Donald Trump is going to be the next president

[DBSoT]

^@Hanley!, I agree. Too much coverage leads to voters finding new reasons to dislike candidates. That overexposure can lead to apathy. I would also like the polling system revamped because it clearly doesn't work. People hid their support for Trump during polling because he had a negative connotation with him. On the other end, polls showing Hillary winning as a foregone conclusion, led to voters accepting it aswell. They didn't feel the need to show up. Voter apathy has been an issue in this country for years. It's ironic too, because Republicans would likely have a very hard time winning with higher voter turnout.

[Chewy]

I'm too lazy and too drained to list all of the reasons that I'm more appalled and worried by this result than that of any other election in my life time. So I just wanted to take a quick moment to look at another side of this.

Can we all agree now that the two year long American presidential campaigns and media frenzies should end here? This election has clearly shown that they don't work. I live on the other side of the Atlantic and I haven't been able to escape news of this election since forever. This particular election cycle must have generated more press and publicity than any other in human history, and the voter turnout sucked. Some of that is going to be down to the standard of the candidates, but I think a lot of it was that people were just fucking sick of the whole thing by the time they were finally being asked to vote.

You don't need to drag these things out forever. It's not making people more engaged with politics.

Agreed, I also suspect the result is a mixture of too many people not giving a fuck and too many people just wanting a change. Shame what that change actually had to be though. Trump shouldn't be the president of a nation of 3 people, but I still honestly believe he will be better for your country than Hillary.

Other positives are,

Rosie O'Donnell is sad. Fuck Rosie O'Donnell.

Michael Moore is sad. See above.

If you have to have a republican, Trump appears the most moderate, he seems quite liberal on gay marriage and economics. Hopefully you can still make some progress on these issues.

I've looked at all the alleged sexism and racism that's been attached to him, and it's not good for a president to have that baggage following around. The alleged sexual assault victims appears in the face of it a bit too convenient, but I'll let the police investigation, if there is one, work that out. in all honesty he appears no more sexist or mysonynyst than any other billionaire playboy would be, then again, it's not like Mick Jagger is running for president of the free world.

The racism appears more nationalism than against his own citizens in context, but that was fucking dumb to say, almost impossible to implement and useless in both regards in terms of the wall. His comments on borders isn't that stupid. You need stronger borders and to have more improved vetting on who comes in. I don't think preventing illegal people,entering america is a bad thing. I don't think shipping the ones you do have there back is a great plan and inferring that they're all criminals is daft.

Overall I'm hoping for you, and us, that he's started out being incredibly clumsy with what he has said and will explain his policies much better before implementing anything. The other bright hope is that by not being ingrained in politics he might seek help for experts in the field before making decisions like military actions.

I don't think you have to worry about anyone losing rights, pay or conditions outside of obamacare, but hopefully a better alternative is out in place before they get rid of it. There won't be the right wing death squads that some would have you believe roaming America killing minorities.

The other good news is that for all his comments he had a higher percentage of women, African American and Latino people vote for him. For what's that's worth.

The bad:

Donald trump is your president

You have a republican president. Which means progress will be slow if at a all, and will likely not increase the sorely lacking scientific budget.

You have a Vice President who doesn't believe in evolution and wants creationism taught in schools

You have a president who just hired a global warming skeptic to run his environmental group.

Worst case, I think he'll end up being a bog standard Republican President who achieves fuck all, but he will allow the Democrats to get a good and worthy candidate to take over in 4 years.

[DBSoT]

You have a Vice President who doesn't believe in evolution and wants creationism taught in schools

He also wanted to put gay people into conversion camps and is a huge pro-war guy. Ya, Fuck Mike Pence.

[KaiserGlider]

^@Hanley!, I agree. Too much coverage leads to voters finding new reasons to dislike candidates. That overexposure can lead to apathy. I would also like the polling system revamped because it clearly doesn't work. People hid their support for Trump during polling because he had a negative connotation with him. On the other end, polls showing Hillary winning as a foregone conclusion, led to voters accepting it aswell. They didn't feel the need to show up. Voter apathy has been an issue in this country for years. It's ironic too, because Republicans would likely have a very hard time winning with higher voter turnout.

This brings up an interesting discussion. What do you guys think of the electoral college system? Hillary received more votes but Trump killed her in electors. I think voter apathy plays a large part in non-swing states like California where its a foregone conclusion that the Democrat will win.

[AkydefGoldberg]

This piece by the New York Times is a long-read but shows the extent of work undertaken by Putin to try and damage Clinton's campaign.

Yes, it wasn't the be-all and end-all of the campaign as Hilary was damaged in other aspects but it certainly helped the role in more negative stories dripped through on a regular basis. Again, cyber-espionage has probably been conducted by the US and other nations but Obama being so hesitant to not to take action when a stern, public, message against Russia might have shown authority is a tad disappointing. Was he right not to?

Wikileaks don't come out of this great either..