US Presidential Election 2024 - Trump vs Harris - Vote Hard with a Vengence

[lenaitch]

The constitutional requirement to be the PM is that your government can retain the confidence of the house. There is no explicit requirement for the PM to be an MP.

Mackenzie King lost his seat in the 1945 general election, but remained PM. Eventually one of his backbenchers was encouraged to resign and Mackenzie King won the resulting byelection, getting him back into the house.

Cabinet ministers are also not required to sit in the Commons, but there is a convention that they should. Our late WW2 Minister of Defence (McNaughton) never sat as an MP - he lost two consecutive elections.

They would also have to be a leader from afar since they could not sit in the House or on committees.

 

[Kirkhill]

Trump broke the Democrats’ thermostat

The American left was sent spinning in 2016 and is yet to recalibrate

www.ft.com

The parade started before Trump. The progressives are running away from the parade.

 

[Kirkhill]

The basic terms of political rivalry that have prevailed at least since the New Deal have been turned upside down: The Democrats became Republicans and Republicans became Democrats. The Democrats, in retreat from any meaningful mandate of popular accountability, have transformed themselves into the party of the establishment: wonks, statisticians, professionals, hectoring nonprofit advocates, celebrities, reformers, lecturers (in all senses of the word), assistant professors, and corporate beancounters. They worship G-men, spooks, and generals as minor deities.

This is from The Nation. Not the nation's most right-wing publication. The whole article is worth reading IMO.

Party Under Country: Dissecting the Democratic Malaise

The party continues to operate in an overcredentialied fever dream in the face of an America becoming ever more red in tooth and claw

www.thenation.com

When does an agent of change, a progressive in this case, become a conservative? When they have something to conserve. When they have adjusted the environment to suit their comfort zone.

The Democrats were comfortable. It has been a long time since the Republicans were comfortable. The Democrats are conservatives but part of the culture they are trying to conserve demands continuing their legacy as agents of change, progress. It is hard to stand still and move at the same time.

...

If the Democrats willingly take on the role Trump and the Republicans want for them—to be the snobbish heels to the righteous anger of the Trumpenproletariat—they and we are doomed. Trumpism will be thereby ratified. What remains of American politics will just become a pro-wrestling match. In this perverse spectacle, the Dems will be a managed opposition to be slammed and twisted up over and over again in various ways.

For the Democrats to respond creatively to the mood of the country, they need to become democratic again. That doesn’t mean being a carbon copy of Trumpism or picking some loyal constituency to scapegoat or screw over or to stop being loyal to the people and principles they’ve traditionally supported. Those are manifestly uncreative responses. Stop reifying the electorate. Stop shifting around the same old broken categories. Try to think again.

In the 18th century the Church of England was losing ground to Dissenters. The Dissenters were forced into the fields where they started singing hymns to drinking songs. Their boisterous meetings attracted on-lookers who joined the fun. The Church lost attendance. The Church regained attendance when it co-opted the revivalists and recognized the Methodist branch.

...

Round and round and round we go.

 

[KevinB]

While readers debate the definition, hopefully maga is anti-fascist.

Because the alternative seems a little grim,

Here I thought that was just the prequel to ‘Civil War’

 

[Kirkhill]

And a thought on Hispanics and Democrats

Juaristas and Liberals - Benito Juarez found fellow travelers in Gladstone's Liberals, the anti-theses of Maximilian I and Napoleon III.

Hispanics include Catholics and Protestants, Communists, Socialists, Capitalists and Liberals, Blacks, Whites and Indians as well as hybrids of all races and creeds.

IE, they are just like Anglos. (And not at all like Francos .... (I jest!))

cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/turn-against-empire-benito-juarezs-liberal-rejoinder-to-the-french-intervention-in-mexico/DD724411FCA386D1C142AD2B0722601B

....

Scholars debate whether liberalism’s imbrication in empire during the nineteenth century represented a shift in liberal thought or merely revealed intrinsic imperialist tendencies. Pitts (Reference Pitts2006) posits that liberalism took a “turn to empire” in the mid-nineteenth century—leaving behind the greater pluralism of Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and Benjamin Constant. By contrast, nineteenth-century liberals adopted an increasingly dichotomous vision of the world, infused with growing confidence in the superiority of European civilization.

I agree.

The turn co-incided with the death of Prince Albert, the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny with the nationalizaton of the British East India Company. Victoria took up the Whiteman's Burden and backed the missionaries with soldiers. Not quite Carolingian but she was of that blood line.

The Massacre of Verden was an event during the Saxon Wars where the Frankish king Charlemagne ordered the death of 4,500 Saxons in October 782. Charlemagne claimed suzerainty over Saxony and in 772 destroyed the Irminsul, an important object in Saxon paganism, during his intermittent thirty-year campaign to Christianize the Saxons. The massacre occurred in Verden in what is now Lower Saxony, Germany. The event is attested in contemporary Frankish sources, including the Royal Frankish Annals.

Massacre of Verden - Wikipedia​

Villages to save, donchano? The locals were the wrong type of Christians and refused to be baptized by Charlemagne's English priests. To save them he slaughtered them.

 

[mariomike]

Here I thought that was just the prequel to ‘Civil War’

Prez in last one did not have a nuclear arsenal.

What I find more interesting is the "Youth" vote.

The Youth Vote in 2024

The 2024 general election was a major opportunity for youth to exercise their democratic rights, use their political voices, and shape the future of the country. As part of our work to understand young people’s civic learning and participation, we have been tracking major trends about the youth...

circle.tufts.edu

​

Young Women +17 for Harris, Young Men +14 for Trump​

with a little snooping around, social media lives forever.

With half a century of life ahead of today's young women and men, that may be something to consider.

 

[Kirkhill]

Prez in last one did not have a nuclear arsenal.

What I find more interesting is the "Youth" vote.

The Youth Vote in 2024

The 2024 general election was a major opportunity for youth to exercise their democratic rights, use their political voices, and shape the future of the country. As part of our work to understand young people’s civic learning and participation, we have been tracking major trends about the youth...

circle.tufts.edu

​

Young Women +17 for Harris, Young Men +14 for Trump​

With half a century of life ahead of today's young women and men, that may be something to consider.

So 56% of young men voted for Trump as did 41% of young women.
And 58% of young women voted for Harris as did 42% of young men.

Looks to me as if the odds are about even for both parties in the reproductive sweepstakes.

 

[mariomike]

So 56% of young men voted for Trump as did 41% of young women.

Looks to me as if the odds are about even for both parties in the reproductive sweepstakes.

Looks like a surplus of bros in the maga dating scene.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Looks like a surplus of bros in the maga dating scene.

Higher percentages of Liberal men and women having mental health issues balances everything out.

 

[mariomike]

Higher percentages of Liberal men and women having mental health issues balances everything out.

Crazy in the head, crazy in the bed.

And 58% of young women voted for Harris as did 42% of young men.

The question keeping Trump-loving men up at night: Why won't women date us?​

Opinion | It's perfectly OK to not want to date Trump supporters

When a critical mass of people find your values regressive, your political beliefs inhumane, and your political hero repellent, it’s not them. It’s you.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Jarnhamar]

The question keeping Trump-loving men up at night: Why won't women date us?​

Opinion | It's perfectly OK to not want to date Trump supporters

When a critical mass of people find your values regressive, your political beliefs inhumane, and your political hero repellent, it’s not them. It’s you.

www.nbcnews.com

Ariana E disagrees.

Progressive Women Secretly Want to Date Conservative Men​

 

[mariomike]

Ariana E disagrees.

​

Guess the way to test Ariana E. 's theory would be for a maga hat wearing bro to approach a woman and see how she reacts.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Guess the way to test Ariana E. 's theory would be for a maga hat wearing bro to approach a woman and see how she reacts.

Maga bros are up for some tough competition there.

I'm voting for Harris because my wife's lover is African American

 

[dimsum]

Higher percentages of Liberal men and women having mental health issues balances everything out.

Or, Liberal men and women are more likely to acknowledge that they have this issues and seek help, rather than (usually unsuccessfully) compartmentalizing it and resulting in alcoholism, domestic violence, etc.

It’s like the “CAF must be having more of a sexual misconduct problem because more cases are coming up”. No, people are empowered to finally tell others that they went through it.

 

[Kirkhill]

Looks like a surplus of bros in the maga dating scene.

Looks like a surplus of ladies in the leftie dating scene.

Both sides have got about an 80% match up.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Or, Liberal men and women are more likely to acknowledge that they have this issues and seek help, rather than (usually unsuccessfully) compartmentalizing it and resulting in alcoholism, domestic violence, etc.

And why would they be more likely to acknowledge that?

And what about progressive teenagers?

 

[dimsum]

And why would they be more likely to acknowledge that?

And what about progressive teenagers?

Part of it is not having the “macho” BS, or social stigma associated with realizing there is a problem and seeking help for it.

We say we support doing that in the military, so why not in society?

 

[Furniture]

Or, Liberal men and women are more likely to acknowledge that they have this issues and seek help, rather than (usually unsuccessfully) compartmentalizing it and resulting in alcoholism, domestic violence, etc.

Or, (since we're just making things up) Liberal men and women use mental health "issues" as a crutch and excuse for bad behaviour and failure to regulate their actions.

Being emotional is not an excuse for failing to regulate how you act.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1857981854684414326

America loves a winner!

 

[Jarnhamar]

Part of it is not having the “macho” BS, or social stigma associated with realizing there is a problem and seeking help for it.

Not being too macho to seek help certainly could be a reason liberal men, women, and teenagers show considerably higher instances of mental health and report being unhappy in their lives.