Laurence Dollimore
DONALD TRUMP has won the US presidential election.
For many it feels like Brexit all over again after pollsters and bookies predicted a solid Hillary Clinton victory.
Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy tweeted reality TV star Trump this morning.
“My congratulations to Donald Trump, we will continue to work together to strengthen Spain’s relationship with the United States.”
Meanwhile, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias urged the US to resist Trump’s ‘facism’.
He said: “The vaccine against Trump’s fascism is social justice and human rights, not more establishment.”
Ciudadanos leader Alberto Rivera blamed the result on a disgruntled middle class.
“If there are no solutions to the problems of the middle class, populism wins,” he said.
Trump, who has filed for bankruptcy four times and has been accused of sexual assault by ten women, clinched the election after gaining 276 electoral college votes.
Trump got in as a a populist, but not a Republican populist. As a pragmatic deal-maker and social liberal he isn’t likely to tolerate Tea Party southern rednecks in the House and Senate. And as a grandiose narcissist he will be more focussed on his historical legacy and reputation.
Trump’s populist campaign that appealed to marginalized, mostly white working class high school educated Americans, may have got him into office using populist Trojan horse. Some speculate that that horse will be dismantled a few months after he is in office. The Campaign Horse’s simplistic rhetoric, while repugnant to many, appeal to disenfranchised provincial people across America.
If this is true – maybe its not – his presidency could go either quite well or very badly. The big drop in stock market futures showed international financiers are concerned – a good thing.
The wild cards are in the House and Senate. Decent, may, just may, side with moderate Democrats and Independents. If Trump shows his famous pragmatism. Anti-Tea Party non-fanatical Republicans with a social conscience are not likely to antagonize Trump because, as he has shown, he has the will to mud wrestle and win. Their campaigns for mid-term elections been within a year. Since Trump does ‘eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth’ suggests no funds for candidates not supporting his program. Lyndon Johnson comes to mind: LBJ understood exactly how to twist the arms of bigots, and passed historic social legislation.
This is going to be interesting. We may be seeing the beginning of a social revolution – or on the other hand, a consolidation of what Hillary called ‘the basket of deplorables.’ Time will tell.
And, no, OP trolls, I did not support or vote for Trump.
Good news for the US and also for Brexit with Trump as president, the silent majority have spoken as they did in the UK, when will the liberal left whiners media get it ?
“Silent majority” or stentorian ‘Trumpiters’ mouthing vulgar, racist, anti-semitic slogans? We hope UK, EU and US citizens find a civilized, pragmatic, humane program between the two extremes lest we emulate the tribalism of, for example, Spain.
The IV Reich draws ever closer. “The Silent Majority” starring The Ku Klux Klan pimping for Trump.
Trump’s message was ‘let’s make America great again’. Perhaps he will. The Brexit message on the other hand was ‘let’s go full stupid and see where it takes us’.
At least with Trump, they can vote him out again in four years time.
Yes, the silent majority has spoken and basically they have showed his repulse against the establishment.
But we must not forget that Trump , though who seems to have a level of civility that would shame the more ineducated inhabitant of the more dirty shanty town, is not a member of the american working class, he is member of the more wealthy 1% by inheritance, and that his principal supporters are not citizen organizations or trade unions precisly.
I fear that we have an outsider ,aspirant to president that smartly has exploited an overpopulated fishery of naive minnows.
In my opinion the victory of Trump is better for all us, but It is really be good for who voted him? . I doubt It.
There are some electoral promises that Trump made but I doubt that he will accomplish:
1º) The fight against corruption: Trump have lived and thrived in the murky waters of the big business for to be capable of to fight really against corruption, that in USA, I fear, has levels of banana republic . …. Hillary not will be jailed !.
2º) USA is a bankrupted nation, that do not can access to the finantiation necessary, for acomplish the rebuilding of his crumbling infraestructure, inspired in the Great Deal.
3º) The drastic reduction of the military budget of USA, would encourage to the Third World countries to not sell his commodities to USA at so low prices. It would mean the end of the prosperitiy of USA.
4º) USA can not impose taxes of 45% to the chinese importations because the chinese goberment have the property of a big part of his public debt.
The only outcome of all this , I think , is a shift in the ruling elites of USA and the abandonment of the inviable project of the American Century, because the cost of to maintain an empire can not overwegiht the incomes that this gives. Such has happened to so many older empires, inluding the Spanish Empire, in whose wrecks I live.