It's the only explanation & it saves time.

I would certainly advise anyone thinking of taking Donald out to look at the consequences, the most terrifying of which is President Pence. He makes Trump seem mild mannered

Bang on Brisbane. There was an article recently in the New York Times about how peoples “likes” on Facebook were ensuring that content was targeted at them and this applied to political articles. This serves to provide people with an increasingly biased supply of information that tends to reinforce views and in some cases provoke more extreme views. Users end up in their own “echo chamber” of like minded people and never see an alternative view. I think it serves to polarise views, especially when you see the comments under articles where users resemble an angry mob with pitchforks and flaming torches.



This happened during Brexit and during the US election. Suppliers of content will eventually become like the newspaper barons as it becomes the way to influence and reinforce the views of voters.



Unfortunately centrist views just don’t get the clicks. The real world is too complicated for people to engage with via social media as it can’t be condensed easily. Politicians have been shying away from the complicated nature of things for years (see the new Adam Curtis doc) in favour of a simplified view of the world that can be sold to the electorate more easily.



Where do we go from here? I don’t know. I heard someone today, think it was Gerd Wilders saying how right wing populism will win every time. The centre needs to communicate better in order to discredit these populist snake oil salesmen or he’ll be right.

But we have passports, travel and have news programmes. Whats your point?

People feel disenfranchised. Someone articulates their feelings and they get on board. Sometimes they’re so fed up they’re prepared to overlook aspects they might disagree with. The rest of the political establishment is out of touch and unable to connect with disenfranchised groups. It then has to play catch up to the populist who trades on being an “outsider” and the only one who understands them and is not an “elitist”. The establishment can’t win because no matter what the facts are they are committed to “change” and have invested hope in the populist.



Centrist politicians need to reconnect with the public and get out of their own echo chamber. Mainstream parties have been too busy to cosy up to lobbyists and have forgotten about who they’re meant to represent.



The media meanwhile love a controversy and flock around someone who “tells it like it is”. This then sets the agenda. Farage and the right have been very effective at doing that for the past 6 years. Centrist views just don’t get the clicks/airtime. There seems to be a vacuum at the moment in the centre. The loudmouths on the fringes are getting all the attention and nobody is properly able to hold them to account.

Spot on. They complain that Trump/Brexit are lazy and don't bother to research more and just listen to what they'll told......but then hypocritically and lazily just say all Trump/Brexit voters are racist. Sure they'll be a fair few but to put it all down to that is showing the same laziness and just reading/hearing sound bites they agree with that they accuse opposition voters of.



In the long term these results could had a good effect in that it has at least given people a wake up call and slap in the face......if they truely can be bothered to find out why we got these results and not just blame it on racism.



*BTW are the 8% of black people who voted for Trump and the 28% of Hispanics & Latinos who did likewise white racists too???

That's how I see it. There were an ever growing series of small problems which weren't getting addressed, now there's one big problem which can't be escaped.



An effective solution depends on whether people are prepared to take everything from all quarters on board, however, judging from some of the elitist opinions the division may just grow even bigger.

I saw a US analyst suggest that in this particular demographic, their sexism overcame what would appear to be a natural opposition to Trump; in short, they'd rather have him, than a woman, in the top job.

The lunatic fringe of the liberal left won't know where to direct their outrage with that one.

It's no use arguing unless we get our facts straight (unless you are Trump) "7% of Americans have a passport." No. It's about 46%. www.theexpeditioner.com/2010/02/ ... assport-2/ " Around 70% of Americans have never travelled more than 30 miles from where they were born." This does not meet the large numbers who use both intranational and international transport. I always wonder who comes up with such statistics ... they've been overturned even for the Middle Ages. Anyway, in 2014, passenger miles for cars etc. came to 4,371,706,000,000 which with a population of about 320,000,000 suggests an average travel of 13,709 miles so they travel that 30 miles 459 times a year. No wonder they voted Trump, that's a lot of journeys with no change of scenery. www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita. ... 01_40.html Trump used lies and myths, that's why he was and is wrong.

It's no use arguing unless we get our facts straight (unless you are Trump) "7% of Americans have a passport." No. It's about 46%. www.theexpeditioner.com/2010/02/ ... assport-2/ " Around 70% of Americans have never travelled more than 30 miles from where they were born." This does not meet the large numbers who use both intranational and international transport. I always wonder who comes up with such statistics ... they've been overturned even for the Middle Ages. Anyway, in 2014, passenger miles for cars etc. came to 4,371,706,000,000 which with a population of about 320,000,000 suggests an average travel of 13,709 miles so they travel that 30 miles 459 times a year. No wonder they voted Trump, that's a lot of journeys with no change of scenery. www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita. ... 01_40.html Trump used lies and myths, that's why he was and is wrong.

End of the day he's only a front man for the real people who run the country. It's going to be hilarious watching him for the next 4 years. I remember when Ali G interviewed him and his "business was even being done hundreds of millions of years ago" quote



Regards



King James

Bang on. The smartest most powerful people don't put themselves in the public eye. They were there before Trump, before Obama and will be there pulling the strings after Trump has gone.



The US president the most powerful man in the world? He's about as powerful as a checkout girl at Tesco.