[rtpg]

"Both parties are the same" is such a tired meme considering what has happened the past 8 days.

Do you think President Clinton would be defunding planned parenthood? Planning a repeal of a healthcare law without a replacement, making 20 million people lose their health insurance immediately? Appoint a brain surgeon to HUD?

Do you think Democrats would set up this muslim ban? Not a 6-month refugee ban, but a ban from people who were already legal permanent residents?

Both parties might share a similar vein of imperialism, that deserved to be fought. But it ends there.

One party wanted to carpet bomb Iran, another wanted to make peace.

And, of course, Trump is the most extreme of this. How do you think someone who advocates nuclear first strike is less imperialistic than the other guys?

[AnthonyMouse]

It isn't that both parties are the same on all issues, it's that there are important issues that no viable candidate would actually address.

Do you think President Clinton would end NSA mass surveillance? Reduce copyright terms? Meaningfully reform Wall St? Meaningfully reform the tax code or social spending?

Republicans won't either. That's the problem.

You get enough people frustrated enough and they vote for whoever they think will shake things up, even at the risk of burning it all down.

[grey-area]

Actually no, none of your stated problems are important to trump supporters or reasons for him to be elected. America first appeals to them, in spite of, or sometimes because of, all the nasty implications of it and the racial and social revolution it requires.

Trump will not stop NSA surveillance, reduce copyright terms, meaningfully reform Wall St (he hired Goldman Sachs alumni), meaningfully reform the tax code or social spending. He is a nationalist not a globalist, that's his agenda not the points you raised.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-22/goldman-i...

[AnthonyMouse]

America First and protectionism is how Trump won Michigan, not how he won the Republican primary (and thus Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, etc.)

He got nominated by being the candidate most resembling a middle finger to the establishment.

The existing system has been systematically destroying the middle class, and the people see it happening but don't understand why or how to fix it, but they know that voting for establishment candidates from either party hasn't fixed it.

Therefore Trump. Make America Great Again. Exactly what people want to hear. Actual method unspecified.

[grey-area]

I honestly don't think he has promised anything to address the points you raised, or has any intention to.

[AnthonyMouse]

They're not examples of things Trump would do, they're examples of things neither of the major parties give you a choice over.

Nobody knows what Trump will do. Make America Great Again could mean anything. Compare "Hope and Change" -- Obama was the first attempt at this when he defeated Clinton. Change didn't happen so people chose an even more radical option.

It isn't that voting for the protest candidate is especially effective, it's that frustrated people don't know what else to do. They weren't given any good option so they picked the wildcard bad option over the known bad option.

[grey-area]

We now have a very good idea what Trump will do - literally what he promised to do, which was all about autarky, closing the country off and bringing industry back to the US, and of course to be the most important man in the world (he was on the cover of time magazine 15 times you know). He has been very clear and consistent in his words and actions. Americans first and I think Trump first amongst Americans in a nation of men, not of laws.

Re a protest vote yes I think there was a certain rage expressed but I genuinely think a lot of people looked at the solutions he proposed and liked them. Listen to Trump supporters talk - they are proud of the wall, proud of banning muslims and their hibbi jabbis and want to bring industry back to the US (doomed as that is for manual workers in this second industrial revolution).

This is the mistake people like thiel and musk are making - they think Trump is playing some clever long game and lying to people, that people can't really take all those crazy policies literally, or worse that they can manipulate him - wrong on all counts.

[sfifs]

None of these problems you state are why Trump seems to have won actually - which seems to symptomize the problem in the US. To people like me on the outside, it appears that a majority of the population is losing hope of bettering their life... and they voted for the person who promised to change the system that made them lose hope.

We had a chief minister in India once like this... darling of the educated classes, highly progressive, deploying technology in eGovernance, attracting Microsoft and Google to open campuses in his state. He lost by a landslide in the next election because during his term, the monsoons failed and farmers fell deep into debt and started committing suicide while he was deploying his middle class focused efforts.

[eeZah7Ux]

> "Both parties are the same" is such a tired meme considering what has happened the past 8 days.

"Both parties are the same" is not meant literally, and usually people mean "both parties are bad". It's about the illusion of choice.