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The 2024 US presidential election.

JamesT

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Noted: I should have said reabsorbed into mainland China. Communist China has never controlled Taiwan. However Taiwan was historically part of China and is considered so by PRC.
I believe historically it was also considered so by the ROC, though they had a very different idea of who should be in charge of all of it. :)
 
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ainsworth74

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Collapsed? No. It was split. The combined tory plus reform vote is higher than the labour vote.
There was no collapse of the right. We have an incredible situation where the number of votes for labour went down, and the outcome was a massive majority. And they seem hell bent on using that majority to upset almost everyone except die hard followers.
For the record. I am glad the tories got an electoral kicking. But you must see that the vote on the right, held up.
Not sure that the numbers sustain that analysis?

In the 2024 General Election the Tories and Reform combined got 10.9 million votes. In the 2019 General Election the Tories by themselves got 13.9m votes chuck in the Brexit Party and you get to around 14.6m. That's a collapse to me not a vote holding up!

Now agree that the 2024 Labour performance was poorer (in vote terms) than 2019 (9.7m vs 10.2m) but the left/centre-left/anti-Tory vote in general held up quite well. Labour, Lib Dem and Greens got around 15m in 2019 and in 2024 that same grouping got 14.8m. A decline yes but of a few hundred thousand rather than the three million that the right block lost!

Or Estonia, Moldova and Poland.

Oh absolutely but of them only Poland probably has any capacity to go nuclear (and even then I suspect it would take a long time). But it must be extremely worrying if you live in a Baltic State this morning.
 

GRALISTAIR

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I would suggest nuclear proliferation is probably a bigger worry now. I wonder how secure Taiwan, South Korea, or Japan are feeling right now with their own belligerent nuclear armed neighbours and the case study of Ukraine that a) you couldn't rely on Western support before Trump and b) if you're attacked by a nuclear power even if you get support it will be so heavily caveated that it might be functionally useless anyway. A credible nuclear capability might end up being seen to be the only way that they can attempt guarantee their survival.
Sadly, I feel you may be correct. Nuclear proliferation is definitely a worry with some cash strapped and unethical countries possibly being willing to sell the technology or even sell finished nuclear weapons.
 

Doctor Pepper

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America has basically just voted for WW3.

And why are the rest of the World leaders lining up to butter up this man? Kier Starmer should be saying exactly what those of us who are sane think, not kissing his boots.
 

brad465

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I don't know about that but there are elections coming up soon in major European countries. Where America goes the others follow. "Populism" is on the rise
Depends, if the US under Trump blows up, the like-minded populist movements that cheerlead and try to emulate him will be in trouble if they can't break the shackles. Note how almost nobody in the EU, even key euro-sceptic movements, is proposing leaving it after seeing how it's gone down for the UK.

He needs to falter quite quickly though for some countries: Poland elects a President next May (although the Parliament ones are a long way off), Germany has a federal election in October and Hungary is spring 2026. If France can hold its parliament together they can hold off till 2027 for the Presidential election.

Interestingly, this could be a rare Presidential term in which the UK has no general election between two US Presidential elections. Trump's upcoming term ends in January 2029, the UK doesn't have to call an election till summer later that year. However if Labour are doing okay that point they could follow the tradition of calling a year early in mid-2028.
 

ainsworth74

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Sadly, I feel you may be correct. Nuclear proliferation is definitely a worry with some cash strapped and unethical countries possibly being willing to sell the technology or even sell finished nuclear weapons.
The three I mentioned would have little need of outside assistance to create their own weapons as they have civil nuclear power experience already, as well as significant scientific and technological capabilities. If they wanted nuclear weapons it would be a question of when not if they gained deliverable weapons.

Buying weapons in dirty backroom deals is more the preserve of somewhere like Saudi Arabia (who almost certainly have an arrangement with Pakistan in the event Iran goes nuclear) and probably North Korea (who likely bought at least some know how from Pakistan and are likely getting rocketry assistance from Russia).
 

brad465

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Oh absolutely but of them only Poland probably has any capacity to go nuclear (and even then I suspect it would take a long time). But it must be extremely worrying if you live in a Baltic State this morning.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist's Doomsday clock is currently at 90 seconds to midnight, closer than the 2-minute threshold it set at the height of the cold war. I'd put good money on it moving to at least 60 seconds, if not closer, now.
 

nw1

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That's why they look up to him. It's an individualistic culture.
It's funny though that many of the most famous and respected Americans have no time for him whatsoever. Many people from the world of science, music and film really don't care for him, for example.
 

nlogax

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It's funny though that many of the most famous and respected Americans have no time for him whatsoever. Many people from the world of science, music and film really don't care for him, for example.
Those are typically people of an outward-looking disposition. If you spend your time travelling around the world and understanding the opinions and viewpoints of those in other countries then you're naturally going to have a different worldview.
 

Stossgebet

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I would suggest nuclear proliferation is probably a bigger worry now. I wonder how secure Taiwan, South Korea, or Japan are feeling right now with their own belligerent nuclear armed neighbours and the case study of Ukraine that a) you couldn't rely on Western support before Trump and b) if you're attacked by a nuclear power even if you get support it will be so heavily caveated that it might be functionally useless anyway. A credible nuclear capability might end up being seen to be the only way that they can attempt guarantee their survival.
Trump was the first ever US president to hold face to face talks with the leader of North Korea. Trump tried to initiate the de-nuclearisation of North Korea. Who knows if he would have achieved more if he had a consecutive second term, rather than the numerous wars that happened in the 4 years between his terms of office.
 

ainsworth74

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The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist's Doomsday clock is currently at 90 seconds to midnight, closer than the 2-minute threshold it set at the height of the cold war. I'd put good money on it moving to at least 60 seconds, if not closer, now.
Probably! Though that ruddy clock has become somewhat useless since they started including climate change in it's calculation. Rather skews the scale and the ability to compare to the past!
 

ainsworth74

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Trump was the first ever US president to hold face to face talks with the leader of North Korea. Trump tried to initiate the de-nuclearisation of North Korea. Who knows if he would have achieved more if he had a consecutive second term, rather than the numerous wars that happened in the 4 years between his terms of office.
Bully for him. If you think Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan feel more secure today than they did yesterday I'm afraid I don't buy it.
 

brad465

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???? How do you make that out? Trump is basically anti-war.
Neville Chamberlain was anti-war, but a year later he was declaring war on Germany for us. The US was anti-war when WW2 started, then 2 years in Japan attacked them and suddenly they were at war too.

My point here is when it comes to war, not wanting it doesn't mean it won't happen, even with the best intentions.
 

Stossgebet

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If Reform didn't exist Labour would still have won. Anyway, we're off topic now.

I don't care if 'the left' keep losing elections, calling out racists and bigots for what they are is the right thing to do. These people should not be appeased, last time we did that Germany took the Sudetenland and look where that got us.
Really? Is that the last time racists were appeased? I think your hysterical and hyperbolic reaction, tells us you've missed decades of history since 1945!!

Bully for him. If you think Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan feel more secure today than they did yesterday I'm afraid I don't buy it.
Is that because 4 years of Biden left us all a lot less safe?!
 

nw1

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Collapsed? No. It was split. The combined tory plus reform vote is higher than the labour vote.
If you do that you've got to combine Labour with the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid on the progressive side. If you did that, the Progressives would get a higher % than the Right.

If I was Labour I would be changing the FPTP system right now. A progressive coalition is far more likely to win next time than Labour alone, and the most effective way of preventing some kind of Badenoch/Farage coalition from hell.
 

nw1

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Is that because 4 years of Biden left us all a lot less safe?!

It's because Putin and Netanyahu have made us less safe with their warmongering.
Plus the after-effects of Covid, which the populist right appear to be exploiting by blaming it all on the sane politicians (which includes centre-right as well as left).

Do you? You really really don't. You just 'want' to.

Why not?

If you're going to combine the Tories with Reform for the right-leaning vote, then you need to do the same for the progressive vote.

Even ignoring the nationalists, Labour + Lib Dem + Green tops 50%. Like it or not, the progressive whole-UK parties beat the right. Sorry. We are NOT a country of right-wingers.
 
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ainsworth74

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Is that because 4 years of Biden left us all a lot less safe?!
Man I really don't know how to deal with people that seem to cling to the idea that we were all perfectly safe under Trump and it's entirely Biden's fault that the world is now in chaos. Sure, Biden could have done a better job but get real. Most of these conflicts have been bubbling away for a very long time. The bills just finally come due following many years of pretending if we wished hard enough authoritarians like Putin, Xi and Kim, would go away and leave us alone. And now we have an unpredictable incoherent leader in the White House whose opinions seems to vary depending on who spoke to him last in charge of the nuclear button and the world most fearsome military.

Sure, we're all going to be so much safer come 20 January 2025. Of course we are.

Do you? You really really don't. You just 'want' to.
In which case I'm not sure you should be combining Reform and the Tory vote to suggest that the right wing vote "held up" (which it didn't in any case even if you do combine them) as it isn't exactly a fair comparison otherwise.
 

Stossgebet

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It's because Putin and Netanyahu have made us less safe with their warmongering.
Plus the after-effects of Covid, which the populist right appear to be exploiting by blaming it all on the sane politicians (which includes centre-right as well as left).



Why not?

If you're going to combine the Tories with Reform for the right-leaning vote, then you need to do the same for the progressive vote.

Even ignoring the nationalists, Labour + Lib Dem + Green tops 50%. Like it or not, the progressive whole-UK parties beat the right. Sorry. We are NOT a country of right-wingers.
Tops 50% of what? The lowest turn out since 1928?

I never said that the reform and tories would form a coalition. I said that the right wing vote didn't collapse. And it didn't. It split. If you chose not to understand that simple and measured fact. Then you're only letting yourself down.
 

ainsworth74

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I never said that the reform and tories would form a coalition. I said that the right wing vote didn't collapse. And it didn't. It split. If you chose not to understand that simple and measured fact. Then you're only letting yourself down.
How is this not a collapse?

In the 2024 General Election the Tories and Reform combined got 10.9 million votes. In the 2019 General Election the Tories by themselves got 13.9m votes chuck in the Brexit Party and you get to around 14.6m. That's a collapse to me not a vote holding up!
 

Krokodil

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???? How do you make that out? Trump is basically anti-war.
He's anti-American involvement which risks a takeover by Putin.

For what it's worth though, the current administration have been pretty useless with their continued insistence that Ukraine cannot use supplied weapons (or US parts in UK systems) to strike military targets within Russia.

Ultimately Trump is unpredictable. On the one hand he might surrender Ukraine to Putin (because letting Hitler have Czechoslovakia stopped him invading Poland, right?), on the other hand he might try to appear to be a strongman president who nukes Moscow.

It's funny though that many of the most famous and respected Americans have no time for him whatsoever. Many people from the world of science, music and film really don't care for him, for example.
Respected by whom? Us? We didn’t have a vote. Many of the people who did have a vote have more respect for loudmouths on Fox News than people with any actual intelligence.

It's because Putin and Netanyahu have made us less safe with their warmongering.
I'm less worried about Netanyahu, that conflict will remain a regional one. Putin is the one capable of starting WWIII.
 

ainsworth74

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The turn out collapsed (lowest since 1928). The tory vote collapsed (they got the electoral kicking they deserved). But most of those votes remained in play, and remained on the right with reform.
Sure, but the total number of votes cast in 2024 was around 9.5% less than the total cast in 2019 and yet the combined Tory/Reform (or Tory/Brexit Party vote in 2019) was down 25% in 2024 compared to 2019.
 

AlterEgo

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Surely it's better that the best person for the job get in, rather than what gender they are?
That would be a more erudite thing to say if commenting on an election where the winner wasn't a conman who likes to grab women by the pussy. 'Cause you should see the other candidate, right?
 

Gloster

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Trump may be anti-war, but his actions play into the hands of those who seem to be less worried about it, as long as they come out on top. Look at the way he behaved to Putin, Kim Jong Un and one or two others who have no scruples about how they behave, but know how to flatter his enormous ego.

Trump may be anti-military, but that isn’t the same thing. It has been suggested that he is in line with a section of the Republican Party that objects to the GI Bill and its successors because putting those who have had an honourable discharge through college is expensive and, for some of the GOP, gives qualifications to those who ought to go back to being poor and subservient.
 

Yew

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Why would i be angry? I find the amount of hostility to the result very amusing. You might be able to tell that i regard the result as a sort of comeuppance, for another left wing campaign that focussed on the negative of the opposition (with some severe hypocrisy), rather than the positives of the incumbent regime. A tactic that just keeps failing.
Describing the Democrats as left-wing seems a bit of stretch.
 

brad465

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44 billion well spent for musk. Good news is Trump will be out of our lives in 4 years. Every cloud. Silly, silly America.
I'd be very surprised if Musk and Trump are on good terms in 4 years time. Trump's top team in 2020 was barely recognisable from the original appointments in 2016; he fired/fell out with most of them.

The thing about folk with massive egos, is while they can work together when they have a common interest and things are good for both of them, as soon as something goes wrong, they put themselves first and fall out.
 

Strathclyder

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I honestly wish I could say I was surprised by the result when I woke up this morning, but I wasn't. Repulsed, disappointed (that's more on me than anything else) and angered, but surprised? No. The phrase 'two countries seperated by a common language' has never been truer than it is now when it comes to the US and UK, at least in my lifetime.

Describing the Democrats as left-wing seems a bit of stretch.
I'd put them roughly to the right of the Tories quite honestly.
 

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