The 2024 US presidential election.

[edwin_m]

If I were a journalist in the Western Isles, I'd definitely be using the headline "Son of Lewis woman takes on Harris"

Also apparently the grandson of an Alaska brothel owner (father's side).

 

[nw1]

Yes I would agree with that. I think the key difference is that in the UK/Europe, a lot of the political culture these days is based on, expecting that the Government will provide everything and that if you're poor, you expect the Government to step in and stop you being poor, irrespective of whether you are making any effort yourself. In America it tends to be the opposite: The expectation is that you as an individual work to provide for yourself/your family and don't keep expecting the Government to do stuff for you. Thus, if you're poor and don't want to be, it's seen more as your responsibility to work to get yourself out of poverty. For that reason, @nw1's points 1 and 3 (universal healthcare, and reducing the gap between rich and poor) would be a tough sell in the US.

It's a strange one though, and seems to be borne out of "I'm all right Jack" complacency from people that are fortunate enough to have the talent to be successful in life. I wonder how many people with such views have actually found themselves in difficult situations in the past, lacking the talents to pull themselves out of such situations?

It seems to be rather short-sighted to believe that "everyone" can make a success out of their life from hard work, and believe that people can easily lift themselves out of hard times. Life isn't necessarily like that: some people have greater talent than others at various skills.

And even amongst those who are in a reasonably good place financially, the sky-high medical bills of the USA can leave "regular working people" in a difficult financial situation.

I do wonder what the USA as a whole, as in the entire population (and not just affluent people who speak loudly, and their media friends) really think.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It's a strange one though, and seems to be borne out of "I'm all right Jack" complacency from people that are fortunate enough to have the talent to be successful in life. I wonder how many people with such views have actually found themselves in difficult situations in the past, lacking the talents to pull themselves out of such situations?

I think that's too simplistic. Certainly, someone who has never experienced hardship themselves might be unaware of and therefore unsympathetic to the difficulties others face. But at the same time, my experience in America is that to most Americans - it seems eminently reasonable to expect that people should make an effort to improve their own lives. There's much more of a sense there that if someone works super-hard and therefore becomes mega-rich, and someone else doesn't bother to work and therefore stays poor, that's fine. Americans therefore tend on aggregate to be more comfortable with financial inequality than British people are.

I would say the problem with much of American culture and politics is not the expectation that people should take responsibility for their own lives: It's more the lack of awareness that often people don't have the opportunity to lift themselves up out of poverty, even if they are willing to do so. I'd also say that in the UK we tend to have the opposite problem, where there's often too much expectation that the Government will just do everything, and not enough acceptance that it's also up to individual people to make an effort (although lately that's been muddied by the housing shortage here, which is increasingly driving even working people into poverty because of the high rents/house prices caused by the shortage).

And even amongst those who are in a reasonably good place financially, the sky-high medical bills of the USA can leave "regular working people" in a difficult financial situation.

Yes, that's definitely a problem: The high cost of medical care does need addressing. However that's arguably more of an issue of fixing the economics of why health care apparently costs so much more to provide in the USA than in Europe

 

[The Ham]

The issue with the concept of "work to become wealthy" is to earn $1,000,000,000 in a 50 year period you'd need to earn $2,285 an hour 24/7.

Note it's possible that some of that wealth is for from the value of property increasing, however not anywhere near enough to make enough of a difference to the hourly rate to make a reasonable difference.

Generally, it's not through hard work that some get very wealthy. Mostly it's luck or exploitation (or probably a mix of the two).

The net worth of our King is listed as $772,000,000 and that's taken generations to acquire and is probably enough for pretty much anyone to live off for a long time (like several generations). As such, how can, someone argue that they legitimately earned that (or significantly more) within a lifetime?

(Even then there'll be some who would question the legitimately of how the Royal family have that amount of money - for example the lack of inheritance tax - however that only highlights the point further).

Hard work is only ever going to get you so far, to be at the point where you could afford to buy your kids their first home (say a two bed flat) would mean that they would have a pretty good life and be able to do the same for their kids and that's likely only a few million.

Giving your kids the ability to have £50,000 a year (increasing with inflation) and their first flat would probably only require £10 million per child. £50,000 a year (with limited housing costs) is a significant amount of money (and they'll probably not pay as much tax as if it was PAYE).

Anything more than £100 million and it's beyond the comprehension of most working people to just how much money that is for one person (or couple) to have.

Anything more than £1 billion and you'd find it fairly hard work to even be able to give it away without giving it in very large value donations, but then there's few organisations which would be able to cope with getting that sort of amount of money in one go.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Luck helps. Coming up with ideas such as Amazon dot com, Facebook, Twitter and MS-DOS and Windows etc.

 

[DerekC]

There was an interesting article in the Indy a couple of days ago - too long to quote in full and behind a paywall, but I will try to precis. It is saying that X (formerly Twitter) is still the biggest social media channel for political dialogue. X is owned by Musk who is committed to support Trump's campaign, at least to the extent of $45M per month in cash. Musk has started to change X's algorithms to suit his own personal opinions and statements, for example directing his techs to implement a "power user multiplier" function which boosts the distribution of his own tweets by a factor of 1000 because Biden got more views than he did in their respective tweets about the Superbowl. He can and may apply the same treatment to Trump and potentially do the opposite to Harris, ensuring that Trump's messages get through to the widest possible distribution of people and Harris's get squashed, all in secret.

I don't know enough about the impact of social media on US elections to know whether that's likely to have a significant effect, but it sounds as though it could.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Republicans will think this is fair game because they feel Facebook, the old Twitter etc used algorithms against them and the anti-Vaxers etc.

 

[zero]

X seems to be populated mostly by bots.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Luck helps. Coming up with ideas such as Amazon dot com, Facebook, Twitter and MS-DOS and Windows etc.

I wouldn't count that particularly as luck. Mostly it's, doing the work and taking the risk to develop the ideas, in some cases working all hours with no financial reward for the first few years, adapting the ideas to commercial reality, etc. etc. Ideas by themselves are two-a penny.

 

[jon0844]

Luck helps. Coming up with ideas such as Amazon dot com, Facebook, Twitter and MS-DOS and Windows etc.

And which one of the above didn't involve some shady business practices to make money at the expense or hardship of others?

There was an interesting article in the Indy a couple of days ago - too long to quote in full and behind a paywall, but I will try to precis. It is saying that X (formerly Twitter) is still the biggest social media channel for political dialogue. X is owned by Musk who is committed to support Trump's campaign, at least to the extent of $45M per month in cash. Musk has started to change X's algorithms to suit his own personal opinions and statements, for example directing his techs to implement a "power user multiplier" function which boosts the distribution of his own tweets by a factor of 1000 because Biden got more views than he did in their respective tweets about the Superbowl. He can and may apply the same treatment to Trump and potentially do the opposite to Harris, ensuring that Trump's messages get through to the widest possible distribution of people and Harris's get squashed, all in secret.

I don't know enough about the impact of social media on US elections to know whether that's likely to have a significant effect, but it sounds as though it could.

Elon recently denied he ever said he was going to give $45m a month, as I think he probably regretted saying so and did it just as one of his many knee-jerk-don't-engage-brain decisions.

Now he's getting hit left, right and centre, especially with allegations from his trans child, and now controversy over other kids, he seems to want to fight Mark Zuckerberg again.

X seems to be populated mostly by bots.

Many people have enjoyed getting said bots to change the script by issuing commands to them. Not so long ago, a large number of them were posting errors on account of one of the ChatGPT style services having altered some parameters.

 

[Busaholic]

There was an interesting article in the Indy a couple of days ago - too long to quote in full and behind a paywall, but I will try to precis. It is saying that X (formerly Twitter) is still the biggest social media channel for political dialogue. X is owned by Musk who is committed to support Trump's campaign, at least to the extent of $45M per month in cash. Musk has started to change X's algorithms to suit his own personal opinions and statements, for example directing his techs to implement a "power user multiplier" function which boosts the distribution of his own tweets by a factor of 1000 because Biden got more views than he did in their respective tweets about the Superbowl. He can and may apply the same treatment to Trump and potentially do the opposite to Harris, ensuring that Trump's messages get through to the widest possible distribution of people and Harris's get squashed, all in secret.

I don't know enough about the impact of social media on US elections to know whether that's likely to have a significant effect, but it sounds as though it could.

In one sense (only) I hope that's true, because I can't see Trump's appearances, utterances and views attracting more than a few extra votes for him, whereas it's more than possible that his increasingly deranged and deluded spewings of verbiage will actually persuade many more that he is now too dangerous a lunatic to elect for the next four years.

 

[Bald Rick]

In one sense (only) I hope that's true, because I can't see Trump's appearances, utterances and views attracting more than a few extra votes for him

You are thinking like a logical British person, not an American….

 

[GRALISTAIR]

You are thinking like a logical British person, not an American….

Precisely- I have lived in the US for 24 years and trust me, they think differently.

 

[nlogax]

In one sense (only) I hope that's true, because I can't see Trump's appearances, utterances and views attracting more than a few extra votes for him, whereas it's more than possible that his increasingly deranged and deluded spewings of verbiage will actually persuade many more that he is now too dangerous a lunatic to elect for the next four years.

That's a British perspective. It just doesn't apply here.

 

[jfollows]

It's a strange one though, and seems to be borne out of "I'm all right Jack" complacency from people that are fortunate enough to have the talent to be successful in life. I wonder how many people with such views have actually found themselves in difficult situations in the past, lacking the talents to pull themselves out of such situations?

It seems to be rather short-sighted to believe that "everyone" can make a success out of their life from hard work, and believe that people can easily lift themselves out of hard times. Life isn't necessarily like that: some people have greater talent than others at various skills.

And even amongst those who are in a reasonably good place financially, the sky-high medical bills of the USA can leave "regular working people" in a difficult financial situation.

I do wonder what the USA as a whole, as in the entire population (and not just affluent people who speak loudly, and their media friends) really think.

I, too, think this is too simplistic - I think there are large numbers of Americans who have "made it" to the extent of having their own house and enough money to put food on the table, but not because they're talented but because of sheer grit and determination, and definitely absolutely no help from the state in any way. Then, as an unfair generalisation, their views are that they don't think that anyone else should be able to get to where they've got by handouts from the state as they would see it.

That, in itself is also simplistic I agree. But I think it's representative of a lot of voters. The idea of the state as a "safety net" is not one they agree with, they would rather the state takes less from them in terms of taxes in order to reduce the amount it gives to others. It's a very individualistic and perhaps selfish viewpoint, but I don't think it's unusual. Here we generally accept that some of our taxes go to people less fortunate than ourselves. In the US a lot of people don't agree.

EDIT Oh, and the same people would probably feed you and put you up in their houses if you broke down outside them, and help you get your car fixed, and not ask for any money for it.

 

[edwin_m]

I, too, think this is too simplistic - I think there are large numbers of Americans who have "made it" to the extent of having their own house and enough money to put food on the table, but not because they're talented but because of sheer grit and determination, and definitely absolutely no help from the state in any way. Then, as an unfair generalisation, their views are that they don't think that anyone else should be able to get to where they've got by handouts from the state as they would see it.

That, in itself is also simplistic I agree. But I think it's representative of a lot of voters. The idea of the state as a "safety net" is not one they agree with, they would rather the state takes less from them in terms of taxes in order to reduce the amount it gives to others. It's a very individualistic and perhaps selfish viewpoint, but I don't think it's unusual. Here we generally accept that some of our taxes go to people less fortunate than ourselves. In the US a lot of people don't agree.

EDIT Oh, and the same people would probably feed you and put you up in their houses if you broke down outside them, and help you get your car fixed, and not ask for any money for it.

Indeed, individual philanthropy is preferred over collective state action. The problem with philanthropy is that it is distributed according to the beliefs and prejudices of those rich enough to offer it.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Indeed, individual philanthropy is preferred over collective state action. The problem with philanthropy is that it is distributed according to the beliefs and prejudices of those rich enough to offer it.

The problem of being distributed according to beliefs is arguably just as true of state action too. In the end, the people supplying the resources (whether it's the Government or voluntary donors) have to make judgement calls over who gets the finite amount of resources available, and it's inevitable that you'll use your own beliefs, whatever they are, in making those judgement calls. Things like the bedroom tax or the two-child restriction in the UK are examples of that.

I would say the real issue with philanthropy is that it tends to happen on a much more limited scale than Governments are able to achieve - which means the numbers of people you can help is therefore smaller.

 

[edwin_m]

The problem of being distributed according to beliefs is arguably just as true of state action too. In the end, the people supplying the resources (whether it's the Government or voluntary donors) have to make judgement calls over who gets the finite amount of resources available, and it's inevitable that you'll use your own beliefs, whatever they are, in making those judgement calls. Things like the bedroom tax or the two-child restriction in the UK are examples of that.

I would say the real issue with philanthropy is that it tends to happen on a much more limited scale than Governments are able to achieve - which means the numbers of people you can help is therefore smaller.

At least state support is subject to some sort of democratic mandate, so reflects the general population's beliefs and prejudices rather than those of a few very rich people.

 

[nw1]

I, too, think this is too simplistic - I think there are large numbers of Americans who have "made it" to the extent of having their own house and enough money to put food on the table, but not because they're talented but because of sheer grit and determination, and definitely absolutely no help from the state in any way. Then, as an unfair generalisation, their views are that they don't think that anyone else should be able to get to where they've got by handouts from the state as they would see it.

I think that's too simplistic. Certainly, someone who has never experienced hardship themselves might be unaware of and therefore unsympathetic to the difficulties others face. But at the same time, my experience in America is that to most Americans - it seems eminently reasonable to expect that people should make an effort to improve their own lives. There's much more of a sense there that if someone works super-hard and therefore becomes mega-rich, and someone else doesn't bother to work and therefore stays poor, that's fine. Americans therefore tend on aggregate to be more comfortable with financial inequality than British people are.

I would say the problem with much of American culture and politics is not the expectation that people should take responsibility for their own lives: It's more the lack of awareness that often people don't have the opportunity to lift themselves up out of poverty, even if they are willing to do so. I'd also say that in the UK we tend to have the opposite problem, where there's often too much expectation that the Government will just do everything, and not enough acceptance that it's also up to individual people to make an effort (although lately that's been muddied by the housing shortage here, which is increasingly driving even working people into poverty because of the high rents/house prices caused by the shortage).



Yes, that's definitely a problem: The high cost of medical care does need addressing. However that's arguably more of an issue of fixing the economics of why health care apparently costs so much more to provide in the USA than in Europe

But this kind of view is flawed IMO as I personally don't believe that people can necessarily "make it" by "sheer grit and determination". A lot of people spend their lives working hard but struggling to make ends meet - it seems to me to be completely flawed logic to believe that hard work alone (or indeed talent alone, there's as much an element of luck in meeting the right people, etc) can lead to success.

There just aren't enough well paid jobs out there for the entire population, and not everyone has the business acumen to make a success out of their own ideas and become an entrepreneur.

Thus I tend to think that people who believe that everyone can "make it" through either hard work or talent are to be quite honest fooling themselves. They may have been able to, but not everyone is so fortunate.

And I suspect there are many Americans who would agree, but the system does not give them enough voice.

 

[edwin_m]

And I suspect there are many Americans who would agree, but the system does not give them enough voice.

And ironically that's one reason Trump was elected and might be again. Despite claiming to be very wealthy and self-made (both being dubious), he has managed to convince many of those left behind by globalisation and the polarisation of American society that he has their interests at heart.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Breaking news- Biden has just proposed SCOTUS overhaul .

 

[jfollows]

Breaking news- Biden has just proposed SCOTUS overhaul .

The Supreme Court of the United States.
Sorry, but I didn’t recognise your abbreviation!
18 year term limits plus a code of ethics.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The Supreme Court of the United States.
Sorry, but I didn’t recognise your abbreviation!

POTUS =President Of The United States
FLOTUS=First Lady Of The United States
SCOTUS= Supreme Court Of The United States

 

[birchesgreen]

SCOTUS and SGOTUS/SLOTUS sometimes causes me confusion.

 

[ainsworth74]

Breaking news- Biden has just proposed SCOTUS overhaul .

Which will likely die on it's backside as it ain't going to get through the Republican House of Representatives (as I believe the previous mechanism to increase the size of the court has been via an Act of Congress), not now that they've gotten the Court sown up for at least a decade or more. It certainly wouldn't get through as a Constitutional amendment either for the same reason. The only other option would be to just I suppose try and do it via Executive Order but that feels somewhat unlikely!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It is almost as if the Founding Fathers made it deliberately difficult for there to be substantial changes!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Which will likely die on it's backside as it ain't going to get through the Republican House of Representatives (as I believe the previous mechanism to increase the size of the court has been via an Act of Congress), not now that they've gotten the Court sown up for at least a decade or more.

I doubt that Biden seriously expects it to get through the current Congress: I'd imagine the strategy for now is to use it as a campaigning tool, to help undermine the Republicans at the upcoming elections - since to judge from the BBC report, what he's actually proposed (term limits plus a code of ethics) is very mild and the kind of thing that no-one in their right mind could seriously object to: I'd imagine that, by objecting to it - as they obviously will - the Republicans are likely to make themselves look out of touch to moderate/independent voters. BBC Report

To address these concerns, Mr Biden has proposed ending lifetime appointments to the court.

Instead, he believes that sitting presidents should appoint a new justice to the court every two years, who would then serve an 18-year period.

Reform advocates have previously suggested that staggered 18-year-term limits would help depoliticise the court and make it more balanced and representative of the population.

Additionally, Mr Biden is pressing Congress to establish a new code of ethics that would force justices to disclose gifts and avoid overt political activities.

 

[ainsworth74]

It is almost as if the Founding Fathers made it deliberately difficult for there to be substantial changes!

They created a high bar but I don't think they intended it to be as high as the current polarised situation has made it. Of Amendment's that have gone on to be ratified we're currently 53 years on from the 26th Amendment (lowered the voting age to 18) being proposed to the present day. The largest gap between amendments before then was the 62 years between the 12th (created the modern system of President and Vice President being elected together rather than the VP being the loser of the Presidential race) and 13th (abolish of slavery) Amendment's. Even if we include unratified Amendment's the last time one was sent to the States for ratification was in 1978 (would have given Washington DC representation in Congress, on the Electoral College and to vote on Constitutional Amendments).

It was a deliberately high bar, a constitution should be a difficult thing to change, but I'm not sure it was meant to be quite this high.

I doubt that Biden seriously expects it to get through the current Congress: I'd imagine the strategy for now is to use it as a campaigning tool, to help undermine the Republicans at the upcoming elections - since to judge from the BBC report, what he's actually proposed (term limits plus a code of ethics) is very mild and the kind of thing that no-one in their right mind could seriously object to: I'd imagine that, by objecting to it - as they obviously will - the Republicans are likely to make themselves look out of touch to moderate/independent voters. BBC Report

Yes I suspect you're right about that. It's sending a message about why you should vote for Harris and the Democrats ("You're unhappy with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade and introducing Presidential immunity? Well, we've got at least the start of an answer to that issue!") rather than any actual intention of it being enacted this side of the election.

 

[DarloRich]

Breaking news- Biden has just proposed SCOTUS overhaul .

He has hardly suggested earth shattering changes: term limits seem sensible!

very mild and the kind of thing that no-one in their right mind could seriously object to: I'd imagine that, by objecting to it - as they obviously will - the Republicans are likely to make themselves look out of touch to moderate/independent voters

The supreme court appointments are a big part of why people like the religious groups are happy to overlook Trump and his, erm, non Christian lifestyle/views and vote for him. He has packed the court with conservatives ( some may say ultra conservative justices) and the religious groups hope that will help them roll back rights on abortion/gay rights and such like and take back control from the godless left wing Marxists or some such

They are mild changes that Biden suggests. I would use my newly fangled immunity from prosecution to make changes, declare all the Conservative justices threats to national security, strip them of their role, chuck them in prison and send 55 new sensible justices to the bench

 

[GRALISTAIR]

He has hardly suggested earth shattering changes: term limits seem sensible!

As long as it applies to Senators, and Representatives in the Senate/house too. He can not have it both ways. Presidents already have term limits of course.