I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Not that I necessarily disagree, but when did alt right become the go to phrase? I don't recall hearing it until this year, but now it's everywhere.
I think the other point is that with turnover just over 50% is that it is all about the base. Elections are almost entirely about getting your base enthusiastic enough to vote, something Clinton failed to do. From memory it was something like 1 in 4 voters were contacted by Clinton, 1 in 6 by Trump and only 1 in 12 by both.
The scary part of this is that it creates the politics of the deaf. Trying to find the traditional middle ground does not work. Everything is about getting out your base and boosting their enthusiasm. Trump did that and he won.
An interesting thought, Mr L, and one that we could apply to this country too.
How enthused is the Tory base by the performance of Mrs May and her government?
Cameron could do this to a far greater extent, because he posed as a liberal conservative, and he had the gloss from a relatively successful time in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
But I have the feeling that nobody is feeling inspired by Mrs May. The Tories failed to get their base inspired in the recent Witney byelection, and they lost 20,000 votes, and almost lost the seat. If Clinton was a poor choice for the Democrats, then May is an equally poor choice for our Conservatives. They don`t have anybody else either.
Tory voters are more enthused by May than Cameron and her policies to control UK borders, leave the EU and build new grammars, all of which are backed by Tory voters when polled. Unlike Hillary, May has therefore ensured she reassured her base as a first priority
Only half the story surely Johnson +3m needs investigation. Where did he gain votes?
My guess is that Trump gains WWC votes in the rust belt and lost them to Johnson in the OC and other locations where it didn't matter.
If Trump is relatively sensible for 4 years those votes could come back for him (or Pence) so the popular vote is less significant than you might think.
"Trump is relatively sensible" - that's not a phrase you see used very often. Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There are reporters I see on social media, and they no longer report the news, they just sneer at it. It's quite extraordinary. There was always an underlying bias in what people reported, but post-Brexit it's like they feel they no longer have to pretend to be nice about it.
I've spotted a meme on the Twitter feeds of leftish friends - "I give up, I don't understand people." My unspoken response is "that's correct. If only you had had that insight twenty years ago..."
They're talking bollocks. More people voted Clinton.
It could be that only a highly intelligent, articulate, middle class African American candidate can pull the Democrat coalition together from here on in. There is an obvious one for 2020.
It's actually much better for Trump that he did not get to the Oval Office on the back of a lot of new voters. He is going to let a lot of people down over the coming years, so has a much better chance if his support is based on tribal Republican voters. They will give him a lot more leeway.
I'd love it if Michelle ran. I think she'd be so much better than Hillary.
Why, what has she ever done, what experience apart from a few speeches that were almost certainly written for her and well practised. If you are looking for a suitable AA candidate thenm it has to be Condoleezza Rice, miles better than an ex president's wife.
Rice is a Republican. Bush missed a trick by not engineering Condi into the White House at the end of his term (Cheney resigns on health grounds to be replaced as VP early in the second term, then Bush follows) which would have shot both Obama's and Hillary's foxes.
Perhaps, despite being a Bush, he didn't think that sort of stitch-up was democratic? (And it assumes they would have played along with it).
Remember this is how President Ford reached the White House without being elected, by replacing first Spiro Agnew as VP then Nixon in the top job, so it is not as far-fetched as it sounds. And Cheney really was ill.
Aye, but Ford's elevation wasn't exactly planned by the Republican party! It also didn't do him much good a year or so later when he lost to Carter.
(Am I the only person who, when writing Carter, wants to add 'Unstoppable Sex Machine' afterwards?)
Why, what has she ever done, what experience apart from a few speeches that were almost certainly written for her and well practised. If you are looking for a suitable AA candidate thenm it has to be Condoleezza Rice, miles better than an ex president's wife.
Rice would likely be an excellent President, she would certainly be one of the smartest ever, but is a bit of a cold fish, so it would be bloody hard for her to get elected. Also like Colin Powell her Republican politics doesn't fit the pigeonhole that the parties and media would expect.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
I've quite a degree of sympathy with the Corbynites here - the BBC Panorama on Corbyn was shockingly biased.
Who are you referring to when you say Alt-Right? It's like Tea Party - a bucket term used as a term of derision. It's like Neo-Liberalism. I've no idea who that's supposed to be either.
A lot of people on here are using exit polls to claim Trump did better with minorities than Romney, be careful of using these as it looks people projected from the exit polls last time to suggest Obamas winning coalition was less white than thought. More recently it was revealed Obama actually did better than thought with whites in the mid west.
Don't let these pesky facts get in the way of some people's analysis though. I thought you made a very good point today re identity politics. The GOP have been doing it for years. America is a country founded upon identity politics. The rest of America's history is merely minorities responding to that. And to those that think Trump is going to be able to shit on minorities and have no fight back from them: think again, think again.
Yes when SeanT says he will crack down on Black lives matter....hmmm I don't think that will have the response he think it will. They are not double barrelled white poshos over there like those that took over city airport.
I'm not remotely surprised someone like SeanT would think that way. There is an irony in critiques of identity politics encouraging minorities to see themselves as victims. The same charge could be levelled at the right and the WWC. In reality minorities and the WWC are both victims in societies which for centuries have demonised them. I think the right might be surprised that many white working class people don't see themselves as so separated or different from minorities. Nor do they all spend their days bleating on about the liberal-left and the PC Brigade.
The whole strategy of post civil war America by the land owners was to pit wwc and free black people against each other as they realised if they teamed up together (as they had the same problems and concerns) the land owners would be in trouble.
It could be that only a highly intelligent, articulate, middle class African American candidate can pull the Democrat coalition together from here on in. There is an obvious one for 2020.
It's actually much better for Trump that he did not get to the Oval Office on the back of a lot of new voters. He is going to let a lot of people down over the coming years, so has a much better chance if his support is based on tribal Republican voters. They will give him a lot more leeway.
The weakness in that is if AA voters will only turn out to vote for a black candidate why would any other ethnic group continue to back a demographic which wouldnt support them ?
People vote against candidates as well. There were 65 million people comfortable with an African American Democrat in the White House in 2012. That's a very high base to start from and probably delivers Georgia, as well as North Carolina, to the Democrats (voter suppression notwithstanding), while also enthusing Bernie Sanders types in the rust belt.
Millenials and Sanders' voters certainly did not turn out for Hillary as they did for Obama which probably cost her the electoral college, Sanders for example won Michigan and Wisconsin and almost won Iowa in the Democratic primaries. However it should not be forgotten that many libertarians who voted for Romney failed to vote for Trump and voted for Gary Johnson instead. If you add the 3.2% who voted for Johnson to the 47% Trump won, you get to 50.2%. So it can also be said that Johnson probably cost Trump the popular vote
It would be interesting to know how many Establishment Republicans didn't vote for Trump as well.
Mr. 64, I'd tend to agree. Michelle Obama is immensely popular but I'm not sure she wants to be president. Also, the odds are too short for such a long period of time.
Miss Plato, Sky's political coverage has skewed leftwards (and sometimes just plain stupid) since Faisal Islam became political editor. The 0.1% 'spike' in inflation due to our referendum result was an especial highlight.
He comes across as a likeable person, and if he'd been standing again he would have won vs Trump. But he wasn't, so his only contribution could be how successful he had been for his party in office. His likeability would not transfer to Clinton.
Looks like you're saying Obama would have won because of his personality, but Clinton lost because of Obama's policies. Doesn't make sense.
Only half the story surely Johnson +3m needs investigation. Where did he gain votes?
My guess is that Trump gains WWC votes in the rust belt and lost them to Johnson in the OC and other locations where it didn't matter.
If Trump is relatively sensible for 4 years those votes could come back for him (or Pence) so the popular vote is less significant than you might think.
"Trump is relatively sensible" - that's not a phrase you see used very often. Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
White House Press Corp .@brianstelter and the political media were the last to know how blind they were apparently. Amazing elitism pawned off as insight. https://t.co/ZyWaUSiYaK
Why, what has she ever done, what experience apart from a few speeches that were almost certainly written for her and well practised. If you are looking for a suitable AA candidate thenm it has to be Condoleezza Rice, miles better than an ex president's wife.
Rice would likely be an excellent President, she would certainly be one of the smartest ever, but is a bit of a cold fish, so it would be bloody hard for her to get elected. Also like Colin Powell her Republican politics doesn't fit the pigeonhole that the parties and media would expect.
Tis all moot, Condoleezza Rice had no interest in running for president and said so on many occasions, despite a “Draft Condi” movement pressuring her to stand. - Academia was her life and she return to Stanford at the first opportunity. As for Colin Powell, he’d have made a good wing man VP, but I doubt he’d ever have won as GOP nominee.
Millenials and Sanders' voters certainly did not turn out for Hillary as they did for Obama which probably cost her the electoral college, Sanders for example won Michigan and Wisconsin and almost won Iowa in the Democratic primaries. However it should not be forgotten that many libertarians who voted for Romney failed to vote for Trump and voted for Gary Johnson instead. If you add the 3.2% who voted for Johnson to the 47% Trump won, you get to 50.2%. So it can also be said that Johnson probably cost Trump the popular vote
It would be interesting to know how many Establishment Republicans didn't vote for Trump as well.
In the likes of California and Colorado and Nevada, the latter two narrowly won by Hillary, the former eventually giving Hillary a very narrow popular vote lead, a fair number I suspect
Trickle down economics was effectively based upon national economies where the wealth at the top would trickle down as it was spent.
Globalisation has changed that - wealth can now trickle out and the lower parts of the economy have grown in size through immigration meaning the wealth their is spread more thinly.
Yes Apple — a great huge fantastic American success story — makes an obscene amount of profit, but it doesn't benefit America as much as it might have in the past as most of the jobs and profits are offshore.
I don't know what the fix is, but it's clear that the idea of wealth trickling down isn't working as it was intended.
Incidentally, as a classic white middle class liberal lefty it is Mike Pence I worry about.
Trump is an unthinking boor. Which is fine, whatever, he's a product of his upbringing and society. There are more than enough anecdotes of people telling him thing he was unthinkingly doing was super unacceptable and him changing his behaviour.
Pence on the other hand has clearly thought about this shit and then enacted vile, hideous, hateful laws delibertly.
He comes across as a likeable person, and if he'd been standing again he would have won vs Trump. But he wasn't, so his only contribution could be how successful he had been for his party in office. His likeability would not transfer to Clinton.
Looks like you're saying Obama would have won because of his personality, but Clinton lost because of Obama's policies. Doesn't make sense.
If someone is liked enough, trusted enough, they might get enough benefit of the doubt to overcome negatives in policy, particularly depending on who their opponent is. If you are unlined and mistrusted, promising to carry on with unquestionably successful policies might also be enough depending on the opponent.
I cannot judge obamas policy success, but as a theory I think it logically holds up.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Both the hard right and the far left confuse news not being reported in the way they would like, or news stories they think are important being ignored, with bias and sneering. Both want a lot more control of how news is diffused to people - the right through unfettered private ownership, the left through state-controlled "standards". As in so many other things they basically blend into each other.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Both the hard right and the far left confuse news not being reported in the way they would like, or news stories they think are important being ignored, with bias and sneering. Both want a lot more control of how news is diffused to people - the right through unfettered private ownership, the left through state-controlled "standards". As in so many other things they basically blend into each other.
+1 as they say. Close your eyes and the arguments are indistinguishable in style and tone.
@nielh I agree with much of your post. But all the populist right do is play on people's fears. Indeed much of their flag bearers are from the establishment. They aren't really going to improve people's lives, they have no real solutions. Look at Farage post-Brexit.
hmm
the established parties have no real solutions either.
their approach is simply to suppress views they dont like and keep doing what they are doing.
it's time for all parties to go back to the drawing board and have a rethink
At base, everyone is struggling for solutions right now. And, when people get the choice between basically capable and well-meaning, if self-interested/serving, people who are struggling to articulate the way forward, and persuasive cynical people who give the impression of having all the answers (or at least - being able to articulate the problem in a clear and brutal way, which the former can do because it would be self-criticism) then what surprise that they choose the latter? In history, they always do; there are few examples of people flocking towards clueless liberals for fear of extremists.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Not that I necessarily disagree, but when did alt right become the go to phrase? I don't recall hearing it until this year, but now it's everywhere.
It is isn't it. I don't know who coined it, but it's sticking because it has truth in it. There is definitely a new right-wing culture forming around certain memes, sites and personalities on the internet.
Mr. 64, I'd tend to agree. Michelle Obama is immensely popular but I'm not sure she wants to be president. Also, the odds are too short for such a long period of time.
Miss Plato, Sky's political coverage has skewed leftwards (and sometimes just plain stupid) since Faisal Islam became political editor. The 0.1% 'spike' in inflation due to our referendum result was an especial highlight.
I can only presume that whomever is recruiting has a certain political bent, as its shift has been quite marked. CNN was less biased/more critical of the media getting it wrong on election night - now that's saying something.
Apparently Clinton thought Wisconsin was so safe she didn't even visit it after getting the nomination.
The canary in the coal mine was Iowa. It was one of the few rural white areas they did well in. When ballot returns in the early vote basically fell of a cliff for the Dems (and in Ohio) that's when they should have worried about Wisconsin. And there was clear polling showing she was doing badly in upstate New York, that should have rang alarm bells about upstate Pennsylvania as well. But she thought she could just rely on blue collar union workers because the bosses were supporting her.
What a terrible candidate. People just didn't want to turn out for her. Maybe trump would have still won with Bernie who knows. Think he would of held on to Michigan and Pennsylvania tho.
Trickle down economics was effectively based upon national economies where the wealth at the top would trickle down as it was spent.
Globalisation has changed that - wealth can now trickle out and the lower parts of the economy have grown in size through immigration meaning the wealth their is spread more thinly.
Yes Apple — a great huge fantastic American success story — makes an obscene amount of profit, but it doesn't benefit America as much as it might have in the past as most of the jobs and profits are offshore.
I don't know what the fix is, but it's clear that the idea of wealth trickling down isn't working as it was intended.
The answer is that either Apple realises it is in its own long term interests to pay more tax, or eventually decisions will be made collectively by national governments to ensure that it pays more tax. One interesting thing about Trump's win is that he did it with a comparatively low amount of corporate donations. He is not beholden to anyone. A real scandal of the Obama presidency is just how much influence Google has had. Its lobbyists have had more meetings than anyone other company at the White House by far, and there has been a revolving door of job appointments between the administration and Google. Notably, Google latched onto Obama early and backed him over Hillary in 2008.
@nielh I agree with much of your post. But all the populist right do is play on people's fears. Indeed much of their flag bearers are from the establishment. They aren't really going to improve people's lives, they have no real solutions. Look at Farage post-Brexit.
yep, that is what is scary. But labour are hopeless (as are the democrats in the US). Both wings of the party, and the problem currently is that they are to bound up in bonkers and insane identity politics, human rights, and fucking absolutely clueless about how to manage immigration as a political issue.
I don't think we are going to agree on identity politics and human rights. As it is I think all politicians of various stripes don't know how to deal with the issue of immigration. As long as globalisation continues in the way it has, mass immigration feels inevitable. And I think many politicians don't know how to confront that.
Correct. A hardcore want it stopped completely, and for now the politicians can ignore those. A hardcore don't care at all. They are being ignored now, but were given disproportionate attention previously. The rest of the population are on a scale of concern, and politicians have the unenviable task of knowing they need to do something, but it's unclear how much control will satisfy how many people, and is it even possible to the extent it is wanted.
I don't see that uncontrolled immigration is inevitable. What is inevitable I global population growth as living standards improve.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Not that I necessarily disagree, but when did alt right become the go to phrase? I don't recall hearing it until this year, but now it's everywhere.
It is isn't it. I don't know who coined it, but it's sticking because it has truth in it. There is definitely a new right-wing culture forming around certain memes, sites and personalities on the internet.
It was started AFAIC with mischief makers on 4chan and showmen like Milo who wanted to ruffle feathers - like alternative comedy in the 80s. Then the Left tried to associate it with White Supremacists in an attempt to shut it down - and now it's a catch-all term to describe everything the Right says if you aren't a MSM pundit.
He comes across as a likeable person, and if he'd been standing again he would have won vs Trump. But he wasn't, so his only contribution could be how successful he had been for his party in office. His likeability would not transfer to Clinton.
Looks like you're saying Obama would have won because of his personality, but Clinton lost because of Obama's policies. Doesn't make sense.
Clinton certainly wouldn't have won because of her personality. Nor did she have the Obama policies to see her over the line.
All she had was Fear of Trump - which piled some extra votes up where it didn't help her.
The answer is that either Apple realises it is in its own long term interests to pay more tax, or eventually decisions will be made collectively by national governments to ensure that it pays more tax. One interesting thing about Trump's win is that he did it with a comparatively low amount of corporate donations. He is not beholden to anyone.
That sounds good, but of course it cuts both ways, as Trump needs adult supervision and some outside influence.
An indication of the turnout figures for the swing states, and the votes for the third party candidates, would have added to the analysis.
It is striking how many of these states are actually close to being evenly divided, even where they have a history of tending to vote one way, Translating these states to a UK context, in percentage terms the margins of victory across all the years would make them highly marginal. It is also remarkable that in four different elections with different candidates all round, the swings bewteeen the parties are incredibly modest - much lower than we would see in any four UK elections.
As a consequence of the above, a candidate doesn't need to excite a tide of mass enthusiasm to win; they just need a small swing to win. Ohio is the classic example - the "modest increase for Trump" referred to in the article actually gives him more than 50% of the vote. If you have more than half the votes it doesn't matter what happened to support for your various rivals; you win.
Scott Adams put it well when he said Trump didn't have to outrun the bear. He only had to outrun his companion.
Western voters certainly seem to be in the mood to test the " well it can't get any worse can it ? " hypothesis of populist protest. The problem is that's predicated on protest parties never winning. The one glimmer amidst the utter horror of Brexit and Trump is at least the f**kers are in charge now and will be put to the test. This is the third major issue I've been wrong about in two years. Indyref, Brexit and Trump all show western voters are prepared to abandon the norms of credibility and vote for radical conservativism. Radical in that it's an abrupt change to the status quo. conservatism in that they seem to want strong states, a return to certain past securities and to be done with " the Other ". in two of those three cases it's been enough to win.
So I'm splitting in two opposing directions. On the one hand I'm giving up and accepting I don't understand the world anymore and should stop trying. On the other I'm doubling down on my analysis. This is late decadence. There has never been a better time to be alive and there has never been a better place to live than the West. That's why immigration is such a problem. Our societies have coped with far worse in the past with much less instability. familiarity has bred contempt. We've forgotten how exceptional post war prosperity was and now think it's a right. It's not a right. It was earned and earned in a historical context that's ended and is never coming back.
So I get the revolutionary aspect of the current storm. I'd like a revolution as well. What I find inexplicable is the belief you can press the pause button let alone the rewind button on History. It's not Trump's or Brexit's natavism I don't understand. It's the lack of a plan and the fact both were establishment projects in their own way? how do people fall for it ?
(Snipped for length unfortunately)
Like you I miscalled Brexit and Trump, although I do understand why people voted for those results.
I think Trump has a better chance of success on his own terms than Brexit. America is big enough that it can afford to pull up the drawbridge and turn inwards. By patronage and selective use of tariffs and regulatory powers to force particular industrial outcomes, Trump can be seen as someone who got things done in contrast to the previous liberal regimes. A despot in other words, somewhat in the mould of Putin, and seen in 2020 by many as a strong and good president.
It's hard to see Brexit being anything other than an intractable mess, thanks to its inherent contradiction of pretending to be Britain opening up to the world while rejecting Britain's principal international relationship. With Trump probably undermining most of the international system: NAFTA, WTO, UN and possibly NATO, his election makes even more difficult us leaving the one bit of the international system that doesn't depend on the US l.
I've spotted a meme on the Twitter feeds of leftish friends - "I give up, I don't understand people." My unspoken response is "that's correct. If only you had had that insight twenty years ago..."
They're talking bollocks. More people voted Clinton.
Even more people voted for Trump + Johnson
It is an incredibly simplistic view to assume a Johnson voter is a lapsed Republican.
I've quite a degree of sympathy with the Corbynites here - the BBC Panorama on Corbyn was shockingly biased.
Who are you referring to when you say Alt-Right? It's like Tea Party - a bucket term used as a term of derision. It's like Neo-Liberalism. I've no idea who that's supposed to be either.
I am also not impressed with current Panorama. There was a sensationalist hatchet job on the railways this week, using max possible ticket prices etc as a way of implying that they are all like that.
@IanB2 Yes. As we get wealthier and the planet is getting wealthier birthrates drop. I'm not a Malthusian either. The Earth isn't a fixed system ( Sun Light, Human Knowledge ) . I'm broadly optimistic and expect us to colonise space. For as long as the available evidence shows us to be the universes only intelligence we've a moral responsibility to do that.
However I am deeply pessimistic on Climate Change. We've invented Renewables already and they won already won on cost. We'll win that battle and in the end we'll go Carbon Negative as we'll have to. The problem is it's already too late to avoid decades of fairly nasty stuff Climate wise. 9 billion people is a lot and some of them are going to have to live somewhere else. Travel is getting easier. Turning North America and Europe into a fortress is possible but quite expensive. voters will want it done but think other voters should pay.
Meanwhile the Fossil Fuel industry is like Moloch and we've huge stranded assets.
We don't know if the Chinese can pull off Hegemony without starting a World War. Or developing a middle class consumerist society without also having a bloody revolution in favour of democracy. Even if the later does happen that raises it's own problems for western societies.
Islamism is just a genocidal version of Trumpism which wants to take us back over a millenia rather than a few decades.
None of this is new. What better time to be alive ? I'm just gloomy western electorates are having these scale of tantrums so very early in the process. It doesn't bode well.
Millenials and Sanders' voters certainly did not turn out for Hillary as they did for Obama which probably cost her the electoral college, Sanders for example won Michigan and Wisconsin and almost won Iowa in the Democratic primaries. However it should not be forgotten that many libertarians who voted for Romney failed to vote for Trump and voted for Gary Johnson instead. If you add the 3.2% who voted for Johnson to the 47% Trump won, you get to 50.2%. So it can also be said that Johnson probably cost Trump the popular vote
It would be interesting to know how many Establishment Republicans didn't vote for Trump as well.
Trump did badly in Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Georgia, so probably quite a lot didn't vote for him.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Both the hard right and the far left confuse news not being reported in the way they would like, or news stories they think are important being ignored, with bias and sneering. Both want a lot more control of how news is diffused to people - the right through unfettered private ownership, the left through state-controlled "standards". As in so many other things they basically blend into each other.
The internet played a 'huge' part in this campaign. Clinton was a politician born out the 80s and 90s and singularly not equipped for the Internet age. I speculate that there are at least four areas where it made a difference.
1) Directly without the net would there be no email scandal, no smart phone pictures of Hillary fainting. Two things that made a difference and could not have happened before.
2) Before the net, coverage would have been bandwidth filtered. Some of the campaigns slow burning themes sustained by the net would not have made the TV news (simply due to time available rather than editorial control) and could not have developed.
3) "Globalisation" within America. Just as people in the third world can use the net to see into the wealth of the west, demand their share and recoil at an alien, decadent culture. Perhaps we're seeing the same thing within America.
4) People who would have happily shouted impotently at the TV during Question Time are now shouting each others in forums and social media echo chambers, reinforcing views and getting people out to rallies.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
I've quite a degree of sympathy with the Corbynites here - the BBC Panorama on Corbyn was shockingly biased.
Who are you referring to when you say Alt-Right? It's like Tea Party - a bucket term used as a term of derision. It's like Neo-Liberalism. I've no idea who that's supposed to be either.
The Tea Partyers called themselves that. I call people who identify themselves as Tea Partyers Tea Partyers.
Millenials and Sanders' voters certainly did not turn out for Hillary as they did for Obama which probably cost her the electoral college, Sanders for example won Michigan and Wisconsin and almost won Iowa in the Democratic primaries. However it should not be forgotten that many libertarians who voted for Romney failed to vote for Trump and voted for Gary Johnson instead. If you add the 3.2% who voted for Johnson to the 47% Trump won, you get to 50.2%. So it can also be said that Johnson probably cost Trump the popular vote
It would be interesting to know how many Establishment Republicans didn't vote for Trump as well.
Trump did badly in Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Georgia, so probably quite a lot didn't vote for him.
Team Hillary did a very effective hatchet job on Trump straight out of the gate. He didn't help himself either - but they framed him. Those who have bigger fish to fry or simply don't care that much about being PC weren't put off.
Millenials and Sanders' voters certainly did not turn out for Hillary as they did for Obama which probably cost her the electoral college, Sanders for example won Michigan and Wisconsin and almost won Iowa in the Democratic primaries. However it should not be forgotten that many libertarians who voted for Romney failed to vote for Trump and voted for Gary Johnson instead. If you add the 3.2% who voted for Johnson to the 47% Trump won, you get to 50.2%. So it can also be said that Johnson probably cost Trump the popular vote
It would be interesting to know how many Establishment Republicans didn't vote for Trump as well.
Trump did badly in Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Georgia, so probably quite a lot didn't vote for him.
It looks like most of the Republican base turned out for Trump. In national terms he didn't get huge numbers of new voters either, but just enough of them to get him over the line in a number of key states. Trump is a very lucky president.
The liberal-left hold over the broadcast media is clearly a problem across the West. Trump's election in part is a rejection of that consensus group-think. I caught a bit of Channel 4 news for the first time in a long time last night. You don't expect much with Jon Snow but it's just unashamedly biased. Flicked over to the BBC one special, had three talking heads on the sofa who were all bitter. Muted it and went on my laptop. The next guest who was given a prime-time slot was Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian. Didn't listen to him but I did skim his article yesterday morning in the Graun. Needless to say he won't have been providing much balance.
Millenials and Sanders' voters certainly did not turn out for Hillary as they did for Obama which probably cost her the electoral college, Sanders for example won Michigan and Wisconsin and almost won Iowa in the Democratic primaries. However it should not be forgotten that many libertarians who voted for Romney failed to vote for Trump and voted for Gary Johnson instead. If you add the 3.2% who voted for Johnson to the 47% Trump won, you get to 50.2%. So it can also be said that Johnson probably cost Trump the popular vote
It would be interesting to know how many Establishment Republicans didn't vote for Trump as well.
Trump did badly in Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Georgia, so probably quite a lot didn't vote for him.
It looks like most of the Republican base turned out for Trump. In national terms he didn't get huge numbers of new voters either, but just enough of them to get him over the line in a number of key states. Trump is a very lucky president.
The exit poll shows big swings to Trump in certain groups but it looks like pseudo swing caused by those groups not turning out in the same numbers as last time. Differential turnout amongst demographics.
That's a very interesting analysis - thanks Kieran. I assume that the Rust Belt has more people than most areas who feel left behind and ignored by the establishment, and Clinton is nothing if not establishment. I wonder if the primary wounds where Sanders fought on this issue may have left a particular mark.
I've spotted a meme on the Twitter feeds of leftish friends - "I give up, I don't understand people." My unspoken response is "that's correct. If only you had had that insight twenty years ago..."
They're talking bollocks. More people voted Clinton.
Even more people voted for Trump + Johnson
It is an incredibly simplistic view to assume a Johnson voter is a lapsed Republican.
Simplistic demographic additions are a staple of pb. We often see Tory+Ukip , even from people who remind us in the same post that Ukip attracts wwc voters from Labour (and who rail against identity politics while treating wwc as an homogenous bloc).
The liberal-left hold over the broadcast media is clearly a problem across the West. Trump's election in part is a rejection of that consensus group-think. I caught a bit of Channel 4 news for the first time in a long time last night. You don't expect much with Jon Snow but it's just unashamedly biased. Flicked over to the BBC one special, had three talking heads on the sofa who were all bitter. Muted it and went on my laptop. The next guest who was given a prime-time slot was Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian. Didn't listen to him but I did skim his article yesterday morning in the Graun. Needless to say he won't have been providing much balance.
Yep, the hard right, like the far left, want to control the media and the courts. Two peas in a pod.
People genuinely believe that the they get the truth from 'news' sites like Brieitbart and or The Canary.
The Corbynite Labour forums frequently have real comments complaining about the right wing Guardian. The Morning Star is even a bit too right wing for some.
Feels connected to the unreality that drives vulnerable people who cannot sing onto the X Factor, convinced they are the new Elvis.
I've quite a degree of sympathy with the Corbynites here - the BBC Panorama on Corbyn was shockingly biased.
Who are you referring to when you say Alt-Right? It's like Tea Party - a bucket term used as a term of derision. It's like Neo-Liberalism. I've no idea who that's supposed to be either.
I am also not impressed with current Panorama. There was a sensationalist hatchet job on the railways this week, using max possible ticket prices etc as a way of implying that they are all like that.
Yes, I really dislike the media approach that starts with deciding a theme and then looks for selective evidence to make a programme about it. It's sadly SOP now.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Both the hard right and the far left confuse news not being reported in the way they would like, or news stories they think are important being ignored, with bias and sneering. Both want a lot more control of how news is diffused to people - the right through unfettered private ownership, the left through state-controlled "standards". As in so many other things they basically blend into each other.
The internet played a 'huge' part in this campaign. Clinton was a politician born out the 80s and 90s and singularly not equipped for the Internet age. I speculate that there are at least four areas where it made a difference.
1) Directly without the net would there be no email scandal, no smart phone pictures of Hillary fainting. Two things that made a difference and could not have happened before.
2) Before the net, coverage would have been bandwidth filtered. Some of the campaigns slow burning themes sustained by the net would not have made the TV news (simply due to time available rather than editorial control) and could not have developed.
3) "Globalisation" within America. Just as people in the third world can use the net to see into the wealth of the west, demand their share and recoil at an alien, decadent culture. Perhaps we're seeing the same thing within America.
4) People who would have happily shouted impotently at the TV during Question Time are now shouting each others in forums and social media echo chambers, reinforcing views and getting people out to rallies.
Social media reinforce polarisation, without doubt.
So many arguments are among like minded people saying "Are Conservatives/Liberals evil, or are they simply stupid?"
People genuinely believe that the they get the truth from 'news' sites like Brieitbart and or The Canary.
The Corbynite Labour forums frequently have real comments complaining about the right wing Guardian. The Morning Star is even a bit too right wing for some.
Feels connected to the unreality that drives vulnerable people who cannot sing onto the X Factor, convinced they are the new Elvis.
Is there a news outlet that you regard as agenda-free? I can't think of one. The sensible reader reads a few different outlets and filters it through their own ideas to come up with an informed view on world events.
Why. Why didn't I listen to myself? (Answer: because like so many of us, I was distracted by the later polling and you can't make a case that invokes some polling as evidence while dismissing other polling). But still, damn.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Both the hard right and the far left confuse news not being reported in the way they would like, or news stories they think are important being ignored, with bias and sneering. Both want a lot more control of how news is diffused to people - the right through unfettered private ownership, the left through state-controlled "standards". As in so many other things they basically blend into each other.
The internet played a 'huge' part in this campaign. Clinton was a politician born out the 80s and 90s and singularly not equipped for the Internet age. I speculate that there are at least four areas where it made a difference.
1) Directly without the net would there be no email scandal, no smart phone pictures of Hillary fainting. Two things that made a difference and could not have happened before.
2) Before the net, coverage would have been bandwidth filtered. Some of the campaigns slow burning themes sustained by the net would not have made the TV news (simply due to time available rather than editorial control) and could not have developed.
3) "Globalisation" within America. Just as people in the third world can use the net to see into the wealth of the west, demand their share and recoil at an alien, decadent culture. Perhaps we're seeing the same thing within America.
4) People who would have happily shouted impotently at the TV during Question Time are now shouting each others in forums and social media echo chambers, reinforcing views and getting people out to rallies.
Social media reinforce polarisation, without doubt.
So many arguments are among like minded people saying "Are Conservatives/Liberals evil, or are they simply stupid?"
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Both the hard right and the far left confuse news not being reported in the way they would like, or news stories they think are important being ignored, with bias and sneering. Both want a lot more control of how news is diffused to people - the right through unfettered private ownership, the left through state-controlled "standards". As in so many other things they basically blend into each other.
The internet played a 'huge' part in this campaign. Clinton was a politician born out the 80s and 90s and singularly not equipped for the Internet age. I speculate that there are at least four areas where it made a difference.
1) Directly without the net would there be no email scandal, no smart phone pictures of Hillary fainting. Two things that made a difference and could not have happened before.
2) Before the net, coverage would have been bandwidth filtered. Some of the campaigns slow burning themes sustained by the net would not have made the TV news (simply due to time available rather than editorial control) and could not have developed.
3) "Globalisation" within America. Just as people in the third world can use the net to see into the wealth of the west, demand their share and recoil at an alien, decadent culture. Perhaps we're seeing the same thing within America.
4) People who would have happily shouted impotently at the TV during Question Time are now shouting each others in forums and social media echo chambers, reinforcing views and getting people out to rallies.
Bill Mitchell - who some here airily dismissed many times was entirely right re polling that was wrong or right and when to not panic as the results came in. He's got seriously good instincts.
On election night - his Twitter feed got 80m hits and 400k retweets. He only started doing this stuff/radio show about 6 months ago.
Why. Why didn't I listen to myself? (Answer: because like so many of us, I was distracted by the later polling and you can't make a case that invokes some polling as evidence while dismissing other polling). But still, damn.
Yeh, I know the feeling well. For months I had a gut feeling that something was wrong and that Trump would win, but I overruled it with my head and all the polling and demographics and stuff about ground game and his crap performances in debates.
Millenials and Sanders' voters certainly did not turn out for Hillary as they did for Obama which probably cost her the electoral college, Sanders for example won Michigan and Wisconsin and almost won Iowa in the Democratic primaries. However it should not be forgotten that many libertarians who voted for Romney failed to vote for Trump and voted for Gary Johnson instead. If you add the 3.2% who voted for Johnson to the 47% Trump won, you get to 50.2%. So it can also be said that Johnson probably cost Trump the popular vote
It would be interesting to know how many Establishment Republicans didn't vote for Trump as well.
Trump did badly in Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Georgia, so probably quite a lot didn't vote for him.
It looks like most of the Republican base turned out for Trump. In national terms he didn't get huge numbers of new voters either, but just enough of them to get him over the line in a number of key states. Trump is a very lucky president.
The exit poll shows big swings to Trump in certain groups but it looks like pseudo swing caused by those groups not turning out in the same numbers as last time. Differential turnout amongst demographics.
What I meant was that the people voting for Trump were the people that always vote Republican. He doesn't seem to have put many of them off. There was a real swing towards him amongst the unionised working class in the Mid West, who swung the election for him but they aren't big numbers in terms of the overall electorate. It's not a revolution in votes
That doesn't mean Trump or someone similar won't win big in 2020. Trump has four years to make the case for economic nationalism.
People genuinely believe that the they get the truth from 'news' sites like Brieitbart and or The Canary.
The Corbynite Labour forums frequently have real comments complaining about the right wing Guardian. The Morning Star is even a bit too right wing for some.
Feels connected to the unreality that drives vulnerable people who cannot sing onto the X Factor, convinced they are the new Elvis.
Only half the story surely Johnson +3m needs investigation. Where did he gain votes?
My guess is that Trump gains WWC votes in the rust belt and lost them to Johnson in the OC and other locations where it didn't matter.
If Trump is relatively sensible for 4 years those votes could come back for him (or Pence) so the popular vote is less significant than you might think.
"Trump is relatively sensible" - that's not a phrase you see used very often. Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
The arguments of what Trump will do once in office is futile. The answer is that nobody knows what path he will take. The first 100 hours will tell us, we wont have to wait for the first 100 days to find out.
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
Not that I necessarily disagree, but when did alt right become the go to phrase? I don't recall hearing it until this year, but now it's everywhere.
It is isn't it. I don't know who coined it, but it's sticking because it has truth in it. There is definitely a new right-wing culture forming around certain memes, sites and personalities on the internet.
It's a term that the Right are largely happy to apply to themselves, but the poor, wee snowflakes do seem to have developed a sensitivity about everyone else (tr: the liberal-fascist, identity obssessed elite) using it. Perhaps it'll become their 'n' word.
@neilh I'd accept that critique of my posts. Certainly you can consume a fair amount of stuff a fair amount of the time and still be very precarious and insecure economically. Western wage stagnation started long before the Great Recession. We just masked it with debt.I also entirely agree welfare spending is misunderstood. When you strip out Disability/Children/Tax Credits/Pensions there is almost nothing left. if you are working age and find yourself unemployed the safety net is almost gone. The DWP is a truly hateful and Orwellian organisation ( all put in place under Labour. The quiet man just turned up the volume ) which abuses people in return for £70 pw because it can.
As for housing.....
Agreed. It's one reason I'm a Corbynist - I think we are seriously underestimating the degree of honest suffering at the margins. A friend working as a teaching assistant in her 50s has recently lost her job; she's hard-working (two years into getting an OU degree from evening work) and only to keen to get another job, but she's being politely but persistently harassed by the Job Centre to jump through hoops for £40 a week (because she still has a 1-day job, so her benefit is reduced to punish her for it). She is not burning with resentment but I can very easily see her voting for anyone who promises to shake things up.
'I don't understand the world anymore and should stop trying.'
As an old git, I can sympathise with your views. When did the younger generation turn into snowflakes? Crying in public because you can't get your own way? Really? I don't expect the old 'stiff upper lip', but a modicum of self-respect would be welcome.
It's a combination of a new sense of entitlement and the 'it's all about me' theme. I'm such an important person that I should never be inconvenienced. Somebody must do something. The West has a good life generally. but some rain is bound to fall. And when the old man with the scythe comes along, it's no use protesting on twitter. Welcome to reality.
Getting angry at others sometimes is normal (unless you're a saint) and part of human nature. It's often self-defeating but part of evolution. Understand that anger and why it's often pointless.
'I want to change the world to be in my image of what it should be.' Quite normal. But sometimes the world doesn't agree with you. Get over it. People who disagree aren't always evil, they just have a different viewpoint. It's the people who are convinced of their own virtues that are the real problem. Accept others as they are.
You can argue for a cause, but accept you may lose. Crying in public doesn't make you dedicated, it makes you look a tit.
He comes across as a likeable person, and if he'd been standing again he would have won vs Trump. But he wasn't, so his only contribution could be how successful he had been for his party in office. His likeability would not transfer to Clinton.
Looks like you're saying Obama would have won because of his personality, but Clinton lost because of Obama's policies. Doesn't make sense.
Clinton certainly wouldn't have won because of her personality. Nor did she have the Obama policies to see her over the line.
All she had was Fear of Trump - which piled some extra votes up where it didn't help her.
Did she not have Obama's policies? I thought she was pretty much the continuity candidate. I agree with what you're saying now, but that isn't what you were saying earlier: "This isn't just apathy towards Clinton, it is also a verdict on Obama's achievements."
I don't know about other papers, but "The Times" is having what appears to be a nervous breakdown as it reports and twists the news on Trumps triumph.
I've decided not to renew my subscription after several years. Since Brexit - the whole tone has been daft and partial. I went from reading most of it most days to one or two articles every few days to not wanting to bother. I can get what they say by turning on Sky for free.
What a huge pity. I've Sky on mute - it's all sneering and little smiles when they find something negative to say about the Right of any description. Why would I want to endure that?
They've cooked they own goose AFAIC.
There is symmetry between the right and left rejecting the MSM. The alt right and Corbynites agree on much.
I've quite a degree of sympathy with the Corbynites here - the BBC Panorama on Corbyn was shockingly biased.
Who are you referring to when you say Alt-Right? It's like Tea Party - a bucket term used as a term of derision. It's like Neo-Liberalism. I've no idea who that's supposed to be either.
Could Alt short for the German Alte, meaning old? I know I'm old, I'm also righty-wingy in my outlook. So maybe the phrase is right-on.
All interesting points on this thread, but I'll reiterate a point I made yesterday. When rational, centrist, moderate politicians have delivered variously the Euro, the Iraq War, the Banking Crisis, mass migration, supranationalism, is it surprising that people find populists attractive by comparison?
I've spotted a meme on the Twitter feeds of leftish friends - "I give up, I don't understand people." My unspoken response is "that's correct. If only you had had that insight twenty years ago..."
They're talking bollocks. More people voted Clinton.
Even more people voted for Trump + Johnson
It is an incredibly simplistic view to assume a Johnson voter is a lapsed Republican.
A Johnson voter backs small government and lower taxes, they are certainly not lapsed Hillary voters
Only half the story surely Johnson +3m needs investigation. Where did he gain votes?
My guess is that Trump gains WWC votes in the rust belt and lost them to Johnson in the OC and other locations where it didn't matter.
If Trump is relatively sensible for 4 years those votes could come back for him (or Pence) so the popular vote is less significant than you might think.
"Trump is relatively sensible" - that's not a phrase you see used very often. Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
The arguments of what Trump will do once in office is futile. The answer is that nobody knows what path he will take. The first 100 hours will tell us, we wont have to wait for the first 100 days to find out.
When is Hillary moving into the Ecuadorian embassy?
Why. Why didn't I listen to myself? (Answer: because like so many of us, I was distracted by the later polling and you can't make a case that invokes some polling as evidence while dismissing other polling). But still, damn.
Only half the story surely Johnson +3m needs investigation. Where did he gain votes?
My guess is that Trump gains WWC votes in the rust belt and lost them to Johnson in the OC and other locations where it didn't matter.
If Trump is relatively sensible for 4 years those votes could come back for him (or Pence) so the popular vote is less significant than you might think.
"Trump is relatively sensible" - that's not a phrase you see used very often. Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
The arguments of what Trump will do once in office is futile. The answer is that nobody knows what path he will take. The first 100 hours will tell us, we wont have to wait for the first 100 days to find out.
Well, maybe. I see two possibilities: 1. He will delegate most of the Presidential functions and say 'You're Fired" if and when they make mistakes. 2. He will try to govern as a corporate boss and will fail as events and (even Republican) Congress don't do his bidding. I can foresee big rows when he doesn't get what he wants. He's a 'toys out of pram' kind of guy. Either way it will take the 100 days before anything becomes clear.
Why. Why didn't I listen to myself? (Answer: because like so many of us, I was distracted by the later polling and you can't make a case that invokes some polling as evidence while dismissing other polling). But still, damn.
Why. Why didn't I listen to myself? (Answer: because like so many of us, I was distracted by the later polling and you can't make a case that invokes some polling as evidence while dismissing other polling). But still, damn.
I used the £100 I won on PB to back Trump at 5/2 a few days before the election. I'm now waiting for my winnings.
I got 4-1 on Trump, not because I thought he'd win, but I thought his chances were better than that. I was particularly impressed at the way Republican support was rising sharply in the generic ballot.
I've spotted a meme on the Twitter feeds of leftish friends - "I give up, I don't understand people." My unspoken response is "that's correct. If only you had had that insight twenty years ago..."
They're talking bollocks. More people voted Clinton.
Even more people voted for Trump + Johnson
It is an incredibly simplistic view to assume a Johnson voter is a lapsed Republican.
A Johnson voter backs small government and lower taxes, they are certainly not lapsed Hillary voters
Johnson took NOTA votes, some of which were certainly Dem voters ubenthused by Hillary
Could Alt short for the German Alte, meaning old? I know I'm old, I'm also righty-wingy in my outlook. So maybe the phrase is right-on.
I think it's from the Alt key on keyboards? - giving a different result from the same accompanying key.
Not according to Oxford English Dictionary. A 1990s term used for 'alternative' mainly in music, which was "influenced by the alt. prefix of some Internet newsgroups".
I'm not sure what the OED means by influenced - perhaps that they can't get a direct first appearance.
All interesting points on this thread, but I'll reiterate a point I made yesterday. When rational, centrist, moderate politicians have delivered variously the Euro, the Iraq War, the Banking Crisis, mass migration, supranationalism, is it surprising that people find populists attractive by comparison?
When Jill Stein said she preferred Trump over Clinton because the former was significantly less likely to warmonger - it said a lot. Hillary indulged in pathetic anti-Russia sabre rattling during her campaign.
@neilh I'd accept that critique of my posts. Certainly you can consume a fair amount of stuff a fair amount of the time and still be very precarious and insecure economically. Western wage stagnation started long before the Great Recession. We just masked it with debt.I also entirely agree welfare spending is misunderstood. When you strip out Disability/Children/Tax Credits/Pensions there is almost nothing left. if you are working age and find yourself unemployed the safety net is almost gone. The DWP is a truly hateful and Orwellian organisation ( all put in place under Labour. The quiet man just turned up the volume ) which abuses people in return for £70 pw because it can.
As for housing.....
Agreed. It's one reason I'm a Corbynist - I think we are seriously underestimating the degree of honest suffering at the margins. A friend working as a teaching assistant in her 50s has recently lost her job; she's hard-working (two years into getting an OU degree from evening work) and only to keen to get another job, but she's being politely but persistently harassed by the Job Centre to jump through hoops for £40 a week (because she still has a 1-day job, so her benefit is reduced to punish her for it). She is not burning with resentment but I can very easily see her voting for anyone who promises to shake things up.
The key word here is "margins". You don't get to do anything about the margins if you don't have power. So, the key is to get power. Do you achieve that by talking and focusing on the margins, or do you do it by addressing issues that most voters are focused on? And do you choose as a leader someone who cannot engage beyond a relatively small rump, or do you choose someone capable of reaching out and connecting with a large number of voters?
People genuinely believe that the they get the truth from 'news' sites like Brieitbart and or The Canary.
The Corbynite Labour forums frequently have real comments complaining about the right wing Guardian. The Morning Star is even a bit too right wing for some.
Feels connected to the unreality that drives vulnerable people who cannot sing onto the X Factor, convinced they are the new Elvis.
Is there a news outlet that you regard as agenda-free? I can't think of one. The sensible reader reads a few different outlets and filters it through their own ideas to come up with an informed view on world events.
I think some other countries do a better job of showing balance than the British media - there is a good choice of media in many countries that make an effort to show both sides of any controversy (USA Today isn't bad in that way, and the German media are mostly OK once you get beyond Bild-Zeitung). The British media are more fun, always laying into someone with gusto, and I think are best viewed as a branch of the entertainment industry.
I used to know a (Danish) Supreme Court judge of conservative leanings, who never read a paper whose editorial line he agreed with - he said it was bad for him to have his preconceived ideas reinforced, and he wanted to be challenged every day. I tried that for a while, but it does get depressing if you don't sometimes read something from your neck of the woods. I'd certainly subscribe to a paper which made a genuine effort at neutrality, and for all its failings I think the BBC is the least bad in that way in the UK.
Only half the story surely Johnson +3m needs investigation. Where did he gain votes?
My guess is that Trump gains WWC votes in the rust belt and lost them to Johnson in the OC and other locations where it didn't matter.
If Trump is relatively sensible for 4 years those votes could come back for him (or Pence) so the popular vote is less significant than you might think.
"Trump is relatively sensible" - that's not a phrase you see used very often. Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
The arguments of what Trump will do once in office is futile. The answer is that nobody knows what path he will take. The first 100 hours will tell us, we wont have to wait for the first 100 days to find out.
When is Hillary moving into the Ecuadorian embassy?
In all seriousness - after what I've seen during this campaign and what's come out of Wikileaks, I'm beginning to wonder if Assange is the victim of an organised campaign re the sex allegations.
I've disliked him for years and thought he was just awful. For me to begin to think that maybe I swallowed a load of BS is troubling on many levels.
Could Alt short for the German Alte, meaning old? I know I'm old, I'm also righty-wingy in my outlook. So maybe the phrase is right-on.
I think it's from the Alt key on keyboards? - giving a different result from the same accompanying key.
Afaik it's a direct lift from Alt Country (alternative country music) which I guess may have more resonances than just the literal appropriation - the reinvigoration of a moribund and exhausted form etc.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
When has a president ever left the White House of his own accord? This one's a megalomaniac narcissist. And he just won numerous battles against the odds, so even if it's hopeless he'll convince himself that he'll somehow come through it. If he's still alive in 2020, he'll stand.
Only half the story surely Johnson +3m needs investigation. Where did he gain votes?
My guess is that Trump gains WWC votes in the rust belt and lost them to Johnson in the OC and other locations where it didn't matter.
If Trump is relatively sensible for 4 years those votes could come back for him (or Pence) so the popular vote is less significant than you might think.
"Trump is relatively sensible" - that's not a phrase you see used very often. Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
The arguments of what Trump will do once in office is futile. The answer is that nobody knows what path he will take. The first 100 hours will tell us, we wont have to wait for the first 100 days to find out.
When is Hillary moving into the Ecuadorian embassy?
In all seriousness - after what I've seen during this campaign and what's come out of Wikileaks, I'm beginning to wonder if Assange is the victim of an organised campaign re the sex allegations.
I've disliked him for years and thought he was just awful. For me to begin to think that maybe I swallowed a load of BS is troubling on many levels.
Well, given he has brought down the forces against him he'll have no problem going to Sweden to stand trial and clear his name then?
@nielh I agree with much of your post. But all the populist right do is play on people's fears. Indeed much of their flag bearers are from the establishment. They aren't really going to improve people's lives, they have no real solutions. Look at Farage post-Brexit.
yep, that is what is scary. But labour are hopeless (as are the democrats in the US). Both wings of the party, and the problem currently is that they are to bound up in bonkers and insane identity politics, human rights, and fucking absolutely clueless about how to manage immigration as a political issue.
I don't think we are going to agree on identity politics and human rights. As it is I think all politicians of various stripes don't know how to deal with the issue of immigration. As long as globalisation continues in the way it has, mass immigration feels inevitable. And I think many politicians don't know how to confront that.
Correct. A hardcore want it stopped completely, and for now the politicians can ignore those. A hardcore don't care at all. They are being ignored now, but were given disproportionate attention previously. The rest of the population are on a scale of concern, and politicians have the unenviable task of knowing they need to do something, but it's unclear how much control will satisfy how many people, and is it even possible to the extent it is wanted.
I don't see that uncontrolled immigration is inevitable. What is inevitable I global population growth as living standards improve.
No, as per my previous post. Global population is slowly reducing and will halt within the lifetimes of current young adults.
You have the effect the wrong way round in any case - higher living standards reduce population growth.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
When has a president ever left the White House of his own accord? This one's a megalomaniac narcissist. And he just won numerous battles against the odds, so even if it's hopeless he'll convince himself that he'll somehow come through it. If he's still alive in 2020, he'll stand.
Didn't LBJ leave the WH on his own accord?
It's worth remembering that Trump is not a politician.
Could Alt short for the German Alte, meaning old? I know I'm old, I'm also righty-wingy in my outlook. So maybe the phrase is right-on.
I think it's from the Alt key on keyboards? - giving a different result from the same accompanying key.
Afaik it's a direct lift from Alt Country (alternative country music) which I guess may have more resonances than just the literal appropriation - the reinvigoration of a moribund and exhausted form etc.
The Alt Right combine the social policies of George Wallace with the economic and foreign policies of George McGovern.
Only half the story surely Johnson +3m needs investigation. Where did he gain votes?
My guess is that Trump gains WWC votes in the rust belt and lost them to Johnson in the OC and other locations where it didn't matter.
If Trump is relatively sensible for 4 years those votes could come back for him (or Pence) so the popular vote is less significant than you might think.
"Trump is relatively sensible" - that's not a phrase you see used very often. Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
The arguments of what Trump will do once in office is futile. The answer is that nobody knows what path he will take. The first 100 hours will tell us, we wont have to wait for the first 100 days to find out.
When is Hillary moving into the Ecuadorian embassy?
In all seriousness - after what I've seen during this campaign and what's come out of Wikileaks, I'm beginning to wonder if Assange is the victim of an organised campaign re the sex allegations.
I've disliked him for years and thought he was just awful. For me to begin to think that maybe I swallowed a load of BS is troubling on many levels.
Well, given he has brought down the forces against him he'll have no problem going to Sweden to stand trial and clear his name then?
Yep, we should see Assange leaving the Ecuadorian embassy shortly, shouldn't we?
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
When has a president ever left the White House of his own accord? This one's a megalomaniac narcissist. And he just won numerous battles against the odds, so even if it's hopeless he'll convince himself that he'll somehow come through it. If he's still alive in 2020, he'll stand.
Didn't LBJ leave the WH on his own accord?
It's worth remembering that Trump is not a politician.
LBJ stood in the New Hampshire primary in 1968 and was shocked by the strength of the anti-War vote for Eugene McCarthy. He then withdrew.
Could Alt short for the German Alte, meaning old? I know I'm old, I'm also righty-wingy in my outlook. So maybe the phrase is right-on.
I think it's from the Alt key on keyboards? - giving a different result from the same accompanying key.
Afaik it's a direct lift from Alt Country (alternative country music) which I guess may have more resonances than just the literal appropriation - the reinvigoration of a moribund and exhausted form etc.
Trump is transactional. He does deals and will say whatever is necessary to close them. He will then renege on the terms if that's what suits him. Trump said what he had to say to get to the White House. He will now disappoint a lot of people and probably won't stand again in 2020.
When has a president ever left the White House of his own accord? This one's a megalomaniac narcissist. And he just won numerous battles against the odds, so even if it's hopeless he'll convince himself that he'll somehow come through it. If he's still alive in 2020, he'll stand.
Didn't LBJ leave the WH on his own accord?
It's worth remembering that Trump is not a politician.
LBJ stood in the New Hampshire primary in 1968 and was shocked by the strength of the anti-War vote for Eugene McCarthy. He then withdrew.
So, not really of his own accord.
Yep - he was very unpopular, so he walked out before he was shoved out. That is kind of what I was getting at with my original post about Trump.
Should have been Biden. No way would he have lost Penn and Michigan.
'Should have been' means what exactly? It costs a billion dollars to run for president. The fucking machine decides who their drone is each time round. Hillary was the ultimate establishment insider machine drone. the system got what it wanted. But the system has been inured for so long to the people that it forgot what they might vote for. The shock of this election is not at all Trump's personal qualities. It is that a non-machine non-establishment non-drone forced his way rudely onto the ticket and into the White House. That is NOT supposed to happen. It's NOT what Goldman Sachs are paying for. They'll be very annoyed.
Comments
Maybe Trump is a clever guy who did 'what he had to do to get elected' and will govern sensibly - is that the art of the deal? I somehow doubt it.
There are reporters I see on social media, and they no longer report the news, they just sneer at it. It's quite extraordinary. There was always an underlying bias in what people reported, but post-Brexit it's like they feel they no longer have to pretend to be nice about it.
(Am I the only person who, when writing Carter, wants to add 'Unstoppable Sex Machine' afterwards?)
Who are you referring to when you say Alt-Right? It's like Tea Party - a bucket term used as a term of derision. It's like Neo-Liberalism. I've no idea who that's supposed to be either.
Miss Plato, Sky's political coverage has skewed leftwards (and sometimes just plain stupid) since Faisal Islam became political editor. The 0.1% 'spike' in inflation due to our referendum result was an especial highlight.
.@brianstelter and the political media were the last to know how blind they were apparently. Amazing elitism pawned off as insight. https://t.co/ZyWaUSiYaK
I don't know what the fix is, but it's clear that the idea of wealth trickling down isn't working as it was intended.
Trump is an unthinking boor. Which is fine, whatever, he's a product of his upbringing and society. There are more than enough anecdotes of people telling him thing he was unthinkingly doing was super unacceptable and him changing his behaviour.
Pence on the other hand has clearly thought about this shit and then enacted vile, hideous, hateful laws delibertly.
I cannot judge obamas policy success, but as a theory I think it logically holds up.
The canary in the coal mine was Iowa. It was one of the few rural white areas they did well in. When ballot returns in the early vote basically fell of a cliff for the Dems (and in Ohio) that's when they should have worried about Wisconsin. And there was clear polling showing she was doing badly in upstate New York, that should have rang alarm bells about upstate Pennsylvania as well. But she thought she could just rely on blue collar union workers because the bosses were supporting her.
What a terrible candidate. People just didn't want to turn out for her. Maybe trump would have still won with Bernie who knows. Think he would of held on to Michigan and Pennsylvania tho.
Clinton certainly wouldn't have won because of her personality. Nor did she have the Obama policies to see her over the line.
All she had was Fear of Trump - which piled some extra votes up where it didn't help her.
I think Trump has a better chance of success on his own terms than Brexit. America is big enough that it can afford to pull up the drawbridge and turn inwards. By patronage and selective use of tariffs and regulatory powers to force particular industrial outcomes, Trump can be seen as someone who got things done in contrast to the previous liberal regimes. A despot in other words, somewhat in the mould of Putin, and seen in 2020 by many as a strong and good president.
It's hard to see Brexit being anything other than an intractable mess, thanks to its inherent contradiction of pretending to be Britain opening up to the world while rejecting Britain's principal international relationship. With Trump probably undermining most of the international system: NAFTA, WTO, UN and possibly NATO, his election makes even more difficult us leaving the one bit of the international system that doesn't depend on the US l.
However I am deeply pessimistic on Climate Change. We've invented Renewables already and they won already won on cost. We'll win that battle and in the end we'll go Carbon Negative as we'll have to. The problem is it's already too late to avoid decades of fairly nasty stuff Climate wise. 9 billion people is a lot and some of them are going to have to live somewhere else. Travel is getting easier. Turning North America and Europe into a fortress is possible but quite expensive. voters will want it done but think other voters should pay.
Meanwhile the Fossil Fuel industry is like Moloch and we've huge stranded assets.
We don't know if the Chinese can pull off Hegemony without starting a World War. Or developing a middle class consumerist society without also having a bloody revolution in favour of democracy. Even if the later does happen that raises it's own problems for western societies.
Islamism is just a genocidal version of Trumpism which wants to take us back over a millenia rather than a few decades.
None of this is new. What better time to be alive ? I'm just gloomy western electorates are having these scale of tantrums so very early in the process. It doesn't bode well.
1) Directly without the net would there be no email scandal, no smart phone pictures of Hillary fainting. Two things that made a difference and could not have happened before.
2) Before the net, coverage would have been bandwidth filtered. Some of the campaigns slow burning themes sustained by the net would not have made the TV news (simply due to time available rather than editorial control) and could not have developed.
3) "Globalisation" within America. Just as people in the third world can use the net to see into the wealth of the west, demand their share and recoil at an alien, decadent culture. Perhaps we're seeing the same thing within America.
4) People who would have happily shouted impotently at the TV during Question Time are now shouting each others in forums and social media echo chambers, reinforcing views and getting people out to rallies.
The Corbynite Labour forums frequently have real comments complaining about the right wing Guardian. The Morning Star is even a bit too right wing for some.
Feels connected to the unreality that drives vulnerable people who cannot sing onto the X Factor, convinced they are the new Elvis.
So many arguments are among like minded people saying "Are Conservatives/Liberals evil, or are they simply stupid?"
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/09/17/trump-grinding-his-way-to-victory/
On election night - his Twitter feed got 80m hits and 400k retweets. He only started doing this stuff/radio show about 6 months ago.
Wrong.
That doesn't mean Trump or someone similar won't win big in 2020. Trump has four years to make the case for economic nationalism.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/four-reasons-elizabeth-warren-should-run-for-president-in-2016/
'I don't understand the world anymore and should stop trying.'
As an old git, I can sympathise with your views. When did the younger generation turn into snowflakes? Crying in public because you can't get your own way? Really? I don't expect the old 'stiff upper lip', but a modicum of self-respect would be welcome.
It's a combination of a new sense of entitlement and the 'it's all about me' theme. I'm such an important person that I should never be inconvenienced. Somebody must do something. The West has a good life generally. but some rain is bound to fall. And when the old man with the scythe comes along, it's no use protesting on twitter. Welcome to reality.
Getting angry at others sometimes is normal (unless you're a saint) and part of human nature. It's often self-defeating but part of evolution. Understand that anger and why it's often pointless.
'I want to change the world to be in my image of what it should be.' Quite normal. But sometimes the world doesn't agree with you. Get over it. People who disagree aren't always evil, they just have a different viewpoint. It's the people who are convinced of their own virtues that are the real problem. Accept others as they are.
You can argue for a cause, but accept you may lose. Crying in public doesn't make you dedicated, it makes you look a tit.
The contempt with which the senior academics viewed the states in the middle was supra-Meeksian.
One of them even said to me, the Coasts decide who runs America, the states in the middle are just people we fly over.
I suspect that the territorial integrity of the US (like the UK) will come under some strain over the next decades.
I agree with what you're saying now, but that isn't what you were saying earlier:
"This isn't just apathy towards Clinton, it is also a verdict on Obama's achievements."
https://mobile.twitter.com/rabiasquared/status/796454254001135616/photo/1
I see two possibilities:
1. He will delegate most of the Presidential functions and say 'You're Fired" if and when they make mistakes.
2. He will try to govern as a corporate boss and will fail as events and (even Republican) Congress don't do his bidding. I can foresee big rows when he doesn't get what he wants. He's a 'toys out of pram' kind of guy.
Either way it will take the 100 days before anything becomes clear.
I'm not sure what the OED means by influenced - perhaps that they can't get a direct first appearance.
I used to know a (Danish) Supreme Court judge of conservative leanings, who never read a paper whose editorial line he agreed with - he said it was bad for him to have his preconceived ideas reinforced, and he wanted to be challenged every day. I tried that for a while, but it does get depressing if you don't sometimes read something from your neck of the woods. I'd certainly subscribe to a paper which made a genuine effort at neutrality, and for all its failings I think the BBC is the least bad in that way in the UK.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/meet-the-alt-right-spokesman-thrilled-by-trumps-rise-w443902
I've disliked him for years and thought he was just awful. For me to begin to think that maybe I swallowed a load of BS is troubling on many levels.
You have the effect the wrong way round in any case - higher living standards reduce population growth.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37899026
It's worth remembering that Trump is not a politician.
http://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/Blog/detail.aspx?g=601cb3fe-54cd-4770-8887-1c341e05273e
So, not really of his own accord.
It's just so Yawn.