There was a lot going on in this election that the media completely misjudged. And not just rust belt working class whites fearing for their job security or extreme anger at the political establishment and elites. I also blame political correctness, SJWs, and faux outrage culture. I think people have grown extremely tired of that shit, and Trump was an extreme overreaction in the other direction. I blame SJWs screeching at us about respecting their pronouns just as much as I blame Confederate flag pickup truck driving rednecks for this outcome.
The blame rests squarely with the DNC. Everything else is just noise. They won't learn anything and will blame Sanders & supporters for fragmenting the general election. And their media apologists like Rachel Maddow blames 3rd party voters. It's honorable to vote 3rd party imo. You're going in knowing your candidate is gonna lose but at least you're not choosing between eating shit or British food.
The blame is on white people. That's who voted Trump into office. White people own the Trump presidency and will be primarily responsible for the resulting cluster-fuck of the nation.
Racist!! In all seriousness though I did see plenty of black and Hispanic people on the news saying they were voting Trump, hell I saw enough signs saying 'Latinos for Trump'. Only 1,459 days to go until you get the chance to elect again. If people don't vote 3rd party then you never get change, I think that is the big problem in this country, too many people say they hate the establishment but never vote anything other than Conservative or Labour as they don't think anyone else has a chance and see it as a wasted vote. If enough people don't vote for the 2 big parties then eventually change will happen. I didn't vote CON or LAB at the last general election.
The Republican party membership is over 90% white, and the white vote was more unified for Trump than in the past. Whites own it. They wanted to send a message and there's no way they can weasel out of the responsibility for what happens next.
Isn't that jumping to conclusions a little, just because they have a majority white membership, maybe not everyone wants to be a member of a party. You could have 50 black people. 10 are official members of the Republican party, 10 are official members of the Democratic party. This leaves you 30 people that aren't directly affiliated with either. Doesn't stop the 30 of them voting republican just because they are not party members and have no allegiance to follow. There may be some people who voted trump for reasons other than being a bigot or chauvinist but you seem to be taring everyone with the same brush, as if white people are all evil because Trump won. Also I don't get the whole protest thing that is going on. It was a democratic vote, just because your party didn't win doesn't mean you should cause a riot. If your party won it would just mean the other half of the country would be disappointed but that would be OK? Would it be OK for them to burn the flag? As was used a lot in the Brexit vote, I didn't win the lottery this week so I demand it is re-run until I win! We all say we cherish democracy then stop whinging when democracy doesn't deliver the result you want. No body expected Trump to win, a lot of people didn't want Trump to win but he did so we all (the entire world is affected) have to live with the consequences for the next 4 years. Trump winning just shows that there is a problem in America that isn't being resolved by the establishment and so the people have used their democratic power to revolt against that establishment. This is the same as the Brexit vote, people felt politicians were in it for their own personal gain and so went against what they advised. America needs to look hard at its problems and work out how to fix them, not turn on itself and fall into a mire. Not to say it is just America going through this. There is plenty of right wing movement and anti PC movement going on in Europe as well. I think the western world has hit a wall and it needs to act fast to unify itself again and reassure people. Funny, it all seems to have started after we bombed the shit out of the middle east and displaced a lot of innocent people.... Blair and Bush are probably more to blame than Trump himself.
The ridiculous thing about the protests is that most of these are younger people who didn't vote, and are now freaking out at the result. If you don't like it, why didn't you millenials vote on election day? The place to express your disapproval with Trump was at the ballot box, not in the middle of the street burning trash cans. You make a good point at there being extreme anger at the establishment. Supersonic makes a good point about how the DNC royally fucked up. People wanted anti-establishment, populist candidates this election. Bernie Sanders would have been more than a match for Trump. In fact Trump totally plagiarized Bernie Sanders talking points when speaking about jobs and outsourcing in the very same rust belt areas that won him the election (areas Sanders also did well in). The DNC and the media totally misjudged what was going on. They stupidly tried to ram an unlikable, establishment candidate down our throats (THE establishment candidate, and from a political dynasty no less) at time when many people feel like the establishment isn't working for them. I voted for her. But I didn't feel great about it. I always vote but now imagine people who don't always vote and are pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. Is it really that surprising that a lot of people either didn't vote, or voted for the charismatic conman saying outrageous and hilarious things and that he will fix everything and destroy the establishment?
Another thought, Americans vote for charisma in presidential elections. You may not like Trump, but the guy can certainly move a crowd. Just look back at other elections. Obama vs Kerry or Romney. Obama was way more charismatic than either of those guys. W was a complete moron, but Americans found him more likable than either Gore or Kerry. Bill Clinton was extremely charismatic and could lie his way out of any sticky situation. That's why they called him Slick Willy. You want to go way back? Kennedy was way more charismatic than Nixon. Hillary had zero charisma. Kristen Stewart has more charisma. She came across as a screeching, angry pants suit wearing power lesbian who was going to tell you something. Americans love charisma. They hate being lectured or talked down to in a condescending tone. She may have won the debates, but Americans found her condescending.
No, it's not jumping to conclusions. It's a statement of fact. Unlike the Democratic party, where registered whites are very close to the actual demographic number nation wide (62%), the GOP is overwhelmingly white at over 90%. Trump won the votes of white males by 63% vs. 43% for Clinton. Trump won the votes of white females by 53% vs. 43% for Clinton. Whites own the train wreck. Clinton won the popular vote, so there is a basis for protest. Contrast that to Obama, who convincingly won both the popular vote and the electoral college in his first election, and the first response from Republicans was to announce that they would oppose everything he did. Not only that, they also constantly lied about his citizenship being suspect.
I've always found Trump to be boring. He's just a run-of-the-mill East Coast blowhard. If you live on the East Coast, it's nothing to get excited about. That's like saying Chris Christie has charisma.
Americans clearly find him very amusing though. They loved him on The Apprentice. They loved him on wrestling. This election was the class clown vs the class nerd. People voted for the class clown. The class cool guy with interesting ideas who everyone loved got held back by the principal and had to sit it out. If the Democrats are going to beat him in four years, they will need to find a charismatic, funny populist, anti-establishment candidate. Basically a Bernie Sanders type guy who is really good at making people laugh.
Our system is similar, look at our last election. 3.88million people voted for UKIP (UK independance party) yet they only got one seat in parliament, meanwhile 1.45million people voted SNP (Scottish national party) and they got 56 seats. Unless you break up the borders of constituencies to try to share out the voters evenly there isn't really a way around this. Thank god UKIP didn't get more but you can understand why their supporters were so annoyed only getting 1 seat when the winning party (Conservative) got 331 seats with only 3 times the number of votes (3.88m to 11.3m). On voter numbers the far right UKIP should be our third biggest party in parliament but boundaries stopped that from happening. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. The Liberal Democrats tried to change things when they were in power with the Conservatives during the last coalition government but the people voted it down in a referendum and stuck with the first past the post system.
There are 2 simple truths to this election that you can't gloss over. 1. Trump outperformed expectations across the board. Especially with minorities. He was tracking 4% of the black vote, got 8%. He was tracking 7% of the Latino vote, got 29%. He got 42% of the female vote. Hillary got lower numbers than Obama across the board. Then the white non-college demo finished the job. 2. People care about jobs + money above all issues. Sure some of it is racism, sexism, and whitelash.... and Trump flat out lied about bringing their manufacturing jobs back while Clinton stuck to facts. But at that end of the people rolled the dice on crazy over status quo outsourcer. http://college.usatoday.com/2016/11/09/how-we-voted-by-age-education-race-and-sexual-orientation/
Another factor at work: Islam. People have seen the true nature of that shit and don't want it here. There are moderate Muslims living in the west, but many who would immigrate from Muslim countries would be of the kill/convert/oppress mentality and want Sharia Law. And Americans don't want them coming here. And even homegrown Muslims have a tendency to go kill crazy. People are tired of political correctness with regard to Islam. It's a violent. hateful, oppressive religion. Hillary would continue the dog and pony show of "it's just a few bad apples." Trump will take the gloves off in dealing with Islam.
You're talking about parliament seats though, which is the equivalent of Congressional races. Those are never larger than individual state level contests.
Why? Because you think he will eliminate democracy or because you think he will screw up so badly he won't run again?
I think he'll get bored... he already won his lifetime achievement award. Actually doing the work is no fun... I think he'll bow out in 4 years in some semi-dignified manner. It'll only tarnish him image to re-run and potentially lose.
@supersonic You might be right. The guy is a huge narcissist and it's possible that winning the presidency was all about his ego and legacy. We could be freaking out about a guy who ends up being a lazy, do nothing one term president who would rather play golf than govern similar to George Bush 1.