Make America great again!!!

Barack Obama is acknowledged Democrats and a lot of Republicans as having done a good job in taking over the reins in early 2009 at a time when the U.S. economy was on the precipice of financial oblivion from the GFC.  Most Americans now recognize that Neoconservatives (Rumsfeld, Chaney, G W Bush, Wolfowitz 'et al') swallowed bin Laden's bait and "we're going to get square" by retaliating with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "that upset the locals".  Meanwhile the Bush led Republican Govt abrogated its responsibilities to the domestic economy, in particular ignoring probity required within the financial framework.  The Republican Govt's complete absence at the ‘home front’ of economic management in the early 2000s, enabled shoddy lending practices (mortgage brokers writing and parceling up NINJA housing loans (No Income, No Job, No Assets) - often non-recourse against the mortgagee - the primary cause of the GFC in the USA when the US housing market collapsed in 2007 initially with some types of Sub-'Prime Rate' Loans (housing loans at higher interest rates to applicants with low credit ratings) going into default. 

How could mortgage brokers working for mortgage lenders (New Century Financial Corp, Accredited Home Lenders Holding, DR Horton and Countrywide Financial 'et al') write sub-prime housing loans?  Because mortgage lenders sold large and lots of portfolios of these subprime housing loans to insurance companies, local councils, super funds (within and beyond the USA).  Wingecarribee Shire Council, on the New South Wales south coast, ultimately posted a loss of more than $2.5 million from the sale of shares in the US subprime market.  The council says it blames its former financial advisers, Lehman Brothers Australia, for the loss.  These dodgy portfolios that comprised Asset Backed Securities (Collateralized Debt Obligations) were sold under the sanitized label of 'securitization'.  Mortgage lenders asserted that they were AAA rated by S&P.

J.P. Morgan developed value at risk and credit default swaps (synthetics); later misused tragically by other companies.

None of the financial services regulators in the USA were bothered about the rapid escalation of 'mortgage brokers'.  Rather, the opposite occurred, as governments, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and other financial markets regulators, basked in the rapid rise in real estate.

When the US property market, that had been propped up by falling/zero interest rates finally collapsed in 2007, the rating agencies (S&P, Fitch and Moody's) took a few paces backwards and said, "Whoops we got that one wrong".  We are just rating agencies paid by the party wanting a rating.  We are not guarantors or credit wrappers."  When mortgagors sought to seek loan repayment from mortgagees, non-recourse housing loan arrangement due to anti-deficiency statutes in 12 USA states negated pursuing the other assets of mortgagors which further spiraled downwards property prices:

             Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington

Nearly all of the population hurt, particularly those who had a commercial business (butchers, bakers and candlestick makers), that couldn't find other Americans with any money to buy their products.  Property prices plummeted.  Unemployment rose sharply as did suicides.  Notwithstanding, Barak Obama's consensus style "steadying the ship", the GFC caused a lot of Americans to lose confidence in the political process.  They wanted something else.  Donald Trump offered it.  "I will bring back jobs."

Hillary Clinton's decision not to rely on State Department email servers for her work correspondence proved terminal.  FBI director, James Comey, decision to re-visit "at the death" was costly.  Hillary's decision was no doubt influenced by Julian Assange Wikileaks founder and Edward Snowden disclosing classified information to Wikipedia.  But voters didn't see it that way.

Right-wing Populism in the Midwest (now burdened by greater private sector debt) for a slogan 'We will make America great again' from a successful business with no political pedigree, coupled with anti-establishment feelings, got Trump over the line first on Tuesday, Nov 8.  Donald Trump had defied all expectations from the very start of his presidential campaign more than a year earlier when he was "a 100 to one" odds.