Vocal Voices

Running down Trump on things that have already happened.

Pretty much only the first one, for me, is really salient and tells us just how much pressure Obama was putting Israel under.

As for the Mexicans saying "we won't be paying for that wall", they might want to think on the fact that they are net recipients of several hundred million dollars a year in US Aid. It's quite possible that Trump could cut that aid and divert every cent of it to the wall until it's done. After all he has 4 years. Around $1.2 billion should do it. I'm sure he's had one of his construction architects cost it.

The press like to forget that Trump is a Billionaire ($3.7bn to be precise) and that he does actually know a thing or two about business and spending money to get results.

It's going to be an interesting read over the next few months.

now the Guardian with their title "the moment America laid waste to democracy as we know it ".

It's not as if I didn't already know it, but, Gary Younge, you are telling me that Democracy only works if it produces the result "you" want?

The election of Trump is one of the greatest triumph's of conspicuous democracy. When the silent majority stood up and said "No More" and, under a democratic system, No More it was.

It was the "unheard minority" who had their day. What do I mean by "unheard minority"? The 61% of white, heterosexual, working class Americans, male and female, who are ignored in policies and elections over and over again. Clinton did it to herself. She targeted the Black, the Hispanic, the Asian and the LGBT votes. All of whom, put together, make up around <30% of the vote. Almost totally alienating the rest in the process.

Trump, on the other hand, targeted the people who are never mentioned in elections. The silent majority of Christian, working class, Americans who spend their whole lives being told they have to lose their job to "Globalisation" for the "benefit of the US". Who have to fund wars abroad and the huge military which is capable of projecting "power" in the world. The silent majority who have to listen to "LGBT rights", "Black Rights", "immigrant rights", but never hear a dickey bird about their rights, their jobs opportunities, their needs.

For once that "unheard minority" had a candidate who was talking to them, for them and was a person they could vote for.

Then conspicuous democracy gave them their voice.

The day democracy dies? That's the day that 5% of the population tell everyone else how it's going to be and make it stick. That's the death of democracy. That, apparently, is what the Guardian wants. Fortunately for us, neither the UK nor the US is like that.