Can someone remind me why Donald Trump was elected?

[nymphetsss]

I am from EU, so I don't have any political side when it comes to US, but Donald Trump seems like a stupid stubborn person from my point of view.

E.g. Look at what happened now, the government shut down is still in progress
I can't remember when so many public officials left the white house after working for/with Donald.
Quitting US negotiated deals with the entire world, which the EU did not improve and ignored.

Something is just not right with him, either dumb or something else,

Because Hillary was a horrible( qualified sure but unlikable) candidate, anyone else would have won vs trump

[Cizr]

Because his opponent was Hillary Clinton,absolutely disgusting person who laughs at little girls getting raped.

[josykay]

Nope. Majority of countries with democracy have representative democracy and it's pretty standard nowadays for minority government to rule.

Most representative democracies do have more than 2 relevant parties, and no "winner takes all" representative distribution during the president election.

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Because his opponent was Hillary Clinton,absolutely disgusting person who laughs at little girls getting raped.

"Many of them were on the younger side. He surely enjoys his social life". - Donald Trump about Epstein...

[sopeonaroap]

...which is what the Senate is for. And what the House is for. Seems a bit redundant to throw the presidency into that list, doesn't it?

Anyway, the electoral college system is nothing but a historical concession made for unity, and it clashes with the core American value of equal opportunity. There is no reason someone living in Wyoming should have 5x the voting power of someone in California.

equal opportunity as long as you think affirmative action is equal lol

even NFL teams can't hire a coach until they've interviewed a minority. imagine not being able to draft a RB until you've drafted a white RB first, how the fuck would that go over lol

equal opportunity means whites keep doing what they've always done and minorities don't like that, but when it comes to things a minority is better at we can't have a problem

most folks want the best for the job regardless of anything else

but don't see the core american value is equal opportunity

[Queen of Hamsters]

Most representative democracies do have more than 2 relevant parties, and no "winner takes all" representative distribution during the president election.

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"Many of them were on the younger side. He surely enjoys his social life". - Donald Trump about Epstein...

Indeed.

For posterity:

https://theweek.com/articles/655770/...id-about-women

[Trassk]

Because the one opposing him was a soul sucking baby eater. And people decided better to lose an arm with trump then be devoured by Hillary.

You lot had it good with Obama, but you need a better class of democrat now, get to work.

[Santti]

Because the one opposing him was a soul sucking baby eater. And people decided better to lose an arm with trump then be devoured by Hillery

Quite the boogieman you have crafted there.

[bmjclark]

Because half the people who live in America are stupid

[exochaft]

I don't get it. How is Hillary worse than Trump? I hear this line a lot, but hardly ever any reasoning behind it. There was that buttery males thing, but that didn't amount to much.

She's had a long, duplicitous history in politics ever since she was with Bill Clinton in AK. She claimed during the election that she was the equivalent for women's rights and what not, despite her being part of the team that actively went out to destroy the lives and reputations of anyone claiming Bill Clinton sexually assaulted them when he was President. There's the whole shady underdealings with foreign companies and governments while she was Secretary of State that were linked to the Clinton non-profit organization and funds they were receiving (aka, the thing they're trying to pin on Trump right now with no evidence, while Hilary has a long, documented history of such activity). There was the whole email scandal where even FBI director Comey laid out the entire case that would've landed anyone else in jail for a long time, yet exonerated her on the spot by claiming the standard of intent wasn't meant, despite the metric being gross negligence (people do and have gone to jail for lesser violations that what Hillary conspired, especially in the military, as intent to commit this crime is irrelevant under the law). To any average person out there, try telling a judge that you destroyed potentially incriminating evidence but it's okay and not illegal because your personal lawyer says it wasn't important evidence... just try. And this is just the surface from another career politician who says one thing but acts in a completely different fashion.

If the Democratic party was honest and not pulling the strings behind the scenes, I think there was a good possibility Sanders would've won the nomination instead of Hillary. I don't recall if Hillary was ever linked to those activities, but I doubt she would've been completely clueless as to what was going on. There has always been a type of seniority ranking and order to how their party backs Presidential candidates, and when it was finally Hillary's time Obama cut the line and she had to wait another 8 years. Pretty sure she didn't want to wait 4-8 more years for Sanders.

Does Trump have faults? Sure, everyone does, but Hillary's faults are far worse and heavily intertwined with her political career while Trump's generally aren't. I think almost everyone hear hates career politicians who get held to a different standard and think themselves above and/or better than their 'subjects', and despite all her platitudes Hillary is a prime example of such politician. She's not he only one, both Republicans and Democrats have their fair share of career politicians, and the US population is getting tired of them. Keep in mind, the Hillary campaign spent about 1 billion dollars on the Presidential campaign, that's a huge amount and massively dwarfs the amount Trump spent on advertising and such (I'll be nice and throw in theonly proven Russian Facebook money spent, about a million dollars)... and that money had to come from somewhere, and it certainly wasn't $1 donations making up that majority of that.

[Cizr]

Most representative democracies do have more than 2 relevant parties, and no "winner takes all" representative distribution during the president election.

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"Many of them were on the younger side. He surely enjoys his social life". - Donald Trump about Epstein...

I had my child rapist client take polygraph test and he managed to outlie it about the rape,haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2f13f2awK4

[Irian]

Because of an old loophole that has no value in the modern day voting system.

He preyed on the fears of uneducated nationalists and is a champion of all the ugly parts of America that were shamed openly by the sensible majority. I guess people will vote for a president that isn't even a legitimate politician if they know how to talk on their simple level.

If the Democratic party was honest and not pulling the strings behind the scenes, I think there was a good possibility Sanders would've won the nomination instead of Hillary. I don't recall if Hillary was ever linked to those activities, but I doubt she would've been completely clueless as to what was going on. There has always been a type of seniority ranking and order to how their party backs Presidential candidates, and when it was finally Hillary's time Obama cut the line and she had to wait another 8 years. Pretty sure she didn't want to wait 4-8 more years for Sanders.

I have almost no doubt this had a lot to do with it as well. It was a perfect storm and even then Trump barely won by a technicality.

Democrats should've got with the people, not the party. I hope an important lesson was learned because if not then I fear we're going to face another five years of this embarrassment of a human being representing our country. I think there were a ton of votes that looked between incompetent and corrupt and chose the former.

[shadowdasher]

If you want the short uneducated answer, "it's cause the dumb raciest and ignorant Nazis voted for him!"

But if you want the real answer, well here are a few reasons.

1) Hillary was a very unlikable person especially to middle America.
2) Many saw what happened in the Democratic primaries and it left a bad taste in their mouths.
3) Calling half the population a "basket of deplorables" will upset people. (But lets be honest, not all but a good chunk of Trump supporters are asshats but lets also remember these people are elected to server ALL the people not just the ones that voted for them).
4) Alot of the anger wasn't just at Hillary, but also people like Nancy Pelosi. The fact they made her Speaker again is really irritating.
5) Many people were sick of the typical politician and so they voted for Trump since he wasn't a politician.
6) Hillary ignored the Midwest, that pissed off alot of people. As a Midwesterner I don't want California and New York to tell me how I should live.

And I'm sure there are other factors too. But don't let people hand you the "raciest and ignorant Nazis" BS. I know many people that voted for Trump and their reasoning is pretty much what I listed.

[Peebuddy]

I know a couple people who were on the fence that election didn't appreciate how Hillary basically considered her victory a foregone conclusion. The primaries were heavily rigged in her favor (Bernie stood no chance), she did the bare minimum amount of debates, she only did like 1 or 2 telivision interviews, and avoided the public to an extent.

Which is why I've been saying that President Trump didn't win the election per say, instead it's because Hillary lost it.

[Santti]

I had my child rapist client take polygraph test and he managed to outlie it about the rape,haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2f13f2awK4

Polygraphs? Lol.

[PACOX]

Because it is a democracy and enough people voted for him.

Wow, both of those are wrong.

The President is appointed by electors from each state in the US. The way electors are appointed varies heavily from state to state and there is no federal law that says an elector has to follow the polling results of their state - in most cases even if they violate their state's own laws their vote is whatever they cast. Either way, to say its a democratic process is inaccurate.

Donald also lost the vote of the people, the popular vote.

[FeedsOnDevTears]

The electoral college is based on who won each state. The electoral college unanimously votes for whatever the majority in their state did. The electoral college was to protect the interests of small states and give them a voice in the process.

The job of the Electoral College as a body was to exercise a final degree of oversight on the Presidential election process, rejecting a candidate who had managed to get votes but was still completely unfit for the job. It failed completely, and demonstrated that it is obsolete and cannot perform its function.

To answer the question in the thread title, little Donnie Dumbfuck was elected because:

Many Americans, especially many Republican voters, are stupid and ignorant (which is the truth, even if saying it might get me infracted by one)

Many Americans, especially many Republican voters, are racist and misogynistic

Many Americans, especially many Republican voters, are old and scared of a future that looks different from the past.

The Republican Party has spent over a generation encouraging the above views.

The Republican Party is anti-democratic, and has diligently conducted voter suppression wherever it can.

Barack Obama, whatever his other strengths or flaws, failed as a party leader for the Democrats - the party was weakened during his term of office, not strengthened.

The Democratic National committee was not interested in a competitive or objectively meritorious primary contest, and acted to help Clinton become the nominee.

Hillary Clinton ran a sub-par campaign, and isn't a very good retail politician.

The American legal system is very biased in favor of wealth and status, which allowed Trump to be in a position to run for President, instead of disgraced and jailed.

The Russian government conducted a major effort to help Trump and the GOP.

A number of people and organizations who might have intervened in the process decided otherwise because they thought Trump would not win.

The right-leaning parts of the American establishment covered up Trump's conspiracy with Russia in the run-up to the election, while simultaneously conducting a damaging PR attacks on Clinton.

American main-stream media, both traditional and new, prioritizes eyeballs over truth, and gave Trump a massive boost.



tl;dr American has systemic problems that interfere with being a functioning democracy, many of them courtesy of the Republican Party.

[Gestopft]

If those are the drives of people, Trump shouldn't have gotten ANY votes.

True, but perceptions matter more than reality in politics. Most people aren't policy experts. And like I said, misinformation from right-wing media certainly helps too. Millions of Americans frustrated with the status quo saw Hillary as more of the same, and Trump as something different.

People saw him, however incorrectly, as a change candidate. Clinton was out there saying "Obama hasn't gotten enough credit for the economic recovery" and Trump was saying "shit's wrong, yo. I'ma bring your jobs back and make better deals because we're getting bad deals."

Yeah, he's a conman that duped people with faux populism, but despite having no actual ideas, he was perceived as the populist outsider, and Clinton the establishment. When the political establishment has spent decades failing the general populace, you're going to see a rise in populism. Which is why I've also said, since shortly after the 2016 election, that the Democrats need to counter Trumps fake populism with some real populism.

[PACOX]

The electoral college is based on who won each state. The electoral college unanimously votes for whatever the majority in their state did. The electoral college was to protect the interests of small states and give them a voice in the process.

No. An elector only HAS to throw their votes towards highest polling candidate in their state if state laws say they do. Even then, don't really have to unless the state has something on the books that would invalidate the vote that was cast. Nor does the elector have to give all of thei state's votes to one candidate.

As far as federal law is concerned, it only cares each state sends up an elector. The elector is allocated a number of votes based on their state and hands them out however they please. The federal process doesn't care what state laws the elector may or may not be bound by.

[VanishingAct]

He ran a terrible platform of trying to help more middle class jobs, manufacturing, lowering taxes, stopping illegal immigration. Even made the bad move of having hundreds and hundreds of rallies especially in states that could be flipped. Even on a shoe string budget where for the first 6 months he was making a profit on his campaign. What an idiot am I right?

Clearly the better idea was to have the usual career politicians steeped in corruption with each other to peddle out the usual feel good words to the voter base as democrats and republicans normally do. Even the media did all they could to help the usual method and still do, so who knows how Hillary lost?!? If only it was Hillary Clinton vs Jeb Bush like it was supposed to have been

[Trassk]

If you want the short uneducated answer, "it's cause the dumb raciest and ignorant Nazis voted for him!"

But if you want the real answer, well here are a few reasons.

1) Hillary was a very unlikable person especially to middle America.
2) Many saw what happened in the Democratic primaries and it left a bad taste in their mouths.
3) Calling half the population a "basket of deplorables" will upset people. (But lets be honest, not all but a good chunk of Trump supporters are asshats but lets also remember these people are elected to server ALL the people not just the ones that voted for them).
4) Alot of the anger wasn't just at Hillary, but also people like Nancy Pelosi. The fact they made her Speaker again is really irritating.
5) Many people were sick of the typical politician and so they voted for Trump since he wasn't a politician.
6) Hillary ignored the Midwest, that pissed off alot of people. As a Midwesterner I don't want California and New York to tell me how I should live.

And I'm sure there are other factors too. But don't let people hand you the "raciest and ignorant Nazis" BS. I know many people that voted for Trump and their reasoning is pretty much what I listed.

Wasn't it also that she destroyed Bernie's chances of getting picked?