The big elephant has been hanging out in the Shoutbox. Anyway, as far as I know, there's no maybe left. He's won. As for what happens next, there's only one thing you can be sure of, he won't make America great again.

The big elephant has been hanging out in the Shoutbox. Anyway, as far as I know, there's no maybe left. He's won. As for what happens next, there's only one thing you can be sure of, he won't make America great again. — Baden

I see that now.

My perception is that it's a fight back against the effects of globalisation. I don't know what he will do about that, protectionism perhaps.

It means all hail your supreme leader, Fuckface von Clownstick.

My perception is that it's a fight back against the effects of globalisation. I don't know what he will do about that, protectionism perhaps. — Punshhh

I guess that trumped any possible or perceived downsides to the candidate.

If you're worried, you can rest assured that he knows words, and has all the best ones.

I think it's the triumph of television, of appearance over reality. Can't see a single good thing coming out of this, it inverts the exaltation and joy I felt 8 years ago, when Obama was elected. Whilst Obama fell short in some respects, he has also achieved an incredible amount. If Trump fulfills anything like his true potential, we'll all be the poorer for it.

It's a complex world where people wish to believe in simple solutions. Trump gives them that and with only two parties, there are only two narratives about the state of the USA and where to go from there. Even a multiparty system leads to a hopeless simplification of complex social problems, a two-party system simply exacerbates it. This year it was worse since candidates didn't discuss policy at all. 18 months of shit shoveling and commercials. Greatest democracy on earth indeed. Ha ha.

EDIT: It's also the ridiculous smugness of the Democratic party leadership that led them to even have Clinton as the candidate. It wasn't as if it wasn't clear from the beginning that Clinton was a controversial figure for many Democrats and non-Democrats alike. In hindsight, Michelle Obama should've run for president.

I don't know if this is for real, but it's out there.



What I said.

Although I hope in all this, to be wrong. If Trump turns out OK, and I'm wrong, it would be a much better outcome.

Congrats to POTUS Donald. J. Trump!!

I cannot believe the madman actually did it haha. What an incredible achievement! With almost the entire world against him - Clinton, the democrats, Obama, the entire mainstream media, the polling companies, most world leaders, United Nations, most celebrities, the list goes on and on - he still managed through the will of the American people a decisive victory! Incredible! The American people have spoken loud and clear! Senate! Congress! White House wooooooo it's a clean sweep!

MAGA!!! WOOOOOOO I AM ACTUALLY SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW

Haha cheer up you doomsdaying democrats above! Were you actually even *excited* for a Clinton victory? You're probably only disappointed that trump won, not that Hillary isn't Madame POTUS!

Also how ungracious was it for Hillary to not even give a concession speech?! If trump lost and did the same the entire freaking world would be outraged. She just had podesta send everyone home with a 'it's not over till it's over speech' and then right after called trump and conceded! Weak!

MAGA! What a historic day!

I can't believe you're this happy when your country is basically a divided, polarized mess. :-|

Trump succeeded because of the fact that there are many people who are easily fooled.

Donald Trumps win is a symptom of that problem, not the cause.

Maybe Trump can actually start mending the problem! A Hillary win would have just been another 4 (or God forbid, 8!) years of the same divided and polarised nation were living in right now. Literally nothing would have changed. For example, we have had a black president for 8 years and yet race relations are worse now than they were before Obama took office. Electing a more establishment (and corrupt) version of Obama wouldn't have made this any better.

You might say that things will be even worse and more divided under Trump, but we'll just have to wait and see! Trump made it this far against all odds, so what's to stop him going even further and actually making a greater country? I'm optimistic and you should be too!

MAGA!

The narrative I like better is that the masses is tired of the status quo: any change is better than no change; it's also much more exciting.

The House, Senate, and presidency is Republican, which means if it is polarized on some level, it's not for the moment when it comes to our government. There will be no gridlock and legislation will be passed (bye bye Obamacare and Iran deal). The Republicans also have a majority of Governors and state houses. Can someone open their eyes and just accept that the US is a very conservative country, opposed to European style social care, and stop being surprised when it doesn't do as left minded folks think it should?

For the record, I predicted this, all the way down to the Pennsylvania win (rust belt state that lost manufacturing jobs), and I won a free lunch from it.

I'd also say the media has been atrocious, acting as a PR machine for Clinton, not taking a candidate seriously, and abandoning its duty to just report the news. In truth, that rallied Trump supporters, a defiant group to begin with. The worst thing you can do is tell those folks what they have to do.

This really is a devastating blow to the Obama legacy, where his every accomplishment will be dismantled.

I wonder if the months of poll after poll after poll right up to the vote showing a comfortable democratic lead was just a function of a corrupt and biased media, or there's actually something wrong with the way in which polls are conducted in America? How could they have been so wrong?

Crazy how Trump was right all along about the poll numbers not being right and he's campaigning with a silent majority. Although I'm not sure even he really believed it!

There will be no gridlock and legislation will be passed (bye bye Obamacare and Iran deal). — Hanover

From what I've read there are plenty of Republicans who disagree with Trump. The fact that he's a Republican president doesn't entail that a Republican-controlled Congress will inevitably support him (or vice versa).

Crazy how Trump was right all along about the poll numbers not being right and he's campaigning with a silent majority. — dukkha

Guess he was wrong about the election being rigged, though. I wonder how many of his other accusations of corruption are also wrong?

The House, Senate, and presidency is Republican, which means if it is polarized on some level, it's not for the moment when it comes to our government. There will be no gridlock and legislation will be passed (bye bye Obamacare and Iran deal). The Republicans also have a majority of Governors and state houses. Can someone open their eyes and just accept that the US is a very conservative country, opposed to European style social care, and stop being surprised when it doesn't do as left minded folks think it should? — Hanover

What a bullshit reply to my observation that it's sad somebody can be this happy about the schism existing in the USA. Yes, it's a winner-takes-all system and no, I'm not even surprised. We already had Bush jr. for 8 years which was a farce as well. In the meantime popular votes for both candidates are almost equal. But never mind what a lot of other people think because the Republicans won. Just because Republicans won the election doesn't make your fellow Democratic countrymen irrelevant, nor their wishes and hopes for what the US government should be.

So yeah, I'm saddened by people celebrating that they're going to destroy things a lot of other people worked hard to achieve.

^ Despite Republican control of everything, the narrative remains that the Republicans are in shambles.

It took a multi billionaire to buck the establishment. I don't think his victory proves the system is open to outsiders.

From what I've read there are plenty of Republicans who disagree with Trump. The fact that he's a Republican president doesn't entail that a Republican-controlled Congress will inevitably support him. — Michael

Fat chance. Trump won, not backing the winner will be political suicide.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. Hanover claimed that Trump wouldn't be gridlocked by a Republican-controlled Congress, where Obama was. My point is that even though Trump is a Republican it doesn't then follow that the same can't happen to him.

All Presidents were the winners, but they still face opposition from the legislature.

Oh please, you're not sad that things will be destroyed that people worked hard to achieve. You're sad that achievements you agreed with are being destroyed. If the preservation of legacy is important to you, take comfort in the fact that Scalia's legacy will be preserved with a solid conservative replacement.

Can someone open their eyes and just accept that the US is a very conservative country, opposed to European style social care, and stop being surprised when it doesn't do as left minded folks think it should? — Hanover

Same can be said about Iran, and yet we still criticise their decisions.

According to this, Clinton has greater public support. 58,875,708 votes to Trump's 58,842,289 (with 96.1% of votes counted).

So now the Republicans control both houses, presidency, governerships, State legislatures, and Supreme Court, and the narrative was the party was in shambles. The narrators are the only thing the Republicans don't control.

I just had to come to the forums early this morning to see all the left-wingers whine.

I can't believe you're this happy when your country is basically a divided, polarized mess. :-| — Benkei

The country has been a divided, polarized mess before Trump got elected. You can think Obama for that.

Americans have show that they are united against govt. corruption - the lying, the cheating, the double standard in the judicial system for elites vs. the rest of us, and the silencing of millions of voters with Clinton being handed the nomination by the elitists in the Democratic party. It's good day.

Most U.S. philosophy forum members probably voted for Clinton or Jill Stein?

I voted for Trump. I actually consider myself a "socialist libertarian" at this point (in lieu of something better to call myself . . . my views are a mixture of socialism and libertarianism, but my views are also extremely idiosyncratic), but I voted for Trump partially because there was no way I wanted Hillary to win. I've never liked Hillary, I didn't like Bill when he was president, and I'd rather have someone in office who isn't a career politician.

If I had been voting for the person whose views I most agree with, I would have voted for Jill Stein--I voted for her in 2012. Not that I agree with her on everything, but she was the best choice in my opinion. Of course, we're still nowhere near any party other than Republican and Democrat being a viable option for achieving the presidency, so a vote for Jill Stein from me this time around would have simply made it easier for Hillary to win.

I used to be pretty strictly capital-L Libertarian, a la the U.S. Libertarian party, and to a point where I was involved with the Libertarian party on local and national levels at one point in the past, but I no longer agree with them on economic issues.

I see the one positive development of the Trump campaign being his ability to make the 'white working-class' a more self-conscious group than before, when they served the interests of their Republican free market fundamentalist overlords. The very notion of a working class vote, to my recollection, has not been important in US politics for a very long time. So that class awareness is a positive development IMO and will hopefully temper the latent racism within this group and lead to a more inclusive working-class coalition with other non-white citizens of this country.

I think that is entirely possible. I come from one of those working class families with many members who supported Trump, and can say with confidence that not all Trump supporters were motivated by bigotry and hate. That was a caricature disseminated by popular media, the motivation perhaps being to shame decent folk away from any association with Trump. I don't think that grotesque aspect of his candidacy was essential to all or even most of his voters. What was essential was the fact that a large segment of US citizens have been hit hard over the past 40 or so years in material and psychological terms, with loss of jobs, the breakup of families, increased drug use, the loss of status within the community and nation, etc. Those social, political and economic conditions were exploited by Trump, but not created by him. Dems bailed out on this group of what should have been their natural allies many years ago, and their cynical manipulation by the Republican establishment (based upon cultural rather than economic considerations) is now thankfully over.

I doubt Trump will truly serve the interests of this group he's made many promises to, but as mentioned they are now class conscious and anti-establishment. It's going to be a good opportunity to really battle over what it means to be an American now, as that question is far from settled. Hopefully an inclusive and forward-thinking answer to this question will be put forward, with a fixation on identity politics and other divisive things (although noble in intention) ultimately giving way to more transcendent and elevated sense of communal and environmental responsibility. This may take the next 20-30 years if not longer (again, Trump will not be able to provide the long-term answer IMO), but that corrupt status quo of unchecked capitalism with its dominance by moneyed interests is thankfully over, at least for the time being. Now the battle for the soul of America begins and us working-class stiffs will have a voice in that conversation.

Just trying to find the silver lining in this result. It requires separating Trump the fraud from the real conditions of hopelessness he tapped into and appropriated to his advantage. He's a consequence rather than cause of our predicament, and looking at it like this offers a bit of solace and hope. He's unwittingly doing a temporary service for a movement much larger and potentially greater than himself. That vague narrative is at least the illusion I'd like to maintain right now. Giving form to that amorphous group of disaffected will definitely take plenty of work, but it's a fresh start.

Oh please, you're not sad that things will be destroyed that people worked hard to achieve. You're sad that achievements you agreed with are being destroyed. If the preservation of legacy is important to you, take comfort in the fact that Scalia's legacy will be preserved with a solid conservative replacement. — Hanover

Of course you know better how I feel. How stupid can your comments get? >:O

And it's not the preservation of legacy I'm concerned with but tearing down something in its entirety that a slight majority of the people seem to support (or a slight minority, depending on how the popular vote will play out). But never mind them, because they lost, right? Here's the picture though, if voters would be evenly distributed according to their statistical occurence then your left door and right door neighbours would be Democrats.

Finally, not every vote for Trump was a vote for ending Obamacare as not every vote for Clinton was a vote for continuing Obamacare. The opinions of the candidates (or party line for that matter) do not reflect the myriad of interests of citizens that exist in the US and this is why representative democracies fail and will ultimately disintegrate. The USA is a very good example of that with its latest election. I'm looking forward to another 4 years of schadenfreude.