So I woke up late this morning and had actually forgotten about the American election until I checked the BTC price at around 10.00, which kind of told me the result!
And it turns out that Trump by now has won pretty decisively....
i'm sure this result is something of a shock for many in the US, especially the magnitude of the victory, it looks like the Republicans are going to get full legislative powers by taking control of both houses...
It's easy to be detached from the result here in the UK, but we are still reflecting on what all of this means for us... and TBH the most sensible analysis seems to be that we are not that sure!
Making America Great Again....?
TBH I'm not sure HOW Trump is going to do this?
One of his pledges is border control, so i guess that's one thing, but I'm not 100% convinced that high immigration has a negative impact on the US economy.
Protectionism may well be on the cards, imposing tariffs on imports for example, but that will likely just lead to a trade war.
There's obviously going to be very little scope for public investment, the republican party more generally wouldn't allow this, if anything I'm expecting deregulation and tax cuts, neither of which are likely to help the average American very much in the longer run, neoliberalism just makes it easier for the rich to extract from the poor.
The Elon Musk Factor...
I'm very uncomfortable with this..... the fact that Musk controls X and him and Trump are best buddies, I can see massive censorship by algorithmic stealth setting the agenda rightward on that platform at least.
Pity women's rights...
I really do.... I mean there's now going to be more states passing anti-abortion laws, which means more women with unwanted babies, probably with less state funding to support them, so here we have at least 5 years of more unwanted babies growing up in the worst of conditions.
Relations with Europe....
It's likely Trump will cut funding to Ukraine, that's going to be a huge blow and will give Putin a boost, but does Trump give a toss? He certainly doesn't seem to, and that's going to put more pressure on Europe to fund Ukraine's defence, although maybe that is fair enough.
I guess the truth is America doesn't really see Europe as a priority, it's more focused on Asia.
Final thoughts... more disruption incoming...
I think people voted for Trump because they just wanted something DIFFERENT. They've had 5 years of decline, but that's due to Covid and a global slowdown, it's unlikely that Trump can do anything to reverse this... Neoliberal slash policies aren't going to sort out a cool global economy.
And one thing that's certain is that there's more uncertainty with Trump in power, there is less clarity over what he is actually going to do given that his election campaign was about personality rather than policy.
So there will be more uncertainty, more disruption, but at the end of the day, America's on the descent, so whatever Trump does, it's probably going to change very little in global terms!
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