2024 US Election

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bluefoot said:
Would you not ask this question every time a sitting president runs for reelection?
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Well the present president if running for re election would surely have the VP keeping the home fires stoked. Biden is clearly now unfit for office and his VP is out campaigning. So am asking a simple question.
 
Missmopps said:
Well the present president if running for re election would surely have the VP keeping the home fires stoked. Biden is clearly now unfit for office and his VP is out campaigning. So am asking a simple question.
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After two terms in office the VP often stands (eg Al Gore). Is a regular ‘risk’ every 8 years 🤷‍♀️
 
Knight of Galador said:
The vast majority of people who care about racism, homophobia and transphobia and ableism in the US are ordinary Americans with the same daily struggles that you allude to. With the exception of W. Bush in 2001 the Repubicans haven't won the popular vote in decades Trump has lost by record amounts both times, that would suggest that the majority of Americans do not agree that Trump cares about their daily struggles...unless you're suggesting that every Democrat voter is some out of touch coastal elite.

Then of course we have the racial and ethnic minorites living in the US that are the victims of prejudice, the LGBT+ community and disabled people, the vast majority of which come from low income working class backgrounds. The prejudice they face is very much an every day issue for them but you very casually dismiss them all. Wanna tell some poor black kid in the South the racism he faces daily is not a big deal and anyone who cares about it is an out of touch elitish. How about telling a young girl who made a mistake and wants an abortion but can't get one that sexism isn't a problem.

The right does identity politics too. Their whole schtick about is constant pandering to straight, white, Christian males and their imagined problems. Not that they are above trotting out surrogates like Candace Owens, Milo Yiannopoulos to 'prove' they are not bigoted and be lecture us on how it's the left that are the real racists and homophobes. Trump has no shortage of celebrity surrogates either from Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and Scott Baio and he has the biggest tech bro in Elon Musk using his vast resources to spread disinformation for him. I don't know how much more MSM you can get than Fox News who is the biggest and most well funded news channel in America (and also provably the most dishonest) not to mention the glut of 'alternative' media outlets that receive huge funding from shady characters Mercer's, the Koch Brothers (the still living ones anyway), Peter Thiel and of course the Russian Government.

I'm not exactly a fan of the Clintons or the Obamas but it's strange that you denounce them for not turning the US into a Utopia, Clinton presided one of the greatest economies in history and reduced the amount of Americans that had to use welfare to lowest levels in history. Obama rebuilt the economy after the crash and gave healthcare to millions who couldn't previously afford it. Those are fairly significant things which helped millions of every day Americans...what did Trump do? His one significant accomplishment is that gave tax breaks to millionaires. How did that help ordinary Americans? Trump is part of the elite who only serves the elite. He did nothing for ordinary Americans except pander to their prejudices.
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You make some interesting points. I don’t think my previous post suggested that discrimination doesn’t exist, but I suspect we see the world very differently and that makes this kind of discussion hard. Communities exist and sometimes they are important (and sometimes they are entirely contrived and nonsensical like the “LGBT+ community”) but I prefer to think in terms of individuals who can make up their own minds and choose for themselves independent of their immutable characteristics, if they choose to so so. None of of which is to suggest that discrimination doesn’t exist.

I also don’t think the left’s obsession with racism, homophobia and all the rest of it as a way of explaining what’s not working is remotely helpful. And I think the swing to Trump is in small (or large, I’m not sure) part due to other people sharing that viewpoint. I would suggest that people who vote for him see him as a bulwark against identity politics and an ideology that has not been helpful at best and very damaging at worst. I could say more about that but I don’t want to go down that route right now.

I’m interested that you think that the Republicans’ “whole schtick is pandering to straight white Christian males”. Where do you see that, specifically? I have watched virtually every town hall, interview and podcast on both sides and I just don’t see it. (I will agree that the MSG rally was way too “bro” for my liking).

But if that IS the case, that the whole schtick is white christian males, why did Arab Americans in Deerborn and Somali groups in Minnesota endorse him over the last couple of days? Why has he gained so much traction among Latino and black men? Why do gay people vote for him? Women? I keep asking this question here and nobody wants to engage with it.

As far as Obama was concerned, I am the last person to wish for a utopia (that’s rather too left-wing a concept for me - I just look for some decent compromises). He disappointed a lot of people for a variety of reasons and as someone else pointed out Obamacare is controversial to say the least. His foreign policy was disastrous IMO.

But apart from all that I guess you’d have to look at the fact that when he began he had control of both houses and the majority of the state houses. And when he left Donald Trump was getting ready to be President - voted in by many of the same people who’d voted for Obama, the Dems had lost control if everything including in half the states and race relations were worse than they’d been for decades. I would say that Obama led directly to Trump, that his legacy was a national cry for something completely different - snd that something was Trump. And now Obama is back scolding black men for being sexist if they don’t vote for Kamala - because, apparently, black people have to vote for black people? There’s a word for that, but I’d just suggest that is a terrible, tone-deaf and arrogant approach from a man who has no idea how ordinary people live.
 
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Missmopps said:
Well the present president if running for re election would surely have the VP keeping the home fires stoked. Biden is clearly now unfit for office and his VP is out campaigning. So am asking a simple question.
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To be fair I’m sure they have a million civil servant equivalents helping to run the country while Biden attends some random meetings or something

There’s also likely a handover period - Labour as an example sat in on cobra meetings before the election so they weren’t going in blind. No one hands over the country overnight so to say
 
Lady_H said:
Should we all edit ourselves because we don’t know what other posters “lived experiences” are? If so, please remember that you know nothing of mine.
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I can’t tell if you’re trying to be funny or not. The exact things you think are “gotcha” snappy criticisms are what you are doing to others 😭
 
emmer_moans said:
What I can't get my head around is how long the build up is to the US elections. Like over a year?
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If only it was a year! It gets going about two years before the election.

This whole mess of an election has cost over 10 billion.

I wish that squirrel could have been the next POTUS.

At least the campaign for 2028 is only 2 years away from starting. They can't mess it up again surely :rolleyes:
 
Merpedy said:
To be fair I’m sure they have a million civil servant equivalents helping to run the country while Biden attends some random meetings or something

There’s also likely a handover period - Labour as an example sat in on cobra meetings before the election so they weren’t going in blind. No one hands over the country overnight so to say
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Thanks for the info. I wonder if malignant foreign powers that be see the USA as very weakened during this time of division and lack of any visible leadership. I mean, if China invaded Taiwan tomorrow, would they wheel out Biden to make some barely legitimate response speech? I have to say if tit did kick off like that I’d want Trump on the phone to whoever was starting another war rather than Kamala.
 
emmer_moans said:
What I can't get my head around is how long the build up is to the US elections. Like over a year? In the UK, ours gets announced, often suddenly, we might have 2 months of canvassing, we vote, and then it's done. In America it's like you spend half of the term in office campaigning for the next one? I know America is much larger than the UK, I know you have lots of states but WHY is the election process so long and drawn out? In about a year and a half you'll start having all the buzz about the next one starting. It never seems to end, and I wonder if that's why American politics becomes far more polarised and personal for people (calling people evil and garbage etc), because it seems it's constantly being talked about? At least in UK there's a general feeling that the politicians are tit and we get on with our lives. Very very few turn up to hustings, we don't have stadiums full of rallies, we don't have Beyonce turning up to endorse, we don't have other has-been singers singing with very bad voice. The most that might happen is a celebrity might send a few tweets to endorse or attack a candidate. But in America, it seems the Dems and Republican thing is a cult thing - both sides being awful.

Trump is too old, looks like a cheesy poof crisp, and has done nefarious things, and Kamala is dumb as a box of rocks with the most awful nervous laugh and doesn't seem to know anything about anything. UK politicians aren't great either but compared, I feel like we get a better deal. And once the process is over we get on with our lives.

In the UK is is very easy and common to opt out of the politics completely if a person wishes to, whereas in America, from what I see online it seems it's inescapable.
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Yeah I am really appreciating the UK system right now. Hide from it if you want, one day of voting or postal vote, an X in a box and you’re done.

I also cannot imagine living in one of the swing states, in one of the critical counties, with all this polling going on. Presumably you can’t go out for a carton of milk without someone asking you how you’ve voted (it’s probably much more technology based than that, I really have no idea). I wonder if polling fatigue sets in? At a certain point if it was me I’d probably just start lying to mess with them cos I was so tired of the whole thing. 😝
 
Peanut the squirrel's onlyfans dad has gone full on MAGA. This is like the best / worst apprentice episode ever o_O

I'm not sure the peanut memes are even jokes 😬
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