We’re used to candidates whio promise wonderful things but govern horribly. Now we have a president-elect, Donald Trump, who promised horrible things but is now backing away from many of his worst promises. How do we adapt?
Donald Trump’s cabinet picks are drawing from marginal figures on the fringes of the Republican Party, a reflection of the fact that he has no firsthand political experience, few allies and, for that matter, knows almost no one of note in Washington.
At a secret meeting following the election between top media executives and journalists, president-elect Donald Trump scolded them, calling them biased liars. Could the cozy relationship between presidents and the press finally be fracturing? Let’s hope so.
The 2016 Democratic defeat has two factions of the Democratic party – liberals and leftists – struggling over the future of the party and of resistance to Donald Trump. Before we can move forward, however, we have to define our terms.
Within days of Donald Trump’s election victory, racist and anti-Semitic graffiti appeared around the United States. Aside from a curt “don’t do it” in response to an interview question, the president-elect has not disavowed his alt-right supporters.
Hillary Clinton lost yet another campaign that she seemed predestined to win. American democracy is on the ropes. The president-elect is already facing nationwide protests. But for Hillary, there’s no place like home.
In theory, its advocates have argued, democracy is the best system that anyone has ever come up with. But after results like this year, in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton â and both of them were extremely unpopular to begin with â it’s important to consider whether it’s really such a good thing to live in a country where anyone can hold tremendous political and military power.
Not for me: I always said Donald Trump had a strong chance to win the presidency in a country where tens of millions of people are economically insecure, racist and/or sexist. The far right impulse has always been strong in American politics. But Trump has shocked the media and political establishment by pulling a come-from-behind victory over the deeply flawed right-wing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Now we, and the world, must brace for the arrival of protofascism in the Oval Office, enabled by Republican rule over both houses of Congress.
If you think Americans are anxious about today’s election, imagine how people around the world feel. Prisoners in secret CIA prisons, torture victims at Guantánamo Bay, people in Pakistan and elsewhere who are getting blown up by drones, people who are terrified of being killed by rogue police officers. America literally decides what happened to the lives of millions of people all over the place. Yet both choices are terrible for them.
They tell us we live in a country that serves as a shining beacon on a hill, a model for democracies around the world. If that’s true, how the hell did we end up with two candidates who are the #1 and #2 most unpopular candidates in the history of polling, either one of which could lead to disaster?
