US Election results

[IwantToRetire]

Kamala Harris 27
45.2% popular vote
12,768,875 votes

Donald Trump 99
53.8% popular vote
15,275,564 votes

270 to win

U.S. election results 2024 | CBC News

6/11/2024 @ 01:25 GMT

I think by 'backbone of our democracy' she means this is who is voting for us. Which is all well and good but it's not enough to win elections so they need to think on that and regroup.

I think it's an old quote, from about 5 years ago. Still ridiculous, obviously.

Is there a link 🔗

But the transgender stuff was seemingly quite unpopular with white working class men

They probably have a reasonable understanding of some of the more unsavoury motivations that drive it.

Yeah! Men know more about men's motivations than women do.
Just trying to tie things purely to the idea that people will vote selfishly within a very narrow definition of their own self interest doesn't really work. White working class men aren't going to be worried about being in the women's changing room or women only naked spa when a transwoman comes in (one would hope!) or worried about their own athletic dreams being crushed. But they may well have been very worried about it for female family members, or just out of a general principle of fairness. Whereas the "Bidenomics" investments which were going to disproportionally benefit working class men (of all races) didn't have much effect. Probably because the Democrats considered this to be a secret that must be guarded at all costs.
Also, I know that middle class gets talked about more than working class in America but it means the same thing (UK working class = US middle class).

You just have to read John Oliver's comments about trans women in women's sports to know that the Democratic elite still don't get it.

He's trying to stay On Message. And waving his arms about a lot.

A classic case of mansplaining

Yes , Bidens post covid infrastructure spend was nearly twice the EU equivalent. Impressive. And by god US infrastructure needs spending. He was a far better president for poor people than Obama eg. Lousy communicator. But then so was Harris?
I've just read - Heather Cox Richardson - that the final tallies show Trump did not in fact exceed 50% of the vote. Basically neither of these candidates is wildly popular, despite appearances to the contrary in the case of Trump.

Factory workers in the US are considered working class, office management types would be middle class - I'm not sure I think your assessment is correct?

Do you think he really believes there's no evidence of unfairness?

I can kind of believe that as a nerd in school who didn't play sports maybe he doesn't get the safety stuff very clearly.

But does he really believe that male and female sports performance is on par?

Surely not. It seems impossible to believe that it's anything other than bluster.

Why do people who think there is no unfairness to have men in women’s sport think there is women’s sport at all? Rather than make women’s sport mixed sex why don’t they say get rid of sex categories altogether? Afterall, if there is no unfairness women will win a mixed sex category half the time right?

I agree with @biscuitsandcake My American friends told me Middle class covers both when used by politicians. Because I said no politicians in the UK would explicitly say ' we want to help the bourgeoisie' to coin a phrase. I suppose it goes back to everyone there being a temporarily embarrassed millionaire?

Or more recently, the nebulous concept "working people" UK labour are talking about now.

Working people does not include the self employed business person who employes five staff and works so many hours that it works out at less than minimum wage.

This includes a surprisingly high number of businesses.

Spot on. Or ' hard working families '.

In essence what the UK really needs is increased public spending and lower taxes. And we need to drastically bring down the spending deficit/national debt. Quite why none of the political establishment are capable of doing this is beyond me.

Because it's impossible? You can't increase public spending and reduce debt. Well, not without massive increases in taxation. Which would fall not just on the super-rich.

I disagree with that.

If we invested in say maternal health services, we know the cost to the tax payer would be both reduction in benefits costs and lost revenue to business through female sick days and payouts due to negligence. Lots of work done in this area which demonstrate underfunding is costing us money.

The other really big one would be to fund building of housing through central government so that local councils are not fleeced as much for costs associated with temporary housing and then the subsequent social issues resulting from this level of poverty - less children likely to end up in care would be a big one on this front.

In terms of government spending, wisely spent money in key areas has a massive effect in reducing costs further down the line. And this is well known about.

Thats exactly what the principle of preventative medicine is founded on.

The trouble is that money is being spent on fire fighting not these types of investments who get to root causes.

Unfortunately, governments have little incentive to undertake such long-term reforms, where the future benefits may well accrue under a different administration, with their primary focus being winning the next GE.

That's more to the point. Political parties have been caught up with a mutual agreement to pass the buck for their own benefits rather than focusing on national interests.

Strangely enough the Democrats have been caught out with this when the Republican voters have decided to reject this pattern and support potential authoritarianism...

Yeah sorry, I wasn't being completely serious. That's the root problem though - (almost) everyone wants better services (even if they support cuts in general, they would be upset if something they used disappeared/got worse). No-one wants to pay tax. And everyone considers themselves to be in a group that is hard done by already compared to other freeloaders. The only way is to sort of muddle through and build consensus as much as possible. And I agree, proper investments in things like housing would be worthwhile - its like using part of your mortgage to repair the roof on your house. Its spending money and possibly even increasing debt - but its a saving for the future.
Or, we discover hitherto unknown reserves of unobtainium that turns out to be essential to the next generation of energy production and become Gulf states rich of course. 🙏

Strangely enough the Democrats have been caught out with this when the Republican voters have decided to reject this pattern and support potential authoritarianism...

Why do you feel the Republicans, traditionally the party of small government, are more likely to be authoritarian than the democrats with their policing of speech?

Trump is only in favour of free speech for himself though. He is threatening to jail his critics. Small government is code for abolishing things like affordable health care - or the entire civil service - not cutting back on paramilitaries style policing. Trump wanted the Army to shoot demonstrators. General Kelly had to break it to him that such actions are illegal. But Kelly and other sane advisors aren't here this time.