h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A reality TV star is the President Elect of the USA. A man that disdains facts and evidence. A man that talked about the size of his penis during a televised debate. A man that embraces and emboldens conspiracy theories. A man that only gave lip service to shunning his endorsements from David Duke and the KKK. A man that bragged about sexual assault. A man with a very disturbing physical attraction for his own daughter. A man whose entire campaign was rooted in Fear and Loathing.


In a similarly surprising fashion as the Brexit vote he seems to have won on the votes of angry and fearful white people.

Are we seeing the decline of Western Civilization in action?

What can we expect in the near future?

What are you personally worried about or are you optimistic that somehow things will work out?

I'm more convinced than ever that this is not reality. Im..... lost for words, as to how, I assume, the majority of voter's in a country as large and diverse as teh USA, could do something quite so utterly utterly insane. Its just beyond belief.

What I find most disturbing is the long term effects this will have. Trump will nominate and appoint at least one ultra-conservative Supreme Court Justice. He has a republican led Senate and Congress that will handily confirm anyone he chooses.

Also, unless the midterm elections in a couple of years throw out a lot of incumbents, Congress will be republican led after the next census meaning they'll yet again redraw voting districts and further gerrymander their States and this country making this effectively a one party country.


This will be bad... very bad.

During the campaign, there were a couple of issues where I liked Trump's positions -- continuing support for Social Security, for instance. There was at least one issue on which he parted company with conservative republican Party doctrine. My take is that he ran without party ties. He said what he wanted to say, alienated people at will, and was pretty much unbossed. Hillary, by comparison, had Democratic Party celebs constantly endorsing her.

I did not get a clear picture of what Trump wanted to do once in office, except for the fence he wanted to build along the Mexican border. Well, is this the most important issue in the world? Maybe he can put people to work building the fence. The most enterprising people will still find ways of getting into the U.S.

Even with Republican control of both houses of Congress, there are still Republican party leaders who might refuse to pass legislation unless he compromises. Maybe he will compromise. he president is elected to be the president of all the people, It's the job.

I remember being afraid Ronald Reagan would get us into a nuclear holocaust when he ran for president. That didn't happen. The two Bushes got us into Iraq. The world is still standing.

You don't have to *like* the leader of your country. It might even be okay for most people to oppose him [or, it might have become her]. So what? It's the job again. The leader makes decisions. Can you imagine not being able to make decisions without buy-ins from every citizen? It would be crazy.

Except for the Reagan/Bush years, neither party has won more than two consecutive presidential elections since 1952. This was going to be a Republican year.

I wouldn't want to be president.

The one danger I see is that Trump might be a global warming denier. That could harm the world.

Yeah... that's really bad. That he so adamantly refuses to believe irrefutable evidence so vehemently (look at the birther nonsense) is very disturbing. He spouts lies and conspiracy theories constantly. He doesn't CARE what's true. As my father likes to say about such folks, "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up!"

He will be making policy without any factual basis for doing so.

And with a majority in congress that also deny anthropocentric climate change you can expect all the advancement in renewable energy to be reversed with further expansion of fossil fuel development.

"Clean coal" my ass!

During the campaign, he admitted that Obama was born in the U.S. His word is as credible as that of a used car salesman....

He left the door open for "negotiations" on top tax rates for the wealthy:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/08/politics/donald-trump-taxes-wealthy/

He's willing to negotiate? That hardly seems like the modus operandi of a dictator. But again, car salesmen negotiate prices. Trump made money by being better at buying attractively priced properties and getting the most out of them. At one point, his net worth was negative a billion dollars or more. He managed to hang in there until the markets improved, except for what he sold to realize tax losses applicable to future years' tax returns.

This is a patriarchal man. If the country is his baby, perhaps he will treat it well, by his lights. Maybe. We can wait and see.

I will concede that we have only seen what the media has broadcast to the rest of the world, but my overwhealming inpression is that the USA has elected a complete and utter .

He can not be described as a , he is a .

USA, what the hell were you thinking of?

PP.

Time for this stupid 'democracy' experiment to be put to bed I reckon.

PP.

Starlin never had these problems

The UK can't feel superior the mess they have made over Brexit
Now the want to change the law before they break it.
Tear down the rule of parliament in the process it will back fire.

Scotland and Northern Ireland will endeavour to stay in the EU by the look of it.
If they do and agree to open borders of the EU the immigration will be worse than ever.

You don't need a fortune teller for that!

"What are you personally worried about?"

World War III.

No its just amazing that the brexit vote was so badly handled and that it degraded into an immigration issue, which in turn descended into a racist vote.
Since the vote there are many more people making racial comments and no one objects anymore.
Civil unrest is the only violence we will see

Angry, scared white folks...

This is how many votes Hillary Clinton got: 59,915,938
This is how many votes Donald Trump got: 59,689,467

You might notice that Clinton got more votes than Trump. But the election is decided by electoral votes, of which Trump got more.

CGP Grey - update

http://youtu.be/zcZTTB10_Vo


Here's the original.

http://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k

If those counts are correct, Paul, less than 0.2% difference out of the total count. Pretty slim margin.

We've had a lot of close elections -- 1960, 1968, and most of the ones in this century. Even Obama got in by less than a landslide. Voters on both sides seem to want the ins to be muzzled so their worst inclinations won't do much harm.

And my belief in the human race to have a capacity for being good, tenuous at he best of times, has finally gone.

I admit that it's a stretch to consider American voters in aggregate as capable of making enlightened choices at the ballot box.

But Hillary did collect more votes than Donald. Even despots can count votes and realize the quicksand they are walking on. The checks and balances of the last 240 years have worked fairly well. Trump's party leaders may still have some aces up their sleeves. They can work on things without the extra effort of holding Hillary at bay. Perhaps there may be Democratic Party leaders willing to reach across the aisle.

Who ya' tryin' to convince, Paulh?



"Voters on both sides seem to want the ins to be muzzled so their worst inclinations won't do much harm."

I don't think that matters much to Trump.