We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Trump nearly there

Well, here I am sitting at my desk, with a telly on it and a computer screen on it, at stupid o’clock in the morning. I’m following the internet version of events here. When I started out following this, Clinton was reckoned to be 75 percent likely to win. Now they’re saying the same about Donald Trump. But since the first figure proved so fallible, why would I trust the second figure either? What is going to happen?

A few thoughts for our commentariat – including many who have actual experience of being in the USA, as I have not – to chew over, or not, as they please.

On Brit TV, a sensible blond woman (British) is talking about Obamacare and what a train wreck it has been. I suspect a lot of Brits are hearing this kind of thing for the first time. She also talked about education, another minus for Hillary, it would seem. And another Brit – middle aged, comb-over – has talked about Hillary’s use of politics to enrich herself on a grand scale. Again, how often has this been talked about on Brit TV?

So, simply in terms of their ability to report the campaign and its nature, the British media failed as comprehensively as the Clinton-supporting media look like they’re failing.

Related point: I suspect that Trump’s use of the social media is going to be talked about a lot in the next few weeks and months. Trump is being described as a political novice. But he sure as hell isn’t a media novice. He understands television. He understands how to get attention.

Now, finally, someone is telling Britain that Hillary Clinton is too “robotic”, not “warm”. They couldn’t “humanise” her. Trump was able to exploit this. Now they tell us.

About Trump. For the last year and however long it’s been, almost everyone has been underestimating Trump, and they were underestimating him still, only a few hours ago. And now, it is being said, by people on both sides, that Trump will be a ghastly President. He will be, if he just sticks to shrieking the things he shrieked at the beginning of his campaign, to get the attention of the kind of voters who hate all the damn politicians, definitely including those Republican grandees whom Trump has rolled all over, up to and including doing much better in the Presidential election. But what if people are still underestimating him? What if he is actually a quite good President? Even to the point where he starts making sensible noises about the size of the nation’s debt? What if he actually gets that you can’t just legislate manufacturing jobs back into existence? What if he turns out to be better at handling the Russians?

The US stockmarket, we are being told, is certainly of the opinion that Trump will now be the President, but a very bad President, as in bad for American business, certain for the sort of businesses that get quoted on the stockmarket. But are they right?

I wouldn’t put it past Trump to be rather a good president, because if there is one thing that is very clear about this man, it is that he does like to be liked, and the incentives he will face, if he does get the Presidency, will now change. If he does get to be President, he will be wanting to be thought of as a great President. Well, maybe not. Maybe he will concentrate all his efforts on having his revenge on all his detractors, both Republican and Democrat, and meanwhile let the USA itself go hell. But might he not turn out rather better than that?

Or, Trump may decide that the future of America, indeed of the world, is “progressivism”, and he might turn out to be another Obama. He was, after all, a Democrat for many years, was he not?

The British lefty, on the extreme left of my TV screen, is talking about a “cataclysmic” rejection of the “progressive agenda”, as personified by President Obama. Obamacare is going to be repealed! The horror.

That Obama guy, eh? Lots of Americans seem to think that he’s an idiot, but, a likeable idiot. They carried on voting for him, while he was the candidate. But as soon as Obama himself stopped being who you had to vote for, the vote for mere Obama-ism collapsed. Well, no, not collapsed. We’re talking a few percentage points. But that is enough to change things radically. That’s democracy for you. 50.5 percent, happiness. 49.5 percent, misery.

Now, a bearded young American is saying that if Sanders – the Venezuelan candidate, so to speak – had got the Democrat nomination, he would have been more likely to have won this thing. Maybe, unlike Hillary, Sanders could have made Venezuela seem appealing. Like I say, it only takes a single figure percentage to change things.

Other Democrats have been fulminating about how racist Trump is. Well, as for that, I have been watching the political left insult white people – particularly white men – for my entire adult life, ever since the workers of the rich, white West made it clear that they preferred the affluent society (such as it has been) to revolutionary Bolshevistic self-immolation. For me, the surprise is not that the white working class has fled from the left. For me, the surprise is that it has taken them so long.

They’re now talking about Trump being 93 percent likely to win it.

Now: Nigel Farage, calling this, if it happens in accordance with the above percentage, “bigger than Brexit”. He’s not assuming it, but he is struggling to keep his grin under control.

It’s gone down to 88 percent. LATER: up to 95 percent!

Well, well, well.

This election has kept me up for so long that I am now following the start of this cricket match between England and India. The smart money says India are about 88 percent likely to win that, by a landslide. To bed, Brian, to bed. Apologies for all the typos and grammatical cock-ups. I may need to clean this up in the morning.

I now see that, with admirable brevity, Natalie Solent has said the very same thing that I have been rambling on about at such tedious length. Oh well. Repetition is allowed here. ?!? Indeed.

26 comments to Trump nearly there

  • Mr Ed

    The smart money in India has just been withdrawn from circulation by government fiat, or rather non fiat.

    Perhaps some votes in the US will be ‘found’ for the Brezhnev candidate, and the lawyers are preparing bogus cases.

    In my experience, tell a Lefty about Clinton cash etc. and they disregard the truth as it does not fit the narrative.

    Interesting times.

  • Laird

    FWIW, I stayed up to an unreasonably late hour watching the Brexit results come in, too. Nice of you to reciprocate. It’s not over yet, but it certainly looks like a Trump win.

  • bobby b

    I cracked a bottle of Glenfidditch and settled in, all prepared to mourn the evening away. Now, with a dent in the bottle, I find that I haven’t had a chance to do any mourning, and so I feel unsettled. Scotch doesn’t enhance quick outlook changes. Had I expected Hillary to lose, I would have chosen tequila because of its helpfulness in making loud exclamations of delight. As it stands, all I can do is smile quietly. But that’s okay too. 🙂

    Here’s to Donald Trump and his running mate, Deadlock.

  • James Strong

    The British media did not fail to report the US Presidential campaign properly; they CHOSE not to report it properly.

  • Nicholas (Unlicensed Joker!) Gray

    I wonder if people voted counter-polish; if the polls went one way, they decided to go the other? It’s as good as any other explanation….

  • David

    Down here in Oz the “lefty” media are going into meltdown. Even if “the Donald [Blessings Be Upon HIm]” doesn’t get up just watching all the media pundits imploding has been fun. But I do hope a solid Amexit happens for “the Donald [BBUH]”.

    Nearly dinner time here. I think a Guiness with a large steak is called for.

    …and just to top it off if “the Donald [BBUH] does get up I’ll ring up a lefty I know and invite him around to offer a libation for a return of the USofA to partial sanity. 🙂

  • Curious Mayhem

    We don’t get Brit TV news here in the States. But we can read your papers online. I have to say that your papers — of all political slants — were doing a better job of reporting substance than most of ours. The collapse of Obamacare, the incessant foreign policy disasters, and the never-ending saga of Hillary Clinton’s corruption and abuse of office have been either kept out of the public eye here or obfuscated/misrepresented. It’s amazing the degree to which the bicoastal elite has deluded itself on this and almost every other issue.

  • David Moore

    Same in NZ, headlines are all shock and chaos. Just noticed that John Kerry is here at the moment, on his way to Antarctica. I wonder if he will be allowed back home?

  • Plamus

    The US stockmarket, we are being told, is certainly of the opinion that Trump will now be the President, but a very bad President, as in bad for American business, certain for the sort of businesses that get quoted on the stockmarket.

    The days when the stock market could plausibly be interpreted to have an informed opinion are long over. Back in those days human traders made the trading decisions. These days the vast majority of trades are algorithmic, and the vast majority of the remainder are made by very wealthy money managers in big cities who live in their own bubbles, as demonstrated last night. Back in those days, you had market-makers who would be buying when the market was going down. Algorithms are not stupid – they step aside when the market is selling off, and even sell into it, thus magnifying the swings. And last but not least, back in those days the Fed was a different animal; now easily half of trading decisions have an element of “what do I think other traders think the Fed would think about this”.

  • bobby b

    There is no where else to safely park the huge wads of money currently waiting in stocks.

    There may be some noticeable decline for a week, but just long enough for various groups to display their annoyance with us.

  • Keri Russell Brand

    US voter here. I’m glad this nightmare is over. This has been a Kang vs Kodos election. Do you vote for the incompetent moron, do you vote for the felon, or do you throw your vote away?

    I expect that whichever party loses tonight will suddenly become acolytes of the Church of Limited Executive Power, and that hardly anyone will follow through on their promises to move to Canada if their favored candidate doesn’t win.

  • Mr Ed

    I wonder if people voted counter-polish

    Wasn’t that Brexit? 😛

  • Mr Ed

    Well, from what I am hearing, the situation appears to call for a bit of Mozart, the finale of the Magic Flute, as the Queen of the Night and Sarastro are cast down, and Sarastro, the High Priest, sings ‘Die Strahlen der Sonne vertreiben die Nacht, zernichten der Heuchler erschichene Macht‘. (The rays of the sun banish the night, destroying the Swindler’s cheating might’.).

    With the final aria being Mozart’s ultimate ‘up yours’.

  • lucklucky

    Or Verdi Dies Irae from the Requiem.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHw4GER-MiE

  • Thon Brocket

    Remarkable achievement by BBC Radio 4 this morning – they managed to put black borders of mourning around the spoken word.

  • Cal

    Overheard the news on Classic FM this morning — their idea of objective reporting on the US election was to play some carefully-selected audio of ‘ordinary’ British people expressing their revulsion at Trump.

  • Mr Ed

    How the Lefties see today. Another Mozartian entrance, the murdered Commendatore comes back from the dead, to dinner with Don Giovanni, and drags the unrepentant, disbelieving scoundrel down to Hell.

  • Rob

    Other Democrats have been fulminating about how racist Trump is. Well, as for that, I have been watching the political left insult white people – particularly white men – for my entire adult life, ever since the workers of the rich, white West made it clear that they preferred the affluent society (such as it has been) to revolutionary Bolshevistic self-immolation. For me, the surprise is not that the white working class has fled from the left. For me, the surprise is that it has taken them so long.

    A truth the Left will never accept, even though accepting it is the only route they have to saving themselves. But they cannot, because not only is the journey a long one, but they have forgotten where they once were. The white working class are alien to them.

  • Erik

    “When I started out following this, Clinton was reckoned to be 75 percent likely to win. Now they’re saying the same about Donald Trump. But since the first figure proved so fallible, why would I trust the second figure either? What is going to happen?”

    The very day before the election, the Huffingglue Post reported Clinton as 98 percent likely to win. Ninety-eight. And that in their own country, for a much-analyzed event, a single day in advance. Now imagine these people trying to predict anything more complicated.

    You should probably not trust any such figures from the press. At all.

  • lucklucky

    I have seen the left insulting blacks and women saying they need quotas.

  • QET

    Another US voter here. It continues to amaze me how many people of a right-leaning/libertarian bent feel so confident in their assessments that Trump is a “moron,” that his Presidency will be an “embarrassment” etc. It may turn out to be that way. Obama’s Presidency certainly did. But the certainty going in baffles me.

    These and similar epithets have been liberally applied to every Republican party candidate in my lifetime (except perhaps to Nixon who was regarded more in the manner Clinton Inc. has been). I clearly remember the supercilious pronouncements about how Reagan was the greatest moron of all time, the most mentally unfit candidate ever. Improbably, he lost that title to George W. Bush, who was not even smart enough to be considered a moron, who was routinely depicted as more animal than human. Improbably, he seems to have lost that title to Trump, who at this stage is to all of the epithet-mongers simply medicine of which they know little, for the cure of a disease about which they know less, in a constitutional order about which they know nothing at all.

    The attitude toward Trump here in the US can be summarized by a radio program caller I heard yesterday while driving home. A 20 something or possibly early 30s something man earnestly said that Trump would go down as “one of the great villains in history.” Now, whatever one’s political leanings, only a person who is utterly ignorant of history could make such a statement. I imagined this young man having spent his life so far in mastering World of Warcraft when he was not busy posting selfies on Facebook and streaming live audio of his favorite band. And it is people like this who look down their noses at Trump voters and believe they were supporting Hillary on the “issues”!

    Whether Trump’s administration is a failure or an embarrassment will have less to do with Trump himself than with the dozens and hundreds and thousands of people that collectively will make up his “administration.” If Trump chooses sound advisors and lieutenants and lets them get on with their work, then there is every reason to think that, just as all who predicted a Trump defeat were wrong, so too will be those who predict an embarrassment.

  • Paul Marks

    Hillary Clinton meant more-of-the-same.

    Higher taxes, Obamacare, P.C. (Frankfurt School) politics on “race”, “gender”, “sexual orientation” and all that Hollywood celeb and university (universities are no longer serious places – they are playpens of the left) stuff.

    People hate all this Progressive stuff.

    As for Donald Trump…….

    I do not know what he will bring.

    The Supreme Court appointment will be the first test.

  • Mr Ed

    On a personal level, I would have thought that Mr Trump came across as a potentially likeable person, whereas Mrs Clinton came across as a combination of your most disliked teacher at school and your ex mother-in-law.

  • If a “moron” can turn a million dollar loan into a billion dollars, why aren’t all the “smart” people millionaires?

    Just like with Bush, it suits him to have the pompous believe he’s dumb. (My favorite was when Robin Williams joked that the Bush Presidential Library would be the first one George had ever gone into. Because, you know, he married a librarian.)

  • Umbriel

    When I was in high school, we elected a Class President. Most of the students considered it a kind of empty and pointless position, primarily responsible for planning the senior prom. The students demonstrated their indifference by electing a guy by the name of Tim Cookson — fairly well-liked, but something of a “stoner”, low-grade bully, and chronic disciplinary problem. When Trump first broke out ahead of the Republican pack, I dubbed him the “Tim Cookson” candidate — essentially a protest vote intended to mock what the American campaign process had become.

    As it turned out, in spite of warnings by his opponents that our prom would be a disaster, it was as good as any other. Mr. Cookson seemed to rise to the occasion, and was more responsible than anyone thought he could be.

    I still don’t have much faith in Trump, but I prefer him to the alternative bullet we dodged. And I keep an open mind.