Viet Nam Human Rights
Elected president, Trump could plunge US into uncertain future
10/11/16
Trump rides wave of
anti-establishment sentiment to one of the most improbable political victories
in modern US history.
Donald Trump shattered expectations on Tuesday with
an election night victory that revealed deep anti-establishment anger among
American voters and set the world on a journey into the political unknown.
The Republican nominee has achieved one of the most
improbable political victories in modern US history, despite a series of
controversies that would easily have destroyed other candidacies, extreme
policies that have drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle, a record of
racist and sexist behaviour, and a lack of conventional political experience.
After surprise early victories in Florida, North
Carolina and Ohio, it fell to the rust belt states of the industrial midwest to
determine the result of his stunning upset.
Wisconsin and Michigan, two states hit hard by a
decline in manufacturing jobs and lost by Hillary
Clinton to Bernie
Sanders in the Democratic primary, were led by Trump as the race headed for an
early morning cliffhanger.
At 2.30am, the Associated Press projected Trump had
won Wisconsin and called the overall race for Trump, who passed the 270
electoral college votes he needed to secure the presidency.
Shortly afterwards, Clinton called Trump to concede but did
not make a public address.
Trump left Trump Tower for the short journey to the Hilton
Midtown, where the president-elect then took to the stage and insisted he would
“deal fairly with everyone”.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, complicated business,
complicated business,” began Trump to raucous chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A” from his
excited supporters.
“I have just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She
congratulated us – it’s about us and our victory – and I congratulated her on a
very hard-fought campaign.
“Now it is time for Americans to bind the wounds of
division,” he added. “It is time for us to become together as one united people
… I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all
Americans.”
Earlier, the Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta,
appeared before distraught supporters to announce that she would not be
appearing to give a concession speech. “Everybody should head home,” he told
them. “Get some sleep. We’ll have more to say tomorrow.
“It’s been a long
night and a long campaign,” he added. “We can wait a little longer, can’t we?
They are still counting votes and every vote counts, several states are too
close to call so we are not going to have anything more to say tonight.”
Clinton called Trump to concede around 2.30am, Trump’s
campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told New York
Magazine. Conway said Trump told Clinton: “You’re a smart tough
lady and you ran a great campaign. Thank you for calling. I respect you.”
Trump also spoke with Barack Obama, who called to
congratulate Trump early on Tuesday morning. The White House said the president
called Clinton and “expressed admiration for the strong campaign she waged
throughout the country”. .
Obama is set to speak more about the results later on
Wednesday and has invited the president-elect to the White House on Thursday.
“This is a historic night,” said the vice-president-elect,
Mike Pence, in the first official Republican response, introducing Trump. “The
American people have spoken and the American people have elected their new
champion.”
Republicans
have also secured majorities in the House of Representatives,
the Senate and will probably get to reappoint a fifth Republican nominee to the
supreme court – potentially leaving the new president with few checks and
balances.
Investors
reeled from the prospect of a victory that would reverberate
around the world and futures markets pointed to a fall of nearly 600 points in
the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
As results started to come in, two candidates with very
different views of America were watching television just two minutes’ walk from
each other: the Clintons at the Peninsula Hotel in midtown Manhattan and the
Republican team in Trump Tower.
But the mood in the Trump camp shifted early after signs of
a strong performance in Florida and Clinton supporters began contemplating the
consequences of a result few thought was possible.
At a “victory party” for Clinton supporters, under the veil
of a glass ceiling that was meant to be an epic symbol of a historic night when
gender barriers were swept aside, there was a bleak mood.
Thousands of people who filled the Jacob Javits
convention center in Midtown Manhattan – and the thousands more
lining the blocks outside – had eyes glued to the TV. A woman clasped her hands
over her mouth in disbelief as the newscasters announced Trump had won North
Carolina.
The mood dropped markedly as results began to roll in: Ohio,
Florida, North Carolina, all for Trump. Outside the Javits Center at the
so-called “block party”, a couple embraced. The woman wiped a tear from her
face and the man stroked her hair.
Another man, who identified himself only by his first name, Theo, called the
results “scary and troubling”. “You don’t think there could be so much hate in
this country – there is.”
After Podesta spoke, a stream of stunned supporters, some in
block-colored pantsuits, others toting tired children, many wiping tears from
their eyes, exited the building that was meant to be a symbol of barriers
broken.
“What happened? What did we just do?” asked Gloria Lowell,
the mother of an adopted son from Guatemala.
Staffers hugged each other and wiped tears from their eyes.
They had prepared for this outcome – but no one truly believed it.
Susie Shannon travelled from California to be at the Javits
Center on Tuesday night so that her eight-year-old daughter, Gracie, could say
she was there when Hillary Clinton was elected president.
They left the center in the early hours of Wednesday morning
stunned.
“We waited for hours to come here tonight,” she said in
shock, holding her daughter’s hands. “I wish Clinton herself had come out and
spoken to us. It would have been nice to hear from her.”
Meanwhile, the crowd at Trump’s watch party in the Midtown
Hilton grew increasingly excited as the evening went on. Loud cheers erupted
every time that returns from Florida and Ohio were shown on the television
screen. The mood grew increasingly optimistic as attendees huddled anxiously
around their televisions clasping their drinks and their cellphones in equally
tight grips.
Many shouted “lock her up” when Clinton’s name was mentioned
and berated members of the media for being slow to report election results.
Meanwhile, in Oregon and
California, demonstrators took to the streets to protest about
Trump’s victory. Hundreds gathered in Oakland, Portland and Los Angeles
overnight, but there were no immediate reports of arrests.
Exit polling by CNN suggested 88% of voters had made up
their minds more than than week ago, before last-minute FBI inquiries into
Clinton’s emails temporarily raised fears of a late Trump surge.
World leaders offered messages of congratulations,
with some offering more subdued support, to Trump on Wednesday morning.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who Trump
repeatedly praised on the campaign trail, sent a telegram to congratulate the
president-elect, the Kremlin said. Putin reportedly expressed “his hope to work
together for removing Russian-American relations from their crisis state”.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, did not publicly
congratulate Trump, but offered the president-elect “close cooperation”.
“Germany and America
are connected by common values: democracy, freedom, respect for the law and for
human dignity irrespective of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual
orientation or political conviction,” Merkel said. “On the basis of these
values, I offer the future president of America, Donald Trump, a close working
relationship.”./.
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All comments [ 2 ]
Can't believe in my eyes seeing this result!
So a President Trump will change lives far beyond the US. An American leader who believes climate change is a Chinese hoax, who believes terror suspects should be tortured and their family members killed, who believes that Saudi Arabia should have nuclear weapons, who is fascinated by nukes’ power of “devastation” and who has asked repeatedly why the US doesn’t use them; a man who says, “I love war”; a man who drools in admiration for Vladimir Putin and whose disregard for Nato, and refusal to promise to defend a member state if attacked, would all but invite Moscow to invade one of the Baltic states – such a man would plunge all of us into a dark future. That we are not living in the US will not protect us.
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