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This could be right, but people said Trump could never win the candidacy in 2015, never win the election in 2016, and the same again this time round.

The difference, of course, is that Trump was not prevented from competing by the Republican establishment, even though they loathed him as much as anyone!

Fun story!

Even though it is sometimes tempting, I try to avoid making sweeping statements about US / UK parallels as, while I know a bit about the UK end from having been active in the labour party for a few years, I don't have any first hand knowledge of the US.
I welcome insights from people who do have first hand experience of both, though!

No-one can prove Kennedy would have developed enough momentum from shredding Biden in a debate to turn the primary, but the whole point of the primary system is to test candidates out so you select the best one.

If you need to shield your guy because you know he would be shown up badly in a contest, then you have basically abandoned democratic ideals and fixed the process.

I think Kennedy would have shredded trump too, if there has been a three way debate after he went as an independent. But the republicans and Democrats together made sure that was never going to happen.

Just saw this on twitter: 120k

https://x.com/MacaesBruno/status/1854848340233453586?t=CiNjckm3bvT4YX_XSWoPiQ&s=19

hard to see him losing the primary

He would have been utterly shredded by Kennedy, and anyone else for that matter, in a primary debate. And they really did not want Kennedy as their candidate.

The reason they didn't have a primary is because Biden would have lost.

I deleted my references to UK parallels as I didn't want to derail the thread!
But certainly the right wing of the Labour party are the soulmates of the Democrats.

You are correct that there was a legitimate argument not to have one, as well as an argument to have one - these things are never completely black and white.

And the fact that they went for the controlling, top-down option illustrates that that is the type of people they are. In the same way they kept telling voters that the election was about the first woman president, preserving democracy (ironically!) and whatever else, when voters kept telling them it was about the economy and inflation.

They are just non-democratic people who think they know best and don't listen.

Some people find it convenient and comforting to dismiss things that don't fit with their world view in that way.

I happen to believe that the primaries in 2016 and 2020 were skewed by the DNC to avoid a Sanders victory. But let's say for argument's sake that they weren't. Why then did they decide not to hold a primary this year when they had two challenging candidates demanding one?

Don't say it was because they had a sitting president, because the immediate precedent was 1980 when they did have a primary.

What? They ran a full primary in both 2016 and 2020.

It is widely believed that they were rigged, to ensure that an on message candidate, ie not Sanders, won the nomination.

eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak

I would be inclined to go clockwise to get the wind all the way up the west coast, which must be far longer, and just suck it up on the south coast.

I think it is the collapse of an empire. From here it continues to get worse, at an accelerating speed. What exactly that looks like I don't know, but I agree that it won't be pretty.

The US has had a good innings but the end is in sight!

I think the Dems are significantly worse than most - or better depending on your view.

For example I don't believe that a left Trump equivalent could win the Dem nomination. We saw that Bernie - who is a pretty mainstream social democrat - couldn't win his party's nomination while Trump - who is significantly more extreme - did. A US political activist once told me that the Dems were significantly less democratic than the Republicans.

The Dems haven't had an open primary since 2008.

The Dems would rather have a shit candidate who was under control than risk an open primary process leading to an off message candidate, eg Kennedy.

Keeping control in the hands of the leadership is more important to them than winning.

I guess if he's pushing back so much, he clearly thinks he's done nothing wrong. Maybe someone who speaks German can ask him like he suggests

I've done a 'request to follow..."

I've just done a quick search as I remembered similar. It looks like he hinted at it in a speech, and told advisors that he'd only serve one term, but then pulled back from it.

https://www.axios.com/2024/07/03/biden-campaign-democrats-pledge-one-term

The big picture: Biden never made an explicit public promise to serve
just one term — though Politico reported that he had privately told
advisers that he wouldn't run again. Between the lines: Biden's
campaign comments likely signaled that he was only running because of
who his opponent was, Anthony Fowler, a professor at the University of
Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, told Axios.

"You could argue he's trying to kind of have it both ways. He's trying
to kind of tell people, 'Don't worry, I'm only running for one term,'
without ever actually explicitly promising that," Fowler said.

It's only the 'Explore' function which is not nearly as powerful as the old 'Find'.

I had a long chat with them at the time. They explained that they weren't able to keep the old search capability as it was old tech, not supported. I understood their issues, but it was a big loss.

I still pay for it as I've got so much use and pleasure out of it over the years, and it's way better than Komoot, Strava or anything else I've seen, but it's just not as good - for what I want - as it used to be!

I said that I have serious concerns with where we are heading, power of big tech, etc, so don't disagree with you about that.

The biggest problem with legacy media is not making stuff up but opinion being passed off as fact, which we now can see happens all the time. We (or I, certainly) didn't know it used to happen until we got alternative sources. Now it's clear we were led to believe all sorts of things that were simply not true. We were propagandised.

Regulation of legacy media is very weak. They headed off Leveson 2.

EDIT - I take that back. I don't think the 'XXX is pravda' framing is helpful but I think we have seen legacy media making up loads of stuff. The recent one was the North Korean division in Ukraine. But there has been loads of other fabricated stuff on Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, etc, etc that has turned out to be propoganda.

The reporting on the Corbyn period was scandalously bad - although that was more dishonest framing than making stuff up, because it is harder to get away with that in the UK. Although there certainly were attempts to make things up. One that springs to mind was when the Tory advisor was supposed to have been attacked by a mob of Labour supporters, but they had to drop the story when someone had the video showing it didn't happen.

Some good stuff but they'll never make up for losing the ability to search for routes!

The parliamentary election this year was really hard fought, no?

You've basically got 3 blocks, left, right and Macronist. The macronists didn't do well.

The left and right blocs both have established charismatic leaders with big personal franchises : Melenchon and Le Pen, while Macron is ineligible and his successor, philippe or whoever, will be less well known.

I don't know who will win between left and right but the only bet I would put on now would be against the macronists winning.

No. I just fancied a punt on this as it seemed like easy money!

I made a little bit betting on Biden last time. But I well remember having a 3am panic when it looked like it was a lot closer than I expected!

Mainstream media has told some whoppers over the years but it's hardly Pravda

I disagree with that, I think mainstream media owned by oligarchs like murdoch is horrifically propagandised and new media actually opens things up a bit. Sure there are risks, but I think that, rather from coming to a bad place from a good one, we are coming to a bad place from a horrendous one.

A bit - mainly on the swing states and on a couple of safe ones. The odds on most of them were pretty short so needed to stake ££ to win a little bit. Still waiting for the last two states to be called and the electoral college to be finalised, so hopeful of a bit more to come.

I thought Harris would win the popular vote though, would have done a lot better if she had!

OK, France. Le Pen is favourite. The macronist is second

I still can't help but blame the voters.

Not sure if you are serious or satyrising the dems. But the electorate got the result that most of them wanted. It might not have been what you wanted, but why does 'blame' come into it?

The French system combines the worst elements of fptp and pr. And they can only keep that trick running so long. Who is macron's successor? Can you be as certain whoever he puts up is going to beat le pen next time?

I'll go and have a peek at the being on it now and report back..

I would guess that the polling issue is that some demographic group or groups that pollsters expected to turn out for Kamala Harris didn't turnout in the way they did for Biden in 2020.

It's not that, it's that the polls have underestimated Trump in the past and they did so again. It's not everywhere all the time but it's enough places enough of the time. It explained the results in five out of the seven swing states.

It might be that as well, I suppose...