US Election 2024

On the left say cynical
On the right say oldgit
What does that spell?

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I’ve heard enough of her speeches to make an informed opinion on the matter.

Talking only about her debating/public speaking skills.

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I agrĂ©e with you: she isn’t the most polished of speakers. But she’s still better than Trump.

It’s a sad indictment of certain elements of society that they believe that how someone speaks is more important than what they say.

You get the same here; JRM sounds posh, so he must be right.

Yeah, about that


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An interesting take on Trump and deep fakes:

I don’t necessarily agree with everything the author says (I believe she is underestimating how stupid he actually is), but it’s certainly an alternative way of looking at Trump’s recent forays into AI.

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That’s over estimating the intelligence of the average maga nut, I fear.

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Fixed

I’d just assumed it was a failed attempt at parody.

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I wonder if a lot of these “low-information voters” actually have a version of the “Mandela effect”, effectively false memories of things that happen because the have either retained false information or conflated them with other things that they probably weren’t that interested in.

It’s even possible that some ideas have come from parody. There is a quote, usually attributed to John Lennon, that “Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles”, but he never said it. I think it is actually a Jasper Carrot joke but it is commonly misremembered as a barbed comment from Lennon.

I suppose the question is, how do you reach out to people who are not that interested in politics or the news and can’t be bothered to continually fact check a constant stream of disinformation?

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The easiest way to get their attention is to aim low, peddle fear, demonise minorities and create an atmosphere of mistrust and division, as we have seen.
Engaging them in a reasoned debate about real issues is much more difficult and doesn’t seem to have been achieved so far anywhere that I know of.

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I’m not 100% sure that is the case. Perhaps for some voters, with their individual biases, maybe.

I think the main issue is appealing to their emotions and biases. For example, genuine appeal to working-class people, or people who identify as such even though they aren’t necessarily so.

The article makes a point that Trump targeted those voters (whether knowingly or not is irrelevant), but you could also argue that Obama did so to some extent with his hope and change campaign of 2008.

National Harris +1.5 Biden +7.8 Clinton +5.5
Wisconsin Harris +1.0 Biden +4.6 Clinton +11.5
Pennsylvania Trump +0.2 Biden +5.7 Clinton +9.2
Ohio Trump +8.5 Biden +2.3 Clinton +4.8
Michigan Harris +2.0 Biden +7.0 Clinton +8.0
Arizona Trump +0.2 Biden +2.2 Trump +0.3
Nevada Trump +1.4 – Clinton +2.3
North Carolina Trump +0.9 Trump +0.5 Clinton +1.8
Georgia Trump +1.0 Trump +1.1 Clinton +1.0
Florida Trump +6.3 Biden +4.8 Clinton +4.5

Anyone getting overly carried away with Harris’ chances (myself included) should consider how her numbers today compare on the same day with the last two elections when Trump’s share was seriously under estimated.

I think she needs to be looking at a four point bounce from the convention which then needs to built on in the last two months to really be optimistic about the eventual outcome.

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How much would RFK Jr. dropping and Trump consolidating more of the lunatic fringe affect those numbers?
Haven’t they improved polling methods since 2016 as well? On second thought, maybe not considering the predicted red wave in 2022.

Yes, it’s still on a knife’s edge despite all of Trump’s incoherent ramblings and Vance’s deep unpleasantness.
The debates will have an influence, but it’s going to be a very close run thing.
The next six months are going to be excruciating.

At least we know you ain’t Jimmy Somerville.

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Literally never heard of this person in my whole life.

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Gershwin Cynnie! Didn’t expect you to be so low brow.

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But you have danced to him singing

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