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US Elections: Day dawns on Trump.


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3 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Israel's Wall seems  to work pretty well.

You do understand that there a both demographic and economic forces working in Mexico that makes future immigration less likely? The birth rate has fallen there and wages have risen.

The whole wall thing was nonsense.

Plus the fact that the right's immigration hysteria was based on a lot of nonsense.

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1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

You do understand that there a both demographic and economic forces working in Mexico that makes future immigration less likely? The birth rate has fallen their and wages have risen.

The whole wall thing was nonsense.

Plus the fact that the right's immigration hysteria was based on a lot of nonsense.

Plus the fact the the topography doesn't actually make it possible to build a wall. But lets leave facts out of the equation because WALL!

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Just now, Mexal said:

Plus the fact the the topography doesn't actually make it possible to build a wall. But lets leave facts out of the equation because WALL!

Well this is a forum dedicated to A Song of Ice and Fire after all! If we can't appreciate a nice big wall, who can?^_^

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So, how about this for a potential future:

Trump drops sanctions against Russia, and forges a new partnership with Putin. The Syrian crisis is ended with Assad's faction being restored to power (at least in the interim) and ISIS being wiped out as a territorial power and instead becoming a splintered Al Qaida type organization.

Britain Brexits, Scotland goes independent.

Without US interference, and with the Brexit example, Germany, France and other European nations start strengthening their borders and tightening up on immigration. Russia keeps Crimea, and Ukraine is forced to come to some agreement with Russia due to the lack of US support for their nationalistic ambitions.

Tensions between the West and Russia reduce dramatically, Europe becomes more stable as the immigration flow reduces, and the Great Powers can focus on hunting down ISIS in whichever new strongholds it tries to carve out for itself across the Middle East.

 

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I really feel for Americans, so very sorry. 

That said, I think there's a lot of denial going on. I personally don't think the issue is that Trump won, but that Clinton lost. I don't mean to offend anyone but if the posts in this thread are any indication, the Clinton Campaign and its supporters were missing a few things; these things may have made a difference, or not. We can't ever know sadly.

There were certain (minority) votes she should have received by default, given Trump's blatant bigotry. But she lost those votes, in fact, I don't think she ever had them. From Twitter alone, which people might argue might not be a reliable indicator of these things, but I think it's worth looking at: the majority of black Americans were very disenchanted with Hillary.

The Kaepernick issue brought some of it to my attention. Comments she made at several points in her political career kept coming up as reasons racial minorities would not be voting for her. She was apparently receiving more support from them when compared to Trump, but not as much as Obama received in his wins, and certainly not enough for her to compensate for the white vote on Trump's side.

I think she once referred to young black males as super predators; and at one point in the 08 election she alluded to Obama as not standing for hardworking Americans (i.e. white voters), a comment that was interpreted as a dog-whistle tactic that subtly assumed people of colour were not hardworking Americans, or at least not the kind to be honoured for their efforts in contributing to the American economy.

The email controversy was still hanging over her, I think Lybia and Honduras too. There are always whispers of war crimes, and most ironically, I don't think the stench of her husband's indiscretions ever washed off. (Its sexist, I know, but instead of addressing these things surgically, her campaign and supporters instead took the civil route of calling sexists as they saw them. That kind of stuff works in a perfectly logical world, not in one where the constantly underestimated bigot steadily gains unprecedented political ground).

She was never received well by the youth because of her apparently pro-establishment/status quo agenda. So what did her campaign do in response, they spent a minimum of 17 million USD. And her list of negatives go on. Hillary had a lot of baggage. But I think her campaign just assumed that Trump's bigotry would neutralise all of that, but that's not how people vote in my experience.

In South Africa we voted in a man with the stench of a rape and illegal arms deal case. And this was after our most competent president (Mbeki) since 94 was unceremoniously dismissed under dubious claims. To this day we're stuck with a rapist thief as our president (Zuma), because the majority of people aren't voting for a set of policies, but a person. Mbeki was clinical in his approach, our economy was booming and things were good, but Mbeki was too clinical, at one point proposing an HIV/AIDS plan that was shitty to infected people but at the same time, really good for the economy. Zuma (educated only to a mid-high school level)* came in dancing and doing other stupid things and people thought, "Ah, there's an ordinary man who can really get what it's like to struggle and rise from the ashes. "

People saw Zuma as a relatable leader, I think Trump's anger made him relatable to a lot of people who've been angered by job losses and other such things. The Clinton campaign seems to have assumed that because Trump blatantly paraded his bigotry, there wasn't a need to point out that by voting him in, the same voters would subsequetly lose which specific rights.

People went into this thinking that Trump couldn't possibly win because surely, people couldn't possibly vote for him, given all his flaws. Meanwhile they didn't seem to consider all the reasons Clinton could possibly lose because surely, people couldn't possibly vote for her, given all her flaws.

*I don't hate him because he's not educated, but because people use his humble beginnings as an indication that he's innocent of his crimes and that there's a conspiracy against him simply because he came from humble beginnings.

For the record, I also preferred Sanders. We took a poll at our office once and 9/10 people were in favour of Sanders mostly because his stance on issues wasn't portrayed as "evolving." In short, we trusted Sanders because he didn't seem to simply be going with the political hot issue of that moment. If he said he supported LGBT+ rights, it was very likely that going back to the 80s or even further, we'd find evidence of it. But that's the way it was shown where I was (because he was sold to us as the candidate least likely to interfere in our affairs), I don't know how it was in America.

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1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So, how about this for a potential future:

Trump drops sanctions against Russia, and forges a new partnership with Putin. The Syrian crisis is ended with Assad's faction being restored to power (at least in the interim) and ISIS being wiped out as a territorial power and instead becoming a splintered Al Qaida type organization.

Britain Brexits, Scotland goes independent.

Without US interference, and with the Brexit example, Germany, France and other European nations start strengthening their borders and tightening up on immigration. Russia keeps Crimea, and Ukraine is forced to come to some agreement with Russia due to the lack of US support for their nationalistic ambitions.

Tensions between the West and Russia reduce dramatically, Europe becomes more stable as the immigration flow reduces, and the Great Powers can focus on hunting down ISIS in whichever new strongholds it tries to carve out for itself across the Middle East.

 

What about the Baltic States and their future?

And is Article V of Nato Up for negotiation?

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I don't think that's gonna happen, FNR. However I may wish for a new direction in the Transatlantic relations, I don't think Trump has either the intellect or the will to change things. Does he really strike you as a guy with comprehensive ideas on foreign policy? Not to mention, the all-powerful US political establishment won't let him shake the status quo too much. I have more faith in Europeans. Their disillusionment with US politics could maybe result in some spine being grown over here.

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1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So, how about this for a potential future:

Trump drops sanctions against Russia, and forges a new partnership with Putin. The Syrian crisis is ended with Assad's faction being restored to power (at least in the interim) and ISIS being wiped out as a territorial power and instead becoming a splintered Al Qaida type organization.

Britain Brexits, Scotland goes independent.

Without US interference, and with the Brexit example, Germany, France and other European nations start strengthening their borders and tightening up on immigration. Russia keeps Crimea, and Ukraine is forced to come to some agreement with Russia due to the lack of US support for their nationalistic ambitions.

Tensions between the West and Russia reduce dramatically, Europe becomes more stable as the immigration flow reduces, and the Great Powers can focus on hunting down ISIS in whichever new strongholds it tries to carve out for itself across the Middle East.

 

That all seems potentially very likely. However you have to wonder about how Trump will actually get on with Putin when any sense of Russian strength will make America look weak in contrast, something I doubt Trump would be ok with.

I do think Europe might break up, the Euro will fail and be cancelled and a new Eastern bloc will develop, we already have a bunch of countries that are more right leaning trying to group together there. 

Who's to say that Trump wouldn't just invade another country, like Bush did, and create even more muslim hatred of the US.

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8 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So, how about this for a potential future:

Trump drops sanctions against Russia, and forges a new partnership with Putin. The Syrian crisis is ended with Assad's faction being restored to power (at least in the interim) and ISIS being wiped out as a territorial power and instead becoming a splintered Al Qaida type organization.

Britain Brexits, Scotland goes independent.

Without US interference, and with the Brexit example, Germany, France and other European nations start strengthening their borders and tightening up on immigration. Russia keeps Crimea, and Ukraine is forced to come to some agreement with Russia due to the lack of US support for their nationalistic ambitions.

Tensions between the West and Russia reduce dramatically, Europe becomes more stable as the immigration flow reduces, and the Great Powers can focus on hunting down ISIS in whichever new strongholds it tries to carve out for itself across the Middle East.

 

1. ISIS was already on its way to being destroyed as a territorial power. And it was in fact Assad who helped them along to where they were by spending something like 90% of his bombs against the opposition.

2. "US interference" didn't create the EU stance towards migrants, I don't even know what that means.

3. Obama has made it clear for a while that no amount of aid will make Ukraine beat Russia and has resisted stronger military aid. He just won't suck Putin's dick and congratulate him for being "strong" and yoinking territory.

You've invented a magic scenario.

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Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

NATO is no longer a relevant organisation. The Soviet Union is dead. The Baltic states' future should not be the determining factor in the relationships between the Great Powers.

I think this is nonsense. I'd argue that both the US and Europe have an interest in maintaining liberal democracy and Nato is vital to that.

We've already given our pledge to the Baltic States. We've told them we have their backs. And they want us there. I do not think we can throw them under the bus so easily.

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2 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

That all seems potentially very likely. However you have to wonder about how Trump will actually get on with Putin when any sense of Russian strength will make America look weak in contrast, something I doubt Trump would be ok with.

I do think Europe might break up, the Euro will fail and be cancelled and a new Eastern bloc will develop, we already have a bunch of countries that are more right leaning trying to group together there. 

Who's to say that Trump wouldn't just invade another country, like Bush did, and create even more muslim hatred of the US.

My sense is that Trump doesn't care that much about the rest of the world. He sees foreign wars as a waste of money. He wants to beat China economically, not on the battlefield.

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I'd be surprised if I was the first to say this but it seems like we took the screenplay to The American President and ran it through Bizarro world.

"He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character. And wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism and you tell them, she's to blame for their lot in life, "

Trump go into a character debate with Clinton, and won.

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1 minute ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Yes. While sucking  up to Putin might get some progress in Syria, Trumps stated positions will also mean far more problems in Eastern Europe and in Korea. Both of which reall should be more important to US foreign policy than the former. But, well...

The problems in Eastern Europe originated due to NATO expanding to Russian borders. Stop doing that and respect national security concerns of others and you'll see the majority of problems will solve themselves.

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