[stayed]

Nice Rodney King impersonation Limitless.  Somehow you manage to once again, post a non offensive comment, explaining and rationalizing why you didn't do your homework on your next PRESIDENT.  Instead, like 46% of the population, you stood above the FRAY and let others do the dirty work.  As much as I disagree with what OP and his wife to be have DONE... at least they stand up and take ownership of their actions.  Instead, you just couldn't be bothered, so you simply wrote in a suggestion.  Nice. 

As one of the few women managers in the company you work for, who you have often told me is one of the most sexist companies ever, you couldn't bring yourself to stand up and actually vote for a woman.  How sad is that?  Somehow, she didn't live up to your view of what a woman president should be, I guess. 

Like so many, you chose to believe that there MUST be something, or all these accusations would not be continuously coming out about her.  Never once did you think to yourself... "that's odd, how come ONLY the democrats emails are being leaked"? or how about, "wow, how could she have done all these things and not be in jail"?  The truth is LIMITLESS, and all you other skeptics... she couldn't have done all the things it was INSINUATED, she had done.  Can you imagine if your reputation in your firm that you have spent the last 30+ years building, was DESTROY by insinuation? 

Of course, that wouldn't happen to you would it, besides, as someone running for president, she SHOULD have been more careful.  Sadly, a man, a white man no matter how orange it is, could stand in front of his adoring fans and just throw out accusations and insinuations willy nilly.  No matter how much the press reported, flashed back, replayed live video of his words and comments, his lies and disgusting insinuations, it was decided that the press was deliberately working against him. 

The press is guilty of one thing for sure.  The press went for SENSATIONALIZATION.  Sensational sells.  I read where CNN and Fox's RATINGS had never been higher.  Their viewership doubled.  Yup Trumps bull$hit kept people watching.  The press is guilty of encouraging it.  The press could have dispelled all the myths and UNTRUTHS being said about Hilary in a couple of good documentaries... BUT by encouraging this DEBAUCLE, their viewership increased. 

You were all well played.  Now, the media will enjoy showing you how much Trumps words have encouraged brave WHITE men and their adorable and deplorable PUSSIES, (pardon me, but white women who are proud to be deplorable adorables or vise versa, apparently they don't mind being called PUSSIES, their votes indicated that), to grab women by the privates, whenever they please.  Beat up gays.  Taunt blacks.  Say whatever they want to a woman, anybody of colour and all faiths, accept the saintly Christians, the one and only true faith. 

As for the Brexit thing, you did the same thing, only of course you were not nearly as UP FRONT ABOUT IT.  Kind of like your children, who politely interrupt whenever they want your attention, by grabbing your arm and politely shouting... EXCUSE ME M'AM, excuse me!  Ah yes, politely said, just as rude and just as wrong.

Sorry Limitless, but how long are you going to "bottle up" your anger and hostility?  Wouldn't want to OFFEND anybody would we?

A plague has been released into our midst.  Somehow  I doubt you will find your life IMPROVED OP, unless you are prepared to WORK like those PESKY immigrants.  Ah wait, you shouldn't have to, should you... you are white!

Stayed

[calamity]

Okay 1trouble, I'll give you Brexit.  I'm probably just upset that my birth certificate will no longer give me access to the continent--cheap, good wine?  And trade deals have not benefited the working class so far--the opposite in fact.  The one good point Trump had was attacking NAFTA; I doubt that will translate into any action.

[kikki]

The land I live in and grew up in, is a land of people who look from afar at the rest of the world.

We are all immigrants.  Brave humans who first came in boats, hundreds of years ago.

Then more brave people in larger boats, over the past 150 years. Ships back and forth to the UK were known as 'Home Boats' as recently as 40 years ago, to a significant proportion of the population.

People now of course arrive by plane.

We look outwards.  We always have.  It tends to come with the territory of being a small nation at the bottom of the planet.  We are grateful that we live in the land that we do. It's far from perfect but we were the first country in the world to give women the vote, and we now have had two female Prime Ministers.
Government financial settlements have been a significant feature of our race relations and politics since 1975,  seeking redress for breaches by the Crown to the indigenous people. A contentious area, but one that has not been brushed under the carpet. 

Experiencing what I have experienced in recent years, it saddened me to have to navigate for the first time misogynistic court systems.  It's apparently acceptable in this country for women to be financially wrung out and left 'holding the baby' while the men can continue to prosper and walk away.  Women can do anything, after all. 

Situations trigger me that simply did not affect me before.  The misogyny of certain parts of an online forum was too much some years ago.  The locker room talk with the excuse of 'this is how men talk'.  No it's not.  I have three sons. Your country has proven it's far more overtly misogynistic than mine. 

The fact that a nation could vote in a leader such as Trump, speaks of the fact that many people simply have not experienced what we all have experienced as women. Most people seem to have no empathy for other's experiences unless they have experienced it and it affects them directly.  The fact that many women chose to vote for him astounds me even more. 

Re Brexit - As part of the commonwealth, our ties and loyalty to Britain were enormous. Our trade deals funded significant parts of our economy. The UK affiliation with the EU changed all that.  As a country we were dismissed and the hurt from the apparent lack of loyalty lingered for many, especially the older generations who had fought for King and Country.

The younger generations know nothing of that and their kinship is with other nations.  They believe we should become a Republic. The right of passage for every youngster, the great OE (overseas experience) is no longer a given. Our ability to live and work on a holiday visa in the UK also changed with the EU.  So I hear you Calamity on losing those passport privileges.

I have the right to live in the UK due to a British born Grandfather, but my children do not have that right.

Immigrants from the UK continue to arrive here in droves. I'm happy about that - best sense of humour, ever. Plus immigrants from multiple asian and polynesian nations.  This brings a unique and interesting blend of people but is causing our own housing crisis.  We simply cannot keep up with the demand and the cost of living has risen exponentially.

Re the media - During my travels, it was a great shock to me to see how insular the US media was and possibly still is.  As a land of many immigrants, it surprised me that international news was not given much of a platform. I can see how it would surprise many US citizens that the US elections affect the rest of the world, but they do.  All actions have an equal and opposite reaction, and the ripples reach far and wide.

Our dollar dropped immediately when the Presidency was announced, and the financial markets reacted with instability too.

We all know that monopolies of any kind become corrupt.  Global business controls the media and therefore Mass media outlets are no longer reputable. 

'Six Mammoth Media Corporations Produce About 90 Percent Of The Media That Americans read, watch and listen to'. It is an illusion that you have choice.

Reporters without borders 2016 ranked the USA 41st on the World Press Freedom Index. The UK 38th.

This ranking is primarily due to the limited diversity in media ownership.

It reflects the degree of freedom that journalists, news organizations, and netizens enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom. Reporters Without Borders is careful to note that the index only deals with press freedom and does not measure the quality of journalism nor does it look at human rights violations in general.[2]


https://rsf.org/en/ranking



From where I'm sitting and what I am observing - to choose to place a man who is capable of such overtly misogynistic and racist remarks is not one but multiple steps back to the dark ages. 

The role of President is a complex one.  Not least, this person represents your nation and should have the personality and capabilities to navigate the unique challenges that will be placed in his/her path.

Trump is now the US figurehead (a scary yet ludicrous figurehead) and he looks to many around the globe to be temperamentally unsound for the role.

[karmirtsaghik]

Stayed,

I voted for HC, but not because she was a woman, or more qualified or experienced than her opponent, but because Trump's rethoric is just outright impossible to digest with or without HC being his opponent.
 Unlike you, I do not have a very good opinion of HC and her policies. I also think that one should not place her/his vote based on anatomy. I for one thing would be extremely offended if I would get a job, for example, based on my gender. I would prefer to get the job because I am the best qualified candidate. This woman card was played a lot in the Democratic primaries, where Madlenne Albright, and other HC surrogates were telling people that if you do not vote for HC, you are against women. It is wrong.

1. One cannot say that she is the to be a champion of middle class, working people while being paid $600.000 to deliver two lectures to the executives of Goldmann Sachs, the bank that was heavily implicated for its role in the financial crisis. As of today the exact content of these lectures are not disclosed. We should not rely on Assange to tell us what is going on with our politicians.

2. One cannot say that she is for fair and equitable settlement of Middle Eastern conflicts while the foundation that is headed by her husband accepts millions of dollars of donations from the most despotic and totalitarian regimes on this planet, ex. Saudi Arabia, which is the largest financier of ISIS and other terrorist groups.

3. One cannot precipitate Syrian conflict and then say that she is the best qualified person to solve it. Her foreign policies are the continuation of neo conservative agenda, whereas CIS engineers regime changes in foreign countries, engages in proxy wars, and calls it a democratic revolution, or fight for human rights. America and its allies should apologize to the people of Middle East and pay hefty restituion to the people of Iraq. That will be a responsible foreign policy, something that both JWB and Obama's administrations fail miserably at. And HC is part of that agenda. One cannot engage in bombing Lybia to oblivion and then tell people that we need more overt operations to unroot ISIS, which was created and strenghtened by the US illegal and immoral invasion to Iraq.

4. One cannot have the leadership of Democratic Party manipulate information and dislose otherwise confidential information in order to get leverage over opponent in primaries, and then play a woman card. If you want a nomination, then fight fair and square. People's issues with HC are not because she is a woman, and they try to beat her down, it is because she has lots of issues that compromise her trustworthiness and likability. She is not poor HC who is picked upon.

5. You cannot say that you are a candiate from Democratic party, while hardly accepting the premise of minimal living wage. It is not what her corporate financiers want.

Few years ago the Atlantic magazine published a ground breaking article, "Why women still can't have it all" the author of the article was Anne-Marie Slaughter, the outgoing Director of Policy under HC in State Department, very accomplished woman in her own right. The article was covering the difficulties for women who want to have a meaningful family live and a career, and explaining the falacies of some feministic ideals, that put too much pressure on women, without proper support system. HC was asked what she thought about the article, and her reply was that she saw whining in it and that there were lots of people who do it. Then she added that, of course having money helps. I was astonished to read that kind of reaction from the woman, who is heading a Government agency in the country where there is no mandatory maternity leave and 6 weeks old babies are raised in the daycare. So it told me that HC even though she is a woman she does not get a plight of women in this country.

HC lost not because people picked on her gender, or put her under higher scrutiny. She lost, because democratic party and its leadership lost touch with the people they were supposed to represent, calling them basket of deplorables, instead of engaging with them. For two years now we read that in Flint Michigan (a major battleground state, btw) the water is tainted with lead, which makes the kids sick and it affects the entire citiy, i.e. major disaster. How many times HC went there to shake hands with this people, to tell them what are her actions to solve the problem? Zero. Obama went there only once, and nothing has been done ever since.  It is in the USA, not some developing country we are talking about.

One cannot win Presidential elections by trying to appeal to well-educated liberal elites, and belittling a considerable portion of your electorate. Time for mirror work in Democratic party. Luckily there are other smart, educated and capable women to be proud of, e.g. Elisabeth Warren, senator Tulsi, senator Davis, etc.

[Velika]

Kikki, I agree with you. Most Trump supporters have more in common with women, Muslims, immigrants (legal or illegal), and LGBT community than they do with Trump. Until they recognize this they will remain powerless.

The U.S. should be looking to Asian cities as a model for reenvisioning America, with populations concentrated in urban areas, extensive rail systems, and urban infrastructure for the 21st century. The "American dream" of big home and cars is, I believe, a lonely one.

Many people do not realize what it is like to live in a progressive middle class metropolis. I actually believe much of the discontent of many Americans has to do with isolation that comes from living in suburbs where you must drive everywhere. People become disconnected from their communities and from one another. It's no coincidence that the mostly densely populated urban areas are often the most innovative and progressive.

[osb]

Actually, economically, you do need immigrants. Neither the US nor the UK (nor Canada) have birth rates sufficient to support their current rates of economic growth. Never mind who's going to fund the next generation of pensions etc. And who's going to do the dirty jobs. So sans immigration, you get short term inflation, and long term stagnation. Since the world has no shortage of people, this is an easy problem to solve... or is it? If your answer is "ok you can bring in more people, but only people that look like me", then that reveals a lot. If your answer is "all those people that don't look like me are the reason I'm not getting ahead in life", then that reveals even more.

Both US and UK seem to suffer from Pottery Barn syndrome - you broke it, you bought it. My ancestors might opine, "The British came and sat about in our living room for 300 years, so now we have a right to go sit in theirs." To me, that sounds fair! The Middle East busted up by the Sykes-Picot agreement. Post WWII, American interventionalism in Asia and the Middle East. It's a long list. Well, refugees and immigrants from those countries have now lived in your country for up to three generations. You can't ask them to go home. They are home. And they're no less children of your soil than you are.

There are economic arguments to be made for one policy or another. But when these economic arguments start including "But it's the fault of the immigrants!", then I stop listening seriously. That's scapegoating.

[honour]

]The UK is allowed to control who goes into the UK.

This statement is factually incorrect. If you have an EU passport you cannot be denied entry to the UK. Currently, under EU law the UK cannot limit the numbers of EU citizens entering the UK.

But the people did not go and get the facts, not in the US and not in England. You believed the xenophobic slogans and ignored the facts,

Many of us took a great deal of time and energy to research the EU, to dig deep into its history, its origins, what it wants to achieve and how it wants to do it. We did not just follow slogans. 1trouble's posts regarding the EU have been razor sharp, incisive and get right to the heart of the matter and I concur with 1trouble on every point.

Re Brexit - As part of the commonwealth, our ties and loyalty to Britain were enormous. Our trade deals funded significant parts of our economy. The UK affiliation with the EU changed all that.  As a country we were dismissed and the hurt from the apparent lack of loyalty lingered for many, especially the older generations who had fought for King and Country.

Many, many of us in this country (as you now know following the referendum, the majority) have never been happy about that situation. It has taken us many years to get a referendum on the matter, and finally, when on 23rd June we had the chance to speak, the right decision was made and we voted to leave the undemocratic political construction known as the EU. I hope we can now do something to salve the hurt felt by our relatives and friends in the commonwealth.

[bookwrmmom]

It has been appalling to me in this past week how people have treated others due to the two despicable "choices" we in the US were given. Sadly as I am catching up here I see more of the same. Let's be clear here that being found not guilty (Hilary) does not equate innocence.

She was guilty as hell, and got away with it. Lucky her, just as her husband got away with his BS when he was president. I am entitled to say that because I voted for him back then. I voted for him because I couldn't stand the other "choice" that we were given for president. Not voting for Hilary for most of the MILLIONS of citizens here had not a single damn thing with race, with women's rights/values, LGBT, or many of the many other FALSE accusations that have been slung from the loving and progressive liberal folks that supported her. It had to do with the criminal activity that she got away with. Then instead of owning her mess, she lied to the world. She made a HUGE and arrogant error that any lower level government employee knows better then. Yet according to her supporters she should now be trusted with even more of our national security.

I am a woman, who would have loved absolutely nothing better then to have had a awesome woman candidate to give my whole hearted support to. A woman who possibly had not been coddled her entire life. A woman who possibly had experienced some real hardship or struggle in her life. A woman who possibly has had to worry about finances at SOME point in her life. Even if it a woman's had never faced any of these struggles, then at least a woman who had not so blatantly and flagrantly misused her position to break the rules and risk our country's security. I am a woman who has faced abuse. Sexual, emotional, and more.

I am an unaffiliated registered voter, and have NEVER voted along party lines. I have always voted for a split ticket based off of who I thought was the better candidate. In this presidential race there was not a better candidate. In the earlier days of the election, there WERE better candidates but they were shut out. The Democrats made a huge error in judgement when they selected Hilary. Why they thought they could shove another Clinton down our throats shows how out of touch they are with huge swaths of Americans.
I could really go on, and on but let me say this:

I love black people.
I love gay people (my niece is married to a woman).
I love Mexican people (my child is half Mexican).
I am all about woman succeeding.
I am not anti-Muslim.
And the list can go on and on and on.

I didn't "throw" my vote away. I voted AGAINST Hilary. I am not uneducated, I am not ignorant, and I wish so much our "choices" had been better.

[elray]

Good, educated citizens looked at the brexit referendum and the American presidential election and came to their positions based on their unique experiences and perspective.

Why is that so hard to accept?  It's called cognitive dissonance.  We've  done a fantastic job demonstrating it.  Here's a pretty good explanation.

http://blog.dilbert.com

[evas]

I keep going back to the wise words of Desmond Tutu: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

At the end of the day, I believe anyone who cast their vote for Trump has sided with the wrong administration. By voting for a hateful misogynist, racist, xenophobic man with no political experience, you have chosen to align yourself with a leader with those values. Not to mention climate change and Trump's trying to find the quickest way out of the Paris agreement. All of this will have serious repercussions in the rest of the world. Also, I'm sure by now we have all seen and/or heard about Day 1 in Trump's America where children of immigrants and people of color are being openly bullied and humiliated.

I'm not interested in excusing people for voting for a clown.