Trumped
November 8, 2024, 12:22 pm , by Richard Lutz
from Richard Lutz
So, it’s like this: 73 million Americans think it’s a good idea to put a convicted criminal in The White House. A man who was found guilt on 34 felony counts.
Right, I think I understand.
He won outright and he told the electorate what he wants to do. And they bought it. Seventy three million times, they not only bought it but gobbled it down and digested it and licked their red white and blue lips.
They want to slap huge tariffs on imports and somehow that will make America great again without adding in the formula that it will create higher prices; they’re happy to stigmatise even more those of migrant stock; they’re ok once again (as in 2016) to legitimise cretinous language, half truths and slander; they’ve shrugged of Trump’s urge to put soldiers on American streets to attack the undefined ‘enemies within’; and, in the Ukraine, they are grossly unworried about a deal between the US and Russia without taking into account what Kiev thinks.
And these 73m get a bonus. They’ll have a Putin pal in the Oval Office who believes might is right. There are no ethics or morals come January. It’s plain as day. All the US middle-roaders, and I include Harris, Biden, Obama, Bush (times two) and Clinton, are simply history. Washed away.
In their place is an unmitigated hardliner without ideology or national interest ‘turbocharging’, as an academic friend wrote today, autocratic leaders and movements in Brazil, The Philippines, Hungry and a host of emerging former Soviet states.
And if this 78 year old newly elected president falls to old age or infirmity, there’s always VP Vance, who is a pale but vicious shadow of his leader.
Don’t forget the Musk Factor either. No one cast a ballot for this erratic megalomaniac. But there he is and he has Trump’s ear and he’s a loose cannon who has a tight grip on what’s heard and what’s said in world media.
This bodes badly for the home of the free. This bodes ill for the world.
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Sarah McVie
The crazies are in charge and his friend Nigel Farage might be in power in five years
Martin McCrindle
Simply tragic…
John V
Dark days
Alan Holland
A nicely balanced piece.
I hold no brief for Trump but am much more sanguine than most about how his term will shake out in reality. Those regimes you reference still have elections. Are they all stolen? We will see.
Interesting comment re Elon. Very strange man but clearly a visionary and astonishingly good at business. At least he showed himself, bless his little cotton socks.
All politicians these days seem to surround themselves with those who wield influence yet lack democratic legitimacy. Lord Alli never had the guts to show his face yet got a No. 10 pass for buying the front bench their underwear and consider all the infighting ‘Special Advisers’ who surround our Government making policy, writing speeches and bullying people just like Elizabethan courtiers did.
Ukraine is never going to beat Russia, they’re sick of freezing and dying, morale is slipping and the sanctions aren’t working fast enough. It’s all very well us fuelling the fires from the sidelines but maybe saving the lives of thousands of young men on both sides and stopping unfathomable misery and destruction in Ukraine is a price worth paying to draw the line where it is?
Putin won’t last for ever and those tactics which worked in the eighties to bring down the USSR can still prevail against him with patience, power and determination. We weren’t prepared two years ago. We will be next time. In no small measure due to Trump telling his NATO allies to pull their weight.
Tony Fitzpatrick
I fret for the people of the USA and I accept that I may be wrong… but the UK now has a ‘special relationship’ with what may well turn out to be a Kremlin-style ollgarchy with public assets and monies stripped out funnelled to a new breed of Tech Bros, oil gas and fracking hucksters and whatever snake oil salesmen say the nicest things to him….Kremlin 2….???
Jay Shah
This is certainly a moment in history.
So unpredictable what will happen in the next four years, especially with House and Senate controlled by Republicans.
Michael Kretzmer
The Dems lied about Biden. They lied about Harris. No wonder Americans sent them packing.
Bella Houston
Not surprised with Harris as the contender
William Rice
The cult of Trump has won. And we are all the losers. It is unfathomable to me how the majority of Americans deliberately put a career criminal, who models his leadership style on a mafia mob boss, into the most powerful office on the planet! He is an unabashed racist, a pathological liar, an adjudicated rapist, a 34 times convicted felon who has threatened violent retribution on his perceived “enemies.” Yet he is the president-elect, again. The people who are gloating and crowing now don’t realize it yet, but they will soon find out that they may have given away our Democratic freedoms for a cheaper dozen eggs.
rsd
As one of my teachers Mr. Weinroth warned a younger Trump: “Your behaviour not only gets sand in the wheels of progress but destroys everything in its path”.
Becky Cabrera
Scary scary times.
Jeff B.
An ugly result over here, to be sure. The pundits say Kamala Harris ran a flawless campaign. A better read of that is she made no glaring gaffes and was overly cautious and scripted.
In her defense, incumbent parties have lost across the world lately. Clearly, Biden should have announced he wasn’t running for reelection a year or two earlier, opening the nomination process and enabling the nominee to build a stronger identity. And it certainly would help if Democrats could find ways to connect with working class voters while cutting back on identity politics.
Liz Forman/ California
I think disinformation and the gullibility of such a huge sector of the American public played a huge part. The question is – How to deal with that in the future?
From Joyce Vance in ‘Civil Discourse’
When the dust settles, I expect the people who assess elections will tell us disinformation was key in 2024. It wasn’t the economy, it was the disinformation about the economy. That disinformation successfully led voters across the country to believe they were worse off, despite October reporting in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that we have the best economy in the world, a remarkable recovery from Covid.
There was Trump’s persistent lying. There were the highly successful disinformation campaigns by hostile foreign entities. There were billionaire newspaper owners who withheld endorsements the editorial boards wanted to give to Harris, endorsements that would have focused on the strength of her economic policies and the importance of democracy issues. There was Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and converted it from the public square to a mouthpiece for Trump.
Tony Fitzpatrick
I like this analysis…
lol freeman
Republicans kept the message super simple if super misleading
Texas boy
Disinformation certainly was a huge part of it. But Harris was still a relative unknown to many who don’t play close attention to politics and the news
Ed Burke
I have sworn off news since Tuesday, but this is a fellow I regularly cross emails with,
https://www.sethsteinzorpoet.com/blog/and-the-beat-goes-on
Eli Peterson
Perhaps one of the things I most detested about Trump was how he called his opponents bad names. A President should be trying to unite people. I believe calling Nancy Pelosi “crazy” has exactly the opposite effect. I contrast that to something I remember from when Barack Obama debated John McCain. He started his opening statement by praising McCain for his military service. They remained both opponents and friends.
Let’s hope we make it through the next 4 years and next time, the American electorate takes the election of the President seriously.
Sensemaker
Trump praised his campaign staff, his prospective vice-president and his family. They got a few seconds of adulation each. Elon Musk was given four minutes. Trump called him a “super-genius”, a “special guy” and “a star”.
Laurine Sweitzer
In my 78 years on this Earth, I have always felt proud to be an American until now. Now, I’m not sure how I feel.
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