#over 65 voters

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Harris-Walz Campaign Update!

53 days ago the Harris-Walz campaign kicked off in Maine and we've been working diligently to meet with Americans across our country, answering questions, communicating policies, and working to win every voter's confidence. The campaign has officially visited 45 states, the District of Columbia, and all 5 territories. We maintain our commitment to visiting all 50 states and will swing through the remaining states in the coming days.

We are happy to know that this strategy is also seeing positive results in polling numbers, while not all movement in the polls has been in our directions, there are traditionally deep red states that are seeing movement that was not expected. Using multiple polls, we've been able to establish a map that speaks to the work we've been putting in and that we view as more and more likely. However, as the country learned in 2016, polls are not the end all, be all in predicting a winner.

We cannot be fooled into complacency. The Harris-Walz administration remains the underdog in the 2024 presidential race and we must remain steadfast in bring more independents and republicans into our fold, while also deepening our support in key demographics. White college voters are a growing base with us, which we believe is due to common sense policy on our side, and divisive rhetoric coming from our opponents campaign.

We will continue to fight on the campaign trail every day for the trust of the American people and their vote for our ticket and democrats down the ballot. We look forward to campaigning and for Americans to have their voices heard in 28 days from now, on Election Day!

~BR~

[batemanofficial]

quiet doctor's office waiting room voted best place to have a loud, highly revealing personal conversation for the third year in a row

[allthegeopolitics]

Despite the Democrats losing the popular vote in the election to the Republicans for the first time since 2004 - and by more than five million votes - many pro-Kamala Harris social media users aimed their frustrations at pro-Palestine voters, specifically Arabs and Muslims, on Wednesday.

Although many Arab and Muslim Americans voted for the Green Party’s Jill Stein, she received only 0.4 percent of the national total, amounting to 628,525 votes. This is less than half of what Stein received in 2016 when she received 1,449,370 votes.

Former President Donald Trump overperformed across the electorate. The Financial Times reported that Trump gained ground in all but two states, specifically among those in the working class who care most about the economy and immigration.

Even if Harris had managed to win Michigan in the electoral college, which is home to a significant Muslim and Arab voting bloc, she would have still lost the election.

"Asian, Black, Hispanic and white voters all moved towards Trump. "Harris only increased her vote share among the over-65s and with white college-educated women," the FT report said. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @vague-humanoid

[sprites4ever]

Since I'm A Solution-Oriented Person, Instead Of Crying, Here's What I'll I Advise Every American And Everyone Else, Who Wants To Hear It

GET TOGETHER AND STAY TOGETHER

The Right and Fascists thrive on division of their opposition. Don't preocuppy yourself with infighting.

You never wanted politics to be a fight, but they've made it one. So remember who your enemies are, and what people can achieve when they have a common threat.

If you're in a red state and are fearing for the life and well-being of you and/or people you know, GET OUT NOW. You have a month until inauguration, so, if you can't leave the country, move to a blue state.

While it is, of course, no guarantee for safety against the MAGA cult, the comparatively limited power of the US federal government over citizens and state governments should buy you some time to prepare for a Trump Nazi Regime and/or WWIII or a second US Civil War.

DON'T DENY THE ELECTION RESULT

I know it's comfortable to think that most Americans wouldn't be so insane to re-elect Trump, but that's not true. The race was pretty much 50/50 and winning over the battleground states put Trump over the edge. There's also the fact that, while a ~65% voter turnout is pretty good for a democratic country, that still means that half of eligible American voters did not vote. So, whatever their ideals are, they did not participate in the choice that impacts them, every other American and, due to the US' status, the rest of the world.

Remember, Hitler too was democratically elected. None of the reasons with which Hitler and Trump convinced voters are real things, but still, those voters believed them and made their choice. May they shamefully rot in the worst pages of future history books, but they made their choice.

This is the inherent risk of democracy: That people can always choose to ruin it.

I'M NOT GOING TO MINCE WORDS:

CORRECTION: I previously claimed that the voter turnout was ~50%, when, in reality, it was around 65%. This is strong for a genuine democracy (fake democracies can obviously force people to vote at gunpoint, or just make up voter statistics), but this still means that a third of the country did not vote and that Trump was elected by a third of the country, not even 50% of the population. By that logic, any election with a voter turnout below 100% would not represent the genuine majority, but you get my point. The reality is that both a lot of American non-voters and Trump voters live in rural areas where the rest of the world, outside their community, might as well not exist. So, of course, they can, for example, take Trump's word on the LGBTQ+ community, because they know so little about the world that they can be told anything and also won't vote responsibly, as, if, for example, there's no LGBTQ+ person in their community, they have no way of knowing what these people, their issues and the threats they face actually are like. A lot of voters also don't care about politics and just vote for the guy everyone else is voting for, or the guy who's face they like better. (I'm not making this up, people from multiple countries have legitimately stated that they vote based on politician hotness.) It's strange, because this type of rural unknowingness is usually typical for countries that are undeveloped and autocratic, so one wouldn't expect it from the richest country where the elections define so much. I guess it's the US' federal system and libertarian economy that have led to this extreme compartmentalization of society, where communities are essentially as different from each other as Stone Age-villages.

WITH TRUMP RE-ELECTED, DEPENDING ON HIS CHOICES, THERE WILL BE WORLD WAR III OR A SECOND AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

I'm not paranoid for saying this, as former US Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, who served two years under Trump and Biden, has stated in an interview with The Atlantic that he and others had to stop Trump from launching nuclear missiles at North Korea multiple times in 2018.

ON A POTENTIAL WORLD WAR III

WWIII means a nuclear holocaust, meaning hundreds of millions of deaths around the entire world within half an hour of the war turning nuclear and billions of deaths in the years following, no way around it.

Cities and areas near government and military instalations in nuclear-armed countries (USA, russia, China, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan, North Korea, United Kingdom and France) will be most affected, but that doesn't mean those will be the only places to be nuked or affected.

Decades of many nations' strategists' deliberations during the Cold War, the period of tension between the US-led NATO and Soviet russian-led Warsaw Pact after the end of WWII in 1945, which in and for itself ended with the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, came to the same conclusion - If another World War occurs, it will be nuclear and it will be global. It can't even really be called a war, as the world's nuclear powers have had the capacity to annihilate each other's militaries and economies within half an hour ever since 1950.

Since then, WWIII hasn't happened due to powerful people being aware of this and due to multiple courageous individuals who chose right in close calls. For example, President Kennedy maintained a cool head during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, during which, for the uninitiated, NATO and the USSR got extremely close to a nuclear war, as they both deployed nuclear missiles right at each others' doorsteps. In that crisis, too, Soviet Naval Officer Vasili Arkhipov prevented his submarine from launching nuclear weapons at the US when the submarine lost contact with Moscow and other officers thought a nuclear war had started and Moscow had been destroyed. In 1983, when the Soviet Politburo had become so paranoid that they believed their own propaganda about an impending attack by NATO, their nuclear forces were on such high alert that a malfunctioning Soviet spy satellite sending a false alarm about an American nuclear launch nearly caused them to launch in what they thought would be retaliation. At that time, the Soviet Command Officer Stanislav Petrov however figured that the computer at his base, which displayed the warning and which had been installed just the day before, was malfunctioning and chose not to relay the alarm to the rest of Soviet command.

Now, much misinformation has been spread around atomic energy and nuclear weapons. Here's the reality about nukes:

Almost all of the aforementioned nuclear powers have the capacity to launch a nuke at any target in the world within minutes, as nuclear missiles, especially Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) can reach insane hypersonic speeds, faster than anything that could shoot them down before the nuclear warheads start the detonation sequence.

While we're talking about the US, the aforementioned decades of deliberation have concluded that is impossible for any country to fire a nuke without it soon turning into a war between all nuclear powers with their nukes. Nukes are just too destructive for decision-makers to not panic in that event.

The currently existing nukes are spread as follows:

USA: ~5500 nuclear warheads total, how many of those are ready-to-launch is classified, launch means are silo-launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle (MIRV) warheads (meaning one missile can drop nukes on multiple targets), Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs), Short-Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBMs), Ground-, Air- and Sea-launched Cruise Missiles, Air-dropped bombs, Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) with MIRV warheads

russia: ~6000 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are silo- and truck-launched ICBMs with MIRV warheads, IRBMs, SRBMs, Ground-, Air- and Sea-launched Cruise Missiles, Air-dropped bombs, SLBMs with MIRV warheads

China: ~250 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are ICBMs, cruise missiles and SLBMs

Israel: ~100 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are cruise missiles and SLBMs

India: ~100 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are ICBMs, cruise missiles and SLBMs

Pakistan: ~100 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means unknown

United Kingdom: ~200 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are cruise missiles and SLBMs

France: ~100 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are cruise missiles and SLBMs

Iran: Does officially not have nuclear weapons, can factually assemble some nuclear warheads within weeks, launch means unknown

North Korea: Official number of nuclear warheads classified, most likely ~30, readiness unknown, launch means are ICBMs, IRBMs, SRBMs and cruise missiles

Nukes cause unrivaled destruction over tens of kilometers with their explosion, emit a flash of Gamma radiation in the moment of their explosion, cause massive shockwaves and fires, can blind people with the brightness of the flash of Gamma radiation and cause long-lasting contamination with dangerous radiation via fallout.

Gamma radiation caused by the initial nuclear fission of a nuke last extremely short. This radiation is quickly lethal, but so fast that is gone within milliseconds. Anyone too close to the source will, however, be hit by so much of said radiation, that they will get extreme Accute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), also known as radiation poisoning, and die within hours, as Gamma radiation is so strong that, in high enough concentration, it passes through the human body and rips out the electrons from the atoms which cellular tissue is made of, degrading them to Ions. (Hence the term 'Ionizing Radiation')

Ions, unlike atoms, are way less stable, meaning that cellular tissue that has been ionized can't uphold itself and falls apart.

The other type of ionizing radiation from nuclear bombs, Neutron radiation, works the same way, but lasts much longer than Gamma radiation. Unlike Gamma radiation, it sticks to most materials, causing them to give off Neutron radiation for years. This is the radiation hazard that comes from fallout. Fallout is the soot kicked up by the explosion, which originates from everything it pulverized. The immense heat causes it to first be carried upwards, forming the characteristic mushroom cloud, before the air cools and allows the now irradiated soot to fall out (hence the name) and back onto the ground. It is affected by wind and weather.

To avoid both types of radiation, the first factor is distance. Any amount of radiation still consists of individual particles that race through the cosmos, so the further away you are from the source, the less likely for its rays to hit you, as they travel in a straight line.

The second factor is cover. Like everything else, ionizing rays can get through certain things and can't get through others. Gamma rays get through everything with a lower density than multiple centimeters of lead and Neutron rays get through anything with a lower density than multiple meters of concrete. So, being underground or in the center of extremely thick buildings, as well as having resources necessary for survival, is key to surviving radiation after a nuke explodes.

The third factor is time. The human body can withstand different levels of radiation for different amounts of time. The easiest way to figure out how long you can stay exposed to how much, is with a dosimeter.

SO, YES, I AM TELLING YOU TO START DOOMSDAY PREPPING

The essentials, of which you should amass a stock that will last you multiple years in a secure location:

Non-perishable canned food

ABSURD amounts of drinking water

Distilled water for hygiene

Nonperishable Grain-based food

Long-lasting milk

Dried fruit and nuts

Eggs

Flour

Sugar

Honey

Salt

Black pepper (hurts like hell, but can be used as a coagulant to stop wounds from bleeding)

Paper towels

Trash bags

Hygiene gloves

Breathing masks

As much replacement clothing, especially outdoors and warm clothing, as you can get

Water treatment tools

Camping cooking equipment

Easily useable heat sources

Tools (Wrench, File, Screwdriver, Crowbar, Fire extinguisher, Knives, Compass, Hammer, Shovel, Pickaxe)

Physical maps

Hand crank-powered radio

Many spare batteries

Many spare rechargeable batteries

Battery charger

Means of power generation (hand crank, solar)

Flashlight

Radio phone

Backpacks

All the medicines you need

Bandages

Hygiene products

Antibiotics

Medicines against cold

Medicines against diarrhea

Disinfectant

Pastes against insect bites

Pastes against sunburn

Soap

Dosimeter

Geiger counter

Hazardous enviroments clothing

Helmets

Gloves

Cups

Buckets

Canisters for water

History books

Important works

A laptop

A smartphone

A camera (don't need it if you have a smartphone)

Print out important documents on put them in a folder

Analog data storage

Physical data storage (hard drives, flash drives, CDs, SD cards)

Devices to read data storage

Means for self-defense

Emergency plans with people you know

Similarly, a second American Civil War would also need Americans to prepare, in order to survive.

IF YOU LIVE ANYWHERE THAT'S NOT THE US, YOU WILL BE AFFECTED, TOO

Don't think the US are far enough away. Of course, the aforementioned nuclear war would affect you, but a second American Civil War and just Trump being re-elected will, too.

Even without WWIII or a second American Civil War, it's pretty clear that:

In Europe, this will invigorate the similar far-Right movements to bring about similar destructive changes as those Trump wants.

Trump will most likely abandon Ukraine like Afghanistan, meaning russia taking it over and attacking Western European countries afterward. Trump is completely on Putin's side and will also destroy NATO, meaning all of the US' allies, including those in Europe, will be abandoned. I live in Germany, which is seeing a rise in popularity by the far-Right AfD party, and which does not have the military means to defend itself against russian expansionism without the US.

With russia's war against Ukraine, China will feel invigorated to annex Taiwan, and just like with Ukraine, nationalist and authoritarian Trump will not do anything to stop it.

South Korea could be abandoned in the face of North Korea.

Trump will continue to support Israel in the Western Right's extremely hypocritical manner, most likely ordering more US military action in the Middle East.

ULTIMATELY, GIVE THEM THE FIGHT THEY WANT

I know that we liberals, progressives, people who don't care about politics and just want to build their own life and even former conservatives who deemed far-Righters like Trump too radical, never wanted a fight. We never wanted to fight for our values in Western society, against the values of those who demonize us. We were always ready to coexist with them, if only each side kept to themselves with living out its values and didn't impair the other.

But the far-Right fascists and religious zealots, with their leaders who don't mean a word of what they say and say anything they want to get power, have made this a fight. By electing a US President who promised to destroy democracy, eliminate women's and LGBTQ+ rights, oppress non-white ethnicities, censor media, give churches and capitalists unprecedented power and abandon all allied nations, the far-Right has declared war on everyone and everything that's true, moral or even just acceptable. Let's remember that they hate diversity, and that we are from many more groups and walks of life than them. Let's use this to our advantage and show to the fascists what happens when you give different people a common enemy.

[mariacallous]

Tomorrow is Election Day, the last day of voting in this tumultuous 2024 campaign. What a long, strange trip it's been. Just a year ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was challenging former president Trump for the GOP nomination by saying the word "woke" at least a hundred times a day while former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley competed for what's left of the "normie" Republican vote. A clown car full of grifters and kooks, meanwhile, used the primaries as an opportunity to suck up to Trump, whom everyone knew would inevitably be the nominee. After all, he'd been running non-stop since 2015.

Meanwhile on the Democratic side, incumbent president Joe Biden was an unchallenged shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. Most people felt he'd probably be able to replicate his 2020 win despite being unpopular due to a lingering hangover from the pandemic. After all, Trump had incited an insurrection and was facing lawsuits and felony trials in federal court and two different states stemming from a variety of alleged crimes. Surely, he couldn't possibly win after all that?

In the year since, Biden was revealed to be just too old to run for president again and was replaced by his younger vice president, Kamala Harris, who sparked a massive rise in enthusiasm among Democrats. Trump, meanwhile, has shown that his millions-strong cult of personality is fully intact and they are ecstatic about putting him back in the White House in spite of his many flaws (maybe even because of them.) We could find out the winner as soon as tomorrow night — or maybe not.

If it's as close as many of the pollsters say it is it could take a while before we know the final results. And it goes without saying that unless they call the race for him right away, Trump is planning to cry "fraud" and will do everything in his power to create the illusion that he won regardless of the count. So we can expect chaos. He's made that very clear.

The polls have more or less shown a tied race nationally and in the swing states for the past couple of months. Whether that's correct or not, we don't know. Because they missed some Trump voters in 2016 and 2020, everyone is on edge that the same thing has happened again despite the pollsters' going out of their way to correct the problem this time. With the polls this close that error could translate to a repeat of 2016 which has a whole lot of people losing sleep these last few weeks.

But something unexpected happened this past weekend that may have called those assumptions into question. The Des Moines Register poll, considered one of the best in all of politics due to pollster J. Ann Selzer's excellent track record, dropped its final poll of the cycle and it landed like a nuclear bomb. Iowa is a solid red state and the previous poll had Trump winning the state handily as expected. Now the numbers showed Harris beating Trump 47 - 44. Boom.

Iowa is one of the whitest states in the union, so race isn't a factor which makes it an interesting proxy for white voters in other swing states with similar populations (like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, for instance.) While Trump has maintained his base of men, evangelical voters, rural residents and non-college-educated voters, the poll found that women, specifically older and politically independent women, have swung in large numbers to Harris. And just as surprising, Harris is winning voters over 65, which has been a GOP base vote for decades. What in the world does this mean?

First, it's pretty clear that reproductive rights are driving this race for a whole lot of people. Iowa, in particular, is now living under a draconian six-week abortion ban that was upheld by its far-right Supreme Court last summer. Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his notorious opinion that "women are not without electoral or political power." It appears we may be about to find out the truth of that.

People expected that younger women would vote in large numbers on this issue but there seems to be some surprise that older women would be motivated to do so. Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno was caught on video bemoaning the "single issue" women voters and wondering why women over 50 would care about it.

I guess it's hard for right-wingers to understand why anyone would care about someone other than themselves. But it's more than that. The reversal of Roe v. Wade was deeply offensive to many women of all ages, something we could only see as a direct attack on our basic human rights by a group of men (and one very conservative woman) determined to turn back the clock to a time when women were literally second class citizens. Women can see where this is leading and it isn't toward freedom and equality — for any of us.

The Republican Party and its leader, a predator found legally liable for sexual assault, is running for election on a platform of flagrant misogyny. Donald Trump literally said, 'I was able to kill Roe v. Wade' until he belatedly realized it wasn't popular, at which point he came up with his fatuous rationale that "everyone wanted it to go back to the states." That is utterly absurd and most people know it. He's lately taken to saying that he'll be women's "protector" which, coming from him, is more of a threat. In fact, in recent days he's said that he'll  do it "whether the women like it or not."

Then you have his choice for running mate, JD Vance, who thinks that women should stay in abusive marriages, thinks abortion should be banned nationally even in cases of rape and incest and wants to prevent women from traveling out of state to obtain them (he now denies knowing about such efforts). And he famously believes that "childless cat ladies" are the cause of everything wrong in our culture and agrees that "the whole purpose of the post-menopausal female is child care."

And people are surprised that women of all ages are refusing to vote for these people?

This Iowa poll may be an outlier and all the chatter about this remarkable result will end up being nothing more than election year lore. Most analysts still seem to think that it's nearly impossible to believe that Harris will actually win Iowa. But this poll is one of the very few that caught the hidden angry non-college-educated Trump vote in 2016 and 2020. There is every reason to believe that it may be catching the hidden pissed-off college-educated and independent women Harris vote in 2024. Nothing would be more satisfying than for this voting block to be the one to spell the end of Donald Trump's political career. 

[socialistexan]

This is from the latest Siena College NYT poll, which is an incredibly solid poll with a good track record.

The only group Kamala Harris isn't more popular than Biden with is voters over 65 and non-college educated white men. That's it.

If you look at the raw percentages you can see that the total percentage of voters is higher, 30 to 44 goes from 92% decided to 95% for example.

So a lot of the gains Harris gets aren't from from people switching from Trump (though there are some), a lot of that is motivating either undecided or 3rd party voters to come over it her or from unmotivated voters who were turned away by Biden to show up.

It would still be tight, but Harris is running from a place where she can grow rather than be in a constant defensive position with way fewer question marks.

[dertaglichedan]

Colorado Voters Approve Excise Tax on Their Guns and Ammunition

Just over 54 percent of Colorado voters approved on Tuesday Proposition KK, which contains an excise tax on the in-state sale of guns and ammunition.

CBS News reported that roughly 1.3 million Colorado voters supported the proposition, while 1.1 million opposed it.

The approved tax is 6.5 percent, which means the price of $400 firearm will rise $26 and the price of a $1,000 firearm will increase by $65 because of the new tax.

MSN noted that the passage of Proposition KK makes Colorado the second state to place a tax on the tools of the Second Amendment. California adopted a similar, albeit higher, excise tax that took effect July 1, 2024.

CBS News pointed out that gun rights advocates fought against the tax, arguing that “law-abiding gun owners shouldn’t have to pay more than they already are.” They also noted that the tax will cause Colorado businesses to lose revenue, because many Coloradans will now purchase guns and ammunition out of state to avoid the tax.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jesse Duquette

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 2, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 03, 2024

Yesterday, in Time magazine, Eric Cortellessa explained that the electoral strategy of the Trump campaign was to get men who don’t usually vote, particularly young ones, to turn out for Trump. If they could do that, and at the same time hold steady the support of white women, Trump could win the election. So Trump has focused on podcasts followed by young men and on imitating the patterns of professional wrestling performances.

At the same time, he has promised to “protect women…whether the women like it or not,” and lied consistently about crime statistics to keep white suburban women on his side by suggesting that he alone can protect them. Today in Gastonia, North Carolina, for example, Trump told the audience: "They say the suburban women. Well, the suburbs are under attack right now. When you're home in your house alone and you have this monster that got out of prison and he's got, you know, six charges of murdering six different people, I think you'd rather have Trump."

The crime rate has dropped dramatically in the past year.

Rather than keeping women in his camp, Trump’s strategy of reaching out to his base to turn out low-propensity voters, especially young men, has alienated them. That alienation has come on top of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion. 

Early voting in Pennsylvania showed that women sent in 56% of the early ballots, compared to 43% for men. Seniors—people who remember a time before Roe v. Wade—also showed a significant split. Although the parties had similar numbers of registrants, nearly 59% of those over 65 voting early were Democrats. That pattern holds across all the battleground states: women’s early voting outpaces men’s by about 10 points. While those numbers are certainly not definitive—no one knows how these people voted, and much could change over the next few days—the enthusiasm of those two groups was notable. 

This evening, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll conducted by the highly respected Selzer & Co. polling firm from October 28 to 31 showed Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa 47% to 44% among likely voters. That outlying polling result is undoubtedly at least in part a reflection of the fact that Harris’s running mate is the governor of a neighboring state, but that’s not the whole story. While Trump wins the votes of men in Iowa by 52% to 38%, and of evangelicals by 73% to 20%, women, particularly older women, are driving the shift to favor Harris in a previously Republican-dominated state. 

Independent women back Harris by a 28-point margin, while senior women support her by a margin of more than 2 to 1, 63% to 28%. Overall, women back Harris by a margin of about 20 points: 56% to 36%. Seniors as a group including men as well as women are also strongly in Harris’s camp, by 55% to 36%.

A 79-year-old poll respondent said: “I like her policies on reproductive health and having women choosing their own health care, and the fact that I think that she will save our democracy and follow the rule of law…. [I]f the Republicans can decide what you do with your body, what else are they going to do to limit your choice, for women?”

The obvious driver for women and seniors to oppose Trump is the Dobbs decision. The loss of abortion care has put women’s lives at risk. Within days after the Supreme Court handed the decision down, we started hearing stories of raped children forced to give birth or cross state lines for abortions, as well as of women who have suffered or died from a lack of health care after doctors feared intervening in miscarriages would put them in legal jeopardy. 

As X user E. Rosalie noted, Iowa’s abortion ban also has long-term implications for the state. It has forced OBGYNs to leave and has made recruiting more impossible. As people are unable to get medical care to have babies, they will choose to live elsewhere, draining talent out of the state. That, in turn, will weaken Iowa’s economy.

That same process is playing out in all the states that have banned abortion. 

It seems possible that the Dobbs decision ushered in the end of the toxic American individualism on which the Reagan revolution was built. When he ran for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan set out to dismantle the active government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and protected civil rights. Such a government was akin to socialism, he claimed, and he insisted it stifled American individualism. 

In contrast to such a government, Reagan celebrated the mythological American cowboy. In his telling, that cowboy wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone to provide for and to protect his family. Good women in the cowboy myth were wives and mothers, in contrast to the women who wanted equal rights and jobs outside the home in modern America. That traditional image of American women had gotten legs in 1974, when the television show Little House on the Prairie debuted; it would run until 1983. Prairie dresses became the rage.

Reagan’s embrace of women’s role as wives and mothers brought traditionalist white Southern Baptists to his support. Those traditionalists objected to the government’s recognition of women’s equal rights because they believed equality undermined a godly patriarchal family structure. They made ending access to abortion their main issue. 

At the same time that the right wing insisted that women belonged in their homes, it socialized young men to believe in a mythological world based on guns and the domination of women. In 1980 the previously nonpartisan National Rifle Association endorsed Reagan, their first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate, and the rise of evangelical culture reinforced that dominant men must protect submissive women. 

When federal marshals tried to arrest Randy Weaver at his home in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in August 1992 for failure to show up in court for trial on a firearms charge, right-wing activists and neo-Nazis from a nearby Aryan Nations compound rushed to Ruby Ridge to protest what right-wing media insisted was simply a man protecting his family. 

The next February, when officers stormed the compound of a religious cult in Waco, Texas, whose former members reported that their leader was sexually assaulting children and stockpiling weapons, right-wing talk show hosts—notably Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones—blamed new president Bill Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno, for the ensuing gun battle and fire that killed 76 people. Reno was the first female attorney general, and right-wing media made much of the idea that a group of Christians had been killed by a female government official who was unmarried and—as opponents made much of—unfeminine. 

When he ran for office in 2015, Trump appealed to those men socialized into violence and dominance. He embraced the performance of dominance as it is done in professional wrestling, and urged his supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies. The Access Hollywood tape in which he boasted of sexual assault did not hurt his popularity with his base. He promised to end abortion rights and suggested he would impose criminal punishments on women seeking abortions. 

And then, in June 2022, thanks to the votes of the three religious extremists Trump put on it, the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, stripping women of a constitutional right that the U.S. government had recognized for almost 50 years. 

Justice Samuel Alito suggested that women could change state laws if they saw fit, writing in the decision that “women are not without electoral or political power.” Indeed, since the Dobbs decision, every time abortion rights have been on the ballot, voters have approved them, although right-wing state legislators have worked to prevent the voters’ wishes from taking effect. 

In this moment, though, it is clear that women have electoral and political power over more than abortion rights. 

The 1980 election was the first one in which the proportion of eligible female voters who turned out to vote was higher than the proportion of eligible men. It was also the first one in which there was a partisan gender gap, with a higher proportion of women than men favoring the Democrats. That partisan gap now is the highest it has ever been.

The fear that women can, if they choose, overthrow the patriarchal mythology of cowboy individualism that shaped the modern MAGA Republican Party is likely behind the calls of certain right-wing influencers and evangelical leaders to stop women from voting. For sure, it is behind the right-wing freak-out over the video voiced by actor Julia Roberts that reassures women that they do not have to tell their husbands how they voted. 

The right-wing version of the American cowboy was always a myth. Nothing mattered more for success in the American West than the kinship networks and community support that provided money, labor, and access to trade outlets. When the economic patterns of the American West replicated those of the industrializing East after the Civil War, success during the heyday of the cowboy depended on access to lots of capital, giving rise to western barons and then to popular political movements to regulate businesses and give more power to the people. Far from being the homebound wives of myth, women were central to western life, just as they have always been to American society. 

In Flagstaff, Arizona, today, Democratic presidential candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz told a crowd: “I kind of have a feeling that women all across this country, from every walk of life, from either party, are going to send a loud and clear message to Donald Trump next Tuesday, November 5, whether he likes it or not.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tanadrin]

Still getting polls where Harris is up 21 points with over-65 voters and Trump is up 10 points over 2020 with African Americans. The polling continues to be kinda cooked!

[bewires]

in 1959, for the first time after over half a century of trying over and over again, women in switzerland managed to get a vote going about whether women could vote

switzerland is a direct democracy, which means changes like this are put to a referendum. everyone eligible to vote can vote.

at the time, obviously, only men could vote.

the referendum failed. 66% of (male) voters voted against women's right to vote.

women didn't get the national right to vote in switzerland until 1971 (still decided by men). This time, 65% were in favor, although only about 58% of the eligible population voted, with some cantons even holding out until the early 90s for local elections.

if you do not or cannot go vote for yourself and your own rights, you cannot rely on other people to vote for your interests.

[tomorrowusa]

Ohio voters handed anti-abortion Republicans a stinging defeat. Those voters approved Issue 1 which puts reproductive freedom into the Ohio Constitution. The just passed amendment also protects the right to contraception and fertility treatment.

Results are still coming in. But with 85% of the votes counted, about 55.5% of Ohioans voted to protect reproductive freedom. And most of the remaining uncounted votes come from large urban counties which approved Issue 1 with over 65% of the vote.

Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that ensures access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care, the latest victory for abortion rights supporters since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Ohio became the seventh state where voters decided to protect abortion access after the landmark ruling and was the only state to consider a statewide abortion rights question this year. The outcome of the intense, off-year election could be a bellwether for 2024, when Democrats hope the issue will energize their voters and help President Joe Biden keep the White House. Voters in Arizona, Missouri and elsewhere are expected to vote on similar protections next year. Ohio’s constitutional amendment, on the ballot as Issue 1, included some of the most protective language for abortion access of any statewide ballot initiative since the Supreme Court’s ruling. Opponents had argued that the amendment would threaten parental rights, allow unrestricted gender surgeries for minors and revive “partial birth” abortions, which are federally banned. Before the Ohio vote, statewide initiatives in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont had either affirmed abortion access or turned back attempts to undermine the right. Issue 1 specifically declared an individual’s right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including birth control, fertility treatments, miscarriage and abortion.

It's a great victory for women and freedom in general. And it's a bad omen for GOP prospects in 2024.

Donald Trump carried Ohio both in 2016 and 2020. But the Republican insistence on controlling women's bodies will probably hurt the party there and elsewhere. And any attempt by the GOP to moderate its stand on abortion will result in major pushback by radical fundamentalist Christians who would like to return to the societal standards of the 17th century.

[cameoamalthea]

This is what the electoral map would look like of young voters voted at the same rate as voters over 65. But less than half of young Americans plan to vote in 2024.

Change your mind, change the world! VOTE

[jackmedwn]

Kyle Becker on X: "JUST IN: The Harris-Biden administration is reportedly using taxpayer funds to hide Medicare premium hikes from voters before the election. Voters over the age of 65 should pay close attention to the CON GAME the Harris campaign is running on them with taxpayer dollars. "In a https://t.co/8nAz7IPTE3" / X

[beardedmrbean]

For decades, Britain’s Left-wing elite has looked at Europe’s high-spending social model with a degree of awe.

France, Germany and Scandinavia have long been viewed, perhaps through rose-tinted spectacles, as examples of what the UK could be if governments were not so tight-fisted.

Under Sir Keir Starmer, Labour is determined to give the country a much bigger state. Official projections published alongside the Budget last month show government spending will settle at around 45pc of GDP.

Spending has never been sustained at these levels before, only reaching such highs briefly in the nation’s worst moments – including the pandemic, the financial crisis and the 1970s oil shocks.

So at last the UK has a chance of becoming the high-spending social democracy of Labour dreams.

It is unfortunate, then, that this is the moment Christine Lagarde has chosen to issue an extraordinarily vivid warning: Europe’s social models are utterly unsustainable.

Weak and uncompetitive economies risk running out of money to fund their sprawling welfare states unless they can reverse decades of relative decline and emulate America’s runaway success in tech, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) cautioned.

“Our productivity growth in Europe is progressively slowing, which means that our ability to generate income is diminishing. If left unchecked, we will face a future of lower tax revenues and higher debt ratios,” she said in a speech in Paris.

“We face a rising old-age dependency ratio which will drive up public spending on pensions. And it is estimated that governments will need to spend in excess of €1 trillion (£836bn) a year to meet our investment needs for climate change, innovation and defence.

“If we cannot raise productivity, we risk having fewer resources for social spending.”

Those pressures are only going to mount. Pensions, for instance, are becoming ever more expensive. More than one-fifth of the populations of Spain, Germany and France are now aged over-65. In Italy, almost one-quarter have reached that age. Two decades ago, none had more than 20pc in the cohort.

Projections from the United Nations show even more stark increases to come. In Italy, for instance, more than one-third of the population will be aged 65 or older by 2040.

In Britain, not only is the share of pensioners rising – despite increases to the state pension age – but the generosity of the benefits they receive is also increasing.

The triple lock means the state pension rises by the highest of inflation, wages or 2.5pc each year, meaning benefits paid out in old age are, over time, guaranteed to rise more quickly than the incomes of the people whose taxes cover the cost. Adding to that is the cost of healthcare for those pensioners.

As Lagarde put it: “We face and will continue to face growing expenditure arising from a changing security environment, ageing populations and the climate transition.”

Cutting back any of those benefits is appallingly hard, as successive British governments have found. Not unsurprisingly, voters whose taxes paid for previous generations of pensioners find it galling to be asked to receive less themselves.

Similarly in France, Emmanuel Macron faced widespread protests against his plans to raise the pension age. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally made big gains in this year’s general election, in part on promises to reverse the increase.

Costs are also growing for other age groups, with more generous childcare subsidies on offer in Britain, as well as a rising population of working-age benefits claimants.

Europe is ‘trailing behind’

If Europeans want to keep on enjoying such largesse, they need to find a way to pay the bills, says Lagarde.

“Europe is under pressure. The rapid pace of technological change triggered by the digital revolution has left us trailing behind,” said the ECB president and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

“We need to adapt quickly to a changing geopolitical environment and regain lost ground in competitiveness and innovation. Failure to do so could jeopardise our ability to generate the wealth needed to sustain our economic and social model, which the vast majority of Europeans nevertheless hold dear.”

While the US economy roared back from Covid, Europe’s recovery was distinctly underwhelming, with Germany effectively failing to grow at all from its 2019 level. But the problem is not just a lockdown after-effect.

Over the past 20 years, productivity has grown twice as fast in the US as in the eurozone. Output for every hour worked has climbed by more than one-quarter in America compared to less than 13pc in the single currency area.

In Britain the situation is even worse, with productivity up by less than one-tenth.

The world’s largest companies illustrate the problem. By market capitalisation, the biggest five – each worth more than $2 trillion – are all American, led by Apple. All are also tech companies – chip-maker Nvidia, Microsoft, Google-owner Alphabet, and Amazon.

In sixth place, at a mere $1.8 trillion, is the first non-American entry, Saudi Aramco, the state oil company.

Most of the top 20 are American. The first European company is in 25th place – Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, famed for its manufacture of Ozempic and Wegovy, and worth the best part of half a trillion dollars.

The biggest European tech company is SAP, a relatively unsung German titan of business technology, and the 37th-largest listed company globally.

The industries in which Europe was traditionally a world leader are under growing threat.

Germany’s car industry is struggling to compete with cheap electric vehicles from China and fashion and luxury groups are at risk from tariffs if president-elect Donald Trump makes good on his campaign policy to impose border taxes of 10pc or even 20pc on imported goods.

LVMH, the 34th-biggest company and star of French industry, ranks highly on Morgan Stanley’s list of businesses which are exposed to US tariffs, because of the large share of products which the luxuries group sells over the Atlantic.

It is also exposed to any slowdown in trade with China, showing how exposed Europe has become to geopolitical tensions.

Lagarde says the Continent risks a “middle-technology trap”.

“We are specialised in technologies that were mostly developed in the last century. Only four of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European,” she said.

“Unlike in the past, Europe is no longer at the forefront of progress. Our productivity growth – the key factor driving our long-term prosperity – is diverging from the US.”

On top of that come trade wars, and the cost of military wars with Russia the most immediate threat, for which the continent is under-prepared.

As Lagarde notes, it was only wealth that generated the taxes to pay for Europe’s welfare states in the first place.

The sun is setting on European-style welfarism. Sir Keir must take note – growth has to come first.

[darkmaga-returns]

A poll found that a majority of Americans – 60 percent – "strongly oppose" the Democratic Party's "transgender agenda." Despite this, Vice President Kamala Harris still heavily campaigned on protecting and expanding transgender rights.

In the recent survey conducted by Rasmussen reports on over 2,000 voters between Oct. 22 to 24, 65 percent expressed opposition to transgender women competing in sports with biological women. Out of this number, 50 percent said they "strongly oppose" the idea while 15 percent were "somewhat opposed" to the idea.

Only 25 percent of voters expressed support for transgender women – biological men – being able to compete in women's sports, with 11 percent of saying they "strongly support" it while 14 percent said they "somewhat support" it.

The survey also found that when asked if they supported the idea of biological men who identify as transgender using women's restrooms, 64 percent expressed opposition. Out of this number, 53 percent said they "strongly oppose" the idea, while 11 percent said they "somewhat oppose" the idea.

Almost 30 percent of likely voters surveyed expressed that they supported transgender men being able to use women’s restrooms. Out of this number, 13 percent said they "strongly support" the idea, while 16 percent said they "somewhat support" it.

The survey also found that 64 percent of likely voters oppose "taxpayer funding for transgender medical treatments." Out of this number, 52 percent "strongly oppose" the idea, while 12 percent "somewhat oppose" it. Only less than 30 percent express support, with 12 percent saying they "strongly support" the idea and 16 percent saying they "somewhat support" it.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 31, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 01, 2024

House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has responded to news stories about his plan to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) by claiming his comments at the closed-door campaign event on Monday were taken out of context. But they weren’t. The tape is clear. Johnson said that Republicans want “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” When an attendee asked, “No Obamacare?” Johnson laughed and agreed: “No Obamacare. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” 

MAGA Utah senator Mike Lee reposted the video of Johnson and commented: “Kill Obamacare now[.]”

Trump today posted on social media that he never mentioned repealing the Affordable Care Act, “never even thought of such a thing.” But this was either a memory lapse or a lie, because in 2016 he ran on repealing the ACA and his 2016 platform called for “a full repeal of Obamacare.” Within hours of taking office in 2017, Trump issued an executive order weakening the law, and when the Republican-dominated House voted to repeal the law, Trump held a celebration in the Rose Garden and declared the ACA “essentially dead.” 

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) bucked Trump to protect the ACA then, and Trump began this year’s campaign with a promise to get rid of it before backing off. Even still, the vague promise in the 2024 platform to “increase Transparency, promote Choice and Competition, and expand access to new Affordable Healthcare” sounds a lot like Johnson’s promise to restore “the free market” to health care. 

While Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has been campaigning in the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Trump today held a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a state President Joe Biden won by almost 11 points in 2020 and that Democrats are likely to win in 2024. Trump had to hold the rally at a private airplane hangar after city officials refused to rent the Albuquerque Convention Center to the campaign because it still owes Albuquerque almost $445,000 from a similar rally in 2019.  

Once there, he made it clear he was trying to repair some of the damage caused by the extraordinary racism and sexism on display at his Sunday rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, where a comedian called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” 

Courting offended voters, he said: “Don’t make me waste a whole damn half a day here, OK? Look, I came here. We can be nice to each other, or we can talk turkey. I’m here for one simple reason: I like you very much, and it’s good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community.” That outreach might not be enough to bring back the voters lost after the Madison Square Garden event.

The campaign is seeing other weaknesses, as well. Meredith McGraw and Jessica Piper of Politico reported today that nearly half of the ballots already cast in Pennsylvania have come from voters over the age of 65, and although the numbers of registered older voters are divided evenly between the parties, registered Democrats have made up about 58% of Pennsylvania’s early votes, compared to 35% for Republicans. Those numbers might well simply reflect different approaches to mail-in ballots, but they also might explain why Trump is already claiming fraud in Pennsylvania. 

He is also seemingly nervous about Pennsylvania because women are voting there at a much higher rate than men in the early vote: 56% to 43%. And Democratic women are the biggest group of new voters in the state. New voters who were too young eight years ago to hear the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, have been hearing it on TikTok lately, as younger users record their reactions to it and call out their older male relatives for voting for anyone who would talk as Trump did. 

“I moved on her, and I failed,” Trump says in the tape. “I’ll admit it. I did try and f*ck her…. I moved on her like a b*tch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married,” Trump said. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful— I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p*ssy. You can do anything,” he said.

The Harris campaign and pro-Harris organizations leaned into the history of women’s suffrage today with videos highlighting those who fought so that women could vote and reiterating: “We are not going back.” To assist those women who might not feel safe letting their husbands know how they voted, women have been posting notes in women’s public bathrooms assuring other women that their vote is secret. A Democratic advertisement voiced by actress Julia Roberts powerfully makes the point that women do not have to tell their husbands how they vote.

Right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk have expressed alarm at the gender gap in voting. As well, there has been a right-wing backlash to the idea that women will vote for Harris while letting their husbands assume they’re voting for Trump.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who famously cheated on both of his first two wives, expressed dismay at the idea that a woman might need to keep her vote secret from her husband. “For them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption,” he said. “How do you run a country…saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?”

On the Fox News Channel’s The Five this morning, host Jesse Watters said that if he found out his wife “was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair…. That violates the sanctity of our marriage.” Christian pastor Dale Partridge posted: “In a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction. He is the head and they are one. Unity extends to politics. This is not controversial.” But, he added, “submission does have limits. A wife doesn’t need to submit to her husband in sin (in this case voting democrat).”

Tonight, at an event with right-wing host Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, Trump seemed to move beyond misogyny to murderous intent. He turned his increasingly violent rhetoric against former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has urged Republican women to vote against Trump. “She’s a radical war hawk,” he said, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”  

Carlson is friendly with authoritarian Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has undermined democracy in his own country and is close to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Today Orbán posted that he had “Just got off the phone with President [Trump]. I wished him the best of luck for next Tuesday. Only five days to go. Fingers crossed[.]“

Meanwhile, a lot more major endorsements for Harris have been coming in. 

Today basketball legend LeBron James released a powerful one-minute ad with clips of Trump’s many racist statements and drawing a straight line from him back to the most violent days of the civil rights movement. “HATE TAKES US BACK,” it says. In a post sharing the video, James wrote: “When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!” James has 53 million followers on X. 

The Economist today endorsed Harris, warning that “a second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks.” Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg also posted on social media that he had voted for Harris “without hesitation,” and added that he hoped undecided voters would join him. “Trump is not fit for high office,” he wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed. He praised Harris’s positive vision and bipartisan outreach. 

Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published an op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday, titled: “My Fellow Republicans, It’s Time to Say ‘Enough’ With Trump.” The former president is unfit for office, Luttig wrote. “When we entrusted our Constitution and our democracy to him before, he betrayed us.” Luttig assured readers that “[t]here  could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate” Trump.

He reminded his fellow Republicans that they had always “proudly claimed they would be the first to put the country above all else when the time came. That time has come…. ​​All Americans, but especially Republicans, will live with their decision the rest of their lives.” “The choice for America next Tuesday,” Luttig wrote, “could not be clearer.”

Ever since Vice President Harris tapped Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, Democratic governors have been demonstrating their support for one of their own. Today, for Halloween, Democratic  governors Wes Moore of Maryland, Janet Mills of Maine, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Phil Murphy of New Jersey each dressed to match a photograph of Walz.

“No tricks this Halloween!” Whitmer posted. “Just dressing up as our friend [Tim Walz]—excited to elect him and [Kamala Harris]. If you haven’t yet, make a plan to vote: http://iwillvote.com[.]”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON