Trump resurgent?

This time four years ago we were contemplating the question of whether the Trump administration would be viewed by posterity as a minor bump on the road of progress, or if his defeat in 2020 would prove to be only a temporary setback to the onward march of American fascism.

Well, now we know the answer, and it wasn’t even close, Trump comfortably winning the popular vote as well as the Electoral College, and the GOP coming out on top in the Senate, and perhaps also the House.

I must admit that, in the aftermath of January 2021, I thought it was all over for Trump personally, and that the movement he had sucessfully marshalled, for a while at least, would split, with relatively moderate elements returning to mainstream conservative politics, and the conspiracy-addled fringe fading into online insignificance. Instead the lunatics have only strengthened their control of the asylum, with the acquiescence and/or connivance of the GOP hierarchy.

And, it must be said, the result tells us something about the nature of society in the US. The electorate know all about Trump, and a majority of them like what they see; the virulent racism and toxic misogyny are a feature, not a bug.

Is this surprising, when one considers the whole span of the history of the USA, a nation founded on genocide and slavery, where legally-sanctioned racial discrimination was the norm within living memory? Was the advance of civil liberties in the latter half of the 20th century merely a blip, destined to be erased as the country reverts to type?

Perhaps I’m delusional, but I’m staying positive. Many obstacles can be put in Trump’s way, both personal and institutional, to frustrate the implementation of his reactionary agenda. The fight will be hard, but it’s not unwinnable.

Seriously? (Redux)

Regular readers will be aware that we’re not averse to a bit of nostalgia here at SLS, but I have to say that I wasn’t in any rush to relive 2016.

It will take me some time to process this turn of events; for now I can only repeat the question: America – WTF dudes?

My traditional message to my friends in the US of A

I don’t know for sure that this made the difference last time around, but why take a chance?

[Thanks once more to Matt Groening.]

Election prediction: 2024 US Presidential edition

We’ve established who we think should be the next President of the USA, but who do we think will win the prize?

I have to say that I have a bad feeling about this. The polling analysis at FiveThirtyEight, which I mostly trust, has Harris clearly ahead in the popular vote, but Trump just edging it in the Electoral College, though they do caution that it’s all within the margin of error.

The pessimistic view is that the polls are underestimating Trump’s support, due to sampling bias underweighting his rural base, and people being reluctant to admit, perhaps even to themselves, that they’re going to vote for the unstable fascist. This would be in line with what happened in 2016 and 2020, and, if true, would see Trump win fairly comfortably.

A more optimistic take would hold that, to the contrary, the polls are understating Harris’ chances. There are two reasons to believe this; firstly that the GOP has been pumping out figures that inflate Trump’s numbers to establish plausible grounds to dispute a Harris victory, and secondly that the pollsters are not picking up just how much white suburban women are recoiling from the toxic misogyny of the Trump/Vance ticket. The over-performance of Democrats in the 2022 midterms, and the success of constitutional amendments favouring reproductive autonomy, particularly in red states, give some weight to this argument.

This uncertainty prompted me to seek out some firsthand intelligence, but everyone I know in the US is a progressive resident of California, and while they are all lovely people, their opinions are not exactly a reliable insight into the mind of Middle America, so that wasn’t really much help.

All this leaves me telling myself that Harris will win, but not really believing it. “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will” is what I used to say, but I think I’m getting too old for this kind of stress…