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I think we need to better understand how many Americans simply weren’t paying much attention to Trump’s alarming rhetoric and campaign promises and how many were completely disillusioned and distrustful with our politics overall and either stayed home or cast a protest vote against the status quo.

Speaking to people in Germany, it is clear that support for the AfD can not just be read as some form of protest vote, even if there is frustration with the parties that have traditionally governed Germany.

In total, Trump and his campaign were, in many ways, a default option, a national protest vote and an authoritarian “populist” rejection of the status quo.

"This was a massive protest vote," believes Sorin Ionita of the Expert Forum in Bucharest.

One plausible way to read this election is as a protest vote against the Democrats as the incumbent party, reflecting a broad feeling that the country is headed in the wrong direction and something must change on a fundamental level.