If anything is 'responsible' for Trump's victory, it's him. He won fair and square. People's main problem with him seems to be that he's "mean", whereas I can't even count on both my fingers and toes the amount of controversies surrounding Hillary. Not to mention the fact that Bernie bros know exactly what she did to him during the DNC, and they couldn't stand her for it hence their Independent/non votes. Those votes would not have necessarily gone to Hillary anyway.

"He won fair and square."
- By coming in second...

Third party voters are not to blame. Non-voters are partially to blame. Trump voters are wholly to blame.

Hillary alienated a huge portion of the Democratic base during her battle with Sanders. She also lost an important percentage of the minorities that according to the mainstream media, Trump wants to drink their blood. That portion flocked to Trump or the third parties and led to her defeat. She lost the elections on her own against a carricature of an opponent. The idea of a third party to promote supposed democracy is a very appealing but if you ask an European especially from Greece and Spain, it is not panakea, it can cause a period of great instability as it leads to a unstable govermental coalition which can be broken at any time causing repeated elections that is dentrimental. The American system does not favour big third parties for this reason in comparison with Europe. The question is are Americans really ready to accept coalitions like in Germany and Greece that have completely different and conflicting ideologies? Won't they feel cheated?

This election was really interesting to watch. As a neutral observer(Greece is screwed no matter who wins but in different ways), what made this election special was that far left and far right rhetoric was in the main menu. Clinton did not really have a unique plan as Obama had so she based her campaign more or less on the fact that she is part of the system, she is a woman and that she is the champion of minorities and used a very disturbing language to spread that message through mainstream media and her Hollywood supporters. Trump had a plan that in our days is not popular. He also used a very disturbing language. The two parties on purpose polarised the election to hide their own identity problems and proved that America has serious underlying problems that the media was trying to hide by vilifying the whole election to a very oversimplified dilemma; Clinton and democracy and Trump racism. As we say in Greece, even rocks are laughing at that. Both candidates promote racism and fanatism in their own way, both have ties to obvious racist movements(surprisingly both with KKK) and that was what scares me most because both sides are demonising their opponents' voters which will lead for sure to a civil war. We don't need to talk about Trump, the media has covered that part extensively but they overlooked to do the same with Clinton and that was one of the reasons why she lost. None of the candidates really cared about the serious problems America is dealing with. This campaign was solely based on personalities, the persona of the candidate, politcal correctness vs unbounded straighness. This lead to abstinence at the polls because people are tired of voting for two evils. But bstinence doesn't really have an important role in US election as in Europe where 70% of the voters participates whereas in the US it is always around 55%

"He won fair and square."
- By coming in second...

He WON based on the rules of our electoral college, which has been in practice oh...since the 1700s. So yeah, he won fair and square based on the rules.

Yes... by coming in second.

And I guess, to be fair, a lot of his views would be right at home in the 1700s.

EDIT: Also link.

I voted for Hillary, but I don't think third party voters are responsible for Trump's win. For one, it makes a few assumptions.

For example, a friend of mine pointed out on FB that the difference between Hillary and Trump taking Florida was less than the number of people who voted for Johnson. Her argument was that Johnson stole Florida from Hillary and gave it to Trump, but this assumes that A) without Johnson on the ballot, all votes would have gone to Hillary or B) If not all votes, than a majority of votes for Johnson would have gone to Hillary. But both of these assumptions are flawed.

Third party candidates are "stealing votes" from both of the major parties -- not just one of them.

Here are a few comments I posted earlier;

"I think those Trump voters hate the Clinton voters not because they actually are racist or sexist, but because they're constantly being told that they are."

"There is no middle ground anymore. Extremist “social justice” activists, whatever you call them, have picked up the “with us or against us” mantra, and there is no place for the moderates. They cry wolf and then are surprised when nobody takes them seriously. The people who dare to offend someone else, even accidentally, are called out, and then those defend them, or fail to also shun them, are also called out.
The space of acceptability becomes smaller and smaller, an exclusive elite club, and crucifixions feel better than actually trying to make some kind of peaceful workable solution for people to agree to disagree."

These points are exactly what I meant by my comment on your other link.

Good link, man. I'd like to add a fourth point; blame the extreme lefties. Those people who whole heartedly hate straight white cis men. They are so damn hateful and have went so overboard that the other side caged. It's gotten so bad that you almost can't vocalize more conservative views without the tumblr lynch mob going after you. And the 'all men are evil' carp has even filtered it's way into the education system; a place where the teacher/professor shouldn't preach a political agenda either way around. It's gotten so bad that righties thought voting Trump was the only way to get this stuff to stop. The left kept throwing punches and unfortunately for all of us, the right punched back.

no it ssumes all who voted third party would vote for hillary
3rd party voted and never would have vote for hilllary or trump
many felt this
the system must change!!!

^

This election is just another reason why America should have:
1. Preferential voting; and
2. Compulsory voting

Works to good effect in other countries. The latter prevents extremists getting into power, discourages parties themselves from going to the fringes and means they must appeal to a wider population, means that politicians actually have to spare a thought for the poor/less educated/least empowered (those unlikely to vote). The former means that third parties actually have a chance at getting seats and political influence.

On that note, I can't believe that the American election wasn't on a weekend. What a joke. Some working people can't afford to take time off, or don't have time in the evening, to go cast a vote.

tl;dr your system is ridiculous, pls fix it and these things wouldn't happen.

Everyone who didn't actively vote for Clinton implied that they were alright with the alternative, which by all realistic measurements was Trump. I will not give people a pass for inactivity or misguided moral superiority.

Had this gone the other way, the right would be saying the exact same thing about third party voters being "alright" with Clinton. Most third party voters weren't "alright" with either. Which is why we voted for someone else.

Would you not say that Trump was far worse than Clinton by all metrics though? Especially with what he's done since the election?

They both sucked. We were screwed either way.

I really don't see how she was that bad. She would have just been a continuation of the current Obama policies.

Judging by the outcome, I'd say people weren't really into more of that...

So people want a Kleptocracy via Trump, and the erosion of our ties with allies rather than the slow but steady progress under Obama? I'm going to have to disagree on that then.

Also the past 8 years have been absolutely amazing for social progress. Gay marriage might go back on the chopping block in the next few years if we're not careful.

It's progress for the left.

Obama's average link rating is ranked 10th out of the 14 presidents we've had since 1937. Nixon's was higher. Not everyone is a fan.

But why? What exactly is so bad under Obama?

I'm more or less with Dark. I think both were bad in different ways. I don't trust either. I think we'd have been screwed in a different way if we got Hilary. As DS said we weren't for either so we didn't vote for either. Had Hilary won, Trump supporters would be blaming it on third parties. A third party vote is just as much away from Trump as it is Clintion. We weren't planning on voting for either in the first place.

How would Clinton and Trump have been "equally" bad though? If you look at the major issues facing the USA and the world, it's pretty clear that one of them is far worse -

Climate change: one had outlined strong policies to cut emissions and invest in renewable energy. The other not only doesn’t have any such policies, but doesn’t accept that climate change is happening, full stop (“it’s a Chinese hoax”). The latter is going to be president of the USA at a time when it is absolutely CRUCIAL that climate change is addressed. There is no waiting. He is going to make 3°C - 4°C warming inevitable. Doesn’t this alone make you think that maybe, maybe Trump is worse?

Economics: Trump’s tax plan will give 47% of cuts to the top 1% (averaging $214,600 each) because wealth inequality isn’t large enough, apparently. Meanwhile, 92% of Clinton's tax increases would have been FROM the 1% . Trump is going to dismantle regulations that prevent another GFC, because poor Wall Street. Trump is an economic disaster.

And on a side note, “running a country like a business”: no you cannot, because they are not remotely alike. When you’re running a business, you can liquidate unprofitable divisions, you can lay off employees if you don’t need them, you can relocate to a different territory or drop a product line. If things still don’t work, you can declare bankruptcy and start again. And success is judged purely by the amount of money you make.

You don’t get to do any of that with a country. You can’t liquidate Alabama. You can’t lay off a bunch of your citizens because they are old, sick, or children. You can’t move America to a different territory. And you can’t drop education, or healthcare, or the military just because they don’t turn a profit. And it doesn’t matter how much money you make if you allow society to fall apart in the process because turning a profit is not the primary goal of government.

International politics, East-West relations: His foreign and economic policies, combined with authoritarian tendencies and hot-headedness, are going to be disastrous for global stability. Experts, including Republican policymakers, have already said this. And discrimination against Muslims? Do you really think that’s going to stop terrorism? It’s exactly what ISIS wants. The populist right and Islamic extremism feed into each other.

The fact that our planet is being irreparably ruined: Clinton would have kept protection laws intact (and actually strengthened them, as they need to be). Trump thinks they too restrictive and the Environmental Protection Agency is unneeded and must be dismantled. He supports more fracking, he's vowed to reverse Obama's protection of important Arctic ecosystems from oil drilling, he doesn't give a damn about the environment in a time where it's more threatened than ever.

Political corruption, lobby influence: Hilarious, fucking hilarious. All along, people were accusing Clinton of being under the thumb of Big Business and yet Trump has chosen the most corrupt business-controlled and lobbyist-influenced Cabinet ever.

PS:
And yeah, would really like to know what's so bad under Obama considering the many social and economic indicators that he's improved. Love how he gets the blame for "not doing much" (which is wrong in itself) when Republicans obstructed the majority of things, not matter how reasonable, in the Senate?

Forgive me if this is incoherent, it's NYE and I'm hitting the drinks to forget this horrible, horrible year.