Can't let this go without comment!
So Trump is to be President. It is not my country that is directly affected, but we all will be one way or another. It is easy to be the doom merchant with regard to his election, which I will try not to do too much. It is astonishing that a country the size of the USA, or any country come to that, could not find better candidates than Trump and Clinton. Had the latter been a more charismatic and popular person we would not be here now I am sure. Why do certain families in the US have a fascination with, and desire and need for power; Kennedy, Bush, Clinton to name a few (some are already touting Michelle Obama for the future), and why do so many voters seem to like this. However, I suppose if you consider that the US President is equivalent to our Royals' we only have one family. However, the positions are not the same in terms of their influence on the direction a country takes. We had the sense to sort that out in 1215, and Cromwell later played his part as well. With Trump, and a Republican Senate and Congress, the direction is surely going to change.
Let's get the doom out of the way with a few scenarios!
1. Trump reduces the US commitment to NATO and has a cosy relationship with Putin. Russia invades Poland. Germany now seems to be a pacifist country, we know the French defensive record over the last century, that leaves us on our own again!
By the way there is nothing wrong with being a pacifist in fact it is commendable, but the danger is that you and yours will be trampled over by those who seem to believe it is alright to force, by waging war, their views and way of life on you. Otherwise, I suppose you can leave others to do your dirty work for you. If we were all pacifists, which we should be, it would work well. However, clearly we are not. Buddhism causes similar problems as we can see in Tibet.
Also I hope no one is thinking, "oh but the Yanks won the Second World War for us". We were not on our own. Hang on; if we hadn't won the Battle of Britain there would have been no launching pad for D- Day, and no liberation of Europe, and we would all be living in one big Germany! We would not have been able to Brexit that one!
2. Despite Nigel Farage apparently being Trump's best mate, if the USA adopts an isolationist stance why should they want a trade deal with us. What do we make that they need? Nothing I suspect, except Yanks like Range Rover's and Jags maybe? Thinking about it why would the USA with all its natural resources and manufacturing power need to buy anything from anyone else? That is the modern world though - not need, but want. So another economic crash will be certain for us once we leave the cosy joy of the EU!
3. Then there is the issue of climate change and his apparent disregard for it. Now I would be the first to say that our attitudes to our environment are contradictory in the extreme, and often based on what we and governments want, and what the latter think will be tolerated, rather than what is needed. We speak of CO2 emissions, but still use, and are encouraged to use the car for short journeys that could be walked or cycled, we are charged 5p for plastic bags, but still allow fruit and vegetables to be wrapped in plastic and we excessively heat are buildings and cars when its cold and cool them when it is hot. However, all this is small fry compared with a man planning to ignore it completely. A man in charge of a very big country with a reputation already for not having a great regard for the environment.
So the doom is done and back to the election. Some have compared the election of Trump with the UK's vote to leave the EU. Now hang-on again! I admit, and potentially agree that both reflect a general disenchantment with mainstream politics. However, I do want to make sure the comparison does not go too far. Trump has expressed some views that many, if not most would consider racist. Some voted for us to leave the EU because they are racist and believe it is a way "to get the foreigners out", however many others voted to leave for other valid reasons like our sovereignty, the desire for our rules and laws to be made at home and the concern that Europe is governed by consensus rather than democracy and that some countries have more say in that consensus than others.
However, if you have voted for Trump (60 million did), you have voted for, or at very least are prepared to ignore the fact that, he does appear to have racist, sexist, isolationist and other rather, in my opinion of course, undesirable views. These are likely therefore to feature in his administration. This leaves aside any of his other personal traits that might seem somewhat undesirable in the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. So do not, as a leave EU voter tar me with that brush. Just like my vote does not mean that I think Nigel Farage is someone to look up to!!
I am always a bit wary of believing what I read on Twitter, but I am led to understand he has a number of family members in his advisory group. This is common in Third World Dictatorships, but not usual in Western Democracies, although there is a history here with the Kennedy family and their administration. I have also read that he has appointed a gentleman as his Chief Strategist who has a stated dislike of Jews. I have no further information about this, so I will leave it there for you to draw your own conclusions.
Some are saying, and others I expect thinking "Oh it's not that bad he will mellow now he has been elected; his bark is worse than his bite". I wonder how many were thinking and saying that in 1933!
I think that is this piece done. I could ramble on about the ways of the world, and what an unfortunate place it is as a result of the greed of the minority of its population, but I won't. What has happened in this election is simply another demonstration of just that. Many want more and they do not care whose expense it is at.
