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…

Vote Harris/Walz on November 5th

So, a little over a week to go before polling day, and I have written practically nothing about the US Presidential election campaign. My excuse is that there hasn’t really been a campaign to comment upon, in the sense of candidates offering policies to the electorate and vying to win over the undecided by articulating a positive vision. Rather we have been treated to the dispiriting spectacle of each party focusing on turning out their base, by painting a terrifying picture of the horrors that will ensue should the other side prevail, a process which has singularly failed to inspire me.

Of course blame for this state of affairs is not evenly shared; Kamala Harris started out trying to keep it classy, but, over the last month especially, as the polls have remained stubbornly tied even as Donald has dialled up the demagoguery, the Democrats have had little choice but to adopt a more negative tone, the logical endpoint of which will be pointing to a photo of Trump and Vance, and asking the American voter “These guys? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

I guess it’s another example of liberal reliance on reason failing to understand fascism’s appeal to emotion. Trump does not win over his MAGA acolytes with a rational plan to address their problems; he validates their grievances and offers fantastic solutions, that generally involve identifying some out-group for blame and victimisation. Attempting to refute Trump’s arguments by referencing reality is ineffective; people know, with varying degrees of consciousness, that stories of immigrants eating pets and the like are not true in a factual sense, but they fit with a worldview that comfortingly absolves the listener of responsibility for identifying, let alone rectifying, the actual causes of their discontent.

What is to be done? Well, if I knew that I would be a highly-paid political consultant, not a lowly blogger. At this stage trying to convert those voters already leaning Trumpwards looks like an impossible task; throwing everything at making sure the anti-Trump majority actually shows up at the voting booth seems as good a strategy as any.

So, boldly going where the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times fear to tread, I can announce that Second Life Shrink endorses Kamala Harris for the office of President of the United States of America. If you have a vote, for the love of everything that is decent, go out and use it.

Reversal of fortunes

What a difference a few weeks can make. This time last month the promise of competent, if unexciting, government courtesy of Keir Starmer meant I was cautiously optimistic about the immediate future of the UK; conversely, developments in the US, where Joe Biden’s faltering campaign seemed set to gift Donald Trump a second term in the White House, had left me feeling thoroughly bummed out.

Fast forward to today and the tables have been turned. The Democrats, having had the good sense to ditch Biden in favour of a balanced and inspiring Harris/Walz ticket, look well-placed to win in November, while on this side of the Atlantic we are coming to terms with the fact that we live in a country where fascist mobs can seemingly be conjured out of nowhere to riot in the streets and burn down migrant hostels.

I guess it’s probably not as bad, or as good, as it looks. The rioters, much like the January 6th would-be insurrectionists, will soon find out that fighting the state is not as consequence-free as posts on Telegram may have led them to believe, and retreat back to their alt-right internet swamps. Despite the excitement generated by the reset of the Democrat campaign, Trump is still the narrow favourite. I expect I’ll manage a few more posts on these topics before matters are settled.

Farewell Joe

Well, Joe Biden was evidently waiting to hear my opinion, as it was only a few minutes after our last post that he finally bowed to the inevitable, and graciously stepped out of the contest.

The contrast between this selfless act, putting the good of the nation before personal ambition, and Donald Trump’s desperate attempts to cling to power at all costs in 2021, couldn’t be clearer, and no doubt the Democrats will make this a central theme of their campaign. All they need to do is quickly settle on a candidate, surely Kamala Harris, and the race will very much be on again.

No campaign for old men

I’ve been back from vacation for a few days now, but I’m not feeling entirely ready to re-engage with reality just yet, what with the thoroughly depressing state of the world right now. Any optimism I felt after the UK election, or the setback for the far-right in France, has evaporated as more considered analysis has led to the inescapable conclusion that neither event represented a popular swing to the left. In the former case a deeply unenthusiastic electorate chose a promise of basic competence over an incumbent government that had descended into chaos, while across the channel the hastily-assembled anti-fascist alliance has little to unite it other than distaste for the RN, which remains a significant force.

Still, I can’t stop thinking about politics forever, so I guess I will have to try to process the recent events in the US, with the election there due in a little over three months.

Surprisingly, the most dramatic development, the near-assassination of Donald Trump, looks like it may have the least impact on the final result. The fact that someone decided to take a shot at him, while clearly regrettable, was not, in the context of the aggressively confrontational tone of political discourse that Trump and his allies have fostered, much of a shock, and won’t have changed what people think about him. Trump was presented with a golden opportunity to occupy the moral high ground, but characteristically failed to grasp it, instead using his RNC acceptance speech to air his usual litany of semi-coherent grievances. More significant perhaps was his choice of J.D. Vance as a running mate, signalling a focus on the White Christian Nationalist core of GOP support, and indicating that things may get very unpleasant indeed should they, one way or another, come out on top in November.

On the Democratic side there are at least some signs that the party hierarchy is belatedly realising that Joe Biden may be not the candidate best placed to beat Trump. Whether this insight will translate into action is another question of course, but it’s not inconceivable that Joe will be persuaded to step aside for a younger nominee, in theory allowing the Democrats to reframe the narrative and once again present themselves as agents of progressive change.

Whatever happens with either candidate, it’s difficult to believe that the rhetoric will become more temperate as the campaign goes on, and even harder to imagine the country coming together in peace and harmony after the votes have been counted.

I’m getting too old to worry about this shit, so for the sake of avoiding excessive stress I should probably just avert my eyes for the next 100 days, though it seems unlikely that I’ll be able to insulate myself from the news entirely. Perhaps good sense will break out, everyone will step back from the brink, and I’ll be able to start planning my next trip back to the US safe in the knowledge that it will still be there.