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Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

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Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#641

Post by tnmrnis »

sccxy wrote: post #134

Just tell me, how all those polls got it wrong. People were afraid of telling what they really want?

We don't really know yet. There are two (quite likely) possible options. A shift in the voter demographics and/or the "shy tory" (people not admitting to vote conservative because a negative social consequences).

Polls are never truely objective even if they try to be. You always have underlying assumptions about how to get a representative sample.

The third option would be that the polls were rigged. After reading the leaked Podesta mails this doesn't seem too unlikely but still less likely then other possible reasons.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#642

Post by threatofrain »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #186
thewarrior wrote: post #44

It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the heels of BREXIT this is a trend. The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is…

You can't sacrifice large swaths of the population for the so called "greater" good. Globalisation, as it stands now, is neo-colonialism. It offshores blue collar jobs and concentrates white collar jobs in rich countries. It disenfranchises blue collar workers in the west, and causes brain drain in the developing world. All it's done is benefit the elite. Read progressive economists like Piketty, and combine it with…

Globalism shuffled jobs around the world, and trade policies can change that to a modest extent -- one's trade policy can't change the fact that your citizens are too expensive versus Thailand or China. Tariffs against Mexico cannot make a Shenzhen. GM is not metaphorically coming back to Detroit.

US manufacturing employment is going down, and even if / when high tech manufacturing brings production back to the US, it will be robotic production. And with every company in the world racing for machine learning, I don't see how the future looks good for a specific generation of people in history too old to newly take up a globally competitive trade. Also, it's been mentioned around here that driving is one of the most frequent jobs in most states in the US, and that Uber recently made a deliver of beer by automated truck. Uber and every relevant company in the world is trying to destroy a category of worker from everywhere in the world.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#643

Post by bdz »

jroseattle wrote: post #356

Big data and big polling (Nate Silvers) took a major credibility hit in this election. People will be studying this for years. Of course, it's not that big data itself was to blame, just the interpretation of it. Nate, not sure what to tell you but that was a significant miss in this election, going all the way back into the primaries.

Well Nate did predict back in May that the Cubs will win the World Series and Trump will win the election

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/730251094614528000

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#644

Post by Shivetya »

qyv wrote: post #244
acjohnson55 wrote: post #52

This is utter madness. If we're lucky, this wheels fall off this whole enterprise and these people are discredited before they do too much harm. It's deeply frustrating to hear so much crap analysis of what's been going on. If we're really honest with ourselves about what's happening, we're seeing a massive vote for protectionism of a particular demographics that have long enjoyed it. People talk a lot about the forg…

Disclosure: Canadian here. Trump won because the Democrats railroaded their best candidate in favor of someone who is profoundly unlikeable and untrustworthy. Regardless of if she is truly a criminal, or not, the Democratic party choose a candidate who is under investigation by the FBI instead of a candidate that had real honest to god connection with the working people of the country. The voters have literally said…

I am pretty sure the voters tell that to the losing side each election. while its easy to lay claim that Sanders could have won it is anything but easy to prove. true he had support but not among groups known to show up to actually vote. he also did not have support of many Clinton voters and there is no guarantee he would get them.

The US is pretty consistent in flipping the White House. That in itself is amazing and a good thing. The sad part is all the hate that comes out on this site which is sadly typical of people not thinking but reacting

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#646

Post by k0htlane »

oddx wrote: post #585
einr wrote: post #538

The Baltic Republics vs. the rest of the USSR. Just FYI, since I assume you're not very familiar with these countries: this kind of lumping together the so-called "Baltic Republics" with the "USSR" is generally very offensive to Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians, who have nothing to do ethnically or culturally with Russia and generally view the Soviet era as very dark times. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were invad…

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were parts of Russia for 300 years with small omissions. It is longer than the time of existence of the United States. So they have a lot cultural and ethnical similarity with Russia. But yes, they try to ignore it officially.

Just a quick nitpick regarding to cultural/ethnical similarity with Russia: although the Baltic states were part of Russian Empire, the local culture had also strong German influences. Up until end of 19th century the Baltic Germans were the ruling class (although the region was in Russian Empira). So the local culture was mix of German and Russian influences, which makes it somewhat different with rest of USSR states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_governorates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans#Russia.27s_Balt...

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#647

Post by kbart »

mcv wrote: post #313
thewarrior wrote: post #44

It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the heels of BREXIT this is a trend. The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is…

I sometimes worry that liberal democracy may turn out to be a temporary fad. The rise of uninformed populism and strongmen is everywhere. Right-wing extremism, often with little love for the free press or due process, has been on the rise all over Europe. The Brexit campaign was dominated by lies and took a seriously xenophobic turn, and now the US has elected a president who is openly racist and lies more often than…

"Or is the problem with democracy itself? Is it possible that the world is too complex for the average citizen to make an informed decision about it? "

I believe, that democracy lost it when started to serve minorities instead of majority. Of course people are getting angry, when majority of them elect government which then won't care about their problems, but about immigrants, sexual minorities, big business, elites etc. Democracy, by definition, is the government of majority, and when it stops serving majority, it loses its purpose. I don't have a solution to this problem, but hopefully somebody will find it sooner rather than later, because I'm afraid some very dark times might otherwise be ahead.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#648

Post by belorn »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #413
smackay wrote: post #102

Jeez, everybody is all bent out of shape on this. The Republican establishment hate Trump nearly as much as they hate Clinton so with Republicans controlling The House and The Senate how much "damage" is President Trump going to be able to do. The really interesting part of all this was reading Scott Adams blog who proposed the idea that Trump is a master persuader (probably this is just a fancy name for populist). H…

> how much "damage" is President Trump going to be able to do. His rhetoric is already escalating the "war on Muslims". Electing him further confirms that Americans are the enemy of Islam. This is exactly what terrorists were trying to accomplish, and I think we can expect many more people to become radicalized. We can expect an increase in terrorist attacks. Walls won't save you. Tighter immigration control won't sa…

When it comes to radicalization, I would be much more worried over the long-term use of drone bombers. Some people have already incorporated drones into local lore (if you don't behave, a drone will get you), and from myth and lore it is a short step to define the operators as evil and create rhetoric that is used by radicalization. We saw a similar effect in art when England was under constant bombing during ww2. Several years of bombing can cause a rather radical effect on peoples mind, and I suspect studies on stress can confirm that. The wrong president being elected on the opposite side of the planet seems minor in comparison.

The climate aspect is indeed bad, even if many of the trade deals that trump oppose and Hillary was active in bringing forth was labeled as negative for the climate. Hillary was likely the lesser evil all in all, but hopefully in 4 years we can see an actually advocate for the environment and clean energy.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#649

Post by rmind »

oddx wrote: post #585
einr wrote: post #538

The Baltic Republics vs. the rest of the USSR. Just FYI, since I assume you're not very familiar with these countries: this kind of lumping together the so-called "Baltic Republics" with the "USSR" is generally very offensive to Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians, who have nothing to do ethnically or culturally with Russia and generally view the Soviet era as very dark times. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were invad…

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were parts of Russia for 300 years with small omissions. It is longer than the time of existence of the United States. So they have a lot cultural and ethnical similarity with Russia. But yes, they try to ignore it officially.

It is worth to point out that the Lithuanian statehood started in XIII century. Way way earlier than the US statehood. It was once a largest country in Europe. Also, in XVI-XVIII centuries, together Poland it formed a union state with a progressive political system and the first codified constitution in modern European history.

So, I would not underestimate the centuries of cultural identity. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why the Baltic States are doing so much better than any other countries in the former USSR.

Re: Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S.

#650

Post by notahacker »

thewarrior wrote: post #44

It is possible to view this as an isolated event or a trend. Coming on the heels of BREXIT this is a trend. The attempts at building an interconnected globalised world are beginning to fail. A bunch of elites decided to create their own trans-national utopia unchecked by borders and dismissed all criticism as racist or bigoted. The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population. Whether it is…

One should be careful about extrapolating a trend from two disparate data points.

Trump and Brexit have one major thing in common: they relied on surprisingly high turnout from white working class men for ostensibly right wing causes after a lot of anti-Establishment and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

They have a lot not in common, like pro-Brexit voters very strongly disapproving of Trump, Brexit being a popular political cause for over twenty years backed by a vast majority of the mainstream press which actually picked up momentum because Establishment and liberal free trade figures came out in favour of it, the demographics for Brexit voters being heavily skewed towards older people[1] in a way that Trump votes almost certainly weren't, and Trump evidently picking up a lot of "the incumbent party haven't done anything for us; let's vote for change" votes that aren't really related to the appeal of his wall or birther remarks to ex-Obama voters living in Mexican-free areas of Michigan. Trump's "Make American Great" again spiel might well resonate more with an unemployed ex-factory worker than a broadsheet article extolling the virtues of comparative advantage, but it certainly isn't the sort of practical protectionist plan he needs to deliver a permanently change the status quo position on globalisation, and his new supporters aren't going to stick around if he doesn't deliver something.

It's also clear that other relatively recent major Anglosphere elections haven't been a major success for the radical right.

[1]that campaign certainly wasn't won on subreddits

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