The USA just elected that guy, the bully, the clown, instead of that lady.
I have Trump voters as Facebook friends. They deny Trump is as bad as he looks. They don’t believe half the things he says he’ll do. They just think he’s a better choice than Hillary.
I’ve followed this election more than I followed the previous US elections, because I felt Trump was the worst candidate they could have come up with. I was afraid of the diplomatic incidents (and perhaps wars) his twitter-storms might cause. I was afraid of the impractical policy he mixed into his otherwise incoherent speeches.
In short: like other educated people, I thought he was more a clown than a policy maker.
Thankfully: while he probably doesn’t know what’s what on most issues, so far the signs are that he will listen to his advisers on the basics. That means – no war over twitter-storms. It means: no wall on the border with Mexico. It may mean that the USA will finally have decent roads.
It may mean that people in the US will get less medical coverage than they do now. It may mean that the days are over that gays, blacks, Muslims, Hispanics and women felt they could be themselves in US society.
Except the rich ones of course…
I cried when I saw video coverage of people protesting Trump’s presidency on the streets of major cities in America. I wanted to be there with you.
I smiled in watching Hillary Clinton’s Concession Speech.
I loved how much grace she had. I loved how clearly Bill sympathized with her and – without any male pride – really wanted her to succeed. He clearly had no problems becoming the first First Gentleman.
He won’t get that chance. We won’t get to see a woman president of the USA just yet.
In closing: we will miss these people. Their grace, their style, their humor. Their lack of controversy.
To an extent I agree with those Trump supporters that I’ve talked to: I don’t trust a word he says. That makes sense: fact checkers found that throughout this campaign he could hardly open his mouth without lying.
So we don’t know what it is he will actually do. I pray he will help ordinary Americans. I’m afraid he will help wreck the climate. In France and Germany they’re already counting on US-EU relations cooling. This is a new day and I sure hope it will not be as bad as it looks.
In closing
[Nov 22 2016, closing comments]
When running for president, Donald Trump convinced over half the voting American public that he’s unreliable, a fraud, bigoted and a rapist. He was born into wealth and power and did not use any of that power for the good of the nation.
If he were a responsible president elect, Donald Trump would be busy convincing all of America that he was going to change and be a president who puts the country and its people first.
Instead the following has already happened, less than a month after his election:
- For 25 million dollars Donald Trump has settled his Trump University lawsuits, effectively admitting he’s guilty. This is great for the victims, and it frees up Trump’s time for the transition, so it’s a good thing. Still – as a tacit admission of guilt it’s worrisome, especially as Trump doesn’t show any contrition.
- Trump has already shown that he’ll be a corrupt president: In a number of ways business interests are already being mixed with presidential business. Either he doesn’t understand that as president it’s absolutely not done to benefit financially from being president, or he is continuing his attitude of ‘rules are for other people’.
Either way: this is a serious threat to the American democracy and for democracy in general. - Trump’s twitterfeed is back on track as being offensive and indecent and therefore potentially a source of diplomatic incidents and even war.
- Trump’s hire of Steve Bannon is outrageous. Let me quote Bannon himself:
“Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they (liberals and the media) get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”
I hope the media is listening and will adjust their policies to watch what the hell it is they’re actually doing.
To the Christian right: Your president elect just told you that Satan is good. Congratulations.
In conclusion: it’s not up to us to ‘give Trump a chance’. It’s up to Trump to show us that he’s better than he’s shown himself to be so far.
I see that you have been absolutely taken in by the mainstream media in the US and in Europe. Most of the mainstream media are bought and paid for by billionaires who have an agenda to keep the population quiet and controllable. Well, the silent majority hit critical mass, and for better or worse we are going to have a strong leader for the next four years.
You say that Mr Trump lies, and yet you cannot see the lies that stream out of the mouths of the Clintons. Not only during the campaign, but also under oath in Capitol Hill hearings.
I admit that it hard to get perspective from afar, but puzzles me that people in other countries are willing to get involved in something that is really not their business. If you are worried about the stock market, well, it bounced, and in a good way.
The main bulk of protesters are being paid $13 per hour to riot, abuse, emote and generally disrupt the social fabric. They have not been educated in a way that equips them to cope with dissenting opinions ( and outcomes of elections, of course ). When you delve into this, it is the same people that were on view in the ‘Occupy’ movement several years ago. I feel some empathy for the liberal/democrat students upset, they don’t understand that the sky is not about to fall.
Do you remember the Republican riots after Mr Obama was elected?
No?
Well that is because there weren’t any.
Keep heart, it will be OK, really……….
My main source of information on this issue has been, over the past few months, The Young Turks and other online news sources. A mix of mainstream and alternative media. Anyhow – biased they may be. They certainly haven’t been very good at focusing on policy instead of twitter-storms.
But I did not imagine Donald Trump tweeting about how gross a certain beauty queen was. I did not imagine him bragging about pussy grabbing. Fact check websites did actually check facts – and found that Clinton lied ‘only’ 25% of the time. Trump 75% o the time. That’s a significant difference. I saw footage of Trump himself, praising Putin.
The mainstream media may have seemed in favor of Clinton – since they projected her as the winner. But in fact they paid far more attention to her so called scandal than to Trump’s misdeeds. He is going to court for one of them in a few weeks. Trump University.
As for – what do we care? The USA is a major world player. The person who ends up as US president is very influential worldwide. He can determine peace or war. He can prevent serious action to prevent further climate change. And climate change is already affecting worldwide politics (Syria) and will do so more in future. When it’s not causing storms, heatwaves etc. And I also expect food shortages, plagues and (from those) wars and more refugees. Especially if we – as a human race – continue to do nothing about it.
Don’t tell me not to care. I care about humanity. I care about all of humanity – including Mexicans, Muslims, Gays etc. And I have heard Trump (on video) speaking about each of these issues in ways that scare the hell out of me. If he did not want me to call him a bully, he should not have acted like a bully. That has nothing to do with the lack of quality in the media and everything to do with the behavior I’ve seen on my computer screen over the past few months.
Evil is what we allow …if you need clarification on this just ask the Germans …..Trump has already done the damage; He celebrated attacks on others and opened the gates on bigotry giving thugs who wrap themselves with the flag and bible a patriotic ” right ” to bully those who disagree
Many now fear his foreign policy will lead to more wars ; especially with Iran with flagrant disregard to the environment and the planet .
We are here for a purpose at this time ; to seek the good in one another and expand on it and to bring light and creativity to where before there was none
I see the progressives are out protesting. And to use MLK Jr’s note of the content of their character, it not good, for the compassionate. tolerant, inclusive, politically correct party.
Bashing up people who do not agree with you, even in kindergarten and high school indicates the deep hypocrisy alive and well on the left. Sorry, but it is true.
If you at least give the new President-Elect a chance, you might be surprised. At least he hasn’t left his own people to be be killed a la Benghazi. We could go on, but …” at this point, what difference does it make?”
Pots and kettles anyone? We’ll have to give the president-elect a chance. Obviously. But don’t expect people to be happy with a guy who has already appointed an anti-semite to his team.
As for violence in the streets: I don’t agree with that, from whichever side it comes from.
Mr Trump is definitely not anti-semite. His son-in-law Jared Kushner is Jewish and his daughter Ivanka has converted to Judaism.
Mr Bannen was best friends with Andrew Breitbart who was Jewish, and has also been a keen supporter of Israel. Just being conservative does not make one anti-anything except BS.
I find it hard to understand how clearly intelligent people can be taken in by the alt.left.
Mr. Bannen is the editor in chief of an alt-right anti-semite website.