US politics

[lanky316]

It's hard to keep up with all of his ramblings and contradictions, but among the many things he's said is the noise windmills make gives you cancer.

[Carbomb]

Don Trump? More like Don Quixote amirite lads eh eh eh eh

[Chest Rockwell]

Not a fan of Kimmel at all but that was a great bit. Would be loads better if they upload a version without the studio audience laughing.

[CTXRussomark]

I know I shouldn't be, but I'm absolutely astounded at how close the election is still looking.  I could sort of justify it in my head when Biden was still running as he really did look and sound ready to drop at any second (still preferable to Trump), but from the outside looking in the Trump campaign has looked like a complete disaster since Harris stepped in.  There's been zero energy in any of his appearances, he clearly has no idea what he's talking about most of the time, and Vance comes across as a complete liability.  It thankfully does seem like things are leaning in the other direction, but the fact it's even a conversation is mind boggling. 

[Retro Red]

1 hour ago, lanky316 said:

It's hard to keep up with all of his ramblings and contradictions, but among the many things he's said is the noise windmills make gives you cancer.

Which is evidence of how thin skinned and bitter he is. The whole thing with wind farms is because he objected to one about 12 years ago being placed in the North Sea because it would ruin the view on his new course up our way. The distance meaning it would maybe be 2-3cm tall on the horizon meaning nothing to him. Because he didn’t get his way he staunchly opposes wind energy since that day.

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, CTXRussomark said:

I know I shouldn't be, but I'm absolutely astounded at how close the election is still looking.  I could sort of justify it in my head when Biden was still running as he really did look and sound ready to drop at any second (still preferable to Trump), but from the outside looking in the Trump campaign has looked like a complete disaster since Harris stepped in.  There's been zero energy in any of his appearances, he clearly has no idea what he's talking about most of the time, and Vance comes across as a complete liability.  It thankfully does seem like things are leaning in the other direction, but the fact it's even a conversation is mind boggling. 

It is mind-boggling, but not surprising. Kamala Harris is a black woman; when you consider how ready so many of the American population were to embrace the birther conspiracy theory about Barack Obama, even with all the evidence he produced, and when you consider the general experience of black Americans anyway, it's pretty par for the course.

Most people of colour in majority-white countries tend to grow up with a particular adage drummed into them by their parents: "You have to prove you're twice as good to be seen as just as good".

Trump plays life on the easiest setting (and probably a load of cheat codes too), whilst Kamala is playing on almost the highest difficulty. I've very little time for her politically (I've no real time for the politics of anyone likely to become an American president), but those are struggles I recognise.

[d-d-d-dAz]

It's worth saying, Trump is still the favourite to win this election. Kamala Harris is ahead in terms of national polling, but Trump is pulling ahead in the swing states and leading the betting odds.

Kamala Harris has to swim upstream, as Carbomb said, but also she's actually not a brilliant candidate. She doesn't make her case very well, and doesn't seem to have much of a plan, a vision or answers to the questions the country is facing. On top of that, she's tied to the legacy of Biden and despite the US economy absolutely booming under his leadership, it's been throttled by inflation so the benefits haven't made their way to real people.

Trump paints in primary colours, and in America where the majority of people now don't trust news channels because they're all so bias, you can get away with saying crazy shit as 'your' channels are going to cover you favourably and your people aren't going to see/pay attention to the other side.

And, when he talks about 200% tariffs he makes a very simple argument where the only counter is a complicated economic argument that doesn't get half as much traction.

He'll win, unless something changes the game in the next few weeks.

[SuperBacon]

Trump is currently 7/10 or 4/6 with most betting operators, Harris around 6/4.

Absolutely mental.

[d-d-d-dAz]

Having lived there, I think I sort of get how this happens.

There is no OFCOM managing impartiality of news, there is no BBC leading the way in terms of example. The news media exists solely as a private enterprise designed to make money and cater to their audience, so there's republican channels and there are democrat channels.

If you're a republican you watch your channels, you digest your own personal echo chamber social media and you speak to people who think like you. Everything you see paints Trump in as favourable light as possible. The really mad shit either doesn't get through, or it's served to you within a framework of 'this is what he really means' or 'lol, trolling the libs'.

The same is true of the Dems, and if you're an independent you tend to avoid all of it as you don't know what you can trust as everything is being served to you after having been filtered through a channels personal agenda. 

I worked with lots of great, smart people who just didn't even know what the latest Trump scandal was as they'd just completely switched off to it because they didn't know what or who to trust.

So the only people who ever see the stuff that paints you in a bad light are the ones who weren't going to vote for you anyway, the people on your side are constantly having it reinforced how brilliant you are and the people in the middle don't really have an opinion either way but throughout history have always tended to vote for the person who just projects the most strength. Which is Trump's genius, he's happy to give up on Dem voters, knows how to excite his base and broadly knows that in a vibe based election (which is what US elections always are as the middle is so reluctant to engage with the media and thus the big debates) he just needs to portray strong and authoritative vibes to win the middle.

Edited October 17 by d-d-d-dAz

[lanky316]

29 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

the people on your side are constantly having it reinforced how brilliant you are

This is the thing that in some cases makes it a "losing fight". This isn't even something that happens, Pro-Trump sources are obviously showing these things and the people are watching them in an almost hero worshipping level. They are the ones who aren't getting the "evil communist-globalist-woke" filter, yet almost before he's finished talking and it's being showed they've had some weird hypnosis effect where they didn't see or hear what they've just watched and they instantly go in to denial if they do go online and see things being talked about. He can be on Fox News, admit to making shit up and they'll still fill the bottom half of the internet with "no ACTUALLY batshit thing 5726 IS happening. Do your research!"

Up until now I'd also have agreed with his great attempts at portraying a strong image. This time however he's looked weaker than ever and I just can't see how the middle ground have found this election cycle to be the one that makes them go "yep that's the man for me!" to put him odds on favourite at this point. That said, the image of the election cycle is absolutely him standing up after the shooting so perhaps that's the reason but the soundbites and general demeanour once he got past the Homer Simpson style "look how old my opponent is!" jibes at Biden haven't particularly been there this time.

[d-d-d-dAz]

That picture of him punching the air defiantly after nearly being shot is one of the best photos ever taken, and probably the best piece of political propaganda ever.

It's like someone asked AI 'If one image could potentially win an election, what would that look like?'

For me, 'strength' is relative to the opposition and Harris hasn't done a good job projecting strength, and is wearing the Biden inheritance like an albatross.

[Hannibal Scorch]

It must be the week for celebs to start talking about the election 

 

[DavidB6937]

And at the opposite end to Batista.

 

 

[Chest Rockwell]

6 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

That picture of him punching the air defiantly after nearly being shot is one of the best photos ever taken, and probably the best piece of political propaganda ever.

It's like someone asked AI 'If one image could potentially win an election, what would that look like?'

It's funny how we all thought that at the time, but the news cycle moves so quickly that there's been another attempt on him since and neither is now particularly noteworthy.

[d-d-d-dAz]

7 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

It's funny how we all thought that at the time, but the news cycle moves so quickly that there's been another attempt on him since and neither is now particularly noteworthy.

I think the cycle moves on if you're chronically online, and keep up to date with every detail of the race

Which, to circle back to my original point, the voters who are in-play don't really.

It's still the most cited moment of the campaign in focus groups, still Trump's biggest talking point and now makes up the image on most the awful merch he sells.

I actually think there's a really interesting point about how the Democrats playing the news cycle is costing them this election, and over the past decade has lost them ground to Trump. He sort of plays to the slow grind of people's emotions and fears, and realises most normal people in America aren't hooked on TV news/political social media, whereas the Dems feel very reactive, move with the news cycle and rarely feel fixed on a single world view.