US Election & Presidency

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0jcz3...are-mobile

An interesting profile of Kamala Harris

There is this perception around Trump that he is an unstoppable force that can't be beaten and i guess it arises from his total dominance over the Republican party & how he came from nothing to conquer all he saw in a short space of time. But his success at the primary level & getting everyone with a few exceptions to bow down to him clouds another reality. Trump is a bad candidate.

The Republicans have now fought 4 elections with Trump either on the ticket or as the party leader/standard bearer & have only won 1, losing the last 3 in a row. In that one win they got less votes than their opponent. In 2020 Trump became one of the few incumbents in US history to seek relection & lose & The Dems not only retained the house but flipped the Senate. In 2022 the narrative going into the midterms was much the same as it is now with the polls looking dire for The Dems, yet they ended up having the most successful midterms for an incumbent in decades: gaining a seat in the senate, the projected red wave turned out to be a trickle with them only losing the house because the party in New York screwed up its own redistricting & Republican cadidates ended up winning in seats that Biden won comfortably in 2020.

The Trump backed outriders who ran on a platform of the election being stolen, pretty much all lost, in particular those who ran in key battleground states. The Dems retained independants in those midterms by 2 pts which sounds small, but typically incumbent parties lost independants by double digits during midterms so in a historical context it was a double digit swing.

Since Nov 2022, inflation has halved, a gallon of gas is now $3.47 compared to $3.79 & consumer confidence has increased 10 pts.

In 2016, Trump won 46.1% of the vote, 2020 46.8%, before & after he was convicted in the Stormy Daniels case: around 46%, before and after his attempted assassination: around 46%. Trump appears to have a ceiling, more than half of the country do not want him to be President, he is mathematically there for the taking.

Much of the conversation around Biden going into the election was whether he could retain enough voters but this hasn't been the case with Trump. Trump lost independants & suburban woman particularly, before he claimed the election was stolen, before Jan 6th, before the overturning of Roe & him taking credit for it, before facing 91 felony counts, before being found liable for the rape & defamation of E Jean Carrol, before he lost his civil fraud trial, before he was found guilty on 34 criminal counts.

Stepping away from Trump i think the talk around Harris of whether America will elect a black woman is a red herring. There was the same talk around Obama being a black man & he won not only a commanding 365 in the electoral college but the largest share of the popular vote for a Democrat since LBJ, which has yet to be surpassed. Then there was the talk around Clinton & whether the US was ready to elect a woman & whilst she lost the electoral college she got 3m more votes

All in all i would say its all to play for

You make some pretty strong points

Both sides have a hard time grasping how the people who aren't Red or Blue view these issues. We are stuck in a cycle of fear and hatred for the other side (and an algorithm that just keeps feeding into).

The pandemic really made a lot of us go crazy
Political Issues are now personal attacks on our "core values". They really aren't, but stoking those fires is just what both sides want. It's a dangerous game to play though

Since both parties have turned into just maintaining their core and alienating the other side more and more each day, it's hard to say how the undecided are going to vote. The Media isn't helping matters either, it just plays into the both parties narrative of "Them being against Us".
Social Media really isn't helping matters cause Elon is backing Trump, and there is way too much false news on there to take serious. The left side is making it worse with their mud slinging. Both sides have so many theories it's ridiculous. The attempt on Trump's life already is up their with the JFK assassination as far as conspiracy theories. Even Biden's decision not to run again has a lot of tinfoil hats coming out.

Sadly, a growing amount of people are so disenchanted with the National Media, they turn to Social Media or other sources for the "Real News"
That approach can be easily manipulated. Due diligence is required to believe anything anymore. Are most Americans willing to do that research?

At the end of the day, it's a race to 270 Electoral Votes. Most states are Red and there is nothing the Democrats can do to changes those. It's also the same for some Big States that tend to vote Blue no matter what.

I don't have a crystal ball, but it's going to come down to those "swing states" Could very easily come down to one state deciding the election.

So JD Vance Attacking Cat Ladies thats a bold strategy

Elon Bottleing out of giving trump money for a smart man he is dumb as fuck has he just realised Democrats are one buying his electric cars

https://x.com/FeminineWild/status/1816326502989856968

Vance being married to the daughter of an immigrant not going down well with lunatic fringe of MAGA.

Trump may have a hole in his foot to go with the one in his ear...

(27-07-2024 08:54 )The Silent Majority Wrote:  Trump may have a hole in his foot to go with the one in his ear...

Well according to the latest photos, there is no hole in his ear, it's miraculously healed.
It's almost as if he wasn't actually 'shot' through the ear, almost as if he didn't actually have a 2cm wound with flesh missing, almost as if they maybe exaggerated or something

(28-07-2024 08:47 )munch1917 Wrote:  Well according to the latest photos, there is no hole in his ear, it's miraculously healed.
It's almost as if he wasn't actually 'shot' through the ear, almost as if he didn't actually have a 2cm wound with flesh missing, almost as if they maybe exaggerated or something

There was some chat at the time, that the blood came from flying glass from the autocue. So would heal quicker than a hole.

vince prob taught him how to blade himself