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Comment by adt2bt | Hacker News Reader

I, like many, did not see this coming and I am truly afraid for the future of the USA. We sure showed up Brexit, though.

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I don't care much for america. after all they are consenting adults who voted for the best candidate they had. I am more concerned about the consequences for the rest of the world.

goodbye baltic states. you had a good run. im sure putin will enjoy his empire.

As a European I believe that massive investments into defense are necessary. I hope that we start pulling our weight in NATO now.

I assume you're referring to Trump not being happy with NATO members freeloading on USA. Estonia spends >2% GDP on military [1] as the NATO guidelines say. Thus, at least in regards of Estonia, Trump should be satisfied.

[1] US, Greece, UK, Estonia, Poland are the only NATO members who pay at least 2% GDP in 2016. http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_0...

That's exactly why I'm glad that Donald Trump will soon be our president. He will ensure we serve the American people before tending to the desires of other nations.

He will serve no one but himself, just as he has his entire life.

Go USA. I've got to admit it, your insane failure of democracy literally Trumps ours.

So many blame or give credit to Trump for winning the election.

I think the real fault lies with DNC. Why were they so hell bent on having Clinton picked when Sanders excited so many young Democrats and did better in earlier polls?

I don’t think Sanders would have done better than Clinton.

He might have. In pre-nomination polling, Sanders did significantly better than Clinton against Trump. He'd also have gotten his share of anti-establishment voters and arguably would have brought to the table far less baggage.

Why not?

Trump and Hillary had historically high unfavourable ratings, and Bernie is quite popular. The socialist label was worn out somewhat on Obama, so it doesn't carry the same sting. He doesn't have anywhere near the baggage that Hillary does, and had policies to address some of the white working class concerns of the rust belt, and shared some of Trump's skepticism about free trade offshoring jobs. He would've gotten all of the "anyone but Trump" votes (as Hillary did), plus he had a bloc of genuinely excited voters who enthusiastically supported him till the end, potentially meaning greater turnout. Not saying he would definitely win, but in head to head polling he did better vs Trump than Hillary did.

Perhaps because, aside from when he was running for the nomination, Sanders isn't a Democrat! He's an Independent who tried to take control of the party (the nominee becomes the head of the party after all) - why would party insiders have any loyalty to him over Clinton?

And Trump was once a Democrat

Sanders vs. Trump would have seen Sanders lose by a larger margin. "Young democrats" is a tiny demographic that can't swing an election, openly embracing the "socialist" label would have "excited" a lot of people all right - to vote against him.

Please. Sanders would have played Trump in the debates like a fiddle. Trump can shout "he's a socialist!" over and over again all he want, but he wouldn't have any of his ammunition like he did against Clinton - the emails, the speeches, etc.

Maybe.

Sanders is old. Old people have skeletons in the closet. Sanders wasn't a big deal long enough for the press to have really dug in and started dragging those old skeletons out.

Trump is old. Had skeletons. People didn't care.

Sanders had a similar message as Trump, just a bit different flavor. That resonated with the voters. I think Sanders would have grabbed more electoral college votes but to win, no idea. Hindsight and all that

"Because he can't win". He was the Democratic equivalent of Trump in that he wanted to do something radically different, but the party had their collective stuff way more together than the red team and thus wasn't so easily disrupted. They went with Hillary and figured it'd be business as usual.

It seems crazy to rely on polls to make your "Sanders would have won" case when the polls were as wrong as they've ever been this cycle.

The brilliance of our republic is that the government transitions without violence -- where the loser concedes to the victor without fighting a literal war of succession. Don't let the personalities on the ballot this time around confuse you into thinking that they are the embodiment of our republic.

In four years, we'll gather and vote again, and transition peacefully again.

Oh absolutely. Democracy is sometimes seen as boring, but actually each election is a full-on revolution that realy does topple governments. One thing about the result is it kind of exposes Assange as the narcissistic batshit conspiracy nut that he really is[0].

[0] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/julian-assange-predicts-donald-trum...

Honestly, I doubt you'll have very much to worry about. Sure a few minor but very visible things may change, but overall nothing major is going to change in four years.

Much of what Trump want to do isn't something that the US can actually afford to implement. The worst thing Trump could do is the take the US in an isolationist direction, but that's not going to happen because it would hurt the wealthy people... like Trump.

One extremely positive thing that could come of all this is that the rest of the world starts taking more responsibility, and intervene earlier in conflicts, now that the support of the US military isn't guaranteed.

Affordable care act will likely be repealed. That will affect a good deal of us.

EPA may lose funding. The world will begin feeling that in about a decade.

Department of education will likely lose funding. The US will lose the STEM race to India and China. We'll feel that in about 20 years.

You get what you deserve.

My main worry is that he'll start a disastrous war in a fit of pique. He already said he'd start a war with Iran if they made rude gestures at our sailors. If that's what he says when he's trying to win votes, what will he do once he's secure in office?

Clinton is more interventionist than I'd like, but at least her proposed interventions have some sort of thought and reasoning behind them, even if I may not agree with them.

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