Trump – winners, losers & what went wrong
As pundits and the mainstream media scramble to decipher the political earthquake that has erupted with the win of Trump, I argued from the start that Trump had tapped into something deep and dangerous enough to win the election and that many in the media were missing something that was happening in the same way they missed Brexit. Here are the winers, losers and what went wrong as I reckon it.
WINNERS – There aren’t many winners here.
Trump – A political outsider, a crass billionaire reality TV star with no public service experience. He was laughed at, mocked and written off. He has defied political gravity, he took over the Republican Party and won the Presidency owing no one any favours. Whatever else we think about him, he’s achieved an unthinkable win. To the spoilt goes the victory.
Darth Vader – In comparison, Darth Vader looks moderate.
White Anger – The fury of those who have been left behind by the free market is what fuelled Trump. If you are poor, white and living in a State ravaged by factory closures and have to enrol in the Army to go serve America’s corporate overlords in whatever foreign country they are trying to steal from this decade, get wounded and return home to under funded veteran services, you are incandescent with rage. Trump tapped into this, Hillary ignored it. Having Beyonce and Jay Z with Lady Gaga mock your pain is not the way to win over 30million uneducated white males.
Gareth Morgan – The NZ mainstream media still do not understand the magnitude of Gareth Morgan’s new political vehicle. He will speak directly to National Party voting urban males who feel alienated from Labour and the Greens because they own a penis and will end up having a huge impact on the reshaping of the political landscape post 2017 election.
Bernie Sanders – Bernie could have appealed to these 30million white males who feel left behind with understanding and concern for their pain. Trump attracted it instead with hate. Bernie talked about the problems of neoliberalism, Hillary refused to. We lost and Bernie was right.
Michael Moore – Michael knew that the white working classes were turning against the establishment, like myself he tried to warn the Left, the Left didn’t listen.
Toxic Masculinity, misogyny and the loss of perceived privilege – The toxic masculinity that saw so many minorities end up voting for Trump is a major winner. Latinos and African American men voted in far larger numbers for Trump than they did for Mitt Romney because misogyny knows no race boundaries. Combine this fragile ego alongside the perception that their privilege has been eroded and you have a frightened male sub culture that has to be gently coaxed out rather than hunted with burning torches. Screaming that Trump supporters are racist when these same voters voted for Obama in the last 2 elections and when 50% of union families voted for Trump misses what was really driving them.
LOSERS – There are so many losers
Women – Not just in losing out on gaining the first ever female President, but the win of Trump is a particularly terrible horror. A man who bragged about sexually assaulting women winning the presidency throws up on every civility and pretence of progressive society we hope for. That such a repulsive creature could be effectively rewarded for his sexism hurts deeply. The simplest lesson here is that true progressive change in modern democracies can not occur without bringing males with you as opposed to demonising them. Calling people whose poverty has been exacerbated by neoliberalism and free market globalisation ‘deplorable’ won’t work.
Mainstream Media – They fucked up so badly it’s not funny. Pilger said it best…
Twitter – Twitter is great for feminist + cis male ally pile ons and screams of ‘hate monger’ if someone gets the wrong pronoun for a trans person. It’s not much more use for anything else. In NZ it makes the Wellington Emerald Stormtroopers feel special and it seems to give some type of purpose in the life of Union coms people, but outside the tiny little alienating echo chamber that it is, it’s fucking worthless as a political measurement tool. Social media is a transmission point, it’s not the real world and the sooner the Left start understanding that the better. For many of the 30 million white uneducated males in America, Twitter is a recruitment tool for Republicanism the way the Bravo TV network is a recruitment tool for Jihadists.
Neoliberalism – Ultimately Truxit and Brexit are about those who have been left behind by globalisation. The political consensus in favour of trans national capitalism has left huge swathes of the uneducated behind to compete with the cosmopolitan immigration policies that bring in cheaper and cheaper non unionised migrant workers who put massive pressure on those already struggling. If progressives want to recapture this voting block, they need to walk away from neoliberalism.
Progressives – You can’t get shit done if you don’t have white males on board. No matter how much that medicine tastes disgusting going down, it’s the bloody reality.
TPPA – Soz John Key, no TPPA for you. Trump has derived his power from working class males who have been burnt by globalisation, he isn’t going to risk losing a second term by allowing it to go through.
Americas reputation – You elected a narcissistic sociopath to be the President after he was caught bragging about sexually assaulting women. The world wants that bloody wall built now to protect us from the rest of America.
Republicans – Trump has won without owing any of them anything. He is not beholden to them, he owes no favours and his brand of self made capitalist nationalism over trans national corporations should be putting the shits up the Republicans. They have a leader who is not beholden to the usual Republican Corporate Overlords.
Democrats – The corrupt and rigged way Bernie Sanders was crushed off will need serious healing if they are to have any chance of beating Trump in 2020 and they must reflect on their own love affair with neoliberalism if they are to win back the White House.
The World: From Russia to China to Syria to everywhere, Christ knows what Trump will actually do. America is the country we pretend it isn’t.
Civilisation: We tell our children not to be bullies, not to be racist and not to be sexist. This week a man who has breached every standard of civility won the Presidency of the United States. We are all a lesser civilisation today.
WHAT WENT WRONG?
I believed and argued early on that Trump had connected with an anger in the US that could disrupt this election in the same way Brexit confounded the experts. It all went wrong with the nomination of Hillary as the nominee. Bernie was offering the radical reappraisal of neoliberalism that Hillary refused to do and he generated huge enthusiasm which Hillary couldn’t. Once Bernie supporters saw how manipulative and deceptive the Democrats were via wikileaks, they refused to support her.
Where Hillary wouldn’t challenge Neoliberalism, Trump shrewdly did. He pitched towards the angry white working vote that were crucial to the electoral victory he stormed home with. He seduced them with abuse and hate and anger and played to the lesser angels of their natures.
The lessons here for other progressives is the need to work with white male allies rather than attack them and to actually challenge neoliberalism.
John Pilger: ‘The truth is… there was no one to vote for’ (Going Underground US election special)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Ho8OrBzig
Yeah we have the same problem here in NZ Jay. I will add no one decent enough to vote for
“Journalists created Trump” says Pilger. He’s right. Without the oxygen of free publicity Trump would not have come close to winning the Republican nomination.
It suited the media to report Trump’s outrageous bigotry, as it made headlines and sold papers (or attracted viewers).
The more attention Trump got from the media, the more public support he got and the more outrageous he became and the more the Media reported his utterances.
It was a symbiotic relationship with one feeding off the other.
In part, Trump’s triumph was a result of working class anger and middle class fear. But another part of the equation was the willingness by the media to exploit Trump and profit shamelessly from his bigoted demagoguery.
As for the TPPA, I have a sneaking suspicion Trump will tinker with it and declare it fixed. Then he’ll pass it through.
First and foremost, Trump is a capitalist, something many have forgotten in their rush to hail him as the “Great Anti-establishment Hero of the Working Class”! Crap. Trump will continue to screw the Working Class because that’s what capitalists excel at. Anyone who doubts that, well, good luck to them!
Trump just wants this for the accomplishment. Once he’s won it, I don’t see him having the motivation to do it all again in four years. He’s going to be a one term wonder and will leave blaming his failure on the bureaucracy of Washington
And while Trump owes the Repubs nothing, they don’t owe him anything either. With all the jostling for power, I see lots of turmoil and double crossing going on.
‘President Donald Trump and the Wicked Witch Is Dead’
by Lionel Nation (not a Republican)re “What went wrong”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVLHDMdYGDg
Published on Nov 9, 2016
“A glorious day (in part) for the republic and the jettisoning and ejection of Hillary Rotten Felon once and for all. Be gone, Clintons. Be gone! Herein is my early morning (4 AM) disquisition on this moment of history.”
Hannity on what went wrong…50 million Americans in poverty
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5202578327001/?#sp=show-clips
YEah, like far right winger Hannity gives a damn about the poor.
re …”what went wrong”…the mainstream media missed the boat and lost out to social media and alternative media and WikiLeaks
‘Brexit, Trump And Contemporary Politics’ by Adam Hamdy
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adam-hamdy/brexit-trump-and-contempo_b_12880096.html
“Mainstream Miss
The EU referendum saw thousands of conversations happen outside the mainstream, with opinions formed, challenged and crystallised on social media. I repeatedly saw issues being discussed which were never addressed by mass broadcasters or newspapers, and the same thing has just happened in the US election. Alt-right figures such as Paul Joseph Watson, Mike Cernovich and Alex Jones have built up huge followings, influencing the views of millions of people through extended social media networks that retweet and share their videos, articles and opinions.
As with the Brexit vote, these alternative media figures have been sharing information and engaging in conversations that simply haven’t hit the mainstream. Among other things, these pundits have been fuelled by the Podesta Emails released by Wikileaks, and have been suggesting that Saudi Arabia has donated more than $50m to the Clinton Foundation, that Hillary Clinton was given advance notice of CNN debate questions, that the DNC conspired to deny Bernie Sanders the Democratic nomination, and that Wall Street had a hand in selecting Barack Obama’s cabinet. These are just a few of the serious allegations that have remained largely unchallenged and unaddressed by mainstream media, but which have informed the opinions of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of voters.
If these allegations are true, mainstream outlets have been remiss in not investigating, and if they’re untrue, their dissemination highlights a serious problem for politicians. In a world where individuals can reach millions of people, how does one combat the spread of false information? Reputations and campaigns can be ruined far below the mainstream radar…
Chooky;
Good post.!
“Kingmaker Drudge Defeats Establishment Media With Trump Win”
We’re living in the future in which citizen reporting trumps mainstream media
http://www.infowars.com/kingmaker-drudge-defeats-establishment-media-with-trump-win/
Important article and video.
So here is the Paradigm Shift that has occurred and why
MSM has collapsed.
One newspaper has lost 95% of readers in last
12 months.
And part of the Paradigm Shift entails understanding that
In todays world the battle is between Nation States
and the Globalists / Oligarchs.
The gate is wide open now and there is no way
now of stopping the Herds of Cattle / Mobs of Sheep
from stampeding to fresher and greener grasses.
Trusted Alt Media is the only way to go.
See my list at the bottom of Franks article “Black Ops……….” 1st Nov.
Cheers.
Back in the real world, want to understand the mind of the American President Elect? Time for a bit of study:
….The only things the narcissist cannot “control” are his grandiose fantasies. All the same, he knows that lying and confabulating are morally wrong and can choose to refrain from doing so.
The narcissist is perfectly capable of anticipating the consequences of his actions and their influence on others. Actually, narcissists are “X-ray” machines: they are very perceptive and sensitive to the subtlest nuances. But the narcissist does not care. For him, humans are dispensable, rechargeable, reusable. They are there to fulfil a function: to supply him with Narcissistic Supply (adoration, admiration, approval, affirmation, etc.) They do not have an existence apart from carrying out their “duties”.
Still, it is far from a clear-cut case.
Some scholars note, correctly, that many narcissists have no criminal intent (“mens rea”) even when they commit criminal acts (“acti rei”). The narcissist may victimise, plunder, intimidate and abuse others – but not in the cold, calculating manner of the psychopath. The narcissist hurts people offhandedly, carelessly, and absentmindedly. The narcissist is more like a force of nature or a beast of prey – dangerous but not purposeful or evil.
Moreover, many narcissists don’t feel responsible for their actions. They believe that they are victims of injustice, bias, prejudice, and discrimination. This is because they are shape-shifters and actors. The narcissist is not one person – but two. The True Self is as good as dead and buried. The False Self changes so often in reaction to life’s circumstances that the narcissist has no sense of personal continuity.
From the book “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited”:
“The narcissist’s perception of his life and his existence is discontinuous. The narcissist is a walking compilation of “personalities”, each with its own personal history. The narcissist does not feel that he is, in any way, related to his former “selves”. He, therefore, does not understand why he has to be punished for “someone else’s” actions or inaction. This “injustice” surprises, hurts, and enrages him…”
“If you are poor, ”
More UTTER nonsense. Bomber you really need to do some research.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/
well Nate Silver is not always right…he predicted a win for Clinton for example…however I do think that many Trump supporters were not the way the mainstream media framed them ( hooligans, “deplorables”, racists, misogynists etc)…and Trump supporters, if not poor themselves, were certainly were concerned about increasing poverty , inequality , impoverishment of the middle class, unemployment of heavily indebted graduates and poverty of youth, break down of civil society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver
Trump supporters were/are also concerned about the corruption in the USA…and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation
…thanks to WikiLeaks exposures…and the brave people who did the leaking
…they voted for Donald Trump to “drain the swamp”
But Chooky do you think that will really happen ( the swamp being drained ) or was it all a load of bullshert to get elected just like the bull kaka we are being fed by our elected government and people here actually believe it
Indeed, Michelle.
Thus far, Trump is surrounding himself with Republican neo-cons. Only the Other Donald (Rumsfeld) is missing.
Not looking good at all.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-exit-polls-how-donald-trump-won-the-us-presidency/ that is an actual exit poll survey.
“Interestingly, among white voters, there is no evidence in the exit poll that income affected the likelihood that they supported Trump.”
NZ Labour Party needs to assess the result of the US election and the
Brexit result AND the hideous treatment of Berni Sanders AND the
appalling treatment of Jeremy Corbyn: the assessment should
result in the realisation that Sanders and Corbyn appeal to the
very voters tha NZ Labour MUST reach to get rid of Key and his
cronies. The Democratic Party and elements of the British Labour
Party have been unable to let go of neoliberalism, the NZ Labour Party
MUST NOT make the same mistake.
Nothing ‘went wrong’.
The owners of America decided the election result months before it was publicly announced. And they put on a spectacular puppet show to fool the masses: right until the last hours people thought ‘the whore from Babylon’ would be put into position via rigging of voting machines or falsification of results or whatever else was required to install her.
Now that they have their man in place, the owners will ensure that looting and polluting will continue at an even faster pace than under Obama, and that the markets will be pumped to new highs via money-printing:
https://in.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EDJI&t=6m&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=
making speculative gains for those who decide who will be POYUS, and decide practically everything else.
‘The Matrix’ won yet again. As it always does in the western world.
Expect the next round of betrayal to commence very soon, if it hasn’t already commenced.
The Media didn’t ‘miss’ anything.
They wilfully promoted their financial masters and pushed their bullshit and misguided ideology. That includes NZ media like National Radio.
It was only this morning that RNZ actually talked in any depth, and without any condescension, to any Trump supporters, previous to that I think they thought of them as being somehow less than real, like something from reality TV.
I ended up watching FOX news for F-sakes, just to get wikileaks updates.
The winner is democracy, a fact the other side choose to ignore
Really? Where Clinton wins more votes but Trump gets the presidency. Pretty common definition of democracy is rule by the majority and one person one vote.
This was pretty much a gerrymander. California gets 55 EC votes for population of $38.8m and Arizona gets 11 EC votes for population of 6.73m. Your Arizona voter’s vote carries more weight than the Californian. Democracy?
So much bullshit it’s hard to know where to begin. Does this knee-jerk nonsense really advance the “left”? Whatever that is now.
Was Trump voted in only by misogynist racists? Of course not! Those swing States went heavily to Obama he last time – so they now are suddenly racist when four years ago not so much?
Does Hillary being a woman override her stealing of the Primary from Sanders? Her close links to Wall St Banks? Her obvious and proven corruption? Her War Hawk stands on Russia, Syria, Libya et al?
She didn’t lose because she was a woman – she lost because she is scary as fuck.
Now Trump may also be scary – but in his unknown quality there existed a glimmer of hope that was not there in Hillary.
It was a tiny glimmer – but it won him the election.
Some actual sane commentary from a sane progressive…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xQEPVsVeHM
https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2016/nov/09/with-trump-victorious-time-to-support-fearless-independent-journalism
Hilarious…did they not learn anything?? If they were any of these things Hillarys loss/Trumps win/’democracies’ destruction, would have been seen a mile off.
I’m surprised you forgot the Libertarians there Martin, as the biggest lossers. They and their support all but collapsed inside the republican party. On the whole that attacked trump, and look the worse for it. It will interesting to see were this odd ball sect will end up now that people have decided that trump, was way less bat shit crazy than they are.
Maybe the most coherent 6 minutes on the whole thing ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs
Thanks Steve. Just watched this and it is spot on. Something everyone should see as it is completely the truth and passionately said by an aware man. Well worth the 6 minutes to hear – tells it like it really is.
Steve Rowe;
Bloody Brilliant !! Genius.
Cheers.
Pilger is brilliant – states that the Neo-Cons won and they did.
Trump will spend more on the military – just what they want.
Assange affirms that Russia had nothing to do with alleged election fraud.
https://www.rt.com/viral/365783-assange-pilger-wikileaks-election/
I concur, Blake. Quite simply, our American cuzzies – especially the Democratic Party – did this to themselves.
In effect, the DP did what our own Labour Party did in the 1980s and 2000s; moved away from their base of supporters. If any good is to come out of this farce, Labour should take note of how the Democratic Party committed self-destruction by embracing globalisation at the expense of US workers.
Americans re-discovered the power of their vote, and they used it with a vengeance.
Or in this case Frank, the power of the non-vote.
I saw a graph somewhere depicting vote numbers for the respective Dem. and Rep. Presidential candidates in each of the last 3 elections (2008, 2012 and 2016). Over that period, the Rep. vote held pretty steady, but the Dem. vote (which was huge in 2008 when Pres. Obama took office) plummeted.
Clinton may have won the popular vote, but did so only by the skin of teeth, whereas in 2008, Obama was miles ahead in this department.
This suggests a truckload of Democrat supporters, having seen Senator Sanders shafted, simply did not vote.
The Democrats lost this, more than the Republicans won it.
Democrats walked away after Sanders was shafted.
http://rebrn.com/re/i-made-a-chart-showing-the-popular-vote-turnout-in-and-hillary-d-2951070/
James Gilliland hits the nail on the head:
http://inteldinarchronicles.blogspot.co.nz/2016/11/riots-of-uninformed-james-gilliland.html
I like the thesis in this mornings dompost about voters being sick of the economic turmoil. (taking it further) Disaster politics and “disruption” economics has been the thing ever since the hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. As the unions have been weakened, the workers have had very little say in how leaders and corporations have screwed them over. Their vote was their only way to let the leaders of money (corporations/wall street) and politicians know they didn’t like it.
While the corporations/wall street might be tied in with the Dems, it was the Repubs who screwed people over with disaster politics and weakening the unions. And the economy got screwed up in the first place when George Bush decided to drop million dollar bombs over the Middle East (from 30 million dollar planes). So this current vote is sending a message but it’s not entirely just.
“Gareth Morgan – The NZ mainstream media still do not understand the magnitude of Gareth Morgan’s new political vehicle. He will speak directly to National Party voting urban males who feel alienated from Labour and the Greens because they own a penis and will end up having a huge impact on the reshaping of the political landscape post 2017 election.”
He’s going to split Labour & Green votes, not National. White males who vote National will stay with National. Morgan will attract white males who currently vote for the Greens. He’ll attract voters from both parties who want to achieve something without all the far-left baggage.
“the need to work with white male allies rather than attack them and to actually challenge neoliberalism.”
Oh dear.
Come on youse sheilas behind those wrecks from overseas postings and food stamp jobs, and the closing of decent schools for your kids – know your place. Get back! Let the precious minority bustle into the ‘menz work’. Pretend that blokes know best. Shut your mouths and cope with the usual dismal results.
We’ve done all that – and it hasn’t worked to get most people off the old wheel of misfortune. It hasn’t.
Nor have female politicians, cast in the wonky mould of the traditional ‘well-educated’ males who aspire to sweet money and power for more greasing than grafting.
30 million ‘white’ uneducated. Why? Voluntary ignorance? Or something else? And why does the skin colour matter? Blacks, latino/a, Muslims of any sort, and women all voted for Trump, often very clear-eyed about it, too.
America chose upheaval. It may or may not lead to evolution and renewal, but it has certainly quivered the ‘comfortable’ – and about time, too.
I’ve been mulling over this Trump thing today, particularly as there are quite a few people I know who actually support Trump for one reason or another and it their perspective that interests me as much as Trump himself. For a minority it is their conspiracy theories that make them think that Clinton was worse to have as President than Trump. But for most I think there is more often than not a religious element to their support. This is usually not stated when they say why they support Trump. In particular, abortion is a button issue for a lot of people. There are a lot of otherwise progressive people who will still support/vote for Trump/ Republicans on this issue alone. There is also the issue of what “secularism” means in a liberal society. Secularism actually means the acceptance of all religious beliefs within a society, not the absence of them. But for a lot of religious people secularism may feel more like the suppression of their religious beliefs. Probably you can’t understand this American election and the response to Trump there and in New Zealand without seeing it as a battle over religious beliefs.
LOSERS – Respect and trust.
Respect for your voters. ( very little )
Trust in your candidate ( both candidates liers – Trump open about it, HilLIARy, oh so secret – guess voters preferred it out in the open.)
The same will happen here (status quo will remain ) because Labour and the Greens are too stupid to get out of each others way and the Greens in particular seem to hate anything that resembles democracy.
Yeah but we on the left know neoliberalism is harming a lot of people.
Asked about economic turmoil and the degree to which the Brexit results are undermining the value of the British pound, Trump relied that the market decline is good news – for him.