The U.S. election - the aftermath

[Cody]

Did not vote: 46.9%

So was the turnout a tad lower than the norm for US general elections?

[Disembodied]

So was the turnout a tad lower than the norm for US general elections?

Seems to be.

[Smivs]

Odd. You'd expect a high turnout in such a polarised election really, with both sides perhaps more keen to win than you would normally expect. Or maybe it is another reflection of the current trend to dislike, distrust and even disavow politics.

[Disembodied]

For a long time, the USA has had shamefully low turnouts (the UK is heading in a similar direction). I think it's an inevitable result of having two parties with very little ideological distance between them. For a vast tranche of American citizens - almost all of them in the "poor" to "very poor" bracket - their government does little or nothing. There is no politics, because it doesn't matter who's in charge, the basic economic policies remain the same, and the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Cody]

<nods - slaps Who CD into hi-fi>

[Stormrider]

Not so unexpected, methinks!

Not for me thats for sure. Trump may be a seem like a buffoon but many Americans feel Hillary is guilty of crimminal action, and there is the business with the Clintons involvement with a deal to sell American uranium to the Russians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/ca ... .html?_r=0
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-president ... l-uranium/

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million.

Odd. You'd expect a high turnout in such a polarised election really, with both sides perhaps more keen to win than you would normally expect.

I think most Americans are so fed up with the poor candidates that they don't bother to vote. If the Democrats had given the public the candidate the people wanted instead of using super-delegates to nominate a candidate the party could expect to control then I believe Bernie Sanders would have been elected.

Winning the most Votes but losing an election due to some weird Collegiate Voting system seems most strange to me.

Another reason for poor voter turnout.
Wow most of the posters in this thread I don't think are from the US. That's interesting.
Another thing I find interesting is that silver prices are the same as before the election, yet as soon as the Brexit vote was tallied silver went up $3 an ounce. This indicates to me that the people who tend not to trust fiat money are more worried about the economic impact of Brexit than the election of Trump.

[Disembodied]

For a vast tranche of American citizens - almost all of them in the "poor" to "very poor" bracket - their government does little or nothing.

Saying that, it should also be pointed out that - according to exit polls - the majority of voters earning less than $50,000 p.a. voted for Clinton; the majority of voters earning $50,000 and up voted for Trump. This is not a "blue-collar revolution": Trump's constituency is mostly older, richer (and whiter) male voters.

[cim]

Some other percentages, from opinion polls of Americans

Admittedly, opinion polls of Americans were quite clear that Clinton would beat Trump in a wide range of crucial swing states, so I think the main lesson may be not to believe anything they say for a while...

Winning the most Votes but losing an election due to some weird Collegiate Voting system seems most strange to me...

Feb 1974 UK General Election had much the same - Labour had fewer votes nationally than the Conservatives but won 4 more seats, and then went on to form the government. Similar things have happened in lots of countries, I think.

[Cody]

Feb 1974 UK General Election had much the same...

The first of two general elections that year - and the turnout was 78.8% apparently.

[Disembodied]

Some other percentages, from opinion polls of Americans

Admittedly, opinion polls of Americans were quite clear that Clinton would beat Trump in a wide range of crucial swing states, so I think the main lesson may be not to believe anything they say for a while...

True … although these other polls were polls of public attitude on various issues, rather than on a vote (where people who say they will vote for candidate X might simply not bother to turn out, rather than vote for candidate Y, instead). These sorts of questions of public attitude are also - possibly - less likely to suffer from what UK pollsters call the Shy Tory Factor, where people are unwilling to admit to supporting a particular political party or candidate.

It's an interesting question, too, to what extent people vote for policies or personalities. It's even possible that physical elements such as height could be a factor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_o ... ted_States

To say nothing of features such as race and gender.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

The "unofficial" polls - that is, the many polls conducted by alt media sites on the internet - recorded 70 to 90 % in favor of Trump over Hilliary. That pretty much reflected the huge crowds Trump drew to his rallies, as opposed to the rather small crowds Hillary got.

The voting map also reflected that. It does no damn good for the antisocial special snowflake crybullies to throw fits and go on rampages about it. He won fairly, despite Hillary's gang trying to steal it.

Trump won, because we're sick and tired of lying crooked thieving satanic globalist fascists!
That was a whole lot of robbed and enraged middle class america saying a big loud "Oh Hell No!" to the NWO.

Deal with it.

For the record:
I don't believe a word the TV "news" says; they lie too much.
The evidence is self evident for any that cares to look: The Clinton gang is a pack of despicable crooks.

[Disembodied]

I don't think anyone's disputing that Trump won: he just won with fewer votes than Clinton. The actual numbers of votes cast were:

Clinton: 60,071,781
Trump: 59,791,135
(Eligible to vote but did not vote for any candidate: 99,815,122)

Very narrow victories for Trump in strategic states granted him sufficient electoral college numbers to win the Presidency. This is not crooked, or corrupt, or even particularly unusual: it's just how the US electoral setup works. But it's an arithmetical fact that slightly more people voted for Clinton than voted for Trump, and that the biggest single bloc of voters chose not to vote at all - which, again, is normal for modern-day US Presidential elections.

[ClymAngus]

The "unofficial" polls - that is, the many polls conducted by alt media sites on the internet - recorded 70 to 90 % in favor of Trump over Hilliary. That pretty much reflected the huge crowds Trump drew to his rallies, as opposed to the rather small crowds Hillary got.

The voting map also reflected that. It does no damn good for the antisocial special snowflake crybullies to throw fits and go on rampages about it. He won fairly, despite Hillary's gang trying to steal it.

Trump won, because we're sick and tired of lying crooked thieving satanic globalist fascists!
That was a whole lot of robbed and enraged middle class america saying a big loud "Oh Hell No!" to the NWO.

Deal with it.

For the record:
I don't believe a word the TV "news" says; they lie too much.
The evidence is self evident for any that cares to look: The Clinton gang is a pack of despicable crooks.

I feel there may have been "better candidates" in both political camps. What you need here is a third way of going. In short I feel you were given a choice between chaos and ****ing chaos. Not much of a choice really. And no I'm not going to fight you over this you ornery lizard....

[Cody]

We will need to teach the president-elect what Europe is and how it works.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

I feel there may have been "better candidates" in both political camps. What you need here is a third way of going. In short I feel you were given a choice between chaos and ****ing chaos. Not much of a choice really. And no I'm not going to fight you over this you ornery lizard....

You're right. For decades, it really didn't matter if it went democrat or republican, they all played on the same team, and that team is hellbent on lying, thieving, and screwing us "little people" over.

Only recently has that team been seriously challenged, and obviously they don't like it.

I would have like to have seen the final run go between Bernie and Donald, that would have been interesting. They both see things much the same way, and they both wanna drain the swamp that is the district of criminals.

Even better if Bernie and Donald buried the hatchet, then teamed up. That would be premium grade awesome sauce.