Why Trump Won

American citizens don't have a negative opinion of Putin or Russia. Muslim countries get no support or sympathy from US citizens.
No chance even the most dogged media campaign could illicit US sympathy for Muslim countries. Absolutely no support for refugees. No desire to get involved.
Whatever involvement our government has I'm sure is oil related. No chance the US will not be seriously involved in any place with substantial oil.

 

I cannot put it more plainly. Issues weren't why he won. He won because we have faith he can begin to change government infrastructure. Bring new blood. An outsider won the presidency. His win could usher in a whole new era, ending the two party DC monopoly of career politicians. That, my friend, is long overdue.

 

Obama has served two terms. What happened in four years to shift support from him to Trump? Specifically?

 

Trump is not gonna make the rich pay their fair share, we will still be pushing in 4 years

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The Democrats just were not motivated to get out and vote, maybe cause they felt the burn or maybe they just did not think Trump woudl win, who knows

 

Democrats have been in control since 2000. That's News, got any data to back that up?

 

Largest vote turnout and presidential history. Hillary won the popular vote only because of California. That means the Democrats did turn out but unfortunately for the Democratic Party in the Rust Belt they many voted for Trump or a third party.

 

Lol. Nobody remotely related virtue and Trump...haha.
Trump was everything every other candidate wasn't. Unpolished, crass, unpredictable, rebellious, not pandering, unapologetic, unexpected. Different. They never thought he had a chance. The GOP and DNC loathe him and every politician in DC is terrified and rightly so.
He beat the establishment. And I believe it is the beginning of new leadership.

 

When the DNC alienated their base that overwhelmingly wanted Sanders, they committed suicide. I think Bernie would have had a much better chance. Dems felt shunned by their party who ignored their base. Big mistake.
No telling whay Hillary had to make that happen.

 

Dem president anyhow.
Neither party cares about immigration and neither has done anything about it.

 

If Americans are sick of Washington, DC, how do you explain the fact that incumbents were overwhelmingly re-elected?

 

Why Trump and none of the other Republican candidates?

 

Same reason he won nationally, he was not an establishment candidate.

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Because only establish polititions were presented.

 

The House and Senate frequently shift power between the parties. The citizens get tired and frustrated and give the other party a chance. We've done it for two decades and have been repeatedly disappointed.

 

California voters surprised the country years ago with a pretty significant election. Any guesses?

 

I don't disagree that power shifts between the parties over time. That is historically true and is part of the reason Trump was elected. It is also historically unlikely for one party to control the White House for more than two terms.

However, in this election, the Senate was controlled by the Republican party before the election and after. The House was controlled by the Republican party before the election and after. Incumbents were overwhelmingly re-elected. The reality of the vote doesn't square with the idea that "Americans are sick of Washington, DC." That's the point made in the post to which I was responding.

If Americans were actually sick of Washington, DC, they wouldn't re-elect incumbents.

 

Don't know, Reagan?

 

Democrats have only won the presidential election after a two-term president once. There are many reasons why incumbents are reelected, one is at everybody else's incumbent is bad but your own, the other is that other establishment politicians were run.

Here the democrats ran a stale old previous politician turned lobbyist that lost for Pence's replacement.

 

I suppose that depends on your definition of "establishment politicians," but if the seat had opposition, there was an alternative choice. Every incumbent Senator and Representative didn't run unopposed. There was a choice and there is no doubt that most incumbents were re-elected, overwhelmingly so.

 

Perhaps they thought Republicans would be more cooperative with Trump.
We'll see, huh?

 

It seems we agree on several things.

My post about incumbents being re-elected was a response to another post that stated Americans were sick of Washington, DC. If Americans are sick of Washington, DC, they wouldn't have re-elected incumbents.

 

Of course, that's a possibility. However, there were incumbent Democrats elected too…. which goes back to my point that Americans aren't sick of Washington, DC. They may not be happy with what Congress is doing, but they don't seem to hold their own representatives responsible for it. Else, they wouldn't re-elect them.

The fact that the Republicans have the White House and Congress is a very dangerous thing for their party. They have no excuse for inaction. They also have no one else to point fingers of blame toward. I hope they step up and actually do things that will help the country. Like you said, we'll see.

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Kind of a big deal.

 

I have often claimed that one should vote for anybody but the incumbent. This time here it was not an issue. It also depends on what is run as opposition. I also mostly vote libertarian down ballot.

 

The American voter has lots of power, as long as they actually exercise their right to vote. We absolutely can throw all the bums out, if we vote that way. When Congress had an approval rating in the single digits, it made no sense to me that so many Congressional incumbents were re-elected, but they were.

I often choose to vote against the incumbent too. My bias is for those elected to represent their constituency. I once had a legislator reply to a letter I had written, telling me he would take my thoughts into consideration and then decide on what he thought was best for the district and vote that way. I worked very hard against him in the next election, simply because he was not elected to decide what he thought was best. He was elected to vote the will of the people in his district. He was replaced by the voters. When the voters are actually sick of something, their votes change who sits in the seat.

 

And that's your mistake.
The reason Trump won is simple and straightforward. Enough his supporters should get it.

It was off painting America as a dystopia, using Dystopian-led context in ads up to the election. A dark shade of America was painted at the RNC Convention. It is funny how Republicans think Democrats try scaring people for votes, when that's all Trump did. With help from some foreign source. Trump Supporters saw the ballot box as a tool for anger management, which the ballot box is never supposed to be used for such. Never, ever, ever.
There is little to no influence Libertarians have, and the "Independent" status of a voter is a joke.

People liked the mentally unstable gibberish that Trump said. And that's why he won, and why to sensible Americans it felt like witnessing 9/11 all over again.