11-11-2016, 00:54
I'm not sure this is "sweeping" across America, it is really a few thousand students or younger people staging protests in the major cities of the US. Unfortunately we all know where this will end, and that invariably over here sees these events turn violent, with vandalism of the community they live in, followed by looting and eventually a lot of arrests!!! We have already seen violence in Oakland and many arrests in other cities for minor disturbances or failing to keep moving when asked to do so by the police, I expect that to continue sadly.
The other side of this whole protest though is what percentage of those protesting actually voted anyway? At one of my daughters college there was a large walkout and protest by a few thousand students, and my daughter was horrified to find many of her friends out protesting when she knows they didn't even vote!!! The Hispanic vote once again failed to materialize in many states, particularly in some of the swing states. It appears that the turnout for Hispanics was likely not up overall (48% in 2012), despite there being an extra 4m registered Hispanic voters this year, and to make it worse Hillary managed to get a lower % of the Hispanic vote compared to Obama 4 years ago (and maybe worse, Trump got a higher % of the Hispanic vote than Romney 4 years ago!!). With all the horrible comments made by Trump during the campaign towards this large demographic you would have thought if ever there was an election where they would be motivated to turn out in large numbers, then this was it!!
On the subject of polarisation of the US, that has been going on since the days of George H W Bush, and with each president the gap widens. This level of protesting was seen after Obama was elected, just a slightly different protester back then, and the very nature of any election, especially one as nasty as this one was, will see serious divisions in the population. But the people have spoken, wrongly in my eyes but for the sake of the country there has to be a desire for some unity and allowing some time for the new President to get into office and begin working. I was very critical of people who openly said they hoped Obama would fail completely, and I am critical of those who are now saying the same thing about trump. Wishing the country to fail helps absolutely no one!! The tweet I saw yesterday from a high up Trump insider suggesting that we will see a very different President Trump to the one we saw on the campaign trail will hopefully be accurate, if not then the Democrats have to use their influence and somewhat small power to make sure the Republicans are at the very least challenged and kept honest.
The other side of this whole protest though is what percentage of those protesting actually voted anyway? At one of my daughters college there was a large walkout and protest by a few thousand students, and my daughter was horrified to find many of her friends out protesting when she knows they didn't even vote!!! The Hispanic vote once again failed to materialize in many states, particularly in some of the swing states. It appears that the turnout for Hispanics was likely not up overall (48% in 2012), despite there being an extra 4m registered Hispanic voters this year, and to make it worse Hillary managed to get a lower % of the Hispanic vote compared to Obama 4 years ago (and maybe worse, Trump got a higher % of the Hispanic vote than Romney 4 years ago!!). With all the horrible comments made by Trump during the campaign towards this large demographic you would have thought if ever there was an election where they would be motivated to turn out in large numbers, then this was it!!
On the subject of polarisation of the US, that has been going on since the days of George H W Bush, and with each president the gap widens. This level of protesting was seen after Obama was elected, just a slightly different protester back then, and the very nature of any election, especially one as nasty as this one was, will see serious divisions in the population. But the people have spoken, wrongly in my eyes but for the sake of the country there has to be a desire for some unity and allowing some time for the new President to get into office and begin working. I was very critical of people who openly said they hoped Obama would fail completely, and I am critical of those who are now saying the same thing about trump. Wishing the country to fail helps absolutely no one!! The tweet I saw yesterday from a high up Trump insider suggesting that we will see a very different President Trump to the one we saw on the campaign trail will hopefully be accurate, if not then the Democrats have to use their influence and somewhat small power to make sure the Republicans are at the very least challenged and kept honest.