11.16.2016 09:12 AM

President Dumpster, the aftermath

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I want to understand why a sexist, racist, fascistic type won, but I still don’t.  Like 99 per cent of the planet, I didn’t see it coming, not for a moment.

But I sure have been keeping track of what has happened since his victory.  Since then, you haven’t had to predict anything; it’s all real, it’s all happening. From a column I’ve penned for next week:

Since his electoral college victory, of course, things have gotten just as bad as you’d expect. Trump’s transition to power is in chaos.

He’s been on the line with Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin before he’s talked to his NATO allies. He’s made a white supremacist and anti-Semite his most senior advisor. He’s scoffed at conflicts of interest laws. He says he will eradicate Roe v. Wade, and a woman’s right to choose. He says he will round up and deport three million people. He’s surrounded himself with conspiracy nuts. He’s going to tear up trade deals, and target Canadian exports. He has gone back on Twitter to say that “professional protestors” have been “incited by the media” against him.

And, in just a single week, the U.S. bond markets have lost a trillion dollars in value. Hate crimes have exploded, with hundreds being reported by the independent Southern Poverty Law Centre – and with attacks on Muslims up some 70 per cent. And that woman who, as a 13-year-old, says that she was raped by Trump? She dropped her case against him, because she was getting too many death threats.

15 Comments

  1. Aongasha says:

    I get the outrage, even though I wouldn’t have voted for either candidate. What I don’t get is all this noise from the Left & the media a week after the election. Weren’t they the same folks yelling about accepting the results when they thought HRC was going to win? Seems a tad hypocritical what they are doing and saying now. Like it or not every president gets to try and put his policies in place as advertised and to pick his own staff. It’s going to be a really long grind for those who disagree. Especially when what they say or do, will not change things 1 iota for the next 4 years. This is especially true here in Canada, because Trump and company could care less what Canadians or their media have to say about US policy or politicians. I also get it that a failing media is desperate for views, ears and clicks, but hardly think this is going to do the job and aid them financially over the next 4 years.

    • Warren says:

      I worked for Hillary and hate Trump’s guts. I’m not being “hypocritical.” I’m being consistent. Your co-ideologues – election is rigged, etc. – should give it a try. You, too.

      • Aongasha says:

        What you are doing is letting emotion cloud reason. Do you (or the media for that matter) think anyone really cares at this point in time? The barrage of attacks and insults accomplish nothing, especially since Trump never sees them and wouldn’t really care if he did. He’s had much worse treatment at the hands of the US media and pundits. More importantly he’s there for at least 4 years, barring a serious mishap and we have to deal with that in this country. The rest is just noise. Our government, experts and strategists need to figure out how to sleep with the elephant in the room and do what’s best for Canada. Simply whipping up the pitchfork crowd is not an option and accomplishes nothing, as many of our top civil servants and the biz community are already pointing out. Rene Levesque according to an Aislin cartoon once said it best, ‘everybody take a valium’.

    • Ron says:

      The time will come, soon, when even those who voted for him will wish they had never heard of Donald Trump.

  2. Brian says:

    I picked Trump to win. Not because I like him. On the contrary, I think he’s only a smidgen worse that Hillary. But, it was HER turn, the DNC shafted Bernie and now America knows that the goat that cursed The Chicago Cubs for 100 years, was renamed Clinton and it was running for president.

    In terms of hate crimes, Toronto police today reported no increase. As for the USA—-and this where some will not appreciate this position—I really couldn’t give a shit.

    What everyone is failing to realise, including the press is this: For too long the American Government has been a disaster. You can go back to Kennedy and start picking it apart from there. People such as myself, those with a bit of a malicious side, looked at Trump and said, “I hope he beats Clinton.” I despise the man but I despise Clinton more. I’ve also seen what “family presidencies” can do and after “Dubya,” we can all agree, they’re not a good idea.

    So for voters in the US and those of us that wanted to see a change in the way they behave, here’s what’s actually happened… Please save the liberal whining… It’s just a theory and besides, I no longer vote in elections anyway…

    1) The US has been laid bare for all the world to see. (Red, white, black and blue.) The election of Donald Trump highlights the fact that, “The emperor truly has no clothes” any longer. The USA is the laughing stock of the planet today and it’s well deserved. Who knows, maybe the world may be a better place under Trump than with Clinton. I don’t know for certain and I don’t really care but we can’t be sure about anything, can we. He’s a dick, she’s a dick… This was a lose,lose election for everyone. So after 8 years of an empty suit called Barack Obama, America now has a guy that will, right or wrong, get stuff done.

    2) Donald Trump may be the best thing to happen US politics in the same way that Michael Ignatieff was the best thing for the Conservative Party of Canada.

    3) Mike Pence will be president before the end of the first term.

    4) Trump is our modern version of Nixon. He’s contemptible, has a huge ego, lies and steals and cheats but if you’ll recall one thing about Nixon that is certainly part of his legacy… He ended a war in Vietnam that no Democrat before him could. If an asshole like Nixon could end a war…

  3. Kelly says:

    Because of the chaos, incompetence and likely coming fraud conviction, Trump won’t last six months. Pence knows this and so he will be President this time next year. And then the Dems will win back congress when Trump voting women realize they won’t have control of their bodies anymore and Pence attempts to establish a theocracy and start Armageddon and Paul Rand…er…Ryan ends Medicare. 22 million people are set to lose their health insurance. 22 million more democratic votes should scare the crap out of the Republicans.

  4. bluegreenblogger says:

    I cribbed this quote off Facebook. The New York Times: “And Mr. Trump himself fired back at critics with a Twitter message he sent about 10 p.m. “Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions,” he wrote. “I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!””

    I had to laugh. The ‘finalists?’ Will Miss Ohio get Defense? Will Miss New York get the Attorney Generals office? We can all be relieved, all the contestants have formally endorsed ‘World Peace’! Actually, this is more fun that calling him a shitty racist. He is, but he is also completely out of his depth. I intend to laugh long and hard at his follies for the next 4 years, or until impeachment

  5. Liam Young says:

    Polls, pollsters, prognosticators and pundits are drinking from the same well, which is why so many people didn’t see this coming.

    The entire political infrastructure is unbalanced and doesn’t track the inner workings of the pissed off voter.

    I predicted a Trump win because he acted like any corporation does when they create an ad campaign, which is what this was and is the way ALL conservatives manage their campaigns today. They pick a target, they define them and they play into their needs / wants / desires / fears. He delivered what he knew his audience (once-middle class, disenfranchised, alienated, Christian, white male suburbanites and farmers) wanted. They wanted to be coddled, lied to and be reassured that he was NOT one of the elite (even though he is), his government would be a gold-plated icon of management perfection (if you include appointing KKK spokespeople and your kids as cabinet members as being ‘accountable), they would shake things up (apparently by appointing seasoned Republican bureaucrats) and will proceed to break every promise that he made, stirring social unrest and potential anarchy in the US for decades to come.

    If we don’t want the same thing to happen in Canada as Trump and Brexit, we’d better start getting electoral reform in place!

  6. Doris says:

    If you didn’t see it and you are in the business of being on top of the public’s pulse I would suggest another “visioning session”. And invite some “workers” to it.

    • Ron says:

      What no one except Team Inciter saw just how bad race relations are in the US. It’s a tinder box. I hope Mr. Trump is happy.

  7. Daryl gordon says:

    Re: race relations. Remember Obama and Eric Holder fanning the flames in the Travon Martin, Michael Brown cases. Both elevated to sainthood then completely discredited by the due process of the law.

    Why not pick any of the hundreds of Chicago murder victims? No political capital gained when it’s just gangbanging in a Democratic run city. Nobody yelling “Hands up, don’t shoot” too busy diving for cover.

  8. Matt says:

    From the cover of the Daily News:

    “Trump SEIZES Divided States of America”

    Seizes? Interesting way to describe winning a democratic election. Sure Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump won what mattered, the Electoral College.

    Not a fan of Trump, or Clinton for that matter, but he won.

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