Harris V Trump - The US Election - The Results

[steve]

Danny
There are 10,000 U.S. Troops currently stationed in Poland they have numerous military installations and a permanent presence of the U.S. Army V Corp.
They are forward deployed and a Russian invasion of Poland would bring them into direct conflict with U.S. forces.

Unless of course the rapist traitor tells them to " stand back and stand by".

[mark61]

Nov 10, 2024 11:36:46 GMT shevii said:

Nov 10, 2024 11:00:11 GMT mark61 said:

I recall when I was a young Lefty activist in the 80's and 90's the beginning of this trend, noticeable in Labour local authorities particularly in London where Man Hole Covers were renamed Person Hole covers and the like or Tower Blocks were renamed after anti apartheid martyrs (some of this was no doubt apocryphal).  I had a friend on a Social History Community Programme in Coventry (remember that?) the remit was to go out to Schools and Care Homes to give talks on Local History. They spent the first six months of the 12 month programme arguing about the format of the publicity leaflet, the burning issue was the border of the leaflet was made up of photos of 'typical' local people and the gender and Racial balance of the photos was the subject of much heated debate. My friend claimed that on the final agreed leaflet out of 10 pictures only one was a white male, but I think he said that to jazz up the Story a bit!  I'm not sure any talks were delivered before the programme expired.

At the time I saw this as tokenism, as a retreat from the real Political fight when our side were getting hammered, When you are in out of Government for a long period of time there is not much you can do that has a real impact on Social and Political Injustice, the Left began the process of talking more to itself, It was difficult doing the stuff that Crossbat and JimJam do talking to Working Class voters when the tide is running against you.  It was more comfortable for the Left to begin talking amongst themselves.  Culture and identity Politics moved up the agenda, redistribution  Social justice was a bit  old hat. 

Culture and Identity Politics  whilst important, have the attraction for the Left that it looks like you are fighting the good Fight and they don't cost much to implement, don't require tax and Spend, but they don't really pose much threat to the Status Quo, Cameron's Govt for instance was happily Socially Liberal. The danger here as The article wb61 references that this becomes a new form of Credentialism where part of the middle and Professional classes hoard virtue and use it to elbow others aside a struggle within the elite masquerading as a struggle against the elite on behalf of the poor and dispossessed. More worrying still it provides fertile ground for the Right to claim this Cultural Elite are in fact the real Elite thus obscuring where the real power lies.

While I don't disagree with the points you make, the article did not even mention "the left"- it was about wealthy "liberals". 

The Democratic party has never been "the left" and while Labour in the 1980's did have an element of renaming things Nelson Mandela Hall or whatever, most of what they were campaigning on were bread and butter issues. It was just they were campaigning on public services at a time when Thatcher had an economic advantage with North Sea Oil and a benign global economy compared to the 1970's. She had enough of a popularity and economic outcome from those things as well as selling the family silver to win over enough voters to keep her in power. 

You can't necessarily pigeonhole people but the defining strand of liberalism is socially liberal/fiscally conservative.  Obviously there are crossovers but the defining strand of the left is to help the poorest in society. In the 1980's this included combating racism and anti Apartheid as well as anti gay sentiments but it was mostly about economic issues such as the miner's strike, unemployment and the damage being done to public services and communities.  Currently "the left" (which certainly does not include the current Labour Party) are doing similar and campaigning on public services and poverty with additional issues such as the genocide in Palestine, global warming and trans rights.

That article as best I could see was a critique of wealthy liberals who simply want to pretend to be good people while protecting their wealth and the neoliberal system that goes with it. I don't think it was criticising Black Lives Matter or Me Too movements, simply that many in those movements were not moving beyond the symptoms and onto the causes.

Fair comment Shevi.  I was a bit Lazy in that post.

[leftieliberal]

Nov 9, 2024 22:26:25 GMT leftieliberal said:

I spent hours trying to persuade US voters to choose Harris not Trump. I know why she lost
There were other reasons, but the quote below is surely significant
But gender did play a role. Time and again, voters, very often women themselves, told me that they just didn’t think that “America is ready for a female president”. People said they couldn’t “see her in the chair” and asked if I “really thought a woman could run the country”. One person memorably told me that she couldn’t vote for Harris because “you don’t see women building skyscrapers”. Sometimes, these people would be persuaded, but more often than not it was a red line. Many conversations would start with positive discussions on policy and then end on Harris and her gender. That is an extraordinary and uncomfortable truth.
Unlike the UK where acceptance of women leaders was fairly uncontroversial, for American women (and I suspect Oliver Hall is talking mainly about white American women) there still seems to be a 'glass ceiling' for American women leaders.

And here is an article from The Independent which helps to explain why men voted for Trump, but it goes much wider than that, pointing at how young boys are socialised is a cause of the problem (in other words our parents f****ed us up). The best way to help women? End the male loneliness epidemic
Boys are socialised from as young as four to reject deep connections in favour of performative masculinity. The result? A breeding ground for misogyny, hate and fascism. Helen Coffey investigates how the negative effects of male loneliness are being felt across every aspect of our society

[steve]

leftieliberal

"Unlike the UK where acceptance of women leaders was fairly uncontroversial, for American women (and I suspect Oliver Hall is talking mainly about white American women) there still seems to be a 'glass ceiling' for American women leaders."

I should point out that Harris won the majority of votes among women and among black women it was a staggering 91%.

But for the third election in a row the majority of white women ( actually the majority of old white women )in every election since 1988 the over 65 age cohort have voted with the most frequency and white women in this age cohort have the highest participation rate of any age and gender cohort.

It's a shame they used it to entrench the theft of younger women's control over their own bodies.

[leftieliberal]

Another good article by John Harris about Trump's victory and the currents that lay underneath it. From Trump’s victory, a simple, inescapable message: many people despise the left
The tumult of social media and rightwing propaganda have successfully cast progressives as one judgmental, ‘woke’ mass
Essentially, people on the Right see people on the Left as one homogenous mass. It's as if on this board there is no difference between steve and Rafwan. On the left, we are aware of the finer divisions that seem to go unnoticed by the equivalents of turk

[turk]

Lefteiliberal

On the left we are aware of the finer divisions that seem to go unnoticed by the equivalents of Turk

Oh I see the left as represented as you say by Steve and Rafwan have a balanced view of those on the right . Even for you that is laughable nonsense and the sad thing is you don’t even realise it , because like them you following the mantra of you can hold any view as long as it’s my view which is prevalent on these pages and in general amongst the left.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nov 10, 2024 9:07:41 GMT steve said:

c-a-r-f-r-e-w
Current trend has the democrats up in 11 of the remaining races they are within 1% in three others and less than 3% behind in three more.
So it's possible to get to 219. 4 look likely republican holds.
The democrats are likely to end up three to five short but not a done deal.

Thanks Steve. I just took a look and it seems as though Republican leads are in 8 districts? So yes, within 1% in three districts, and within 3% in three. Bit nervy in Cali… 

Rep. Leads…
2.7, 7.2, 2.8, 2.7 - in Cali
4.4, 0.7 - in AZ
0.6 - in Colorado 
0.2 - in Iowa

[leftieliberal]

Nov 10, 2024 14:25:27 GMT turk said:

Lefteiliberal

On the left we are aware of the finer divisions that seem to go unnoticed by the equivalents of Turk

I don't think that any of us are unaware of your prejudices. We at least can recognise the differences between Trump and Cheney.

[Danny]

Nov 9, 2024 21:57:30 GMT turk said:

Colin

Having looked further into STORM SHADOW in France /SCALP EG your right I don’t think it’s the money a couple of factors seem to be in play.
Being a relatively old weapon developed in 1994-2001 which went into U.K. service in 2003. It looks like the U.K. has already donated most of its stocks to the Ukraine.
Also as the MOD and France have been since 2016 developing a new long range missile to replace Storm Shadow ,and as a result Storm Shadow has been scaled back in the U.K. & France although it’s due to stay in service until 2032. So it looks like it’s just that we don’t have anymore to give

Various governments have announced a lot of money for Ukraine. However, much of this seems to amount to taking an old weapon out of inventory, eg storm shadow at £2 million each probably when we bought them, giving the weapon to Ukraine and keeping the money. You could look on it rather similar to Thatcher selling off the state housing stock.

The big problem is what you do when you dont have any more in stock, to whch the answer would seem to have been start building more two years ago. But we didnt. Would of course have cost real money instead of handing out old stock.

[Danny]

Nov 9, 2024 22:26:25 GMT leftieliberal said:

I spent hours trying to persuade US voters to choose Harris not Trump. I know why she lost
There were other reasons, but the quote below is surely significant
But gender did play a role. Time and again, voters, very often women themselves, told me that they just didn’t think that “America is ready for a female president”. People said they couldn’t “see her in the chair” and asked if I “really thought a woman could run the country”. One person memorably told me that she couldn’t vote for Harris because “you don’t see women building skyscrapers”. Sometimes, these people would be persuaded, but more often than not it was a red line. Many conversations would start with positive discussions on policy and then end on Harris and her gender. That is an extraordinary and uncomfortable truth.
Unlike the UK where acceptance of women leaders was fairly uncontroversial, for American women (and I suspect Oliver Hall is talking mainly about white American women) there still seems to be a 'glass ceiling' for American women leaders.

Theres also, "Multiple times, I was told that Harris was a “communist”, “clueless” and that she had “thrown black men in jail for carrying one blunt”. One Latin American voter told me at length that she had “seen it all before in South America”."

So the US war on drugs cost her votes. Or maybe thats just one aspect of establishment oppression of blacks. And the last comment harks to what I said before, these trends arent just in the US but world over.

Taken together, some of these posts suggest the traditional right in the US is in serious trouble, as it is in the UK. The traditional left has positioned itself more as the party of the middle class, while Trump and Farage have stolen the working class vote. Here Farage allied with con and got a victory. There Trump aligned with rep and got a victory. But what happens when Trump and rep divide ways? Here, we saw both Farage and con lost.  Trump is of course too  old to lead a new party, but here Farage is clearly angling to become the #2 party in the UK supplanting con.

[neilj]

Yougov polling on British reaction to Trump's win

Labour and Lib Dem voters are overwhelmingly unhappy with the result (75-79%), with only 10-11% reacting happily to the news.
51% of Tories unhappy with the result is roughly double the 26% who are happy


57% of Britons are unhappy about Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election

Very unhappy: 45%
Fairly unhappy: 12%
Neither happy nor unhappy: 19%
Fairly happy: 9%
Very happy: 11%

55% of the British public believe that Donald Trump's second presidency will be bad for the UK

Very bad: 31%
Fairly bad: 24%
Neither good nor bad: 17%
Fairly good: 10%
Very good: 8%

[leftieliberal]

A controversial valedictory article by Larry Elliott on retiring as The Guardian's Economics Editor
From Thatcher to Trump and Brexit: my seven lessons learned after 28 years as Guardian economics editor
Some of these I think would find broad agreement on this board, like
Lesson No 1 is that the free-market experiment has failed, as some of us said it would all along.
Others are more contentious, like
As the Guardian’s resident Eurosceptic, I have to say I have never seen anything especially attractive in the EU’s economic model. Nor can the project of ever-closer union remotely be called a success. The EU is sclerotic and seething with voter rage at the inability of its governments to raise living standards or control immigration.
...
So my final lesson from the past 36 years is this: it is always worth questioning the status quo. Just because something is the received wisdom doesn’t mean it is right.
This, I definitely agree with and think that Reeves' major failing is her lack of willingness to question the status quo.

[pjw1961]

Nov 10, 2024 17:56:54 GMT leftieliberal said:

A controversial valedictory article by Larry Elliott on retiring as The Guardian's Economics Editor
From Thatcher to Trump and Brexit: my seven lessons learned after 28 years as Guardian economics editor
Some of these I think would find broad agreement on this board, like
Lesson No 1 is that the free-market experiment has failed, as some of us said it would all along.
Others are more contentious, like
As the Guardian’s resident Eurosceptic, I have to say I have never seen anything especially attractive in the EU’s economic model. Nor can the project of ever-closer union remotely be called a success. The EU is sclerotic and seething with voter rage at the inability of its governments to raise living standards or control immigration.
...
So my final lesson from the past 36 years is this: it is always worth questioning the status quo. Just because something is the received wisdom doesn’t mean it is right.
This, I definitely agree with and think that Reeves' major failing is her lack of willingness to question the status quo.

Much to agree with there, however in the paragraph on why neo-liberalism did not die a natural death after it failed spectacularly in 2008, I think he gets the balance wrong.

"The near death of the banks provided an opportunity to forge a new progressive approach to the economy in the shape of a Green New Deal, but it was not taken. In part, that was because various parts of the left – the Keynesians, the greens, the Marxists – all had differing views on what needed to be done. In part it was because the rich and powerful used their money and influence to stymie any hope of real change. In part, it was because of the timidity of parties of the left."

To my mind it is overwhelmingly due to the part I have highlighted. Neo-liberalism, along with unregulated technological change, has produced a class of billionaires so obscenely wealthy that their unlimited riches can essentially guarantee they get whatever they want in the Western world at least*. They own the political parties, the media both traditional and new and the key industries. Its an oligarchy. Basically this is Elon Musk's world now; the rest of us just get to live in it.   

*the major dictatorships are a little different, but as Musk's interests in China demonstrate, the billionaire class is happy to do deals. 

[colin]

Nov 10, 2024 18:35:32 GMT pjw1961 said:

Nov 10, 2024 17:56:54 GMT leftieliberal said:

 Neo-liberalism, along with unregulated technological change, has produced a class of billionaires so obscenely wealthy that their unlimited riches can essentially guarantee they get whatever they want in the Western world at least*. They own the political parties, the media both traditional and new and the key industries. Its an oligarchy. Basically this is Elon Musk's world now; 

.........and Michael Bloomberg's and Tom Steyer's and Donald Sussman's .......

edition.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/democratic-billionaire-donors/index.html

[leftieliberal]

Nov 10, 2024 18:35:32 GMT pjw1961 said:

Nov 10, 2024 17:56:54 GMT leftieliberal said:

A controversial valedictory article by Larry Elliott on retiring as The Guardian's Economics Editor
From Thatcher to Trump and Brexit: my seven lessons learned after 28 years as Guardian economics editor
Some of these I think would find broad agreement on this board, like
Lesson No 1 is that the free-market experiment has failed, as some of us said it would all along.
Others are more contentious, like
As the Guardian’s resident Eurosceptic, I have to say I have never seen anything especially attractive in the EU’s economic model. Nor can the project of ever-closer union remotely be called a success. The EU is sclerotic and seething with voter rage at the inability of its governments to raise living standards or control immigration.
...
So my final lesson from the past 36 years is this: it is always worth questioning the status quo. Just because something is the received wisdom doesn’t mean it is right.
This, I definitely agree with and think that Reeves' major failing is her lack of willingness to question the status quo.

Much to agree with there, however in the paragraph on why neo-liberalism did not die a natural death after it failed spectacularly in 2008, I think he gets the balance wrong.

"The near death of the banks provided an opportunity to forge a new progressive approach to the economy in the shape of a Green New Deal, but it was not taken. In part, that was because various parts of the left – the Keynesians, the greens, the Marxists – all had differing views on what needed to be done. In part it was because the rich and powerful used their money and influence to stymie any hope of real change. In part, it was because of the timidity of parties of the left."

To my mind it is overwhelmingly due to the part I have highlighted. Neo-liberalism, along with unregulated technological change, has produced a class of billionaires so obscenely wealthy that their unlimited riches can essentially guarantee they get whatever they want in the Western world at least*. They own the political parties, the media both traditional and new and the key industries. Its an oligarchy. Basically this is Elon Musk's world now; the rest of us just get to live in it.   

*the major dictatorships are a little different, but as Musk's interests in China demonstrate, the billionaire class is happy to do deals. 

In some ways it is not that different from the Gilded Age in the USA (1870s-1890s) when it was steel and railroads rather than the internet and software. The USA was able to deal with that by hitting at their monopoly power, and there is no reason why it should not happen again. Personally, instead of Brown & Darling bailing out the banks, I would rather have seen them nationalise RBS-Nat West and Halifax-BoS. Inducing Lloyds to buy the pig-in-a-poke that was the latter was a bad decision; the whole point of capitalism is that when a company becomes insolvent it is the shareholders that lose their money first, then the bondholders. The Government buying them for, say, £1 each, would have protected the only people who mattered, the depositors (as in Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley). A Green New Deal would have been much easier to implement with the Government owning two of the Big Four banks.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nov 10, 2024 17:56:54 GMT leftieliberal said:

A controversial valedictory article by Larry Elliott on retiring as The Guardian's Economics Editor
From Thatcher to Trump and Brexit: my seven lessons learned after 28 years as Guardian economics editor
Some of these I think would find broad agreement on this board, like
Lesson No 1 is that the free-market experiment has failed, as some of us said it would all along.
Others are more contentious, like
As the Guardian’s resident Eurosceptic, I have to say I have never seen anything especially attractive in the EU’s economic model. Nor can the project of ever-closer union remotely be called a success. The EU is sclerotic and seething with voter rage at the inability of its governments to raise living standards or control immigration.
...
So my final lesson from the past 36 years is this: it is always worth questioning the status quo. Just because something is the received wisdom doesn’t mean it is right.
This, I definitely agree with and think that Reeves' major failing is her lack of willingness to question the status quo.

a sad day indeed, that he’s retiring. He’s more of a proper lefty than some of the not-so-lefty colleagues… 

“Lesson No 5 is that globalisation has gone into reverse. The new cold war between China and the US, the vulnerability of global supply chains exposed by the Covid pandemic, and voter demands that their political leaders reassert control over the economy are all leading to a revival of the nation state. Free trade is out; protectionism is in. Governments are responding to pressure to curb migration. Activist industrial strategies are back in vogue.

The European Union is finding adjustment to these new challenges difficult. That’s hardly surprising, given that the EU was – as Wolfgang Streeck notes in his book Taking Back Control? – the “perfect realisation” of post-communist neoliberal economic globalism: centralised, depoliticised, bureaucratic and wedded to free movement of people, goods, services and capital.”

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nov 10, 2024 19:02:46 GMT colin said:

Nov 10, 2024 18:35:32 GMT pjw1961 said:

 Neo-liberalism, along with unregulated technological change, has produced a class of billionaires so obscenely wealthy that their unlimited riches can essentially guarantee they get whatever they want in the Western world at least*. They own the political parties, the media both traditional and new and the key industries. Its an oligarchy. Basically this is Elon Musk's world now; 

.........and Michael Bloomberg's and Tom Steyer's and Donald Sussman's .......

edition.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/democratic-billionaire-donors/index.html

And they greatly outspent Republicans with Musk

[colin]

Nov 10, 2024 19:21:19 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Nov 10, 2024 19:02:46 GMT colin said:

.........and Michael Bloomberg's and Tom Steyer's and Donald Sussman's .......

edition.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/democratic-billionaire-donors/index.html

And they greatly outspent Republicans with Musk

Yep-pretty crap oligarchs on the Dem side. 

Not forgetting a whole zoo full of Celebrudiz telling em to vote for joy & hope and not be fascists ( and don't mention the price of eggs )

[pete]

Sometimes some post almost as if they wanted Trump to win.

Anyway, talking of fascists
www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/maga-lawmaker-pushes-criminal-prosecutions-of-judge-merchan-and-his-daughter/ar-AA1tPGTi?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=fc3aa029a800429ba8e26d8b3bb17aa5&ei=10#comments

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Speaking of fascism, sometimes people post almost as if they don’t give a stuff about democracy. Anyways…

Nov 10, 2024 20:02:30 GMT colin said:

Nov 10, 2024 19:21:19 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

And they greatly outspent Republicans with Musk

Yep-pretty crap oligarchs on the Dem side. 

Not forgetting a whole zoo full of Celebrudiz telling em to vote for joy & hope and not be fascists ( and don't mention the price of eggs )

Some argue now that money is lessening in importance, and mainstream media along with it. vloggers online having more reach than the news channels etc.? And influencers have more reach than old school celebs, film stars etc.? 

[neilj]

Nate Silver, US polling guru

Updated estimate:
Harris 76.2m votes (48.4%)
Trump 78.5m votes (49.9%)
other 2.6m votes (1.5%)

Total turnout 157.3m votes (vs 158.6m in 2020)
Trump margin +1.5%

Which makes it the closest US Election result for a long time

[pjw1961]

Nov 10, 2024 19:21:19 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Nov 10, 2024 19:02:46 GMT colin said:

.........and Michael Bloomberg's and Tom Steyer's and Donald Sussman's .......

edition.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/democratic-billionaire-donors/index.html

And they greatly outspent Republicans with Musk

But Musk bought Twitter and made it a right wing propaganda tool. That is essentially the modern version of Murdoch buying up left leaning papers like the Sun and making them right wing in the days when newspapers really mattered.

Billionaires funding the Democrats is not an argument against my point. I said the oligarchs own political parties (plural). That's the point - Republicans or Democrats; Conservative, Labour or Reform, the interests of the super-rich will always be catered for. 

[pjw1961]

Nov 10, 2024 21:38:58 GMT neilj said:

Nate Silver, US polling guru

Updated estimate:
Harris 76.2m votes (48.4%)
Trump 78.5m votes (49.9%)
other 2.6m votes (1.5%)

Total turnout 157.3m votes (vs 158.6m in 2020)
Trump margin +1.5%

Which makes it the closest US Election result for a long time

But not in the Electoral College. 

[mercian]

Nov 10, 2024 22:36:33 GMT pjw1961 said:

Nov 10, 2024 19:21:19 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

And they greatly outspent Republicans with Musk

But Musk bought Twitter and made it a right wing propaganda tool. That is essentially the modern version of Murdoch buying up left leaning papers like the Sun and making them right wing in the days when newspapers really mattered.

Billionaires funding the Democrats is not an argument against my point. I said the oligarchs own political parties (plural). That's the point - Republicans or Democrats; Conservative, Labour or Reform, the interests of the super-rich will always be catered for. 

I agree that newspapers are far less influential than they were. Which makes me wonder why the BBC and others make such a big deal of tomorrow's newspaper headlines. Why don't they look at say the top half-dozen UK-based bloggers? Perhaps they realise that if newspapers go, they're next in line.

[Rafwan]

Nov 10, 2024 14:25:27 GMT turk said:

…Rafwan … 

Oh my!!! Fame and recognition at last!!

EDIT.  turk . Just realised it was lefty lib that brought me to such notoriety. Trouble is, he barred me yonks ago ‘cos of my views on ‘grade inflation’ and on Australian heritage. Anyway, many apologies for mocking you.

EDIT 2. Of course me and steve are both grandaddies, and when it come to it (as I think you really mean) there is nothing more important than that.

[alec]

Just catching up after a few days away. Lots to digest. Liked the discussion on Larry Elliot's article, and not much new there that hasn't already been aired here and elsewhere. I don't think it's the best kept secret that 'the left', however you define it, failed completely to either heed the lessons or make use of the crisis of 2008. It was, gloriously, the abject failure of globalised, deregulated financial capitalism, and government's the world over listened to the very class of people responsible for that failure, and the people bore the brunt. We really should have had a new start back then, but instead it's the populist right that have seized the mantle and carved an election winning offer out of the suffering that was imposed on the populace. And they offer more of the same medicine; less government, less regulation, more socialising of the failures.

Why did this happen? In part at least, probably for similar reasons that Trump just defeated Harris; apart from the lack of courage, the left has increasingly sought to forge a coalition focused on more of the identity politics than that the critical issues of the economy and how you make people better off. Yes, we should care about minorities and show respect for everyone, but who really gives a F about what nomenclature we use for individuals who have/might/want to change their gender/sexual orientation/bedroom partner, when inflation hits 10% and you need to work three jobs to pay the rent? Such matters are, I'm afraid, vanishingly unimportant in such a context.

Labour deserves some credit here, although many won't wish to give it. Starmer has upset a fair few by looking to maintain a solid focus on the issues that matter (although that doesn't mean I necessarily agree with all his policies). A line in this article sums it up all rather well - "Senior Labour insiders are privately scathing about those tactics. “The final days were a parade of celebrities in the middle of a cost of living crisis,” said one." www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/10/labour-advisers-want-lessons-learned-from-harris-defeat-voters-set-the-agenda
The Harris campaign screwed up for similar reasons that Clinton ran aground; expecting women to vote for you because you're a woman and you talk about abortion is fine, only once you've covered the economic bases. Don't expect Black and Latino citizens to pour into the polling booths for you just because you talk about how inhumane the treatment is of illegal immigrants by the other lot, if you're not first addressing their economic uncertainties. Trump did this, and he did it rather brilliantly.

Far too much of leftist politics in recent decades has been about making those proposing the policies feel good about themselves, rather than relentlessly focusing on making the lives of the people whose votes they are seeking better. I find it completely unsurprising that US Latinos are increasingly drawn to Republicans who promise a mass crackdown on illegal migrants. It's just reverse racism to assume that all these people will vote Democrat against 'fascism' (yawn) because they're not white. As in the UK, ethnic groups who came here legally, worked, paid taxes, and are trying to carve a better life for themselves get seriously hacked off about migrants arriving here illegally, playing the system, getting benefits etc etc. Possibly even more so than the original population, because they've been through the whole course themselves. Yes of course, the right over blow the issues, there is abundant misinformation and scapegoating, but somehow the left needs to be clever and find ways to tackle those charges without being seen to be supporting migration because that's what 'good people' think.

We see that self righteous tendency on here quite often too, in the anti Tory rhetoric, the consistent use of 'Fascism' for a bit of right of centre thinking. (No, Thatcher didn't kill 6m Jews. She faced down the NUM, sold off council houses cheap, and kicked off neoliberalism in the UK. There is a very big difference).

I'm encouraged that Labour here seem to understand this, and it's critical to say that this isn't one or the other; you provide those social reforms as well, but they are additions to the basic stuff of making working people's lives more comfortable. Trying to promote multiculturalism, gender equality or respect for trans people is going to be a struggle when 70% of voters can't afford a decent house to live in with enough spare for a night out now and then. But once you deliver that sense of economic security, you can drop in those vital social improvements with widespread support. Where it goes wrong is when voters see the left obsessing about sociopolitical theory when they can't afford the bills.

[pete]

Nov 10, 2024 21:07:01 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Speaking of fascism, sometimes people post almost as if they don’t give a stuff about democracy. Anyways…

Nov 10, 2024 20:02:30 GMT colin said:

Yep-pretty crap oligarchs on the Dem side. 

Not forgetting a whole zoo full of Celebrudiz telling em to vote for joy & hope and not be fascists ( and don't mention the price of eggs )

Some argue now that money is lessening in importance, and mainstream media along with it. vloggers online having more reach than the news channels etc.? And influencers have more reach than old school celebs, film stars etc.? 

Democracy gives people the right to moan about the winner of an election. That's not giving a 'stuff about democracy' that is democracy. and in Trumps case he is either a fascist or a wannabe fascist...time will tell, but it ain't looking good.

[mercian]

This just made me laugh. When I was at work I showered every day, but now I don't it's less often though I always wash of course.

Anyway, I was just saying goodnight to my wife and she said "You must have a shower tomorrow" (because I have a chess match)

So I said "Why? do I smell?"

She said "I don't know, I always hold my breath!" 

[moby]

Nov 11, 2024 5:44:19 GMT moby said:

Nov 10, 2024 20:29:36 GMT pete said:

Sometimes some post almost as if they wanted Trump to win.

 

That Indy article linked above by leftieliberal on loneliness in men leading to toxic masculinity was highly illuminating and bang on the button imo. (I include myself within the analysis). We seem to see everything as a zero sum game, perhaps it all starts with those 'who can piss up the wall the highest' competitions in primary school.

[neilj]

Nov 10, 2024 22:37:29 GMT pjw1961 said:

Nov 10, 2024 21:38:58 GMT neilj said:

Nate Silver, US polling guru

Updated estimate:
Harris 76.2m votes (48.4%)
Trump 78.5m votes (49.9%)
other 2.6m votes (1.5%)

Total turnout 157.3m votes (vs 158.6m in 2020)
Trump margin +1.5%

Which makes it the closest US Election result for a long time

But not in the Electoral College. 

Yes you're right, the electoral college does tend to favour (not always) the Republicans so even with a very small popular vote win they can get a large electoral college victory
Indeed Clinton beat Trump in the popular vote by a bigger margin than is predicted this time, but Trump still won the electoral college in 2016