I dont really follow USA politics but will Donald Trump really be voted back in?

[Shosha1]

Personally the very idea terrifies me.
The man seems totally out of control. Refuses to answer any questions he dosnt like.
Takes no responsibility for anything he does.
And all this, as well as being a misogynist, bully.
I couldn't believe he was voted in, in the first place.
Was it because he ran against a woman?
Oh for this all to have happened when Obama held the reins. Whether things would have been much better or not I dont know. But I'm damn sure it would have been dealt with a lot more calmly.

Thanks for the thoughtful posts OVienna.

This What could happen is that Biden wins an even larger portion of the popular vote - in states that are already 'blue' though, so loses the Electoral College again. is my fear but I agree with you that Biden will win. He’s not a great candidate but I think Bernie supporters will vote for him.

I agree with this too

Boris is obviously cleverer that trump, but more or less cut from the same cloth, plus brexit, so I wouldn't be looking too far down your noses at Americans.

And I think racism is one of their common denominators. For historic reasons the US has much more severe racism issues than we have, but when someone says ‘he tells it like it is’ or similar, it usually means ‘he’s racist, misogynist and generally unpleasant and I admire that’. - disclaimer: I am absolutely not saying all Leave voters or Tory voters are racist.

Boris has clearly been taking a few of the less deranged leaves out of Trump’s book, too, which is worrying.

Trump faces a lot of legal problems if he loses the election. It will be interesting/horrifying to watch.

@MJane3 I'm sorry if you feel offended, I take it you are American. But does Trump not offend you more, that he is the face of America, and his displays of temper and totally disregard for any other opinion other than his own makes the country a laughing stock.
Yes we have our own problems. Boris Johnson is not the person I would have wanted to lead the country through this time. But the thought of Jeremy Corbin doing it is even worse.
Maybe the 1st World countries should take a leaf out if Jacinda Adherns book of politics.

Unfortunately I also think trump will win. I really hope he doesn’t but people think he’s doing a good job.

Like over here with Boris.

Both leaders are clearly incompetent and are truly looking out for themselves, or the country they’re supposed to be leading.

New Zealand has never looked more appealing

He didn’t make America great again, he made America a joke. I really feel for those who didn’t vote for him, much like all us here who didn’t vote for the joke that is B.J who is similarly making Britain a laughing stock.

But the thought of Jeremy Corbin doing it is even worse.

This encapsulates current political tactics, and is why Trump might win again.

The (highly successful) strategy of both the Trump and Johnson campaign is to spend little time talking up their own candidate, and instead concentrate their energies endlessly smearing their opponent.

The idea is to suppress the vote for opponent's vote, even if they can't swing those voters to their own candidate. How many times did you hear: "Obviously I don't approve of Trump. But Hillary... I just couldn't". Or substitute Johnson / Corbyn.

Informative article here about Republican political consultant who subsequently did the same job for Viktor Orban in Hungary:

The Unbelievable Story Of The Plot Against George Soros
www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hnsgrassegger/george-soros-conspiracy-finkelstein-birnbaum-orban-netanyahu

Finkelstein’s goal was to polarize the electorate as much as possible, to pitch each side against the other. The fuel: fear. “The danger has to be presented as coming from the Left,” a 25-year-old Finkelstein advised Nixon.

Whoever doesn’t attack first will be beaten, he argued. And Finkelstein made things personal. Every campaign needs an enemy to defeat. He developed negative campaigning into a technique he called “rejectionist voting” — to demonize the enemy so much that even the laziest of voters would want to get out and vote, just to reject them.

Finkelstein would also advise his clients not to talk about themselves, but instead to focus their campaigning on destroying their opponents. [...] Campaigners named his ideology “Finkel-Think.” It was simple but effective. Friends of Finkelstein have often claimed that nobody got more politicians elected than he did.

Possibly, I’m American (don’t live there anymore, thank god). But a lot of Americans are quite backwards, so they think he’s great.

@PerkingFaintly as a Jew I would have never have voted for Corbyn. If he had stood down before the election, as in my opinion he should have. I would definitely have voted for Keir Starmer.
It was not the whole Labour Party I could not vote for. It was Jeremy Corbin and his little collective around him.

It's been an eyeopener how very different social attitudes can be. I've lived all my life in the UK and I take it for granted that healthcare should be free or very low-cost for everybody so that everybody can get the care they need when they need it. My parents were born before the NHS came in and my mum often told me about how difficult life was for people like her family, struggling to make ends meet on a very low income and then suddenly hit with a bill for emergency dental treatment or similar.

However, many Americans seem to view socialised medicine as iniquitous because they assume it takes away the choice of which doctor to see. They also seem to feel that it's their right to insist on having a particular procedure done or drug prescribed because they're able to pay for it, even when it's doubtful whether it's in their or their child's best interests. I'm baffled by how HCPs in the US balance medical ethics with the profit motive.

How they square this with the enormous cost of their system compared with other rich countries, or the fact that so many Americans go bankrupt over medical bills and so many others are unable to get anything except basic emergency care, is beyond me.

The US voting system is structured to give an outsized impact to rural states. So Hilary Clinton won more votes than Donald Trump, but they were concentrated in states like New York and California. Trump won more states total including small rural states, which have proportionally more votes than their size would dictate.

Sexism was also a huge factor in Trump's win over Clinton. That's why in the current election, Joe Biden defeated Bernie Sanders in places where Sanders had defeated Hilary Clinton. Apparently a large chunk of the Sanders vote in 2016 was simply an anti-Clinton vote. Trump versus another white man is a very different proposition.

I grew up in the US and the UK and now live in neither. I can assure you both Trump and Johnson are mentioned as buffoons in the same breath in the rest of the world.

I suspect he will win because of the electoral system and the fact that he really appeals to a lot of people in the rural states especially.

Word's best hope at getting rid of him is frankly either coronavirus or a coronary.

Hillary had 3 million more votes than Trump, but he still won the election.

@MJane3 I would be interested to know in what ways the USA is a "difficult place to live"? Is it linked to individualism and other 1st world countries having more socialist policies, and a collective approach to care? Or did you mean something else ( like geography, or personal gun ownership, or attitudes in the media)? I'm just interested.
Could you give us which state you're in? That has a bearing on how you feel about the state of the nation, just as location has a big affect on Britons (e.g. London Vs the rest of the UK).

And this is why Boris Johnson refused to be interviewed by Andrew Neil and hid in a fridge to avoid journalists.

Can you imagine any previous candidate for Prime Minister doing that?

They'd be laughed out of the ring.

Johnson got elected.

Johnson hid because he had nothing to offer voters (unless you count meaningless slogans), and wanted to leave the space in the media to be filled with stories against his opponent.

And, this sort of campaigning will always win, as long as we buy it. There will always, always be some negative thing you can find to say about any human being – and if not them, their dog.

As long as we're content to be herded by emotionally laden media-bombing, raising a mote in candidate X's eye to a frenzy of "But X, I just couldn't!" while ignoring the beam in candidate Y's, this will be a successful technique.

effect! So sorry, grrr

Hi @Shosha1

I wasn't offended by your question or anything you said. I was only offended by the second poster who said the majority of Americans are absolute nutters x

Maybe to combat this pandemic, and to learn how to deal with the politics of the world both countries should look to Germany, Taiwan, NZ, Iceland, Finland and Denmark.

All lead by women.

@MJane3, frankly the UK isn't very well placed at the moment to insult other countries for their electoral choices! The last few year of UK politics have been disastrous right across the political spectrum.

@KrakowDawn

I'm not in a state. I grew up in the states but have lived in the UK for the last 10 years.

I feel America is a difficult place to live because of things like: benefits, healthcare, maternity leave, poverty, the education system, police brutality, job security, the prevalence of drugs, vacation time, sick leave, etc.

I'm disgusted with trump and trump voters but it's not that Americans are "nutters" it's the lack of hope, security and opportunity that makes people vote the way they do. Also pure selfishness...and the idea that "me and mine" are all I'm worried about

He'll get back in, The only thing that we can be grateful for is that they're only allowed to serve 2 terms.

Yes he will. I have several American friends and although the majority, not all don't really like him. They say they have no credible alternative so will vote Trump. Says it all really....

@PerkingFaintly you’re absolutely right. I also think (and posted on another thread recently) that left-leaning voters need to stop thinking about their precious consciences and being so squeamish and just flipping well vote for the lesser of two evils. Because otherwise the right will keep on winning.

I agree that any woman will find it difficult to become president in the US -- look at Elizabeth Warren in the primaries. But Hillary had an even greater amount of baggage, going back to the early 1990s. I never thought she would overcome that.

Biden has said he will pick a woman as his VP, it will probably be Kamala Harris.

I found this article in Forbes very interesting. www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/amp/

It states how women seem to have a totally different style of leading.

I must admit in being a great admirer of Jacinda Ardern since the way she handled the aftermath of Mosque shootings there.

If Trump was up again a decent Democratic candidate I'd expect his ego-driven incompetence would lose him the presidency. However, he's up against Joe Biden. To say Biden is flawed doesn't even begin to explain the problem:

mobile.twitter.com/i/events/930120742422716416?lang=en

The silver lining is that if Trump serves another term, he might still be president when many many chickens come home to roost.