How has Trump managed to trample all over Hillary?

LAHORE: While hundreds of American and international media outlets have spent millions of dollars on their reporters, analysts, television crews and others to cover the 2016 presidential elections, none could predict right about what could be dubbed one of the greatest political upsets witnessed around the globe in centuries.

Where are the all analysts, pollsters and survey conductors who had out rightly predicted a win for former secretary of state? After Trump managed to trounce the favourite Hillary Clinton, a number of American and British newspapers have opted to do a post-mortem of this amazing presidential race.

Here follow excerpts from various US and international media houses so see what they had to say about the reasons and factors behind Trump’s unexpected triumph and Hillary’s devastating loss:

The New York Times

Today, Nov 9, is the 18th of Brumaire by the French Revolutionary calendar — the day in 1799 when Napoleon Bonaparte led a coup against the revolutionary government, established himself as First Consul, and set about redirecting world history as few men have done before or since.

Donald Trump is not Napoleon, but for those of us who have cast him as merely a comic-opera authoritarian, a parody of a world-historical figure, his very own 18th Brumaire is a time to reconsider. He has won a truly astonishing victory, and won it in spite of polls and experts and all the data nerds and get-out-the-vote consultants who laboured tirelessly for Hillary Clinton … in spite of the opposition of the Republican Party’s past presidents and presidential nominees and most of conservatism’s intelligentsia … in spite of the media that had gleefully lifted him up in the GOP primary and then believed (reasonably, but wrongly) that it had torn him down … and finally, in spite of his own acts of self-sabotage, which seemed egregious but turned out to be insufficient to keep him from his destiny.

So here he is, soon to be the most powerful man on the face of the earth, with no popular mandate but a Republican majority nonetheless awaiting his direction, a court of hacks and flatterers around him, a bureaucracy and deep state unsure how to respond to him, an unstable world regarding his ascent with apprehension (or, in Moscow and Beijing, satisfaction), and none of the preparation that even the most inexperienced of modern American presidents have brought to their lofty office.

What happens next promises (and threatens) to make history as nothing has in America — not even the trauma of Sept 11 or the election of the first black president — since the Cold War ended almost 30 years ago, or since the social crises of the 1960s and 1970s further back than that.

On the global stage Trump’s populism and nationalism makes him very much a man of his times, with parallels to figures as diverse as Marine Le Pen, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and of course Vladimir Putin. But in the American context he is like nothing we have seen before — a shatterer of all norms and conventional assumptions, a man more likely to fail catastrophically than other presidents, more constitutionally dangerous than other presidents, but also more likely to carry us into a different political era, a post-neoliberal, post-end-of-history politics, than any other imaginable president.

The Wall Street Journal

Republican Donald Trump, a political novice who ran a nationalist campaign calling for restricting immigration and international trade, scored a stunning come-from-behind win to become the 45th president of the United States, defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton.

After running a bitterly divisive and partisan campaign, Mr Trump struck a conciliatory tone in his speech to supporters in a New York ballroom. He praised Mrs Clinton’s public service, saying that the country owes her a debt of gratitude.

The polls and political pundits gave him little chance of winning going into the final day of voting, but Mr Trump scored a series of close wins in a number of crucial states that Republican nominees haven’t won since 2004, including Florida and Ohio.

The win threatens to rattle US equity markets and drove the Mexican peso down sharply in overnight trading, foreshadowing what could be a shaky few days on Wall Street and elsewhere as the international financial world digests the reality of a Trump presidency.

Mr Trump will bring to Washington a highly unpredictable governing style and a raft of policy prescriptions — from threatening to deport illegal immigrants to upending existing trade deals — that are anathema even to many within his own party.

The businessman and reality-television persona will become the first person to enter the White House without any prior political experience or military service. He rode a wave of anger, largely from white Americans, and defeated Mrs Clinton in a campaign that featured the nastiest and most personal attacks in modern American politics.

The Guardian

It is one of the most astonishing victories in American political history. It will leave millions in the US and beyond in shock, wondering what is to come, and asking: how did Donald Trump do it?

Trump was the first reality TV star – and the first non-politician since Dwight Eisenhower – to win the nomination for president of a major political party. He was the first to spend part of his campaign denying sexual assault allegations and clashing with the family of a fallen soldier and a Miss Universe. At 70, he is the oldest person in history to be elected US president.

Trump copied and recast Ronald Reagan’s promise to make America great again. In four words it captured both pessimism and optimism, both fear and hope. The slogan harks back to a supposed golden age of greatness – the 1950s, perhaps, or the 1980s – and implies that it has been lost but then promises to restore it. It went straight to the gut, unlike rival Hillary Clinton’s website manifesto and more nuanced proposals.

It was an appeal to the heart, not the head, in a country where patriotism should never be underestimated.

In Clinton, he faced a candidate whose unpopularity rating was surpassed only by his own. As the wife of a former president running to succeed a two-term Democrat, she was the ultimate face of the establishment in a year that was all about change. The lack of enthusiasm compared to Barack Obama’s rise in 2008 was palpable.

Trump was wildly ill-disciplined. There was outrageous behaviour and offensive statements that alienated women, African Americans, Mexicans, Muslims, disabled people and, ultimately, believers in constitutional democracy. In any normal year, such a volatile package would have been disqualifying. But while those voices were amplified in the media, there were plenty of people who agreed with him. Some could not stomach the idea of a female president. Some proved that racism has not withered away, but rather in some cases has intensified, since the election of the first African American president.

A majority (56%) of white Americans – including three in four (74%) of white evangelical Protestants – said American society has changed for the worse since the 1950s in a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute.

NJ.com – the largest provider of digital news content provider and website in New Jersey

How did this happen? How could pollsters predicting with 90 percent certainty that Hillary Clinton would become the next president flip 180 degrees in the span of 24 hours?

And how did a country wake up Wednesday to the news that businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump wrestled away an election few ever gave him a chance to win?

The Voice of America

Besides voting for president Tuesday, voters in 35 American states were deciding more than 150 policy issues that included legalising recreational use of marijuana and restricting access to guns and ammunition. Voters also were deciding whether to mandate higher minimum wages and require performers in California’s pornography industry to use condoms.

Marijuana Use

Florida voters Tuesday legalised medical marijuana, making theirs the 26th state to permit cannabis use for certain medical conditions. Voters in North Dakota and Arkansas did the same. Votes in Montana on the same initiative are still being counted.

California and Massachusetts voted to legalise recreational marijuana use for those older than 21, and Maine appeared to be headed for an approval. Votes were still being counted in Nevada and Arizona.

Gun Control

Ownership requirements: California, which has some of the nation’s toughest gun-related laws, has approved a measure that will outlaw possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines, require permits to buy ammunition and extend California’s unique programme that allows authorities to seize firearms from owners who bought guns legally but are no longer allowed to own them.

In Maine and Nevada, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent millions promoting ballot measures that would require background checks on nearly all gun sales and transfers. Both contests were too close to call early Wednesday.

Protection order

In Washington state, voters approved a ballot initiative that would allow someone to get a court order that would temporarily ban people who show signs of mental illness or violence or another behaviour that might indicate that they could harm themselves or others from possessing firearms.

Minimum wage

Increase: Arizona and Colorado voters approved measures phasing in a $12 minimum hourly wages by 2020. Maine voters appeared likely to approve a similar measure. In Washington state, where the minimum wage is $9.47 an hour, voters weighed raising that to $13.50 an hour by 2020. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

Decrease: South Dakota lowers the minimum wage for those younger than 18 from $8.55 per hour to $7.50 per hour.

Death penalty

California: Early results show that Californians are rejecting a measure to repeal the death penalty. Voters appear to be endorsing a measure that would revise the death penalty rules would make changes designed to speed up the appeals and petitions process.

Reinstate: Nebraska voted to reinstate the death penalty that was banned last year. Nebraska has not executed an inmate since 1997; 10 men currently sit on death row.

Method of execution: Oklahoma residents approved a measure to make it harder to abolish capital punishment. It seeks to ensure the state has a way to execute prisoners even if a given method is blocked.

Education

Bilingual education: California voters have repealed a nearly two-decade-old mandate that students be taught almost exclusively in English in school.

Failing schools: Voters in Georgia overwhelmingly rejected an initiative that would have allowed the state to take over perennially failing schools.

Unusual measures

Safe sex: California rejected a measure that would require people in adult films to use condoms during sex scenes.

Doctor-assisted death: Colorado voted to allow adults diagnosed with terminal illnesses and facing imminent death to end their life with prescription medication. The measure will require three health professionals to confirm the prognosis of death and also confirm that the patient is making a voluntary and informed decision.

Statehood

Voters in the District of Columbia overwhelmingly approved a referendum to make the US capital its 51st state, with poll goers saying they hope the vote puts pressure on the next Congress and president to address DC’s lack of representation in Congress.