This is always interesting to me. Let us see what we have:
Hello Master Malstrom,
You asked for view of Non-American on the US Election cycle. Here it goes:
In Brazil, right now, we’re having tons of jokes on the internet (because it’s Brazil). Mainstream media is still baffled with Trump winning, and some bad predictions about what this will mean for our economy. Overall, the best comment I’ve read so far about our covering of the US election was this: “In Brazil, there’s no such thing as covering American elections. What there is people cheering up Hillary Clinton”
What a coincidence! In America, there is also no such thing as covering American elections. What there is are people cheering for Hillary Clinton.
Those who voted Trump were also voting AGAINST the US media. Check out this link to a ‘scientific analysis of probability’ from Huffington Post. It is not just WRONG, it is STUPID WRONG. Even if Clinton won, it is still incorrect and dumb. Yet, someone actually wrote all that and believed there was a 98% probability chance of Clinton winning. Maybe 60%. Maybe 70%. But 98%!?? It is not being even remotely fair or even scientific.
Hello Master Malstrom,
I’m a Master too! :)
What I find interesting is that when I talk to people around me, people I work with, all of them have the same opinion, Trump will destroy the world. But when I ask why they think that way, most can’t give a good answer. When I try to argue and explain how Trump represents a lot of dissatisfy voters, I realize people here just repeat what the media says and the media just report Clinton as good and Trump as bad. I don’t think it’s very different how the media acts in US. The fact is that here all most everybody is scary Trump won, and worry what will happen next.
A reader since the The Birdmen and the Casual Fallacy!
American politics are also very cyclical. After a party holds the presidency for two or three terms, another party comes in.
One interesting aspect of Trump is that he, and the Bushes, despise each other. I don’t think Trump was even a Republican ten years ago (!). Most of their spewing hatred centered around Iraq. Trump may send a wrecking ball to trade deals, Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve, but it is doubtful he will go on military adventures like the Bushes did.
Trump did blow up two political dynasties: the Bushes and Clintons. Some people will try to turn Trump’s family into a dynasty, but not even the most ardent Trump supporter will go for that. One interpretation of the election could be ‘no more political dynasties’. As a population of 300 million, why is United States leadership stuck in just a handful of families? It is baffling.
Hi Sean,
You asked for insight in how Trump’s election was viewed abroad. Maybe this is informative, as an inhabitant of North-Western Europa.
(Like your writing about Nintendo a lot by the way. Really hope they get their act together. Don’t really understand the mean things you write about women though. Anyways, Trump:)
Wait a minute! I must interrupt your email here. Mean things I write about women? No… Have you met American women? You can recognize them from others with their short hair, tattoos, male clothing, children-with-no-father, and general obesity.
Donald Trump is very revealing here. Trump goes around saying ‘everything needs to be made in America’, right? Industry shouldn’t leave America. Make America Great Again. Right? This is what Trump says.
But when it comes to choosing a wife, Trump chooses a non-American. This happened not once but twice. His second wife, the American, was also his shortest marriage. As I hear from women, handsome, famous billionaires are in high demand and short supply. Trump could get nearly any woman he wanted. Yet, he keeps choosing foreign women. The new First Lady is going to be foreign born (and like 20 years younger than him too).
My point is that there is something off on American women that is causing men, with means, to search brides outside of America. This is a generalization, of course. Much of it has to do with the rising obesity. Women are awesome, but not the American “I want to be gender free” woman. How can a man be happy with a female who doesn’t want to be a woman? Likewise, how can a woman be happy with a male who doesn’t want to be a man?
Email continues:
The general consensus in the media is anxiety, especially because of Russia. I’ve been thinking about which country to flee to when WW III breaks out, hah!
Eastern Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas for it’s heating (which is logical considering they’re former Soviet states). There have been occasions when the Russians threatened to cut off the gas in the midst of winter if European policy wasn’t going their way. Keeping the Russians at bay is a continuing concern, and the EU, combined with American involvement in NATO are key in keeping them in check.
If Brexit and Trump are any indication, anti-EU parties may win in other key EU countries, encouraged by these populist successes. The EU is a multi-faceted organisation, and intertwining European states has been key in keeping the peace and keeping Russia at bay. But after the EU made us pay the bankers in 2008, and again in 2014 (all the money that went to ‘Greece’ went directly into bankers’ pockets), and national sovereignty was compromised during the austerity period, people are justifiably angry with the EU (I am too… Poor Greeks). Unfortunately many people don’t realise the good the EU does as well because they take it for granted (hilariously and tragically illustrated by the poor regions in the UK, which voted for leaving, but after leaving realised they depended on European funding). Which proves that in the end, populism screws us all over.
If France leaves the EU (it’s one of it’s main players, together with ‘sister nation’ Germany) because of populists winning, the EU may not be strong enough to keep the Russians at bay. Putin needs wars to distract his people from the internal crises they’re having and is eyeing the Baltic states, and they’ve historically had their eye on Finland as well, which are all EU states. Without the US honouring NATO agreements (thanks to Trump) and without a strong EU (thanks populists), we will be screwed. The Russian army is savage. Look them up. The entirety of Eastern Europe is deeply scarred by the things the Russians have done.
Or just maybe Trump has been barking really hard to rise to power and now, as a victor, suddenly has to be a politician. His victory speech was strange, nebulously optimistic, unconvincingly unifying, loose… Either the concessions have already started or he’s trying to calm the economy now and plans to start screwing everbody over later. Let’s hope for the first.
And by the way, Europeans take Global Warming seriously. Trump does not. The Netherlands are under sea level. Europe’s getting millions of refugees from the Middle-East, where war broke out because of global warming (failed harvests). That’s a thing as well.
Greetings from a non-American. Good luck over there!
Americans, in general, do not believe in man-made climate change. It is a reason why the issue never enters a national political campaign (it always polls dead last).
About Trump and his victory speech… As I get closer to the centers of power, I am more struck at how these guys see each other differently than how the supporters see them. Have you ever been on a jury, watch the lawyers duke it out in frenzied intensity, only after the verdict to come back to the jury room, chat, laugh, and hang out talking like old buddies? They are in the lawyer club, you are not. In the same way, these politicians say things. “Trump is a racist.” “Clinton is the devil.” What is going on is that they are trying to motivate their people to go to the polls and depress turnout on the other side. But when the campaign is over, you see them regard each other as associates. Former presidents would rather hang out with each other than with the average man on the street because they can relate better to each other.
You make good points about Russia, and Russia did make an appearance in the election. Russia has been building up militarily. Russia says they are simply responding to NATO’s build-up. Clinton kept saying Trump was close to Russia. Wikileaks hack was declared to have come from Russia (though Assange says no). There are people here who are saying it is Hillary Clinton who wants to go to war with Russia. Jill Stein, candidate of the Green Party, has said this repeatedly (Green Party is liberal/left). With Trump’s election win, Putin contacted Trump to congratulate him and to say US and Russia will have better relations. I do not know who to believe. There doesn’t seem to be enough information. We’ll find out soon enough.
There are more non-American emails I will get to them soon. Keep sending them!
