On the weirdness of American politics · 1:53pm Nov 5th, 2024
This year, the UK held a general election on the day that the US celebrates the anniversary of independence, which lead a few Labour supporters to suggest, in jest, that henceforth Britain should also celebrate it, having delivered independence from Conservative rule.
And now the US has a presidential election on the day the UK celebrates the anniversary of a failed plot to blow up parliament with gunpowder. It remains to be seen if a faction of America will propose a reciprocal measure of fireworks.
This has been a year of big elections, with significant democratic decisions in the UK, France, now the US, (and we still have to decide who will be the next Chancellor of Oxford University). One difference between our countries: in the UK, the Prime Minister can call an election and dissolve parliament; we then have six weeks of campaigning; we vote; and the winner is announced the next day and takes over immediately.
While in the US, the campaigning goes on forever, so by the time we reach voting day, even election nerds like me are tired of it. And we will still have to watch more months of drama, and maybe some sort of further insurrection (hopefully without gunpowder), before the new president takes office. This is one way in which the flavour of flawed democracy we have in UK seems preferable.
We are all weary, but the job of US President is rather important. And there are reasons to be nervous. We read the details of Project 2025 and ask ourselves whether they would really dare to do that. In the same way that just before the Ukraine war, we asked whether Putin would really dare to invade.
Much was written back in August about Tim Walz and Kamala Harris calling Donald Trump weird. He certainly is weird, but it seems to be rather understating the case against him. It’s not hard to make a well-justified case that he is also also a racist misogynist liar, a convicted felon, rapist, and a serious threat to American democracy.
However, Harris and Walz are undoubtedly better informed than me about the most likely argument to win over the tiny number of undecided Pennsylvania voters who will determine the fate of the world, and it is entirely credible that calling Trump weird is the more effective strategy. It is reported such voters are now labelled unicorns.
So, Madame Taffytail? What do you say now? Who should I vote for?
While reading the surprising number of articles discussing this weird phenomenon, I was reminded of the memorable line from Fit Right In: we're brave and strong and weird and clever. (I first heard that as we’re damn clever. Which sounded a bit weird, while weird and clever sounds like something a fashion reporter would use to describe a new dress that makes the model strut the catwalk like a unicorn). Weird is a weird word that is perhaps in danger of meaning so many things that it means nothing at all.
Anyway, like many other weirdos across the world, I am really hoping we see Kamala Harris win. She strikes me as by far the better candidate to bring out the best in America and provide the world leadership we need in these crazy times. I am also hoping that as the first woman to be President, she will create the kind of positive atmosphere that will encourage Hasbro investors to put more money into toy lines that celebrate female leadership. Then I want a G5 relaunch with a full-length film in which Sprout finds the Alicorn Amulet, is transformed into a power-crazy maniac, tries to retake Maretime Bay, before being defeated by Sunny Starscout and friends. With a side plot involving Allura.
We can’t always have nice things, but there is hope.
It violates even the extended version of the "i before e" rule.
In our defense, there's usually some degree of lull when one candidate isn't such a sore loser that he never stops yelling about it for four years straight.
The 2025 project is a Heritage think-tank piece, much like a fiction anthology with a few dozen writers all putting forth their utopian views. Thankfully, it has no connection at all with either campaign, although the Harris campaign has tirelessly labeled it as some sort of secret plan of their opponent.
Honestly, the most interesting part of the US election so far has been the Peanut story, where New York sent 15 armed officers to raid an animal rehab center, confiscated a six-year-old squirrel with over a half-million instagram followers, and executed it supposedly looking for rabies.
The UK has been so sucessful at following and implementing the American way since the 80s that we are about to collapse to the same level, third world medical, transport, housing, water etc, unless you can pay the gun point prices demanded.
I can tool up to follow in detail what theyre actually doing, but the last time we had a group enforcing that much dehumanisation, my grandad was killing them off and getting paid for it.
Liberalist humanism is all well and good, when there isnt insane psychopaths in positions of power quite happy to abuse them.
Perfectly normal and natural behaviour. Do whatever you want because you can and who is going to stop you?.
5813735 No connection, except that three-quarters of the authors are former Trump staffers (including three Cabinet members), and Trump himself, despite denying Project 2025, has repeatedly praised the Heritage Foundation's leader and Project 2025's chief author and pointed to him as the man who'll staff Washington once Trump fires everyone not personally loyal to him.
All of which is to say, actually a GIGANTIC connection.
Re: saved from Conservative rule: the more I look at how Starmer is governing, the more convinced I am that the UK was saved from capital-C Conservative rule only to be subjected to lower-case-c conservative rule.
I sometimes feel that the only way to make sense of the issues and candidates in the US is to do NOTHING but study, much like with S1 Twilight, all the "he said she said" not to mention the mud-slinging and deliberate wordplay just makes everything harder.
Maybe if I spent 18-20 hours a day every day starting January 1 by November I could know outside of a reasonable doubt who was genuine, who wasn't etc etc. But my social life is minimal enough as it is without going full Twilight lockdown.
I live in a split house, so pros and cons there.
As to this "2025" movement, I may not say it, but the idea is scary because I've read enough fiction to know that the people who are behind it/in support of it won't stop at just the stated goal or two, they'll find or make another goal, and in the end, it will be like the stories I've read where the king or whatever has control over EVERYTHING, and anyone who is even the tiniest bit different or not kowtowing to them 24/7 is automatically bad/the enemy.
5813735
Sounds like a variation on the Lynton Crosby dead cat strategy.
5813746
Yes, the Conservatives stopped being conservative some time ago and Labour are now the party of natural conservatism. Although to be fair, we saw from last week's budget that things are now moving in a different direction.
I will only leave this here:
pbs.twimg.com/media/GbqZvuWXMAYYaz1?format=jpg&name=900x900
5813735
What does the Peanut story have to do with the election?
5813818
Exothermic nitrogen chemistry is fascinating.
5814060
Yes, the strings. Listen carefully. Can you hear it?
i.ibb.co/Ht7nfWS/US-Fuckin-A.jpg
5814060
The peanut story has a lot to do with the election. It isn't obvious only because the news never talks about what the election was really about.
The past few US presidential elections have been a struggle between the country and the big cities. Just look at an election map broken down to the individual voting precincts, and this is obvious. The main point of contention is that the big cities want lots of regulation, and the country wants very little regulation. There is also something going on that I don't quite understand, that makes the big cities look to the government as a benevolent mother that will save them from the harsh world, while the country looks at the government as a far-off tyrant that won't let them save themselves.
The peanut case is a parody of how big government wrecks small towns: A guy raises an orphaned squirrel in his house, and the state government applies a rule that was made for apartment buildings to a private house in a hamlet, with a VERY heavy and murderous hand.
5814783
For the dynamic you don’t understand, is it the cities or the rural districts that you find more baffling? Or is it that they’re trending in opposite directions?
Having been suburban for almost my whole life, I proudly dunk on both sides of that debate. I’ve seen both petty tyranny that may make sense in a high-rise project, but not on quarter-acre lawns as well as obvious need for regulation that would make zero sense in a farming community.
5814878
I don't understand why people in the city seem to have such low risk-tolerance, and trust the government so much. Cities are less safe and predictable than the country; I'd expect it to be the other way around. I have theories, like: The country was originally settled by people who valued independence and freedom a whole lot, and safety not much. The city needs more rules and regulations because it's basically a big machine. But these are just guesses.
5815042
My hypothesis in city-dwellers is that the government is both close at hoof, unlike the country, and it’s the one stable institution. Even if the tenure any family has is the same between urban and rural areas, there are so many more neighbors in the city that what is a big day in the country is just another month in the city—and that’s not talking about the transience of apartments.
You’re spot-on about the big machine analogy.