Hello, and welcome to the Guardian’s brand new US election newsletter.
Here’s what you need to know …
1. Trump’s mouth gets him further into debt
Donald Trump already owes $454m as a result of his civil fraud case in New York, and has been ordered to pay $88.3m to E Jean Carroll over a defamation lawsuit. Given Trump struggled to find the money for the former, the last thing he needed was to be fined $9,000 in his New York criminal trial, after he attacked witnesses online. Could the judge give him jail time if he does it again?
2. Biden’s banter bus
“The 2024 election is in full swing and yes, age is an issue,” Joe Biden said at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday. “I’m a grown man running against a six-year-old.” The joke continued Biden’s transition from grownup-in-the-room to Burn King in Chief, with the president and his campaign increasing their mocking attacks on Trump’s golf game, finances and mental aptitude.
Could student protesters turn the 2024 election?
Tensions on university campuses, already high as a wave of pro-Palestinian encampment-style protests sweeps the US, got even higher overnight.
The protests, which have seen students pitch tents or occupy buildings at Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and others, began as an effort to get universities to ditch investments in companies which provide weapons and equipment to the Israeli military.
I have friends in their 70s who talk to me about their life experiences here in Canada and what they grew up with. A lot of them were in college during the 1970s so they got to live through the whole Vietnam war era.
They are proud of what students are doing now.
They keep reminding me that their generation helped to stop wars overseas … and if they did it in the past … students can do it again.
Yes, and I think that’s why we’re seeing such quick and drastic measures being taken against student protesters - too many powerful people know that these protests will be effective if allowed to continue.
Brown has already capitulated. It’s just a matter of time.
Never bet against youth.
Yeah, some of the most effective people are those that don’t know the task is “impossible”. They figure out a way.
If the news could get their collective heads out of their asses and stop validating the right wing freakshow by giving them tons of airtime, then yes, students could also potentially sway the election.
I’m trying to find sources, but I’m pretty sure they cracked own on these protests faster than they did Occupy Wall Street, which took 59 days.
They want this one put down now.
If they sway it, it’ll be to Trump. There is no chance of a third-party candidate getting elected, and Trump’s base will still vote for him even if he’s convicted of all 88 charges. It’s going to be worse for Palestinians, not to mention Ukrainians, Taiwanese, migrants/immigrants, and Americans.
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More cruel than separating parent from child, deporting the parents while keeping the children in detention centers, only to sexually and physically abuse them?
Biden repealed Title 42, Trump’s immigration policy. They are not the same.
I absolutely hate it when news corporations say any form of “here’s what you need to know”… What I hear is “here’s what we WANT you to know”… And I assume what follows well be mostly bullshit and propaganda
Give me all the information in an unbiased factual way, and let ME decide what I need to know
Could student protesters turn the 2024 election?
Turn it over to the fascist that is probably collecting the names of arrestees to strip citizenship from & exile from the USA?
If you think this SCotUS won’t allow it, you’re a fucking moron.
If you think this SCotUS won’t allow it, you’re a fucking moron.
If Trump wins, I don’t think it even matters what SCRotUS thinks, he’s going to go full-dictator mode and make institutions like that redundant.
He’ll try to pretend he will defer to them, but he’s a fucking psychopath, so the second one of them even looks at him the wrong way, the entire thing will be burned down for Trump’s benefit. Leopards eating faces and all that, you know.
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Ahh, the old “let’s underestimate the largest demographic of legal adults” strat.
Let’s see if it pays off.
I’m confused. Are you saying college students represent the largest demographic of legal adults? Because I don’t think that is correct.
No, 18-22 year olds do. Usually.
Just because an 18-22 year old isn’t enrolled in a college doesn’t mean they won’t go to a campus to protest.
Wait, so you are saying that there are more 18-22 year olds than everybody else aged 23 and older? That also does not sound correct.
There are MANY different sub groups of adults aged 23+. It doesn’t sound at all like they’re lumping 23-year olds with 93-year olds…
I hope that is the case and that I am just confused with how things were worded.
I still don’t know who the “largest demographic of legal adults” is that they referenced, but some mysteries are destined to remain unanswered.
Sadly that strategy does in fact ordinarily pay off because the young people that make up the largest demographic of legal adults notoriously underperforms when it comes to voting.
Bidens response to the protests will probably lose him the election. It seems like he’s trying to lose to trump.
There is a growing movement that don’t want to vote this election on purpose as protest… yes I know it’s stupid, and I agree.
“Police sources say most of the protesters arrested were not Columbia students, but rather “mostly professionals.””
So if students aren’t even the ones protesting, how can they possibly turn an election? 🤔
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Could student protesters turn the 2024 election?
All it will do is make the youth stay home. They will see both parties as the corporate-owned jack-booted thugs that they are, and they’ll decline to vote for either party.
Democrats, as always, will blame the voters for their own shortcomings with their own voting base. If they lose they will also spend a lot of time asserting, without evidence, that actually the youth turned out in droves for Trump, and it’s all their fault. All while they hop on jets to get out of the fucking country before The Trump Purge starts, because they don’t actually care how the outcome affects us, the citizens.
They already showed us once they won’t actually stand in the way of a coup. The Democrats may as well be the Uvalde cops, sitting outside the school while Trump shoots up everybody inside.
Democrats, as always, will blame the voters for their own shortcomings with their own voting base. If they lose they will also spend a lot of time asserting, without evidence, that actually the youth turned out in droves for Trump, and it’s all their fault. All while they hop on jets to get out of the fucking country before The Trump Purge starts, because they don’t actually care how the outcome affects us, the citizens.
When I read this, it feels like you came to this conclusion by studying a cork board with pushpins and red string tying disparate ideas together to try to form one simple answer that explains everything. Like most of the times people do that, ts so far outside of being even possibly true because of all the logical leaps you have to make you end up sounding paranoid and crazy.
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A lot of words to be a walking example of “media literacy is dead.”
You are in a really bad place when you’re adopting the rhetoric of “Always Accuse Your Enemies of Your Own Sins”. Its not a good look on you.
I can assure you, that’s not the case, even though you’d like to think so. Also, “Always Accuse Your Enemies of Your Own Sins” has been working out gangbusters for Trump and the Republican party in general, and frankly, that’s fucking scary, so I don’t feel like I’m out of line for thinking Democrats are pussies in the face of this authoritarian threat.
Like why did the Democrats feel the need to hand Merrick Garland the AG position as a “consolation prize?” Garland literally waited to investigate Trump only after it became clear he was not going to return top secret national security files. Garland literally waited until Trump became so criminally belligerent he could no longer justify ignoring it.
How the fuck is that a show of strength? That’s some pussy shit in the face of real fucking villainy. Like I said, equivalent of Uvalde cops, afraid to stand up for us.
Also, “Always Accuse Your Enemies of Your Own Sins” has been working out gangbusters for Trump and the Republican party in general, and frankly, that’s fucking scary
I agree is fucking scary, which is why I was concerned you were doing it yourself. Its right out of the MAGA playbook these days.
so I don’t feel like I’m out of line for thinking Democrats are pussies in the face of this authoritarian threat.
I’m curious what your recommended strategy is. MAGAs are clearly pushing, bending, breaking the rules of democracy. Its terrifying. Democrats aren’t (except in some isolated cases). Are you advocating for Democrats to do the same as MAGA?
Like why did the Democrats feel the need to hand Merrick Garland the AG position as a “consolation prize?”
For the most part Garland was a vetted and reasonably trusted individual from the work done to put him on the Supreme Court.
Garland literally waited to investigate Trump only after it became clear he was not going to return top secret national security files. Garland literally waited until Trump became so criminally belligerent he could no longer justify ignoring it.
Garland was trying to avoid a Constitutional crisis and avoid the collapse of the fairly loose rules the Executive has to get their job done. The reason the loose rules have been in place to-date, and the reason they needed to be loose, was to allow the Executive, charged with the very difficult task of leadership to lead taking hard actions and making hard decisions. The office was never prepared for the Executive to be a bad faith actor.
So whats the result? Do we throw out all the loose rules and write hard and narrow rules for the Executive? How’s that going to work when desicions the office of the President makes are literally precedent setting on a nearly daily basis? Does he/she have to run to the Supreme Court every time a decision is made, and if so, how does that not just transfer an unbalanced amount of power from the Executive to the Judicial?
These are crazy hard questions to answer with far FAR reaching consequences. I don’t blame Garland a bit in trying to avoid facing them and collapsing the system that has held our country together for just over 200 years.
How the fuck is that a show of strength? That’s some pussy shit in the face of real fucking villainy.
A show of strength? Thats more MAGA type talk. Our democracy can’t be just boiled down to an absolute copy of team sports. It will collapse even faster than it is already.
Like I said, equivalent of Uvalde cops, afraid to stand up for us.
Again, what actual actions are you proposing the Democrats do that isn’t itself ignoring the rule of law and becoming the authoritarians we’re accusing them of working toward?
Would Garland having started the investigation of Trump on January 7th, 2021 been the Democrats ignoring the rule of law?
I’m just some schmuck dude, so I don’t have an expert plan to solve it all, but I keep seeing clear misses where there are opportunities to do something about this and we choose not to. I don’t have a plan for the future, but I’m smart enough to keep seeing fucking own-goals.
We’ve been putting off nailing down the issue since Nixon stepped down and was pardoned by his successor. The fact that we’ve avoided the hard questions that long isn’t the flex you think it is.
Avoiding those questions is why we let war criminals Bush and Cheney off the hook, and they paved the way for this. Literally, avoiding the question is the problem.
Yeah it’s hard and will have far reaching consequences. That’s how everything is. Putting it off because it’s hard is pussy shit and more importantly enables Republican abuse.
I’ve also literally had Democrats talking down to me exactly like this my whole fucking life (even though I’m a fucking Democratic voter…), because I have the audacity to critique them for being milquetoast pussies who don’t stand up for their constituents. There has never been a point in my 25 years of voting where I’ve voted anything but downticket blue, but fuck me for being willing to say “still not enough” I guess. Like, that’s how you depress voter turnout from your own voters, browbeating them for asking for better.
Patty Fucking Murray, a Washington Democrat, agreed with Ted Cruz that airlines should be able to keep my fucking money if they cancel my flight. Real nice fuckin lady. Real standup for her constituents, my ass. These people are influenced by corporate lobbyists just the same as Republicans are, almost all of them have cushy lobbying jobs or Talking Head jobs lined up when they leave.
EDIT: Further, on the whole “The Democrats must follow the law” bit. I’m reminded of Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail:
First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Those last two sentences in there are where I am at with folks like yourself.
Would Garland having started the investigation of Trump on January 7th, 2021 been the Democrats ignoring the rule of law?
Yes it would have been ignoring the rule of law because Garland wasn’t appointed AG until more than 3 months later on March 11, 2021. source
Ignoring the Garland part, everyone was still getting over the shock and sorting out the details of Jan 6th 24 hours after your proposed start. The democrats started the impeachment of Trump started on Jan 25 2021 a mere 18 days later. That wasn’t fast enough for you? source
I’m just some schmuck dude, so I don’t have an expert plan to solve it all, but I keep seeing clear misses where there are opportunities to do something about this and we choose not to. I don’t have a plan for the future, but I’m smart enough to keep seeing fucking own-goals.
You see opportunities to do something, but ignoring the dire consequences of doing those things. Then accuse others of inaction when they don’t do them? That’s of you disingenuous, isn’t it? Why is it we’re 6 posts deep before you admit that you don’t even know what do to yet claim others should?
We’ve been putting off nailing down the issue since Nixon stepped down and was pardoned by his successor. The fact that we’ve avoided the hard questions that long isn’t the flex you think it is.
I agree its the same problem from the Nixon-era, but here you are again saying we should have done something, yet don’t acknowledge the horrible consequences of doing it. So brave.
Avoiding those questions is why we let war criminals Bush and Cheney off the hook, and they paved the way for this. Literally, avoiding the question is the problem.
The Bush/Cheney Iraq stuff is bad, but not Constitutional Crisis bad. Mixing the Nixon and Trump crises in with Bush dilutes the importance of addressing Trump. That doesn’t help anybody.
Yeah it’s hard and will have far reaching consequences. That’s how everything is. Putting it off because it’s hard is pussy shit and more importantly enables Republican abuse.
You understand that you and I and everyone alive right now has enjoyed almost 50 years of some of the highest standard of living on the planet. What you casually toss around as what should be a solved problem would likely have shaken that to its knees and sent us and the world into a tailspin that would have taken many decades to recover from, if ever.
Your bravado undersells that drastic actions that would unfold from that. You get no credibility to me from simply yelling it must be different without being part of the change and accepting the consequences. It certainly looks like you are simply washing your hands of it and expecting others to come up with all the answers and pay the price. I’m sorry, but that’s just not how the real adult world works.
What office are you running for?
Dog catcher.
Wow. Big dreams eh. Well, good luck!
