problem was that the electorate didn't want what she was selling, despite
a very good sales pitch.

I suspect there's going to be a lot of analysis focusing on exactly what level
of positional compromise would have gotten the Democrats enough votes in the
Midwest and Appalachian states to win (off the top of my head: an about-face
on gun control and some sort of mea culpa on NAFTA might do it), but I don't
think the Democrats could have known that in advance. Any more than any of the
Republicans who lost to Trump in the primaries could have known how badly they
were underestimating the latent anger of voters when they ran their own by-
the-book campaigns.

~~~
mcv
I was really impressed with her performance in the debates. She must have
unbelievable self-control. Her baggage isn't even her own baggage; people have
been attacking and hating her for decades, apparently only for having the gall
to be an ambitious woman in politics, while being married to a successful man
in politics.

~~~
_RedPanda
-destroying documents (everyone else would have been killed)

-openly being against gay marriage

-submitting the idea of building a wall multiple(!) times to the senate

-wanting to start a war with russia if she gets elected (???)

yup, not her baggage at all, she totally lost because she is a woman.

~~~
mcv
Whose baggage is that? Because these exact things are also true for Trump[0].
He just didn't get as much attention for it, because everybody loves to attack
Clinton.

[0] Maybe not the war with Russia, but that's also not true for Clinton, and
Trump seems very eager to kill a lot of people.

------
Grue3
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign is probably the worst managed
presidential campaign in history. How do you even lose to a joke of a
candidate like Trump? The writing was on the wall when they named fucking Pepe
the Frog the "symbol of white nationalism". The entire campaign, somehow,
existed in a bubble with no connection to reality. It was painful to watch.
Doesn't help that Clinton herself is suspiciously corrupt and unlikeable.

------
noir-york
Hillary has been marked by betrayal.

Jennifer Flowers

Monica Lewinsky

Vince Foster

Whitewater

Benghazi

State Emails

John Podesta's emails

Anthony Weiner emails

And the seeds of today's defeat: NAFTA, the 1993 free trade bill passed by her
own husband that unleashed globalisation on an untrained and ill-prepared
American workforce and rebooted Reagan Democrats as Trump democrats.

------
jondubois
Wow, this is so unexpected. Reading the news a few hours ago, it sounded
absolutely certain that Hillary Clinton would win.

I think it shows that there is a limit to how far people can be manipulated by
the media. It's a win for the people.

------
readhn
May be, just may be, after these elections the USA will pause and think about
how we got here in the first place? when the only choices we got left are the
"same old crooked politician" vs "egocentric billionaire with bathroom
fixtures made of gold".

As George Carlin would say: "This is the best we got folks. These are the best
people the country got to offer! So.. ENJOY the circus!!"

------
devy
Whereas almost no political pundit would expect Trump to be the president-
elect, there is one guy consistently predicted the result. His name is Scott
Adams, the creator of Dilbert[1].

Also worth mentioning is that Bloomberg ran an length article about Trump's
campaign team and how they operate. One interesting tibits was the fact that
the same team behind Brexit was also the major helper in the late stage of
Trump's campaign. That team is Cambridge Analytica[2], funded primarily by
Hedgefund manager/computer scientist Robert Mercer from Renaissance
Technologies. Mercer was a major donor of Republican party and indirectly
helped Trump pick Kellyanne Conway as his one and final campaign manager.

[1] blog.dilbert.com

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica)

[3] [http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-brexit-us-
presid...](http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-brexit-us-presidential-
election-2016-9)

------
Nadya
Surprisingly, namecalling doesn't sway votes. Calling people with genuine
concerns about their country and well-being racist and sexist doesn't win you
votes. Calling half the country _Deplorable_ doesn't win you votes.

It doesn't help that the DNC rigged the election against Bernie, Clinton isn't
"relatable" and struggles with public image, Clinton was under FBI
investigation, both Clintons have had years and years of scandals. I'm
honestly surprised it was even as close as it was for the popular vote.

I did not vote, but it should be fairly obvious from this post or my post
history that I lean pro-Trump and _very_ strongly against Clinton. For those
who disagree with it, I'm sure the first response is blaming bigots and
racists and sexists and blah blah blah. Rather than listening to half of your
country - you shout over them and call them names, names which are only
sometimes "earned".

The country can either grow more divided or we can grow together. The next
four years will determine which direction we head.

~~~
mcv
> Surprisingly, namecalling doesn't sway votes.

Looks like it did. Trump was easily the biggest name-caller, and got rewarded
for it every time.

~~~
Nadya
Sorry for the confusion, that line wasn't about the elects. It was about the
_people_.

Yelling and screaming and threatening half of the country pushes them away -
it doesn't bring them closer. I've had a lot more hate for being pro-trump and
transexual from the "Never Trump" crowd than I did from the Trump crowd.
Staggering amounts of hate.

Which is why I used the line: _names which are only sometimes "earned"_. The
names were used to try and persuade the public and to make people "not want to
support Trump". All it did was turn huge parts of his crowd "silent". After
all, "free speech is protected - but not without consequences!" and supporting
Trump had its consequences. Look at how people treat Peter Thiel.

"But the flag is upside down! No _real_ LGBT supports him!" \-
[https://i1.someimage.com/4UaCCr7.jpg](https://i1.someimage.com/4UaCCr7.jpg)

~~~
mcv
I totally agree that the division and tribalism on US politics is terrible.
The threats, disrespect and alienation between both sides are not okay, and
both sides are guilty of that. It's the fruits of the toxic and hostile
political culture in the US, and it's gotten continuously worse over the past
20 years. I don't think there was this kind of hostility in the 1980s (though
I admit I'm too young to be sure about that).

------
nightcracker
My condolences.

------
Confusion

      Instead of patronising these people it's time we tried to 
      understand their concerns and try to assuage them.
    

That seems pointless to me. This part of the population seems permanently
unhappy and angry, no matter what happens. They blame their problems on
outside causes, but their problems are actually their own and there is no
change in the world that would solve them.

Every country, including utopias like Norway and the Netherlands, has a lot of
these people. At least in the US they can truly complain about being poor and
mistreated. In Norway and the Netherlands, even these people have a better
standard of living, better health case, better prospects, an objectively
better life, than 95% of the world population. Yet they vote for populists,
complain about immigrants and generally act is if they are being wronged in
some way.

Can democracy work if part of the demos don't have the best interest of _all_
other demos in mind?

------
plandis
I've never felt less American than I do right now. The country that voted for
a man who has been recorded stating that he sexually assaults women is not a
country in which I want to live.

~~~
lxrbst
Well with the Clintons you'd have a criminal and a rapist in the whitehouse so
you can't win.

------
pcunite
Thoughts on the election: For the past year, I've have been made to feel
stupid (only the uneducated back Trump), violent (we cause rioting), abusive
(can't treat women correctly), uncool (Lady Gaga tells me), and you name it.
Fake patriots are everywhere and they did not even have the courage to explain
what this was all about.

Last night was nothing short of a miracle. God stepped in and brought the
victory over all the lying, cheating polling stations and managers. It was
amazing. Trump won even though they had totally rigged it against him!

There is still a lot left to do. And just like finding out your best friend is
not perfect, Trump has a lot to learn. He needs our future support and
prayers. There is so much corruption and he is not experienced with this. Many
will claim to be on his side (people "love" winners) and it will take time to
identify the fakes.

The news media is lying to you. Think for yourselves.

~~~
SCdF
> Think for yourselves.

I'm not sure this is a constructive phrase. Others may be different, but I've
never managed to work out what it actually means: how is my thinking not my
own, while yours is? What devices or strategies do you have that allow you to
think on your own, while I am not doing so?

I feel like that phrase really means: "Don't read the things you're reading,
they are wrong, read what I'm reading instead, they are right, because I'm
reading them."

> Trump won even though they had totally rigged it against him!

This being an example. Aren't you just parroting what Trump has said to you?
There is no evidence of this election being rigged in any direction. If you
were "thinking for yourself" you would presumably have been reading direct
sources such as studies and reports, as opposed to Trump's twitter feed.

~~~
pcunite
I meant it as a compliment to the reader. Namely, that you are smart enough to
figure out and discover the best path forward. You don't need everyone in the
entertainment community to guide you on economic, moral, and national
betterment.

For that matter, you should not need my comments either, you truly have the
capacity to think. I'm only here for conversation, to provide strength and
support.

------
du_bing
China now has a big chance to make more influences on the whole world now,
because USA will focus more on her own problems.

~~~
curioussavage
Fine with me.

The mindset most Americans have bought into is ridiculous to me. The idea that
we should let our leaders waste fortunes wreaking havoc on the world out of
fear that the Russian or Chinese boogeyman will rise is getting old.

------
Shivetya
What I am most interested in going forward.

His cabinet. That will tell us where he really is going. If he meets with both
sides quickly.

Also, I want to see if President Obama is gracious today or not. He has a
chance to make the transition smooth but at the same time his own rhetoric has
not been encouraging as of late. If he poisons the well all bets are off

~~~
robalfonso
At the end of the day I hold hope he'll approach this like a business. He'll
hire the best he can find, fire the incompetent (of which government has many)
and generally clean things up. What remains to be seen is how much the
politics of any one group may stop that type of thing.

------
lightedman
And this is what you get when you eviscerate education budgets and remove
things like civics and government from the classroom, or make it AP-only.

The awesome part is that since I can't legally vote, I get to point at the
rest of you and act like I'm George Carlin for the next four years. Brace
yourselves.

------
DavajDavaj
I think that this is also a backslash against the PC, SJW, safe-space,
trigger-warning, micro aggression tendencies that have been spreading in the
U.S. for the last couple of years. This has become too much and millions of
Americans are fed up with it, they have now spoken out.

------
krmboya
Most fascinating for me as an outsider, is that perhaps, maybe, Americans
decided to go against status quo, to vote against the establishment.

------
pnathan
Not a good thing. Not at all. Multiple systemic failures over a long haul led
to this.

Better batten the hatches, we might be in for quite the ride.

------
pavlov
With the Senate and House controlled by Republicans, Trump has an enormous
mandate now. Nothing stands in the way of his delivering on his campaign
promises.

We know he loves to assign blame to anyone but himself. He doesn't take
responsibility for mistakes. That's been proven over and over again, by
everyone from business partners to former wives.

In four years when America hasn't become "great again", who is he going to
blame? That's the really scary part to me. Electing a populist isn't when
things go off the rails -- it's when the in-power populists start looking for
scapegoats.

------
laichzeit0
So the LA times poll is the only poll that was right, from the beginning?
Perhaps time to take their methodology seriously.

Also, perhaps the extreme form of multiculturalism is a failed experiment,
much like communism was a failed experiment. Time to wake up, ultra liberals.

~~~
wangii
don't understand why this comment gets down voted.

~~~
daxorid
This is HN. Conspiracy theories of "rigging" or establishment collaboration,
which are rife in discussions of polling accuracy, are downvoted.

No matter how true they turn out to be.

------
iamgopal
When back in India, Congress won with majority, I was flabbergasted, I mean
how can people can be so retard to give vote to stupid congress ? Then I
realize, Its just only me with some above average income have time to think
about global warming or global harmony, most of the people plainly worried
about where their next meal comes from. or at most which TV serials on air.
For those people other things does not matter, until, basic necessities get
solved.

------
lumberjack
What's interesting about this whole thing from my perspective:

1\. Mark Cuban, Peter Thiel, Bloomberg and others might decide to run for
president now that Trump has shown that it is possible.

2\. Trump says he's anti-establishment, but he's also a billionaire. Wouldn't
it me more accurate to see this as infighting between US elite? Or maybe a new
group of elite wanting their share of power? Or maybe disagreements between
elite from different sectors of the economy.

------
berserkpi
Here is an opinion of a Mexican guy.

I remember back in the day when Mexican president Carlos Salinas promoted the
NAFTA deal as a solution to our problems. I started to disagree when reason
came to me (I was too young when it happened), few reasons:

\- I believed in a more protectionist system that encouraged internal growth.
I still do to a point. \- Trading is good as long as you don't compromise
internal production and employment. NAFTA is way too aggressive in this sense.
\- It will triggered this bad "us-american?" behavior of consumerism and
materialism.

Well, here we are 22 years after and it's evident the system got exhausted,
even for US-Americans who were supposed to be the strong link in this chain.

Is killing NAFTA a good idea? maybe. I don't know. We are so deep into these
waters that it has to be a small "chunk by chunk" change, and even so, it'll
be chaos.

What I am sure we need, is to find a new balance, going all protectionist will
be a huge mistake, just like this crazy aggressive neoliberalism that allowed
companies behave irresponsible. Believe me, the consequences of this 20+ years
trade system in Mexico are massive.

Wait, I'm not a pro-Trump crazy Mexican, keep reading.

As I said, we need a new balance. To my eyes, Trump is an extremist and a
dangerous man, he doesn't sound or act like a guy that could bring this
balance. I think USA voters made a huge mistake on electing him. But, at the
same time, they had 2 very poor choices. They just chose the worst one.

The years to come will be interesting ones... that is given.

------
vcool07
I think this strongly reflects the hypocrisy of the modern society. On the
outside (especially on social media, most people wanted to be seen as a
liberal/ pseudo intellectual bashing Trump and his policies. But on the inside
they seemed to have appreciated some of his policies or attitude or whatever,
and went ahead and voted for him. It's hard to take anyone at face value just
based on their social media profile.

------
tormeh
I think we worry for nothing about his campaign promises. I guess he's a
sociopath and a con man. He doesn't give a shit about what he's promised.
Before he won he was going to jail Hillary, but now he says that "we all" owe
her.

What's he going to do in office? He'll want what he always wants: To win.
Doubtlessly he'll try to enrich himself, but other than that it's kind of hard
to tell.

------
throwaawwaayy
Ok, I'm trying to think of a silver lining of all this.

Trump and brexit are about bringing changes. For brexit to work, it has to be
hard brexit, for Trump to work, he has to follow through the things he said.
And they must show the changes they bring are good, for example, there need to
be more jobs, less foreigner, working class people take home more money, etc.
When my thought reached this point, I'm thinking: it's impossible for them to
do it. They either bring the economy down and hurt more people, or they betray
their supportors. Either way will spell disaster for this Trump/Brexit
ideology and put an end to it.

Brexit/Trump fail => People support them realise they made a mistake => less
people support far right Isolationism => we restore the happy central liberal
world.

But then I realise how wrong I was, they don't have to make it work for
everyone, they just need to please the people who supported them, which is
only half of the country, they have the other half to screw over with. They
CAN make it work in the short term for some people, like Hilter did between
1933-1939. But then what..?

So no silver lining after all.

------
tomdell
In addition to Trump winning, the GOP will hold a majority in both houses of
Congress, further empowering conservatives.

This is not the outcome many on the left expected.

~~~
kristopolous
Well the left needs to get their act together and form some political party
and then start running candidates in elections. They don't have one right now.

------
daveheq
Congratulations to the party that supports corporate profits over clean water,
clean air, health, wealth and mental health of the working class, religion
over science and education, and power over empowerment. We'll know what it's
like for the Republicans to rule the world for four years, and the who just
had his staff convicted will now pick Trump's staff.

------
aikah
Well it turns out Thiel was right on the money. How many people are still
going to call for his head on a plate now ?

------
mtw
At least Twitter will be saved! He won't allow a company to go under while
it's his favorite media :)

------
XorNot
I am selling my US ETF holdings. I'm hoping for a bounce to get out at break
even, but I'll clear whatever the price before Trump is sworn in. Presuming
nothing world-endingly catastrophic happens, I'm pretty sure I'll pick it up
on a discount later.

------
mstade
It's obviously not going to happen, but let's play hypotheticals for a minute.
Do you _have_ to have at least 270 electoral votes, or is the requirement just
an electoral majority? Hypothetically – and the chance of this happening is
obviously nil – if 10 people who are supposed to vote for Trump in the
electoral college decides to be faithless and abstain or vote for Hillary,
what would happen? At that point Trump would have 269 electoral votes and
Hillary would have 218-228. Does Trump still win or does it go to the house
for a vote? (Where Trump most certainly will be voted president _anyway_ , so
moot point.)

I find the US electoral system fascinating, and scary complex.

~~~
robalfonso
I won't get too much into the various possibilities, but simply put, if
neither candidate has 270 electoral votes, then the election is decided by
congress, the incoming one. So really there is no chance its not trump.

~~~
mstade
Right, and congress _must_ vote from the available candidates, and couldn't
pick anyone? Obviously none of this will happen, but it's fun to think about I
think.

If you've seen the tv show Veep, they play around with a similar scenario, but
one where the electoral college is tied. In the show, congress also ends up in
a tie, and so elects the vice president into office instead. As far as I
understand the rules though, the vice president would only be elevated to
president in case congress can't resolve the matter before inauguration day,
and will only hold the office until congress resolves the tie and picks a
president.

I probably have most of this wrong, but I think it's very interesting to
hypothesize about the possibilities, no matter how remote. I obviously don't
think any of this would happen, but it's fun to think about.

~~~
paulddraper
Only the top three are considered (12th amendment).

The House selects the President, and the Senate selects the Vice-President.

~~~
robalfonso
I've always been intrigued with the idea that it could come down to a
president from one party and a vp from another!

~~~
paulddraper
That is intriguing, and horrible.

Until the 12th amendment, there were no running mates. First place in the
electoral college was President, and 2nd place was VP.

In the 1796 election (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson), the President and VP
happened to be bitter enemies -- parties were forming -- and 8 years later
that system was done away with.

As you point out, it is still possible it could happen, though less likely.

------
aerodog
Obama, 2 weeks ago -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC1NGWM8gP8&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC1NGWM8gP8&feature=youtu.be&t=17s)

------
EGreg
The Alternative Vote would have prevented so many of the structural problems
with USA's democracy that keep this country deeply divided, and people holding
their nose when voting:

[http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=254](http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=254)

As it is, the party that nominated the establishment candidate lost all the
anti-establishment, anti-globalist fervor and vote that "Bernie or Bust"
people represent. This fervor is not understood in today's Establishment
including the media. The Alternative Vote would have properly channeled it.

------
dudul
I bet a lot of families will have an "interesting" Thanksgiving dinner.

------
karakal
Is it a good idea to invest a little money now that the market plunged?

~~~
saganus
Is it really plunging?

It's been a few hours since your comment, but right now (about 5hrs later) the
market seems to be having a bit of an uptick actually:

[https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/%5EDJI#eyJjb21wYXJpc29ucyI6I...](https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/%5EDJI#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)

------
har777
Was this a result of protest votes against Hillary or do people genuinely
support a Trump presidency ? Would Bernie have fared better against Trump had
he been the democratic nominee ?

~~~
Iv
It was not a genuine support: this election was historical in the amount of
unfavorable opinions toward both candidates.

Today he gets a lot less unfavorable rating than either candidate, but no one
knows what would have happened if he actually would have had to campaign
against Trump.

------
sidcool
I can't fathom how people can vote for him after listening to his speeches. He
might be good, but his speeches are crap. Can't vote for him. Sad day for
competency.

~~~
mcv
That's the problem with democracy: a lot of people aren't very well informed,
and are easily taken in by his crap. Other than investing more in education,
I'm not sure what can be done about this.

~~~
_RedPanda
>aren't very well informed

>easily taken in by his crap

pretty big words for someone who just posted this:

>"... Her baggage isn't even her own baggage; people have been attacking and
hating her for decades, apparently only for having the gall to be an ambitious
woman in politics ..."

while ignoring/not being aware about all the bad stuff she pulled off/wanted
to pull off (i.e. war, making gay marriage illegal, destroyed documents ...)

~~~
mcv
The stuff she pulled off or wanted to pull off wasn't pretty, but nothing out
of the ordinary in US politics. The stuff Trump has pulled off and wants to
pull off is of a totally different level. You focus only on the mote in
Clinton's eye, while ignoring the beam in Trump's eye.

Seriously, how do you, and clearly so many other Americans, manage to have
such a limited view of reality? Do you understand how weird it looks to attack
and hate someone for doing the exact same things that the guy you support also
did?

------
known
Thanks to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect)

------
shawn-butler
I don't know why anyone listens to social science "experts" at all without
asking significant methodological questions in the future.

I keep hearing how it is unbelievable how there is a 55% approval rating of
the current sitting president and yet...

If it were me I guess I would be asking how exactly yet another made-up "fact"
is calculated / rendered believable rather than just parroting more nonsense.

------
Illniyar
MMM... so silver lining - is the TPP going to die now?

~~~
dredmorbius
Obama's promised to punch that through the lame-duck session. Maybe he can do
that.

That would indicate a revolt of the GOP against Trump though.

Otherwise: fairly dead, at least in this guise.

------
radisb
U.S Elections 2016: "Pure Evil" vs "Corrupted Good" Some people see this a
battle between purity and corruption, Some see this as a battle between good
and evil.

I think the difference in meaning,interpretation and semantics in the context
of politics is much more distinguishable when we compare purity and corruption
than when we compare good and evil.

------
bikamonki
Polls do have a margin of error yet the wider chances that Hillary was getting
just a couple of days prior are NOT an error: private media responds to
private interest. I've seen it happen before: in the US and elsewhere, to
influence a presidential election or to make one choose coke over pepsi; it
happened on printed media, it now happens online.

------
greens231
i dont know about america but he certainly made the news great again

------
pknerd
So the this _anti immigration_ and _Anti Muslim_ factor worked for US and UK
well. Who's next, Australia?

------
diyseguy
He won because the extreme left is devolving into an oppressive free-speech
vacuum [http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/09/trump-won-because-
leftist-...](http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/09/trump-won-because-leftist-
political-corr)

------
agumonkey
Whoelse thinks that Trump is and will mostly be a joke. That none of is
populist antics will really reach our realm (mexican wall, anti climate
research deeds, ...). That he and his team will get a reality check when
nature, life, mind changing people will start to resist bits by bits to
nonsensical projects ?

~~~
DanBC
Just being elected will unleash all sorts of stuff.

After Brexit the rates of hate crime in the UK rose significantly, and they're
still at those high levels.

Since people were openly chanting "Jew S A" at Trump rallies it's not hard to
image that some people will feel that more than speech is fine.

~~~
agumonkey
Ah, I thought the violence in UK went back since and was only an event spike.

Concerning state indeed. So a path toward sustained crazy isn't that
impossible.

------
tgb29
I'm disappointed in YCombinator and SamA's attitude towards Trump and his
supporters throughout this campaign. However, it's not YCombinator's fault,
and I will blame the Mainstream Media for successfully distorting the views of
so many smart and good Americans.

------
amai
Germany says: "Refugees welcome! (But don't bring your guns with you)"

[https://www.facebook.com/martin.sonneborn/posts/102111688008...](https://www.facebook.com/martin.sonneborn/posts/10211168800886311)

------
losteverything
We all need to start to ignore mr. Trump and eliminate the fear he brings into
our minds.

------
dibstern
So the world's most liveable city is Melbourne, Australia, we're very far from
Trump, much further than Canada, VC firms and tech startups are more than
welcome to come on over and enjoy the best quality of life on offer! Hehe

~~~
abraae
Australia's full of things that will bite you, sting you or just downright eat
you.

Come to New Zealand instead. You can always pop across the ditch for the
weekend whenever you want.

~~~
saganus
I've never been to either, but I was under the impression that in both
Australia and NZ, there were lots of critters willing to bite/sting you
without notice.

I know that a lot of countries on earth have nasty little things lurking
around, but is it really that much more dangerous in Australia than in NZ
then?

~~~
abraae
Yep they're quite different. In NZ we have some supremely ugly insects
([http://www.themarysue.com/record-breaking-giant-
weta/](http://www.themarysue.com/record-breaking-giant-weta/)) but they are
harmless to humans. No snakes, crocodiles or anything like that. You can walk
barefoot in the outdoors with impunity.

Perhaps you could get taken by a shark if you were very unlucky.

~~~
saganus
Wow. That's definitely news to me. It's really cool, especially considering
how close Australia is (compared to everything else at least).

Uhmm...definitely need to go visit some day.

------
rbanffy
Humanity, meet the Great Filter.

~~~
aoeu345
> the Great Filter

There had better be some serious conviction behind you. If you are aware of
the great filter, then you better go get a job at SpaceX and work 100 hours
for the rest of your life. We have about 20 or so years to set ourselves up
for the future before it is too late.

EDIT: Just want to clarify that I'm not mad, it's just that if you realize
what the Great Filter is, and you're not hopelessly selfish, that you should
be working all the time to help get us safely across it. The universe hangs in
the balance, friend.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
That's some reckoning on the level of 'Roko's Basilisk.'

------
veeragoni
A good reminder to the hackernews article posted a while ago.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12043428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12043428)

------
pgl
And I thought Brexit was bad.

------
shams93
I took a look at his economic plan. He seems to want to do everything at the
same time, if hid campaign was a startup it would never be funded you can't
present 3 bullet points as a pitch deck.

~~~
gragas
You're delusional if you think economic plans for nations as large as the US
are comparable to startup pitch decks.

------
aryehof
I'm reminded of the saying "every nation gets the government they deserve".
Let's hope for the American people it's for the better, not the worse.

------
dev1n
Unless trump has this grand, hidden plan to invest heavily in infrastructure,
people in the middle of the country will see increasing unemployment.

~~~
efaref
It's not really hidden. I mean, it's right there on his website:
[https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/an-americas-
infrastruc...](https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/an-americas-
infrastructure-first-plan/)

I don't know how he plans to pay for it, though. I assume Mexico will be
occupied paying for his wall.

------
d3ckard
Well, as a Pole... it's nice to know Americans are as dumb as we are. The
problem is, number of places to run away just reduced considerably.

------
blondie9x
#RepealElectoralCollege yet again this system has failed us with someone being
elected with less votes than opponent. This system is broken.

------
nthcolumn
TIL that you can be an intellectually challenged, racist, misogynistic, lying,
tax dodging sex pest and still be president of the USA.

------
thrillgore
Tomorrow I am going to contact a legal firm to start the processes needed to
prove my UK Citizenship, as the son of a UK Citizen.

------
ant6n
> * cheating against wildly popular Sanders

Do you have any source for this? It seems that Clinton won even without the
super delegates.

------
juiced
Let's reject the low-impact politics going insane and instead focus on the
advancements of high-impact technologies.

------
Blahah
Jimmy Carter: "If we succumb to a dream world, we'll wake up to a nightmare."

Trump: "I make the best nightmares."

------
flamedoge
2016 what a year

~~~
astrodust
Oh, it's not over yet.

------
timdeneau
Unbelievable. With the House and Senate.

~~~
mtgx
That's what you get with a Democratic "leader" such as Hillary Clinton. She
inspired no one to come to vote. Most of those that voted for her did it so
Trump doesn't win. But voting against someone rather than for someone is
almost always a losing strategy, proved once again today.

------
id122015
How many times has the word "globalisation" been used in the comments ? Do you
know what it means ? Does it have only one meaning ?

Just previously a subject was opened "Why is electricity so hard to
understand? (1989)"
[http://amasci.com/miscon/whyhard2.html](http://amasci.com/miscon/whyhard2.html)

------
blfr
Speaking of tech bubble, just a few weeks ago people wanted to purge Thiel for
supporting Trump.

~~~
cooper12
And? Just because he's validated, doesn't mean he's in the right.

~~~
blfr
And it shows they're basically alienated from half the country. Hence the
"bubble."

------
Oletros
Sad day for the planet Earth if he abides at his promises about EPA, NOAA,
Paris Agreement, etc

~~~
allemagne
I suppose we'll all see what he "really" meant by everything he has ever said
during his campaign. Wall with Mexico? NATO? Putting Hillary in jail? Killing
the families of ISIS members?

It makes sense to put the likelihood of any of that happening at a solid zero
but it's hard to trust intuition at this point.

------
partycoder
Well, not only that:

\- Trump president

\- Republicans won the Senate

\- Republicans won the House

So it's going to be a very hard time to endure.

------
udshu
we need to create something on internet more powerful than old nations !!

------
kabdib
So, how likely is it that the election was tipped by electronic fraud?

------
knguyen0105
So the wall will be built?

------
mikorym
I wonder if the Russian Troll Factory is active on this thread.

------
kaolti
Is it not possible that people just voted against politicians?

------
OMGWTF
The problem is not that we ended up with Trump (or Hillary). The problem is
that we ended up with Trump vs. Hillary. The majority didn't care enough for
the earlier stages of our democratic process.

------
GottsKreider
Thank the Lord Almighty for Divine Interevention

------
trymas
Peter Thiel's dreams have beocme a reality.

------
jimnotgym
Libertarians of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your bigots. Put
away national boundaries and look to a worldwide connected future. Make
bigotry obsolete

------
Kliment
I reiterate my post-Brexit-vote offer of giving immigration and relocation and
general advice to anyone wishing to move to Germany. Contact info in my
profile.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
One of my coworkers is seriously contemplating moving to the Germanic world,
either Zurich or Germany. Had little to do with the election, but just in
general for a much better lifestyle.

------
hellofunk
I used to think that, as the saying goes, we are all Greek. But that is no
longer true. Now, we are all Russian.

------
pcglue
Seeing that bozo at the podium as president-elect, I really feel like I'm in
the Twilight Zone.

~~~
cooper12
Yeah there are comics where Lex Luthor is the president of the U.S. I used to
think they were absurd. Used to...

~~~
Ygg2
Say what you want about president Luthor, but he was at least smart (albeit
evil and corrupt).

------
taxipleasanton
let see the his new policies

------
supergirl
Who cares

------
known
Will US exit WTO under Trump regime?

------
einr
_The Baltic Republics vs. the rest of the USSR._

Just FYI, since I assume you're not very familiar with these countries: this
kind of lumping together the so-called "Baltic Republics" with the "USSR" is
generally very offensive to Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians, who have
nothing to do ethnically or culturally with Russia and generally view the
Soviet era as very dark times.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were invaded and taken by force because of
geographical proximity to Russia. Nothing else. There are no relevant
conclusions to be drawn by making comparisons like yours because these are
different peoples with different histories and pretty much nothing in common.

~~~
oddx
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were parts of Russia for 300 years with small
omissions. It is longer than the time of existence of the United States. So
they have a lot cultural and ethnical similarity with Russia. But yes, they
try to ignore it officially.

~~~
kbart
I was born and live in Lithuania. No, we don't have much in common with
Russia. Sure, being occupied by Russia left some scars, but culturally and
ethnically we are totally separate nation. USA and Mexico has about the same
in common as we do with Russia. There are big Russian minorities in Estonia
and Latvia, smaller in Lithuania, but that's another topic.

EDIT: also, the fact that during the >150 years occupation we've managed to
stay separate nation (despite huge efforts by Russia to integrate us) and keep
our identity strong, says a lot of how different we are.

~~~
nj923f
> EDIT: also, the fact that during the >150 years occupation we've managed to
> stay separate nation (despite huge efforts by Russia to integrate us) and
> keep our identity strong, says a lot of how different we are.

There was no "150 years of occupation", AFAIK even Lithuania's government
officially talks only about 50 years of occupation by USSR. And most of the
countries that were part of USSR managed to keep their identities (basically
everyone apart from Belarus), so integration efforts haven't really that
"huge".

~~~
nj923f
> 50 years by USSR + ~100 years by Russian Empire[0]

Lithuania in fact was part of Russian Empire. That does not classify it as
occupation. There is no mention of occupation in your article, nor it is
called an occupation by Lithuanian government. Also, it's a bad idea to
revision 19th century Europe, as pretty much every country (that existed at
that time in Europe) had done some pretty outrageous things then (by modern
standards).

> Mass deportations[1] (5% of the population, most of whom died during severe
> Siberian winters)

Why are you bringing deportations into conversation about Soviet integration
efforts? That obviously was a terrifying thing to do, but was completely
irrelevant to russification/integration.

Also, the wiki article that you provide as a source quotes 28,000 that died in
exile out of 130,000, that makes your statement about most of them dying in
Siberian winters false (not that it has anything to do with this discussion
anyway).

> total ban of press and schools in local language[2][3]

As for the press ban link, it's a bit misleading here, because what was
actually banned in Russian Empire was Latin alphabet, which of course targeted
newly acquired Polish/Lithuanian territories, but you were still allowed to
publish books in Lithuanian language in cyrillics (and that was done). So, it
was more of a language reform than a total ban of its usage.

In fact, this is pretty similar to how Japan after WWII tried to move from its
Kanji hieroglyphical writing (which was associated with communist China) to
romaji/latin (which was associated with their new allies - US).

> oppressive state police to prosecute or silently get rid of anybody standing
> against occupant government

Police in Russian Empire was ready to silently get rid of anybody standing
against government, period. That has nothing to do whether that anybody
happened to be/live in Vilnius or Moscow. Also, political oppression and scare
tactics are pretty much irrelevant to discussion about
russification/sovietization/integration efforts.

~~~
kbart
_" Why are you bringing deportations into conversation about Soviet
integration efforts?"_

Because most of those deported were well educated people -- teachers, doctors,
engineers etc. and their families. It was done to get rid of any influential
people with authority, that could teach others and later cause problems. It's
much easier to control uneducated people, especially when there's nobody
around to counter-argument propaganda. Also, deported population was replaced
by immigrant Russians. The rest of your comment is nitpicking not worth
discussing.

~~~
ni923f
> It was done to get rid of any influential people with authority, that could
> teach others and later cause problems.

I do not argue, that people were deported for political reasons. However, we
were discussing cultural integration/assimilation, so I assume you imply that
people were deported to prevent that. That's not the case though. There were
three big waves of departations:

1\. 1941, Soviets just came and were preparing for war. They didn't want to
have near the front line people who might be less-than-patriotic, so they
deported policemen, politicians, religious leaders, etc. Sort of how US sent
Japanese to camps after Pearl Harbor.

2\. 1944, Soviet forces reached Lithuania again and war was still raging, so
they deported Lithuanian partisans, remaining Baltic Germans and so on. Again,
they did not target teachers, doctors etc specifically.

3\. 1948, war is over and Soviets are trying to implement collectivization -
distribution of wealth and property, but many wealthy people resist. So, they
are deported as well. These were mostly farmers as collectivization was mostly
about abolishing private farms and making them comunal. Yet again, people
haven't been targeted here for being "too Lithuanian" or refusing to speak
Russian.

~~~
kbart
You are nitpicking facts again. Neither of your three points explain why
artists, especially writers, were deported. Also, deporting might serve more
than one purpose, so it might be _both_ to get rid of political dissidents
_and_ help russification. Honestly, your comments sound just like classics
from troll factory rule book: take some unimportant aspects of an argument and
draw an opponent down the spiral discussing minor details to bury the original
topic (which, let me remind you, was a) Baltic states _are_ separate nations
from Russia and b) were _occupied_ by it).

~~~
ni923f
> a) Baltic states are separate nations from Russia and b) were occupied by
> it).

I actually agree with both of these points. In fact, these are just basic
facts, what's there to discuss?

But if you say "here is fact X and I prove it by Y" where X is true and Y -
exagerration or outright falsehood, why is it wrong to challenge Y? I actually
find this a form of trolling, because if you continue slipping an untrue with
well known facts often enough, then some people might start thinking - that
other thing must be true as well.

> Neither of your three points explain why artists, especially writers, were
> deported.

That's a good point, I don't actually know any Lithuanian artists or writers
that have been deported. Could you please name some of them? That would indeed
invalidate my argument.

(Btw, this - learning something new - is exactly why I am trying to have a
discussion at all, it's nice when people answer with facts, even if these
facts change your position, instead of useless rhetorics.)

~~~
kbart
_" That's a good point, I don't actually know any Lithuanian artists or
writers that have been deported."_

I can't find source in English, but it's a well known fact taught in school in
Lithuania. You can find it in on Lithuanian Wikipedia page[0], that states: _"
Iš viso sovietų valdžios buvo įkalintas ar deportuotas 81 lietuvių
rašytojas."_

My translation: "a total of 81 Lithuanian writers were imprisoned or deported
by Soviet government".

To name few, well-known writers: Antanas Miškinis, Kazys Boruta, Kazys
Jakubėnas. Of course, officially they received some formal accusations. Other
writers were forced to write pieces glorifying Lenin, Stalin, Soviet Union and
their heroes or be imprisoned/deported too. Some obeyed to avoid ill fate.

0\.
[https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lietuvi%C5%B3_literat%C5%ABra](https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lietuvi%C5%B3_literat%C5%ABra)

~~~
nj923f
Thanks for the information.

> Of course, officially they received some formal accusations.

Well, according to Lithuanian wikipedia, Antanas Miškinis has been a member of
partisan movement, which can't really be dismissed as "formal accusation".
More interestingly both Kazys Boruta and Kazys Jakubėnas have been imprisoned
multiple times during the Lithuanian independence for political reasons. Kazys
Boruta even has been exiled for both Lithuania and Latvia! I guess he haven't
been sent to Siberia only because neither of Lithuania or Latvia had their own
Siberia.

Am I again being nitpicky? Is it only bad when Soviets do it?

------
tmptmp
It's not surprising. The left-liberal camp was always turning a blind eye
towards many important national issues and importantly about the issue of
Islam. This reminds me a talk given by Sam Harris about the blunder being done
by left-liberals regarding their dishonest/spineless treatment of Islam. His
video titled "Sam Harris : Liberals failure to talk honestly about Islam is
responsible for the rise of Trump" is very educational [1]. This [2] also is
informative in this regard.

Even democratic supporter Bill Maher has said "Bill Maher: I Wish Liberals
Would Have Same Intolerance For Muslims That They Do For Christians" [3]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCWf0tHy7M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCWf0tHy7M)
[2] [https://www.samharris.org/islam](https://www.samharris.org/islam) [3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8rZTuGfZo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8rZTuGfZo)

~~~
mikeyouse
It seems strange to blame the left for not having a stronger response against
Islam instead of the right for drumming up this insane hatred of Muslim
people..

I have no doubt that this issue cost many swing state votes but how many
Wisconsinites have ever even seen a Muslim? It's such an insane boogeyman
created for this very purpose.

I listen to Sam Harris, agree with many of his points but there are like
10,000 Syrians in the US - many of whom are Christians, all of whom were
fleeing ISIS. Shame on Republicans for using them to score votes.

~~~
golergka
The parent comment was talking about relatinship with ideology of Islam, and
you've changed the subject to relationship to Muslim people. Don't you see the
difference?

------
gragas
Does this not prove that "diverse" liberalism isn't so diverse after all?
Shouldn't a diverse group of people have seen this coming?

Or is liberalism actually systematically excluding people by labelling them as
"racist" and "sexist", when in fact they're just fiscal and social
conservatives?

------
markharris99
I am very happy that Trump won.

I thought it was very interesting looking at what states won.

Looking at CA and the East voting for Hillary and the rest of the country
voting for Trump.

I think we should admit it. If you are rich and in tech, well of course you
want to disrupt, you want to carry on that gravy train. But what about
everyone else that exists? Not everyone can retrain. Even though retraining is
a huge undertaking here. It's simply not going to happen.

Also protecting ones borders is not xenophobic. Are Austrialia, Switzerland,
New Zealand, Canada, Japan wrong for not allowing streams of illegals in? Look
at Germany. Many who voted don't want the US to become like that.

Finally, basic income. I hope we can all see this is dead. Like many other
liberal dreams. I'm hoping for a new future for the US. Jobs and the end of
this PC nonsense.

I do support diversity, but real diversity. Not at the expense of other
people.

~~~
jupp0r
> I think we should admit it. If you are rich and in tech, well of course you
> want to disrupt, you want to carry on that gravy train. But what about
> everyone else that exists? Not everyone can retrain. Even though retraining
> is a huge undertaking here. It's simply not going to happen.

So what is going to happen? I happen to live in Germany where the Government
is trying to regulate disruption in all sorts of areas, mostly digital-
related. You cannot get rich by isolating your country economically, it's been
tried hundreds of times in history and never succeeded. You get rich by
innovating and improving, and global competition is the best way we have to
make sure our economy is competitive.

------
throwaway274739
This is absolutely horrifying. To know that there are so many rural, angry
white men who are so driven by hatred. There are just no words. This is a huge
win for racism, misogyny and hate. I just don't know how this disgusting
country is going to survive.

~~~
aardshark
There's a number of people throughout this thread espousing the same opinion,
using similarly divisive doomsday rhetoric.

Doesn't this reaction seem hyperbolic? It's impossible for angry racist white
men alone to elect Trump. What about all the Hispanic, black, Asian, female
and other minority voters who must have voted for him? Would you dismiss their
view as 'misguided', or would you listen to their opinions and concerns?

I respect that you are passionate about the candidates, but I feel that the
certainty you have when you dismiss all Trump voters as racist hateful
misogynists is surely misplaced.

------
smegel
Every pollster/pundit quit your job now.

 _Edit: I know, not EVERY one of them._

~~~
pfortuny
Where are the Nate Silver fans right now?

~~~
adt2bt
Honestly, I'm still a fan. He, unlike most other models, gave Trump a healthy
shot and cautioned repeatedly that a large polling miss was possible this
year. That's pretty much what happened.

------
notliketherest
God bless america!

------
douche
Scott Adams called it.

~~~
rorykoehler
Millions of Bernie supporters did too.

------
zump
As an Indian in San Jose, I'm very scared. Am I going to be deported?

~~~
netheril96
Are you illegal or legal immigrant?

------
CyberSkull5702
...

------
shomyo
MAGA

------
maged07
i don't beleave

------
emblem21
1076 comments?

I can literally say whatever I want and no one is going to flag or vote.
Great.

Do you think Glass-Steagall liberalization or Silicon Valley brilliance made
flyover-state citizens say "Wow, thanks for innovating all of that technology
to help Walmart bean counters find ways to keep price points for common goods
low enough to justify why my boss pays me near minimum wage"?

Or, maybe, do you think social media made flyover state citizens with no
opportunity says "WTF WHY DOES THE INTERNET THINK I AM AN INBRED RACIST SEXIST
HOMOPHOBIC BIGOTED EVIL PERSON BECAUSE I DON'T THINK ELLEN IS ALL THAT FUNNY
AND THEY DOGPILED ME ON TWITTER?"

Disregard a population long enough and you'll find they discover ways to hack
your morality.

~~~
TulliusCicero
I agree with you. I'm definitely in the 'Silicon Valley liberal elite'
category, but the conversation around people from 'flyover states' is
generally unproductive, or even non-existent.

------
legodt
Well, time to finally arm the left

~~~
douche
The party of disarmament?

------
myf01d
Justice has been served.

------
baybal2
Nya nya nya;)

------
gre
Washington Post is a hack publication that helped to elect Trump by printing
so many anti-Bernie ads as articles.

Literally the worst in journalism.

------
chasing
:-(

------
Beltiras
Can we stop referring to the wisdom of crowds now?

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _Can we stop referring to the wisdom of crowds now?_

The crowds are "wise" on the most base, trivial issues.

Now give them world-spanning complexity and crowds turn into complete idiots.

~~~
dredmorbius
Humans are anti-ants.

Ants collectively are unintelligent. Collectively, the solve complex problems.

Humans individually are intelligent. Collectively, they create complex
problems.

------
imode
we know not what we've done, but we will soon.

the end of days is upon us, and I fear for us all.

------
nxc18
Our U.S. Democracy was the one and only thing I truly believed in.

Now I have nothing.

------
MichaelBurge
Very nice! I voted for him in Oregon, so my state is one of the few holding
out.

------
sorokod
Peoples of eastern Europe may want to brush up on their Russian.

~~~
omnimus
Shit. Again?

~~~
sorokod
Yes - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
politics/wp/2016/03...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
politics/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-reveals-foreign-policy-team-in-meeting-
with-the-washington-post/)

------
baccheion
WTF happened in the last 6 hours? Oh f*ck!

------
bignell
I'm sorry, but if there were ever a time for the black bar, this is it.

------
royka118
He did it his way can't fault the man on that!

------
Rainymood
I've read somewhere that the president is the captain of a very large ship
with a small rudder. Not sure how correct that is factually but it is somewhat
reassuring.

To think that Donald Trump is possession of the nuclear codes, dear god...

~~~
jefffan241
He is but republicans are projected to win the House, the Senate, and most
state governments. If they can work together that rudder just got bigger.

------
jimnotgym
Libertarians of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your bigots.
Lets put away national boundaries and show the world that the old order have
become obsolete

------
grandalf
Let's use this as an opportunity to hold president Trump accountable in a way
that we've failed to do for the past few decades. This _could_ lead to
unprecedented checks and balances and unprecedented democratic participation
leading to a resurgence in the rule of law.

------
echelon
And here I thought my Donald Trump TTS engine [1] would be irrelevant by
Wednesday morning. I guess now I need to make it not sound like garbage.

[1] [http://jungle.horse](http://jungle.horse)

------
ebcode
bear in mind this paper is now owned by jeff bezos, and the actual results are
still not in yet

edit: bozos -> bezos

~~~
jrockway
The race isn't even close. Trump won. Don't blame Jeff Bezos for this.

~~~
ebcode
not blaming bezos. and the spelling mistake was unintentional. just trying to
keep an open mind and an awareness of media bias.

------
erikb
Dear American friends, some info in case you need it:
[http://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/Topics/Migration-
Integration/Asylu...](http://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/Topics/Migration-
Integration/Asylum-Refugee-Protection/Asylum-Refugee-
Protection_Germany/asylum-refugee-policy-germany_node.html)

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kowdermeister
Finally, somebody who will guarantee the future of the internet. He will
totally get net neturality and stuff.

[irony shield activated]

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SFJulie
Donald Trump is the president former european colons have elected on concern
about immigration. What an irony.

Sioux, blackfeet, algonquins, montagnais, apache, yahi ... you are the real
americans and the world is telling you Donald Trump is the president of a
nation that once welcomed the pilgrims that were persecuted in Europa.

I guess thanksgiving meaning has been lost.

If only trump could be consistent and self kick all the white americans him
included as illegal immigrants from the country.

~~~
Simaramis
there is no Sioux. it's a name the french gave them when they supplied them
with guns and whiskey to fan a counter-insurgency. Sitting Bull was a Humpapa
Indian.

