So being one of the least politically educated people on STW I thought I'd combine the various threads into the main subject matter for the next couple of months.
We now know a lot about the Trump failings and ego, but now things are really hotting up with Biden appointing Kamala Harris as his potential Vice President, and maybe even POTUS 2024> in waiting. A master stroke by Biden perhaps?
Trump will lose, right?
All the evidence/heresay/rumour/logic seems to suggest that but, as with a lot of things recently, I would say you could not be sure. I have a horrible feeling that he'll get in again.
Harris seems to be a good person and a really good choice for VP. I hope we have a chance to see how she develops and whether she goes forward to 2024 as the main ticket.
On a side note, this article popped up on my FB feed this morning: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/08/all-enemies-foreign-and-domestic-open-letter-gen-milley/167625/
Does not make for a good future if there is discussion amongst a generally Republican-voting organisation about a coup.
Trump still has between a 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 chance of winning according to fivethirtyeight.com
The race will probably tighten the closer it gets to election night.
I wonder if the Democrats realize they can't win against Trump and have put up two hopeless candidates for President & Vice-President.
The idea being they'll nominate someone more serious in 2024.
Trump's lot are being utterly brazen about breaking election law now (colluding with/exploiting the mental illness of Kanye West to try to get him on the ballot as a spoiler), because there are literally no consequences for criminality and corruption.
Trump will lose, right?
Hopefully not wishful thinking, but I reckon as long as nothing happens to Biden, then it's nailed on. There's a lot of bluster about him not accepting the result but it's just that. He'll go quietly like every other defeated candidate. It'll be a relief for him, he can go back to the golf course.
Can't say I'm massively impressed by Biden, although the only feature that is important is that he's not Trump. The most important thing is that the democrats win the senate. Nothing will change if the republicans hold it. Trouble is the democrats are so meek and cowardly even if they win power they won't do anything with it. I despair that Sanders or Warren didn't win the nomination. Biden was the worst candidate by a mile.
Trump will lose, right?
All the opinion polls suggest he as unpopular now as at any time since the last election, an election he didn't lose, or win on an technicality or any of the other things some people say, but an election he managed to win whilst losing the popular vote by a 'yuge' margin.
The few times he did enjoy positive opinion polls was when he was driving jobs numbers and pumping up their economy, all of which has now been reversed. He's completely blown Covid, even more than Johnson has (which is saying something) he's neither saved the economy or saved lives. Even Billy Bob and Mary sat in their double-wide with a confederate flag on the wall remember him saying it was a hoax and now at least someone they know has died from it.
If Covid hadn't yet arrived in the US or the election had landed after the pandemic is over, he would have probably been a slight favourite, he's not quite the clown figure in the US as he is in the rest of the world.
Even so, Biden isn't the strongest candidate they could have chosen, you can understand why they did. Too many Americans couldn't accept a Women President, lot of Americans don't picture a Women when they think of their President. They've chosen and old White Man to go head to head with another old White Man partly because it nullifies the entire Race/Sex/Age thing.
Biden's personality is very erm... traditional for a Democrat, he's very 'Stars and Stripes' with his Corvette, Aviators and such, but that's perfect for this election when Trump will be going for a very nationalistic tone.
His biggest danger is his mental state, he's had a number of aneurysms' partly brought on from stress when he last ran for president in the 80s, which may or may not had impacted his brain function. He'll also be 78 when he takes office, he seems fit, a lot fitter than Trump who is also in his 70s. He's already heavily hinted he'll only serve for 1 term, which might actually be a benefit to attracting long-time Republicans who just want to see the back of Trump.
I wouldn't write off Trump yet, he wasn't supposed to win the Republican nomination, he certainly wasn't supposed to win the election - but he did both, in this new age of Social Media artificial influence and pantomime politics, he could win again.
I wonder if the Democrats realize they can’t win against Trump and have put up two hopeless candidates for President & Vice-President.
The idea being they’ll nominate someone more serious in 2024
Nah it's the opposite - Biden is the Democrats best chance this time around. Going with Sanders (although I'd love to have seen him as President, with a majority in both Houses) would have been way to divisive and played into Trump's scaremongering of what would happen with the 'radical left'. He's mostly been left with attacking Biden over him being old as he's not radical. Biden would be a shit President but still a whole lot better than Trump.
I think Trump's realised for a while the fake news/malicious rumour spreading/Russia that got him elected last time isn't enough on it's own this time. But it's not clear yet what other stuff he's prepared to do this time around, he's already crippling the USPS (defunding and one of his cronies in charge) to hobble the threat from mail-in voting (they're even now removing sorting machines from USPS sorting hubs...), he's trying to suppress as best he can the BLM movement (although whether he ends up reducing or increasing the black voter turnout as a result remains to be seen).
What else is to come though? If he loses he'll no doubt challenge the result but I'm sure there's a lot more underhand stuff he'll do before the vote.
His biggest danger is his mental state, he’s had a number of aneurysms’ partly brought on from stress when he last ran for president in the 80s, which may or may not had impacted his brain function. He’ll also be 78 when he takes office
Yet the default fallback with any issues will be Kamala Harris, a strong, proven candidate and Obama supporter....
Biden and the democrats could still lose this, by not offering the voters anything positive to vote for. It is a "we are just as republican as the republicans corrupt business as usual but we aren't trump" campaign, which for the majority of voters is again a choice of least hated.
They have offered nothing new, nothing positive, nothing inspiring. And that is because they don't want to, they aren't just campaigning carefully so they can act when in power. They will change nothing if they do win, I barely expect them to scratch the surface in reversing the damage done by Trump, never mind make positive changes for the future of the USA.
I despair at the supposed choices we get in elections, some idiots say we get the governments we deserve, but we don't really get a choice, it's like a card trick with the establishment offering the cards they want to be chosen.
Harris looks like a great candidate which then begs the questions, why is she not the Dems main candidate now rather than Biden? Biden only looks good when running against Trump, put that aside and is is a pretty poor candidate.
If 2020 carries on in a similar vein, I fully expect Biden to keel over with Covid in September. I notice that it looks like Harris will be doing a lot of the legwork - touring swing states etc - which suggests they will be locking him down as much as possible until November.
Wouldn't put it past the lowlife Trump campaign to try to insert Covid+ 'supporters' into his rallies and public appearances. 🙂
Harris looks like a great candidate which then begs the questions, why is she not the Dems main candidate now rather than Biden? Biden only looks good when running against Trump, put that aside and is is a pretty poor candidate.
You've sort of answered your own question there.
It was said that last time around both parties nominated the only candidate that could have lost to the other.
Trump is a nationalist, a populist and lots of other things. If they nominated a Socialist like Saunders or a young Female Minority Candidate it would be perfect for him, sell himself on the fear of the unknown etc.
Biden nullifies all that. To a lot of Lefties he's the worst candidate because he's not a Socialist, but elections aren't about winning over your fans, it's about gaining the middle ground.
Wouldn’t put it past the lowlife Trump campaign to try to insert Covid+ ‘supporters’ into his rallies
Biden's already on it, he won't be holding rallies.
This podcast is well worth a listen
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000l8dv
Trump lost the popular vote by 3million but still became president
His base still support him/ hate the Dems more
Biden has to walk a tightrope not to fire up that base for Trump, Harris is a but risky in that respect as she triggers a lot of trump's supporters
This, this and this again...
I despair at the supposed choices we get in elections, some idiots say we get the governments we deserve, but we don’t really get a choice, it’s like a card trick with the establishment offering the cards they want to be chosen.
It’ll be a relief for him, he can go back to the golf course.
I think, while he probably won't admit it, being President has put him in more danger than he realises. His illegal dismantling of his father's company to pay off much of his own debt will be something that is going to trundle on in the background for the next few months. It's already being investigated, I wouldn't be at all surprised if both that, and his tax records become public around October/November...
Biden is a pragmatic choice TBH, he has a reputation of being able to reach "across the isle" . Now you might read that as rolling over to Republican demands, but you really can't deny that it would do everyone a whole load of good, if the Americans would stop pulling themselves apart. Biden has already spoken about ensuring the USA re-engages with the world, and has spoken about rejoining the WHO as one of his first moves. Saunders would just have been the as toxic to the right as Trump was to...well, everybody, but you get the gist.
One thing that may hold it all up is counting mail votes. Yes Trump as been hamstringing the USPS but the states are even less capable of counting these in a timely way. Expect delays of weeks for full results. It's going to be a shit show
Nah it’s the opposite – Biden is the Democrats best chance this time around.
Well, he is now! IMO let their actual best chance (Gabbard) go a while back.
Which reminds me, this presidential debate hasn’t aged well:
Weirdsville they’ve wound up with Biden and Harris
Trump is guaranteed. The Internet’s favourite celeb and anti-celeb. ‘Tough on foreigners‘. ‘Tough on The Left‘. By far the overall favourite of evangelists, racists, white-supermacists, gun-nuts, petrol-heads, science-deniers, conspiracy-theorists etc up and down the country and across the world. He’s a setup to be the ‘saviour‘ of the UK. The Great White Hope of Brexiteers. The dream candidate to continue the far-right project of dismantling the EU on an anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim ticket. ‘ Thank-you folks. Thankyou. England is a historical ally, and our great friends have suffered very badly from Europe. Very badly. Make England Great Again. M-E-G-A (should I copyright this?)
Narcissistic, barely literate, playing for shits and giggles. A walking clickbait. He’s entirely unversed in just about everything except being a spoiled, protected little bully whose every public utterance sounds like a lascivious drunken-uncle’s ‘look at me’ eulogy to the corpse of honest discourse.
On the environment (arguably the biggest challenge facing all of humanity today) he pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement and then went on to dismantle the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency. Criminal prosecutions are at a 30-year low and I don’t believe that’s because the worst offenders have decided to behave themselves. The Trump administration actually delisted climate change from national security threats.
“This sounds strong, but it’s true: Trump is the worst criminal in history, undeniably. There has never been a figure in political history who was so passionately dedicated to destroying the projects for organised human life on earth in the near future,”
- Noam Chomsky
In a more naive frame of mind I’d be asking ‘how could such a creature AGAIN be voted president of the US? Yet in today’s intellectually and morally depleted market I find that I’m asking ‘how could he lose?’
Fake news
Get it done
That’s all folks.
This, this and this again…
I despair at the supposed choices we get in elections, some idiots say we get the governments we deserve, but we don’t really get a choice, it’s like a card trick with the establishment offering the cards they want to be chosen.
I agree it's bad, if anything the US system is better than ours, having an elected Head of State and a separate government.
I don't expect to see change in my lifetime, most counties have a two party system of one shape or another and it's never in their interest to change that.
We had one-shot at PR in the UK, it seems so long ago now, but we had a referendum on it 9 years ago, sure the Tories purposely choose the absolute worst possible type of PR to make it as unpopular as possible, but like the Scottish Ref and Brexit, it's off the table for decades now.
I was hoping for Warren but Biden, whilst far from the most inspiring choice, has some major advantages for this precise election, in that he's an old white guy and he nullifies so many of the usual GOP attack lines.
Racism: Nope
Misogyny: Nope (and this worked very well against Hilary last time)
A bit doddery: No more than Trump
A bit handsy with the ladies: Again... TRUMP! Stormy Daniels anyone?
Radical AntiFa Leftist determined to destroy America: Nobody really belives that about Biden.
He's there to counteract Trump, especially in the swing states and so far he's doing exactly that by keeping his nose clean and seeming sane and sensible.
The real danger point comes when Trump, as is likely, loses by a whisker and then refuses to accept the result, something he's been laying the ground for from the start.
If Trump does lose. Can't see him making a song and dance. Narcissist he may be but he's got a lot of tricky stuff to deal with - he's probably had enough.
Can go back to golf etc.
The real danger point comes when Trump, as is likely, loses by a whisker and then refuses to accept the result, something he’s been laying the ground for from the start.
Perversely I'd enjoy that.
I think even if he loses in a landslide, he'll be banging away on Twitter like the mad man he is, they will no doubt launch all sorts of challenges and wild accusations will be throw about, as in every other US election.
But, One thing the Americans love is 'due process' and procedure and they hate any challenge to democracy. If he goes full-nutter and barricades himself in the Oval Office or something, it'll be like one of those daft posturing scenes in Crimson Tide with Marines stood to bolt upright with pistols drawn and people screaming rules at each other. It'll be brilliant to watch, but in any case he'll be out on his arse when the time comes.
One thing that's probably going to be pretty wild - Presidential decrees post election, Trump does the sort of wild shit moderate Presidents do on the quite post-election, like pardoning friends and family members. What's Trump going to do? Make his Golf Resort a free-state tax haven, sign an execution order on Obama, declare war on Thighland, who knows.
Trump is guaranteed. The Internet’s favourite celeb and anti-celeb. ‘Tough on foreigners‘. ‘Tough on The Left‘. By far the overall favourite of evangelists, racists, white-supermacists, gun-nuts, petrol-heads, science-deniers, conspiracy-theorists etc up and down the country and across the world. He’s a setup to be the ‘saviour‘ of the UK. The Great White Hope of Brexiteers. The dream candidate to continue the far-right project of dismantling the EU on an anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim ticket. ‘ Thank-you folks. Thankyou. England is a historical ally, and our great friends have suffered very badly from Europe. Very badly. Make England Great Again. M-E-G-A (should I copyright this?)
Narcissistic, barely literate, playing for shits and giggles. A walking clickbait. He’s entirely unversed in just about everything except being a spoiled, protected little bully whose every public utterance sounds like a lascivious drunken-uncle’s ‘look at me’ eulogy to the corpse of honest discourse.
On the environment (arguably the biggest challenge facing all of humanity today) he pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement and then went on to dismantle the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency. Criminal prosecutions are at a 30-year low and I don’t believe that’s because the worst offenders have decided to behave themselves. The Trump administration actually delisted climate change from national security threats.
“This sounds strong, but it’s true: Trump is the worst criminal in history, undeniably. There has never been a figure in political history who was so passionately dedicated to destroying the projects for organised human life on earth in the near future,”
– Noam Chomsky
In a more naive frame of mind I’d be asking ‘how could such a creature AGAIN be voted president of the US? Yet in today’s intellectually and morally depleted market I find that I’m asking ‘how could he lose?’
Fake news
Get it done
That’s all folks.
Normally I'd read something like that and think that it's the ranting of a madman.
Sadly, it actually sounds totally believable.
I hate the idea of Trump winning a second term but I honestly think the US is so ****ed up that he will!
Biden if he were to win would be, at best, a "transitional" president. Still "stale, male and pale" like trump but without the edge of an utter uncaring, narcissistic, scaremongering, liar... But Biden is not the best America Could have chosen, just a less bad option.
And that's perhaps his strength, demographics he is only a half step away from Trump rather than trying to persuade those religious Conservatives who find themselves uneasy about their current president but would equally struggle to vote for someone with a darker skin tone or, God forbid, a Woman! Nope, sadly Biden fits the profile for the first name on the ticket.
But they equally needed Harris on there to keep the democratic voter core on side, another pair of crusty old white dudes would have almost certainly alienated some of the faithful.
Plus (perhaps most importantly) she is a more eloquent and effective speaker than any one else in the presidential/VP running, if they hold a VPs debate, Pence should be shitting himself...
Honestly I reckon the odds are split, America is now fundamentally broken, and I don't know how many people who voted Trump can climb down and admit that the great experiment of putting a clown in charge of "The greatest nation on Earth" has backfired spectacularly. It really needs some of them to look at the Democrats offering and see something appealing there...
We had one-shot at PR in the UK
That didn't happen.
AV is not PR, even if it is a voting system preferable to our current one.
Back on topic... and those claiming the 'mercans have no real choice and it's just a choice between different sets of Republicans are so far from the mark as to be laughable. There is now a real choice, between two very different options. Will they choose the crazy option that will take them further down the rabbit hole? I fear they will. I think he'll "win" again. A Trump term where he personally has nothing to lose, as won't be standing for election again... that scares the b'jesus out of me. And the UK will be following in close behind, in a way no other country will be. There's no good news for us if he is re-elected.
America is now fundamentally broken
It's been fundamentally broken from the start.
Unfortunately for the US and the rest of the world as a consequence I don’t think a Trump defeat by Biden is the foregone conclusion it should be.
For all his failings and imho there are many 1 strength Trump does have is that he knows his key support area, and further knows exactly what to say and when to galvanise it.
I remember before the last US election while channel hopping I came across him doing a speech to a crowd of supporters, after watching for around 30 minutes ( which I will never get back ) I suddenly realised he had not said 1 thing about his plans if elected, however every time he seemed to be losing the audience he would get them cheering like crazy by throwing in such comments as “ aren’t our armed forces great ?, let’s have a shout out for all the veterans “
And sure enough the crowd went wild.
I really hope Trump loses , but don’t underestimate his ability to manipulate the electorate
It will be a lot closer than a lot of folks think
I've worked in American companies for nearly 25 years. Sadly I think Trump will win simply because there are so many people in the US who are very right wing, anti-black, anti-women, anti-anything etc. Biden's running mate looks like progress to an outsider but it just gives the overt racists, closet racists, misogynists and so on a reason to vote for Trump.
That's an awful thing to say but it's based on working with these guys for a long time. For intelligent people they frequently behave like idiots. For example an ex-colleague asked me about the last election and his response was "I just can't vote for that woman, she's a crook". He was a very well educated person but sadly a moron like many of them. You also need to remember that California, Seattle,Portland, and the east coast metro areas are not the US. The vast swathes of fectards in the middle get to vote too.
P-Jay,
Never seen Crimson tide but I was thinking about the airbase scenes in Dr Strangelove.
The whole crooked Hilary thing is insane when you think that Trump has some pretty close mafia ties and has actually scammed people with Trump university etc
That’s an awful thing to say but it’s based on working with these guys for a long time.
But it's not universal. I know many Americans in my extended family, and I work with many, and there is only one Trump supporter or even suspected supporter I know of.
I knew Trump would win in 2016, as soon as he announced he was standing, even when those allegedly "in the know" were laughing themselves silly at the idea. Should've put some 💰💰💰 on it but didn't, really regret that, the odds were crazy long 😂 My logic was that the US is just that ****ed up.
Well, nothing's changed, so just put some money on Trump to win again this time. Decent return if he gets in, happy days if he doesn't, so win-win 🤣
I'm fascinated by it all...and horrified having close family there. Some dates for the diary. What on earth are the debates going to be like? Neither of them does well live IMO. Going to take some moderation. The VP one is a big opportunity for Harris.
2020 United States presidential election debates
September 29 Ohio
October 15 Florida
October 22 Tennessee
2020 United States vice presidential debate
October 7 Utah
Worth a watch
Well, nothing’s changed, so just put some money on Trump to win again this time.
Bookies three to one at the minute. C19 response is hurting his approval ratings even among republicans.
My recently-evolving tinfoil hat increasingly informs that Big Money, Big ‘friends’, Big Data and Big Plan will carry Trump over the line regardless.
USA/Internet-World is looking every day more like a Vic Berger theme-park. Satire is struggling to keep up.
Check out Biden’s ‘Virtual Rally’
vs free pens (applause)
He’s walking it.
Great to have this as a separate thread now.
I think it will be tight, I'm hoping Biden gets it simply for being the lesser of the evils.
Jnr was in the States last year and felt that there were two Americas - a progressive, liberal "Democrat" one and a right wing redneck Trump one. He couldn't see how the two could coexist without some sort of civil war splitting the country in two.
I suspect that there is a third "more moderate Republican" group in the middle. They will be key as swing voters, if they can see how much damage Trump has done to their nation, hold their noses and vote for Biden.
Having worked with some very conservative Americans in the past I echo the point above that East Coast and Californian liberals are not representative of all (the majority of?) their countrymen. What Americans describe as the far left is very much the centre ground of European politics so I always find it difficult to translate my view of life to that of the average American who is going to vote. If anything, it has confirmed my view that the UK is much more of a European nation than some like to admit (and trying to position ourselves as the US' favourite partner outside the American continent is doomed to failure).
Who will win? Really difficult for an outsider to judge but hopefully the Donald is on his way out despite offering more powerful shower heads (really, is that the best you've got?).
The trouble is that Harris will be expected to utterly trounce Pence and it will be built up to the point that anything less than him running off stage in tears will be seen as a draw,
Pence also has the cold dead mind of the zealot, he's totally set in his convictions and will not be as easy to fluster as people seem to think, he won't make any good arguments or change any minds, but he won't crack spectacularly either.
Shame, he's a vile creature, worse than Tump in some ways, I'd love to be wrong and see him get resoundlingly whipped.
Jnr was in the States last year and felt that there were two Americas – a progressive, liberal “Democrat” one and a right wing redneck Trump one. He couldn’t see how the two could coexist without some sort of civil war splitting the country in two.
I suspect that there is a third “more moderate Republican” group in the middle. They will be key as swing voters, if they can see how much damage Trump has done to their nation, hold their noses and vote for Biden.
Britain is the same.
I'm not saying foreign governments who could take advantage of a Us, UK or any other Western Country being constantly at odds with itself are influencing us via manipulation of data bought from Social Media (Facebook mostly) to stoke division and polarise opinion.
But, if you were a foreign government that could take advantage of a situation like that, it would be a very good way to do it. Worst still, you might just find that if you managed to influence elections in that way before we discovered we were being duped, you'd have won because the Governments you installed would never expose or even stop you, because it would be one of their greatest assets to staying in power.
Of course, we are the very Counties who've been playing the same trick via old-fashioned methods on the Developing World and Middle East for decades.
I still believe though the vast majority of people are moderate, on both sides of the devide, we should never think that Left = the Goodies and Right = the Baddies, the extremes of both sides can be just as bad as each other.
My fear, based on nothing more than the results of the last few elections, is that Trump will either win, or it'll be close enough that he'll claim it anyway and set off some really nasty power struggles.
Those who are saying Trump will go without a fight if it's even slightly marginal are naive IMO, he loves "winning" and hates losing face, a defeat will be both of those so he will play every dirty trick in the book to hold on. And even if/when he does go he'll do it with no grace at all.
I have a friend who thinks Trump will be the first American to do 3 terms as he'll change rules to enable him to stay on.
Who will win? Really difficult for an outsider to judge but hopefully the Donald is on his way out despite offering more powerful shower heads (really, is that the best you’ve got?).
Plus a promise to cancel payroll tax if he's elected (although I'm sure it started off that he was going to defer it for a few months). He seemed clueless when asked how would he fund Social Security and Medicare.
kelvin Subscriber
Back on topic… and those claiming the ‘mercans have no real choice and it’s just a choice between different sets of Republicans are so far from the mark as to be laughable. There is now a real choice, between two very different options.
Sadly the polarised nature of politics in the US means that this sort of line will probably deter more radical Democrats from voting for Biden. There doesn't seem to be just a single fault line between Democrats and Republicans, a similar divide appears to exist or be forming between radical and "establishment" Democrats, a divide which has probably been encouraged by and no doubt will be exploited by Republicans.
The Lincoln Project and the occasional comment by Mitt Romney suggests that there is a similar split between Trump and classical Republicans, but the never-Trump faction in the party does not seem to hold much influence these days.
fatoldgit Subscriber
Unfortunately for the US and the rest of the world as a consequence I don’t think a Trump defeat by Biden is the foregone conclusion it should be.
In 2020, of all years, I am not willing to assume that the US presidential election will work out for the best.
Worth a watch
Good video, slightly scary and bewildering but good.
If there genuinely is a significant cohort of voters that are voting for Trump because "he tells the truth" then all bets are off.
Personally I think it will go one of two ways: Either the moderate Republican centrists desert Trump (through not voting or switching to Biden) and Biden wins by a landslide. Or, enough moderate Republicans turn out for Trump out of political tribalism and voter suppression pushes him over the line in enough swing states to win the electoral college again and retain the presidency (despite being a long way behind again in the popular vote).
I think the first option is more likely but I definitely wouldn't rule out the second
A lot of grassroot supporters voted for Trump as an "outsider" as he was going to "drain the swamp". Whether they'll desert him cos he didn't or he'll blame vested interests on Capitol Hill stopped him remain to be seen.
Given the last election it's too unpredictable to call. Strange that radical Democrats would not vote for Biden thus allowing Trump a 2nd term.
The only bet I'd place is on Trump to win. If he loses, the joy of his removal will offset the monetary loss. If he wins, you've got a few quid!
Imagine if Trump is ousted from office and 'we' in the UK are left looking even more stupid after expressing our little racist/xenophobic temper tantrum in a way that isn't reversible after 4 years.....
Imagine if Trump is ousted from office and ‘we’ in the UK are left looking even more stupid after expressing our little racist/xenophobic temper tantrum in a way that isn’t reversible after 4 years…..
We were well down that path before Trump was elected, but if some super sweet trade deal with the US was even on the cards whilst he was in the White House (it wasn't) it'll back to square 1 with a new President and Democratic lead Senate.
Obama, going slightly against Americas short-term interests and with perhaps an eye on long-term interests - warned we'd be at the back of the queue for a trade deal, Biden is his own man of course, but he was VP at the time of course.
I'm struggling to think of a person of colour that's done more harm to people of colour in America than Kamala Harris.
Declaring her your VP pick in the current climate, when she has previously blocked investigations into Police shootings and generally behaved like an absolute tyrant whilst AG in California seems to me a bit of a kick in the teeth for a lot of their voter base. You've got a lot of your supporters asking to defund the police, so what do you do? nominate a cop as your running mate. It strikes me as a bit arrogant, like they've said to themselves "well who else are they gonna vote for?"
Harris seems to lack any real principles, she changes her mind about key issues more often than i change my trousers, Pence will go after her on that.
Google George Gage and then tell me she should be VP of anything.
The Democrats are trying so hard to attract moderate Republicans that they are risking a major long term split in their own party/membership by seriously alienating a sizeable chunk of their base, who might start to look elsewhere in the future.
In 2020, of all years, I am not willing to assume that the US presidential election will work out for the best.
I can't remember the last time there was a win for 'the good guys' either in the US or here. Every election / referendum since 2010 has been vote by the populist / right wing side as far as I can remember.
Maybe this will turn the tide?
I read somewhere that one of the republican candidates in Georgia is a confirmed QAnon advocate, white supremacist nutter - just goes to shore the swamp of US politics is deeper than you think. Having spent some time in the likes of KY, TN, GA, TX and AL there's still a strong undercurrent of covert racism.
Hopefully, the New York Attorney Generals efforts in subpoena DT's tax records will prove successful.
It's true
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1293525010523578375?s=19
The whole Qanon thing will end burying the republican party
https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1293900114705227778?s=19
It's true
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1293525010523578375?s=19
The whole Qanon thing will end burying the republican party
https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1293900114705227778?s=19Personally I don't think Bidens the best choice but he's the only one who has a chance to beat Trump, I guess in a couple of years he'll take a back seat as Harris is primed for the top job
The polls look terrible for Trump - yeah, I know, polls etc. I’m worried about the kind of promises he’ll make if they still look bad approaching Election Day.
I'm sure Vlad's called Trump to tell him that he has everything in hand (well, the incriminating photos and his loan statements)
Thought this was a pretty good assessment of Harris as VP - pros and cons
The worst thing about marjorie greene is that, after some limited noises of concern from GOP leadership at the outset, they then did almost nothing to undermine her.
That, to me, is them tacitly accepting QAnon poison; more unfounded conspiracy theories, racism, anti-semitism being insinuated into the mainstream.
Thought this was a pretty good assessment of Harris as VP – pros and cons
Thanks, I'd never heard of her and that's exactly the basic introduction I needed.
I like Tulsi.
^ Gabbard & Wang (*snik*) were who the US needed. Shame.
She ripped Kamala a new one last year (video upthread). It’s a shame because even though Tulsi’s policies were non-interventionist and socially liberal - she was nonetheless gaining support from the right (even some of the farthest right, which is wildly baffling) Americuh. Weird place. Having personally lived (and lost) in the cutthroat (win vs lose, health vs home, paycheck vs street, corrupt-as-**** US of A...
...and now less than two decades later watching the UK blindly walk down a similar path makes me feel sad and helpless.
At the start of the Dem primaries my forecast was Harris - I posted that, probably to the trump thread.
Disappointed she shone brightly and then faded so quickly; now feeling confident about how she can support Biden.
We know that trump cannot deal with competent women; in fact, he can't deal with women at all.
Both trump nor Biden are fantastically unappealing as presidential candidates.
As VP candidates, Harris is immeasurably better than Pence by any metric.
The last campaign was squalid; this one will plumb unprecedented depths with trump leading the charge.
The US is truly a trucked-up country.
I use Imgur to find out the latest news on whats going on, it seems Trump has finally openly admitted to trying to wreck the USPS to stop people voting.
He just recently sacked lots of long term workers/managers and replaced them with his own people to destroy the USPS!
https://imgur.com/gallery/BodopqT
https://imgur.com/gallery/6iLm7QH
Yep, Trump is stealing the election in real time. There are simply no checks and balances on him any more.
The US system of political appointees to head up the major infrastructure/law enforcement agencies is working as well as usual.