Jeremy's Den: Senate

Showing posts with label Senate. Show all posts

09/12/2024

Welcome To Their Nightmares

We trust that time is linear. That it proceeds eternally and uniformly into infinity. But the distinction between past, present and future is nothing but an illusion, albeit a stubbornly persistent one. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive, they are connected in a never-ending circle. Everything is connected.
(Albert Einstein)

The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on.
Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
(Omar Khayyám, Rubáiyát, in Edward FitzGerald's translation, 1859)

Now it didn't get according to plan, did it? When I first started drafting this post-mortem, my chosen soundtrack was Rush's A Farewell To Kings, so the article could be cleverly titled 'A Farewell To Trump'. Doesn't sound so clever now, does it? When the bombshell news started falling, the obvious fallback option was to switch to Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare. Just slightly tweaked by the inclusion of the alternative version of "The Awakening", with a second monologue by Vincent Price, that was released only on the album's reissue in 2002. And also the addition of "Ballad Of Dwight Fry" from the earlier Love It To Death album, that had been added by Alice Cooper himself to the soundtrack of The Nightmare TV special back in the day.

Images. Click. Bigger. You know that already, don't you?

Let me get something off my chest first. I'm still shell-shocked by what we have read on Twitter, during that fateful first week of November, from people I thought were sort of my kindred spirits in our shared opposition to absolutist transgenderism and wokeism. First clapping for Kemi Badenoch like lobotomised seals. Then cheerleading for Donald Trump like drunken rednecks going, "Oi! Oi! We've beaten the woke". Naw, you have done nothing of the sort, bros, you didn't have a vote in either. All you have done is proving that the fanatical obsessive anti-woke monomaniacs can be as viciously stupid as the fundamentalist woketariat. Having said that, the most amazing thing about that election is that it took them a month, probably just because of a constitutional deadline or else it would have taken even longer, to get the final certified counts in all states. Finally we have it, and it shows how disastrously off the polls were. And they will hear about it for the next seven generations, from Elon Musk at least. Exhibit A is the trendlines of presidential polls since the 2020 election, with the 2024 result marked big at the tail end, to show how far off they were.

So now Donald Trump is the 45th and 47th President of the United States. More accurately he will be on the 20th of January at noon, only the second man, after Grover Cleveland, to get elected for two non-consecutive terms and thusly get two Presidential Numbers. Just like the Kings Jameses of England and Scotland. Anyway, contrary to what some of his most feverish supporters claim, the Orange Baboon did not bag a majority of the popular vote. He got only 49.84%, not a majority but nevertheless the largest number of votes for any Republican presidential candidate since the party was founded. He did not overtake Joe Biden, though, who still remains the candidate from any party with the highest number of votes ever, with 81.3 million in 2020. Funnily even the Last Day Polls, exclusively those released on the 4th of November, still had Kamala Harris leading, though by just a teeny weeny 0.6%. My own last prediction was based on a wider selection over the last week, that had Harris leading by 1.7%, which made it plausible that she might win the Electoral College by a hair. Obviously a 0.6% lead would have meant a defeat, as it is far two low to overturn the significant Republican bonus embedded in the make-up of the Electoral College.

But, at the end of the day, not even that tiny lead happened, and Donald Trump won by 1.48%. By far the stupidest question about the American elections was asked by the BBC, wondering aloud if the polls failed. Of course, they fucking failed, they got absolutely everything fucking wrong, and mostly by bigger margins than in 2016 and 2020. Starting with the popular vote for the presidency. This is a complete fiasco that, unfortunately, gives some credibility to Elon Musk's whiny self-serving narrative about the 'legacy media'. The British public have witnessed summat very similar, very aptly described by the great Suzanne Moore in one of her recent Letters From Suzanne. We too have seen how the notionally left-wing media, including the once-revered Guardian, have become echo chambers of feral bourgeois conformism. We too have seen how different opinions are dismissed, not on their merits or lack thereof, but because of where they were published. The same kind of 'guilt by association' that 'progressives' vociferously denounce when it is applied to them. That's how the punditariat totally missed the very real impact of Trump's populist demagoguery on huge swathes of the American electorate, and how it could very easily be duplicated by Nigel Farage here.

If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best coloured man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.
(Lyndon B. Johnson)

Devil's Food © Alice Cooper, Bob Ezrin, Kelley Jay, 1975

The Black Widow © Alice Cooper, Dick Wagner, Bob Ezrin, 1975

It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before.

(Donald Trump, 5 November 2024)

American pollsters love dissecting the electorate into all sorts of demographics in their post-mortems of a presidential election. It's based on exit polls, so can be expected to be less unreasonably inaccurate than their pre-election polling. But possible mistakes are irrelevant, as what I intend to do is compare the demographic breakdowns of 2020 with those of 2024, which used the same methodology. Only the differences between the two matter. not the numbers per se. And we even might get some explanations of why Kamala Harris lost so convincingly, other than the punditariat's usual talk about the economy, the cost of living, immigration and wokeism. Unless some of these demographics lead us to exactly these topics, and of course they will. No spoiler here, you have already read the other post-mortems, and so have I, so we both have a pretty good idea why it went so badly for Democrats. Which is neither 100% the economy nor 100% the backlash against wokeism. Of course, we now know what the real explanation is. It's Trump's dance moves, stupid. I will not bore you with all 137-or-so available items, as pollsters tried everything short of the favourite colour of socks, so let's try the most obvious first, sex and race.

The punditariat's common wisdom is that everything in America is about race, though you can just as demonstrably say that everything is about sex. Just ask Donald Trump. Anyway, one of the Democrats' most damaging mistakes, exemplified by Barack Obama's summat patronising campaigning and widely shared by Labour here, is that they have the 'minority vote' locked in. Clearly they haven't, and it was one of the factors in their across-the-board defeat. White and Black voters have barely moved from where they were in 2020, but Latinos and Asians have. Another of Kamala's mistakes was thinking that she had the female vote locked in too, because of the atrocious anti-abortion laws passed in Republican states since the Trump-packed Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. Clearly she hadn't, and she has lost more votes among women than among men. Could the same reasons be behind all these failures? Let's try and find out, and for this let's intersectionalise it, as the woketariat always urges us to do. What we see is quite stunning, and contradicts a lot of the Democrats' post-mortem narrative.

White women, who were obviously one of Harris' prime targets with her strong pro-abortion stance, have barely moved from one election to the next. The very small changes within the Black electorate are not enough to have had a significant impact on the final outcome. But the race-sex intersections of the Latino electorate tell a very interesting story. Harris lost Latino men to Trump on quite a brutal swing, and also lost considerable ground among Latina women. First factor must have been Trump and Vance's brutal anti-immigration stance, which worked beyond their wildest expectations with a community who were probably migrants themselves two or three generations back. The simplistic stereotypes of migrants 'stealing our jobs' and 'living off welfare', very common among the British far-right too, found an audience in a community who pride themselves on their success. Basically living the mythical American Dream thanks to hard work and strong values. Wokeism surely had a part in it too. Harris' supporters are quick to retort she did not campaign on it, but Trump did and it definitely had an impact on communities who are more likely to embrace traditional values, especially people who are also more likely to be Catholics. Another crosstab tells us that Catholics went 52-47 for Biden in 2020, then 58-40 for Trump in 2024, another quite brutal change of direction. And there goes a massive chunk of the Latino vote, and it lost Harris Nevada and Arizona. But the Generation Game was also a massive surprise for Democrats.

The biggest change is quite clearly among the TikTok Gen Z. They were 14 to 20 four years ago, so probably more than half of them were new voters, and they massively defected to the Red Side Of The Force. I'm quite sure the Biden administration's stance on Israel and Gaza had very little impact, as it would have influenced mostly the 25-29 University-dwelling age bracket, and it barely moved away from the Democrats. Then it's quite an impressive achievement that the supposedly most woke generation drifted away from the Democrats much more significantly than the older generations, 30 to 64, who are the building blocks of the United States' active workforce. The implication is quite devastating for the Democrats, that the economy and the cost of living, major concerns for the working-age electorate, might have played a lesser role than The Young Ones feeling fed up with the massive woke indoctrination they are subjected to as early as kindergarten. After all, YouGov had already found that wokeism, or rather its rejection, was the key motive for 26% of swing voters, those who switched from Biden '20 to Trump '24 and brought him back from the dead. Finally another crosstab defeats the Democrats' usual narrative than only uneducated people, plausibly Hillary Clinton's 'deplorables' and Joe Biden's 'garbage', vote for Trump. The only category that switched sides are those with a college degree, accounting for a quarter of the electorate, who went 51-47 for Biden in 2020, and then 51-47 for Trump this year. As much as I agree with Mister Ed, that Trump's return is nothing to celebrate, Democrats definitely need to address the real roots of their defeat rather than relish in stubborn denial, if they want to restore their credibility before the 2026 midterms.

This is a dark, dark day for people around the globe. The world’s largest economy and most powerful military will be led by a dangerous, destructive demagogue.

(Ed Davey)

Do you know what it is? I want to be a whale psychiatrist.

(Donald Trump)

There is widespread common wisdom among the American punditariat, also relayed by the British media, that no Democrat has ever won the Presidency without winning Pennsylvania. And it's actually not true. Grover Cleveland did in 1884 and again in 1892. Then Woodrow Wilson did in 1912 and 1916. Even Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in 1932. Finally Harry Truman won the election and lost Pennsylvania in 1948. Then you might think that no Republican ever won the Presidency without winning Pennsylvania, but that's equally untrue. Richard Nixon lost it in 1968 and George W. Bush twice in 2000 and 2004. Pennsylvania is not even the best bellwether state as they chose the winning candidate in only 34 of 43 presidential elections since 1856, the first where the 'modern' Republican and Democratic parties faced each other. But this time, they did, ad did the other two competitive Rust Belt states.

It is quite revealing of the scale of Harris' defeat that all three were seen as marginal Democratic holds by the last batch of polls, and also by the punditariat's Last Day ratings, and ended up being marginal Republican gains. There is massive irony here, on three different levels. First, the difference between the last prediction and the actual result is tiny, around 2%, so it is within the margin of error of standard polls. I can't wait to hear pollsters arguing along this line, that they were less than a margin of error away from getting that election right. Second, even the newly-hatched herd of Trump-leaning pollsters eventually underestimated the Trump vote and put Harris in the lead. Third, the Harris campaign were totally played by the Trump campaign, who baited them into spending all their time in these three states late in the campaign, and never missed an opportunity to expose Harris's weaknesses and multiple faux pas, with the very efficient help of Elon Musk and the FSB's swarm of Twitter bots. Then the other three most watched swing states, that all went to Joe Biden in 2020, were also very bad news for Kamala Harris.

Nobody expected Harris to hold Arizona and Georgia, but Nevada was a different matter. It had often looked in the danger zone at past elections, either presidential or for its Senate seats, and finally come back to the Democratic column thanks to a last minute surge in the Latino vote. It worked totally differently this time. It came into play quite late in the campaign, which may have made the Harris campaign complacent, and then it kept swinging back and forth in polls in a way that probably made the Harris campaign over-confident over a repeat of the usual last day surge. The Democrats' hubristic belief that they had the minorities' votes locked in no matter what played against them too, as it definitely didn't work that way this time. Harris won only two of the state's seventeen counties, so pretty much Las Vegas and Reno, and with reduced margins. Local media definitely identified a swing of the Latino and Filipino vote towards Trump as the key factor. Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric probably worked unexpectedly well among communities who are themselves third or fourth-generation descendants of immigrants. But it would be wrong to set aside the impact of negative messaging about wokeism among massively Catholic voters who embrace socially conservative values, as many Democrats appear willing to do. This is definitely a part of the electorate where the horror stories about men in women's sports, no matter how overhyped and amplified by Twitter bots, were bound to influence the vote, as more and more made headlines all along the campaign.

We’re the garbage can for the world. We are. We’re a garbage can. We’re like a garbage can.

(Donald Trump)

I want to protect the women of our country. I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not.

(Donald Trump)

Then we have three states that could have made a difference in a wholly different context, and qualified as swing states. North Carolina and Florida went for Trump in 2016 and 2020, but both had also gone to Barack Obama in his historic victory in 2008. Obama then lost North Carolina but held Florida in 2012. This year, North Carolina kept swinging back and forth, and often appeared as the tipping point state that would deliver the Presidency to Kamala Harris if Pennsylvania failed her. Democrats were less bullish in Florida, but it looked like it could again be put in play for quite a long time after Harris became the candidate. Texas has not gone to a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976, but Democrats nevertheless had great hopes for it in the long term, mostly based on its demographics and a less strong Republican dominance than in many other Southern states. At the end of the day, all three went to Trump more conclusively than the last batch of polls predicted.

I could ramble on on why Democrats failed miserably in Florida and Texas, where their main hopes lay with the young Latino electorate, and just rehash what I said earlier bout Nevada or the Latino electorate in general. Also don't forget that the rift between Democrats and Latinos started some years back, when an over-zealous woke activist found it smart to rebrand them as 'Latinx', and they deeply hated it. Trump's rhetoric about undocumented migrants damaging the prospects of hard-working people who had fully integrated into American society was also heard favourably, as it did have the ring of credibility when the messaging was done smartly enough to erase the obvious racist undertones of the original raw version. Democrats forgot the obvious, that Republicans too can be smart, and they really found out it was a big mistake. Finally, I kept an eye on three Blue States that were never actually in play, even if Redfield & Wilton added two of the them to the list of swing states they polled regularly. It was in fact a good idea to watch them, as they also show another side of the Democrats' unmitigated debacle.

Minnesota was a state to watch for only one reason, that it was Tim Walz's state, so Republicans would have loved nothing more than to toggle it to their side. But it has also been reliably Democratic at every presidential election since 1976. Election Eve polls still predicted the result there would be quite similar to 2020, and it ended up being significantly closer, effectively making it a marginal hold for Harris. The results were just as damning in New Mexico and Virginia, which had qualified as swing states in the distant past, until 2008 actually, but delivered double-digit leads for Joe Biden in 2020. Election Eve polls said Harris would hold both with reduced margins and the actual result was worse, with her lead almost cut in half in both. That's an average 2.3% swing towards Trump in both states, slightly lower than the nationwide swing but in the same ballpark. Such results, in two states Democrats thought well out of the danger zone, show how badly pollsters misread the electorate. And also that Trump's victory was unavoidable, which even the pundits who predicted a Harris victory until the very last day are saying now, on the strength of 20/20 hindsight.

Let’s put Liz Cheney with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.

(Donald Trump)

So we have won. This is decisive. The world will be never ever like before. Globalists have lost their final combat. The future is finally open. I am really happy.

(Aleksandr Dugin, 6 November 2024)

Of course, the fun part is to compare how I predicted the Electoral College would look like on Election Eve, and what actually happened. Not on Election Day, but four days later, as some counts were unbelievably slow. Of course the result was already obvious on the day after, as Trump had cleared the 270 votes hurdle some time during the night. And was instantly celebrated by most deranged Russian fascists, Nigel Farage and Elon Musk. Trump surely has the friends and sycophants he deserves, some of which even deserve being called psychophants. Sorry, couldn't resist. Before you throw rotten tomatoes at me, I just have to remind you that Nate Silver also predicted the Electoral College would go to Harris 270-268. Being just as wrong as the most celebrated and most self-promoted Beltway Pundit, the John Curtice of America, is quite something, innit? Notice that it's not just the overall result that went off piste, but also the allocation of the states to one of the 'party strength' categories. Which was also very commonly missed by all the learned pundits from East Coast to West Coast.

I got only the solidly Democratic states right, though Harris's lead shrunk in all of them, compared to Biden's lead in 2020. Even in California, Trump got closer and flipped 8 counties out of 58, leaving Harris in the lead in only 26. Harris also lost ground, of all places, in the District of Columbia, a clear hint that even the most Democrat-leaning Black electorate were not fully satisfied with her. Otherwise, there was a domino effect of tectonic shifts across the board from Leaning Harris to Solid Trump, moving the huge majority of states to less favourable ratings for the Democrats. Quite significantly, only the swing states still qualify as Weak Trump, as he gained votes in all states without exception. It is quite fun to look at all my earlier predictions, that actually highlight how badly Harris did. Her foundation of unmissable Electoral College votes was always 226, and that's what she got in the end. There was a widespread consensus that seven states, with 93 votes, genuinely qualified as 'swing states' and would decide the election. Against all polls, Trump won all seven of them, a marked contrast to 2020, when seven out of eleven then identified as swing states went to Joe Biden and four to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump must be eternally grateful to Elon Musk and the swarms of Russian bots that were allowed to roam free on Twitter to boost the Republican campaign. It worked better than expected, as Trump not only overturned the 2020 result, but also did better than against Hilary Clinton in 2016. He won the same thirty states he had won back then, and added Nevada to the list. Quite a feat. And now, to lighten the mood, I have a good question for 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'. How many persons have been President of the United States? Not 47, even if Trump is the 47th, but 45. Because two blokes now were elected to two non-consecutive terms. Grover Cleveland was the 22nd President from 1885 to 1889, and then the 24th from 1893 to 1897. Trump was the 45th from 2017 to 2021, and will now be the 47th. Even Barack Obama got that one wrong when he stated he was the 44th person to sit in the Oval Office. He was only the 43rd even if he was the 44th, because Cleveland. But Trump nevertheless scored a first that is unlikely to be repeated any time soon, as he is the first convicted felon ever elected to the Presidency.

It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard.

(Donald Trump)

If Trump comes to the UK, I will be out protesting on the streets. He is a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser.

(David Lammy, 2017)

There were many remarkable things about the House of Representatives elections. Of course the pollsters got them wrong, but not in such a dramatic way as the presidential election. The most striking part is that both dominant parties gained votes on their 2022 results, with third-party and independent candidates squeezed into near-extinction, and that the final headcount of seats was pretty similar to 2022. The trendlines show that polls predicted a Republican surge late in the campaign, though the very last batch turned away from that and cruelly fuelled the Democrats' hopes that they would take back control of the House after all, even on a very wee margin. It did not happen, but it doesn't mean that Trump will have full powers, and the very small number of seats changing hands means that about half of the Republican Representatives are still not fully aligning with the extremist MAGA mob.

The most troubling part is that it took them a full month to get all seats declared, the worst performer being California, the home of the most brilliant techbrains in the known Universe. Of course Elon Musk and the other Trump courtiers were quick to make fun of that, conveniently forgetting to mention that several Republican states were almost as slow, and also performed worse on the presidential vote count. From where I'm sat, the second most flabbergasting part was Democrats bragging about getting the first 'openly transgender' member of Congress elected, in Joe Biden's home state of Delaware. The backstory of this election shows how far back the Democrats' involvement in 'gender identity' politics goes, and how it has switched the 'progressive' establishment into positions that are now unacceptable for massive parts of the American public, only a small minority of which fit the 'far-right bigots' narrative conveniently spread by the woke-compliant activists and influencers. There was a interesting sequel though, with the Battle Of House Loo, culminating in a proposed bill to validate and affirm women-only private spaces. Republicans clearly won that first skirmish when their iconic target conceded defeat and complied with the policy, as enforced by the Speaker of the House.

Obviously Republicans and Elon Musk were quite silent about the House, as it was a whole galaxy away from the Trumpian tsunami they were expecting, and would have bragged about until the next elections. They surely expected better that a quasi-repeat of the 2022 midterms, that were a setback for them. There was no Trumpian landslide two years ago, and even less so this year, as they actually ended up with fewer seats. As I expected, Democrats gained back one seat each in Louisiana and Alabama, three each in California and New York, and lost three in North Carolina, as the Congressional vote aligned with the Presidential vote in districts that qualified as marginals in 2020. This has not worked everywhere though, as American media have identified sixteen remaining 'crossover districts', those with split loyalties. Thirteen districts went to Trump and a Democrat for Congress, who will undoubtedly be at the top of the Republican target list at the 2026 midterms, and just three went to Harris and a Republican. Now that the Republican majority has shrunk to just five seats, it will be interesting to watch how the Trump administration handles the House, and how House Republicans handle the very predictable attempts by the Trump administration to make them endorse the full MAGA agenda, up to its most deranged parts. How much they value checks and balances over party loyalty will be a key factor in the next two years.

Congratulations to Donald Trump on your victory. We look forward to working with you and JD Vance.

(David Lammy, 2024)

Trump controls both houses. The one where Melania lives, and his.

(Ian Hislop, Have I Got News For You?, 29 November 2024)

Before the elections, I had selected twelve key Senate races, different from the twelve states to watch at presidential level, and none of them went quite the way I expected. Back then, Democrats were bound to lose Montana and West Virginia, and there was still a very remote possibility that Republicans would lose one of the Nebraska seats to an Independent. At the end of the day, Democrats lost Ohio and Pennsylvania too, and Republicans held Nebraska, admittedly in a rather lacklustre way. That was when you could still imagine Democrats keeping control of the Senate, with a 50-50 tie being resolved by Vice President Walz's tie-breaking vote. Then voters decided their best option was to absolutely shatter this angelic vision to bits. Let's start now with the four seats that switched from the Democrats to the Republicans, including two that not even Nate Silver saw coming.

The loss of Montana and West Virginia was fully expected. Democratic Senators had clearly outstayed their welcome in states that voted for the Republican presidential candidates continuously since 1996 and 2000 respectively. Pollsters got the Montana race almost right, with Jon Tester overperforming Kamala Harris by 7%. But West Virginia ended up far worse than the two Senate polls fielded there predicted, matching the presidential result. But the real shockers came from Ohio and Pennsylvania, where veteran Democrats Sherrod Brown and Bob Casey were expected to fight off the riding red tide, even by just a few votes, and failed eventually. It was actually a much more brutal awakening for Casey than for Brown, as only three polls out of several dozen predicted a Republican gain in Pennsylvania, while those fielded in Ohio were evenly split and had sent flashing red light alarms for two weeks before the election. This is kind of a dinosaur extinction event for the Democratic Party, as Brown and Casey were among the last of the old style blue collar Democrats, who had the kind of working class appeal that the new woke-compliant generation will never have. Their loss. Then we have the four Democrats who now qualify as an endangered species, as they have managed to hold their seats in states that switched their presidential vote from Biden to Trump.

The most interesting here is Arizona, where the result was pretty much a duplicate of 2018, while the presidential vote swung to Trump by 3% and gave him the state's eleven electoral votes. That's quite different from Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, where the Democrats significantly lost votes from their 2018 results. Those three have a common pattern, weak Democratic holds for the Senate combined with weak Republican gains for the Presidency. So maybe the Blue-Senators-In-Red-States curse won't hit them as it hit Brown and Casey. After all, this quartet have six years to consolidate their position, until the 2030 midterms, and the whole American political landscape will probably be dramatically different then, possibly including all four states switching back to a Democratic presidential candidate in 2028. My last select quartet are seats that were never really expected to change the balance of power in the Senate, and haven't. Though one of them came surprisingly close.

Of course we're talking Nebraska here, the one that could have been the major upset in this electoral cycle. Libertarian-turned-Independent Dan Osborn outpolled Republican incumbent Deb Fischer for most of the campaign, then the prevailing winds shifted and Fischer held her seat with her majority cut by two-thirds. Hers was a clearly lacklustre performance in a state that went to Trump by 20%, and also when compared with the other Senate race in Nebraska. A special election, which you know now is American for by-election, was held off-cycle to fill a vacancy and the Republican candidate won it by 25%. The other three seats are quite representative of this year's voting patterns. The Florida seat was an ultra-marginal gain for Republican Rick Scott in 2018, and Ted Cruz in Texas faced a tougher challenge back then than he ever expected. Both cruised to re-election this year, with much larger margins than polls predicted. It worked the other way round for Democrat Tim Kaine in Virginia, who saw his winning margin cut almost by half. Interestingly, he nevertheless outperformed Kamala Harris by 82k votes and 2.7%, which is indeed quite a verdict on her piss-poor campaigning skills in the last weeks before the elections.

Let’s be fair about this to Elon Musk, and we all find him to be a little bit kooky. But if it’s him or Trump and one of them’s got to make the decisions, Elon Musk taking control of everything sounds a lot better to me.

(Bomani Jones, Have I Got News For You? US, 19 November 2024)

I’d like to see the Democrats’ version of storming the Capitol, though. They would… everyone would have little wicker baskets. They’d all be listening to podcasts on the way.

(Richard Osman, Have I Got News For You?, 8 November 2024)

The comparison between my last prediction for these Senate elections and the actual results shows pretty much the same patterns as the presidential election. Republican candidates did better than predicted and expected in swing seats, and there was a general shift towards weaker ratings for Democrats and stronger ones for Republicans. Even Minnesota, Tim Walz's home state, and iconic Deep Blue states like California, New York and Delaware, Joe Biden's home state, saw Democrats underperform and the states lose their usual 'Solid Dem' status. It wasn't always bound to be that way, and these results illustrate the very negative downballot effect of Kamala Harris's failure. She literally dragged even confident Democrats with strong starting positions down with her. This is probably as good a reason as any for the Democratic Party choosing not to give here a second chance in 2028, and opting for a full reset and the erasure of the Biden years instead.

This year's results are especially disappointing for the Democrats as they had progressed at all three elections of the previous six-year Senate cycle. The Senate is now back to 2018, Trump's first and so far only midterms, and I can only predict uncertainty for the 2026 midterms, when 33 Class 2 seats will be up, plus a special election in Ohio for JD Vance's former seat. Republicans will have 20 seats up, including one in a state that went to Kamala Harris (Maine). Democrats will have 13 up, including two in states that went to Donald Trump (Georgia and Michigan). The Democrats' best hope for a gain will be North Carolina, as the seat was only narrowly held by the Republicans in 2020. But they already had high hopes to switch North Carolina at this year's presidential election, and it failed quite conclusively. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take back control of the Senate next time, and current patterns make that highly unlikely, as well as the profile of the seats that will be up. Unless Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk fuck up considerably in their new jobs, which can of course not be ruled out.

But, as you might expect, the story doesn't end here and now, and it looks like we can expect some further plot twists. Senate Republicans sent a first message of defiance to Trump when Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted to confirm Joe Biden's lame-duck judicial appointments, which predictably sent the whole MAGA mob into a hissy mantrum of rage. Then they sent a much more powerful message when they elected John Thune of South Dakota, a known Trump-sceptic, as the next Senate Majority Leader against John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, both staunch Trumpistas. I think there is a subliminal warning to Trump here, that he will be a lame-duck President from day one as he can't ever stand again, and that he'd better not try to bully them into complete submission to his personal whims. Or Elon Musk's. This show of force led to rumours that Trump planned to shut down the Senate to fast-track his government nominations without scrutiny as 'recess appointments'. Which would have been totally unconstitutional and pretty much a coup, and thusly very unlikely to actually happen, though I wouldn't put it past Elon Musk to have advised the Orange Baboon to do just that. This unprecedented power grab has almost certainly been blown to smithereens now, but it hints that the next four years may well be quite a bumpy ride of skirmishes between Congress and the White House.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the radical left lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our country.

(Donald Trump, 28 November 2024)

It is estimated that Trump’s mass deportation plans could cost around $88 billion. Which is still less than what the Democrats spent on booking Beyoncé.

(Roy Wood Jr, Have I Got News For You?, 8 November 2024)

The gubernatorial elections, for Governors in eleven states and Lieutenant-Governors in five states, were quite demonstrably the least suspenseful in this cycle. Nobody expected anything to change, and nothing did. Not completely actually, as two Lieutenant-Governorships changed hands, but in opposite directions so they cancelled each other out, resulting in a global Net Zero. And nobody really cares about the Lieutenant-Governors anyway, so what the fuck? These races were also surveyed far less often by the pollstertariat, but the most significant were, with generally satisfying results. The only one that could have been somewhat competitive was New Hampshire, where a Republican Governor was seeking re-election in a Democratic state at presidential level. Some polls hinted that the seat would flip, but it did not happen, with Kelly Ayotte winning with an outright majority of the popular vote.

Vermont, Bernie Sanders's home state and also the one where Kamala Harris got her biggest margin of victory outwith Washington D.C., was definitely one to watch and it did not disappoint. Not only did Republican Phil Scott hold the Governor's seat more easily than polls predicted, and also with a bigger margin than at the previous election. But the Lieutenant-Governor's position, that had never been polled, also quite sensationally switched to the Republican Party against the Democrat-backed Vermont Progressive Party. But the most watched races happened in North Carolina, ending on a double slap in the face for the Republicans. Incumbent Democratic Governor Josh Stein held his seat on a 5% swing towards him, on the same day the state's presidential vote swung towards Trump by 1%. Of course he was helped by his Republican challenger Mark Robinson being a completely deranged maverick, who was too much of a lunatic even for the most extremist in the MAGA mob. There was an instant trickle-down effect on the race for Lieutenant-Governor, with Democrat Rachel Hunt gaining the seat on a 2.5% swing from the Republicans. Obviously the next term won't be a walk in the park for Stein and Hunt, as Republicans retained control of both houses of the State Legislature, but that was just the kind of success local Democrats needed on an otherwise dark day.

When Donald Trump is given a choice between hiring someone comically unqualified or horrifically immoral, only he has the courage to say , "Why not both?"

(Roy Wood Jr, Have I Got News For You? US, 26 November 2024)

The American people don’t know what’s best for them. I do. I know exactly what they need. They’re like little children. We have to hold their sticky fingers and wipe their filthy mouths.

(Frank Underwood, House Of Cards: Chapter 56, 2017)

Finally, they had elections for the State Legislatures, with 85 chambers in 44 states up, putting 65% of the State Senates' seats and 85% of the State Houses' seats in play, 5,693 seats overall. The State Legislatures are a major pillar of American democracy, in a way Europeans can't even start to imagine. Federalism grants them far more power than our devolution, and even the powers of German Länder are less extensive. States' Rights have always been a core issue in the American political debate. In the early days after the American Revolution, the Federalist Party, contrary to what the name implies, favoured a strong central government while the Democratic-Republican Party, the big-tent liberal coalition that later spawned both the modern Democratic and Republican parties, favoured decentralisation of power. In later eras, Sates' Rights became a major manifesto commitment for Democrats, as a way to salvage pro-slavery laws before the Civil War, and then for Republicans, as a way to 'protect' civil liberties against an 'intrusive' federal government, which has also become one of Elon Musk's favourite talking points after his conversion to Trumpism. Back to the present day, these elections ended up as another setback for the Democrats.

The very last predictions, based on the punditariat's consensus, hinted that Democrats would gain control of both Houses of the State Legislature in Arizona and New Hampshire, while Republicans would gain the Houses of Representatives in Michigan and Pennsylvania. It did not work that way at all, as only the Michigan House of Representatives changed hands from Democrats to Republicans. On top of that, Kamala Harris's running mate Tim Walz suffered an unexpected personal blow in his home state of Minnesota, where the House of Representatives swung from a Democratic majority to a tie. Ironically, Democrats even managed to lose seats in some iconic Blue States like California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Vermont. The overall picture after all these elections is thusly that of significant blows for Democrats, although it would be quite an exaggeration to call it an unmitigated disaster.

At face value, the Republican Party and Donald Trump have won the trifecta of Presidency, House and Senate. But Trump's victory in the Electoral College is not the result of a landslide in the popular vote, Republicans are weaker in the House of Representatives than before the elections, and the seeds of rebellion have already been sown in the Senate. Donald Trump would be well-advised to not listen exclusively to JD Vance and Elon Musk, and overplay his hand, as some prominent Republicans would love nothing more than reminding them that the MAGA faction are a minority in Congress, and that The Donald himself will be a de facto lame-duck President on Inauguration Day, and has pretty much just one year to act before everyone goes on the campaign trail again for the 2026 midterms, and all support for Trump's Musk-influenced extreme 'reforms' vanishes to avoid spooking voters. Can Trump now be denied the absolute power to make an absolute shitshow of his second Presidency? Possibly, though it would require all non-MAGA Republicans in Congress to show some baws, which is not everybody's forte. Or will the Beltway Establishment take its cues from Alaska, where Republicans dominate the popular vote, but a Coalition of Democrats and not-totally-batshit-crazy Republicans are in charge? Obviously won't happen, but wouldn't it be nice?

Ah, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears

Bury the rag deep in your face for now's the time for your tears

(Bob Dylan, The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll, 1964)

05/11/2024

Before The Feuds

The only thing that can become truly new now is a return to the brilliant, delightful Middle Ages.

(Aleksandr Dugin)

Yes, the government can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.

(Marjorie Taylor Greene)

I couldn't end this series about the American elections without injecting something of Bob Dylan into it. And that's his live album Before The Flood, the most sensational live album of all time bar King Crimson's USA. It was recorded on the 13th and 14th of February 1974 at the Los Angeles Forum in Inglewood, California, except "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", recorded on the 30th of January 1974 at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The album is actually credited to Bob Dylan and The Band, as they backed him and performed a set of their own songs in the middle of the show. I have kept only the Dylan tracks here, but you still get to hear The Band on all but three, performed by Dylan solo. If you think that Neil Peart was the greatest drummer in all of human history, listen carefully to Levon Helm's drumming here, and you may well reconsider. Just saying. And if you're ancient enough to still think that Eric Clapton Is God, listen to Robbie Robertson's leads and you will change your mind. Even Clapton himself admitted once that Robertson was better. No shit, mates, he did. He even admitted that listening to The Band was what prompted him to disband Cream, and move into another musical direction with Derek And The Dominos.

As usual. Images. Click. Bigger. You know the drill. And here is your starter for ten.

Just this once, as this is the last time, I will tell you how we would vote if we were the ones choosing the next Leader Of The Free World™, as revealed by YouGov. Unsurprisingly, Brits would elect Kamala Harris, even Conservative voters. Reform UK voters go against the trend and would vote for Trump. Which is not surprising when your party's leader is a devoted Trump-cocksucker, hell bent on destroying Europe, building a wall along the Channel to repeal boarders, and also funded by Russia. Otherwise, the support for Kamala is quite consensually spread across all crosstabs. It's just odd to see Scotland giving the Orange Baboon a bigger share of the vote than average, but that may be because of the golf courses.

Sadly, we are not the ones voting, those pesky isolationist Americans are, and it's no longer looking really good for Kamala Harris. After what looked like an unexpected honeymoon between Harris and America, her voting intentions took a nosedive in polls all along October. While she was once predicted to do as well as Joe Biden in 2020, it now looks more similar to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and that is definitely very alarming for the Democratic camp. But the abominably toxic climate of the campaign, and the amount of manipulation involved, begs the follow-up question. Is it really happening or is it just a fabricated narrative boosted by the pro-Trump infotainment shows, taking their cues from dubious polls? Or is there a more worrying explanation, that Kamala has indeed exhausted her campaign skills, is shit in adversity, and is losing ground among Arab-Americans? The latter sounds plausible when you look at state-level polls in Michigan, which has the highest Arab-American population of all states, at around 2%. But the long-awaited October Surprise ended up being a November Surprise, with a tiny but visible surge for Harris in the latest batch of polls.

Today's point of reference, and the last one too, is the weighted average of polls fielded between 11 September, the day after the Harris-Trump debate that Trump so obviously lost despite Elon Musk's claims to the contrary, and 6 October, the day before Hurricane Milton was upgraded to Category 5 and touched down in Florida. I have chosen this because it the dividing line between Trump and his Proxy Elon Musk spreading random fake news as usual, and Trump and Musk spreading specific fake news that hit straight at the heart of peoples' own lived experiences in several swing states, with totally fabricated stories about the Federal Government's handling of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, including a bigger than usual array of made-up 'testimonies' that put dog-eating Springfield to shame. Fortunately, YouGov have found that the Great American Public are more likely to believe the 'legacy media', as Elmo calls his pet hate, than anything that comes out of Trump's mouth, or arse. Even only half of prospective Trump voters would believe him, if they can make sense of what he is ranting about, that is.

The odd part is that there has been a significant surge of voting intentions for the minor candidates, those who have no chance whatsoever of being elected, but could make one of the two Top Dogs stumble and fall flat on their belly. I am inclined to believe that, as a recent non-partisan study has shown that American polls were more accurate than ever at the 2022 midterms, so there is no reason to believe they have gone the other way and become unreliable again this year. As it stands, Jill Stein and Cornel West could shave up to 2% off Harris, and Chase Oliver snatch 1% from Trump. Odder still, there is now evidence, intriguingly not reported by the British establishment media, that the MAGA mob are buying and spreading rigged polls to support the fabricated fake news that Trump is surging and will defeat Harris. Most of them conducted by newborn outfits that did not exist a month ago, in the wake of the hurricane-related fake news. And all of them very widely spread by Elon Musk and the swarm of Russian bots roaming free on social media. Another interesting subplot is that Jill Stein is a lifelong supporter of Russia and has refused to stand down, despite calls from Green parties from all over the civilised world, who fear her tiny vote share might be enough to make Trump the winner. Woke Putinism strikes again.

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.

(Homer Simpson)

You’ve got a problem with moderate women. The people that think that the Earth is flat and we didn’t go to the Moon, you’ve got them. Let that go.

(Lindsey Graham to Donald Trump, 2024)

One of the remaining unknowns in swing states is how many people will still vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr, despite his official withdrawal from the race. One of the oddities of American federalism is that presidential candidacies are not registered nationally, but at state level. You have to apply separately in all states to appear on the ballot, but you also have to formally request to be taken off the ballot, with specific deadlines that differ from one state to the next. Quite mischievously, Kennedy did not request to be taken off the ballot in a number of states, most of them Democrat-leaning. He is obviously gambling on voters not paying enough attention, and not realising he is no longer running, and expects that it will shave off more votes from Harris than from Trump. Which may actually happen and be a real factor in a handful of states that are currently too close to call. Not in Arizona though, as Kennedy had already been taken off the ballot there, before he changed his strategy to inflict maximum damage on Harris. And now comes the return of the dreaded charts showing the full sequence of polls since late July. Arizona first.

Despite my caveat about Kennedy, Arizona is a textbook case of why I have serious doubts about all this polling, national or at state level. How can a state swing from marginally Democrat to almost sure Republican, and at the same time be ready to elect a Democratic Senator comfortably? Why are the most Trump-friendly polls, especially those that credit him with outright majorities in the popular vote, always from newborn operators nobody had heard of two months ago? There is clearly a narrative in the making here, that the election was rigged and stolen if the results do not match the polls. The Trump campaign is definitely conditioning the public to believe that, and Elon Musk is doing a lot of the heavy lifting, with his posts spreading the predictions of bookmakers, that are obviously shaped by polls that may be fake and fraudulent. Interestingly, we see the same pattern in neighbouring Nevada, where an incumbent Democratic Senator is also cruising to re-election. There were a lot of fluctuations, that may have something to do with rigged polls, and it is now predicted to go narrowly to Trump, despite Democrats entertaining hopes it might still remain with Harris.

Nevada is the only state that has 'None of the above' on the ballot. It has never won any election, but it has already won a couple of primaries, which was quite embarrassing for the party to which it happened. But this unique option could plausibly get more votes than any of the three minor candidates this year. In the meanwhile, the American punditariat and lead prognosticators are split about Nevada. But the last batch of polls says it will go to the Republicans, the opposite of what it has done at every presidential election since 2008. It could be a very tiny lead, that could possibly be reversed. The key point here is that, every time Nevada looked on the knife-edge, there was a last minute surge of the Democratic vote. It is cautious to assume this will not be the case again today, while hoping that it will. Now, if we shift from the West of Arizona to the East, we have New Mexico, the last state under surveillance in this South West corner.

New Mexico is not really a swing state, though it has been in the past, but it has been reliably Democratic at presidential elections since 2008. I have included it among my watched states only because Redfield & Wilton fleetingly included it in their own batch of swing states, and then discarded it when it became obvious that it wouldn't swing. American pollsters have let go of it even faster, and set foot there only very occasionally during the last six weeks, probably just as a pit stop on their way to Arizona. The consensus is clearly that there is no credible scenario where New Mexico would switch back to the Republicans. So it is definitely not going to be one of the states where Elon Musk will spend any of the $140m he has ringfenced for frivolous challenges against the democratic choice of the American people.

I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.

(Donald Trump)

It’s not the truth that matters, but victory.

(Adolf Hitler)

My second trio of swing states is Florida, Georgia and North Carolina this time. Because they have one thing in common, two actually. First being the ones hit the hardest by the hurricanes, Helene and Milton. Then, and almost instantly, being the ones hit hardest by a massive tsunami of fake news, spawned by the Trump-Vance campaign and dutifully relayed by Elon Musk and the swarms of FSB bots on Twitter. It kind of backfired though, as if the good people of these states did compare their own 'lived experience' with Trump's allegations, and found out he was talking bollocks out of his arse. Florida has indeed swung a wee smitch in Trump's direction, but the DNC never seriously expected to gain it anyway, and the effect of the fake news seems to have worn out already, as the swing towards Trump is pretty much what you could expect from a pure statistical approach based on generic polls.

Georgia has also shown an unexpected display of pre-emptive panic and desperation among Trump's supporters, which is quite odd in a state that is predicted to shift from Blue to Red, and is unlikely to go back the other way. But the early November polls show that part of Harris's national surge comes from there, and the result will plausibly be excruciatingly close. Trump's lead jumped back to almost 2% in late October, and fell back down to around 1% in the last few days. It still counts as a Republican gain on 2020, but will undoubtedly be much closer than in 2016, when Trump carried it by 5%.

North Carolina, the only Trump state of 2020 that was ever predicted to shift to Harris, will also be nailbitingly close on Election Night. It remains in Trump's column for now, but his lead is not as large as you would think it should be from a purely statistical point of view. If the main American channels stick to their habit of announcing partial results all along the night, it is highly likely we will see North Carolina go to Trump first, when the rural areas declare, then to Harris when more votes come in from the urban areas, then in an unpredictable direction as the count gets closer to 100% of votes cast. Unless the channels choose to play it safe, and not risk accusations of spreading misinformation from either camp, and rate it as 'too close to call' all night long until they have the final count. Which is highly likely to not be final, as North Carolina law allows candidates to request a recount if the difference between the top two is less than 2%, which I'm ready to bet it will be.

What happened in these states is just more evidence of the toxicity and nastiness of the campaign. Something that is bound to happen when one side is actively preparing to overturn an unfavourable result by any means necessary, including riots and violent actions. We also can't rule out upsets coming from massive mobilisation efforts towards the 40% of registered voters who are voting on The Day itself. It has happened before, and more often than not favoured endangered Democratic candidates. It may depend on which buttons the two main candidates have chosen to push on the last day of the campaign, and possibly also on how many potential abstainers will pinch their nose and vote for Harris eventually, not out of conviction but because the alternative is so much more frightening.

If I have to create stories, so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do.

(J.D Vance)

Give me something so that I can not vote for the sane, serious person and instead vote for the town drunk.

(John Hodgman, Have I Got News For You? US, 15 October 2024)

Let's move Up North next, to the very sensitive Great Rust Lakes Belt states, which could decide the election if they all go in the same direction. These ultra-marginal states will probably be where we will see the biggest impact of Joe Biden's most recent bumbling remarks. Those that were so easily edited into Sloppy Joe calling Trump's supporters 'garbage', in response to Trump's wankfest at Madison Square Garden, where a Z-list Trump zealot actually called Puerto Rico 'an island of garbage'. One unhingedly racist 'joke' that came right after the Orange Baboon himself called the whole USA a 'garbage can' because of... just guess... aye... immigration. So let's move now from West to East, starting with Wisconsin. It has all the ingredients of a Purple State, the ones that are neither Red nor Blue, but an unappealing mash of both. You can definitely imagine an excruciating scene on Election Night, with one channel or the other calling Wisconsin for one candidate or the other, and then withdrawing it because the count's progress went the other way. Or it will stay too close to call for days and days, or until Trump unleashes his swarm of Elmo-funded lawyers, whichever happens first.

Common wisdom, or more accurately the common media narrative, is that Kamala Harris faces a really uphill battle in Michigan. That's one of the states that failed Hillary Clinton and got Donald Trump elected in 2016. You can trace that to Clinton's infamous speech about the 'deplorables', that was manna from Heaven for the MAGA mob in this post-globalisation industrial wasteland. This year, more than left-wing elitism, the situation in Gaza could spell disaster for the Democrats. The background story is that the state's significant Arab-American population is deserting the Democrats, and for once both the voting intentions polls and more specific polling totally support it. Michigan was the least close of the trio in 2020, but could easily become the closest this year. Mind you, it will not seal Harris's fate all by itself, but no single state can, can they? It will require a combination of at least two, and not just any two, because Trump needs 35 additional votes in the Electoral College. So a gain of three states is a surer and safer way for him to prevail, which explains his relentless targeting of the three Rust Belt states.

Finally Pennsylvania, Joe Biden's state of birth. Sloppy Joe was born in Scranton during the First World War, or summat. Scranton, or the American equivalent of Slough. If you know, you know. Or you can just look it up. There is definitely some weird stuff in plain sight in polls from Pennsylvania. Polls offering the full range of candidates, plus the uniquely American option of write-in, find Harris narrowly in the lead. Polls limited to the two-horse race at the top find Trump narrowly ahead. It is surely no coincidence that all these two-horse polls come from this magic herd of pollsters that appeared out of cosmic dust a long time after the campaign had started. But just in time to create an alternative reality where Trump is actually leading in the polls, and make it stick in the minds of half the electorate. And it's not some random conspiracy theory. All you need to do is check the name of the active pollsters on any Wokopedia page dedicated to statewide voting intentions polling, and see which pollsters were there six months ago and which weren't. Simples. But even the suspicious pollsters are unable to hide that a lot of Harris's national surge is also coming from Pennsylvania, where she has again taken the lead over the weekend, even if the various aggregators do not reflect it yet.

Pennsylvania is definitely the state where Elmo can put his blood money to good use. The irony is that he does not have to actually challenge the results, as it could be more efficient to throw enough cogs in the works to dramatically slow down the process. The doomsday scenario is having no final valid results on 11 December, the deadline for the states to choose their Electors, which they obviously can't do if they don't have the final tally of the popular vote. Then it would trigger a snowball effect. Electors wouldn't vote on 17 December, the day set by law, if they haven't been chosen, and Congress would not be able to certify the results on 6 January if some states are missing. If Elmo has carefully studied Engineers Of Chaos 101, that's what he will do. No need for a one-shot coup, or another seditious invasion of the Capitol, if you have already made the whole process crumble weeks before that. The Republicans are clearly preparing already for just that, so we can expect some interesting weeks, and get ourselves accustomed to the idea that we will not know the name of the President-elect as quickly as usual, and possibly not even this year.

Everybody knows, if you want to prove that you’re serious about running for President, you first must get charged with wire fraud. That’s America.

(Roy Wood Jr, Have I Got News For You? US, 15 October 2024)

Then you have to go on Access Hollywood and tell people that you grab ‘em by the pussy. And that creates the kind of gravitas we’re looking for in a President.

(Michael Ian Black, Have I Got News For You? US, 15 October 2024)

Two months ago, Redfield & Wilton probed their extended panel of the swing states about abortion, the economy and inflation, to assess which side's positions they felt closer to, Democrats or Republicans. Back then, Democrats won hands down on abortion, which is probably why they made it a core campaign issue, but far less conclusively on the economic issues, which is why Trump hijacked them to weaponise them against Harris. Redfield & Wilton have continued to survey these issues all along the campaign, with three others added to the questionnaire. Healthcare, illegal immigration and the war in Palestine. This pretty much covers the whole spectrum of the most important issues facing the United States, which are also in many ways the most controversial and the most divisive. They also rephrased the question, to whom their panels trust most, Harris or Trump, on these issues. As expected, Harris against wins by a wide margin on abortion, which could plausibly be the issue that mobilises enough otherwise reluctant voters to get her past the finish line in key states. She is also the most trusted everywhere about healthcare in general, an issue that has barely been touched in the campaign. Probably because nobody has the miracle cure for the extravagant cost of healthcare in the USA, that is totally out of control and more than three times what we have in the UK, thanks to being devolved to private corporate interests.

The swing voters are still split on the economy and the cost of living, and neither candidate has a really conclusive advantage in any state. This is not for lack of trying on the Republican side, as they have relentlessly hammered their soundbites about the double-digit inflation on groceries. Because, ye ken, cheeseburgers up 20% is definitely all Kamala's fault. Don't mention Covid, Ukraine, the energy crisis, Trump lives in an alternative reality where all of this didn't happen. Or, more accurately, his own privileged protected reality is one where all of this doesn't really matter. And don't even think of mentioning that groceries have gone up more that that in the UK, because our inflation was worse, he would probably tell you it's fake news. So the Republican messaging worked, despite its gross exaggeration, because the economy is not a strong point for the average American. And most of them have no fucking clue how it fared in other countries, which is basically no better and often worse. They also don't have a fucking clue where these countries are, actually. Bless their wee cotton socks.

As you probably expected, Trump is getting better ratings than Harris on illegal immigration in all states. But the verdict on their stance on Israel and Palestine is more of a mixed bag, with more people than on any other issue thinking that both suck. Asking about these issues is pretty much tossing a live grenade into a minefield, as they are like the most controversial and divisive this time of year, with lots of people having very strong, and often baseless, views on them. In the USA, immigration is pretty much a defining issue of left vs right, which it is less and less in Europe, where even social-democratic parties tend to lean towards more restrictive policies. But Trump has always been keen on using it to stoke the fires, even if every reasonable person could tell him that none of his policies would ever work. The Wall won't, deporting 20 million won't, and it's fair to assume some part of his brain knows it and doesn't care so long as it make his most excitable supporters and J.D. Vance happy. And I won't even touch the Israel vs Palestine issue now, seeing how the activist woke middle-class campus-left has totally turned it upside down and back to front with their asinine endorsement of mass-murdering terrorists as 'freedom fighters'. Which pretty much makes all reasoned arguments against Israel's colonialist policies inaudible.

Finally, it says a lot about the level of absolute madness that has engulfed this shitshow of a campaign, that the most controversial and divisive issue over the last few days is none of the above. But the sad fate and the untimely death of Peanut The Squirrel and Fred The Raccoon. It has allowed Trump to rebrand himself as the Pet Protector In Chief, without anybody reminding him that he showed far less concern for humans when he advocated bringing more guns to schools. The Republicans have memed this atrocious event into scathing attacks on authoritarian Democrats, with massive help from Elon Musk again, as it happened in New York. But they conveniently forgot to mention it happened only on the basis of a complaint from someone who had never been near the two victims, and had seen them only on Instagram. A 'concerned citizen' living in Texas, a Republican state, and ratting on New Yorkers from a safe distance. But it was too good a story to not be outrageously weaponised by the MAGA mob, and that's how something that should never have gone past local news became another national hysterical culture war.

According to Trump’s aide, there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin, maybe as many as seven in the period since Trump left the White House in 2021.

(Bob Woodward, War, 2024)

You know, I do a thing called the weave. And there are those, that are fair, that say, “This guy is so genius”. And then others would say, “Oh, he rambles”. I don’t ramble.

(Donald Trump)

Some, whom Donald Trump would surely call 'unfair', have voiced doubts about his health, mostly the mental component, especially after his forty minutes of clumsy dancing at a rally in Pennsylvania and falling asleep in the middle of an another campaign event a few days later. Now we have to wonder if he has been actually making up stuff off the muff all along, or if it was just warning signs that his brain is like mushed peas from Hartlepool, those who do not qualify as guacamole, and he is just telling us what emerges from it as genuine reality. He does look in a worse state than Biden the day before Chuck Schumer chucked him out of the window of the campaign bus. The Great American Public are more and more concerned about it, YouGov has revealed, but that does not impress the MAGA mob, and hasn't even helped Kamala in the swing states. That's what the polling aggregates say now about the four most competitive states outwith the Great Lakes area. All are now going to Trump, albeit by wee margins, but all that counts is finishing first, innit?

There is a big inconvenient truth for Kamala Harris in the current situation in the Great Rust Lakes Belt. Minnesota is in the bag by a similar margin to 2020, and always was. So what may cost Kamala the Presidency in not Biden insulting 'white trash', but her own choice of Veep. Tim Walz has brought jack shit to the ticket, except adding fuel to the accusations of extremist transgenderist wokeism. Sadly Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who would plausibly have delivered the extra voters needed to secure this ultra-marginal state, was too pro-Israel, or just 'too Jewish', to be approved by the pro-Hamas student-for-life fanatics whom Kamala needs to cuddle for votes. Will appeasing this extremist fringe prove to be her Nemesis? There is a possibility it could be, as Kamala's leads in the three really competitive Rust Belt states have become thinner than Lizzo after three years on Jane Plan.

The last four states are those you can call The Solids, a batch that were never actually in play, and have attracted little attention during the campaign. Except one, Virginia, that has oddly been pre-emptively selected by Trump's Elmo-funded goons as the testing ground for their asinine claims of massive voter fraud. They certainly found it worth a try, and the money spaffed on this frivolous legal action doesn't really matter, does it? So long as it allows Elmo's Russian bots to cry wolf about 'illegal aliens' being allowed to vote, even if that never happened, and there is no way it could ever happen. I guess the MAGA mob are also ready to try that in New Mexico, even it its equally impossible, and would never switch it their way. But the whole fabricated scandal is not about winning their cases, is it? It's just about creating a totally fabricated narrative about the state of American democracy, and seeding the sows of violent sedition. Which is the real and actual greatest threat to American democracy. But Elmo and the Orange Baboon are totally happy with that one.

Now, just a few hours away from the results, or the first approximate iteration of the results, is as good a moment as any to reflect on how we came where we are now. How a convicted felon and KGB asset has even odds of being sat in the Oval Office two months from now, and it is the confluence of two personal vendettas. First, Donald Trump's against Ukraine, because Volodymyr Zelenskyy refused to help him fabricate a fake legal case against Hunter Biden before the 2020 presidential election. But this wouldn't have worked without the unexpected second one. Elon Musk's road rage against the 'woke mind virus' because of what a Californian judge did for, or to, depending on your perspective, his son in 2022. If you ever doubted that transgenderism can change the fate of nations, and not in a good way, here's your evidence. Or will the absolute shitshow of the Orange Baboon's rally at Madison Square Garden, the vile display of neanderthalian theocratic white male supremacism and racism, lift the scales off enough peoples' eyes to block his return?

You can trace Donald Trump’s hold over his supporters by looking at the people in the background. Like, three or four years ago, they were all cheering, now they look completely confused.

(Paul Merton, Have I Got News For You?, 17 May 2024)

Donald Trump told his supporters the other day that they should all come out and vote on January the 5th. Which would be a good idea cause that’s two months after the actual date.

(Paul Merton, Have I Got News For You?, 18 October 2024)

Let's see now what the Electoral College is likely to look like, based on the most recent polls, including those that have been released just today. There is a lot of uncertainty in all this. The most obvious part is that the foundation for both candidates has not changed since I started tracking this. Only the 2nd District of Maine has shifted from 'weak Harris' to 'weak Trump' for whatever reasons. Otherwise, the two candidates can count on the same states that were already in their column two months ago. Even the big blob of tossups in the middle includes some that haven't changed sides since then. Arizona and Georgia are definitely switching back to Trump, after going to Biden in 2020. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have all fleetingly gone red at some point, which you can probably blame on random sample variations, or an influx of rigged pro-Trump polls in some past weeks, but are now more likely than ever to stay blue, albeit by painfully small margins. This could pave the way to some desperate attempt by the Trump-Vance campaign to again try and overturn the results illegally, like they did in Georgia four years ago, as the BBC has timely reminded us. Before resorting to insurrection and an attempted coup, which we can't really rule out happening again this time, as they are already preparing for it in plain sight.

This is the big picture, with seven states and 93 Electoral College votes counted as tossups, which is pretty much the consensus among the American punditariat. But the to-and-froings of voting intentions in recent polls, and of states from one column to the other and back, say that it will boil down to just three states. Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. If we allocate the four other tossups to the most likely winner, we have 251 votes for Harris and 246 for Trump. If Harris wins Nevada and Pennsylvania and Trump wins North Carolina, which sounds like the least unlikely scenario, Harris wins the Presidency 276-262. If it goes completely the other way round, Trump wins 271-267. But what we have now is the third possible combination, and the worst one, as it is just one vote away from a tie, with Harris winning 270-268, and totally opening the doors to multiple recounts, court actions, and a fuckload of fake news about election fraud. That's what was definitely not happening in my previous projection four weeks ago, but could still be in the making as people are still voting as you read this. Harris is predicted to hold Pennsylvania by just a thread in the last batch of polls, so it could still easily go the other way. Imagine waking up tomorrow and finding out that the Quaker State has propelled the Orange Baboon back to 1600 of its eponymous avenue. Fucking nightmare. Unless the real November Surprise comes from a state neither candidate has visited over the last fortnight, because it was not on the obvious 'to do' list.

The great unknown is that millions of early votes have already been cast in all sorts of states. Thanks to American voter registration rules, it is possible to know how many registered Democrats, registered Republicans and registered Independents have voted early. But that does not predict the results in any credible way, so the suspense remains until all votes are counted. Which will probably take a significant number of days, and possibly weeks if mandatory automatic recounts are triggered, or if any candidate uses the legal options for requesting a recount that is not legally mandatory. 22 states have provisions for automatic recounts, and another 27 offer the possibility to request one by various more or less convoluted paths. Only Mississippi does not allow either. So the fun may last for a fucking long time. The only limit seems to be the fateful 6th of January, two months after the election, when a joint session of Congress certifies the final national results. Same date this time as it was at the previous election, as it must happen on the first Monday of January, except if it's New Year's Day and it's then pushed to the 8th. Have to wonder what kind of 'event' Trump's mob have in mind for the occasion this year.

We're gonna walk down to the Capitol, and I'll be there with you. Something's wrong here. Something's really wrong. Can't have happened. And we fight. We fight like hell.

(Donald Trump, March To Save America, 6 January 2021)

The President specifically asked me, and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers, asked me to literally reject votes. They didn't just ask me to pause, they asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election. I rejected that out of hand, and I did my duty that day.

(Mike Pence, Fox News, 3 August 2023)

There is also a lot of uncertainty and volatility in generic national polls for the House of Representatives. The clear trend is that Democrats have suffered quite a noticeable slump and then gone up again until they regained a tiny lead. That's quite similar to the presidential polls, so there is no real surprise here. It confirms that there is a trickle-down effect of the presidential vote on the downballot races, which was not always the case in the past. But the increased polarisation of American politics means we can expect more and more bloc voting, something even Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush did not achieve, as both had to live with Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives throughout their presidencies. Ironically, both George W. Bush and Donald Trump inherited Republican majorities from their Democratic predecessors, but lost them eventually.

The snapshot of the most recent polls says that Democrats are slightly ahead in the generic national polling, but not by much, and by less than in 2020. The most important factor is that Democrats would nevertheless gain votes on their 2022 result, while Republicans would lose votes. The swing from 2022 is tiny, but nevertheless enough to grant more seats to the Democrats than in 2020 on a smaller share of the popular vote. This is bound to happen when you have a slight shift in voting intentions after an election that delivered a very tiny majority and a larger number of marginal seats than usual. This happened at the 2022 midterms, when Republicans gained a few seats in Democrat-leaning New York and California, quite serendipitously and on tiny margins. So we now have a small swingometer effect, on top of what pure math would deliver, and the usual few seats that go against the trend.

If you factor in only the statistical projection of generic polls, Democrats would gain thirteen seats and Republicans none. This would deliver 226 Democratic seats to 209 Republican seats. This is better for the Democrats than just a week ago, when the predicted result was 218-217; as close as you can get to a tie on an odd number of seats, and a situation that has not happened since the 1930 elections. If you add the few district-level polls to the broth, Democrats are now predicted to gain fifteen seats and Republicans to gain three. Then you have 225 Democratic seats to 210 Republican seats, still very little movement and still a perilously small majority for the Democrats. All in all, first-past-the-post works pretty well when you have a two-party system, and we should again have evidence of this with the actual results this year. Republicans will probably whine that Democrats stole the elections, if they get a few more seats from slightly fewer votes, but that's how it works, mates. And they weren't so easily outraged when they won the House on a minority of the popular vote in 2012. Or 1996. Or 1952. But Republicans are specialists of two-tier indignation, and we can expect them to whine profusely about anything this year, as long as it gives them excuses to clog the system with endless recounts and frivolous lawsuits for months.

Get out and vote! Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore.

(Donald Trump)

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

(Philip K. Dick)

One of the oddest parts of these American elections is hearing Republicans call Democrats 'Marxists'. Trump first used it against Harris, and it has trickled down now to all sorts of downballot races. It's a pretty ridiculous thing to say as, if there's just one thing Democrats are definitely not, it's Marxist. But Trump obviously doesn't have the fuckiest scoobie what 'Marxist' actually means, and so do 99.9% of the American public. And it would be a complete waste of time and energy to even try and explain them, as one of the dominant traits in Post-Truth America is taking pride in illiteracy. That's the foundation of the MAGA Articles Of Faith, and has also partly polluted wokeism. Though the usual stance on that side is more summat like, "We know it's fucking bullshit, but we're sticking to it because it makes us feel good". And there are traces of that in several of the key Senate races, though not really convincingly in the only four that were first thought to offer some semblance of suspense, or the plausibility of change. Arizona, Montana, Nebraska and Nevada.

Arizona and Nevada are definitely the odd ones out here. Democrats are predicted to lose Arizona at presidential level, and Nevada is on a knife-edge. But both are predicted to elect Democrats to the Senate on similar margins to 2018. Montana tells another, and sadly predictable, story. Despite his obvious credentials as 'one of the boys', Jon Tester faces an uphill battle to hold his seat for a fourth term. Montana has only very slowly submitted to the MAGA fever, and there is still a significant 'young progressives' component in its larger cities, but polls says it won't be enough. Nebraska remains another variant of odd one out, that defies the state's political logic. But Independent Dan Osborn is now predicted to fail in his attempt to snatch it from veteran Republican Deb Fisher, still on a very tiny margin that would trigger an automatic mandatory recount under Nebraska law. But, probably to everyone's surprise, the real suspense has shifted to four seats up in the Great Rust Lakes Belt. From West to East, though not in alphabetical order, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Three of these four states are also under special scrutiny at presidential level, as they hold some of the many keys to the election. Ohio, once a swing state but now leaning Republican, is also one to watch here after a string of upsetting Senate polls. A year ago, nobody would have thought that veteran Democrat Sherrod Brown could face a serious challenge for a seat he has held for eighteen years. He may be a liberal, in the American sense, in a state that has swung more and more to the right recently, but his genuine class consciousness always helped him hold the working class vote in Ohio's post-industrial wastelands. But polls say that his luck may have run out now, which would be a real nightmare for the DNC, as it may be the tipping point seat in a tied Senate. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, also a three-term veteran with strong pro-working class credentials, faces a tougher fight this time too, and his defeat would also be a devastating blow for the Democratic Party. Here too, you can see the downballot effect of Trump's surge in these states. Finally we have four Senate seats that could have been worth watching, but clearly no longer are.

Florida and Texas were quite close in 2018, but the Republican incumbents are now predicted to hold their seats with increased margins, thanks to third-party candidates. Democrats were kind of gambling on quickly evolving demographics to turn the tide in both states, but it is clearly not working. Yet. Virginia looked like a possible battle ground some time ago, but incumbent Democrat Tim Kaine, a former Governor and Hillary Clinton's running mate at the 2016 presidential election, has gained back a two-digit lead that puts him beyond the danger zone. Neighbouring West Virginia was never in doubt after Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Manchin decided to stand down, and pollsters don't even bother polling it any more, as it is quite obvious that Republicans will gain it in a landslide. This final batch of polls quite conclusively says that we shouldn't expect an upset in any of these four seats. But there still may be upsets, some even unexpected, somewhere else.

As a child, Ted Cruz was bitten by an octopus at the beach and became seriously ill. Which is weird to me because, from the way he looks, I would have figured Ted Cruz was bitten by a divorced werewolf.

(Roy Wood Jr, Have I Got News For You? US, 22 October 2024)

Is it still the land of the free and the home of the brave? Or is it becoming the land of the coward and the home of the slave?

(John Charles Eastman, Trump: The Criminal Conspiracy Case, 2024)

My projection of the Senate after the elections has changed, but not because of a number of really lousy polls for Democrats. As you have seen in the state-by-state polling, it's all because of Nebraska. With Deb Fisher now predicted to hold her seat by a hair, all hopes Chuck Schumer may have entertained, of getting two more years as Majority Leader until the next midterms, have been quashed. The real question now is which Republican will succeed him. Veteran Mitch McConnell, now 82 years old, has announced he will step down from any leadership role in the next Senate and retire at the end of his seventh term in 2026. John Thune of South Dakota, the current Minority Whip, looks like a favourite, if only because he is only 63. Unless the Republican Party want to inject some modernity into what looks like a male gerontocracy, and then Joni Ernst of Iowa may get her opportunity for a big career change. The choice will obviously depend on who wins the presidential election. Thune was chastised by Trumpistas, and Trump himself, after the 2020 election when he said challenges to the election's results would "go down like a shot dog" in the Senate, while Ernst has always been a faithful ally of the Orange Baboon.

The sequence of elections since 2018 shows that we can only expect small incremental change, as the days of massive waves of change in the Senate are clearly over. This is in fact a faithful translation of the current state of American politics and, more broadly, of the American psyche. A country deeply divided right down the middle, but where constitutional oddities grant disproportionate power to the small states. To the rural America that is right now voting en masse for Donald Trump because of his strong stance against immigration, even if they have never seen a Mexican or a Syrian in their home state. The same rural America that would feel comfortable with an American theocracy based on the Ten Commandments instead of the rule of law. That rural America who is rooting for the return of American isolationism because, ye ken, our taxes are better spent at home, and who wants to die for Kyiv anyway? Which is, of course, also the common discourse from the populist far left, just as it already was in the 1930s. But that's another story for another day.

One of the main features of the Senate for many decades was that it did not always align with the presidential votes, and quite often went the other way thanks to the personal component. But it could now become a serious problem for the Democratic Party. The last Republican in a Democratic state was eliminated in 2016, when Mark Kirk lost his seat in Illinois. Then the 2018 elections saw the start of a quite successful cull of Democratic Senators in Republican states, that continued in 2020. Tonight, Democrats will lose two of their last three seats in Republican states, and the third is clearly under threat. But they have opened a new front in 2020, Georgia, when it elected two Democratic Senators on the same day it switched its Electoral College votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Georgia nevertheless remains Republican at state level, with a Republican Governor and strong Republican majorities in both Houses of the State Legislature, and may even return to the Republican fold at today's presidential election. So the next two Senate races in Georgia will surely be ones to watch, for Jon Ossof in 2026 and Raphael Warnock in 2028.

I wish Elon Musk would invent a rocket that could get his head out of Donald Trump’s ass. I think he should be working on that next.

(Phil Wang, Have I Got News For You?, 18 October 2024)

I love cows. But if we go with Kamala, you won’t have any cows anymore. I love cows, I think they’re so cute and so beautiful and so productive. But according to Kamala, who’s a radical left lunatic, you will not have any cows anymore, so we have to vote her out. They want to kill our cows. That means you are next.

(Donald Trump)

Meanwhile, all is quiet on the Governor Front, as they say. These races elicit very little interest from the pollstertariat and the punditariat, because all but one are as good as already wrapped up in favour of the incumbents. Also of course because the presidential race has an almost daily dose of shockers that make it much better headline material. And we have also just one of the races for Lieutenant Governor looking marginally suspenseful, and then only because of trickle-down effect of the race for Governor in the same state. That's of course in North Carolina, where you have one of these polling paradoxes that make me entertain lingering doubts about the presidential polls. It's pretty much the same phenomenon as the discrepancies between the presidential vote and the Senate vote in Arizona and Nevada. Here we have a state that is still marginally Republican in presidential polls, but will re-elect a Democratic Governor with an increased margin, and replace a Republican Lieutenant Governor with a Democrat. I definitely smell a rat here, and not in the gubernatorial polls.

What actually counts in The Day After's headlines, is who got the most Governors. Lieutenant Governors remain in the shadows, even when one of the positions changes hands, so the narrative will be one of complete stability. Because the real power is in the Governors' offices, and most tend to use their LG as an expensive stunt double, readily available to cut the ribbons at the Peanut Butter County Fair in the most remote corner of the state. Back to our projection from the small number of recent gubernatorial polls, it looks like Democrats will not swing enough votes in New Hampshire to gain the governorship, even if they do quite well at other elections there, so the net result is predicted to be a perfect status quo. No losses and no gains for either side.

There is an interesting subplot to the gubernatorial elections, and also to the elections for the State Legislatures. It is delusional to expect that electing Trump to the Presidency would stop the spread of the 'woke mind virus'. Just as it was stupidly delusional to advocate voting Conservative at our general election because they would stand up for women's rights. Because that's not how American federalism works. Almost all the legislation about the kind of social issues that are at the core of fabricated culture wars, like making the falsification of birth certificates or gay castration therapy legal, is squarely within the prerogatives of individual states, just like banning abortion of Farenheit-451ing the 'wrong kind' of books, which are trademark Republican policies. A federal blanket ban on either will never happen, as even the very conservative Trump-engineered Supreme Court would find it unconstitutional. Besides, what little can be decided at federal level, like Joe Biden's infamous transing of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, can easily be challenged in court with overwhelming odds of being struck down. As much as I enjoy all the juicy details and the successes of the War On Woke, let's not forget that it means jack shit for the people of Kyiv and Kharkiv, and that we shouldn't get our priorities wrong.

Remember the last scene? “Excuse me, I’m about to have a friend for dinner”, as this poor doctor walked by. I’m about to have a friend for dinner, but Hannibal Lecter, congratulations, the late great Hannibal Lecter.

(Donald Trump)

We gave the Americans a language, and they just won't use it properly.

(Jeremy Clarkson)

On the 5th of November, the USA will also elect their state legislatures, partly or wholly. There are 99 chambers for 50 states, as Nebraska has a unicameral legislature that is counted as a Senate for statistical purposes. Nebraska also has this constitutional fiction that their Legislature is non-partisan, though they all know it is dominated by the Republican Party. Seen from where we're sat, these are pretty much the invisible elections, as these 99 chambers play no part whatsoever in America's standing on the world scene. But they are important to the Great American Public because of federalism, that is actually heavily skewed in favour of the states. States' Rights were at the core of the divisions leading to the Civil War, much more than slavery, despite the later narrative. Seen from that perspective, the Confederates won the war, as States' Rights have become one of the many Sacred Cows of American politics, on an equal footing with Free Speech and the Right To Randomly Shoot Kids In Schools. In the early 21st century, the Republican Party have gained a solid dominance on state legislatures, that has been then slowly eroded by the Democratic Party, and current projections say it will continue this year.

Rules about the electoral process vary from state to state on all sort of topics. Length of term, term limits, staggered or 'full house' elections, even years or odd years, you name it, you get it. That's why I traced the results for every year in Joe Biden's term. Democrats managed a big reversal of fortunes in 2021, but only small incremental gains since. Both Houses of the Alaska Legislature are ruled by a coalition of Republicans, Democrats and Independents, and it is expected to remain the same this year. Democrats are predicted to gain both Houses or the Arizona Legislature, which sounds a bit odd in a state that is predicted to go to Donald Trump, but less so when you consider they are also predicted to re-elect a Democratic Senator with an increased majority. Democrats are also predicted to gain the House of Representatives of New Hampshire, the largest in the whole nation with 400 members, and also the New Hampshire Senate. But polls also hint Democrats will lose their razor-thin majorities in the Houses of Representatives of Michigan and Pennsylvania, also knife-edge states at the presidential election. So the net result is now predicted to be just two chambers switching from Red to Blue, disappointingly perpetuating Republican dominance at state level. So, for better or for worse, here's the summary of all these elections, as they appear bound to go tonight, or at some point later in the year, and that's my final answer.

Of course, the key word here is 'uncertainty', though it could also be 'unpredictability', not something any self-respecting psephologist should admit. But that's the way it is. From opinion polls, which might be wrong once in a while, not from bookies, that are easily manipulated, or Elon Musk, who is constantly manipulating. A weakly-elected Democrat at the White House, facing difficult battles against a split Congress, and plausibly undermined by Republican Governors and Republican State Legislatures, all of whom are more than likely to pursue some high-profile culture wars against the dominance of wokeism inside The Beltway. Don't misunderstand me, though, I do hope Kamala Harris wins and Democrats take back control of Congress. Not because I have suddenly decided that their asinine version of 'progressivism' is fine, but because the alternative is so much worse. That would be, to put it bluntly, Vladimir Putin sitting in the Oval Office. Because that's exactly what we would get if Elon Musk's blood money and vote-buying propel Donald Trump back to the White House. And I am definitely not getting hyperbolic here, it's in plain sight for anyone with a brain to see. As Bob Dylan once put it, check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row.

Bob Dylan and The Band on stage, opening night in Chicago, 3rd of January 1974

Left to right: Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, Bob Dylan, Levon Helm

Garth Hudson is behind the keyboards, hidden by Robertson

Richard Manuel was on the other side, to the left of Helm, and is missing from the picture

To end on a lighter note, there is a fun subplot here. Before The Flood was recorded during Bob Dylan's comeback tour that lasted from the 3rd of January to the 14th of February 1974. It was the last time Dylan and The Band performed together, bar the short performance at The Band's farewell concert in 1976, immortalised by Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz. More relevantly, the tour took place at the peak of the Watergate Crisis, amidst rising speculation that Richard Nixon would soon resign the Presidency. Which he dutifully did, seven weeks after the album's release. And here we reach a fork in the space-time continuum, with one branch being our 'real' timeline and the other The West Wing's timeline. In that alterverse, the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution was never ratified, so Richard Nixon never appointed a new Vice-President after Spiro Agnew's resignation. Come August 1974, nobody was constitutionally entitled to succeed Nixon and the only option was a snap Presidential election, two years ahead of schedule. That's how all election cycles in the series are 'off' by two years, with Jed Bartlet elected in 1998 and 2002, and then Matt Santos in 2006. Be seeing you for the post-mortems, then, in a couple of weeks after the recounts and before the lawsuits.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood, for nothing now can ever come to any good.

(Wystan Hugh Auden, Funeral Blues, 1936)

09/12/2024

Welcome To Their Nightmares

05/11/2024

Before The Feuds

White Man Blues