Sorry for kinda bringing this up again, don't want to beat the dead horse here... but given that victory really is against all the early bets, and is something of a miracle given the many missteps Trump did during his campaign, I feel like it is worth opening the discussion again.

Trump is one of the two candidates - now what?

1. What do you think are his chances against Hillary, which seems to be not very popular even with democrats voters? Given how everyone thought he would never make it to become the republican candidate, might he once again suprise everyone?

2. There is now a good chance the next US president is Trump. What are the consequenses?

Might he be able to make the US loose their last arabic ally, the Sauds? Is he able to mend the relationship with israel which have worsened under Obama? Or will he make everything worse again?

Will he meddle in other foreign topics he should rather not touch, like the TTIP discussions with the EU? Might China and Russia have free trade agreements with the EU before the US thanks to that?

3. He made a lot of promises, some of which are quite outlandish. And I think he has shown that while he is quick to promise money, he never really pays out of his own pocket. Will he realize all he has promised?

What about the wall to mexico? What about throwing the muslims out of the country (or not letting them in anymore at least)?

And who will pay for these sometimes outlandish ideas? Will the cost of these projects cost him the second term?

Or will he rudder back on his promises, and that costs him his second term?

4. What about the current racial unrest thanks to shootings of blacks by the police, and police officers now getting attacked?

You think this will still be going on by the time Trump might get into office? Given his racist comments and the reaction of some black folks to them, do you think he will make things worse?

I think, given how much is at stake and the least EVERYONE around the globe needs now is another authocratic or unstable regime, this are all important questions to ask. I am not sure myself if Trump is just as bad as some people make it look like. Then again, Erdogan started as a normal, elected president. People were just concerned about him being a little bit conservative.

Now just look at him and his schemes...

So really, I am asking myself if we need another politician that might turn out to be a wolf in a sheeps clothing. Is Trump that? I don't know. But I personally wouldn't want to risk anything at the moment.

Disclaimer: No, I personally also wouldn't want to vote for Hillary. Don't think she is a good candidate.

Seeing his rise and seeing how stupid he sounds my bet is the next steps are

- He kills a mexican on TV, forces the guy's wife to eat him dead, now the democrats also push him as their candidate, he's against himself for the élections!

- He announces that the solution to world hunger is Killing half the world population, all of the american continent immediately joins the USA and offers half of their population as tribute, they agree to their minimum wage being 1/10th of what "first tier" americans get.

- He proclaims himself great emperor of the world while he only leads the americas, immediately putin says "it's a great idea!" and federates russia with him.

- European union issues continues, europe can not figure out if we should first split and join individually with trump or if we should join him as a group, this is stalling europe and china manages to surrender to trump, their government issues the following statement "trump said we're dirty communistic dumbasses, we thank him for his kind word and submit to our great overlord".

No seriously, with how good his popularity is regardless of what shit he does, it doesn't even seem that . . . far . . . off . . .

As a black male who lived in the south, Tennessee specifically , for 8 years, it doesn't surprise me. There is a lot of small town "good ole fashioned white supremacy" there. A lot of the bigoted people that I met there are cheering for trump, and a lot of the closeted bigots are coming out in strides. I've been hitting the unfriend list on social media as fast as physically possible as of late. Realistically speaking, he has little to know chance of winning. While the republican party has the Senate in a death grip from gerrymandering for the past 8+ years, Democrats tend to have a high chance of winning the presidency. Currently analysts believe that hillary has a 74% chance of winning. Still hoping that a hail mary pass is thrown and either Obama gets another 4 years, or the ghost of Abraham Lincoln breaks out of his casket to show the U.S what the Republican party is supposed to look like.

Running for presidency will be a different ballgame now since it's all now about charming the entire America, rather than a specific party. Back then, he could say outlandish things like kick the Muslims out, but I predict that he would probably start embracing the Hispanics, the Muslims, and so on. That he "loves Muslims", that Muslims are "some of the wonderful people he has ever met", and so on and so on.

Expect the Democrats accusing him of hypocrisy. Expect Trump to weasel his words around. Expect Hillary to also do the same.

Running for presidency will be a different ballgame now since it's all now about charming the entire America, rather than a specific party. Back then, he could say outlandish things like kick the Muslims out, but I predict that he would probably start embracing the Hispanics, the Muslims, and so on. That he "loves Muslims", that Muslims are "some of the wonderful people he has ever met", and so on and so on.

Expect the Democrats accusing him of hypocrisy. Expect Trump to weasel his words around. Expect Hillary to also do the same.

Well, isn't that kind of the problem?

In the end, he seems to be sane enough to weasel out of ANY mishap he did in the last few months. And Hillary seems to be just as untrustworthy to many.

I guess no matter what analysts say, this battle is far from over. It might be that Trump is the winner when the dust settles, even if only with a small gain over Hillary. What then?

I think the big mistake was to not take him seriously from the beginning. Isn't trying to ease everyones mind by saying he has little to no chance of winning the presidency exactly what might help Trump out the most in the end? Because then people might be less urged to hand in their votes when the day comes for Hillary, "as she will win anyway... analysts give her 74% chance to win".

While at the same time that bad chance to win might give the Trump voters more urgency to hand in their vote.

I mean, he will entertain us more until the election, for sure. What if the joke in the end is not funny at all when he is elected?

1. What do you think are his chances against Hillary, which seems to be not very popular even with democrats voters? Given how everyone thought he would never make it to become the republican candidate, might he once again suprise everyone?

Simpsons already did it! To quote Kang in Treehouse of Horror VII, ironically after eliminating Clinton: Ha ha ha, what are you going to do. You have to elect one of us [Kang or Kodos]. Or you can throw your vote away.

So, seeing how people have to elect someone, I think they might as well elect Trump. He is, despite all, the "more american" candidate.

What are the consequenses? Might he be able to make the US loose their last arabic ally, the Sauds? Is he able to mend the relationship with israel which have worsened under Obama? Or will he make everything worse again?

One has to be realistic about that. The Saudis are not allies, they are enemies. The Saudis know that and already live by it, and to the USA, anyone not-USA is at best a not-immediate enemy anyway, so there are no big surprises ahead. Trump may be more vocal about it, but it's not like that makes a big difference, the Saudis are not stupid.

It may not turn out being such a great time living in the USA if you're Mexican (or any latino) or black, although I believe that the effect will overall be relatively moderate.

First, it's not like the police doesn't already shoot blacks for dubious or non-existent reasons and bludgeons them to death under a democratic administration. So, how much worse can it get, really. Second, and more importantly, the USA urgently need these people. The average fat, lazy American doesn't want to do the work that the starving Mexican will happily do for very little money. Someone has to do the work, though. All propaganda left aside, Trump certainly knows that. You cannot run a country without people who do the work.

TTIP discussions

Most likely. That may however be a good thing (for us, not for the USA). He might overdo it so much that, although the hope is very, very, very small, it's just enough so the last corrupt EU commisioner says -- under massive public pressure -- that and TTIP is off the table for the time being. Which would be the best thing to happen in years. But unluckily, that's probably just a dream.

And who will pay for these sometimes outlandish ideas? Will the cost of these projects cost him the second term?

The American people will pay, obviously. You don't really think Mexico will pay that wall, do you. That's assuming the wall is built at all (though it is already present in the second Machete movie, prophetic...). Will it cost him the second term? Well, let's see. How many politicans who served a second term have kept their promises? Can you name one?

current racial unrest thanks to shootings of blacks by the police, and police officers now getting attacked?

This is a hard to solve issue, and Trump is certainly not going to solve it (but neither will Hillary). There are two very different sides to that same thing. There's the racist thing, and there's the other side.

Police shooting people, and police being attacked is a serious problem. I'm all for police shooting people, and I'm certainly for shooting blacks in the same manner as whites. Not because of their skin color, but because they are criminals who are a threat to innocent people. Being black can as little serve as a reason not to be shot (in fear of instrumentalization) as it can be a reason to be shot.

We had such an upsetting event only two days ago in Germany. An selfmade-IS Afghan severely severely injured people (still uncertain if some will die) in a train with knives and an axe, then got off the train and injured another woman in the nearby town. Police shot him.

Now, in a country where things are right, everybody would say: "Well done, officer. You have prevented other innocent people from being hurt or killed, here is your medal". However, in an ultra-left country like Germany, what an elected representative from the Green Party has to say to that is: "But couldn't you shoot more carefully, so to stop but not kill him", and some totally fucked up social worker has her big five minutes on evening TV: "Oh the poor boy, he was only 17, and he was such a nice person".

Well yeah, the fucker is dead now, shot by the police, and he was only 17. How very sad. But he was also a cynical liar, and someone who just knifed and axed half a dozen people, and he was a present and immediate threat to others, let's just not forget these tiny details. Police didn't shoot an innocent poor underage fugitive. They shot a dangerous criminal who demonstrably lied about fleeing from violence and who made a cynical video about his planned murder spree the day before, and who slaughtered innocent people whom he didn't even know. If you're the one swinging the axe, you definitively aren't a victim. If you are old enough to slaughter people, you are old enough for being shot by the police, too.

Besides, it's not like shooting someone is a lot of fun to the police man who has to do it, no matter whom he is shooting. It's most certainly not a rewarding job to shoot at a human (for someone with a normal psyche, anyway), no matter what kind of a rotten person you're shooting at. But it is definitively "right" given the good circumstances, and it deserves praise, not shame.

On the other hand of course, there are plenty of occasions (much more frequent in the USA) where one might argue that police didn't have all that great motives about bludgeoning or shooting someone, and that it was more related to skin color than to anyhting else. But there's probably also cases where a shooting was well justified, and still all that remains is "Boo! Police shoots blacks". It's hard to tell, sometimes you cannot know for sure.

This whole thing is alltogether extremely convoluted, and something that will always lead to controversy. Getting it right is near impossible. No doubt Trump will be unable to do that, no surprises ahead.

So really, I am asking myself if we need another politician that might turn out to be a wolf in a sheeps clothing.

Well, I consider the new Adolf Hitler in the east who just successfully orchestrated a Reichstag-fire last week the much more serious threat than a crazy American business man with crackpot ideas. Am I the only person in the world worrying that history is repeating itself exactly, to the letter?