A point to remember....
I didn't vote for Trump (I didn't vote for anyone at the top of the ticket) but I think a LOT of people voted for him because he seemed "real" and not the phony political actors that have taken over American politics (and so much else); right or wrong, he speaks genuinely and not in the two-faced, phony, tricky, ploy ways that to many seems so much a part of politics. Ironic that this billionaire celebrity would be the one voters could find that seemed real.... It's part of what is known as "popularism" in American politics - it elected the likes of Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt, it propelled many others (including Ross Perot).
One thing I find surprising is the way so many on the left express surprise that people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum might vote for Trump - they obviously think that Obama was very good for them and Hillary would continue to be good for them. In fact the so-called Affordable Care Act (better named the Unaffordable Votes Act) represents a hammer blow to the aspirations of the people at the bottom of the economic scale, particularly if they tend to need a lot of health care. Fiddling with figures on the official web site, a couple making $24,000 and expecting medical bills of $2-3000 each over the course of the year, who subsequently increased their income to $27,500, would face an effective marginal tax rate on that increase of around 80%. Most of that is in the reduction in financial help with deductibles and copays, some is in the form of reduced tax credits, and then of course there is the combination of federal and state income taxes.
A lot of the time when things get really bad the people will elect anyone who promises to change it, even if change is unlikely to be achievable.
Yes, the liberals (and that includes the American Press which is its puppet) not only HATED Trump but also believed it was IMPOSSIBLE he'd actually get elected; I think ALL liberals (including Hillary) simply believed until late Election night that it was IMPOSSIBLE that a person like Trump could win. But.... Now, they are OBSESSED with destroying him and undoing the 2016 election (not even happy to wait for 2020). They want him removed or force him to resign in humiliation and in a way that hopefully will mortally wound the Republican Party. ONE of their polys is to rebuke him for being a popularist, for saying what he's thinking. I think they don't get it: They are just promoting one of the main reasons he was elected! They constant rebuke that he doesn't look, smell or talk like the PC liberal actors and con artists that politicians tend to be (in the opinion of MANY Americans) is just helping Trump. Trump INSISTS he is NOT like those.... and millions of Americans love him for it. I think it's more thing that shows how "out of synch" liberals are with the American people.
Discussion about the election in the run-up to the actual election seemed to be more about whether Hillary would win by a good margin or a huge margin, only to then shift to whether she would win by a nose or a good margin, to the shock at the realisation that she'd managed to lose to a complete outsider. Even so, it shouldn't have been a huge surprise because eight years previously she lost the nomination to an all-but unheard of Senator Obama.
It is sad when so much of what is said seems to be doing little more than trying to undermine someone. Someone mentioned further up in the thread about how Trump lacks experience of the process of getting things through Congress. To an extent it seems reasonable that legislation should be a matter of thrashing through issues and potentially reaching compromises but the concept of incorporating things into a piece of legislation to effectively throw a few bones to one of your own guys seems like part of the whole "drain the swamp" issue that Trump promised to address.
