[Politics] The 2024 US Election - Trump v Harris

[Commander]

Then you would be voting based on personalities rather than the issues. A vote for Trump is a vote for destroying norms, incompetence at all levels of government, total bans on abortion, no infrastructure investment, no vision for the future other than trying to stay in the past. No regulation on the development and application of Artificial Intelligence. Tax cuts for the wealthiest few. He will once again increase the national debt, undermine global treaties and destabilise democracies around the world. Trump is a cancer to global society and votes for him are votes for chaos, hatred and the most dangerous presidential candidate there has ever been.

But you're right. Sadly, there will be lots of people who think it's a game or a popularity contest and if enough of those people vote for Trump they will suffer the consequences for years. Like the UK with Brexit, stuck with the consequences of the stupidity of the minority of the country who voted to Leave. At least Trump would be gone within 4 years (or change the law of the country to try and hang around) and they can get someone with competence and dignity to put the country back on the right path.

Indeed. But that's the problem, there are literally tens of millions of people in the US who will vote like this.

 

[Withdean South Stand]

Indeed. But that's the problem, there are literally tens of millions of people in the US who will vote like this.

It's really sad. Trump is literally just shitstirring and whipping up hatred. It's easy to destroy, it's much harder to build. Trump is a destructive force and Biden is trying to build the country with the investments made in infrastructure, the CHIPS act, healthcare (specifically, capping the cost Insulin), etc.

Trump would be a disaster for the country and the world, again.

I'm a big fan of Joe Biden, but I hope he is not the nominee in November. If he is, then I really hope he wins but the Democrats need to look to the longer term and it needs to start immediately.

 

[chickens]

Biden needs to step aside. It’s never been so clear. That was a really uncomfortable watch and whoever’s been pushing/enabling him to go for a second term needs to take a long look at themselves.

Trump is not fully compos mentis himself, but Biden is allowing him to look good by comparison. What the hell is going on in the Democratic Party?

Trump is a malign incompetent bullshitter who will rule entirely for his own benefit. The Republican Party leadership allowing themselves to be infiltrated and used via Moscow have effectively become traitors to their own state. They are what Farage/Truss et al are to British politics.

At present neither of America’s two main parties are fit to rule. There is simply no good choice for American voters. I simply don’t know enough about American politics to know if any other parties are even genuinely in the race. Who else is out there to vote for?

 

[Withdean South Stand]

At present neither of America’s two main parties are fit to rule. There is simply no good choice for American voters. I simply don’t know enough about American politics to know if any other parties are even genuinely in the race. Who else is out there to vote for?

Well, the Democratic party are ruling and they are clearly fit to do so. They've written effective legislation and enacted bills into law which have had meaningful impacts so they clearly are the party who are better at running the country. The Presidency is the figurehead and obviously the president themselves is significant but the big difference between Trump and Biden is competence of administration. Trump's administration was so incompetent and unable to function that (luckily) they really didn't do very much in office, other than appoint 3 Supreme Court judges to tip the scales toward pyschopaths for decades to come, brilliant. Biden's administration has passed legislation which has resulted in job creation, new roads and bridges, etc.

Of course, if you wanted to cut your nose off to spite your face - you could vote for RFK. A man who admitted his brain has been eaten by a worm (no, really). He's a Le Tissier style mental case, but sure, why not. Go for it. And while you're voting for that mess, a couple of hundred million people will be determining the presidency.

 

[US Seagull]

Well that went about as badly as it possibly could have.

I know Biden supposedly "had a cold", and maybe that's true, it really doesn't matter. He looked awful and that's all that anybody will remember. If Trump was smart, he'd back out of the second debate right now. There is literally nothing that could happen in the second debate that would be better for him.

Anyway, replacing Biden...is problematic. First, I think Joe would have to decide himself to step aside. Any suggestion he was pushed (so no 25th Amendment) would be a disaster.

Then you'd have to find a replacement, and that's were the real problems would start. First, the Democrats would have to do something that they famously don't do. Ever. And that's unify. If 100% of the party isn't behind a replacement, you may as well tell Trump to just come to the White House and start measuring for drapes (assuming he doesn't still have the measurements saved in a beat up document box in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom). Remember how sulky Bernie Bros probably cost Hillary the election in 2016? This could be a real problem. Many will see Kamala Harris as next in line since she is VP. And while I think she'd make a fine president, she ran an absolute shitshow of a primary back in 2020 and if you thought Hilary was hurt by having the temerity to run as a women with opinions. Oh boy. She is another woman that people seem to just have a visceral (and I think totally unjustified) dislike for. But the problem with not having Harris as the candidate is that some important portion of the Democratic base, that being black women, might justly feel slighted to see a black women passed up for some milquetoast white boy. I guess maybe, and it would be a huge stretch, they could convince Harris to come out and say she didn't want the job for some plausible reason, then they could dump Harris without too much damage. Seems unlikely.

Second, there is, in election campaign terms zero time for a candidate to "introduce" themselves to voters. So some unknown up-and-coming Democratic "star" is probably out of the question. That probably rules out Cory Booker and Gretchen Whitmer. I think they'd both be great candidates, but I don't think they are well known enough. I'd really like to see Pete Buttigieg, he's young, he's charismatic, but he is also not high profile enough and also gay. Would America vote for a gay white man before a straight black women? I don't know.

To my mind, it leaves only one candidate that is high profile enough and would unite the Democratic party. Unfortunately, she has repeatedly said that she is not interested in the job...

Michelle Obama's office says the former first lady 'will not be running for president' in 2024

Democrats and Republicans have mused about a Michelle Obama candidacy, albeit for different reasons.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[US Seagull]

Trump is not fully compos mentis himself, but Biden is allowing him to look good by comparison. What the hell is going on in the Democratic Party?

This is the thing. Trump was every bit as rambling an incoherent as Joe. Nothing he said made any sense and most of what he said was outright lies. But he said it confidently. And if you ignore the actual words he was saying it sounded like normal human politician speak.

 

[rippleman]

And again we have much in common with our American cousins.

Are Biden and Trump the best you can come up with? Because the best we can come up with are Starmer and Sunak.

What a sorry state the western political world has become.

 

[US Seagull]

 

[Mellotron]

Then you would be voting based on personalities rather than the issues.

Which is absolutely what most people do.

Heard a number of people recently saying they are voting Reform because they "like" Farage. Nothing to do with policy, nothing to do with competency. It's just like with Johnson - who looks the biggest laugh to have a drink with.

Depressing and dumb, but the reality.

 

[sparkie]

It's time now for Biden to withdraw from the election.

He is not capable to do the job in 2025. By 2029 he'll be much worse.

Someone needs to have the retirement conversation with him.

 

[aftershavedave]

It's time now for Biden to withdraw from the election.

He is not capable to do the job in 2025. By 2029 he'll be much worse.

Someone needs to have the retirement conversation with him.

I agree with this. My old dad is 86 and far more composed than Joe. I was shocked just how bad his rambling was, he looked sadly like a very old man way past his prime. He needs to step back

 

[jcdenton08]

Confused, probably senile old man vs pile of cheesy Wotsits in an ill-fitting suit. MURICA!

 

[jcdenton08]

Jon Stewart excellent as ever...

“We are coming to you LIVE”

*crowd goes mental*

What? American TV is unbearable

 

[Withdean South Stand]

Which is absolutely what most people do.

Heard a number of people recently saying they are voting Reform because they "like" Farage. Nothing to do with policy, nothing to do with competency. It's just like with Johnson - who looks the biggest laugh to have a drink with.

Depressing and dumb, but the reality.

I can understand it. To a certain extent, the issues being discussed are too big to comprehend and the complexities of making meaningful changes are very hard to articulate in the time allowed. If politicians were being honest, they'd need to talk in 5 and 10 year terms. You can start doing the work but one term isn't really enough to make the kind of changes they all talk about. You can make a start and you can show the right intent, but it's into the second term where the changes can become more meaningful.

If American had elected Hillary to continue the work that president Obama had done I'm convinced they'd have built a strong economy, handled the pandemic a lot better and we'd have never heard from Trump in a meaningful way again.

In the UK, I think Starmer is reluctant to make the kind of big, sweeping statements the media are demanding from him because he knows that the first Prime Ministerial term would be about course correcting and setting out the kind of principles and policies the Labour party believe in. The 2nd term would give him the opportunity to build on the incremental improvements achieved in the first (hopefully!), but for the time being he's a new broom with a new government behind him.

I really hope the US election features neither Trump nor Biden, but I suspect it will be Trump vs a candidate nominated at the Democratic Convention. Gretchen Whitmer got a shout out on Pod Save America and could be a great shout, although I suspect Gavin Newsom would want to get in the mix because 8 years is a long wait.

 

[US Seagull]

Jon Stewart excellent as ever...

Could we recruit Jon to run?

I really do feel like he picked the worst moment to quit the Daily Show. We needed him for the 2016 election cycle.

 

[US Seagull]

Some thoughts from somebody who also had an absolutely disastrous debate a couple years back:

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Trump used the Sunak playbook - lie , lie and lie again. The best of them was "I never had sex with a porn star"

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

This is the thing. Trump was every bit as rambling an incoherent as Joe. Nothing he said made any sense and most of what he said was outright lies. But he said it confidently. And if you ignore the actual words he was saying it sounded like normal human politician speak.

I saw parts of it live, didn't sit through it fully - but it seemed Trump spoke second for most of bidens biggest fumbles, so he just had to shrug his shoulders and say he didn't understand for most of what biden said.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

I felt sorry for Biden because most Yanks forget that he has a stutter. They just think he has dementia.

 

[US Seagull]

I saw parts of it live, didn't sit through it fully - but it seemed Trump spoke second for most of bidens biggest fumbles, so he just had to shrug his shoulders and say he didn't understand for most of what biden said.

To expand on what Trump said, he delivered it with better style, but it's still absolute nonsense. This was in response to a question about Jan 6th:

What they've done to some people that are so innocent, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, what you have done, how you've destroyed the lives of so many people. When they ripped down Portland, when they ripped down many other cities, you go to Minnesota, Minneapolis, what they've done there with the fires all over the city, if I didn't bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.

When you look at all of the—they took over big chunks of Seattle. I was all set to bring in the National Guard. They heard that. They saw them coming and they left immediately. What he said about this whole subject is so off. Peacefully patriotic.

One other thing, the "unselect committee," which is basically two horrible Republicans that are all gone now, out of office, and Democrats, all Democrats, they destroyed and deleted all of the information they found because they found out we were right. We were right. And they deleted and destroyed all of the information. They should go to jail for that. If a Republican did that, they'd go to jail.

When you write the words out and then try to read it, it's clear that it's just rambling nonsense.

And then Trump's closing statement. A statement that was, presumably, worked on before hand:

All of the things that we've done, nobody's ever—never seen anything like—even from a medical standpoint. Right to Try, where we can try Space Age materials instead of going to Asia or going to Europe and trying to get when you're terminally ill.

Now, you can go and you can get something. You signed a document. They've been trying to get it for 42 years.

But you know what we did for the military was incredible. Choice for our soldiers, where our soldiers, instead of waiting for three months to see a doctor, can go out and get themselves fixed up and readied up, and take care of themselves and they're living. And that's why I had the highest approval rating of the history of the V.A.

So, all of these things—we're in a failing nation, but it's not going to be failing anymore. We're going to make it great again.

Trump has clearly lost the plot, if he ever had it, but he manages to vomit out his word salad without seeming to stumble or trip, he just keeps on, stream of consciousness, and if you don't listen to the actual words, or try to make sense of it, it seems okay.