Trump polling ahead of Clinton

[Suff]

The point I noticed about the "London effect" in each US state, where the sheer number of voters in a single city could affect the entire state outcome, has come home to roost. The city dwellers didn't come out to vote. Thus the country bumpkins all around them, overwhelmingly voting Republican, had their say.

Just as we had all those eruptions in London and other cities in the UK over Brexit, the sheer disbelief that their numbers didn't change the outcome because the "insignificants" (as they see them), all voted against them, caused a huge backlash.

It will settle as the reality sinks in. If you want a result you have to voter FOR it. If you don't vote FOR it, then expect someone else to vote FOR something else.

I find this all very amusing... I've noticed this tendency in the more socialist supporting groups that they believe they own the world. Fortunately they don't.

However I, also, do worry about Trump's security now. There are more than enough murderers in the US and they are likely to believe that what they want justifies murdering the president elect.

[cromwell]

This is what bothers me Suff. I read a book recently which describes the rise of "Absolutism". These are people who don't accept anything that contradicts their view of the world.
You can see it in the legal challenges to Brexit. It doesn't matter how the people voted, I think differently and i am not going to accept the vote. I support legal challenges to it, I support obstructing it. You can see it in some of the posts on the Guardian website by some Remainers (obviously, not all).
Full of insults. Everyone who voted to leave is stupid, xenophobic, racist, islamophobic etc.
Most of these don't contain any evidence of their claims, but they do contain lots of swear words.

It's as though people have lost the ability to actually debate, to take the other person's point of view on board whilst disagreeing with it. Increasingly what you have is - you don't agree with me, therefore you are stupid. That's it.This seems to be more prevalent in left wingers, but also more upsettingly, in young people like students.

It's polarising. If you just tell people that they are wrong to think what they think, and insult them as well, then eventually the people you sneer at and insult are going to become just as absolutist and intolerant as you are. Which may lead to a resurgence in political violence.

[Kate1933]

WE HAVE TO BE WILLING TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT CROMWELL, WE HAVE AN APATHETIC POPULATION, NO ONE BOTHERS IF THEY ARE ALRIGHT JACK. I AM AND HAVE BEEN AN OUTER SINCE WE JOINED THE EU... HEATH DID NOT EVEN READ THE LISBON TREATY,WE HAVE NEVER BEEN POPULAR IN THE EU, IS IT ANY WONDER WHEN THE THE LIKES OF KINNOCK AND HIS GREEDY WIFE HELD TOP POSITIONS??? Both so Anti THE LORDS!!!!, could not wait however to drape themselves in Ermin,,...

[Workingman]

As a Remoaner I will offer a view from the other side, if I may.

Brexiters are not averse to being verbally violent and abusive because, you see, they are 'right (correct) thinking' and the rest of us are so wrong. If we like the EU so much we should up sticks and leave. The UK is theirs to do with as they will.

Polarisation is already with us and it has been driven by the negative campaigning of the political parties, by either side of any argument, by the media and by the 'group think' of social media.

Debate is not quite dead, but it is on life-support. Hopefully what we have seen with Brexit and Trump will issue in a new breed of campaign managers. Ones who realise that they have to engage positively with the electorate in order, as Suff says, to get them to vote for your side as opposed to simply being against the other.

[Suff]

I’m not disagreeing WM, the Leave campaign were disgustingly aggressive and even broke into violence. Roundly condemned by the Remain campaign at the time.

However when the vote came in, the Remain camp turned out to be more vociferous, more violent and a damned sight more belligerent, than anything the Leave campaign had done to that time.

Whilst the US campaign was littered with agro, invective and vitriol, Trump also managed to engage the people. “Vote for me and I’ll DO stuff for you”, he said. “He won’t DO what you want” Clinton said.

But what did Clinton offer? More of the same? I don’t know if it was the press or what but I never saw a single thing that the Clinton campaign did which engaged people into expectation of getting something out of their vote.

That’s how I felt and if I felt that way, then so did the Americans.

In a way Trump DID engage with his voters. Perhaps not in debate, but certainly in ideas and expectations. It’s about time that our politics moved away from everything being a “slogan” and towards discussing what people want and how they will deliver it.

In other words debate and engagement. I have few hopes it will happen. Trump will go down as a political aberration and the drones will flock in to hide the whole phenomena so that two decades from now it will be invisible.

I’m glad I won’t see what the world becomes 50 years from now.

[cromwell]

But what did Clinton offer? More of the same?

Stripped of all the right on slogans, yes, that's exactly what she offered.

American factories have been closed and the jobs sent over the border to Mexico. If all you offer is the closing of more factories, the loss of decent paying jobs, people having to work longer for less money....

Then you say to the people "Hey! Isn't this just great! Vote for more!" then you can't be too surprised when they don't.

[Workingman]

Clinton made the cardinal sin of taking her core vote for granted. It might have worked against Cruz or Rubio because they are likely to have done the same. Trump, on the other hand, very quickly identified his congregation; and the media are really annoyed at what he did.

Trump's troops are variously described as red-necks, the Rust Belt and blue-collar workers, and it is all done as though it is a crime for a politician to appeal to manual workers.

Oh well, a lesson for the future perhaps?

[debih]

I was speaking to a friend this evening who was in Germany at the weekend at a big fancy annual Marines ball - American Marines.

She said all the talk was about the presidential race and lots of the marines and their wives were interested in her opinion as a Brit.

She said they were horrified that the Brits assumed that Clinton would win. They felt that Clinton was corrupt and had been under investigation for years and that the winner would be Trump by a landslide. She said everyone she spoke to was of e same opinion - Trump for President!!!!

[Suff]

Hardly surprising Debih, Obama promised to cut down the war zones and pull troops out of them. Clinton was implicated in activities which were harmful to American troops.

Trump, on the other hand, has come out and stated that he doesn't want the troops being abused for US "power plays". It plays well with the troops.

There is no doubt that Clinton has played fast and loose with the laws and rules surrounding how she communicates within government. The troops can only see one reason for Clinton doing government business on a private server. Namely that what she was doing was illegal and she was trying to hide it.

No surprise the troops don't like her.