‘Dear David,
As per the standard Friday routine, here’s an update on what’s going on across the pond. The US election is now under two weeks out – just 11 days away.
Donald Trump Isn’t Even Trying to Hide It
With more than 30 million votes already cast either by mail or via early voting, the 2024 Presidential Election is well underway. As the two candidates make their final appeals to the American public, the race still seems to be a toss-up.
Even by Trump’s standards, his campaign has grown increasingly erratic over the past several weeks. He’s been spreading damaging conspiracies about migrants and hurricanes, teasing out bizarre last-second policy proposals (such as abolishing federal income tax entirely and replacing it with “tariffs” – a sure-fire way to crash the US economy practically overnight), and toying with silencing media outlets he doesn’t like.
He’s accused the Labour party of “election interference,” referencing the (frankly inconsequential) meetings held between Democratic and Labour party staff over recent months. A bold claim from someone who just got his tech-bro pal Elon Musk to offer up millions to Trump voters – the same tech-bro pal who’s reportedly been having regular meetings with Vladimir Putin.
The former President has always had a fascination with authoritarian strongmen, from North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. This week, he’s alleged to have indicated that he wants to command “German generals” like those of Adolf Hitler.
Add that on top of what we already know. He’s indicated he’d be a “dictator” on day one. He’s talked about replacing the federal bureaucracy with partisan ideologues. He’s threatened to unleash the US military on his left-wing political opponents. He’s said that “this could be the last election we ever have”. One of his former aides has warned that he’d govern like a “fascist.”
For eight years now, Trump has shown us who he is and what he stands for. American democracy is far from perfect as it stands, but the former President is now threatening to ditch the guard rails – the constitutional checks and balances on our politics – entirely.
For all of us across the pond, what happens in eleven days is going to be massively consequential. Trump threatens to boost our own nativist authoritarians at home, and our flimsy democratic safeguards are not likely to fare any better. Even if he loses, we can expect chaos at the polls and a massive wave of election denial – surely to be amplified here in Britain by the likes of Nigel Farage.
In other US Election News:
- Rumours are swirling about a highly damaging video tape of Donald Trump potentially leaked to the press that may appear this weekend – though at this point its unlikely to sway the result;
- Harris held a campaign event last night with Bruce Springsteen, who labeled Trump a “tyrant”;
- Given how close this race is, fears are mounting about a contested result (as occurred in 2001). Experts warn it could exacerbate the US’ political polarisation.
That’s it for this week.
All the best,
Matt Gallagher
Communications Officer
Open Britain’
Some of the best analysis of the politicking in the run-up to the presidential election I’ve seen comes from Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk. I’m not a secularist, but his videos on the sheer madness and vile policies of the American right are definitely worth watching. And they can also be hilarious. Trump’s intellectual faculties seem to be going the way of Joe Biden’s. Halfway through one speech the other day Trump’s mind wandered off and he started talking about the late golfer, Arnold Palmer. Trump likes golf, and admires Palmer as the type of ‘real man’ American needs. But then he said something about how well endowed Palmer was when you saw him come out the showers. He also claimed that Obama ‘shlonged’ Hillary, when there was a wave of outrage at this assertion, he said that it had other meanings as well. This has started people wondering if Trump is losing his mind and has a fixation on willies.
As for his comments about needing ‘German generals’, he said he wanted generals that would be loyal to him just like Hitler’s. Then someone pointed out that they tried to assassinate the flatulent corporal three times. He wouldn’t have it. Oh well, it means he won’t be expecting it when the Joint Chiefs of Staff hand him a bomb in a suitcase, just as several of the German generals did with Adolf. And no, I am definitely not recommending that anyone do this to Trump. It’s an attempt at humour.
And the conspiracy theories about the weather are so bizarre that they really do make your eyes boggle. Apparently, thanks to Trump, Republican voters have started asking whether the Democrats have storm cannons to generate the tornadoes that have caused such devastation in the Land of the Free recently. Utter madness.
As for Trump’s statement that this would be the last election there would ever be, I remember another politician thousands of miles away in Russia saying exactly the same thing. It was Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the head of the country’s Fascist Social Democratic Party. In the 90s after Communism fell and the country was holding elections for the first time sing the Revolution, the Beeb followed Zhirinovsky’s election campaign as he sailed up and down the Volga trying to get the people there to vote for him. This included his election song, which went ‘Zhirinovsky’s a proper Russian bloke, even though he doesn’t drink or smoke’ and how, when the singer finally met him, he’d embraced him and give him a fag. At one point Zhirinovsky appeared to be telling a group of bemused people from off a collective farm that they should vote for him, because if they did, they’d never have to vote again.
At the time Zhirinovsky was rightly labelled the mad dog of Russian politics and people had no illusions that he was a fascist. Now Trump is saying some of the same rubbish, but his supporters are convinced he’s defending the constitution.
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