What Happened on Election Day? [From Four Clueless Supposed Sages. TM]

1. The Economic Fallout, By PAUL KRUGMAN

It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover?

Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

Under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people in charge of the nation with the world’s most important economy would be very bad news. What makes it especially bad right now, however, is the fundamentally fragile state much of the world is still in, eight years after the great financial crisis.

It’s true that we’ve been adding jobs at a pretty good pace and are quite close to full employment. But we’ve been doing O.K. only thanks to extremely low interest rates. There’s nothing wrong with that per se. But what if something bad happens and the economy needs a boost? The Fed and its counterparts abroad basically have very little room for further rate cuts, and therefore very little ability to respond to adverse events.

Now comes the mother of all adverse effects — and what it brings with it is a regime that will be ignorant of economic policy and hostile to any effort to make it work. Effective fiscal support for the Fed? Not a chance. In fact, you can bet that the Fed will lose its independence, and be bullied by cranks.

So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.

snip

2. All We Arabs Ask, Mr. Trump, Is to Leave Us Alone, By MARWAN BISHARA

Just when the people of the Middle East thought things couldn’t get any worse, Donald J. Trump is elected president of the United States. Now, their apprehension about the president-elect dwarfs their disappointment with President Obama.

It could be a blessing in disguise.

America, in one magic moment, you’ve revealed how you’ve changed. For the worse. Poor you, you feel so insecure, vulnerable and fragile. Like the rest of us.

So, instead of reaching for your famed “can-do” spirit, lifting yourselves up by the bootstraps, you turned to a strident, bellicose type of nationalism. The kind usually associated with strutting generalissimos of Third World nations with their chests covered with made-up, self-awarded medals.

Maybe the people of the Middle East will look and realize that you are no longer the Great Democracy to emulate. That your modern style of empire and your role as keeper of the world order for the world’s own good are stumbling and failing, even in your own eyes; and that we in the Middle East should not be turning to you for rescue.

For as long as I can remember, you’ve been on a self-assigned mission to change the Middle East. Indeed, the world. Now, it seems as if the change has flowed the other way.

You’ve voted to reduce your liberties. To narrow the range of people entitled to justice and equality before the law. To live in a place where the police should not be criticized; where fighting political correctness is more important than fighting racism; where Muslims are suspected and people who appear Hispanic can be rounded up if they’re not carrying their papers.

In this election you’ve revealed that your people — like Russians, Hungarians, Iraqis, Iranians and others whose politics you normally look down on — will choose a narrow, nonsensical nationalist ethos when they feel threatened by uncertainty. Your imperial outreach allowed you to experience other cultures, but now you’ve chosen to shrink your outlook, with the expectation that the world will continue to revolve around you. It won’t.

Like the rest of us, you’re now divided between those who want to make their nation great again alone and those who want to make it great together.

O.K., enough about you; let’s talk about us. We in the Middle East can’t decipher what exactly your incoming president wants from us. I don’t think he knows, either.

Mr. Trump said he would bring back torture and ban Muslims from entering America, and he compared the threat of “radical Islam” to Soviet Communism. He wants less engagement in the region, and fewer “free riders” like the Saudis who don’t pay enough for American protection. And he wants the United States to abandon the costly nation-building in the Middle East.

What nation-building? In Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia, civil wars continue unabated. The Arab and Muslim worlds only hope the United States stops contributing to the destruction. Mr. Trump does not exactly seem concerned for the wishes of Middle Easterners and their right to live in peace. It sounds more like what he really wants to do is pal around with other strutting, authoritarian types. Expect him to cozy up to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and join him in supporting Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
snip

3. Angela Merkel’s Message to Trump, By CAROL GIACOMO

A commitment to human rights has been a fundamental precept of NATO since the alliance was created a half century ago. You would not expect that a founding member would have to be reminded of that fact. Certainly not the United States, for all those years the leader of NATO and an inspirational embodiment of its core values.

Yet this is where we find ourselves now, the day after Donald Trump won the presidency: In congratulating him on his victory, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany felt compelled to set conditions for cooperation.

“Germany and America are connected by values of democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man, independent of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views,” she said in a statement, adding: “I offer the next President of the United States close cooperation on the basis of these values.”

Mr. Trump’s behavior during his campaign was antithetical to those values. He has threatened to ban Muslims from the United States, refuse refugees, deport 11 million undocumented workers and build a wall on the border with Mexico. He has disparaged African Americans, Mexican Americans, women and people with disabilities.

Moreover, Mr. Trump has called into question America’s commitment to NATO and displayed a befuddling penchant for defending Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, who is waging war in eastern Ukraine and destabilizing other parts of Europe by supporting far-right groups.

He received no pushback on Wednesday from Theresa May, the British prime minister, who simply congratulated Mr. Trump on his win. The two leaders’ reactions were further proof that, after Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, we will have to look to Mrs. Merkel not just to lead Europe but to replace America in leading NATO as well.
snip

4. The Example of Ronald Reagan, By GIL TROY

“I am scared that if Ronald Reagan gets into office, we are going to see more of the Ku Klux Klan and a resurgence of the Nazi Party,” Coretta Scott King said in November, 1980. “I’m afraid things are going to blow sky high during this next term,” a nursing student said. He’s a “nitwit,” added a Democrat. “He’s shallow, superficial and frightening,” one of that year’s historic numbers of “undecideds” insisted.

Ronald Reagan “seems not to relish complexity and subtlety,” the New York Times editorial endorsing President Jimmy Carter’s re-election proclaimed. “The problem is not a loose lip but the simple answer.” While fearing what Reagan’s own running mate, George H.W. Bush, had dismissed as Reagan’s “voodoo economics” during their primary fight, the editorial board feared “voodoo diplomacy,” too.

From coast to coast, half of a divided nation abhorred — and underestimated — the president-elect. “The American people,“ Hamilton Jordan, a key Carter aide, said, "are not going to elect a 70-year-old, right-wing, ex-movie actor to be president.”

Pollsters reported in 1980 that “More voters held negative attitudes toward each presidential candidate than in any campaign since polling began” — a record we just broke in 2016. The economic dislocation of galloping inflation and the energy crisis produced a nasty campaign. Feeling neglected by Washington, millions embraced Ronald Reagan’s populism.

Despite the Democratic panic, Ronald Reagan left America richer and safer after two terms as president. Reagan defied expectations by turning toward the center. He acted as president of the United States, not president of the Republican Party. Reagan used the transition period to heal wounds while claiming a broad policy mandate, despite winning only 50.7 percent of the popular vote. He vowed to “rebuild a bipartisan base for American foreign policy.”

His cabinet choices were so moderate that Pat Buchanan, the conservative flamethrower whose rhetorical bluster anticipated the advent of Donald Trump, lamented: “Where is the dash, color, and controversy — the customary concomitants of a Reagan campaign?” Just weeks into Reagan’s first term, conservatives were demanding that his aides had to “Let Reagan be Reagan,” meaning: stop being so reasonable.
snip

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/proj...conomic-fallout