US/president/elec/2016/after

About

Outcome

Donald Trump won the Electoral College by a narrow margin, and will presumably become the 45th President of the United States; Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a similar margin.

Reaction

The election of Donald Trump was both an upset (few if any pollsters predicted a Trump win, some predicting that Clinton would trounce him) and a massive shock to much of America, while many on the far Right saw it as permission to unleash some of their worst tendencies.

Reasons for the intensity of the negative reaction include:

• fears that the Trump administration will:
  • weaken LGBT rights
  • weaken abortion rights
  • engage in massive deportation of undocumented aliens
  • end Social Security
  • end Medicare
  • cancel Obamacare (campaign promise)
  • abolish the EPA
  • abolish the Department of Education
  • take steps which will reverse all progress towards carbon abatement and accelerate global warming
    • withdraw from the Paris treaty and Kyoto accord (campaign promise)
  • eliminate all incentives and regulations designed to encourage a transition from fossil to sustainable energy
  • remove equal-rights protections for women and minorities
  • do nothing at all to discourage, and probably encourage, police abuse of minorities
  • withdraw from NATO, possibly destabilizing Europe and damaging our international relations
  • stop providing pushback against Russian imperialism (invasions of Ukraine, Baltic states, etc.)
  • start a trade and/or economic war with China
  • significantly cut taxes for the rich, leading to more trickle-down poverty (and probably a major recession) as budgets are cut to compensate
  • start a shooting war
    • possibly with a nuclear first strike
• the fact that a near-majority of Americans apparently found Trump suitable for the highest office, despite his:
  • blatant misogyny
  • tacit approval of racism
  • encouragement of violence against dissenters
  • demonstrated lack of business sense and integrity
• deep disappointments:
  • that a woman didn't finally become President, after it had looked almost certain that she would
  • in the reversal of social progress which these results seem to indicate

Most of these reasons are solidly grounded in evidence, though a few are not.

Change.org user "elijah berg" of North Carolina started a petition to ask members of the Electoral College who normally would have placed their vote for Trump to instead vote for Clinton, in accordance with the popular vote. It had reached almost 3.8 million signatures by the morning of November 13 (metadata on the page suggests that the petition was created at "2016-11-09T23:35:41Z", the day after the election). While many have objected to this idea as a form of cheating, it is in fact directly in accord with the intentions of the Founding Fathers in setting up the Electoral College in the first place (while the fact of the College awarding victory to Trump despite the popular vote clearly was not).

Links

to file

• 2016-11-14
  • California Not Down With Trump's Plan Of 'First I'll Come For The Immigrants' (via)
  • Boston Is Sanctuary City, Councilor Reiterates to Trump (via)
  • Betsy Hodges: Minneapolis will remain a 'sanctuary city,' despite Trump threats (via)
• 2016-11-12 What Now? (via): a conservative lectures Trump supporters
• 2016-11-11
  • This is who to blame for Trump: captioned video explaining how the Hillary camp are complicit in their own defeat
  • 'We Have Your Back,' De Blasio Promises Undocumented Immigrants (via)
• 2016-11-10 What does it mean for Seattle to be a sanctuary city for immigrants? (via)

Projects

• safety-pin project
  • 2016-11-11 A small way to show solidarity after Donald Trump’s presidential win, inspired by Brexit
  • 2016-11-10 The Powerful Reason Americans Are Wearing Safety Pin
• The Paperclip Campaign
• HOLYFUCK. NOW WHAT?: a step-by-step guide to dealing