Many observers think that US politics have been irreparably fractured for around 9 or 10 years .....
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| The US Politicians Are Bitterly Opposed |
... in fact ever since the arrival of one Donald Trump on the political scene.
Of course the road to this fracture was much longer than that, and in fact consensus politics for the good of everyone, and not just one side or the other probably started to fail around the time of the election of a triumphant Ronald Reagan, who swept America to the right and using his control of Congress he cut taxes, while massively increasing the defence budget, thus creating the ever escalating budget deficits that so haunt the US today.
The trend towards ever increasing lack of consensus in the US has only increased over the decades since Reagan, but really accelerated in the last two decades (with many presidents tied up by political opponents during their time in office). Trumps road to the Republican party nomination, was to say the least circuitous. Trump first registered as a Republican in 1987; then as a member of the Independence Party (the New York state affiliate of the Reform Party), in 1999; then as a Democrat in 2001; then a Republican again in 2009; unaffiliated in 2011; and then finally as a Republican again in 2012 .... and Trump announced his candidacy for the Republican Party Presidential Nomination in June 2015 which he won in 2016 .... the rest as they say is history.
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| Butler - Pennsylvania |
Shuffle forward to July 2024, and Trump (who is a firm advocate of gun ownership), and Trump attends a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a lone gunman, climbed on to a roof near the rally, took aim and fired with a semi automatic AR-15–style rifle .....
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| Trumps Ear Wound |
...... hitting Trumps right ear (wounding him slightly), but killing one rally attendee, and critically wounding two others. The FBI subsequently identified Thomas Matthew Crooks as the shooter, who was killed on the scene by the Secret Service Counter Assault Team. The motive for the attack remains unknown a week or more after events.
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| Lone Gunman - Butler Pennsylvania |
Of course Trump is milking this to the full (in the hope that history repeats,and does as it did for Reagan, who survived an assassination attempt and then won a landslide), in the hope of an election boost.
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| "Its Just A Flesh Wound" - Monty Python |
.... But the fact is, that its Trump himself who has taken US politics to the point that some fear a civil war if he wins, or if he loses .... his inflammatory statements and often downright lies are believed wholeheartedly by some, perhaps even 50 per cent of the voters, while the other 50 per cent reject him and what he stands for entirely.
With the extreme old age of the two contestants (neither of whom who can dodge times bullet), and the extremely bipartisan nature of US politics, its hard to imagine what would have happened inside the US if Trump had been killed, but one suspects it might have been ugly. Of course, its not just many in the US who fear what the next four years may bring, many in the rest of the world, from the Ukraine, South Korea, NATO, through to Taiwan, also fear what the next four years might bring after the US election ....
The idea of 4 years of Trump is making many people squirm. Only the White US middle america voters, who seem to see Trump as their last chance to stay on top are apparently unable to see what he really is.
ReplyDeleteWell with Biden withdrawing from the race, its not clear who will be the Democrats candidate ... or whether this has cleared the path for a Trump election. Thanks for the comment.
DeleteKamala Harris seems to be a shoe-in for the Democrats Nomination. Whether a Jamaican black/ South Asian descent/Woman, will attract more, or less votes than Joe Biden would have got, is the next big question.
ReplyDeleteNo one else has time to stand against her. However her nomination will simply exacerbate
Deletethe divide between Left (ish) and Right in the US politics. Trump is almost 100% white supported. Harris will draw a lot of black support.
Well no one else is standing so yes she is a shoe-in. She is divisive because she believes in affirmative action to get outcomes (meaning equality of opportunity is not enough, she wants equal outcomes), which often means anti-white bias in selections for jobs, universities etc .... something which has been challenged in courts.
DeleteBillionaire investor Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater Associates - the world’s largest hedge fund with $124bn in assets), has said he fears for US democracy “My great fear is for democracy. There's a possibility that the loser, particularly if it's the Republicans and Donald Trump, might not accept losing and you have a situation where it's a win-at-all-cost by both the left and the right, so neither side can compromise."
ReplyDelete“This [period] reminds me of the 1930 to 45 period in which there was an economic crisis followed by democracies becoming dictatorships. Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan had parliamentary systems, and they broke down in terms of internal conflict between the the hard left, the hard right, communism and fascism. We are today seeing modern day versions of some of these things.”
“I do not know how this election is going to turn out and how these things will turn out. I do know that we have an exceptionally high probability of instability.”
I think that a lot of people fear what happens if Trump loses (and almost as many fear what might happen if he wins).
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