I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think you're overdoing the exports angle, tariffs would undoubtedly hurt us but I'm not sure it will be as bad as forecast, the vast majority of our exports to the US are intangible services which aren't subject to tariffs or quotas. If anything the UK will be one of the few countries to maintain very strong economic ties to the US because of the nature of our interaction with the US economy. We export services to them and they export services to us, the large exports we do have to the US is defence which is highly unlikely to come under any tariff regime due to national security concerns and the DoD not wanting to pay more money for existing contracts that have already been signed. The other big one is pharmaceutical products which is an area where Trump is trying to reduce prices so again, tariffs here seem unlikely. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of our export value actually gets pushed into tariffable categories.
Tim Shipman had a pretty level headed piece in The Times printed prior to the vote on how things might go. Says Starmer and Lammy will get on fine with him, Trump still sees us as a key ally and Ukraine / Russia might play out quite differently under him to the doom forecasts. He might be completely wrong of course but it makes a change from reading some of the more reflexive takes.
The problem with Trump is you can be his bestie today and tomorrow you wake up to see he is tweeting that you are "Two Tier Kier, that is what they call him in Englander, very bad person, they say mean things, I never really liked them, lock em up"....
The pillow talk from Nigel won't help Starmer.
Trump should demand an immediate General Election under threat of nuclear attack insisting only Reform are on the ballot.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
FFS - It has *always* been America first. What Britain did in the 19th century was preserve the balance of power because it was in Britain's interests as a small trading nation to maintain secure trade routes. America has always been a strong enough domestic economy to disregard the peace and prosperity of other nations, and the resulting disturbances of that policy are a matter of historical record.
Trump just doesn't apply lipstick to the pig - and that's a step forward in my opinion. I'd rather someone tells us they're pissed off with us, as opposed to someone using diplomatic back channels to screw us into giving up a colony but still paying rent for 99 years of them having a military base there, and then call it mutually-beneficial cooperation.
In the 19th century Britain was not a "small trading nation". In the mid-century (1840s to 1870s) she* was the largest!
* Is this the preferred pronoun?
No, we were still a small nation. Massively influential, and with a great many responsibilities and colonial possessions, but a small nation nonetheless - we have never had the ability to shut out the world and be insulated from the consequences in the way that a country the size of the US had.
We were a massive Empire not a small nation.
Everyone in the Empire was British. That was the entire point.
Well, not everyone in the Empire had the same rights as the British in Britain. So, no, that wasn’t the entire point.
Indeed the entire point was that we ruled them, against their will if required.
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think you're overdoing the exports angle, tariffs would undoubtedly hurt us but I'm not sure it will be as bad as forecast, the vast majority of our exports to the US are intangible services which aren't subject to tariffs or quotas. If anything the UK will be one of the few countries to maintain very strong economic ties to the US because of the nature of our interaction with the US economy. We export services to them and they export services to us, the large exports we do have to the US is defence which is highly unlikely to come under any tariff regime due to national security concerns and the DoD not wanting to pay more money for existing contracts that have already been signed. The other big one is pharmaceutical products which is an area where Trump is trying to reduce prices so again, tariffs here seem unlikely. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of our export value actually gets pushed into tariffable categories.
I was thinking more of the severely negative consequences of such a stupid policy for international trade generally and the US economy in particular. If they end up in recession as a result of this idiocy they will have less demand for our services.
I half agree with this, but at the same time if companies can't export to the US export prices for those goods will fall for the UK so that's a net benefit for us while we still maintain basically our existing exports to the US. What's more is that our exports to Europe are primarily services where we are highly competitive for both prices and quality. Any recession will drive more European companies to UK imports because we come in cheaper and offer a more comprehensive service, especially in tech infrastructure and finance, two of the big growth industries in the EU. I understand the tendency to see doom and gloom at a time like this, yet I'm not sure it's going to materialise in anything like the form you are worried about.
The bigger issues will be domestic, we're still selling £150bn in extra gilts over 5 years and chances are the US government is going to add a lot of debt so we're competing for the same money and we need to hope that bond prices don't fall or we're all fucked.
A tarriff generated world recession/depression might well do that to us. It's not as though there aren't precedents.
What worries me is that tariffs have a particular appeal for someone like Trump, of course.
The Political Economy of Tariff Exemption Grants https://jfqa.org/2024/07/30/the-political-economy-of-tariff-exemption-grants/ We investigate whether firm-level political connections affect the allocation of exemptions from tariffs imposed on $550 billion of Chinese goods imported to the United States annually beginning in 2018. Evidence points to politicians not only rewarding supporters, but also punishing opponents: past campaign contributions to the party controlling (in opposition to) the executive branch increase (decrease) approval likelihood. Our findings point to quid pro quo arrangements between politicians and firms, as opposed to the “information” channel linking political access to regulatory outcomes....
If Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....there would be hell to pay.
If he started talking about loyalty to parliament that would be the definitive sign of his senility.
She hasn’t really congratulated him or wished him well. There are certain things you just do in a democracy, and that’s one of them. She and Biden need to show they are the bigger people.
She what congratulated him or wished him well. There are certain things you just do in a democracy, and that’s one of them. She and Biden need to show they are the bigger people.
I remember when somebody once said, if they go low, we go high.
On one level no, it’s not my country and not my business. But on an another level, as someone who thinks the world needs a non-Trumpite USA in 4 years, the Democrats need to be bigger and better than Trump was.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
On one level no, it’s not my country and not my business. But on an another level, as someone who thinks the world needs a non-Trumpite USA in 4 years, the Democrats need to be bigger and better than Trump was.
Also the US is a very divided and polarised country, at least two people have tried to kill Trump in the same number of months.....just because Trump is knobhead, you don't inflame that.
Rory McIlroy believes Donald Trump’s return to the White House could bring peace between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia funded breakaway LIV circuit and has speculated that Elon Musk could play a key role in negotiations on golf’s future.
The Titleist accords
Am I the only person who always reads this brand name in my head as "tit-leist"?
Rory McIlroy believes Donald Trump’s return to the White House could bring peace between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia funded breakaway LIV circuit and has speculated that Elon Musk could play a key role in negotiations on golf’s future.
The Titleist accords
Am I the only person who always reads this brand name in my head as "tit-leist"?
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think you're overdoing the exports angle, tariffs would undoubtedly hurt us but I'm not sure it will be as bad as forecast, the vast majority of our exports to the US are intangible services which aren't subject to tariffs or quotas. If anything the UK will be one of the few countries to maintain very strong economic ties to the US because of the nature of our interaction with the US economy. We export services to them and they export services to us, the large exports we do have to the US is defence which is highly unlikely to come under any tariff regime due to national security concerns and the DoD not wanting to pay more money for existing contracts that have already been signed. The other big one is pharmaceutical products which is an area where Trump is trying to reduce prices so again, tariffs here seem unlikely. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of our export value actually gets pushed into tariffable categories.
Tim Shipman had a pretty level headed piece in The Times printed prior to the vote on how things might go. Says Starmer and Lammy will get on fine with him, Trump still sees us as a key ally and Ukraine / Russia might play out quite differently under him to the doom forecasts. He might be completely wrong of course but it makes a change from reading some of the more reflexive takes.
I have a feeling that Trump himself may be more restrained than in his first term - he seems a lot less energetic and aggressive than he did before. He just looks really old. Maybe he'd be happy to spend the next four years watching TV and cheating at golf. What I worry about is that he has a more extreme team around him than previously. We may find ourselves hoping Vance doesn't invoke the 25th.
Most will disagree but I think that bullet knocked Trump down a peg. Less bombast than before, who knows if it will affect his governance style.
Meanwhile Vance comes across as personable but rather too sure of his opinion on complex policy matters and less open to persuasion by outside viewpoints. But he’s young, will gain insight in this role and may yet season into a compelling modern conservative. He doesn’t particularly frighten me if he had to take the reins. Politically he’d be eminently beatable by a centrist Democrat that speaks human, if they can find one.
I think some of the people behind Vance and Trump, eg Thiel and Musk, are deeply sinister. I think they could take the US and the world to a very dark place. Vance is a smart guy and obviously doesn't believe half of what he says. But his political direction of travel is concerning.
Thiel I agree. Musk I don’t, his heart is in the right place even though he can be socially clumsy, and he’s repeatedly proven capable of greatness.
This is the Musk who has used his media empire to amplify far right conspiracy theories and disowned one of his own kids for being trans? I think this goes beyond social awkwardness, and no amount of skill in the rocket department can offset it.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
"I was convinced the assaults on women’s rights would be sufficient to push Harris over the line. I was obviously badly wrong."
What a lot of posters on here have missed is the fact there were other assaults on women's rights in the US in recent years - not just in relation to abortion - and the Democrats were behind them: male rapists and other sex offenders in women's prisons, men competing in women's sports for instance and the Title IX changes (the subject of various legal claims in recent months). In one of his last rallies Trump had on stage a women's college volleyball team who had forfeited a match by refusing to play against a team with men in it. The female captain had previously made a heartfelt speech about why having men in women's sports was wrong and against the patronising condescension of the sports authorities. Sport may seem insignificant to us here but in US colleges sports scholarships are valuable and adopting policies which disadvantage women is going to annoy some.
Point is - women have not been well served by either party. The assumption that their votes automatically belong to one party or another is patronising and ignores that women have different views and interests.
FWIW I would not have ever voted for Trump. But if the Democrats do not look properly at what they did and got wrong they will be out of power for more than 4 years. Same for the Tories here. Serious self-reflection is needed.
The Tories’ loss was historically bad, the Dems’ loss wasn’t. Yes, both should look at why they lost, but one lost by a small margin and one was stamped on by a mammoth in DMs.
The Democrats may have lost the popular vote in a Presidential election for only the second time since the end of the Cold War. Against Trump.
The defeat is notable historically not principally because of its scale, but because of who the defeat was against.
"I was convinced the assaults on women’s rights would be sufficient to push Harris over the line. I was obviously badly wrong."
What a lot of posters on here have missed is the fact there were other assaults on women's rights in the US in recent years - not just in relation to abortion - and the Democrats were behind them: male rapists and other sex offenders in women's prisons, men competing in women's sports for instance and the Title IX changes (the subject of various legal claims in recent months). In one of his last rallies Trump had on stage a women's college volleyball team who had forfeited a match by refusing to play against a team with men in it. The female captain had previously made a heartfelt speech about why having men in women's sports was wrong and against the patronising condescension of the sports authorities. Sport may seem insignificant to us here but in US colleges sports scholarships are valuable and adopting policies which disadvantage women is going to annoy some.
Point is - women have not been well served by either party. The assumption that their votes automatically belong to one party or another is patronising and ignores that women have different views and interests.
FWIW I would not have ever voted for Trump. But if the Democrats do not look properly at what they did and got wrong they will be out of power for more than 4 years. Same for the Tories here. Serious self-reflection is needed.
The Democrats’ support for trans’ rights outweighed their support for women’s’ rights.
And , ballot initiatives meant you did not have to vote Democratic to support abortion rights.
I think the latter point has proved to be particularly important. It demonstrates that abortion is now primarily an issue at the State level, rather than the Federal level. This should help the Democrats in elections to State Assemblies, which they have particularly struggled at over recent decades.
This might change if the Republican trifecta at the Federal level pushes for anti-abortion Federal laws.
"I was convinced the assaults on women’s rights would be sufficient to push Harris over the line. I was obviously badly wrong."
What a lot of posters on here have missed is the fact there were other assaults on women's rights in the US in recent years - not just in relation to abortion - and the Democrats were behind them: male rapists and other sex offenders in women's prisons, men competing in women's sports for instance and the Title IX changes (the subject of various legal claims in recent months). In one of his last rallies Trump had on stage a women's college volleyball team who had forfeited a match by refusing to play against a team with men in it. The female captain had previously made a heartfelt speech about why having men in women's sports was wrong and against the patronising condescension of the sports authorities. Sport may seem insignificant to us here but in US colleges sports scholarships are valuable and adopting policies which disadvantage women is going to annoy some.
Point is - women have not been well served by either party. The assumption that their votes automatically belong to one party or another is patronising and ignores that women have different views and interests.
FWIW I would not have ever voted for Trump. But if the Democrats do not look properly at what they did and got wrong they will be out of power for more than 4 years. Same for the Tories here. Serious self-reflection is needed.
The Democrats’ support for trans’ rights outweighed their support for women’s’ rights.
And , ballot initiatives meant you did not have to vote Democratic to support abortion rights.
I think the latter point has proved to be particularly important. It demonstrates that abortion is now primarily an issue at the State level, rather than the Federal level. This should help the Democrats in elections to State Assemblies, which they have particularly struggled at over recent decades.
This might change if the Republican trifecta at the Federal level pushes for anti-abortion Federal laws.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
If this election was being conducted as a popular vote contest, it probably wouldn't been called yet, because there's an outside chance it could end up as something like 50/50 between them.
"I was convinced the assaults on women’s rights would be sufficient to push Harris over the line. I was obviously badly wrong."
What a lot of posters on here have missed is the fact there were other assaults on women's rights in the US in recent years - not just in relation to abortion - and the Democrats were behind them: male rapists and other sex offenders in women's prisons, men competing in women's sports for instance and the Title IX changes (the subject of various legal claims in recent months). In one of his last rallies Trump had on stage a women's college volleyball team who had forfeited a match by refusing to play against a team with men in it. The female captain had previously made a heartfelt speech about why having men in women's sports was wrong and against the patronising condescension of the sports authorities. Sport may seem insignificant to us here but in US colleges sports scholarships are valuable and adopting policies which disadvantage women is going to annoy some.
Point is - women have not been well served by either party. The assumption that their votes automatically belong to one party or another is patronising and ignores that women have different views and interests.
FWIW I would not have ever voted for Trump. But if the Democrats do not look properly at what they did and got wrong they will be out of power for more than 4 years. Same for the Tories here. Serious self-reflection is needed.
The Democrats’ support for trans’ rights outweighed their support for women’s’ rights.
And , ballot initiatives meant you did not have to vote Democratic to support abortion rights.
I think the latter point has proved to be particularly important. It demonstrates that abortion is now primarily an issue at the State level, rather than the Federal level. This should help the Democrats in elections to State Assemblies, which they have particularly struggled at over recent decades.
This might change if the Republican trifecta at the Federal level pushes for anti-abortion Federal laws.
Vance has championed a Federal abortion ban.
Vance is like Jenrick, in that it makes it worse when you don’t even believe it.
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think you're overdoing the exports angle, tariffs would undoubtedly hurt us but I'm not sure it will be as bad as forecast, the vast majority of our exports to the US are intangible services which aren't subject to tariffs or quotas. If anything the UK will be one of the few countries to maintain very strong economic ties to the US because of the nature of our interaction with the US economy. We export services to them and they export services to us, the large exports we do have to the US is defence which is highly unlikely to come under any tariff regime due to national security concerns and the DoD not wanting to pay more money for existing contracts that have already been signed. The other big one is pharmaceutical products which is an area where Trump is trying to reduce prices so again, tariffs here seem unlikely. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of our export value actually gets pushed into tariffable categories.
I was thinking more of the severely negative consequences of such a stupid policy for international trade generally and the US economy in particular. If they end up in recession as a result of this idiocy they will have less demand for our services.
I half agree with this, but at the same time if companies can't export to the US export prices for those goods will fall for the UK so that's a net benefit for us while we still maintain basically our existing exports to the US. What's more is that our exports to Europe are primarily services where we are highly competitive for both prices and quality. Any recession will drive more European companies to UK imports because we come in cheaper and offer a more comprehensive service, especially in tech infrastructure and finance, two of the big growth industries in the EU. I understand the tendency to see doom and gloom at a time like this, yet I'm not sure it's going to materialise in anything like the form you are worried about.
The bigger issues will be domestic, we're still selling £150bn in extra gilts over 5 years and chances are the US government is going to add a lot of debt so we're competing for the same money and we need to hope that bond prices don't fall or we're all fucked.
It depends on how elastic the supply is. If it’s in elastic, then suppliers will dump on non-Us markets, potentially at a loss, to offload stock and maintain liquidity. Long term prices will go up.
If it’s an elastic market, then they will reduce supply and prices will go up due to a loss of efficiencies of scale.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think you're overdoing the exports angle, tariffs would undoubtedly hurt us but I'm not sure it will be as bad as forecast, the vast majority of our exports to the US are intangible services which aren't subject to tariffs or quotas. If anything the UK will be one of the few countries to maintain very strong economic ties to the US because of the nature of our interaction with the US economy. We export services to them and they export services to us, the large exports we do have to the US is defence which is highly unlikely to come under any tariff regime due to national security concerns and the DoD not wanting to pay more money for existing contracts that have already been signed. The other big one is pharmaceutical products which is an area where Trump is trying to reduce prices so again, tariffs here seem unlikely. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of our export value actually gets pushed into tariffable categories.
Tim Shipman had a pretty level headed piece in The Times printed prior to the vote on how things might go. Says Starmer and Lammy will get on fine with him, Trump still sees us as a key ally and Ukraine / Russia might play out quite differently under him to the doom forecasts. He might be completely wrong of course but it makes a change from reading some of the more reflexive takes.
I have a feeling that Trump himself may be more restrained than in his first term - he seems a lot less energetic and aggressive than he did before. He just looks really old. Maybe he'd be happy to spend the next four years watching TV and cheating at golf. What I worry about is that he has a more extreme team around him than previously. We may find ourselves hoping Vance doesn't invoke the 25th.
Most will disagree but I think that bullet knocked Trump down a peg. Less bombast than before, who knows if it will affect his governance style.
Meanwhile Vance comes across as personable but rather too sure of his opinion on complex policy matters and less open to persuasion by outside viewpoints. But he’s young, will gain insight in this role and may yet season into a compelling modern conservative. He doesn’t particularly frighten me if he had to take the reins. Politically he’d be eminently beatable by a centrist Democrat that speaks human, if they can find one.
I think some of the people behind Vance and Trump, eg Thiel and Musk, are deeply sinister. I think they could take the US and the world to a very dark place. Vance is a smart guy and obviously doesn't believe half of what he says. But his political direction of travel is concerning.
Thiel I agree. Musk I don’t, his heart is in the right place even though he can be socially clumsy, and he’s repeatedly proven capable of greatness.
This is the Musk who has used his media empire to amplify far right conspiracy theories and disowned one of his own kids for being trans? I think this goes beyond social awkwardness, and no amount of skill in the rocket department can offset it.
Musk I think is, on an emotional level, like a dangerous child, who's got hold of the car keys because he's intellectually far ahead of his emotional age.
He may already be the most powerful person in the world, from some points of view.
She hasn’t really congratulated him or wished him well. There are certain things you just do in a democracy, and that’s one of them. She and Biden need to show they are the bigger people.
All that's nonsense.
Having spent two months arguing his election would be disastrous for the US, and having bring called everything from prostitute, to imbecile, to "crap", to fascist by him, why would she "wish him well" ?
Don't gaslight us with that crap..
What she did say: .. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case...
She conceded, and recognised the importance of such concession in a democracy. Pretending that his administration is likely to be anything other than baleful would be normalising him in advance.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
It really wasn't though. Dignified is you accept the result, you thank everybody who was involved, you wish the new president well, hope the country continues to improve and say we must go away and consider why the American public didn't entrust us this time around.
Now I am sure Trump would have been a mega asshat, but that doesn't mean you should go to his level.
Americans make shit decisions that we strongly disagree with.
Like going independent in the first place.
Indeed, though I see even Harris made clear in US eyes the democratic transition of power is what distinguishes it from monarchy and tyranny. Though I have to say our last transition of PM and monarch was rather more dignified than their 2021 transition
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I'm certain that one day almost every one of these Trump supporters will deny ever having supported him.
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Americans make shit decisions that we strongly disagree with.
Like going independent in the first place.
And playing FOOTball with their hands?
Nothing wrong with that. My ex Royal Navy uncle calls rugby Union football all the time.
Nearly all forms of football involve the use of hands by all players. Football in Britain frequently did in the early 19th century and before, whatever local rules were.
Association football is very much the exception and it was far from guaranteed that the global game we now know would be as it is; it might easily never have existed given that when the rules were first drafted there was a significant split on whether carrying or holding the ball could be allowed (other than by the goalkeeper, within restrictions) and indeed at some meetings, but not the critical final one, those wanting handling held a majority. The name of Ebenezer Cobb Morley, whose brainchild the FA was, who served as founding Secretary and drove through the banning of handling the ball, is a name that should be far more widely known. Not only did he, more than anyone, create football as we now know it, but by creating a game so easily played anywhere, he created the sporting sun whose gravity would dictate the orbits of all other sports.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
In the short term, it's a victory over the liberals. Victory is a sweet drink, whatever the hangover.
In the longer term, your average right winger has tiny balls. The way to stop all of... this... was for the Republican hierarchy to disown the Donald. They had plenty of opportunities, of which the impeachment trial was only the most obvious. Every time, they failed.
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
Anything about listening to the electorate about where they went wrong?
I suspect the Democrats election chances next time much like the Tories here will depend far more on what the economy looks like in 4 or 5 years time than any navel gazing they do in between.
After all it was US cost of living that won Trump this election, not him saying he got it all wrong in 2020.
Just as it was mainly the economy that won it for Starmer this year, when he replaced Corbyn in 2021 Boris had a comfortable poll lead still
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
Clearly Harris was a terrible candidate because she was up against all that - and lost.
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
Anything about listening to the electorate about where they went wrong?
@Renegade_pollster got this right yesterday: people voted with their pocketbooks. They felt richer four years ago.
I don't think there's really much more to it than that. (Plus, the Dems found themselves between a rock and a hard place on Israel.)
Edit to add: incumbent governments have fallen pretty much everywhere this year. Even Modi lost his majority. If you've overseen a period when voters incomes haven't kept up with inflation, then they are apt to punish you.
She hasn’t really congratulated him or wished him well. There are certain things you just do in a democracy, and that’s one of them. She and Biden need to show they are the bigger people.
All that's nonsense.
Having spent two months arguing his election would be disastrous for the US, and having bring called everything from prostitute, to imbecile, to "crap", to fascist by him, why would she "wish him well" ?
Don't gaslight us with that crap..
What she did say: .. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case...
She conceded, and recognised the importance of such concession in a democracy. Pretending that his administration is likely to be anything other than baleful would be normalising him in advance.
The peaceful transfer of power is the true measure of democracy.
We witnessed it here a few months ago, and take it for granted. But we should savour it.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
It really wasn't though. Dignified is you accept the result, you thank everybody who was involved, you wish the new president well, hope the country continues to improve and say we must go away and consider why the American public didn't entrust us this time around.
Now I am sure Trump would have been a mega asshat, but that doesn't mean you should go to his level.
Yes but she was conceding to Trump, there are limits!
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
It really wasn't though. Dignified is you accept the result, you thank everybody who was involved, you wish the new president well, hope the country continues to improve and say we must go away and consider why the American public didn't entrust us this time around.
Now I am sure Trump would have been a mega asshat, but that doesn't mean you should go to his level.
Yes but she was conceding to Trump, there are limits!
Irrelevant if it was Trump or not. I would have expected Sunak (not expect, he would have done) to concede the same to Corbyn as Starmer.
There are 4 years to criticise Trump and going to be masses of opportunities.
In the longer term, your average right winger has tiny balls. The way to stop all of... this... was for the Republican hierarchy to disown the Donald. They had plenty of opportunities, of which the impeachment trial was only the most obvious. Every time, they failed.
Exactly. The GOP is full of cowards. We know what they really think of Trump, as many of the most senior people in the party are on the record telling us so, but they are afraid to stand up to Trump and his cult.
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
It really wasn't though. Dignified is you accept the result, you thank everybody who was involved, you wish the new president well, hope the country continues to improve and say we must go away and consider why the American public didn't entrust us this time around.
Now I am sure Trump would have been a mega asshat, but that doesn't mean you should go to his level.
Yes but she was conceding to Trump, there are limits!
Irrelevant if it was Trump or not. I would have expected Sunak (not expect, he would have done) to concede the same to Corbyn as Starmer.
Not even Corbyn tried to overturn an election result
She hasn’t really congratulated him or wished him well. There are certain things you just do in a democracy, and that’s one of them. She and Biden need to show they are the bigger people.
All that's nonsense.
Having spent two months arguing his election would be disastrous for the US, and having bring called everything from prostitute, to imbecile, to "crap", to fascist by him, why would she "wish him well" ?
Don't gaslight us with that crap..
What she did say: .. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case...
She conceded, and recognised the importance of such concession in a democracy. Pretending that his administration is likely to be anything other than baleful would be normalising him in advance.
Utter bollocks. She chose not to take the moral high ground, and more importantly chose not to recognise that a majority preferred him and her party needs to engage with them.
As stated above, in the past I wouldn’t have cared who was in power in the U.S. but I more interested this time because Ukraine might now be screwed.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Only in the sense he might try and hand half Ukraine on a plate to Putin and you don't try and feed a wolf to calm it
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
It really wasn't though. Dignified is you accept the result, you thank everybody who was involved, you wish the new president well, hope the country continues to improve and say we must go away and consider why the American public didn't entrust us this time around.
Now I am sure Trump would have been a mega asshat, but that doesn't mean you should go to his level.
Yes but she was conceding to Trump, there are limits!
Irrelevant if it was Trump or not. I would have expected Sunak (not expect, he would have done) to concede the same to Corbyn as Starmer.
Not even Corbyn tried to overturn an election result
He certainly had some interesting words about winning.....
And its not really about Trump, its about the country. Its very polarised, its very divided, two nutters have tried to kill Trump. You want your politicians to stand up and say lets be calm, lets take stock.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Trump is to Putin as Chamberlain is to Hitler. Peace in our time!
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
Anything about listening to the electorate about where they went wrong?
@Renegade_pollster got this right yesterday: people voted with their pocketbooks. They felt richer four years ago.
I don't think there's really much more to it than that. (Plus, the Dems found themselves between a rock and a hard place on Israel.)
Edit to add: incumbent governments have fallen pretty much everywhere this year. Even Modi lost his majority. If you've overseen a period when voters incomes haven't kept up with inflation, then they are apt to punish you.
Back once again with the @Renegade_pollster D4 damager, power to the people Back once again with the @Renegade_pollster D4 damager, with Trump's ill behaviour, with Trump's ill behaviour, with Trump's ill behaviour...
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think you're overdoing the exports angle, tariffs would undoubtedly hurt us but I'm not sure it will be as bad as forecast, the vast majority of our exports to the US are intangible services which aren't subject to tariffs or quotas. If anything the UK will be one of the few countries to maintain very strong economic ties to the US because of the nature of our interaction with the US economy. We export services to them and they export services to us, the large exports we do have to the US is defence which is highly unlikely to come under any tariff regime due to national security concerns and the DoD not wanting to pay more money for existing contracts that have already been signed. The other big one is pharmaceutical products which is an area where Trump is trying to reduce prices so again, tariffs here seem unlikely. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of our export value actually gets pushed into tariffable categories.
I was thinking more of the severely negative consequences of such a stupid policy for international trade generally and the US economy in particular. If they end up in recession as a result of this idiocy they will have less demand for our services.
I half agree with this, but at the same time if companies can't export to the US export prices for those goods will fall for the UK so that's a net benefit for us while we still maintain basically our existing exports to the US. What's more is that our exports to Europe are primarily services where we are highly competitive for both prices and quality. Any recession will drive more European companies to UK imports because we come in cheaper and offer a more comprehensive service, especially in tech infrastructure and finance, two of the big growth industries in the EU. I understand the tendency to see doom and gloom at a time like this, yet I'm not sure it's going to materialise in anything like the form you are worried about.
The bigger issues will be domestic, we're still selling £150bn in extra gilts over 5 years and chances are the US government is going to add a lot of debt so we're competing for the same money and we need to hope that bond prices don't fall or we're all fucked.
A tarriff generated world recession/depression might well do that to us. It's not as though there aren't precedents.
What worries me is that tariffs have a particular appeal for someone like Trump, of course.
The Political Economy of Tariff Exemption Grants https://jfqa.org/2024/07/30/the-political-economy-of-tariff-exemption-grants/ We investigate whether firm-level political connections affect the allocation of exemptions from tariffs imposed on $550 billion of Chinese goods imported to the United States annually beginning in 2018. Evidence points to politicians not only rewarding supporters, but also punishing opponents: past campaign contributions to the party controlling (in opposition to) the executive branch increase (decrease) approval likelihood. Our findings point to quid pro quo arrangements between politicians and firms, as opposed to the “information” channel linking political access to regulatory outcomes....
Oh, I think the US is likely to see Crony Capitalism, where being a friend of the administration leads to exemptions from tariffs and the like.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
In the longer term, your average right winger has tiny balls. The way to stop all of... this... was for the Republican hierarchy to disown the Donald. They had plenty of opportunities, of which the impeachment trial was only the most obvious. Every time, they failed.
Exactly. The GOP is full of cowards. We know what they really think of Trump, as many of the most senior people in the party are on the record telling us so, but they are afraid to stand up to Trump and his cult.
This may be peak GOP though, for Trump can never be on the ballot again.
Yet Trump for all his faults is after this result (even bigger an EC win than his 2016 win and he also won the popular vote) the party's biggest vote winner since Reagan, as the Tories found once they got rid of their big charismatic vote winner Boris it has been all downhill from there.
We also can't be sure what the legacy of Trump's tariffs will be longer term for the economy and his party
Harry Kazianis, senior director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest, echoed that view.
"Trump might just see it (NCG) as a talking shop that does nothing and kill it off," he said.
The NCG was established under the Washington Declaration signed by Yoon and Biden during the South Korean president's U.S. visit in April 2023. The joint initiative was aimed at enhancing U.S. extended deterrence commitments to South Korea in response to North Korea's nuclear threats.
If Trump weakens the NCG or the U.S. nuclear umbrella, it may intensify calls in South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons. This is an approach Trump could potentially support.
In South Korea, there is a growing push for self-nuclear armament, driven by increasing skepticism over the effectiveness of U.S. assurances in deterring North Korea's nuclear threats.
"I would not be shocked if Trump greenlighted South Korea building nuclear weapons — he might even encourage such a move out in the open for a lot of reasons," Kazianis said. "He could be of the mindset that it's unfair for North Korea to have these weapons and not South Korea."..
"I was convinced the assaults on women’s rights would be sufficient to push Harris over the line. I was obviously badly wrong."
What a lot of posters on here have missed is the fact there were other assaults on women's rights in the US in recent years - not just in relation to abortion - and the Democrats were behind them: male rapists and other sex offenders in women's prisons, men competing in women's sports for instance and the Title IX changes (the subject of various legal claims in recent months). In one of his last rallies Trump had on stage a women's college volleyball team who had forfeited a match by refusing to play against a team with men in it. The female captain had previously made a heartfelt speech about why having men in women's sports was wrong and against the patronising condescension of the sports authorities. Sport may seem insignificant to us here but in US colleges sports scholarships are valuable and adopting policies which disadvantage women is going to annoy some.
Point is - women have not been well served by either party. The assumption that their votes automatically belong to one party or another is patronising and ignores that women have different views and interests.
FWIW I would not have ever voted for Trump. But if the Democrats do not look properly at what they did and got wrong they will be out of power for more than 4 years. Same for the Tories here. Serious self-reflection is needed.
The Tories’ loss was historically bad, the Dems’ loss wasn’t. Yes, both should look at why they lost, but one lost by a small margin and one was stamped on by a mammoth in DMs.
The Democrats may have lost the popular vote in a Presidential election for only the second time since the end of the Cold War. Against Trump.
The defeat is notable historically not principally because of its scale, but because of who the defeat was against.
The Tories had their worst defeat here since 1761. Saying the Dems had their tied worst result since the end of the Cold War does not remotely compare. {Given the US didn’t exist in 1761, no US electoral record can match the Tories’ failure!}
The defeat was against Trump, who beat the Dems in 2016 and wasn’t very far behind them in 2020. He is an awful person, but he’s clearly a popular candidate with the US electorate.
"I was convinced the assaults on women’s rights would be sufficient to push Harris over the line. I was obviously badly wrong."
What a lot of posters on here have missed is the fact there were other assaults on women's rights in the US in recent years - not just in relation to abortion - and the Democrats were behind them: male rapists and other sex offenders in women's prisons, men competing in women's sports for instance and the Title IX changes (the subject of various legal claims in recent months). In one of his last rallies Trump had on stage a women's college volleyball team who had forfeited a match by refusing to play against a team with men in it. The female captain had previously made a heartfelt speech about why having men in women's sports was wrong and against the patronising condescension of the sports authorities. Sport may seem insignificant to us here but in US colleges sports scholarships are valuable and adopting policies which disadvantage women is going to annoy some.
Point is - women have not been well served by either party. The assumption that their votes automatically belong to one party or another is patronising and ignores that women have different views and interests.
FWIW I would not have ever voted for Trump. But if the Democrats do not look properly at what they did and got wrong they will be out of power for more than 4 years. Same for the Tories here. Serious self-reflection is needed.
The Tories’ loss was historically bad, the Dems’ loss wasn’t. Yes, both should look at why they lost, but one lost by a small margin and one was stamped on by a mammoth in DMs.
The Democrats may have lost the popular vote in a Presidential election for only the second time since the end of the Cold War. Against Trump.
The defeat is notable historically not principally because of its scale, but because of who the defeat was against.
The Tories had their worst defeat here since 1761. Saying the Dems had their tied worst result since the end of the Cold War does not remotely compare. {Given the US didn’t exist in 1761, no US electoral record can match the Tories’ failure!}
The defeat was against Trump, who beat the Dems in 2016 and wasn’t very far behind them in 2020. He is an awful person, but he’s clearly a popular candidate with the US electorate.
That last phrase alone is a massive indictment of the entire Democratic Party.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
It's perfectly possible to hate Trump as an individual and as a politician but still to say, as a matter of political analysis, he was the more capable candidate. That second point doesn't mean someone would vote for him had they the chance (or did, if they did); just that he ran the better campaign, his being convicted half way through notwithstanding. That doesn't mean you have to like his campaign or agree with it.
I think she missed a trick in the concession speech. She might have said that if you can take one lesson from this election is that you can bounce back from defeat and win next time. So we lost today, but tomorrow we’re going to win.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
Beyond William I am genuinely struggling to think of pro Trumpers.
Assuming that the USA is still a democracy in 4 year's time, and that a presidential election will be held, the Dems have a couple of years to get themselves organised with a candidate who can appeal to enough voters in the right places.
Not another California liberal. Another Joe Biden, but half the age. Someone who does get the voters of Allentown to get out and vote.
Rory McIlroy believes Donald Trump’s return to the White House could bring peace between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia funded breakaway LIV circuit and has speculated that Elon Musk could play a key role in negotiations on golf’s future.
The Titleist accords
Am I the only person who always reads this brand name in my head as "tit-leist"?
Dignified concession speech from Harris with a clear message that the fight continues
Anything about listening to the electorate about where they went wrong?
In the UK, a party leader losing an election is still a party leader, so it’s important for them to steer the party towards doing that.
But this is the US. Harris is not the party leader. She’s not going to be the candidate again. She’s instantly demoted. Leadership of the party is much more nebulous in the US, but it’s the new Governors and Senators that need to be answering your question.
Assuming that the USA is still a democracy in 4 year's time, and that a presidential election will be held, the Dems have a couple of years to get themselves organised with a candidate who can appeal to enough voters in the right places.
Not another California liberal. Another Joe Biden, but half the age. Someone who does get the voters of Allentown to get out and vote.
Otherwise it is President Vance.
I suspect who wins in 2028 will depend far more on the state of the economy then than who the Democrat candidate is.
After all Obama was a Chicago liberal but won a landslide in 2008 as the economy was so poor.
On one level no, it’s not my country and not my business. But on an another level, as someone who thinks the world needs a non-Trumpite USA in 4 years, the Democrats need to be bigger and better than Trump was.
Why? Yank voters clearly don't care about decorum. They've only just taken a good look at the pussy grabber in chief and said "yeah, we really like this."
The beaten Democrats don't need some kind of heir to Obama orator with inspirational ideas for bringing the nation together and healing divisions, etc, etc. They need a complete ignoramus armed with a bible, an assault rifle and a potty mouth. The quest begins now.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
We don’t know what his approach will be, he may not even know until whatever his functioning synapses tell him when he re-enters the White House.
In the longer term, your average right winger has tiny balls. The way to stop all of... this... was for the Republican hierarchy to disown the Donald. They had plenty of opportunities, of which the impeachment trial was only the most obvious. Every time, they failed.
Exactly. The GOP is full of cowards. We know what they really think of Trump, as many of the most senior people in the party are on the record telling us so, but they are afraid to stand up to Trump and his cult.
This may be peak GOP though, for Trump can never be on the ballot again.
Yet Trump for all his faults is after this result (even bigger an EC win than his 2016 win and he also won the popular vote) the party's biggest vote winner since Reagan, as the Tories found once they got rid of their big charismatic vote winner Boris it has been all downhill from there.
We also can't be sure what the legacy of Trump's tariffs will be longer term for the economy and his party
I agree that there is now a challenge for the GOP - where do they go from here? Has Trump parasitised the party to such an extent that they have nothing left to offer after him?
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
It's perfectly possible to hate Trump as an individual and as a politician but still to say, as a matter of political analysis, he was the more capable candidate. That second point doesn't mean someone would vote for him had they the chance (or did, if they did); just that he ran the better campaign, his being convicted half way through notwithstanding. That doesn't mean you have to like his campaign or agree with it.
Absurdly his personal campaign was shocking too. Kamala equipped herself very well
I suspect the reality is the promise of cheap gasoline was more important than clarity of mind, a rape adjudication, felony convictions, sedition and the theft of state secrets.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Only in the sense he might try and hand half Ukraine on a plate to Putin and you don't try and feed a wolf to calm it
"And understand, you don't negotiate with a tiger! You admire a tiger until he turns on you and you feel its true f*cking nature!"
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
Beyond William I am genuinely struggling to think of pro Trumpers.
Yep. @leon sometimes want a Trump win for the laughs seeing bleedin' heart liberals crying onto their Springstein LPs but other than that...
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Trump is to Putin as Chamberlain is to Hitler. Peace in our time!
Zelensky’s interview slating Biden last week has cut through to a lot of people, not just me. Ukrainian Vlogger Denys Davidov for example, while saying he’d have voted for Kamala, he seems surprisingly positive about what might be possible under Trump. Shipman has an unattributed source saying trump is likely to pass one more big military aid package for Ukraine. Etc…
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
It's perfectly possible to hate Trump as an individual and as a politician but still to say, as a matter of political analysis, he was the more capable candidate. That second point doesn't mean someone would vote for him had they the chance (or did, if they did); just that he ran the better campaign, his being convicted half way through notwithstanding. That doesn't mean you have to like his campaign or agree with it.
Absurdly his personal campaign was shocking too. Kamala equipped herself very well
I suspect the reality is the promise of cheap gasoline was more important than clarity of mind, a rape adjudication, felony convictions, sedition and the theft of state secrets.
acquitted, I think, though I haven't studied her outfits closely so you may be right
On one level no, it’s not my country and not my business. But on an another level, as someone who thinks the world needs a non-Trumpite USA in 4 years, the Democrats need to be bigger and better than Trump was.
Why? Yank voters clearly don't care about decorum. They've only just taken a good look at the pussy grabber in chief and said "yeah, we really like this."
The beaten Democrats don't need some kind of heir to Obama orator with inspirational ideas for bringing the nation together and healing divisions, etc, etc. They need a complete ignoramus armed with a bible, an assault rifle and a potty mouth. The quest begins now.
They don't, as it is independent swing voters and suburban voters who still decide elections (Trump has narrowly won Independent and suburban voters). Rural hillbillies will always vote GOP regardless
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Trump is to Putin as Chamberlain is to Hitler. Peace in our time!
I would personally have soms concerns, as I've mentioned before hete on PB, that the Putin/Hitler equation could have some ahistorical aspects.
There are all the familiar arguments we've rehearsed on what or not separates Putin from a figure like Hitler, but I think the more pressing debate may he elsewhere.
Hitler didn't face a nucleae-armed alliance on the next country along, which returns us to the issues of Nato, and whether a European defence pact could replace it if need be. This is a littie more distinct from the question of Ukraine itself, and the possibllity of nuclear escalation by us intervening more directly there, than is often suggested on PB, because the.inavoidabe fsct remains that Ukraine is not in NATO.
Assuming that the USA is still a democracy in 4 year's time, and that a presidential election will be held, the Dems have a couple of years to get themselves organised with a candidate who can appeal to enough voters in the right places.
Not another California liberal. Another Joe Biden, but half the age. Someone who does get the voters of Allentown to get out and vote.
Otherwise it is President Vance.
I suspect who wins in 2028 will depend far more on the state of the economy then than who the Democrat candidate is.
After all Obama was a Chicago liberal but won a landslide in 2008 as the economy was so poor.
Obama was a class act. He still is. He inspired people not just to vote for him, but to put a shift in to help him to get elected. I put a shift in during a spare Saturday in the US. And Chicago has more cred than California.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
Beyond William I am genuinely struggling to think of pro Trumpers.
On one level no, it’s not my country and not my business. But on an another level, as someone who thinks the world needs a non-Trumpite USA in 4 years, the Democrats need to be bigger and better than Trump was.
Why? Yank voters clearly don't care about decorum. They've only just taken a good look at the pussy grabber in chief and said "yeah, we really like this."
The beaten Democrats don't need some kind of heir to Obama orator with inspirational ideas for bringing the nation together and healing divisions, etc, etc. They need a complete ignoramus armed with a bible, an assault rifle and a potty mouth. The quest begins now.
They don't, as it is independent swing voters and suburban voters who still decide elections (Trump has narrowly won Independent and suburban voters). Rural hillbillies will always vote GOP regardless
Yep, independent and swing voters who clearly liked what they saw.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
It's been an eye opener. The smugness of the critique on Kamala and the free ride for Trump has been disappointing.
Absurdly his personal campaign was shocking too. Kamala equipped herself very well
I suspect the reality is the promise of cheap gasoline was more important than clarity of mind, a rape adjudication, felony convictions, sedition and the theft of state secrets.
He said he'd halve energy costs and end inflation. How the hell you end inflation in a free market economy is completely beyond me, and even pondering how it might be done in a dictatorship sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Frankly Trump might as well have promised to make every American a millionaire.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
I am by no means a supporter of Trump. I literally have 100s (maybe 1000s) of posts saying how absolutely unsuitable he is for office and why...but fucking left wingers....insert rant.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Trump is to Putin as Chamberlain is to Hitler. Peace in our time!
I would personally have soms concerns, as I've mentioned before hete on PB, that the Putin/Hitler equation could have some ahistorical aspects.
There are all the familiar arguments we've rehearsed on what or not separates Putin from a figure like Hitler, but I think the more pressing debate may he elsewhere.
Hitler didn't face a nucleae-armed alliance on the next country along, which returns us to the issues of Nato, and whether a European defence pact could replace it if need be. This is a littie more distinct from the question of Ukraine itself, and the possibllity of nuclear escalation by us intervening more directly there, than is often suggested on PB, because the.inavoidabe fsct remains that Ukraine is not in NATO.
Collective Europe and other Ukraine supporting countries are perfectly capable of sustaining the Ukrainians financially and supply-wise to fight on no matter what the USA policy is. But Europe won't. Countries such as Germany will use any change in US policy to worm out of it because they have hidden behind the USA's skirt for decades. Its in their back yard but they will just take the excuse and dip out and fold. Same as the Balkans in the 90s, the EU and its members have no collective will.
As it is, one of the weasels, Olaf Scholz is probably going to be out on his arse shortly.
Absurdly his personal campaign was shocking too. Kamala equipped herself very well
I suspect the reality is the promise of cheap gasoline was more important than clarity of mind, a rape adjudication, felony convictions, sedition and the theft of state secrets.
He said he'd halve energy costs and end inflation. How the hell you end inflation in a free market economy is completely beyond me, and even pondering how it might be done in a dictatorship sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Frankly Trump might as well have promised to make every American a millionaire.
It was impossible to keep up with what Trump was promising. Are all tips and overtime still going to be tax free. Or it is that all federal taxes are gone, replaced by tariffs. I guess it depends if it is a Tuesday or a Wednesday....
Assuming that the USA is still a democracy in 4 year's time, and that a presidential election will be held, the Dems have a couple of years to get themselves organised with a candidate who can appeal to enough voters in the right places.
Not another California liberal. Another Joe Biden, but half the age. Someone who does get the voters of Allentown to get out and vote.
Otherwise it is President Vance.
I suspect who wins in 2028 will depend far more on the state of the economy then than who the Democrat candidate is.
After all Obama was a Chicago liberal but won a landslide in 2008 as the economy was so poor.
Obama was a class act. He still is. He inspired people not just to vote for him, but to put a shift in to help him to get elected. I put a shift in during a spare Saturday in the US. And Chicago has more cred than California.
McCain was ahead of Obama in some polls before the 2008 crash.
If you look at recent changes of party in the White House, 2024, 2020, 2016, 2008, 2000, 1992 and 1980 in most of those election years the economy was in recession or not growing strongly and/or inflation and cost of living was high.
The 2 exceptions were 2016 and 2000 and in both of those the incumbent VP still won the popular vote and in 2000 nearly won Florida and the EC
Comments
Trump should demand an immediate General Election under threat of nuclear attack insisting only Reform are on the ballot.
No wonder they screwed up.
It's not as though there aren't precedents.
What worries me is that tariffs have a particular appeal for someone like Trump, of course.
The Political Economy of Tariff Exemption Grants
https://jfqa.org/2024/07/30/the-political-economy-of-tariff-exemption-grants/
We investigate whether firm-level political connections affect the allocation of exemptions from tariffs imposed on $550 billion of Chinese goods imported to the United States annually beginning in 2018. Evidence points to politicians not only rewarding supporters, but also punishing opponents: past campaign contributions to the party controlling (in opposition to) the executive branch increase (decrease) approval likelihood. Our findings point to quid pro quo arrangements between politicians and firms, as opposed to the “information” channel linking political access to regulatory outcomes....
Haley would have won.
FACT.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
The defeat is notable historically not principally because of its scale, but because of who the defeat was against.
This might change if the Republican trifecta at the Federal level pushes for anti-abortion Federal laws.
If it’s an elastic market, then they will reduce supply and prices will go up due to a loss of efficiencies of scale.
I’m a big fan of free markets!
S
Harris 229 EVs
hold of the car keys because he's intellectually far ahead of his emotional age.
He may already be the most powerful person in the world, from some points of view.
Having spent two months arguing his election would be disastrous for the US, and having bring called everything from prostitute, to imbecile, to "crap", to fascist by him, why would she "wish him well" ?
Don't gaslight us with that crap..
What she did say:
.. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case...
She conceded, and recognised the importance of such concession in a democracy. Pretending that his administration is likely to be anything other than baleful would be normalising him in advance.
Now I am sure Trump would have been a mega asshat, but that doesn't mean you should go to his level.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Association football is very much the exception and it was far from guaranteed that the global game we now know would be as it is; it might easily never have existed given that when the rules were first drafted there was a significant split on whether carrying or holding the ball could be allowed (other than by the goalkeeper, within restrictions) and indeed at some meetings, but not the critical final one, those wanting handling held a majority. The name of Ebenezer Cobb Morley, whose brainchild the FA was, who served as founding Secretary and drove through the banning of handling the ball, is a name that should be far more widely known. Not only did he, more than anyone, create football as we now know it, but by creating a game so easily played anywhere, he created the sporting sun whose gravity would dictate the orbits of all other sports.
In the longer term, your average right winger has tiny balls. The way to stop all of... this... was for the Republican hierarchy to disown the Donald. They had plenty of opportunities, of which the impeachment trial was only the most obvious. Every time, they failed.
After all it was US cost of living that won Trump this election, not him saying he got it all wrong in 2020.
Just as it was mainly the economy that won it for Starmer this year, when he replaced Corbyn in 2021 Boris had a comfortable poll lead still
I don't think there's really much more to it than that. (Plus, the Dems found themselves between a rock and a hard place on Israel.)
Edit to add: incumbent governments have fallen pretty much everywhere this year. Even Modi lost his majority. If you've overseen a period when voters incomes haven't kept up with inflation, then they are apt to punish you.
We witnessed it here a few months ago, and take it for granted. But we should savour it.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
There are 4 years to criticise Trump and going to be masses of opportunities.
As stated above, in the past I wouldn’t have cared who was in power in the U.S. but I more interested this time because Ukraine might now be screwed.
And its not really about Trump, its about the country. Its very polarised, its very divided, two nutters have tried to kill Trump. You want your politicians to stand up and say lets be calm, lets take stock.
D4 damager, power to the people
Back once again with the @Renegade_pollster
D4 damager, with Trump's ill behaviour, with Trump's ill behaviour, with Trump's ill behaviour...
It's rare that produces positive outcomes.
Yet Trump for all his faults is after this result (even bigger an EC win than his 2016 win and he also won the popular vote) the party's biggest vote winner since Reagan, as the Tories found once they got rid of their big charismatic vote winner Boris it has been all downhill from there.
We also can't be sure what the legacy of Trump's tariffs will be longer term for the economy and his party
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=385743
..the NCG may seem beneficial to South Korea but not to the U.S. from a 'Trumpian' conception of alliances," he added.
Harry Kazianis, senior director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest, echoed that view.
"Trump might just see it (NCG) as a talking shop that does nothing and kill it off," he said.
The NCG was established under the Washington Declaration signed by Yoon and Biden during the South Korean president's U.S. visit in April 2023. The joint initiative was aimed at enhancing U.S. extended deterrence commitments to South Korea in response to North Korea's nuclear threats.
If Trump weakens the NCG or the U.S. nuclear umbrella, it may intensify calls in South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons. This is an approach Trump could potentially support.
In South Korea, there is a growing push for self-nuclear armament, driven by increasing skepticism over the effectiveness of U.S. assurances in deterring North Korea's nuclear threats.
"I would not be shocked if Trump greenlighted South Korea building nuclear weapons — he might even encourage such a move out in the open for a lot of reasons," Kazianis said. "He could be of the mindset that it's unfair for North Korea to have these weapons and not South Korea."..
The defeat was against Trump, who beat the Dems in 2016 and wasn’t very far behind them in 2020. He is an awful person, but he’s clearly a popular candidate with the US electorate.
Not another California liberal. Another Joe Biden, but half the age. Someone who does get the voters of Allentown to get out and vote.
Otherwise it is President Vance.
But this is the US. Harris is not the party leader. She’s not going to be the candidate again. She’s instantly demoted. Leadership of the party is much more nebulous in the US, but it’s the new Governors and Senators that need to be answering your question.
After all Obama was a Chicago liberal but won a landslide in 2008 as the economy was so poor.
The beaten Democrats don't need some kind of heir to Obama orator with inspirational ideas for bringing the nation together and healing divisions, etc, etc. They need a complete ignoramus armed with a bible, an assault rifle and a potty mouth. The quest begins now.
I suspect the reality is the promise of cheap gasoline was more important than clarity of mind, a rape adjudication, felony convictions, sedition and the theft of state secrets.
There are all the familiar arguments we've rehearsed on what or not separates Putin from a figure like Hitler, but I think the more pressing debate may he elsewhere.
Hitler didn't face a nucleae-armed alliance on the next country along, which returns us to the issues of Nato, and whether a European defence pact could replace it if need be. This is a littie more distinct from the question of Ukraine itself, and the possibllity of nuclear escalation by us intervening more directly there, than is often suggested on PB, because the.inavoidabe fsct remains that Ukraine is not in NATO.
Now 295 EVs against 226 for Harris.
Frankly Trump might as well have promised to make every American a millionaire.
As it is, one of the weasels, Olaf Scholz is probably going to be out on his arse shortly.
If you look at recent changes of party in the White House, 2024, 2020, 2016, 2008, 2000, 1992 and 1980 in most of those election years the economy was in recession or not growing strongly and/or inflation and cost of living was high.
The 2 exceptions were 2016 and 2000 and in both of those the incumbent VP still won the popular vote and in 2000 nearly won Florida and the EC