Trump Nears Victory
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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 for economic reasons or just plain bigotry is something for the sociologists to study and not something I can pontificate on.
Also people seem to care a LOT about immigration and preserving their culture. Instead of patronising these people it's time we tried to understand their concerns and try to assuage them.
There is no genuine leftist alternative. It's a choice between center-right "left" that's sold out to the establishment and the far right.Economists need to stop acting like priests in the medieval ages who justified the existing order . The rural voter who lost his job doesn't care about the theory of comparitive advantage.
If this trend holds this will soon take hold in France and other European nations. This is a return to the world of the 1920s. Not gloom and doom but a much more unstable global order with every country for itself. Not what we need when we face planet scale threats like global warming.
Get out of your bubble. Hang out more on subreddits you don't agree with.
The divide is bridged one person at a time.
Life goes on.
EDIT: Its a shame they killed this thread.
Since I'm from that area, what Moore points out and the free traders refuse to acknowledge is free trade has been absolutely devastating to the region. Sure, maybe you can buy cheap appliances that don't last that long anyway. But all the GM workers and steel workers and so forth are just SOL and education doesn't do a damn thing for them. They're not going to be making iphone apps (not that apps are all that lucrative anyway).
Economists / policymakers have lied to us; there's few benefits to globalization and there's a total lack of a meaningful employment policy to replace lost jobs with jobs of equal quality. But hey, Walmart may be hiring! And we wonder why people who worked in manufacturing, at Carrier [2], or at Oreo [3], aren't enthusiastic about free trade or its promoters.
[1] http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/
[2] http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a44548/in...
[3] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-ore...
There are benefits in globalization. There are big problems with inequality.
Do not conflate one with the other: globalization is unstoppable, because technology is unstoppable. The whole world must slowly converge to a uniform (richer) standard of living.
But that will help few people if we allow those riches to be concentrated in very few hands.
Fighting globalization is fighting the wrong enemy: if you (by some miraculous change) are able to remove your country from the globalized world, your country would become poorer. And there is no guarantee that the wealth will be better distributed: the early eighteen centuries economies were not globalized and inequality was a big issue too (bringing about the theory of communism, for example)
Globalization does not require inequality. Non globalization does not guarantee shared wealth.
We need to fight for globalization and wealth distribution, which is what will guarantee the best standard of living for the whole population.
The globalisation project is a consequence of:
1. People move: they have legs.
2. Technology has made moving easier and faster.
3. Technology has made keeping in touch in a decentralized network easier.
So it is not the elites, it is technology. You can try to stop it, by force, but you will not succeed and you will create lots of suffering.
The Earth belongs to everybody.
The country where I live has been built by lots of people, not least immigrants.
The folks passing those agreements are the "elites" by any stretch of the term.
The opposing force, making globalization unfair for the masses, is unchecked capitalism, which has increased inequality by allowing financial elites to concentrate capital.
Trump, May et al are not goint to put any fight against inequality, so you will be surprised how little borders are going to help the poor.
You mean, besides all the multinationals setting office in Ireland and opening positions? (and not only a "mail office")
The fact is that while they sell you on "moving around", they also remove the market barriers that keep you employed and help you earn gas to move and a house to live in. That's the part of the thing you're not addressing.
The USA will need to compete in the global market to sell its products. That means the USA will need to use globalization in order to find the best place to produce with quality and to be able to compete in price.
So, retreating from globalization is not an option. You can avoid people entering the country, but this is not going to make your country any richer. And that is for sure not going to guarantee that inequality is going to decrease.
For that, you need to tackle inequality directly, by collaborating internationally to avoid loopholes (double Irish and such crap) that steals revenue from countries and concentrates in the hand of the global financial elite.
Trump is not going to do any of that.
What I'm driving at isn't just for the US--it's for all the countries. You can't bootstrap your economy by opening yourself to being exploited by multinationals, by shipping your resources off in the form of trinkets, regardless how many factory shirtmaker jobs it produces.
The problem of globalization is that it allows advanced economies to entrap developing markets, shipping them goods they don't develop locally--similarly, it guts advanced economies which are unwilling to compete (read: leverage externalities like polluting the air) with developing economies in certain sectors.
It also tends to end-run around local government by way of "harmonizing" accords, and makes governments subservient to the global market instead of the local people who they are supposed to govern.
And since we buy this, we oppose legislation which is going to put limits to our about-to-come rich-me.
Folks, this is what happens when you ignore and ostracize and most importantly mock the downtrodden. Let's assume (and this might be an incorrect assumption) that this election was decided by undereducated white males.
What has been the positive messaging from the Left and even the intelligent Right for those folks?
Which of the angry tweets decrying evil white men helped encourage them to cross party lines? Which of the Ted talks (other than one or two) recognized their plight as a respectable thing they could fix instead of a talking point? Which of the reddit posts refrained from calling them manchildren during GG? Which media posts failed to paint them as bigoted and racist?
The fact is, they've had it rough, and the Left failed to show that they would have a place at the table, that they would have any dignity in the future.
And so, they lashed out and here we are. Hopefully some of us are paying attention.
Can we start by not calling them un/under-educated? A high school education should be more than enough for most people.
There's something else going on and I can't put my finger on it. I personally know people who aren't part of the white working class who voted for Trump but would otherwise find him appalling. Maybe now that the election is over I can ask them in order for me to better understand where they're coming from. For now, I remain perplexed.
Well put!
> Hang out more on subreddits you don't agree with.
Better yet, get off the Internet and seek face-to-face conversations with people around you from different perspectives!
I hear a lot of people after every election saying they don't know anybody who voted for the other side. That's a problem.
If you understood their concerns you wouldn't try to "assuage" them. You would join them.
But anyway, this thread is flagged and dead so who cares. I remember when Obama won and reddit had his victory post at the very top for 48+ hours. Now there's just some shit about Canada's immigration website. And the beat goes on.
Agree. Protip: you don't even have to make a lot of noise - just discuss the things that are within reach.
I disagree with a significant number of you guys here in a number of cases, yet it seems people mostly like me.
For one, the average human is more easily connected to one another. Within the next hour I could order a crazy amount of raw materials from around the globe. Or donate it to feed a family.
Another is we're generally better educated, especially in the western countries. We teach the basics of relativity in public school, whereas it was still being hotly debated at the highest levels, barely within view of the general public.
Maybe this is way off, but the wave of "privatization" has seen quite a bit of financial power in the hands of staunch progressives. Control of the higher education, much of the modern economy. The urban areas are largely anti-Trump and make up the bulk of the population.
Sam Altman, Tim Cook, etc...you have the power here: Invest in technology to do as OP suggests... listen to and understand "these people", and help them feel whole again.
It looks as though we'll have little progressive voice in government. Trump White House, probably two Supreme picks, with control of both sides in Congress, and a hamstrung, red taped up the ass bureaucracy getting in the way of government workers doing legitimately beneficial work. Little representation of progressive ideals.
All the above said; This may be a bit reactionary, and I am a bit tipsy, but progressives largely control the modern economy and innovation pipeline. All those tech workers at Google, Apple, YC, financial workers. Left leaning types predominantly control urban government offices in these areas. The most progressive leaning states pay more in Federal dollars than they receive versus conservative states, and have healthier economies. There's a tremendous amount of power there. I hope it's wielded for the benefit of the many. But a coordinated rejection of too conservative an agenda could be called for.
I think Mark Zuckerberg's comments show both ways we can react to this election. You've got to decide:
will you be constructive or destructive?
"We can't create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country
because they back a political candidate ... There are many reasons a person might support Trump that do not
involve racism, sexism, xenophobia ..."
> But I think America really, really needs to decide how it wants to take this
as a non-US-resident I'd say the US did already decide its action. Thats what the vote is for. In my opinion the people who need to take an honest look at themselves aren't the american voters, but the intelligentia, the "juste millieu". Not just in the US, but the whole West.
I've tried to follow the news coverage here in Germany for almost the entire election this time, including primaries. The utter biasedness of journalism made it unbearable. I could switch between American, French, British or German TV channels - none of the channels did even bother to keep a disguise of "neutrality". Trump was pure evil, his voters deplorable and so on.
I've kept telling people: "Don't underestimate his chances" and now I've never felt so sorry for being right.
Perhaps you meant that the left needs to decide how it will move forward given this result.
If the right can't see past itself to be graceful in victory and try to understand the left's anxiety and worries it'll only make things worse.
The echo chamber of CNN, MSNBC, NYT, et al., is deafening. If you've been watching these outlets you know that they have been calling the election for Clinton for more than six months. The arrogance is just stunning. And here we are.
Now let's talk about the DNC. These folks are so crooked they literally colluded to steal the nomination from Sanders. How can that possibly sit well with anyone? Frankly, Bernie would have won vs. Trump. And here we are.
And for these reasons and a host of others, here we are.
A. He probably has no retirement savings.
B. The fat-cat on Wall Street that cost him his job probably lost a lot more.
Democracy means you don't always get what you want. Be excellent to each other, whether you voted for Trump, Clinton, a third party candidate, or nobody. It's tragic seeing people isolate themselves into echo chambers of ideological refuge.
This is the problem, though - there's no data that agrees with you. Nor is there any that disagrees with you. Because we've seen today that all the polling data was a load of complete nonsense.
It could be that Trump won because most Americans agree with him. The popular vote totals would suggest this is not the case. Rather, a majority of Americans in swing states either agree with Trump enough, or disagree with Clinton enough, to vote they way they did. It's going to take a long time to get to the bottom of which combination of those factors is what.
I would love to know what you actually agree with Trump on, as it's been shown again and again Trump doesn't really say anything of substance. Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aFo_BV-UzI
So perhaps they are both failures and both the same, Hillary just did it on a bigger (more important) stage.
Clinton was a fine candidate to beat Trump, but she wasn't the candidate that matched the mood of the electorate. It's worth pointing out that the popular vote remains incredibly close, and Clinton may win it yet.
SCREW THE TRUMP GOVERNMENT. I"M DOING EVERYTHING IN BITCOIN.
Trump obviously would remove those filters.
I'd be more worried about the rights of minority's and lgbtq people though. Oh and women.
Like... Obama did?
I mean, obviously people should go to vote and should be encouraged to vote. It's just that it was pretty much an open secret that the reason all of these tech companies and Silicon Valley people were suddenly "so involved" in getting people to vote, is because they thought most of the people they'd reach would vote for Clinton. And it's another open secret that most of Silicon Valley companies wanted Clinton to win.
I, for one, would've welcomed attempts to fix the real democracy issues in the U.S. (which are far bigger than just low voter turnouts), and attempts to fix the real problems that got half of the country to vote for Trump.
Hint: it's not just because of racism, but also because people are sick and tired of polished-up, corrupt politicians. Trump may be a very poor, or one of the worst possible alternatives to that, but at least he was an alternative.
These people really don't get it why Trump and Sanders saw such a rise in popularity. Tuesday's Reuters poll shows black and white why. I'll just copy the results here:
- 75 percent agree that "America needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful."
- 72 percent agree "the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful."
- 68 percent agree that "traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me."
- 76 percent believe "the mainstream media is more interested in making money than telling the truth."
- 57 percent feel that "more and more, I don't identify with what America has become."
- 54 percent feel "it is increasingly hard for someone like me to get ahead in America."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-mood-idU...
And if you're not convinced, or you still don't quite get it, listen to Michael Moore and Jimmy Dore explain it in more colorful terms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOcstHhtL4Y&feature=youtu.be...
The simple answer comes down to, the DNC (champion of unions and jobs), nominated an individual tied to killing jobs through out sourcing, etc, with no answer to "my town is dying".
They messed up, as did Hillary.
Things will be interesting.
The rising tide better actually lift all boats.
Genius.
I'm pretty sure the "rust-belt" middle class doesn't see how their situation could get any worse. They might be right.
The man doesn't believe in democracy and thinks the country went wrong when women got the vote.
I see in our future ... the exact same presidency. More US led wars. More predator drones. More CIA guns and money to fund revolutions that we then fight with out predator drones. Just remember the election is like Whose Line is it Anyway, the points are all made up and none of it matters.
Yep. That's what makes it so hard for third party candidates. The donors fund both sides so they don't get left out in the cold if their guy loses. They have to believe you'll have a chance to win to fund you, and if they don't it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The US system was actively designed to not be democratic. That's why we have an electoral college; the vote was (and still is) the peasants suggestion box.
But the idea the US system wasn't designed to be democratic is a pretty gross exaggeration. You can't win without votes from "the peasants" no matter how much you spend to convince them. Otherwise Jeb Bush would be president-elect today.
EDIT: You simply cannot say it was the peoples' fault for not voting for her (pick someone electable next time); she had her choice between picking between what was best for her and what was best for the country, and we all lost because she was selfish.
I hope Sanders supporters step up and begin purging DNC incumbents in down ballot races. It is the only way forward.
EDIT 2: Sanders vs Trump polling: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/ge...
http://www.270towin.com/maps/sanders-trump-electoral-map
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/...
And regardless how useless polling appears to be, its impossible to say that Sanders was a less liked candidate than either Clinton or Trump.
This was never about left vs. right but about overturning the status quo.