Hi (or in our cliched colloquial way), "G'day from W A". I am located in Perth, Western Australia and have a growing interest in this new President of yours (and ours in many ways!). I have posted often to an Australian political forum about this past election (and my thoughts on Trump's personality), so I thought I'd join this forum to interact with Americans who (obviously) have more direct knowledge of the subject than I have. I am hoping to gain a more clear insight into why Donald Trump proved to be so popular with American voters despite his many acknowledged 'faults'. Cheers!
I think it's more a case of Mr Trump's adversaries losing than him winning - not that I think he shouldn't have won; the possibility of any of the others having won is just too awful to contemplate.
We don't use a ranked or preferential election system like you guys do. (among several other differences) Instead,....we use straight (and painfully antiquated) first past the post plurality when voting for our representatives, and as such our system, by its very nature, tends to force us to choose between two extremes, regardless of occasion, including the case of choosing president (which we do directly)...and it seems as if the choices become more extreme each time.
North wrote: I am hoping to gain a more clear insight into why Donald Trump proved to be so popular with American voters despite his many acknowledged 'faults'. Actually it was more dissatisfaction or unpopularity with the status quo. Trump 'felt our pain' so to speak.
Facts no longer matter. He has been clocked by non-partisan groups at 23 lies per hour but his followers think he's a "straight shooter". Go figure. On behalf of all sane Americans, we apologize to the world. Let's just hope he doesn't bumble into WWIII. But I think that may have already begun. It really didn't help that Hillary sucked so badly. Her popularity was very low and it opened the door to a disaster like Trump; not to mention that most of the Republicans sucked as well.
I think Trump will be a hoot. He is making liberal heads explode which is already entertaining. A President that speaks his mind instead of a career politician the rattles off poll tested garbage. Someone actually familiar with business and the real world. Let the haters hate. They usually don't have much of anything nice to say about America anyway.
What really sucks though is that Trump is not yet sworn in as president and yet he's already done more for the national economy than Barack Obama did in eight years. I understand that as a consequence of that Michelle Obama is now spending the final month of Barack's presidency partying in Hawaii on the taxpayer's dime sans any leftist-style Hope for Change. Sweet!
And that's the scary bit for Australian political life... For better or worse, Australian culture and political life is heavily influenced by American culture and political life, to the point that we (collectively) could paraphrase Nixon's bizzarre justification "If the President does it, that means its not illegal" in that we might say "If the Americans do it, that means its OK"
I'm from Perth too, welcome to the forum. Try to watch Australian news on the US election critically, they often have no idea what they're talking about.
Thanks! I'm not surprised... I guess it would be the same in reverse... It's hard to see the world outside your cultural filters.
Simple! He knew what enough voters were upset about and he had enough people repeating Fake accusations such as Ben Ghazi and the like. He made promises which he knew he woukd not and could not keep. Enough people in enough states bought into his lies and he se he is the LICE Trump.nHillary failed to talk to the voters who were affected by the 30 year old job drain. She also did not not know how to talk to the average working person. She also gave the impression that she cared more about Blacks, Latinos, gays,,and immigrants than you average White guy who feels threatened by Blacks and other minorities. Groups such as BLM who used the horrible phrase Black Lives Matter giving the impression that Only Black Lives Matter to them. Terrorist attacks such as San Beradibo and Orland helped Trump emensley. I kept saying over and over during the primaries and in the general election that Trump was one terrorist attack away from the White House. Welcome on board.. I always liked the Aussie military and was introduced to Fosters beer in Vietnam because we had an Aussie artilary detachment on our base so the NCO club carried Fosters and another Aussie beer whose name I do not recall.
Trump's successes in the nomination process and the general election are 100% attributable to his not being a professional politician. People need to understand that. I backed Carly Fiorina in the Republican primary for the same reason.
Hi Partizan1 Ahhh, the old Fosters thing... At least here in Western Australia, I haven't met anyone who has drunk a Fosters! Its a bit of joke in Australia that we are identified around the world with a beer we don't drink... It's not that we don't drink beer... We drink (*)(*)(*)(*)loads of it! Just not Fosters...
As you can see just in this thread already, there are a wide range of feelings among Americans about the president-elect, and they can get pretty extreme! If you ask me, Trump said a lot of things that regular Americans living in the vast lands between the hipster, neo-liberal (globalist, socialist, you-name-it-ist) east and west coasts wanted to hear, and his opponent was just more of what we had with 0bama, with added dishonesty and other problems that, for many of us, made her a non-option for president. Trump's policy ideas and promises, as well as his perception as an anti-"establishment" political outsider, and the overall negativity surrounding his opponent, ultimately handed him the victory despite his many 'faults'.
Because Hillary's faults were far greater than Don's little hiccups, just look at the strikes against her and Obama- 1- Turning a blind eye to the terror threat to the homeland 2- Letting Iran build nuke plants 3- Letting the Afgh war drag on for years, costing 2000 US troop lives 4- Leaving ambassador Stevens and his staff hanging out to dry in Benghazi 5- Ramping up tensions with Putin by calling him names 6- Leaking classified material.
Hi durandal Just a comment on your quote... It's not the sheep that need the shepherd but rather the shepherd that needs the sheep!
Welcome aboard North of North, We look forward to hearing from you. Regarding Trumps success...the misdeads of both the Democratic and Republican establishment put Trump in power. The republican party has history of backing candidates that lie to get in power, and quite blatant about it. The Republican establishment lacks courage and is intimidated and swayed by our liberal "mainstream" media. The Republican base voters were ready for someone who was a fighter, an outsider and who would not forget those who put him in power. That's why he won the primary. And because he had courage, those people like my Husband who has always been apolitical, never interested and disgusted with the political world, got excited and jumped on the Trump train. The Democrats chose a nominee who was a horrible nominee, excluding possible candidates that might of actually had a compelling voice for the majority of their base. The Democratic leaders acted like imperial rulers and picked a nominee to spite the majority of their base. That's my opinion.
It was brewing here for a while. Conservatives in particular had been growing increasingly frustrated with the GOP. Recall the Tea Party movement - you might say it was a precursor to the populist movement that gave us Trump.
Sorry I'm like a week late here, but welcome to the forums. I hope to one day visit Australia. Enjoy your time here! Cheers
It's the age of the ending of a class of establishment parasites who believe they were born to rule, and the sooner it happens here the better. We Brits will always be grateful to Michael Gove for his self-sacrificing career move in stopping Boris Johnson in his tracks to the certain tenure of Number 10 Downing street.