US Election & Presidency

^it's more like 25% tbf.

(22-01-2024 22:39 )Freeloaderthatsme Wrote:  

(22-01-2024 15:29 )Goodfella3041 Wrote:  I think the 2024 election will be Trump versus Trump.

It’s hard for anyone to get excited about Sleepy Joe. But nothing mobilises the left more than the fear of a Trump presidency.

So the question is: does half the country fear Trump more than the other half loves him?

If the half that love Trump had dynamite for brains they would not be able to blow the wax from their ears.

I wonder how much American ear wax contributes to global warming

Funny how Trump has now resorted to insulting and threatening Haley, because she hasn't dropped out yet, toys out of the pram stuff, waaahh. Honestly

sometimes I wonder why there isn't a age limit on candidates in the US surely being at 77 years old Trump is way too old to be in office after Biden and putting the US public through a rematch of the last election.

(24-01-2024 12:22 )lovebabes56 Wrote:  sometimes I wonder why there isn't a age limit on candidates in the US surely being at 77 years old Trump is way too old to be in office after Biden and putting the US public through a rematch of the last election.

If it boils down to Trump v Sleepy Joe then it makes the yanks look bloody silly.Two well and truly past it ,blood some new talent.Us is big enough,surely a more deserving two they could vote for.

With Trump, he's the useful idiot that's getting the GOP what they want, which is The Handmaid's Tale reality where woman have no rights and if you aren't white, you don't matter. With Biden he's a decent enough person, but is there an actual choice for the Democrats, because if there is, they are doing an terrible job of letting everyone know about it.

As bad as our politicians can be, and the last 14 years has been exceptionally bad, we're still not facing what America is after this next election. If Trump wins then trouble ensues, as he goes after whoever he feels slighted him like a low rent mob boss with a complex, if he loses, then well, fuck knows, but I think we'll see something along the lines of a Jan 6th mark 2 with much more violence. Heavily armed idiots are dangerous, somebody should let America know...Oh wait, that's right, they don't care!

Apologies if i didn't make anything of valid point esrlier, but Skully youare right, you gave to wonder why or if the Democrats aren't able to put forward as an alternative to Biden. While we look at US politics and wonder what the f**K is going I often wonder if the US public hsve the same view of what is going on with our political lot!!

(24-01-2024 18:35 )lovebabes56 Wrote:  Apologirs if i didn't makea vslid point esrlier, but Skully youare right you wonder if the Democrats aren't able to put forward as an alternative to Biden. While we look at Us politics and wonder what the f**K is going I often wonder if the Us public hsve the same view of what is going on with out polticial lot!!

Our lot as you say are not much better, but we did not vote for dizzie Lizzie or little Rishi so a tad better off than the yanks.

^true we didn't vote for Truss or for Rishi but I think our political landscape is far more messy than theirs, I think one thing that We probably would welcome some help from a cross the pond is getting Stormont back working, I don't think either the Tories or Labour have a kind of plan in place to start knocking heads together and I'm wondering if that is a concern in the US as well.

I was in the US over Xmas, staying with friends who fall into the category of reluctant Trump voters. Which is to say that they don’t like Trump, but they are so petrified of Left that they hold their nose and vote for him anyway.

The only way to survive a holiday like that is to make a tacit agreement to avoid all talk about politics. Which is what we did. Mostly…

Then their son shows a YouTube clip that starts a lot of chatter in the living room. It is a Piers Morgan segment where he interviews a non-binary person who is raising their child to be “gender-neutral” until they are old enough to decide their own gender for themselves.

It’s the kind of extreme wokeness that is red meat to the Trump base and, of course, the family I’m with is horrified about what the world is coming to and the existential threat of what might happen if we don’t wrest back power from these lefty liberal maniacs.

And I’m sat there thinking… I don’t agree with this person or their nutty approach to child-rearing. But I also know that it is SO extreme that they must represent a fraction of 1% of the population. There is only a miniscule chance that I will ever encounter a person like this in my life, and even if I do, the probability that their beliefs will impact my life is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of 1%. The ONLY reason this person has any relevance to my life is the fact that Piers Morgan has put them on television, and is portraying it as “News”.

My point is this:

In 1960s / 1970s the geniuses who ran the media worked out that “sex sells”. So for the next 40 years they sold us cars, holidays and soft drinks by showing us women in bikinis and hunky construction workers.

Then around 2008, something changed. The Internet was maturing. The financial crisis hit the middle class hard, while the bankers who caused it all got their bailouts and bonuses. And America had the audacity to elect a black president. Lots of people were angry.

And the people who ran the media figured out something new. You know what “sells” even better than sex? … Rage!

Angry people engage. Angry people follow links. Angry people spend more time on YouTube and TikTok. They are converting our rage into clicks and our clicks into dollars.

As Leonard Cohen once sang about Democracy: “It’s coming to America first — the cradle of the best, and of the worst”

But it will happen to us too if we don’t start to recognise that all media — whether it leans left or right — has an in-built financial incentive to keep us all angry and scared and hateful.

So I’ve developed a new coping mechanism for all of it. I’m just going to recognise that whatever I see from any media is probably TRYING to make me angry. I’m not falling for it anymore. I’m not clicking on the next link. I’m gonna have an ice cream instead!