US voters chose Trump. Now what?

A depressing but historical moment. Economic consequences of tariff policies and proposed immigration policies are certain to further drive up inflation. At the same time, dramatic deregulation of energy policies and other corporate regulation will pollute and poison our environment for decades to come.

But for the next two years there will be nearly nothing the American electorate can do about any of that. In a democracy, you get the leader you deserve. And it is clear that America deserves Trump and everything he represents. Sadly, the rest of the world will have to suffer the consequences with them. – Ennui

Mad men might come and go but the US of A will march on . . . Four years is a blip in the long arc of history. DJT might spend much of his time playing golf and irking allies. But Vance 2028 promises to be far more “intriguing”, to say the least. Modi, Trump, Orban, Putin, Xi, MBS aided by Musk are the new G7 – Leeds_Lad

Harris running as the “change candidate” and then admitting on live television that she would not do anything differently from Biden was a monumental gaffe that struck at the heart of her campaign. Especially coming at a time when Biden’s approval ratings were awful and a supermajority believed the country was on the wrong track. – Vibius

Kamala Harris’s campaign is widely considered to have been a very good one. It was disciplined and entertaining. Trump on the other hand ran a terrible campaign but he is a known quantity so he got away with a lot. Now the dust is settling and as an American citizen there are a number of questions that may only be answered as they happen.

This election result couldn’t have been prevented. Joe Biden stepped up in 2019 because Trump had been a shockingly bad president, culminating in a catastrophic response to the pandemic. Biden did it because it was imperative Trump was defeated. We have probably paid for that with this election result. – Laura P

The fact is the Democrats wasted the last eight years in failing to address the concerns of the Republican voters. – Swissfondue

It will be interesting to see how Trump enforces some of the policies which he set out during the campaign. For example, deporting eleven million “illegal migrants” will be logistically difficult, resource-intensive and very expensive. Also, taking those people away from the workforce may have inflationary consequences. Is he really going to go ahead with it? – Mancunian

I am a 75-year-old American citizen. In my view, the election yesterday was analogous in its importance to Regan defeating Carter in 1980. Why was Trump elected? The Democrats were on the wrong side of EVERY issue: open borders, the economy, energy policy, transgender politics and DEI, just to name a few.

Who elected Trump? Black people, Latinos, white people with no college degree and men. It wasn’t the one-percenters; it was the people who were affected by all of these misguided policies. Yesterday, democracy was the winner in the US election. God Bless America. Now, more than ever, the world and especially the EU needs Trump’s leadership. – IssacNewton

I’m with Trump on the inflation issue. And not just because economists are usually wrong. He’s going to solve the war in Ukraine, which will then have a knock-on effect of lowering oil and gas prices.

Economists love to think that they solved the 70s inflation problem, but in reality it was a lot of Texans drilling, combined with a reduction of Opec’s monopoly. Same thing about the last bout of inflation: entirely oil, gas and grain prices due to Putin’s war. – A Fund Manager eating humble pie

I fear this means US TSY yields will be higher, and that will drag gilt yields in the UK up. What next? This could be an opportunity for us to attract some of the richer and brighter US people to come and work and live here, via a friendly visa regime. We can use some of the US’s dynamism and “can do” attitude. – F2020

Sadly, Trump’s America is not safe for African Americans. No amount of sugar coating will fix that. Why is every neo-Nazi, fascist, rightwing or any other racist group huge Trump supporters? – RL4

It’s now more urgent than ever that the UK rejoins the EU. This can be the catalyst for a more honest discussion about rejoining the EU. We need to lead things in Europe. How about the formation of a new defence alliance within Nato?

It could stimulate European defence industries instead of most of our defence spending ending up in the US. – Mega Watt

In the end Americans voted for experience. His 2016-2020 term was outstanding. Every day at 5pm during the pandemic he updated Americans on Covid and what America and the world was doing to face and contain the outbreak. It gave Americans the confidence and reassurance that a vaccine would come and we’d emerge better and stronger. People never forgot that in spite of his innumerable personality flaws and deplorable language. Substance over form. He is unbreakable, and people want that in a commander-in-chief. What an election turnout and competition. America IS great again! – CCAR_go