We did it guys! We’ve finally arrived in the era after Trump!

Not only that, but we already survived four weeks! We finally left the era “after 9/11” and entered the next one. Now no one knows what’s gonna happen next. Similar to the time after 9/11 with one difference. most politicians spoke up for more security immediately after. But with the wild card Trump, that’s different. Even the intelligence agencies are unsure.

But really, what’s all the commotion about? It’s like suddenly it’s the end of the world. Every minority thinks they’re done for. “Oh no, Trump got elected, we’re all gonna die! World War 3 soon!!!” Eh no, rather the other way around. Clinton is the one who, as minister of foreign affairs, didn’t talk with Russia at all. Nothing to improve the relationship towards Russia. The warmongerer Clinton was in full action, meanwhile the fearmongering press rejoiced as they had more material for clicks. I’ve read a good tweet of an European, who had a very good reason why he hopes Trump gets elected. As both are the worst outcome for any election, Trump at least shows a positive postion towards Russia. I mean, we’d be the first ones to notice another world war.

To anyone screaming “oh no, he’s the second coming of Hitler! Someone stop him!”. No, Duterte already got that spot. If anything, he’s the 3rd, I’m sorry.

Regardless, if you are one of these hysteric types. I, as a German —no I don’t mean how Hitler also got elected democratically— welcome you to democracy! Isn’t it fun? Almost 12 years of Merkel, packed with horrible politics left and right and yet she’s still the most likely candidate. Isn’t it fun!?

Anyway, let’s calm down again, you and me, and think about it for a second. What were the pros and cons of both candidates. And what happened since the election? Because oh boy, it’s been only four weeks since he went into office and there are new stories almost daily.

Clinton

Let’s start with the election’s favorite, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. The woman who had the chance to be the first female president of the United States of America. That’s already the first pro, right? In a world brimming with more and more equally, a female president would finally set a good sign for the future, right? No. The position of the president has nothing to do with sex, nothing at all. It’s all about skills, or rather who gets elected. Trump didn’t win by displaying his great political skills after all.

Her first pro is: She isn’t Trump. As Glenn Greenwald beautifully said in an interview, Trump is pretty much the only opponent out of the last 50 years she has a chance against. Although he has flaws, too many to count them all easily, she may or may not be less flawed, giving her some advantage.

Secondly, she already has a large political career behind her. She was secretary of state, first lady and senator. Unlike Trump, she knows how to act diplomatically. With her experience, we don’t need to be scared of some kind of slip up. No one expects her to accidentally spill some secrets or make some hastily decisions. For that she’s way too calculating.

But here’s also the first reason why you wouldn’t vote for her, she’s completely infused in the establishment. Trump used that well by proclaiming he will “drain the swamp”, the very thing Clinton represents. She’s the one who holds speeches to the likes of Goldman Sachs. She’s part of the Clinton dynasty, already involved when her husband was president. She was a driving force in the US’ politics to go to war in Lybia. She voted for Iraq giving Hussein the options to either comply to unlimited inspections or be attacked. An offer he can hardly accept. Especially not if the US firmly says, they have information about weapons of mass destruction. Sure, he could let them check, but against America, his enemy, it surely won’t end well for him.

Also for better or worse, she represents the left opposing the right Trump uses. I say for better or worse, cause the left, while strong, also brings some very bad reputation with it. Mainly the part of the left who screams about safety zones. While I can understand times you want to retreat and be for yourself, very much even, it’s hard to claim the whole campus as your safe space. Jerelyn Luther did that back against the Christakis back in 2015, as she ranted about halloween costumes. The email was very tame and tried to avoid conflict as much as possible. That didn’t stop a group of students to arbitarily claim the some halloween racist or offending. Ironically enough she herself was the one who hired the professor. Later Jordan Peterson stepped up to protect free speech, earning a heavy backslash. Here’s a video about one of his discussions. There are many more on youtube and I only recommend him. As I said, he became one of the primary advocators of free speech, opposing the idea of political correctness associated with the left. This opposition is very important as the part of the left striving for political correctness receives a lot of attention in both mainstream media as well as social media. I can probably write a couple of paragraphs about this group of people, but I’ll try to make it short here. They’re known for blaming the patriarchy, excluding men from gender discussions or whites from discussions about race and calling others nazis quickly. Remember, this is about the reputation Clinton has. As the opposing candidate to the (seemingly) very right Trump, she can’t avoid this association. Depending on your position on the subject of free speech and political correctness, your impression on her can be either good or bad.

Lastly, she lost a lot of voters from the Bernie Sanders faction when he lost the race to her super delegates. Notice also how her policies were very weak. They outright pale in comparison to Trump’s who comes now.

Trump

You’d think there aren’t many reasons to vote for Trump. He’s old, populist, right-wing, rich businessman who build his empire on his inheritance. Yet he is also very famous, having guest appearances in both tv and movie and just different to the usual politician. Compared to Clinton he’s full of policies. He said his opinion on everything everywhere. He said so much, you contradicts on half the topics he talks about. For me this is really funny, because he’s accused for a lot of stuff for what he says, when on the next day, he might say the complete opposite.

First off, he’s a wild card. No one could say for sure —and still can’t— what would happen if he’d get elected. While it would just go on the same as before under Clinton, not a single person, probably not even Trump himself, actually knows what he would do. Be it on purpose, on accident or unwillingly, he and with him the whole of America could suddenly find themselves in a whole different situation. It’s a huge break from the usual direction that comes from the White House.

The first impression you’d get from him is that of a conservative white man. The one that strikes fear in blacks and women. Yes, that was how the mainstream media and parts of Twitter among other social media depicted Trump. This one’s gonna be a bit weird, because even if I come around here and there on the internet, I’m still German. On top of that, I wasn’t that interested in the American election. I did receive parts of it, had second hand informations and impressions, but overall I felt more of an distant observer of this farce. Plus, here in Germany most of our media was all about getting views. Meaning they didn’t care about an honest portrait of him, but instead mainly delivered his negative attributes. Nonetheless I never get the feeling that media is much different on the other side of the Atlantic.

Luckily enough for me, it’s easy to google a few examples of the overly bad image the media gives Trump.

Huffington Post editor and co-founder Arianna Huffington is a regular target of Trump’s. But instead of attacking her liberal views, he tends to criticise her looks and make jokes about her divorce. See this Tweet

Yes he does attack her looks, but he also attacks her personality itself. He basically calls her a disgusting woman, not only disgusting in appearance, but also in character. If this statement is also about her policies is a different story.

Huffington Post also has its own list of his misdeeds. Let’s see what they have to offer.

He claimed a judge was biased because “he’s a Mexican”

He may not be wrong with that. That judge might be biased against Trump because of his policies. The idea of a wall to Mexico might be a bad idea, so bad that it could’ve costed him valueable voters. But the claim itself is not without reason.

Another point they have is the following

He refused to condemn the white supremacists who are campaigning for him

What the interviewer asked was

[…] will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other whites supremacists in this election?

That, by the CNN, was a really leading move. Trump can’t say that he doesn’t want these or those votes. No politician anywhere will ever publicly tell a big supportive group, that he or she doesn’t want their votes. So the second part of this question already is set up against Trump. Trump only addresses the first part and says that he doesn’t know David Duke or what exactly white supremacists are. He basically plays the fool who doesn’t know any better to avoid the question. Even after the interviewer tells him they are the KKK, he stays firm. Now the problem here is, that he has two choices. He either condemns them as told. This would hurt his image among his best supporters while portraying himself as a better person towards none-supportive groups. Or he doesn’t condemn them and avoid the question. With the way how he dodged the question, he also portrayed himself pretty well by himself, saying he won’t judge a group he doesn’t know anything about. The article of Huffington Post goes on how these right wing groups are very supportive towards Trump. However, that doesn’t change anything about Trumps view. It doesn’t make him any more racist.

I just want to make clear, that some of the accusations towards him are groundless or heavily excessive. He may very well be a racist or sexist, that is true. But it doesn’t make him lose any of his existing voters. After a few months, these accusations grew old and anyone who supported him before, will also support him until the election. In the long run, it will only foster more hate towards the left media, that paints a one dimensional image of Trump. Which again only gives him more voters in return.

With the last point, we can also see one of the few reasons why someone would want to vote for Trump. He actually expresses the things he wants to change. He actually stands for some of the public’s dismay. Loud and clear with a choice of words no other politician dare to use, he firmly proclaims, he will drain the swamp. It’s kinda like Merkel in Germany who also says whatever her audience wants to hear at the moment. Both shift their opinion according the crowd standing before them. Couple that with his Twitter, that gives him huge amounts of attention and you already have the basis for a good campaign. A lot of his tweets are contain some inappropriate words, but some people like it. It puts him in the political incorrect corner, among people who like to go away from the overly cautious style of speech. Some probably also like politicians who deviant from the classical style. With that, he can gather a huge crowd in a stadium.

As a sidenote, bad publicity is still publicity. Think of Justin Bieber for example. His song went so incredibly viral because it was so bad. It was mostly liked by young teenagers, but they also only heard about it, because everyone kept sharing it. Now he’s a well known artist with some good(?) songs. The same goes for Trump. Even if haters share some articles, it just generates more attention.

Lastly he represents a huge break from the usual political activity in the US. While Clinton represents the “same procedure as every year”, a steady continueation from Obama’s administration, Trump is completely different. He’s anti-establishment or at least advertises himself as such. It’s up to everybody to decide whether they are gonna believe it. Fact is, he isn’t gonna be the usual president.

The aftermath

And now to the juicy part. Away from the ice cold analysis and onto the happenings!

First, we had parts of the media devastated by Trumps win. A lot of them couldn’t believe that Trump actually won the election. South Park’s studio actually had to rewrite their whole episode because of that. But also [paper media] had to readjust their new issue because of Trumps surprising win.

Shortly after parts of the supportive left was left in a state of shock. They were in so much shock, that professors decided to skip the upcoming test. How very interesting that the outcome of a fair and democratic election can result in such a shock. No wonder considering Hillary Clinton actually won the popular vote.

Later that year, actual riots arised with burning cars, drivers running other protestants/rioters and people beating up others. The best part about this? Scott Adams foresaw these dangerous riots in one of his articles

So I’ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, for my personal safety. Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I’m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.

Next up we have the ignorant Trump answering the call of Taiwan’s premier minister. Something no other before him did in fear of angering China.

He’s also heavily against TTIP giving the treaty an anticlimatic end. (Yay for us Europeans)

End of January he moves into office and immediately after signs the executive order to ban the entry of muslims from certain countries. If that weren’t enough, a judge comes along and temporary negates that ban. This could be the end of the story, but Trump weren’t Trump if he didn’t hastily respond in his own fasion, displaying his ignorance once more in this tweet. Yes, the three pillars of democracy, legaslative, executive and jugislative is a very difficult concept. It’s a check and balance concept after all.

And because that first order went so well and found so much echo among the population, he delivered another one. This time deregulating the financial market. Reverting the regulations after the Lehman crisis, he yet again causes an uproar amongst many. Suddenly it’s more like flood the swamp I guess.

Even in a simple talk with our own problem child, Merkel, he shows his ignorance gracefully when he didn’t know about the Geneva convention.

All this and it still doesn’t end. His intelligence agencies won’t even give him the delicate information he should be receiving as the new president as they fear a potential leak from him and his administration. And as I just see, he know publically announces his dissatisfaction with that too.

Yes, he still hasn’t stopped using Twitter. It kinda makes foreign intelligence agencies obsolent. He himself already gives all the information you’d expect from him.

I feel like I’ve still forgot something there. Either way, he’s a goldmine for satire, which is scary actually.

So what do we learn from all this? Exactly one thing: The presidential election of America and their democratic system is a huge joke. No other party besides Democrats and Republicans has any chance to even achieve something like a seat, because the winner takes it all. To go big in one of them, you have to work hard in that party or be famous otherwise, basically be part of the existing system to begin with. There’s hardly a way to come from the bottom and shake the top with a small party like in many european countries. And if that weren’t enough, you can still win the election without having more votes than your only opponent.

Yes, you can vote for Clinton in California, but your vote is meaningless if she loses, partly because it counts less than that of a wyomingian for example. Your vote is also meaningless if you vote for Trump in that state, because you know the Democrats will win anyway and take it. It’s nothing new. CGP Grey has a number of videos on this subject. The american voting system is so flawed, it’s difficult to even call it democratic. Trump just won the election with about 62 million votes. Remember, America has a population of about 324 million. He won the election with the support of only 20% of the whole population. Granted, part of them are unable to vote. But still, with only two choices, there is gonna be a big divide sooner or later. It already begins and the election only emphasized this.

So please, let this election be an alarm and overhaul the voting system already. I promise you, the next election won’t be any less vicious.