Essay:What a Donald Trump Presidency means for America

This essay is still a work in progress, and more will be added to it as time passes.

On the night of November 8th America made a choose that surprised most of us, and made Donald Trump President-Elect. Most Democrats, many Republicans, and almost all the polls predicted this. I was not surprised when Trump took Florida, as a narrow Trump victory was still within the margin of error. When he took Ohio and North Carolina by sizable margins I began to worry, but I had supposed that Clinton would sweep the rust belt. It did not turn out that way, however, and it turned out it was Trump that would sweep the rust belt. As crazy as it sounded before November 8th, the Trump Campaign was right that the polls were all wrong. Due to their victory they were no longer talking of rigged elections, but rather of "secret" Trump supports. I suppose that either there actually were secret Trump supporters, or Trump ended up gaining the majority of undecided voters in the Rust Belt. The latter sounds more credible, but in today's world that may mean that it is wrong. The polls on a whole were completely off, though this isn't a completely unique occurence. In 1996 the polls overstated Clinton's victory and in 1980 understated Reagan's victory, but a closer parallel would be in 1948. Dewey began with a huge national lead that Truman steadily cut down over time, just as Trump did to Clinton, for she once had a genuine 10-point lead over him. On election day most polls were still saying Dewey would win the election, but in the end Truman won quite handily. Trump won handily in the electoral college, but lost the popular vote, and so in that respect it is similar to what happened 2000 and 1884.

On a whole, this is the largest (by a lot) victory in a long strings of victories by the far-right that have been coming for years. In China the moderate (for China) Hu Jintao was replaced by the rabidly nationalist and anti-democratic Xi Jinping, and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the most belligerent and nationalist prime minister there in a long time, and without sufficent controversy to unseat him. The Syrian Civil War caused millions of refugees to seek asylum in foreign nations, and the western world was less than gracious. The far-right across the West was spurred and strengthened, as rabid anti-refugee sentiment spurred people into voting fo the far-right. In Austria the far-right Norbert Hofer lost the Austrian Presidential Election by less than 1%, and, worryingly, he may win, as voting irregularities have required a re-election, and Hofer has a good chance of winning. In Denmark in 2015 the far-right Danish People's Party won 21% of the seats in parliament and in Sweden in 2014 the far-right Sweden Democrats won 13%. In the United Kingdom the far-right UKIP, who truly need no introduction, won 13% of the vote in but only one seat, due to the UK's two-party system. UKIP for now will definitely stay out of power, but the UK was also the country of Brexit. It is likely only due spectular incompetency that the Leave Campaign did not end up governing the United Kingdom, and the British can count themselves lucky they only have to deal with Theresa May. In France, the National Front is growing at an alarming rate, and if absolutely everything goes wrong, and this is likely, then it is not inconceivable to see them governing France in the not to distant future. Godwiner Geert Wilders, who makes other far-right figures look liberal on Islam, may bounce back in this new climate of hate. Turkey, Hungary, and Poland have already been lost and are turning more undemocratic as time goes on.

Yet what effect will all this have on the United States? ...