CONSCIOUSLY LIBERAL | Market Response to Trump Win

 

November 9, 2016

Markets were disturbed when it dawned on investors that Trump became the frontrunner for the presidency. The shuffling and rumble were the manifestation of adjustments in market expectation of a Clinton presidency. Paul Krugman, when apparently asked about the markets and its trouble at the time, glibly stated that the markets would be down forever because of the uncertainty and incompetence Trump represents and will reflect in his policies. Although the elections last night were disturbing, has the US market been fundamentally damaged? In the beginning, around 9-10 p.m. ET when Clinton was losing Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Florida, Trump became the favorite to win and uncertainty riveted the markets (the Mexican peso went down, safe-haven investments went up like gold and U.S. Treasury bonds, etc.).

MCEVOY MINUTE | How We Move Forward After Defeat

In the coming days, we will begin to understand the outcome of Tuesday night’s elections and see how Donald Trump triumphed when almost every major news source was predicting a win for Hillary Clinton on Monday. The results are shocking and deeply startling to many people whose personal identities were attacked by Trump throughout his campaign. Processing this outcome will not happen overnight and the fear that he will follow through with his campaign promises rooted in hatred and xenophobia will likely remain throughout the course of his presidency. Trump has shown himself to be a highly unpredictable man and pathological liar, and the fear that I feel for my friends and loved ones in the numerous minority groups that he has shunned, criticized and sworn to further marginalize is deep and very real. For now, though, perhaps the best thing that we can do is to take the time to consider how and why this has happened.

WELCOME TO THE ZOO | 2016 Presidential Election

With an open mind and two sides of the story, you’re bound to learn something new. Welcome to the zoo! This is a blog where both the Republican and Democratic viewpoints are represented. The blog is not meant to sway you either way necessarily, just to present both sides of the story. You may not agree with the whole article, but hey, you’re likely to agree with half!

MCEVOY MINUTE | After a week full of scandal, could Trump still win?

If after this weekend you were left wondering what the state of our political system has come to, you are not alone. After a video was released of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, claiming that he had the right to sexually assault women because he was a celebrity, the Republican Party started falling to pieces. On top of that, Trump tried to brush off his comments as ‘locker room’ talk, failing to  recognize that it is this very ‘boys will be boys’ attitude that perpetuates rape culture and teaches young boys to treat women as sexual objects. Then, during Monday night’s debate, we witnessed one of the most vitriolic displays between two presidential candidates in modern memory, in which Trump and Clinton refused to start off by shaking hands. Social media sites were rife with people voicing their opinions and expressing how appalled they are with this current election cycle.

KRAVITZ’S KORNER | The GOP’s Perilous Gamble on Trump

If there was ever a time for the Republican Party to regret nominating Donald Trump, it would be now. The Washington Post’s release of video tapes that include Trump’s abhorrent remarks about women in 2005 underscore not only his immoral character, but also his weakness as a candidate. And following the second presidential debate, there is little sign that Trump is going to change the tone of his campaign. According to Election Betting Odds, a website that uses political betting markets to compute odds, Trump’s current chance at winning the election hovers at an abysmal 16 percent, down from 26 percent from before the video tapes were released, and down from 36 percent from before the first presidential debate. It’s safe to say that Trump would get crushed if the election were held tomorrow.

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL | Dear Undecided Voter

Dear Undecided Voter,

Hey, I hope you’re doing well.  I am not going to make this too long, because I get it, we’re all busy people.  I just want to have a little chat. This is for all of you citizens out there who still haven’t made the ultimate choice: Trump or Clinton?  You have your different reasons — some of you view yourselves as “independents” and would rather vote third party, some of you are just postponing what you perceive to be a choice between the “lesser of two evils” and some of you just feel so frustrated with our democracy and the way that this presidential election season has unfolded that you aren’t going to vote at all.

CULTURALLY SHOOK | Donald Trump is Actually Kind of Right, For Once

In an interview with ABC this Sunday, Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, likened Donald Trump’s encouragement of Russia to hack into Hillary’s emails to the infamous Watergate scandal. Kaine’s comment was his way of deflecting negative attention off Hillary by pointing out just how much worse Trump is. And it’s true. I hope you don’t need me to tell you this, but Trump really is so much worse than Hillary. That’s why it’ll surprise you to hear that he was actually kind of right.

MOSKOWITZ | How Free is our Press?

On August 22nd, Gawker, a blog that had over 800 million page views in the last year, and posted more than 200,000 articles in its lifetime, was destroyed. Some in the media have argued argue that this came about because of Gawker’s own sins and that Gawker’s posting of “non-journalistic” material such as sex tapes and its public outing of powerful people led to its downfall. Yet I believe the truth is much more complicated and sinister. Gawker was destroyed because a billionaire wanted it destroyed. It was destroyed because an avid Trump supporter and tech billionaire decided that the website had done him too much harm and so he bankrolled a number of lawsuits which eventually made the website impossible to operate.

Nobody’s Opinions | Trump’s Candidacy: Fact, Fiction or Fraud?

Most people have probably imagined being the POTUS at some point. Fewer people have imagined their best friend as president, fewer still their business associate, and most have probably not considered actually running for the office themselves. Consider it from this perspective, though: if you could be reasonably assured that either yourself or your business partner could ascend to the highest office in the land, wouldn’t you put some effort into making that happen? I probably would. More than that, I’d try pretty damn hard to make sure it did.