2016 Election Final

I'm starting this thread with a message my Guides just inspired me to write. I've already posted it on RS and some other boards, but I'd like to see if we can discuss it on a deeper level here.

"Bizarre as the 2016 Presidential campaign has been so far, most Americans seem to think it will end with either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump winning the election on November 8th and taking office as POTUS in January of 2017. However, my best political judgment and my channelings as a psychic lead me to believe the actual course of political events in the USA and world-wide over the next year or so is going to be in the "truth is stranger than fiction category". So I'm not making any predictions at this point but just waiting to see what happens next"

.

Many different visionary sources say something similar... though some are clouded in metaphor.
I have read and heard that this year was going to see the most significant changes in our lifetime on Earth, that we are going to have ET's revealing themselves (which is a powerful metaphor though I do not think it is physically true), that all rulers, leaders and kings are going to be tested to the maximum and that new leadership is on the way (more in tune with accepting, female energy than aggressive male styles), that we are going to have a world epidemic or we are getting ready for a war on a scale we have not seen on Earth. (I would not support this last point, though reason and geopolitics still say it could happen. But wait and see - we may be dealing with something far more important - and man-made - which could pull us together finally).

Starting out from my immediate environment, something like this epidemic or "die-off" seems to be already happening, but it seems to be rather the result of a compound of factors we already have in civilized environments. Many people I know are fighting diseases which seem viral but simply refuse to go away - and pollutants as well as mutation can all contribute to this. It is not a direct relationship, but it does make sense at the everyday level that disease and health change if the climate changes in large areas of the Earth. Just one marginal example - Siberian permafrost. Old microorganisms are coming out of the warming permafrost, while by now the general warming already releases methane from permafrost ground at an alarming rate - which speeds up global warming and which will go on for years to come even if we would collectively stop using oil and coal tomorrow.
Catastrophic weather events are reported in recent years. Wait until it reaches a threshold of people and not just in the peripheries.
Recent air pollution stats show that diesel is deadly - generating micro-dust - and that it is over 20 times as bad in China than the entire North American continent. Why Europeans favored diesel in general seems a mystery to me - perhaps they thought it was energy-sparing at some level and thus cheaper. London is already thinking about taxing diesels to the hilt or banning them from the greater city. Last year we had the Volkswagen scandal - so all points to a turning point where fossils have to be phased out or everyone will die (and nuclear power plants are not a good solution, either).

As for the elections, I chipped in a symbolic 5 dollars to Hillary - I am quite broke now but I thought it was a ritual thing. They send me emails every day - some are pushy, but some are witty.

I heard that some things were going to be revealed that will shake public opinion in a way that the results of the elections were going to be far less important than they seem.

So I think the lines are sharply drawn now that we collectively have to deal with climate change and the response humanity gives - also in terms of geopolitics and health care practices. Now just as here in Europe, the two candidates have put their foot down as expected, with Trump denying climate change - as most right-wing retrogrades do all around the world -, and Clinton - maybe a bit unwillingly - supporting the Paris agreements. In retrospect, looking back from some time a few decades down the line, this may prove much more impactful than the geopolitical skirmishes. If we take steps soon, in the last minute, at least a slimmer model of civilization can survive - maybe far more economic and pulling partly underground and under the sea. But if we deliberately shut our eyes, we would act like the proverbial ostrich.
Plus it seems more and more true as the months go by that climate change is at least indirectly responsible for some of the major political crises of these years, for example, the refugee crisis of the Near East, Africa, Turkey and Europe. It may be an indirect cause of the Syrian war (with millions of former farmers drawn into cities from 2009 on so far more ready to rebel when the Arab Spring broke), and drought and heat certainly causes of a lot of migration from Africa - we know about the drying of the Sahel belt from the seventies.
Threatening Russian-American relations are also related to this fossil paradigm - with Russia pushing the old model at all costs, and the West seeking more and more alternatives. I think the Chinese - the largest polluters of the world - probably look at it as if they had no choice. Well, some people there are also doomed.

If we have a POTUS that is actively against actions related to climate change, we may miss our last moments to do something.
To sum it up, we are already in a crisis. For example, I just read today that more people died trying to cross the Mediterranean sea to the EU during these past two years than the entire estimated total drownings of boats during the ancient era of Graeco-Roman times (I am not sure they included naval battles though). Paradoxically, while I see masses of people dying and the world separating to areas where people may survive and places where many obviously will not, in politics, the nearby examples of Russia and Hungary are good warnings. Nationalism of the violent sort espoused by our Great Leaders is based upon some misguided logic of collective survival of "our group" versus "their group" - but it goes together with policies which actually threaten us all.

reg, #2

reg said: "Many different visionary sources say something similar... though some are clouded in metaphor. I have read and heard that this year was going to see the most significant changes in our lifetime on Earth, that we are going to have ET's revealing themselves (which is a powerful metaphor though I do not think it is physically true), that all rulers, leaders and kings are going to be tested to the maximum and that new leadership is on the way (more in tune with accepting, female energy than aggressive male styles), that we are going to have a world epidemic or we are getting ready for a war on a scale we have not seen on Earth. (I would not support this last point, though reason and geopolitics still say it could happen. But wait and see - we may be dealing with something far more important - and man-made - which could pull us together finally).

RR's response: According to my Guides, a "CWW1" could break out at any time. The "C" standing for "Cyber", of course, and this could be triggered by events related to the 2016 Presidential election in the USA. There's no doubt at this point that Clinton beat Trump badly in the first Presidential Debate on 9/26/16, and Russian-based hackers are actively supporting the latter. Even though Clinton is now drawing significantly ahead in all the scientific polls, polls conducted live on line right after the debate showed Trump winning by a wide margin, and there's solid evidence that Russian hackers were involved. And just this morning (10/1/16), Trump has been posting claims that the election results are going to be rigged by bogus electonic ballot counting. So it's possible that "a war on a scale we have no seen on Earth" could refer to a cyber war, since "scale" can refer to methodology as well as to size.


reg said: Starting out from my immediate environment, something like this epidemic or "die-off" seems to be already happening, but it seems to be rather the result of a compound of factors we already have in civilized environments. Many people I know are fighting diseases which seem viral but simply refuse to go away - and pollutants as well as mutation can all contribute to this. It is not a direct relationship, but it does make sense at the everyday level that disease and health change if the climate changes in large areas of the Earth. Just one marginal example - Siberian permafrost. Old microorganisms are coming out of the warming permafrost, while by now the general warming already releases methane from permafrost ground at an alarming rate - which speeds up global warming and which will go on for years to come even if we would collectively stop using oil and coal tomorrow. Catastrophic weather events are reported in recent years. Wait until it reaches a threshold of people and not just in the peripheries.

RR's response: The inexplicable infections you just described are also common in the circles I'm in contact with dirtside here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and among the members of several of the on-line venues I visit most frequently. I tend to agree with your appraisal that environmental pollution is a significant factor in this, but so far have seen no evidence that this phenomenon will lead to a pandemic.

reg said: Recent air pollution stats show that diesel is deadly - generating micro-dust - and that it is over 20 times as bad in China than the entire North American continent. Why Europeans favored diesel in general seems a mystery to me - perhaps they thought it was energy-sparing at some level and thus cheaper. London is already thinking about taxing diesels to the hilt or banning them from the greater city. Last year we had the Volkswagen scandal - so all points to a turning point where fossils have to be phased out or everyone will die (and nuclear power plants are not a good solution, either).

RR's response: This hasn't gotten as much publicity as it should have, but the Obama Administration has managed to start a major shift away from fossil fuels during the last eight years in spite of strenuous efforts by the Republican-controlled Congress to prevent this. If Clinton is elected in November, as is beginning to look more and more likely, I'm sure her Administration will make a major effort to accelerate this process. However, it looks right now like the Republicans will still control the House for sure and most probibly the Senate as well, so it's going to be difficult to get good environmental laws passed. But at least it can be done openly, generating massive media attention.

reg said: As for the elections, I chipped in a symbolic 5 dollars to Hillary - I am quite broke now but I thought it was a ritual thing. They send me emails every day - some are pushy, but some are witty. I heard that some things were going to be revealed that will shake public opinion in a way that the results of the elections were going to be far less important than they seem.

RR's response: I'm actively working on line to get Democrats elected to offices all the way from President on down to state and local governments, but I agree that partisan politics isn't going to decide what actual course the USA takes on either the social or fiscal levels. However, at this point, I can't yet make an educated guess about what factors will determine how the future actually unfolds.

reg said: So I think the lines are sharply drawn now that we collectively have to deal with climate change and the response humanity gives - also in terms of geopolitics and health care practices. Now just as here in Europe, the two candidates have put their foot down as expected, with Trump denying climate change - as most right-wing retrogrades do all around the world -, and Clinton - maybe a bit unwillingly - supporting the Paris agreements. In retrospect, looking back from some time a few decades down the line, this may prove much more impactful than the geopolitical skirmishes. If we take steps soon, in the last minute, at least a slimmer model of civilization can survive - maybe far more economic and pulling partly underground and under the sea. But if we deliberately shut our eyes, we would act like the proverbial ostrich. ... Plus it seems more and more true as the months go by that climate change is at least indirectly responsible for some of the major political crises of these years, for example, the refugee crisis of the Near East, Africa, Turkey and Europe. It may be an indirect cause of the Syrian war (with millions of former farmers drawn into cities from 2009 on so far more ready to rebel when the Arab Spring broke), and drought and heat certainly causes of a lot of migration from Africa - we know about the drying of the Sahel belt from the seventies. ... Threatening Russian-American relations are also related to this fossil paradigm - with Russia pushing the old model at all costs, and the West seeking more and more alternatives. I think the Chinese - the largest polluters of the world - probably look at it as if they had no choice. Well, some people there are also doomed. ...If we have a POTUS that is actively against actions related to climate change, we may miss our last moments to do something. ... To sum it up, we are already in a crisis. For example, I just read today that more people died trying to cross the Mediterranean sea to the EU during these past two years than the entire estimated total drownings of boats during the ancient era of Graeco-Roman times (I am not sure they included naval battles though). Paradoxically, while I see masses of people dying and the world separating to areas where people may survive and places where many obviously will not, in politics, the nearby examples of Russia and Hungary are good warnings. Nationalism of the violent sort espoused by our Great Leaders is based upon some misguided logic of collective survival of "our group" versus "their group" - but it goes together with policies which actually threaten us all.

RR's response: Everything you just wrote makes good sense to me, but I can't think of anything positive to add. When I ask my Guides for specific speculations about what will happen in the near future, they tell me that cyber warfare is going to become much more important than either conventional military warfare or terrorism in the very near future, possibly beginning between November 9th and the end of the year. And they stress that the world-wide civilian community of cyber experts may have as much impact on this as governments do.

Update: now I am secure that the Clinton campaign will win, perhaps even by a landside. And they made it clear in their emails that it is also paramount for Democrats to be elected in key leadership positions, so they communicate clearly and to the point.
However, the next point is whether the other side will recognize the results of the election. I have a strong feeling from the articles about the presidential debates that they will first officially concede, but that they will try their best to produce something in the following weeks which will question the legitimacy of a Democratic victory in the eyes of many Americans. There was already talk about Obama's amnesty to "illegal workers" in great numbers because they will feel indebted to the Democratic administration and will thus vote for Clinton. Clarity and transparency of counting will be paramount this time.
The unstated premise behind such attempts is that Trump made it clear that he is against Latino immigration, trying to appeal to people who perceive their respective group as being disenfranchised by globalization - though we know that it is not Latino immigrants that threaten the US economy, it is rather speculative capital and the flight of industrial capital to China (and other parts of the world where workers have no rights).
Plus that people in consolidated circumstances (stable, legal job etc.) have a choice whereas people with an unstable financial existence do not - it is obvious that they have no chances with Republicans of the sort of Trump. There is no time for them to work out an alternative rhetoric which would make a call towards people with dubious legal status or unstable jobs. Which leads me to the conclusion that they will try to work on the voter fraud card and prepare to question the legitimacy of the elections. Whether they succeed or not does not matter, because they will try to build upon grassroots support later, in midterm elections as well as a next Presidential one.

In a much smaller scale, we could learn from the example of Hungary in 2006. The country had a very transparent electoral system back then. It is a thing of the past now. The populist right wing lost by a small margin in 2006, and they first tried the voter fraud claim. When they saw that that wasn't working - there was little error - they used the grassroots right-wing support to mount a campaign to dishonor the Prime Minister. They started riots by smuggling out a tape of an incriminating speech held by Mr. Gyurcsany - which required the active cooperation of some members of his own party. I am not afraid that there is anything of the sort of incriminating evidence by Clinton, I am certain she has been displaying a lot of self-control since years as Foreign Secretary etc. But in 2010 the populist right wing won by a landslide in Hungary, which was partly the result of years of fanatical grassroots organizing.

I think it would be important for everyday people with Democratic sympathies or a strong antipathy for Trumpism to realize what sort of power we are facing. Trump himself may be bungling and contradicting himself these days, but he does have the potential to become a leader of a style of Marine LePen in France, ready to jump in any time next time. Unless there is not only clear communication but also a sense of economic stability perceived by the masses who are undecided. And that takes time plus much international cooperation. Which includes - paradoxically - the relative stability of China for the first few years of the Clinton administration.

Luckily, I think the world is polarizing in other ways which influence mass perception of US voters - just take the punitive measures against gays in most Eastern tyrannies, versus the relative freedom of people with a different lifestyle in many parts of the US and the UK. (I think that was one of the hardest nuts to crack for Trump - when he pretended to sympathize with US LGBTQ people, still playing the Muslim card. He was doing a rather bad job of impersonation.)

reg, #4:

reg said: Update: now I am secure that the Clinton campaign will win, perhaps even by a landside. And they made it clear in their emails that it is also paramount for Democrats to be elected in key leadership positions, so they communicate clearly and to the point.
However, the next point is whether the other side will recognize the results of the election. I have a strong feeling from the articles about the presidential debates that they will first officially concede, but that they will try their best to produce something in the following weeks which will question the legitimacy of a Democratic victory in the eyes of many Americans. There was already talk about Obama's amnesty to "illegal workers" in great numbers because they will feel indebted to the Democratic administration and will thus vote for Clinton. Clarity and transparency of counting will be paramount this time.
RR's response: Thirteen days before the election, it looks like the plutocrats who back both the extreme right and the mainstream GOP are still making a major effort to get Donald Trump elected POTUS. The CNN news service is airing a number of polls I'm sure are bogus that show Trump leading by a few points both nationally and in a number of the "battleground states" that will decide who gets a majority in the Electoral College. MSNBC is still airing more realistic poll results, but they are going along with the other MSM in continuing to air material released by Wikileaks even though they admit that it represents an attempt by Russia to interfere in the US election process. However Trump has not yet said he'll concede if he loses, and it's obvious from recent postings on Twitter and other social media that it's highly likely there will be significant violent protest from the alt-right if Clinton wins. Apparently neither Trump nor the GOP leadership realize that this will give the Obama Admin an excuse to indict and arrest lots of people not involved with the violence on other serious charges. This has already started with the arrest of "Sheriff Joe" Arpaio in Arizona. I've been virtually certain for a long time there would be major race rioting if Trump were elected, but now I'm beginning to think that something almost as bad might happen after Clinton is elected, though I'm not sure what the long-term political impact will be. IMO, a lot depends on whether the Democrats regain control of the Senate, and can't make an educated guess about that at the moment.

reg said: The unstated premise behind such attempts is that Trump made it clear that he is against Latino immigration, trying to appeal to people who perceive their respective group as being disenfranchised by globalization - though we know that it is not Latino immigrants that threaten the US economy, it is rather speculative capital and the flight of industrial capital to China (and other parts of the world where workers have no rights). Plus that people in consolidated circumstances (stable, legal job etc.) have a choice whereas people with an unstable financial existence do not - it is obvious that they have no chances with Republicans of the sort of Trump. There is no time for them to work out an alternative rhetoric which would make a call towards people with dubious legal status or unstable jobs. Which leads me to the conclusion that they will try to work on the voter fraud card and prepare to question the legitimacy of the elections. Whether they succeed or not does not matter, because they will try to build upon grassroots support later, in midterm elections as well as a next Presidential one.
RR's response: I don't believe there will be a serious effort by the GOP to challenge the legitimacacy of the election after Clinton is elected, but rather to obstruct the functioning of the new Admin in many different ways. And if they retain control of both Houses of Congress, they can do a great deal of harm to the domestic and world economy, not realizing that this will actually benefit the Demos in the 2018 and 2020 elections. However, most Americans are not yet aware that if Hillary Clinton is President, she can refuse to deport any illegal aliens at all, or allow them to be jailed by state or local governments and there isn't a damn thing the Congress can do about it. And she might also be able to make it easier for illegals to get jobs, drivers licenses, etc. without giving them citizenship or legal immigrant status.

reg said: In a much smaller scale, we could learn from the example of Hungary in 2006. The country had a very transparent electoral system back then. It is a thing of the past now. The populist right wing lost by a small margin in 2006, and they first tried the voter fraud claim. When they saw that that wasn't working - there was little error - they used the grassroots right-wing support to mount a campaign to dishonor the Prime Minister. They started riots by smuggling out a tape of an incriminating speech held by Mr. Gyurcsany - which required the active cooperation of some members of his own party. I am not afraid that there is anything of the sort of incriminating evidence by Clinton, I am certain she has been displaying a lot of self-control since years as Foreign Secretary etc. But in 2010 the populist right wing won by a landslide in Hungary, which was partly the result of years of fanatical grassroots organizing.
RR's response: It's extremely unlikely a GOP-controlled Congress would be able to impeach and convict Clinton, because this would require a 3/4 majority vote in the Senate, and short of that, the only thing the right can do is refuse to pass legislation that will keep the country functioning normally. This is extremely likely to backfire on them at the polls in 2018 and 2020, and IMO, the American "silent majority" is more likely to shift to the left than to the right as happened in Hungary.

reg said: I think it would be important for everyday people with Democratic sympathies or a strong antipathy for Trumpism to realize what sort of power we are facing. Trump himself may be bungling and contradicting himself these days, but he does have the potential to become a leader of a style of Marine LePen in France, ready to jump in any time next time. Unless there is not only clear communication but also a sense of economic stability perceived by the masses who are undecided. And that takes time plus much international cooperation. Which includes - paradoxically - the relative stability of China for the first few years of the Clinton administration.
RR's response: I'm almost certain that Trump is going to either jail or the insane asylum quite soon unless he flees to Russia, so I don't see him as a future danger.

reg said: Luckily, I think the world is polarizing in other ways which influence mass perception of US voters - just take the punitive measures against gays in most Eastern tyrannies, versus the relative freedom of people with a different lifestyle in many parts of the US and the UK. (I think that was one of the hardest nuts to crack for Trump - when he pretended to sympathize with US LGBTQ people, still playing the Muslim card. He was doing a rather bad job of impersonation.)
RR's response: IMO, the "choice" issue over abortion and other women's health issues is going to be much more important than any other social issue, including gay rights, immigration, or religious intolerance towards Muslims.

Fresh after the news of Trump's victory: now we are looking at the possibility of race riots, Putin claiming influence over a sizable part of Europe, and pay-for-yourself defense in NATO (read: we will only defend the rich and the white)... Islamic extremists will also cheer as they want a final confrontation with the West and it is only a question of time when they get it. Trump will not reasonably defend Estonia or Poland, but he will bomb any Middle Eastern site if he gets angry. Which happens every second day.

History does not really repeat itself but I do see an analogy between the situation across the world and the rise of Stalin and Hitler. Nothing deters Trump lovers - it is useless to argue with them.
Is there truly this much darkness in America?

Maybe there is something warped in my perception but unless I'm mistaken, Fascists and blaring, screaming propaganda is on the rise.

Hirohito is notably missing from the equation, though China is tacitly imperialistic these days, and in India, we've got Modi. Rooseveltian policies are seen in Germany but Merkel already warned (today's news) that Russian power may be intervening with the upcoming elections in Germany. Merkel is the epitome of reasonableness, I have never heard anything hysterical and paranoid from her. So I must take what she says at face value.

Though possibly, as seen in his victory speech already, Trump himself is swinging quickly away from his extreme positions (no mention of the famous Mexican wall, or "lock her up" or "ban abortion"), I am not reassured that he will stay away from the worst possibilities in the long run. At the best, he is easily provoked, at worst, he will continue the tradition of GW Bush who started the two recent Middle Eastern wars. One thing is sure - the world now is without a reasonable political leader, except for Angela Merkel.
From whatever I've heard from Theresa May, she is not one - no matter if the judiciary wanted to oblige British Parliament to vote yes of no about Brexit, she promised her voters that Brexit will mean Brexit, quickly alienating all British remainers and EU leaders at one masterful stroke. How clever.

However, much will come to light in the coming weeks. I do not see Trump as strong and congruent as Adolf was before his rise to power, and he is quite confused about a number of things personally. The plutocrats power behind him, I sense, will want to keep the new slavery part of globalization (despite all Trump's rhetoric about China) while discarding the international humanism most people on this planet would desire.

What I keep on seeing is that Putin cheered for Trump all along, as did all tyrannical and macho leaders across the globe, including our proud specimen Mr Orban. Sympathy has been mutual. It may yet turn out that hackers and propagandists serving Theocratic powers did play a much larger role in influencing these US elections than we had previously thought. But Trumpists are ulikely to yield an inch and he himself is not disposed for that either. Let the US focus on race and walls and white anger instead of real issues at home and in the world, so aggressive Theocrats can go ahead and effectively harm a much larger portion of the world, even if only for a few years.

Additionally, we now have a climate denier president. Which may be much more important in the long run than even a few minor wars, as horrible as all wars are.

Seems that we are ready for the die-off. People have chosen a much nastier end game than I was hoping for.

Reg, #6:

Reg said: Fresh after the news of Trump's victory: now we are looking at the possibility of race riots, Putin claiming influence over a sizable part of Europe, and pay-for-yourself defense in NATO (read: we will only defend the rich and the white)... Islamic extremists will also cheer as they want a final confrontation with the West and it is only a question of time when they get it. Trump will not reasonably defend Estonia or Poland, but he will bomb any Middle Eastern site if he gets angry. Which happens every second day.
RR's response: Almost 24 hours have now passed since it became obvious that Trump would be the next US President, and there are already massive, mostly peaceful protests in many different cities and towns from coast to coast. So far, the protesters are mostly young white people, high school and college students, and there's been no signifiant violence. However, as the weekend approaches, I assume that minorities will get involved and it wouldn't surprise me if there are full scale riots with arson, looting, and the use of firearms on both sides. Both Hillary Clinton and President Obama have officially recognized Trump's election, but it's obvious that they're emotionally on the side of the protesters. As soon as it looked like trump would be elected, the Dow Jones and other securities markets crashed, but by this morning they'd returned to normal, so that's not a factor right now.

Reg said: History does not really repeat itself but I do see an analogy between the situation across the world and the rise of Stalin and Hitler. Nothing deters Trump lovers - it is useless to argue with them. Is there truly this much darkness in America?
RR's response: Yes, this darkness has been gradually developing in the USA since 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected President. Before that, the two major political parties were ideological very similar, each containing a liberal, moderat, and conservative wing and most legislation was passed by bipartisan compromises. This changed after Reagan introduced supply side economics and pushed it very hard, till it got named "Reaganomics" by the Republicans, who accepted it, and "Voodoo Economics" by the Democrats, who still clung to the demand side economics of Roosevelt's New Deal. This relatively amicable competition continue after George HP Bush took over from Reagan in 1988, but when Bill Clinton became POTUS in 1992, the Republicans in Congress essentially started a right versus left struggle with the Democrats, which has been growing progressively stronger ever since. The Demos did their best to obstruct the policies of George W Bush between 2000 and 2008, and the Republicans have done the same during the Obama Adminitration. This has gradually generated a great deal of ideological conflict that affects both liberals and conservatives. So the campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has been one of the darkest since the one that led to FDR's election.

Reg said: Maybe there is something warped in my perception but unless I'm mistaken, Fascists and blaring, screaming propaganda is on the rise. Hirohito is notably missing from the equation, though China is tacitly imperialistic these days, and in India, we've got Modi. Rooseveltian policies are seen in Germany but Merkel already warned (today's news) that Russian power may be intervening with the upcoming elections in Germany. Merkel is the epitome of reasonableness, I have never heard anything hysterical and paranoid from her. So I must take what she says at face value.
RR'sresponse: IMO, the government of both the mainstream of the EU and the UK remain relatively sane and moderate, as proven by the fact that the British Parliament seems to be figuring out a way to nullify Brexit. But the American right seems to want to establish a new, mostly economic, imperialism, which Trump has now codified as "Making America Great Again". The left, personified by Hillary Clinton, seems compatible with the moderate economic and political ideologies of the Canadian, British, and mainstream EU government.

Reg said: Though possibly, as seen in his victory speech already, Trump himself is swinging quickly away from his extreme positions (no mention of the famous Mexican wall, or "lock her up" or "ban abortion"), I am not reassured that he will stay away from the worst possibilities in the long run. At the best, he is easily provoked, at worst, he will continue the tradition of GW Bush who started the two recent Middle Eastern wars.
RR's response: It looks like Trump is indeed trying to swing away from his near-fascist populist extremism and embracing the more respectable conservative ideology of the
Tea Party Republicans, but the Democrats won't let him. They keep taunting him in public with questions about building a wall on the Mexican border, deporting about eleven million illegal immigrants, and taking extremely right wing views on social issues.

Reg said: One thing is sure - the world now is without a reasonable political leader, except for Angela Merkel. From whatever I've heard from Theresa May, she is not one - no matter if the judiciary wanted to oblige British Parliament to vote yes of no about Brexit, she promised her voters that Brexit will mean Brexit, quickly alienating all British remainers and EU leaders at one masterful stroke. How clever.
RR's response: It looks like the British Parliament is going to "trump" May's insistence on implementing Brexit, and I suspect a new government and a more moderate PM will be the result quite soon.

Reg said: However, much will come to light in the coming weeks. I do not see Trump as strong and congruent as Adolf was before his rise to power, and he is quite confused about a number of things personally. The plutocrats power behind him, I sense, will want to keep the new slavery part of globalization (despite all Trump's rhetoric about China) while discarding the international humanism most people on this planet would desire.
RR's response: I've never believed that Trump was ever serious about wanting to be President. IMO, he was just trying to get massive free publicity that he could use to start his own TV network that would host both news and reality shows. And I don't believe he's an actual fascist at heart: he uses this rhetoric mostly as an attention-getting Advice.

Reg said: What I keep on seeing is that Putin cheered for Trump all along, as did all tyrannical and macho leaders across the globe, including our proud specimen Mr Orban. Sympathy has been mutual. It may yet turn out that hackers and propagandists serving Theocratic powers did play a much larger role in influencing these US elections than we had previously thought. But Trumpists are ulikely to yield an inch and he himself is not disposed for that either. Let the US focus on race and walls and white anger instead of real issues at home and in the world, so aggressive Theocrats can go ahead and effectively harm a much larger portion of the world, even if only for a few years.
RR's response: I agree with everything you just wrote. Trump is actually caught in the middle of a battle between the Tea Party right and the moderates who represent the mainstreams of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Reg said: Additionally, we now have a climate denier president. Which may be much more important in the long run than even a few minor wars, as horrible as all wars are. Seems that we are ready for the die-off. People have chosen a much nastier end game than I was hoping for.
RR's response: I assume that the leadership of both the GOP and Demos know that climate change is real but that there is nothing we can do to stop it, and while it's possible to prepare for a rising sea level and unpredictable weather, this is actually too expensive to be fiscally possible. So nothing is going to be done, and exchanges on the subject are just empty rhetoric. I also assume that these same leaders have heard experts make predictions about a pandemic that will kill off much of the world's population, but can't suggest ways to prevent this.