The Donald trumps Brexit

The election count was a close replica of Brexit night although it went on longer. The similarities indeed were uncanny. The "Sunderland" of last night was Ohio.Trump's win there suggested that a Trump victory was possible. Had he won Virginia as well, which he almost did, I would have got to bed a lot sooner than 7am! As it was, the US networks waited two hours or more to move Trump's electoral college votes from 244 to the 270s (bar one vote to 245). One doesn't want to get paranoid but 99% of the votes had been counted in Pennsylvania, I think, with Trump in the lead (and therefore over the 270 number) but, even though the New York Times had called it, the networks refused to do so for about two hours. I suspect that if Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had gone to Hilary Clinton the networks would have called the results in short order. Which goes to show that Trump's allegations of chicanery might not necessarily have been completely wide of the mark. There were postal votes to be counted in Pennsylvania (by hand, apparently, as opposed to electronically in some other states) but that doesn't explain the delay. I gather Trump was making his victory speech when Pennsylvania or Wisconsin came through and brought him over the top. He had clearly got fed up waiting for the networks.

Brexit is restated, confirmed, underlined and strengthened by Donald Trump's victory, and the euro is next. TTIP is for the bin and the future of the EU itself and NATO are now up in the air. It's impossible just now to take it all in or to know where the US and the world will go from here. The US Presidency is a far weaker institution than we think because of the separation of powers, and Donald Trump is as despised by almost as many Republican senators and Congressmen as Clinton, but like Brexit it's the vote that counts. For the second time in just over six months the people have misbehaved and refused to do as they were told. I don't say that the people are always right but they are always sovereign. It will take this victory to bring home to the Remainers in the UK that Brexit means Brexit.

It is no coincidence that the "revolution" bringing about the end of the post WW2 world began in the UK and the US (leaving aside the collapse of the USSR and communism). The UK and the US created the Western dimension of the post war world. They also pushed more than anyone else (with our elite following them without giving it a second thought) for a world of excessive globalization, including in the financial services area. The Big Bang in the UK in 1985 and Larry Summers' disastrous legislation in the US in the 1990s set the scene for the loss of any control of capital movements, which underlie a lot of the problems since. The mad euro experiment of course deserves to be up there also, which is why the euro will be next to feel the wind of change. NAFTA contributed significantly to Trump's victory. I was exchanging tweets at around 6am with a well known economist who felt that globalization had its merits but said that "the corporate interests unchecked fest at society's expense is the problem". Exactly. Where to draw the line between free trade and the rights and responsibilities of governments to govern their territories and protect the interests of their people is the issue: the near total stakeholder capture of Western governments (in this case the US) by global interests is the underlying reason for Donald Trump's victory.

The number crunchers of course were at it all night. More women voted for Donald Trump than were expected to and fewer Latinos voted for Hilary Clinton than we were told was the case. (I'm not surprised in either case. Why would women vote for somebody shady just because she is a woman or Latinos not be able to understand that states must have borders and rules about immigration?) There is no doubt that playing the hyphenated game was a bad tactic for Hilary Clinton. Truth to tell, she might have had no choice but some of her rallies gave the impression of a Tree Huggers for Clinton event. The Democratic Party needs to get away from giving the impression that it is the hyphenated Americans party and get back to being a left of centre party, e.g. ditch NAFTA. (Donald Trump should seek to reverse the increasing balkanization of the US. The most interesting Americans I've ever met have been ... Americans. Hyphenated Americans tend to be less interesting.) It will be interesting to see if the Democrats work that out. I enjoyed the piece by Brian Boyd in Tuesday's Irish Times in which he pointed out that seeking support from rock stars and the like doesn't work. (Speaking of celebrities, where has Bono been? How have we been so lucky!) The article refers to one individual, who, in 2004, particularly resented the fact that Bruce Springsteen, whom the individual correctly described as a song and dance man, urged people to vote for Kerry in that year's Presidential election. I love the Boss and he was right on that occasion but perhaps another consequence of the revolution is that the age of celebrity might be coming to an end. Donald Trump was one but the end of celebrity could be one of the unintended consequences of his victory.

The media has been the stand-out performer in this campaign but for all the wrong reasons. With some fine exceptions, they did everything they could to create the impression that Hilary Clinton was the better candidate and was home and hosed. I don't necessarily blame the polling companies. I can understand how people would be reluctant to say how they intended to vote. No doubt many people kept their heads down at work and among their friends and then quietly voted for Donald Trump. The Clintons' checkered history finally caught up with them. The media did everything they could to down play the pay-for-play strategy of the Clintons but they couldn't bury it. I suspect, however, that the debates ultimately turned the table. I saw part of the first one and all of the second and third ones. Donald Trump improved with every debate while Hilary Clinton failed to get her vision across (although she did to the global elite and the media, who understood that she was their woman). I noticed, particularly after the third debate, that good journalists could not run away from their consciences and started, ever so gingerly, to point out that Donald Trump was developing into something but that Hilary Clinton was standing still. I thought Donald Trump had left it too late to begin to display the necessary political skills but he hadn't. He had to trod a fine line between the angry revolutionary and behaving like a civilized human being. I thought he had got the balance wrong but he obviously hadn't.

The Canadian immigration website crashed during election night. Shades of UK citizens looking for Irish passports after the Brexit referendum. Silly.

It will obviously take some months to see how Donald Trump seeks to turn his victory into significant new policy directions. My first reaction is to breathe a sigh of relief that the world won't be a heap of ashes four years from now. The risk of nuclear war with Russia had Hilary Clinton won would have been very high. Assuming Donald Trump can get the support of the Congress for his measures (which is a huge assumption), if he reduces US corporation tax to 15% that will have a huge impact on the US and global economy. It will oblige this state to move away from Whitaker Economics. I don't underestimate the challenge involved but we have to face the future as well. I hope Donald Trump will instigate a massive renewal of US infrastructure and he should tackle education as well. Hopefully, he will also restructure the Supreme Court and that important social issues like abortion and surrogacy will be addressed. And I hope, he finds a way of keeping the Second Amendment while tackling the US gun culture that has always been a feature of US society but particularly since the end of the US Civil War. Sales of post Civil War surplus weapons gave that culture a boost from which US society has never recovered.

Donald Trump's Cabinet appointments will tell us a lot about his plans for the Presidency. Will he appoint heavy hitters to the economic ministries (and get rid of Janet Yellen, if he can) and lesser figures to State and Defence? Having a businessman in the White House is a huge plus. Will he challenge the military industrial complex, which is consuming (morality aside) far too many resources, resources that the US could spare in the 1950s-1970s but not today? Will he go for the best Cabinet he can and forget the gender balance/must have some gays nonsense?