What's True Pussycat? - Trump Thread #134

[Spandauer]

Non-fake, stable genius thanks to @Crucible for the new thread title.

Seniors' special today.*
They’re eating the dogs!
They’re eating the cats!
They’re eating the pets!...
So do you want fries with that cat? (*Apologies to non-MAGA seniors)

In other news, the swing states continue to be too close to call and it looks like it's going to be a nail-biting, buttock-clenching, hand-wringing 50 days to the election. (or thereabouts)
Increase your anxiety with this handy countdown 😭
https://days.to/until/election-day-in-us

Previous thread here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5134172-its-not-over-until-the-cat-lady-sings-trump-thread-133

I am in the States, and this article has some real insights: https://archive.ph/z0iQi going all the way back to Reagan, as AcrossthePond said above..... and also, many more rural areas of the country have very few news sources other than Fox, etc. so people believe what Trump says....

Thank you so much for your Messages from America. Very enlightening as well as disturbing.

And when I wrote "Messages from America", I was of course, thinking of Alistair Cooke's "Letter from America", still sorely missed in this neck of the woods. He stopped in 2004, just before Trump really got in his stride, I'd love to know what he would have made of him.

I loved Letter from America. It's where I first heard the word slacks as a child and couldn't imagine what kind of clothing it was.

Letter from America was one of the first adult things I listened to, I guess because my parents had on the radio. I was hypnotised by Cooke's melodic voice describing life in a land that was simultaneously foreign yet familiar.

So many factors, I think, just scratching the surface

-I agree, it goes back to Reagan and his economic policies.
-Lee Atwater and his campaign strategies
-The court decision in Bush vs Gore
-The swift-boating of John Kerry
(all laid the groundwork for 'alternative facts')
-The decades-long stealth campaign by the right to stack the courts which resulted in seminal decisions overturning voting rights and dark money flooding politics
-The rise of right wing talk radio in the 90s which was heavily focussed on anti-union messages and was hugely popular in failing industrial areas
-The rise of Fox News and then the takeover of local news stations by even more right wing media organisations
-A corresponding lack of desire or ability by mainstream media to recognise the new political landscape and change how they cover the news (i.e. you can call a lie a lie, you don't have to give equal time to lies and liars, headlines matter more than the article because they're what trickles down to social media
-Newt Gingrich and his tea party politics
-The rise of mega-churches and their political involvement
-The rise of social media with its lack of any ability to regulate the discourse, further expanding the idea that truth doesn't matter
-McConnell and his flouting of any pretence of playing by the rules
-Large areas of the country that never recovered from the financial crash of 2008 and a lack of policy to help them

Another fan of Letter from America! Remembering Sunday morning listening 😊 He was so polite, I can't imagine what words he would have found for Trump... but I know he would have communicated exactly what he thought!

Thank you, everyone for this. Oddly enough Heather Cox Richardson's letter this morning gave me some hope. It's not the first time America has stared down an oligarchy with persistent lies and gerrymandering. The crucial thing is if Trump gets in and dismantles the democratic process. Then all bets are off the table.

And in slightly better news, a small positive from Nate Silver yesterday
https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1841555457523032283

Haven't read HCR yet this morning, but will do it now if it's going to give a sliver of optimism!

Most countries tend to learn from one civil war.

Maybe the US needs two ?

Not impossible when you read drivel like this :

https://www.alternet.org/gop-candidate-slave-owners/

Please ! Won't someone think of the slave owners ?

What a charmer!

And what is it with these GOP candidates misappropriating $$$$$ campaign funds and spending it in strip clubs?

I like Amy Klobuchar, haven't heard much from her this campaign. It looks like she won't be losing her seat to that idiot 🤞

Is there something missing from your link, there, perhaps, @adultingforever? I'm getting nowhere with it, either by clicking on it or copying it and pasting it. Very possibly operator error, mark you.

@TheABC - could you kindly provide me with a link to that, please? The latest one I find is about tariffs, and I don't think that's what you mean (or if it is, I am even more stupid than I thought I was.).

@Jaichangecentfoisdenom
If you are on Facebook, all of HCRs letters are there free to read.
The comments by her fan club are often interesting too.

Embarrassed to say I can't remember where it was from but I was reading an interview (US publication) with 2 pollsters, 1 dem and 1 republican, talking about recent polls and their thoughts on what they think is going on etc. My main takeaway is that the dems main mistake right now is that they are still focusing on issues and not nearly enough of the dangers of Trump.

This concerns me and hope they have someone on board who can turn this around and that it's not too late!

It was today's message about McKinley and the love of tariffs. What was significant was that the Republicans kept getting punished at the ballot box for it. Then they lied, got back in, tried it again, got punished again, etc until the whole system imploded. The point is, unlike the UK, the voters did something about it.

The collegiate vote system is still insane, though.

open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/october-5-2024?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=615mx

Ah, OK, thank you, it was the mention of oligarchy and gerrymandering that confused my simple mind, I was looking for something that wasn't there.

My main takeaway is that the dems main mistake right now is that they are still focusing on issues and not nearly enough of the dangers of Trump.

For every pollster and operative who thinks that way, there's a counterpart one who thinks people already know who and what Trump is and want to hear about what you're going to do for the country.

In fact, I listened to someone the other day (I think it was Simone Sanders-Townsend) who's been out talking to unlikely/disaffected voters, those who will probably not bother turning up. She thinks getting them out is the answer and is reporting that they feel no one's talking enough about the issues that matter to them (housing, healthcare, etc.).

But it's all just prognostication and speculation. If there was a right answer or a science, we wouldn't be having this debate.

US election turnout is low compared with other countries
because so many votes do not count towards the result.

Gerrymandering and voter suppression make it worse.

Only the US and the UK still have fully FPTP systems
and its not working well for either.

In answer to Jaichangecentfoisdenom

The link I provided above goes to a page on Archive.ph to a New Yorker story titled:

What if Ronald Reagan’s Presidency Never Really Ended?
Anti-Trump Republicans revere Ronald Reagan as Trump’s opposite—yet in critical ways Reagan may have been his forerunner.
By <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/z0iQi/www.newyorker.com/contributors/daniel-immerwahr" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Daniel Immerwahr
September 9, 2024

Perhaps you can search for the title and make a new archive link? Or try this one: https://archive.ph/z0iQi#selection-615.0-714.0

Talkinpeace
Only the US and the UK still have fully FPTP systems and its not working well for either.

Neither really has when it comes to selecting the leader: in the UK the party with the majority chooses which of them is to be Prime Minister, and in the US the electoral college is rigged to give a minority of the population a bigger say in who is to be President.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime
The elections are FPTP
The fact that the UK does not have presidential elections is irrelevant.

The Electoral college could be rejigged to allow split states - as Nebraska and Maine do

The UK does not have first past the post elections for the leader, so they are not fully FPTP

And the Electoral College could be changed but hasn't been and shows no sign of being.

Harris and Walz doing lots of tv/media next week. Everything from 60 Minutes (which Trumpy refused to do) through to Stephen Colbert, Howard Stern and popular podcasts etc.

Trump will pretend not to be watching but his tiny fat typing fingers will no doubt give him away.

Excellent!