Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in the US presidential elections is a warning to the west, Dutch newspapers said on Wednesday.

‘With Donald trump’s unexpected victory, the United States is in the grip of white discontent,’ writes America correspondent Michael Persson in an analysis in the Volkskrant.

The question is whether Trump will actually listen to the grievances of his voters. Earlier promises about a minimum wage, higher taxes for the rich and investment in a crumbling infrastructure have all faded into the background, he writes.

Persson thinks the wall to keep Mexican immigrants out is unlikely to be built but ‘deportations of illegal immigrants will cover the United States with a blanket of inhumanity’.

Trump’s victory, he says, ‘has given legitimacy to the hate for everything that it “other’”. Rudy Giuliani, the man who wanted to lock up Hillary Clinton, will be the hard-as-nails minister of law and order and journalists, too, will become a target: the new president said he would sue anyone who criticises him.’

According to David van Reybrouck in the Correspondent, ‘the world has become a more insecure place. This not only an electoral earthquake but also a geo political one and as the aftershocks rock the world the maps of decades-old alliances will be re-drawn,’ he writes.

Europe

The election of Donald Trump ‘may even herald the end of the European Union: right-wing Europhobe populists are aching to further weaken the Union,’ he writes.

Van Reybrouck says Trump’s success is due to the ‘growing educational gap in our society. Populists appeal to the less educated, the masses who feel abandoned by the members of the established political elite who are closer to the world of business than the trailer park. They are taking their revenge for the growing inequality.’

Anger

‘The victory of grey-haired, forgotten, angry America,’ is the headline in the NRC. ‘Trump knew where his electorate was. He went to all but deserted mining towns, to former industrial cities and to farming communities with an ageing population appealing to their anger, suspicion and hatred of immigrants,’ the paper said.

The economic and social fall-out will be considerable as well, the paper predicts. ‘Trump has already declared his opposition to international deals about climate change, free trade agreements, Obama care and immigration reform. But it is not at all certain that the Republicans will go along with everything Trump wants. His campaign in the lasts few months was as much against his own party as against Clinton.’

We told you so

Shock blog Geen Stijl has a good gloat about the inaccuracy of the polls. ‘We don’t like to say we told you so. But we will now: we told you so. They didn’t see Geen Peil coming, they didn’t see Brexit coming and Trump wasn’t going to win. Let the Trumpocalypse of the Deplorables begin.’

The Telegraaf looks at new First Lady to be Melania Trump, who, the paper writes, ‘boasted an impressive career as a model and is the brains behind her own jewellery and fashion line.’