The phrase "épater les bourgeois" might have been invented for this moment

Social media on Trump



Ann Coulter ‏@AnnCoulter 14 Nov 2015
They can wait if they like until next November for the actual balloting, but Donald Trump was elected president tonight.



'This is like Brexit in at least this respect: The morning after, lots of people will be staring into their coffee and wondering how screaming insults at people didn't win them over.'



John Rentoul tweeted:
My fellow members of the metropolitan liberal elite: let's stop insulting the US electorate and try to work out why, shall we?




Derek Turner tweeted:
The phrase "epater les bourgeoisie" might have been invented for this moment

Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn):
How to think about this election: white working class voters just decided to vote like a minority group. They're >40% of the electorate.



Brad Fraser (@fraser_brad):
I suspect this is the natural result of the people who went to university sneering at the people who did not.

Female correspondent from Time magazine:" I went to many Trump rallies and the women there were white, poor, angry and feel like they have been left behind."
BBC journalist: "But what could be more empowering than a female President?

Not expecting the feminists to salivate over a female immigrant from a poor family (father was a car dealer, mother was a pattern cutter) as the new first lady of the USA. That's quite a story. That's history too.

The US election result does not surprise me too much. The campaign circus reminded me very much on the campaign circus that George Bush (junior) went through, in particular with Gore in 1999. The European media had already chosen their favorite - Gore of course - and Bush was mocked as alcoholic, as incapable and incompetent, etc. - on both sides of the Atlantic. It was a deja-vue for me, so is today's result in some way.

During his presidency, Bush had actually once admitted in an interview, that he never believed he would win, because he considered himself as only a likable character and thus not a real match to the intellectual, capable Gore. And I wouldn't be surprised if Trump also never believed in his victory - he even talked about his plans after a potential defeat. It appeared he played the game without fear and spoke straight - too straight for most of us -, and during one of the debates he even complemented Hillary for her toughness. But that what makes him so likable in my opinion.

How racist, homophobic, anti-xxx, etc. Trump is really going to be remains to be observed, perhaps he was only barking. In contrast, Hillary had already demonstrated her readiness to apply aggression and I am relieved she does not get the opportunity to apply it with full powers - that aspect of hers was a real thorn in my eye. I hope Trump will adjust to find the right type of international communication - from what I could observe he adjusted his tone during the campaign. That is a promising type of flexibility that Clinton did not show.

And I am sure some journalist will be expressing my thoughts somewhere, but usually my viewpoint always gets published later than the mainstream talk. I'm wondering why.