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

washingtonpost.com

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

#661

Post by stackallocator »

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.

Territories comprising modern Latvia has also been part of Germany (~300 years), Swedish Empire and Poland (~200 years).

The only thing Latvians share with Russia is the border unfortunately.

There are no major cultural or ethnic similarities.

The language is so different it doesn't even belong to the same branch in the language tree. (compared to family of Slavic languages - Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, Polish, Czech, etc)

Latvians do not want anything to do with Russia or it's culture or it's politics.

The same is true for Estonia and Lithuania.

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

#662

Post by angry_octet »

nostrademons wrote: post #327
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…

Something I've been wondering about: We're seeing this pattern where the coasts of many countries are cosmopolitan and well-integrated into the world economy, but the interiors are very conservative and nationalistic. Scotland & London vs. Wales & the rest of Britain. The U.S. West Coast & Northeast vs. the Farm Belt, Rust Belt, and Mountain states. Croatia & Slovenia vs. the rest of Yugoslavia. The Baltic Republics…

In Heinlien's Friday the US has split up into competing and fractious rival states, like a late 19th century Europe. The heroine is from a persecuted minority (namely genetically engineered people).

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

#663

Post by tremon »

nostrademons wrote: post #327
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…

Something I've been wondering about: We're seeing this pattern where the coasts of many countries are cosmopolitan and well-integrated into the world economy, but the interiors are very conservative and nationalistic. Scotland & London vs. Wales & the rest of Britain. The U.S. West Coast & Northeast vs. the Farm Belt, Rust Belt, and Mountain states. Croatia & Slovenia vs. the rest of Yugoslavia. The Baltic Republics…

What happens if economic ties between coastal regions of major trading partners become greater than cultural ties within nations?

Then those regions might form their own government, see for example the Hanseatic League [1]. These cities answered directly to the Emperor, instead of some local nobility or government.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_league

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

#664

Post by BipolarElsa »

jacobolus wrote: post #121
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…

Immigration and gay marriage and women’s rights etc. are scapegoats. The real problems are international competition (unskilled workers in developed countries have to compete with unskilled workers in Thailand and Bangladesh and Indonesia), automation (the US has higher industrial production than ever before, but it takes much less labor), changing tax laws and easier travel/communication/money movement (letting rich…

>Immigration and gay marriage and women’s rights etc. are scapegoats.

This is the answer nobody will admit in this thread. They do not solve the massive undercurrent of economic problems the vast majority of Americans face. They do not care about those distractions. And they proved that today.

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

#665

Post by intoverflow2 »

bdrool wrote: post #32

This event and Brexit are proof that you cannot shame people into voting how you want. Calling them bigots over and over just galvanizes them if anything.

Really shocks me that this wasn't obvious to people post-Brexit. I was a remain voter who was shocked by that result but this win has been obvious to me for a long time after that.

Calling leave voters racists achieved nothing and only strengthened their views. It was obvious when Trump voters appropriated the term Deplorables that personal attacks were going to fail. All you did was cause the polls to not reflect the final vote because people would say Hilary when asked but put an X next to Trump in private.

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

#666

Post by lxrbst »

plandis wrote: post #562

I've never felt less American than I do right now. The country that voted for a man who has been recorded stating that he sexually assaults women is not a country in which I want to live.

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

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

#667

Post by intoverflow2 »

icedchocolate wrote: post #284

Honestly Brexit and Trump both tell me that democracy doesn't work, because the majority of the population is undereducated, bigoted, and has absolutely no idea about how to run an economy - it makes no sense for the working class who don't understand the most basic of economic concepts to influence how the economy is run. I hope he doesn't screw America's economy by preventing skilled immigrants coming in and helpin…

>because the majority of the population is undereducated, bigoted, and has absolutely no idea about how to run an economy

"I've called them racists, I've called them idiots... nothings working, why won't they vote like me"

You can't throw democracy out just because it didn't go your way.

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

#668

Post by intoverflow2 »

simosx wrote: post #347

Both the BREXIT campaigners and Trump over-promised on how they will fix the financial crisis. Neither started to deliver yet, and will be seeing what they can actually do in 2017. It kinda does not make sense because their promises are either mutually exclusive (strict fiscal policy but spending) or do not play well with the rest of the world (tariffs and other trade restrictions which eventually would be matched on…

>Both the BREXIT campaigners and Trump over-promised on how they will fix the financial crisis.

Important to keep in mind that even large amounts of the pro-Brexit campaign didn't actually expect to win, it was meant to be a bargaining chip.

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

#669

Post by Mahn »

CptJamesCook wrote: post #604

Please stop calling people you don't agree with racist and sexist. It's wrong, it's mean, and it does not seem to have the desired effect. Human beings are basically good. We are trying to go about our lives and do the best we can. The vast majority of us are neither sexist nor racist.

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

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

#670

Post by scottmf »

erikb wrote: post #520
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 thought about your text a few hours. Because some of it sounds really right, but somehow it also feels strange. You say, if I understand you correctly, that the rural voter is the majority, and that we should finally start to listen to his needs, ideas, fears and dreams. And I agree that we should listen to the majority and figure out how to make most people happy. But exactly this "rural voter" is not the one who…

Your comment comes across as fairly condescending, but I can't really argue with it.

Sure it can be dangerous to believe you know what's best for others and force decisions upon them, but clearly what we have now isn't working either.

More than ever we desperately need more resources put into education. But that isn't going to happen.

I don't see an easy way out of this mess. It's something we've been building toward for a long time and it's incredibly saddening.

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