Trump won and won well.
Early analysis of exit poll data seems to show it was white people who swung the election. I was wrong about Hispanic voters saving Clinton's campaign, as many as 29% appear to have voted for Trump and deportations. Instead white people look to have discovered block voting. I thought that Obama's presidency had shown that America had largely come to terms with it's often dark history. I was wrong.
It doesn't seem real. Looking at pictures of Trump sitting next to Obama in the Oval Office feels wrong, like someone has reached into reality and screwed with the variables.
I am most upset that Hilary lost. Unpopular as she is I have always had a huge degree amount of respect for her. She always represented feminism in practise to me. She refused to change her name, she refused to give up her career, when her husband retired she entered politics and thrived. She faced up to those who hated her for being a women and did so with dignity. She would have been a great President.
Even more seriously the implications for geo-politics are immense. NATO's existence is in question, free trade is no longer a certainty and nuclear war is for the first time since 1989 a very real threat. Eastern Europe must be coming to terms with more Russian influence on their internal affairs if not complete annexation. The Israel/Palestine question looks now to be settled, there will be no two state solution. How Tel Aviv reacts will echo through time, I fear the worst.
It all feels so crushingly inevitable now. This year has so far decimated things that I believe in. Even a childhood icon of mine Jose Mourinho now manages Manchester United, a football team I have always hated. It also turns out he was a bully. David Bowie's death I could accept although it was still a huge shock. Britain voting to leave the EU hit harder. I considered being a European part of my identity, that's been taken away from me. But with Trump these events have solidified.
The wave of hope that began with Obama has broken. He represented the progress to me. that no matter the defeats bigger victories were being won. Reading his editorial in this months Wired and learning he was a Star Trek fan and listens to Courtney Barnett only solidifies him in my mind as my President.
All that feels fleeting now. Instead the right are ascendant, across western democracies left wing parties are in retreat. Hope feels like it happened a long time a go.
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