US Politics / Biden thread

I mean, obviously, if you believed that you could wave goodbye in the morning to your son and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day in school,’ and your son comes back at the end of the day having had a sex change operation that the school has decided on, then I accept that would be a valid reason to vote against that policy.

I’m not sure Harris mentioned trans issues much during the campaign but was definitely a noisy Trump obsession.

Notable that it hasn’t been discussed much since labour got into power. I think you are right, not many people are that interested but the right like to rail against it as part of some woke movement conspiracy.

edit - I typed this and missed @kingstongraham response.🙃

She never raised it, when she was asked about it, she'd just say "I will follow the law, just like Donald Trump did when he was in office", but if people think that somewhere else in the country there's hordes of trans people causing absolute chaos and trying to recruit kids then that's not going to cut the mustard. How do you deal with a mostly confected issue?

I think where there is a problem it's that even the message "I'll stand up for people's right to be who they want to be, but where there is a genuine conflict I don't believe the rights of trans people should traduce the hard fought for rights of women" would have caused paroxysms among some very vocal Democrat activists, even though it's pretty mild and mainstream. She should have learned to ignore them, as if they were going to abandon her, they did it over Palestine anyway.

Re the trans issue (and others), this is worth watching from 21 years ago (even if the non-synchronicity between video and sound is annoying)

It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that once UK voters see what Trump does under the banner of Project 2025 and the repercussions (Affordable Care Act cuts/abolition, social security cuts, mass deportations), that that will write Labour's re-election script. Labour will be hoping that Trump goes hard and fast on his agenda, so the results are tangible as soon as possible.

I suspect that Starmer will equally be looking at why Harris's offer didn't appeal to so many voters who opted for the shameless populism of Trump. There's equally no doubt that Farage will be similarly looking at how hate trumped decency, given that that's his area of expertise.

I do wonder if we've reach peak minority rights for a while. Liberal politicians have been trying to push societal views rather than reflect them a bit in recent years, and there seems to be a push back against a lot of progress as a result by oppressed majorities like stupid white heterosexual men.

I can't get my head round how wrong I think Kettle's 'analysis' is here.

"Trump has to deliver on his promise to them. He must tackle inflation and protect his supporters’ jobs and their incomes. That alone should moderate his fiscal extremism. His supposed attack on immigration cannot be as savage as he promises. Rounding up and deporting literally millions of families will be seen as inhumane and impractical. Instead, Trump will have to talk to Mexico and the rest of Latin America on border policing, as Britain must talk with the rest of Europe. Border security has become a global challenge."

"On foreign affairs, Trump’s known aversion to war is good. He craves to talk, as he showed in his abortive 2018 summit with North Korea. He is right that the west’s ostracism of Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a mistake, when so much currently depends on stabilising Europe’s balance of power. Trump’s realpolitik may seem fanciful, but his goal of a swift settlement in Ukraine is more likely to end the war than western demands for an impossible Ukrainian “victory”."

This all is based on the assumption that Trump will be pragmatic, rather than being a mixture of vindictive madman and more interested in golfing and watching TV than doing policy. Instead, I think he'll be delegating most of the heavy lifting to Project 2025 idealogues, and blatant racists like Stephen Miller. It'll be Brexit on steroids, in that the goal of establishing their worldview is worth absolutely any price, in human or economic terms.

Do give me an example of a right that only applies to a minority.

Scary when the margins are close

Wait. What now?

1% of Trump voters will not accept him as the legitimate President, and 2% are undecided. Now that's fucked up.

No mate, rights over someone's own womb.

I think you have it back to front. That's the same right we all have, but it's partially removed after 24 weeks.

It's a very English view that academia should not engage with broader society and one that matches your reluctance to credit Trump voters with knowing their own interests rather than suffering some kind of false consciousness.

Theresa May announced plans to introduce self ID for trans people. Labour also dropped their support for self ID.

Here's a useful post on Goodwin's (mis)use of statistics: