A bad day for the world

POGS roses the referendum result on a vote by vote basis, so fair enough; however heaven knows how the American Presidential voting system works!

If it was run as is a referendum, then probably Clinton would have won.

Surely a facet of democracy is that people can object to a decision 'of the people' and work to try to turn it around? The vote to join the then EEC was a democratic decision, yet people have been working to overturn it ever since it was taken. Was that 'undemocratic'?

The result of a General Election is a democratic decision as we understand 'democracy' but that doesn't stop the losing parties working to overturn that decision at the next General Election. Is that undemocratic?

I agree that the current demonstrations against Trump appear to be undemocratic but I think they are an understandable reaction to a result which has shocked some people to the core and, while some will accept it for the present (but spend the next four years working to get a different result in the next Presidential election, some will, by their very nature, object in a more immediate, and perhaps violent, manner. I suspect that things will settle down after a few weeks.

POGS, I find it hard to believe that the objectors to the Trump victory are 'scrawling swastikas around' as that sort of behaviour is usually closely associated with racial hatred (specifically anti-Jewish) and racial supremacism. But then, nothing much would surprise me about the US.

I am hoping he is all mouth and trousers and any wild ideas are tempered by those around him.

Trump wasn't what the majority wanted. Clinton got more individual votes than Trump.
I pointed that out to DH this morning, he hadn't realised and I don't think a lot of people have.

Trump won 306 Electoral Votes vs 232 Clinton Electoral Votes - a landslide apparently
Hillary won more votes overall, but a multitude of them came from the same few states, like California and New York. Regardless of how decisively you win them, you can only win them one time, and there’s a set amount of electoral votes you earn. Trump’s grand total of votes was spread more evenly throughout the country and he won many more states, albeit often by a slim margin.
She had 59,755,284 votes, according to CNN's tally, with 92% of the expected vote counted. Trump had 59,535,522. That difference of 219,762 is razor-thin considering the nearly 120 million votes counted so far. The totals will continue to change as absentee votes trickle in.

yet ?

I find it worrying that you are not worried about Trump being the most powerful man in the world.

whitewave

At the moment Trump is as you say 'rhetoric'.

Those who oppose him are physically causing destruction and behaving in a manner that begs the question who is the aggressive party in reality.

I'm sorry but I dislike practically everything he has said during the election campaign but it cannot be dismissed that the aggression, the collective will to dismiss a democratic vote , the hatred is coming from those who did not 'get their way' and the worrying thing is 'they can't see it'.

The danger for the UK and America is the reaction by those who feel they are the only voices to make decisions, the only ones who deserve to be heard, the ones everybody else should agree with. Well the fact is there are others who think differently, have an equal right to be heard.
That is why we have a Democratic vote to decide or the alternative is mayhem and that is exactly what I see happening by those who did not 'get their way'.

Hence I say I worry more about the loss of the will of some people to abide by a democractic system than Brexit or Trump.

Roses, Trump wasn't what the majority wanted. Clinton got more individual votes than Trump.
It's the system that's wrong.
Do you remember when Bush got elected first time? It was because he challenged the count in Florida, and had them reject lots of votes that were not for him by dubious means. Hanging chads.
He didn't just accept what had happened, any more than Trump would have done if Clinton had won.

I don't understand when democracy came to mean just supporting whoever wins and not standing up for human rights, and demonstrating for what they believe in. That didn't happen when we had human rights and Vietnam war demonstrations thank goodness!

annie and me it is pathetic, especially as so much has been said about Britain standing up for herself.

I think the truth is that people are frightened for what the future may bring. We know of Trumps rhetoric and if it is played out in the political field we all have a great deal to be worried/fearful about, particularly his relationship with Putin. It seems that he may well be content to leave Europe to Putins sphere of influence as he may well leave the Pacific basin to the Chinese influence. Japan must be also fearful and concerned.

Trumps rhetoric in relationship to women, race muslims and "foreigners" gives encouragement to such views in society, and this makes people fearful. It is their democratic right to protest against such iniquities.

I do wish the crawling, clinging , grovelling 'special relationship claim' would stop

You beat me to it POGS
It seems to be a feeling of entitlement and the ' my way is right, therefore you must be wrong' in a democratic vote it happens to be what the majority want, and must be accepted.By all.

Funny that whitewave I am beginning to be quite struck by the parallels between the American Vote and The EU refeferendum also.

I find it totally baffling how a democratic vote can be so blatantly unaccepted in the UK and the USA.

I am bemused how those who had the democratic vote go against them can shout "WE elect the President" in the USA and in the UK shout "WE won't accept the referendum result".
How does that work? Do those who do not accept a democratic vote result want a communist country, dictatorship what? What is the better system than democracy they want?

At some time of our lives everyone of us have had to abide by the terms of a democratic vote that did not go in favour of us as an individual .

I am particularly finding it ironic that the voices of those who hate Trump calling him a war mongerer , a threat to cohesion , devisive, an enabler for social mayhem to occur are the ones who are rioting, marching, damaging buildings , burning the Stars and Stripes and scrawling swasticas around.

There is a collective madness taking hold and a rise against democracy and I worry as much about the reactions by those who refuse to accept they live in a democratic system and want to overturn it than Brexit or Trump at the moment.

But she won the popular vote, so does that make Sarah Vine wrong to say that she was not electable?

gettinonabit why are you saying sorry its not a crime to read or quote the Daily Mail.

The only analysis I've read so far is the one by Sarah Vine (sorry) in the Mail yesterday (sorry again).

She said basically what witzend says above; that she wasn't the right woman. She tolerated her husband's womanising, in the name of power, and that fact, coupled with the fact that she wasn't woman's woman (whatever that means) she rendered herself inelectable.

So a man can be sexist, racist, xenophobic and utterly reprehensible in many ways but is nonetheless electable.

I am beginning to be quite struck by the parallels between the demography of the Trump and Brexit voter

The age group of 18-35 year olds voted for remain and Clinton.

The more highly educated voted for remain and Clinton

If you were unemployed you were more likely to vote for Trump and Brexit

More women voted to remain and Clinton

Ethnic minorities were more likely to vote remain and Clinton

The older you were the more likely you were to vote Brexit and Trump

There is more but quite striking I thought.

Lumpy, it wasn't because she was a woman - it was because she was the wrong woman.

Tegan and so it starts

As someone on Mumsnet said, people would rather have a man who assaults women, than a woman.

Ed Conway in today's Times. To my mind the best analysis so far. A detached and convincing view.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trump-is-right-the-system-doesnt-work-zbpwdnwzr?shareToken=be4415c4ba788b6d1c9947a690406ca3

I do recommend reading Lionel Shriver's most recent novel, "The Mandibles". It is extraordinarily prescient. I finished it just before the election result came out.

It's a strong and scary book, history predicted uncannily accurate.

Latino children have been taunted with cries of 'build that wall' at a school in Michigan .

Anyone see QT? An American psychologist said she knew Trump was psychologically unbalanced, but she voted for him.

Can we deport Farage, please? He's worse than Trump. Of course, it's only locker room banter - just said on radio, that's all, so millions could eavesdrop.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/10/nigel-farage-jokes-about-trumps-alleged-sexual-assaults

Well done. Why do people think as president fiddling his taxes is a good thing? He'll only do it for himself, not the country.