Open thread/live blog.
Just watching the results, I think we’re looking at President Trump. Hillary Clinton is struggling in Wisconsin and Michigan so it seems unlikely she can win.
This is an extraordinary result.
The New York Times gives Trump over a 95% chance of winning.
I need a glass of water.
Fox News projects Wisconsin for Trump – it’s over
— Taegan Goddard (@politicalwire) November 9, 2016
I’ve just updated the title of this post from “It looks like President Trump” to “+++It’s President Trump”.
Hillary cannot win if she loses Wisconsin (she’s also struggling in Michigan) so we just need to get used to the idea of President Trump, I’m afraid.
As Tpfkar says in the comments, it’s highly likely that there will be a Republican controlled Senate and House plus Trump in the White House. It’s my worst nightmare, but we need to stay strong and keep the faith.
04:50: Never mind a glass of water – I need a full on cup of tea!
One of the strengths of the US system has always been the counter-weights of the three elected branches: Presidency, House, Senate. But here we have Trump with a Republican House and Senate (likely). As Robert Reich has just said on the BBC, it could be that the Republicans in the House and Senate may oppose some key proposals by Trump. We can only hope.
It seems that Donald Trump has worked an electoral miracle with white men in the rust belt. That seems to be the key story of the election.
Andrew Neil is excellent on the BBC tonight. That’s the one glimmer of positivity I can offer you at the moment.
I offer you this from our esteemed LDV editor:
Just woken up and wish I hadn't. We're all screwed, then.
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇪🇺 (@caronmlindsay) November 9, 2016
I love this:
This makes Brexit look like an all-inclusive week in Ibiza.
— тrυdι 🧡 (@THancock_) November 9, 2016
We can only hope that President Trump is not as bad as candidate Trump – but it is more a prayer than a hope! A Republican talking head said tonight that maybe Trump will go back to being a Democrat like he used to be. Well I suppose it’s a twelve million to one shot but at least it could happen.
05:27 Hillary Clinton has won Nevada. She also won Colorado. This underlines the story of the night – an extraordinary high turnout for Trump from white men in the Rust Belt. (plus Florida) 😉
Everyone is rightly saying that this is a nightmare. But the reality is that if you are not a straight white man, it is beyond terrifying.
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇪🇺 (@caronmlindsay) November 9, 2016
This could lead to 2-4 Trump appointments to the Supreme Court. That really is scary.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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The New York Times have Trump with a 95% probability to win the presidency, but they still think Hillary will win the popular vote by about 1%.
As I’ve said on Twitter, ideologically I’m a centrist, but I’ve found myself on the right of the commentariat who have seemed too out of touch, but even I didn’t expect this.
My view on Trident replacement has just changed.
What a world we find ourselves in. Not sure what we will wake up to – and with Republican senate and house he’ll be far more unconstrained than Obama was.
depressingly my call on the other topic at 2:10am looks like it is going to be proved correct. I hope/have faith that the separation of powers built into the american system constraints the more wild things Trump has come out with.
Clinton looks like she has lost though because she is not trusted. I posted before that it dawned on my last week that there equivalence with Clegg and tuition fees. Once that trust is broken, the person will never be believed again. This is what Hillary suffers from she is just not trusted (property deals, the foundations, cash for access, making good from the prestige of the office).
That lack of trust; Trump giving a voice to that part of the electorate that has been ignored/left behind and a resentment of professional politics & metropolitan (perceived) elite has probably won him the presidency.
Professional think tanks and political commentators are not reading where a silent majority are.
Paul, I am so pleased at the result, and my overriding reason is that I am antiwar. It just amazes me that people on the liberal-left wing of politics can be so oblivious to the threat of world war 3. Aggressive war cannot be wrong under George W Bush and then suddenly right because a Democrat pursues it. It is wrong, full stop.
Deeply depressing if/when confirmed. Mainstream politicians all over the world must reassess their relationship with their citizens. It was interesting that CNN’s exit poll indicated that the #1 issue for voters was the need for political change. It is hard to imagine a candidate who more embodies the status quo than Clinton.
I never thought a republican congress would be a useful restraint on a president.
It is the effect on climate change that scares me.
Extremely depressing – how could this happen?
I’m just hoping their will be some new revelation which forces him to stand down before his inauguration. This is actually quite likely.
Might Bernie Sanders have won?
No way of knowing with Bernie. He may have done better in the rust belt at the expense of elsewhere.
Tsar Nicholas,
I really hope you are right but I fear the likelihood of WW3 has just increased, not decreased.
With Farage marching with EDL and BNP, Trump winning the white house the nasties are really on the march.
I’m genuinely shocked and depressed by this. I think it has to be said that it turns out Hilary Clinton is just not trusted. Why this means people would trust Trump is beyond me. People will probably try to blame angry white man syndrome, but that wouldn’t win Florida. Immigration was a very low priority in the exit pole snapshot. So it’s not that. It has to be about the failure of Clinton to connect with enough Democrats. Unlike Joe I think Bernie Sanders would have beaten Trump and maybe any other candidate would. Then again I was certain HC had this in the bag. It’s all very sad. The only glimmer of solace I take from it is we might get a more joined up approach to Syria and less sabre rattling with Russia. But really, I’m just very shocked.
Not surprised, but disappointed. People were far too confident in Hillary. That and the assumptions being made seemed odd.
@Andrew
The likeliest place for the outbreak of WW3 is Syria. Hillary wants a no-fly zone over Syria. aside from the questionable legality of that, how will the Russians react to their planes being shot down, which is what a no-fly zone implies?
The pro-war inclination of many Lib Dems really bothers me. Serbia, Afghansitan, Iraq, libya, syria. The only conflict where the party clearly came out on the side of peace was Iraq, and the leader was undermined because of that.
Any Muslims planning a holiday to Disneyland better make it quick……
Hillary was never going to make a no-fly zone in Syria without Russian agreement. Many people would like to see a no-fly zone to stop Assad dropping barrel bombs but shooting down Russian planes would be stupid and Clinton and Obama have been much more cautious about foreign military action than the previous administration in reality. It was us and the French that bounced them into action in Libya, and otherwise it has been Iraq and Afghanistan continued with attempts to get out thwarted by the fragility of the regimes there.
Meanwhile if Trump falls out with Putin over some property deal who knows what he might do?
Same pattern as Brexit. Media consistently telling voters that if they even considered voting trump they were racist and deplorable and they should just accept their jobs being moved to cheap labour countries. Clinton consistently ahead by a few percent in the polls but never breaking the 50% mark, and third parties (or don’t knows in brexits case) being many times higher than normal.
It seems like across the western world political elites have completely lost touch with the people they are supposed to represent and the times are changing.
Politicians have become so arrogant and out off touch. It’s the same in this country too. The lib dems are a perfect example of an arrogant out of touch elite. They’re currently reminding people that as MPs their will is sovereign and the people are just plebs and their will (even if expressed in a referendum) is nothing more than a cheap bit of take it or leave it advice. The lib dems couldn’t see Brexit coming, they couldn’t see this coming and they’re about to wipe their own party out at the next general election and can’t see that coming either.
If elites don’t change they’ll be replaced. Trust once broken is hard to get back. Some how I don’t think anything will be learned from this.
Tsar Nicholas is right – Clinton was the war party candidate representing the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about. Her defeat means the world is a safer place. Trump, despite his obvious failings, advocates talking to the Russians which has to be the right thing.
Clinton is also the corporatist candidate putting interests of big business above those of the people.
The Democrats have only themselves to blame for being so out of touch with the electorate, so disdainful of the ‘deplorables’.
Someone on an earlier thread asked how Sanders would have done against Trump. The answer is that polling when he was still in the race showed Sanders beating Trump by a landslide.
As El Sid says above lessons should be learned but I too doubt that they will be.
Gordon, yes, with hindsight, the Democrats would have done much better to have chosen Bernie Sanders as their candidate.
@ El Sid
According to Google Elite – “a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.
‘the elite of Britain’s armed forces’
late 18th century: from French élite ‘selection, choice’, from élire ‘to elect’ …”
When did being the best become a negative?
What is wrong with wanting our MPs to be the best in ability or qualities?
El Sid, in what sense are the Liberal Democrats an establishment elite. Most members are ordinary people with average incomes doing normal jobs. The party has only had a small share of power in 5 of the last 70 years and currently has the support of no newspapers. Some elite ! Think before you speak.
If one thing should be the victor today it is humility. Instead it is Trump .A contradiction. We are shocked and surprised . Those of us who believe Hillary would have been a very good President are utterly furious because we know Trump is not a good man . But voices on here seem to know so much they do not truly know . Of course we are correct to think maybe Bernie Sanders might have won . But talk of certainty is nonsense . He might have lost Democrat states wavering . None of us know what personal attacks could have hurt him, his left wing politics , his seeming older , his lack of a strong Democrat background . He was in no way a sure fire bet . Now we must wonder in uncertainty. W e can but wonder. It is incredulity that such a truly lousy man has won . Nothing in the back of the beyond of Hillary is anything compared to the front of the fake respectability of the victor in his speech. He has been elected as a maverick man of the people . He has already been found wanting. A typical , and of the worst variety , politician . Now he talks of bringing people together , the very theme of his opponent who he wants to imprison !
@ Gordon,
I agree with you. In my opinion, Bernie Sanders would have had a better chance of beating Trump.
However, the election is over, and the politicians of the world must now learn to deal with the reality of President Trump.
It is hard to imagine a group of people who more embody the status quo than the Liberal Democrats and Tim Farron.
nvelope — NO.
The LibDems do not represent the ‘status quo’.
What we do represent – along with the SNP, to be honest – is the ‘status quo’ of movements in the UK for reform.
We are not the Old Guard, not the Establishment, but rather the ‘Old Reformers’ as opposed to the ‘New Revolutionaries’. We are the people who used to be expected to change or topple the Establishment.
We have been seeking reform of the governing system in the UK for years, reform that if it had been accepted, might have seen us through some of the problems that are causing people to scream that we must tear down the system entirely.
That is our problem, allied to the fact that our ‘break-through’ moment, the Coalition, resulted in a pyrrhic pact with the Establishment-est of Establishment parties, which will be forever thrown in our faces.
In that sense, if you have to make a US comparison, we are rather more like Obama … but imagine that Obama had lost the primaries to Hillary in 2012, served as her Secretary of State, and then lost to Trump this year because after 8 years of Democratic government he was seen as not offering real change. We are that Obama.
Lorenzo, although I suggested that Bernie Sanders might have had a better chance of winning, you are right in saying that we just don’t know what might have happened. I do think Hillary Clinton would have been a good President, and it is very sad that she will not have the chance.
@ Catherine (writing as a Dad of a Katherine and a friend of a Catriona).
You’re probably right about Bernie. He was tapping the same wells as Trump but with a radical liberal critique. Polls in May did indeed suggest he had a better chance of beating Trump, but the Democrat establishment closed ranks round Clinton (confirmed for me by a friend from Pennsylvania this morning). Here’s the evidence :
DATABASES MAY 13, 2016 9:15 AM Polls find Sanders, not Clinton, has better chance against Trump
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/databases/article77396342.html#storylink=cpy
@Michael BG “According to Google …”
Further down the same page:”A group or class of people seen as having the most power and influence in a society, especially on account of their wealth or privilege.”
Our MPs are not necessarily there because they are the “best in ability or qualities”, but often because their families had friends in high places.
@Roger Billins “in what sense are the Liberal Democrats an establishment elite”
I can almost imagine Tim Farron’s response: “Establishment elite? Eh oop! Me an’ my working class northern mates in our working class northern pub had a reet good laff about that! Gor blimey luvaduck strike a light …” (cont. p.94)
David – it’s a point unproven, and trusting to polls is not something I’d rely on at this hour as evidence.
The problem with Sanders is that while he might (and I emphasise might, for the reasons Lorenzo mentions) have beaten Trump, he probably would not have beaten a more mainstream Republican candidate. America is basically a very conservative country and the number of people who will vote for a “Liberal” (let alone a “socialist”) is limited
And while it is true that the Democratic establishment did all they could to help Hillary win, in the end it was many millions of registered Democrats who mandated various delegates to make the choice.
I have a feeling that the conclusion will be that in the end the white working class vote came out for Trump, but the black working class vote did not turn out for Clinton as they had for Obama (I noticed this in some of the northern counties in Florida where there is a large black population, and I bet it is true in Pennsylvania etc as well).
Finally the latest projections show Clinton winning the election by 0.5% in terms of votes. I think we should always use this figure when discussing the election, just as we mention 37% when we talk about the Tories. All those Kippers who love referenda should keep quiet about the Trump “victory”, given how they also want PR in the UK…
Peter Watson,
You would certainly never find Tim or his northern mates saying Gor Blimey! (apologies if you were being ironic in some way too subtle for my brain after staying up half the night!)
And certainly I would reject the idea that Tim represents the “status quo” other than on Europe.. And perhaps on maintaining the basic tenets of a Liberal Democracy, unlike Trump or Farage… I agree with Matt – if we had managed to introduce a proportional voting system (not AV, I am afraid…), it would have radically changed Britain for the better and ensured that government paid more attention to the disadvantaged
@Andrew McCaig “apologies if you were being ironic”
I was probably being a bit too mean by slipping in some Mary Poppins style cockney slang to cast aspersions on the authenticity of Tim Farron’s working class schtik which I actually find a lot less jarring than Nick Clegg’s cod sincerity and dramatic pauses in every sentence when delivering a speech, but which I think risks making Farron something of a caricature if he is not careful about how he deploys it.
Catherine and Andrew ,
Thank you for your subtle concern for my believing as we cannot know , we cannot speculate , in any meaningful way about a possible Bernie victory . I would have loved it so ! My mother in law in America is on the phone weeping about the outcome ! How she wanted Hillary ! And how she dislikes Trump , she would of course have wanted Sanders more than Trump , but not more than her choice , who lost the election !
David Raw, sorry not to get back to you before, and thank you for the link. Yes, that did suggest that Bernie Sanders would have had a better chance than Hillary against Trump. But that was back in May, and we can’t really tell how things would have worked out if he had got the Democrat nomination.
Lorenzo, I’m so sorry to hear about your mother-in-law. I know many of us who are regulars on Lib Dem Voice are already concerned about her, after you mentioned a few weeks back how our government’s current immigration policies do not allow her to join you and your wife in Britain. I hope more than ever now that a way may be found for her to join you.
Perhaps we need to start defining terms before using them.
The term ‘establishment elite’ as far as I can tell, is a term used for those who have what some see as a rarefied view of the world as opposed to the concrete day to day concerns of ‘ordinary’ people.
In my experience it has been used in a captious way, and seems to have become a mantra for those who are generally unhappy with the status quo.
Unless we check what an individual means by the term, we haven’t really got the basis for a discussion on the merits of any particular, as opposed to, vague grievance an individual might have. We will never get any closer to understanding how someone who holds the ‘establishment elite’ in contempt, can view Nigel Farage or Donald Trump as anti-establishment figures.
Matt (Bristol) 1.08 pm: I think you have made my point better than I could have done so myself. From the time of Jo Grimond in the 1950s until about the mid 1990s the Liberals advocated policies which appealed to many people at that time but those policies have been overtaken by events and where they were implemented have created a backlash amongst those who did not benefit from them. There was also an element of protest voting which has now transferred to UKIP on the right and the Greens on the left.
It will be very difficult to rebuild the voting base without putting forward policies which appeal to a large number of people and address current problems not those of the 1950s and 1960s.
It is interesting that Mrs Clinton actually got more votes than Donald Trump and in a truly democratic system she would have won the election and become the next US president. The electoral college is an anachronism which may have been relevant in 1776 but is no longer. Things which seemed progressive at one time can become out of date with the passage of time. The party needs to take this on board.
It’s also worth remembering that while everyone talks about this being a binary choice between Trump and Clinton, there were other candidates from the Green and Libertarian parties.
In Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, the votes for the “others” exceeded the margin by which Trump beat Clinton.
With regard to the popular vote across the country as a whole, Clinton beat Trump by a mere 200,000 which is peanuts and within margin of error, but the “others” took over 6 million votes.
It was more of a vote AGAINST Hilary Clinton (and all she stands for) than FOR Donald Trump. Donald Trump only won because a significant part of the electorate seriously hated Hilary. They had good reason.
http://observer.com/2016/11/hillary-clinton-and-the-dnc-have-only-themselves-to-blame/
Your average (female, black) tram driver picked up in any bar would have been a better candidate than Hilary Clinton. So would Bernie Sanders, although he would have received a massive hostile media onslaught if he had got past the primaries.
Nvelope – well, maybe I’ve nuanced (an therefore changed) your point.
I’ll admit to being a proponent of a movement for change that has not yet achieved it’s objectives, with which many people have become frustrated, disillusioned and tired.
I will not admit to being a defender of the totality of the current system.
When you say we represent the ‘status quo’ you imply we support or give succour to those in current positions of power and therefore a vote for us is a vote for them.
That is not true and it is the same lie underlying the ‘Trump and Hillary are as bad as each other so I’ll vote for Trump’ fallacy, or the ‘Leave and Remain have both lied so I’ll vote for Leave’ fallacy.