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.
Trump won because the Democrats railroaded their best candidate in favor of someone who is profoundly unlikeable and untrustworthy. Regardless of if she is truly a criminal, or not, the Democratic party choose a candidate who is under investigation by the FBI instead of a candidate that had real honest to god connection with the working people of the country. The voters have literally said that even Trump is better than what the Democrats have tried to ram down their throats this election. This election was lost, not won.
They should have woken up quickly when they noticed Bernie's level of support. He wasn't supposed to be that popular. Especially with younger people. On paper it looked like "oh she's a woman, young people would like that". When it didn't happen, it was time to listen, not throw everyone from that camp under the bus.
I don't even know how DNC will recover from that. It is viewed as a failure, a cesspool of corruption and anyone with morals would stay away from it.
> This election was lost, not won.
So true. They had it in their pocket. Bernie would have wiped the floor with Trump. But of course corruption gets in the way...
I wonder how the people who dreamt up that scheme and manipulated the media into pushing Trump so they could go up against him are feeling this morning.
Democrats lost this. She was deep in Benghazi / Emails / Foundations .. which is all public. Trump might have same picture, but its not public not even his Tax record ! Bravo to american public !
Its a slap to the democratic establishment for not understanding the dynamics. Bernie or for that matter Elizabeth would have been right candidates.
I also think Hillary used a lot of other celebs for campaign - Beyonce, Perry, Michelle / Obama, Muslim family ... rather than talking about her strong points / achievements (none ?), and I saw the women card thrown a lot. On the other side it was just Trump and his bullshit.
Elizabeth Warren is fierce, I believe she would've been a strong contender in terms of competence. But I'd be surprised if Bernie didn't have a stronger base and of the two would seem as the less controversial choice.
Personally, I would've loved to see a Warren / Sanders ticket. I'd be surprised if Trump / Pence could've held a candle to that in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio. Maybe Florida would've swung the other way as well then, although who the hell can tell? I swear that state is like a different planet. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)
Also Canadian (damn, we sound so smug now), I've been saying the same thing. But seems Americans think Socialism is a bad word. They've forgotten the opportunity they had with Bernie.
On the flipside, seems the "potentially" closest candidate to Bernie in this election is Trump. He actually has talked about controlling Wall Street, bringing back manufacturing jobs, less military, and if you look at money raised during this election, I'd say he has won the Presidency without bringing tons of big dollars in to politics (I could be wrong on some of these).
Of course, their methods are completely different and they differ hugely on other issues.
I'm not suggesting that Trump is a good replacement for Bernie, but you can see how Bernie supporters would see him as a better alternative than Clinton.
As a Conservative in America (and, as of this year, a former Republican), I watched what was my party railroad one or two good candidates in favor of someone who is a cartoon villain. So I know the feeling.
I am pretty sure the voters tell that to the losing side each election. while its easy to lay claim that Sanders could have won it is anything but easy to prove. true he had support but not among groups known to show up to actually vote. he also did not have support of many Clinton voters and there is no guarantee he would get them.
The US is pretty consistent in flipping the White House. That in itself is amazing and a good thing. The sad part is all the hate that comes out on this site which is sadly typical of people not thinking but reacting
I may not completely understand the US primary system, but wasn't Clinton chosen by the US democrat voters? (She won the popular vote, not just because of the super-delegates).
I don't really understand why she won instead of Sanders, maybe he was too much on the left for many democrats?
Yes, in the same way that Trump was chosen by US replicablican (and later, all) voters.
That said, it was a poor choice by the Democrats. They messed up. Whether it was the DNC or the rank-and-file democratic voters, IDK, but they somehow, in some way, managed to chose a more unwinnable candidate than the Republican Donald Trump.
You're right, but there are also psychological effects at play. If Sanders was seen as the lead candidate, his support might have gained momentum and given him the election, especially if the superdelegates weren't in the picture.
Awesome. After hearing for months about how voter fraud was a completely negligible concern, and how the Republicans were over blowing the problem because they're a bunch of reticent KKK sympathizers consolidating the white vote...some Democrats file a voting fraud case.
Indeed, Bernie was the only real leftist choice, which is what got young people so excited for him. Clinton though is center-right at best, and a DINO (Democrat in Name Only).
Sincerely, I am confused by this analysis. All the media outlets have talked ad-infinitum about how Trump supporters are predominantly uneducated whites, typically from rural areas, and how college educated whites support Clinton.
Hillary without question had Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the DC circuit behind her, which are large epicenters of wealthy white, elite people.
There is without doubt a terrifying aspect of white nationalism behind Trump, but unless you have statistics I am not aware of, the white elites, maybe outside of Texas, were not behind Trump.
EDIT - to add what I believe is a hopeful note, Trump's election isn't a great reading of the pulse of the nation; Bernie Sanders could have been in my opinion, easily, the president elect. The DNC selected the less competitive candidate as the result of a dishonest primary.
I think there are many hidden Trump voters. They might never disclose at work or among friends their choice, but I suspected many did. I was watching both the Hillary and Trump Reddit channels, and on Trumps' channel there was a constant stream of educated people (doctors, programmers, lawyers), a large number of non-whites, LGBT, ex-Bernie people there and so on.
On Hillary's side there was a constant -- "Ah look at those stupid sexists, hating us for wanting a a woman President" type of complacency.
So the result was surprising, but not too surprising at the same time.
> Bernie Sanders could have been in my opinion, easily, the president elect
Bernie would have wiped the floor with Trump, no doubt.
Yet a significant portion of the hidden Trump voters were more anti-Hillary than happy about Trump. Sam Altman declared support for Hillary because he was anti-Trump; likewise people supported Trump because they were anti-Hillary. I believe if you have no identity politics affiliations, if you read WikiLeaks, it is challenging to keep supporting Hillary, unless you have strong beliefs that Trump is still the worse of the two.
It's a general portrait. I'm speaking as a Bernie supporter. Probably most salient, which I think was Peter Thiel's decisive issue, is her seeming to be pro-war and the enthusiastic support of the arms industry (biggest arms deal in history to Saudi Arabia, exports doubled under tenure, etc.), and probably the worst here was showing how she, even against the wishes of many Obama insiders, pursued regime change in Libya to have an 'accomplishment' to campaign on. Then, it would probably be the connections with corruption, via "pay-to-play" as they referred to it through the Clinton Foundation while SOS (particularly with Gulf States), and, after revelations of DWS's corrupt actions in the DNC, the seeming impunity to promote her. Maybe a final concerning image to a Bernie supporter was her position as a cog among the big banks (most poignant here was Wall Street's list for Obama's cabinet, who in fact came to be the cabinet). Arguably it's more about the DC establishment than HRC, and this characterization of her should be taken to task, but this was, in my opinion, the portrait left by WikiLeaks.
My point is that almost none of those positions are backed up by any Wikileaks evidence. It's just comforting to know that there's a big pile of "something" out there, and in it is probably something that supports what you believe.
Then surely you wouldn't mind linking me to emails which conclusively show, e.g. some evidence of a pay-to-play scheme involving State, CF and Gulf Arab states.
It's a summary of the emails from the creator of WikiLeaks, if you don't believe him than to you WikiLeaks isn't credible. You're asking me to spend 20-30 minutes retrieving and linking when you are probably the only person who would ever see it.
I do vote; what I don't do is let my imagination and bias run wild with insinuation, and I'm not lazy about my evidence. When I have confronted others about what's actually in the Wikileaks dump, nobody has failed to get past the "produce a link to primary evidence supporting your claim" step. Intellectually honest people at least reason from primary evidence when it's available to them.
It's pretty amazing that you can't even do that, and yet you want to lecture and condescend me.
No sorry, I linked you what you asked for. The "most damaging wikileaks" link has all the links to the emails organized by offense. In just the first 20 or so from my skimming there was pay-to-play evidence with the emails they were found in.
You've demonstrated a closed mind about this, and were not willing to look into it yourself, so I think that counts as being willfully ignorant.
I got as far as #3, wherein they cite an emailed article as being one of the key quotes from the email. That's nakedly pushing an agenda, there's no intellectual honesty in that -- it's like me asking you to read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and then telling everyone how you casually refer to black people using the N-word.
To be frank, it's as honest as I'd expected it to be, and exactly why I wanted you to build your case from primary sources. Anyone can quote trash sources and force the other person to do the fact-checking; you should be able to build the case up from primary sources if there's any there there.
> Arguably it's more about the DC establishment than HRC
I think many problems WikiLeaks revealed were related to her being beholden to the entrenched interests (including controversial allies, like Saudi Arabia). But yes, :) I considered making this caveat in my original post, because I think you're 70% right. I doubt much will change re banks, but I also doubt he would appoint his cabinet based on a list emailed to him from banking execs. Re war, it's probably best to refer to Peter Thiel on why he so strongly thinks Trump will avoid war. We are currently bombing 7 countries and I'd like to think his not being beholden to the arms industry means he could change that if he wanted, and while he may not, I am more certain he would not do another $80 billion arms export to Gulf States or push for a regime change in a ME country. I don't think anyone who read WikiLeaks and decided to abandon Hillary thought highly of Trump, just the feeling that one is no longer defensible and the other is unknown but at least not beholden.
I was a Bernie supporter who switched to Trump after reading Wikileaks stuff. I can summarize really quickly what the problem was, in all the thousands upon thousands of emails that I personally looked at alongside others in dialog online, while combing through them could I could not not find even a single shred of evidence of any discussion about what is best for America. Every discussion of policy in every email was not picking and choosing which positions were the best positions for the country, but which polled the best and basing their platform sporadically on that.
A campaign should be ran with a candidate sitting down with their advisers and team, stating plainly what their policy positions, overarching themes, and plans are. Then it is the advisers job to market popular positions to the public, and spin unpopular positions or complex policy to make them more sell-able to the public.
That is absolutely not what was going on in these emails, they literally show the campaign making up positions on the fly to fill a near-empty husk containing nothing but globalization. She is the literal definition of everything that is wrong with modern politics. This is not how policy decisions should be created.
I don't even actually like Trump.
-midwestern rustbelt 'non-bachelors-holding' voter in a state that went red for the first time in years.
> Every discussion of policy in every email was not picking and choosing which positions were the best positions for the country, but which polled the best and basing their platform sporadically on that.
Agreed. But didn't you knew that already? Didn't everyone knew that?
It's naive to think that the reps and Trump don't act this way. He might not have used an army of focus groups, but he knew what people wanted to hear and went for it.
I agree with you that Bernie would have been the best for America, but 5-10 years from now the US is going to end up a worst place with Trump than with Clinton, and it's not the rich or the city folks who will suffer more, but the rural voters who will realize that they did had something to lose =/
That sentiment I understand however voting Trump because you really like the guy and his views is weird imho. Like you I suspect many many votes were just anti Hillary and the hope Trump will just be a marionette.
My highly unscientific analysis of the numbers is that Trump won in many rural and less populous districts, whereas Hillary won the more densely populated districts. This by itself probably isn't much of a surprise, and the less populous districts have significantly fewer votes – but there are more of them. Combine a strong Trump performance in these small districts with an underperforming Hillary in the others, along with a number of flipped districts, and it becomes clear how Trump won. (Note: how, not why.)
Check the results for Wisconsin for instance, and you'll find a lot flipped districts. In Michigan, the Detroit stronghold saw a drop of 8,6 points compared to the 2012 vote. To be fair, it looks like Wayne County (where Detroit is) according to that map isn't fully counted so this may very well change, but it's at 98.9% reporting so that'd have to be a pretty significant chunk of votes to widen that margin.
Again, this is armchair analysis so I may very well be writing bullcrap, but it looks to me that the Trump campaign where confident in keeping the red states and focused pretty hard on flipping some of the states the Democrats really didn't think they could possibly win, along with a strong push to win Florida. Those 29 electoral votes from the sunshine state really opened things up for Trump.
Electoral votes from working class, rust belt states - Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin - are arguably the main reason Trump won, as Michael Moore predicted.
"College educated whites" and "working class rust belt voters who are unemployed/under-employed" are largely overlapping groups in places like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
If there's a huge racial divide as you're making out, with white people outnumbering all others, why was Obama elected twice?
Trump literally lives in a gold skyscraper with his name in large lettering on it so he's not exactly someone people should be able to relate to or vice versa but people like him because he doesn't talk down to them and doesn't schmooze his way around the celebrity and political circuit trying to cultivate an image of presidential perfection.
He speaks off the cuff, he knows how to draw a crowd, he tweets his mind and he's worked his ass off to get around to as many locations as possible and people also respect that. They're sick of pre-prepared speeches, evasive answers, lies and pure corruption.
Trump is a big wrecking ball that the people have chosen to smash up the current political system. The majority of politicians today are career politicians, detached from reality and detached from normality.
> He speaks off the cuff, he knows how to draw a crowd, he tweets his mind and he's worked his ass off to get around to as many locations as possible and people also respect that. They're sick of pre-prepared speeches, evasive answers, lies and pure corruption.
> "if you're white and wealthy, I've obviously got your back"
What disappointments me more than anything is how all the minority American citizens will feel knowing that the majority of the people they know preferred a man who has for many months publicly and explicitly insulted their own race and ethnicity. How do you reconcile that? I have no idea.
"I think alot of people feel like that, uh, America told them exactly - African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, you name it...Asians...I think alot of people tonight are feeling like, you know, [the] United States told me exactly what they think of me." - James Carville, after Trump's win.
Florida's Latino population is unusual (relative to the rest of the country) because of all the people who settled there after fleeing Cuba. It's typical for them to vote and identify heavily Republican based on issues around US-Cuba relations (Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are both of Cuban ancestry, for example).
This is what Hillary supporters would like to portray about any Trump voter, and it's frankly the reason they got such a surprise. They failed to even attempt to understand why people voted for Trump. Just wrote everyone off as racists and bigots.
> Does this mean the majority of Americans are secretly inherently racist?
It is my opinion that all humans are inherently racist and that the only way to overcome it is to first acknowledge it. The majority of humans (and therefore Americans) aren't self aware enough to admit to themselves that they are racist and so the racism within lives on.
This is just something I've been pondering on and isn't a fully formed argument, but it seems to me that a large number of conflicts around the globe can be boiled down to "racist rednecks" trying to kill people that aren't like them.
I think we knew even before this that everyone is somewhat racist, and I mean everyone. This isn't just a white people thing. Most people harbor what might be considered racist sentiments.
How we should handle this moving forward is an open question. Should people never see race? Or is some level of putting your own race first acceptable? It's not like white people are the only ones voting in a singular block. Most of what we've heard in the past couple decades of elections is analysts talking about how candidates can win the black or latino vote. They might now be saying the same thing about rural whites moving forward.
> 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.
When or if you find back the connection to reality, you will realize how Trump actually won.
Trump won by appealing to people who historically felt they were and deserved to be the in-control majority but now feel they are the not-in-control minority, and he won by claiming he would make them feel like an in-control majority again.
It is that simple. It is also simply the case that the people who historically felt they were and deserved to be the in-control majority were white men.
Populism in American politics is nothing new. Nor is populism oriented on racial lines. There is no secret "untouchable" issue lurking behind it. You pick a large group, capable of forming a powerful voting bloc, a group that believes it has reason to feel resentful, to feel cheated out of power that's rightfully theirs, to feel that "elites" are conspiring against them to ruin the country, and you tell them they deserve power and you're going to give it back to them.
Exactly 120 years ago, William Jennings Bryan ran on a similar platform of "restoring" political and economic power to people who felt they once had it, lost it, and deserved to have it once again. In the process he delivered one of the objectively greatest political addresses in American history (the "Cross of Gold" speech). The only difference is Bryan lost the electoral college by about the same margin Trump won it by.
Trump won because uneducated white people voted together as a voting block. Do you criticize black people for exercising their power in a similar manner?
But trump over performed with non-whites, and I think lots of people missed this. I think that people going very far into the racial data are on a wild goose chase. The fact is that clearly, voters did not think that stopping trump because he's a jerk was important enough to be the deciding factor. Clinton just campaigned badly. She couldn't credibly articulate a plan of change for America with Obama sitting as president, and made no effort to convince voters that the status quo was worth preserving. She was just running against Donald Trump, and the enthusiasm gap was enough for her to lose.
Did Trump articulate how he would change the US though? I agree that Clinton was mostly campaigning against Trump, but Trump's campaign was even worse in this regard.
Hillary did not have a convincing plan and mostly wanted to continue and see where things go. Trump has promised a lot of fairy tales. It seems to me that the only concrete things that Trump has promised to do is to backpedal on the equality rights.
> Did Trump articulate how he would change the US though
He didn't have to. The amount of vitriol directed at him and his supporters by almost every journalist, academic, intellectual, and establishment politician told the voters everything they needed to know.
This election came down to moral outrage. The duplicity and flat out dishonesty of the media, the simmering anger at Obama's broken promises about health care ("If you like your plan, you can keepy it") and the serious and deep personal flaws of Hillary Clinton was just too much to overcome.
One thing that shouldn't be overlooked either is that while some view Trump's platform as racist, his supporters see him as the exact opposite. He's hard on illegal immigration but otherwise has no particular bias towards Mexicans on a personal level. In fact he has sympathized with them on why so many of them are fleeing for their lives to the USA, something nobody is willing to talk about.
Seriously? He literally accused a judge of prejudice simply because of his Mexican heritage. No supporting evidence. He was not an illegal immigrant. He was born here. There is only one word for that: racism.
Let's look at the data: about 30% of latinos voted for him. This surprised me and I bet it surprised Clinton too. So clearly there's other stuff that they care about more than Trump's racism.
As a sidenote, I catch myself expecting that _all_ minorities should vote 100% for Clinton. This is another example of the kind of complacency that led to this win in the first place. Trump was going on and on about how "democrats feel entitled to black votes without doing anything to help black people". Now, a policy specifically designed to help black people will get waves of criticism from Breitbart, but the point stands, and I think that Democrats shouldn't feel entitled to votes just because they aren't terrible.
Nobody criticizes any plan to help black people based on it's intent. You seem to be confusing intent with desired results, perhaps on purpose. Democrat's intent has been ostensibly to help black people (and certainly rank and file democrats really are altruistic) but the result has been the exact opposite for Black families. It doesn't matter where you go in the country, even in a deep blue city in a deep blue state where evil Republicans are nary to be found, Black people are suffering, and you only have one party to blame. I know to some, just stating this will brand me as a racist but until we can collectively recognize that what we have been trying hasn't worked, we'll never make the corrections we need.
Well you're wrong, what else can I say. You think you are so right that anything that disagrees with your position must be a racial power issue. It just isn't like that. It is definitely part of it - dont get me wrong, but the much much bigger part is actual policy issues.
You think you are so right that anything that disagrees with your position must be a racial power issue.
I think I've read my history book. I think this has happened before. I think the economic system that working-class white people without college degrees favor is one that only worked so long as people with the "wrong" skin color were either held in literal bondage or legally prohibited from competing with people who had the "right" skin color. I think the past century has seen an enormous effort to tear down the system which protected those white working-class non-college-educated people from competition, on grounds that this sort of protectionism is morally odious. I think the "economic anxiety" of Trump voters is nothing more than a yearning for a return to that sort of protectionism. I think it's possible many of them are viewing history through extremely rose-colored glasses in order not to see the magnitude of the evil that had to be perpetrated to maintain their position, but that doesn't excuse it.
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.
Pollers have been spectacularly wrong before.. coming out with some really sorry and unbelievable excuses for their errors. Voters somehow seem to swallow them, however. So the spectacle continues.
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.
> But Sanders was too unconventional for the Democratic leadership.
The DNC Chairperson, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had to resign after showing blatant favouritism towards Clinton at Sanders expense[1]. It wasn't Sanders' unconventionality that was the issue, it was the clear favouritism towrds one candidate over the other.
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.
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.
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.
Clinton was put forward because she was to be the first female President. She has been groomed for that position for years now. I think America is ready for a female President, just not her. I think her image (rightly or wrongly) as a liar and a cheat and someone hellbent on doing anything to get that esteemed seat in the Oval Office is what did her in.
> People who voted for Trump clearly liked his bombastic asshole style
Not necessarily. All of the Trump voters I know (in the low double digits) are either single-issue voters on abortion, but who hate Trump- or they are single-issue voters on obamacare, angry because their premiums shot up, but who hate Trump.
Never underestimate peoples' desire to vote based on feelings instead of the big picture.
Not saying I agree, but it seems a good number of American voters agree.
In this way it can actually be seen as a win for American democracy that the very well-funded Clinton campaign lost against what seems more like a movement.
Trump wasn't exactly a lightweight when it came to funding.
Trump spent $367 million vs Clinton's $534 million. The next most well funded candidate, Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party, spent only $10 million.[1]
So money still plays a huge role in American politics. I'm also pretty sure not all of that money is spent on getting candidates elected, and that a lot of back scratching goes on and favors bought.
Even if this election was a win against money in politics, and a boon to democracy in that sense, it's a major loss in many other ways. Trump is pretty clearly an egotistical anti-democratic dictator in the making, who has nothing but contempt for the democratic process (ex: he stated he'd only accept the election results if he won). Now that he's won, expect a steamrolling over his perceived enemies in the very antithesis of democracy.
At the risk of sounding like I'm speaking for all Americans, I think most Americans are more comfortable with a politician spending their own money to get elected rather than be influenced by someone else's money.
How many Americans are aware that most of that money isn't Trump's, I'm not sure. But he's a billionaire! and he's against special interests! So how would a man like that just turn around and take contributions?
sigh.
There are good things that can come from this, however. We shall wait and see. My prediction is that Trump is the most bombastic, blowhard of a president, but his actual policies end up being mild.
I don't agree with Trump either, I was trying to question the idea that American politics are based almost exclusively on image and that makes it impossible that this election could have been influenced by actual issues.
>I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about n*, and they stomped the floor.
-George Wallace
He took a very simple road. He appealed to the fear of the Other.
Those are the real issues that were discussed. People talk as if it's normal that blacks and latinos mostly vote as a block, well now white working class does as well.
Exactly. And now it is wrong that blue collar workers from fly-over states have voted as a block. Yet nobody questions Hillary for organizing a rap concert to attract African American voters and expecting them to vote as a block.
Most of all, I think they would be surprised to find out how many Bernie Sanders supporters have switched to Trump. Some I imagine will never admit it to their co-workers or friends, but I know many have never forgot being back-stabbed.
The funny thing is, the Democrats could have easily win this. They screwed up so badly, multiple times in a row, despite all the media help, and all the money donated to them, all the help from the DOJ and POTUS.
> They screwed up so badly, multiple times in a row
I hope one of the things they learned about this was that negative campaign ads dont work. I dont want to hear what shocking, Bad Thing the other guy said. In a 30 second radio spot, tell me what you're going to do, why that will help, and how its better than the way the opponent will handle it. You can only smear dirt on a surface once.
I assume he's referring to a lot of blue collar workers getting the shit end of the stick on trade deals. It's the rust belt that carried him to the presidency after all.
I think admiration goes a bit far, but and even if he does, it's far better than the default "Russians are bad mmmkay" attitude that most politicians have. There is a real opportunity for nice relations with Russia here. As a European I prefer it much to the war mongering of Kelly that damaged Russian and European business and relations and just fosters hate.
The EU is already taking Ukraine. Not by force but by politics, we already helped Poroshenko in place there. too bad some countries prefer not to associate with corruption ridden Ukraine [0]. But hey, EU leaders usually don't care what voters think (we got the Treaty of Lisbon after we voted no on the EU constitution).
EU surprisingly did take strong position when Ukraine crisis started. Only way EU countries can stand against Russia is if they have backing of NATO. Without this noone will take the risk.
Because we have a vested interest in keeping peace in Europe. As a country it has worked to our advantage to keep large markets under our protection. Having a dumpster fire in your neighborhood is bad for business.
Extending the zone of safe and free society is definitely in our interests. I don't know when it became in vogue to openly shit on the Democratic Peace Theory, but it's certainly not for a lack of evidence. I guess it's something that you people have committed us to relearning.
But you didn't extend the zone of safe and free society; if anything, you reduced it. And it's not like you can claim it was an unforeseen consequence: Russia told you explicitly that they would "take military and other steps along its borders if ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia join NATO" [1], an then they proceeded to do just that in Georgia [2].
So you poked the bear without having any way to contain it, and you shouldn't be surprised that people blame you for it having razed the village.
Why do russia need baltic states? Name at least one reason. It seems that's just baltic horror. I can see only few microscopic countries without resources of strategic significance but with dead economies and most of young population in other EU countries. But yeah "Russia really wants to conquer us"
First, historic precedence. Russia has attacked & occupied the baltics multiple times. Imperial Russia occupied Estonia during 18th - 20th century, and Soviet Russia once again occupied for half of the 20th century. During this time they sent the natives to Siberia, while importing Russians here and imposing other forms of russification [1] to obliterate our culture. It's more than just about land, it's about the survival of our culture which has been under systematic attack by Russia for the overwhelming majority of the last 300 years. The current Russian regime isn't much different and holds a strongly anti-Estonian view, so of course self-preservation is the #1 political issue for us.
Second, there is both strategic significance and resources here. We're talking about the previously western border of the Soviet union here. Uranium mining, nuclear submarine bases, missile silos. Better access to the Baltic sea, and closer reinforcement to Kaliningrad.
Well, there's another historic precedence - Baltic Germans. Do you afraid that they maybe coming due to historic precedence too? Ask Czech Republic about them and "obliteration of culture". Do Czechs afraid of Germany coming back?
Again, I'm not trying to say that "big scary bear" is actually teddy bear. I just cannot imagine Russia being able to invade any country in EU. It's like saying there's a chance Russia would invade USA. Is it worth uranium and some bases? Doubt so. Does Russia have any resources or technical capabilities to confront EU? Doubt they ever will.
Also, about self-preservation - look at your emigration proportions [2] (shame they don't show trends - just pie charts :( ). Only this year trend is positive, but still estonians flee the country.
Good question and I would say the difference is the current regime and their actions.
Germans have been very cautious after WW2. They haven't been acting aggressively, they haven't been holding parades to celebrate Nazis as heroes, they don't have statues of Hitler in the middle of their cities.
Meanwhile Russia still celebrates everything Soviet as the biggest heroes that have ever lived, and have an amazing number of Stalin statues/paintings everywhere. Then they fund & organize attacks on Georgia [1], and annex Crimea [2]. Then, as recently as 2014, the FSB came into Estonia and abducted one of our intelligence agents. [3] This agent was denied contact with anyone, and was given premission to only use a Russian appointed lawyer. In a charade of a trial he was quickly sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was later exchanged for a FSB agent who was sitting in our prison. [4]
So you see, it's not only about precedence, but it's also about the continuation of the theme and actual real events that keep happening.
Crimea? Sebastopol port has always been part of Russia and the center of their fleet because it does not get frozen in Winter like other ports.
Having ships under frozen water is the same as not having ships at all.
Easter Ukraine? It is were the industry of Ukraine is. It is very near Russia and as most of Russia is plain, it is very easy to invade the country(Russia) from it.
Russia wants to have a buffer around their country in the same way the US does not let anybody to have military bases and missiles near the country, like in Cuba.
Russia needs Crimea to secure it's excess to the Black see. Losing Crimea to NATO (or losing it at all) would be a huge problem. As long as you have Crimea - you basically control most of the Black Sea.
As for the Eastern Ukraine - best case scenario - securing a terrain pass to Crimea. Worst case scenario - destabilisation of the the country and more 'ground' during negotiations over any deal. Almost like taking hostages.
Military base is not stronghold anymore. You don't need to protect it from siege. Kaliningrad is just a place of location of strategic missiles of medium range. It single-use weapon. You don't need ground path to Kalinigrad.
Crimea - it's were russian navi is. The former soviet military harbors for Black sea were rented by Russia. When power changed in the Ukraine to be USA/NATO oriented Russia did everything to keep it's military presence.
As for Eastern Ukraine - I feel like Russia doesn't need it per se - just as distraction and zone of destabilization in order to protect Crimea.
Russia never "took" Eastern Ukraine, even today. It mostly sat on the sidelines whilst a civil war between pro-EU and pro-Russian forces played itself out, at most sending weapons and special forces just like the West did.
Because Baltic states were part of Russian empire once and USSR later. Putin would be forever glorified in Russia and could rule till the end of days if he'd manage to "restore the glorious Russian Empire". Another reason is that Baltic countries stand as a gate to (old) Europe for Russia in both economical and military meaning.
RE: "restore the glorious Russian Empire" - his latest customs/economic union with Kazakhstan and Belarus is a joke. And there's two most pro-russian regimes as of now. CIS is also as good as dead. USSR is gone and won't be restored.
How Baltic countries gate from Russia in "economical meaning"?
Peaceful coexistence is all well and good, but if we're peacefully coexisting while Russia annexes more of, well, the world – that's not acceptable to many.
But those simpletons will then not assign blame to the new overlord or to themselves. The culprits will be immigrants, jews, muslims, environmental activists, journalists or whatever they don't like.
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.