Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S. - <AUTHOR> 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 <comment><USER3> 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.

<comment><USER4> 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?

<comment><USER5> 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.

<comment><USER6> 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.

<comment><USER5> 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.

<comment><USER7> 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.

<comment><USER8> 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.

<comment><USER7> 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).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 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.

<comment><USER10> > 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.

<comment><USER11> 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.

<comment><USER12> 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.

<comment><USER11> 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.

<comment><USER12> 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.

<comment><USER13> 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.

<comment><USER11> 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.

<comment><USER14> > ...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.

<comment><USER15> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 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)

<comment><USER17> 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?

<comment><USER18> 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.

<comment><USER19> 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).

<comment><USER20> 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.

<comment><USER19> Can you expand on this? I'm not grasping what you're saying but am curious.

<comment><USER20> 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?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 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 .

<comment><USER22> > 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.

<comment><USER23> > 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.

<comment><USER24> 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

<comment><USER23> 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.

<comment><USER25> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 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.

<comment><USER27> 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.

<comment><USER28> 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.

<comment><USER27> 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.

<comment><USER28> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> 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?

<comment><USER30> Well, there's that saying about how the poor in America think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires...

<comment><USER31> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> 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.

<comment><USER33> 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.

<comment><USER34> 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.

<comment><USER35> 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.

<comment><USER36> > 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.

<comment><USER34> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> 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.

<comment><USER38> 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.

<comment><USER39> 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.

<comment><USER40> 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.

<comment><USER39> 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.

<comment><USER40> Well, me and my friends have different experiences then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> 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.

<comment><USER42> 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.

<comment><USER43> Yes, we all know that the extremely wealthy who break financial laws always see justice and punishment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> 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.

<comment><USER45> I am logging out to read as requested, but out of curiosity, why does logging out help the page loads?

<comment><USER46> Probably due to caching. The page looks exactly the same to all logged-out users, but need customization for logged-in users.

<comment><USER47> 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?

<comment><USER48> Not just the top bar: Upvote/Unvote buttons on each comment are different for logged-in users.

<comment><USER47> Oh yes, I missed that. So that makes the whole webpage different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> 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?

<comment><USER50> Upper Midwest? Wasn't it just a question of Florida and North Carolina?

<comment><USER51> 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.

<comment><USER52> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> 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.

<comment><USER54> 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.

<comment><USER55> 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.

<comment><USER56> 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.

<comment><USER57> Parties would work pretty well if we had several viable ones. And that in turn only takes a few changes to the voting system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> 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/)

<comment><USER59> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> 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.

<comment><USER61> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> 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.

<comment> 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).

<comment><USER63> > 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.

<comment> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> 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.

<comment><USER65> 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...

</comment></comment><comment> 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.

</comment><comment><USER66> Peter Thiel is not looking so foolish right now...

<comment><USER67> The man who thinks that young blood (literally) is going to keep him alive? That Peter Thiel?

Yes he does.

<comment><USER68> Believe it or not, there is a fairly solid scientific basis for that.

<comment><USER67> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> 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.

<comment><USER69> 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.

<comment><USER70> 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.

<comment><USER69> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> 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.

<comment><USER72> 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.

<comment><USER71> 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.

<comment><USER72> 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."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> 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.

</comment><comment><USER74> 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.

<comment><USER75> 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.

<comment><USER76> > Most people are, by definition, of nearly average intelligence

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

<comment><USER77> Yes, but on a bell curve the majority of the population is concentrated close to the average.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> 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.

<comment><USER79> 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.

<comment><USER80> 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).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> 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.

</comment><comment><USER82> 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.

<comment><USER83> 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.

<comment><USER84> goodbye baltic states. you had a good run. im sure putin will enjoy his empire.

<comment><USER85> 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)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> 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.

<comment><USER87> >"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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> 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.

<comment><USER89> >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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> 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.

<comment><USER91> 538 gave more than 25% chance to Trump winning. That's losing two coin flips, not "totally unexpected".

<comment><USER90> The degree by which Trump won is the "totally unexpected" part.

<comment><USER92> Only just? He even lost the popular vote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> 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.

</comment><comment><USER94> 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.

</comment><comment><USER95> 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.

<comment><USER96> 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

<comment><USER97> 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

<comment><USER98> 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/)

<comment><USER99> Which is still inaccurate. Trump didn't narrowly squeeze by to 270, he's on track to clear 300.

<comment><USER92> 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.

<comment><USER100> Yeah. That number is what, like 200,000 at most?

<comment><USER72> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> 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.

</comment><comment><USER102> 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.

</comment><comment><USER103> 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.

</comment><comment><USER104> 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.

<comment><USER105> How did you reach those people before social media?

<comment><USER104> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> 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.

</comment><comment><USER107> 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

<comment> 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.

<comment><USER65> 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.

<comment> 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.

<comment><USER65> > "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.

<comment> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> 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?

</comment><comment><USER109> 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)

</comment><comment><USER110> Been living in the Bay Area for 17 years. Nothing will change.

<comment><USER67> Only if you believe that the Supreme Court has no impact on your life, which would be... an interesting position to take really.

<comment><USER111> .

<comment><USER67> Citizens United.

<comment><USER4> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> A President who considers Climate Change a hoax. I am now really afraid for mankind.

<comment><USER113> Irony is Florida voted for Trump. They have the largest risk for rising sea levels.

<comment><USER114> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> 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.

<comment><USER116> +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.

<comment><USER117> 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.

<comment><USER118> 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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 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?

<comment><USER119> I hope they get replaced. I think that's the whole point of Trump; to give politics a good flush.

<comment><USER11> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> 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.

<comment><USER113> 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.

<comment><USER121> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER122> 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.

<comment><USER123> 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.

<comment><USER124> 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.

<comment><USER122> Rather a corrupt business man with 10+ allegations of sexual assault and the intelligence and demeanor of a young child?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Bernie Sanders could have been the president, but Hillary cheated in the primaries.

<comment><USER125> Nah, he had no chance of building a coalition outside of the white urban liberal types.

anyway, he's a socialist.

<comment><USER126> I don't understand how socialist the way he describes it is a bad word. People just don't listen these days.

<comment><USER127> It's the government stealing from you at gunpoint..

<comment><USER128> By this metric America has been socialist for a long time and no candidate has proposed ending that in the last 50 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER129> 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.

<comment><USER130> 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.

<comment><USER129> 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?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER131> 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.

<comment><USER132> Where does this rhetoric come from? Trump has made remarks that are inherently racist and sexist, whether you agree or disagree with him.

<comment><USER133> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER134> 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)

</comment><comment><USER135> Brexit, then this. Life on Earth is becoming unpredictable again. A bit scary, but fun. It was way too boring.

<comment><USER54> "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)

<comment><USER136> 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

<comment><USER54> 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?

<comment><USER137> ...and it's still 9 times less then US' military budget alone.

<comment><USER54> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER138> 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.

<comment><USER139> 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.

<comment><USER140> Manufacturing isn't coming back. Five Thirty Eight has a nice explanation of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER141> 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)

</comment><comment><USER142> 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._

</comment><comment><USER143> 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.

<comment><USER144> > 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)

<comment><USER143> Fair enough, bit he ran under the Rep ticket...

<comment><USER144> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER145> 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.

<comment><USER146> 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.

<comment><USER145> Rigged media coverage and polls, selective voter registration, Debbie Wassermann Shultz incident, Super Delegates - too many to list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER147> 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.

<comment><USER148> 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.

<comment><USER147> But US is basically a dominant two party system. In India it's not the case though.

<comment><USER148> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER149> Congratulations to the President.

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

</comment><comment><USER150> The new MacBook Pro doesn't seem to be that big of deal any more.

<comment><USER151> Only because Trump also doesn't have an Escape key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER152> 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.

<comment><USER153> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER154> Just tell me, how all those polls got it wrong.

People were afraid of telling what they really want?

<comment><USER155> The LA times poll did not get it wrong.

<comment><USER156> Yea it did, she will probably take the popular vote. It was the state polls that were the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER157> Let's be honest, if you have to choose between two unacceptable candidates, it's not a choice at all.

</comment><comment><USER158> 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?

<comment><USER159> The bottle was a'calling

</comment></comment><comment><USER160> 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.

</comment><comment><USER161> 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)

</comment><comment><USER162> I don't think Donald Trump won these elections. Rather Hillary Clinton lost them.

<comment><USER51> 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.

<comment><USER163> 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.

<comment><USER164> -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.

<comment><USER163> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER165> 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.

</comment><comment> 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.

</comment><comment><USER119> 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.

</comment><comment><USER166> 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!!"

</comment><comment><USER134> 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)

</comment><comment><USER167> 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.

<comment><USER163> > Surprisingly, namecalling doesn't sway votes.

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

<comment><USER167> 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)

<comment><USER163> 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).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER168> My condolences.

</comment><comment><USER169>
      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?

</comment><comment><USER170> 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.

<comment><USER171> Well with the Clintons you'd have a criminal and a rapist in the whitehouse so you can't win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER172> 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.

<comment><USER173> > 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.

<comment><USER172> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER174> China now has a big chance to make more influences on the whole world now, because USA will focus more on her own problems.

<comment><USER136> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> 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

<comment><USER175> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER176> 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.

</comment><comment><USER177> 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.

</comment><comment><USER178> Most fascinating for me as an outsider, is that perhaps, maybe, Americans decided to go against status quo, to vote against the establishment.

</comment><comment><USER125> 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.

</comment><comment><USER179> 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.

</comment><comment><USER155> 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.

<comment><USER180> don't understand why this comment gets down voted.

<comment><USER181> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER182> 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.

</comment><comment><USER183> 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.

</comment><comment><USER184> 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.

</comment><comment><USER185> 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.

</comment><comment><USER186> 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.

</comment><comment><USER187> 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.

</comment><comment><USER188> 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.

<comment><USER20> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER189> 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.

</comment><comment><USER190> 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 ?

</comment><comment><USER191> At least Twitter will be saved! He won't allow a company to go under while it's his favorite media :)

</comment><comment><USER192> 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.

</comment><comment><USER193> 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.

<comment><USER175> 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.

<comment><USER193> 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.

<comment><USER194> Only the top three are considered (12th amendment).

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

<comment><USER175> I've always been intrigued with the idea that it could come down to a president from one party and a vp from another!

<comment><USER194> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER195> 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)

</comment><comment><USER196> 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.

</comment><comment><USER197> I bet a lot of families will have an "interesting" Thanksgiving dinner.

</comment><comment><USER198> Is it a good idea to invest a little money now that the market plunged?

<comment><USER199> 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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)

</comment></comment><comment><USER200> 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 ?

<comment><USER201> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER202> 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.

<comment><USER163> 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.

<comment><USER164> >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 ...)

<comment><USER163> 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?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER203> Thanks to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect)

</comment><comment> 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.

</comment><comment><USER204> MMM... so silver lining - is the TPP going to die now?

<comment><USER205> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER206> 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.

</comment><comment><USER207> 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.

</comment><comment><USER208> i dont know about america but he certainly made the news great again

</comment><comment><USER209> So the this _anti immigration_ and _Anti Muslim_ factor worked for US and UK well. Who's next, Australia?

</comment><comment><USER210> 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)

</comment><comment><USER211> 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 ?

<comment><USER212> 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.

<comment><USER211> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER213> 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.

</comment><comment><USER214> 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)

</comment><comment><USER215> We all need to start to ignore mr. Trump and eliminate the fear he brings into our minds.

</comment><comment><USER74> 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

<comment><USER216> 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.

<comment><USER199> 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?

<comment><USER216> 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.

<comment><USER199> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER217> Humanity, meet the Great Filter.

<comment><USER218> > 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.

<comment><USER219> That's some reckoning on the level of 'Roko's Basilisk.'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER220> 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)

</comment><comment><USER221> And I thought Brexit was bad.

</comment><comment><USER222> 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.

<comment><USER42> You're delusional if you think economic plans for nations as large as the US are comparable to startup pitch decks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER223> 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.

</comment><comment><USER224> Unless trump has this grand, hidden plan to invest heavily in infrastructure, people in the middle of the country will see increasing unemployment.

<comment><USER225> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER226> 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.

</comment><comment><USER227> #RepealElectoralCollege yet again this system has failed us with someone being elected with less votes than opponent. This system is broken.

</comment><comment><USER228> TIL that you can be an intellectually challenged, racist, misogynistic, lying, tax dodging sex pest and still be president of the USA.

</comment><comment><USER229> 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.

</comment><comment><USER230> > * cheating against wildly popular Sanders

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

</comment><comment><USER231> Let's reject the low-impact politics going insane and instead focus on the advancements of high-impact technologies.

</comment><comment><USER232> Jimmy Carter: "If we succumb to a dream world, we'll wake up to a nightmare."

Trump: "I make the best nightmares."

</comment><comment><USER233> 2016 what a year

<comment><USER234> Oh, it's not over yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER235> Unbelievable. With the House and Senate.

<comment><USER236> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER237> 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)

</comment><comment><USER238> Speaking of tech bubble, just a few weeks ago people wanted to purge Thiel for supporting Trump.

<comment><USER239> And? Just because he's validated, doesn't mean he's in the right.

<comment><USER238> And it shows they're basically alienated from half the country. Hence the "bubble."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER240> Sad day for the planet Earth if he abides at his promises about EPA, NOAA, Paris Agreement, etc

<comment><USER241> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER242> 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.

</comment><comment><USER243> we need to create something on internet more powerful than old nations !!

</comment><comment><USER244> So, how likely is it that the election was tipped by electronic fraud?

</comment><comment><USER245> So the wall will be built?

</comment><comment><USER246> I wonder if the Russian Troll Factory is active on this thread.

</comment><comment><USER247> Is it not possible that people just voted against politicians?

</comment><comment><USER248> 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.

</comment><comment><USER249> Thank the Lord Almighty for Divine Interevention

</comment><comment><USER250> Peter Thiel's dreams have beocme a reality.

</comment><comment><USER251> 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

</comment><comment><USER252> 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.

<comment><USER253> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER254> I used to think that, as the saying goes, we are all Greek. But that is no longer true. Now, we are all Russian.

</comment><comment><USER255> Seeing that bozo at the podium as president-elect, I really feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.

<comment><USER239> Yeah there are comics where Lex Luthor is the president of the U.S. I used to think they were absurd. Used to...

<comment><USER70> Say what you want about president Luthor, but he was at least smart (albeit evil and corrupt).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER256> let see the his new policies

</comment><comment><USER257> Who cares

</comment><comment><USER203> Will US exit WTO under Trump regime?

</comment><comment><USER258> _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.

<comment><USER259> 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.

<comment><USER260> 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.

<comment><USER261> > 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".

<comment><USER261> > 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.

<comment><USER260> _" 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.

<comment><USER262> > 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.

<comment><USER260> 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).

<comment><USER262> > 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 - <USER2> 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.)

<comment><USER260> _" 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)

<comment><USER261> 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?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER263> 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)

<comment><USER43> 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.

<comment><USER264> 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?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> 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?

</comment><comment><USER265> 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.

<comment><USER266> > 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER267> 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.

<comment><USER268> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER269> Every pollster/pundit quit your job now.

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

<comment><USER270> Where are the Nate Silver fans right now?

<comment><USER82> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER271> God bless america!

</comment><comment><USER272> Scott Adams called it.

<comment><USER273> Millions of Bernie supporters did too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER274> As an Indian in San Jose, I'm very scared. Am I going to be deported?

<comment><USER275> Are you illegal or legal immigrant?

</comment></comment><comment><USER276> ...

</comment><comment><USER277> MAGA

</comment><comment><USER278> i don't beleave

</comment><comment><USER279> 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.

<comment><USER280> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER281> Well, time to finally arm the left

<comment><USER272> The party of disarmament?

</comment></comment><comment><USER282> Justice has been served.

</comment><comment><USER283> Nya nya nya;)

</comment><comment><USER284> 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.

</comment><comment><USER285> :-(

</comment><comment><USER286> Can we stop referring to the wisdom of crowds now?

<comment><USER287> > _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.

<comment><USER205> Humans are anti-ants.

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

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER288> we know not what we've done, but we will soon.

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

</comment><comment><USER289> Our U.S. Democracy was the one and only thing I truly believed in.

Now I have nothing.

</comment><comment><USER290> Very nice! I voted for him in Oregon, so my state is one of the few holding out.

</comment><comment><USER291> Peoples of eastern Europe may want to brush up on their Russian.

<comment><USER292> Shit. Again?

<comment><USER291> 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/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER293> WTF happened in the last 6 hours? Oh f*ck!

</comment><comment><USER294> I'm sorry, but if there were ever a time for the black bar, this is it.

</comment><comment><USER295> He did it his way can't fault the man on that!

</comment><comment><USER296> 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...

<comment><USER297> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER251> 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

</comment><comment><USER298> 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.

</comment><comment><USER299> 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)

</comment><comment><USER300> bear in mind this paper is now owned by jeff bezos, and the actual results are still not in yet

edit: bozos -> bezos

<comment><USER41> The race isn't even close. Trump won. Don't blame Jeff Bezos for this.

<comment><USER300> not blaming bezos. and the spelling mistake was unintentional. just trying to keep an open mind and an awareness of media bias.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER301> 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)

</comment><comment><USER302> Finally, somebody who will guarantee the future of the internet. He will totally get net neturality and stuff.

[irony shield activated]

</comment><comment><USER303> 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.

<comment><USER304> 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.</comment></comment>