IN a repudiation not just of the Washington élites but the Republican Party he professes to represent, Donald Trump will be America’s 45th president. His victory over Hilary Clinton is off the Richter scale but political seismologists will have observed pattern in recent earthquakes, great and small.

Brexit was the big one. A majority of British voters dismissed the warnings of experts and voted to leave the EU, rejecting its ideology, its structures and its preference for globalism over locally lived experience. (Remoaners and other mischievous metropolitan luvvies would be well advised to think twice before trying to frustrate the democratic will.)

The election of 500/1 outsider Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2015 was another seismic event. The party preferred to write its own suicide note than tolerate as next leader one of the professional pragmatists (Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall) expecting to inherit Ed Miliband’s mantle. Presumably the membership felt that even if they were demoting their organisation from party to pressure group, at least it was their pressure group.

The 2014 independence referendum, another tectonic wobble, shares something with the US election: a large proportion of the 45 per cent who voted Yes felt they had nothing to lose, felt that the Westminster establishment had no interest in their problems. Blue-collar America just sent the same message to Washington. Politics will never be the same again.

Although it lost the 2014 vote, the SNP continues, for the moment, to be the beneficiary of this discontent. But for how long? Mr Trump may turn his country around; the Prime Minister may do the same for Britain. Theresa May is certainly a more sophisticated operator, and not just than the next President: unlike Nicola Sturgeon, Ms May refrained from uttering a negative word about Donald Trump during the campaign. No doubt the First Minister will be preparing to swallow her recent bile and thinking of ways to suck up to President Trump.

Martin Ketterer,

Sandringham Court, Newton Mearns.

AS I write this to you, at 7.25am on Wednesday morning (November 9), it looks as if Donald Trump will shortly become the new President of the United States of America.

This is post the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, which did not yield the result which the SNP and much of the Scottish press and media wanted; post the UK General Election in 2015, which did not yield the result which many of the British electorate wanted, especially the Labour Party and its supporters; post the European referendum in 2016, which did not yield the result which much of the British public wanted and the British press and media; is there not a similarity here? Great Britain is a great democracy, the United States is a great democracy - and that's why we are getting these results. Results which the press, the media, the establishment do not wish, do not wish to recognise, and therefore do not wish to accept.

Instead of filling the airwaves, television screens, and newspapers with so-called experts, surely we should be listening to and discussing with, much more – "the people". If we live in these great democracies, the process has worked – obviously in many cases against the wishes of the pundits and the establishments – and some listening and eating of humble pie might lead to a society, wherever it may be, which serves the majority well, and puts the onus on the successful governments to live up to their promises and spin, and correctly puts the outsiders such as the ruling establishments and media forces back to where they belong: as commentators in second place, the correct pecking order.

Walter Paul,

69 Coplaw Street, Glasgow.

I WONDER if future generations of historians will look back on 2016 as the year when the established patterns of western democracy reached the tipping point and began to disintegrate, as many previous once-powerful empires have done over the centuries?

Earlier this year 17 million British people put their own jobs and the country’s economy at risk by voting to leave the European Union and lose the trading and other arrangements which are of great mutual benefit. The EU itself has now gone far beyond its original concept, bringing in many of the smaller East European nations formerly part of the USSR, and has become a centralised and bureaucratic monstrosity.

Now the people of America have astonishingly chosen as their leader a man with no previous political, diplomatic or administrative experience, who has continuously made the most bizarre statements and promises during the election campaign. Even more worrying, Donald Trump is now also commander-in-chief of the world’s largest military forces and has ultimate control of the nuclear button. That is a frightening prospect for the United States and the whole of the free world.

Elsewhere terrorist organisations dominate large parts of the Middle East and are engaged in several brutal internal conflicts, most originally caused by US and British interference. These wars have now destabilised the whole area, causing millions of people to flee their homes and become refugees seeking safety in other countries.

We live in very unstable and dangerous times, and yesterday’s US Presidential result does not fill me with renewed confidence about the future. Is there a silver lining somewhere? I hope so, but at the moment I can’t see it.

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.

IT started with George W Bush throwing away the balanced budget he inherited from Bill Clinton, then 9/11 pulled the pin on the grenade whose shrapnel created the Iraq war, Tony Blair's disastrous decision to join up and the Global Crash of 2008.

Now, after the collapse of Labour, the Scottish independence referendum, Brexit, Donald Trump and with the prospect of future upsets in the French and German elections it seems western civilisation is going through a transition similar to that of a crab changing its shell, a period of maximum vulnerability to predators.

In our case these are military, economic, cultural and political.

For those of us whose parents spent six horrible years fighting for their country and bought us up in a golden period of opportunity shot through with the fears of the Cold War, the prospect of war in Europe, fuelled by a resurgent Russia riding a wave of nationalism and "success" in Syria, is real and frightening.

Two weeks ago the Lithuanian government issued booklets to all its citizens giving advice on what do to in the event of Russian invasion and Nato has started to mend its eastern defences.

It seems many voters are ignorant of, or forget, post-war history and perhaps we need to go through four years of the reality that Brexit, Mr Trump, and Russian provocation may bring. Hopefully we will come out of it in better shape than we went in.

When I think of how an independent Scotland may have fared in this situation, I thank God I am still a citizen of the UK, a country which has, for 950 years , successfully steered an often tortuous course through domestic and international upheavals without invasion. We are about to be tested again.

Allan Sutherland,

1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.

WITH the UK and the United States, once separated by a common language, now united around a redneck, suddenly Scottish independence within Europe seems the lesser of many, many evils.

John Elder,

Howden Hall Road, Edinburgh.

JUST how destructive the very public endorsement of Hillary Clinton by both Nicola Sturgeon and Hillary Clinton prove to be on the tourism dollar is an unknown. But maybe these local politicians should concentrate on their responsibilities like education, health and jobs and less on self-promotion as the statesmen they aspire to be. Donald Trump won in the American rust belt. We have our own rust belt - most of the central belt in fact. And we romanticise it (Bathgate no more).

With 30 per cent Scottish child poverty, the effort of our elected representatives should be less on grandstanding and nationalism and should focus on job creation. And we could make a start with not being so pious about fracking. We are in no position to turn down 2,000 jobs.

John Dunlop,

9 Birnam Crescent, Bearsden.

THE voters of the United States have democratically made their decision and must be respected for it, but it is worth remembering that the man they have just chosen to be their 45th President is the same man Nicola Sturgeon removed from a list of Scottish business ambassadors. Scotland pointed the way; in the years to come, America may wish they'd followed it.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

WHY are most of the leaders of the Scottish political parties trying their best to aggravate Donald Trump? Where is the sense in saying to the most important leader in the world that we're sorry you were elected?

It's bad enough that Nicola Sturgeon has had frequent previous attacks on Mr Trump but for Ruth Davidson and Kezia Dugdale to join in is even worse. Patrick Harvie has adopted an even more aggressive anti-Trump position and this despite the fact that his Green Party regards Hamas as legitimate. These politicians are not doing Scotland's reputation any good. This is not what we expect from diplomacy (especially towards a friendly state).

Dr Gerald Edwards,

Broom Road, Glasgow.

THERESA May and Trump reference the working class and in doing so appear at least to show respect. Social Democrats of all stripes, in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, treat the term as a dirty word. As long as they do the nightmare of Brexit and Trump is set to continue.

Bill Ramsay,

84 Albert Avenue, Glasgow.

God help America. And God help the rest of us.

AM Crozier,

47 St Andrew's Crescent,

Dumbarton.

THE American people have spoken and with Donald Trump President-elect the rest of us can only wait and hope for the best.

But that's the White House off my Christmas card list.

R Russell Smith,

96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.

POLITICAL correctness – you're fired.

Michael Watson,

74 Wardlaw Avenue, Rutherglen.