This year’s US election will shape the rest of the world – buckle up

Published

5 months ago

January 4, 2024

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Maybe my perspective is skewed, overconsumption of global events perhaps, but it feels to me unnervingly like we’re nearing a perfect storm right now.

Out of a chaotic global pandemic, humanity seems to have lurched into deeply uncertain times.

We tend to struggle to focus on more than one crisis at a time, but we are facing them on multiple fronts.

While headlines have focused on the Middle East these past few months, war in Ukraine has been grinding on, our climate continues to warm at alarming rates, AI has been coming on leaps and bounds, and behind all that, democratic structures we have taken for granted are being tested to their limits.

That’s mentioning just a few of the discombobulating challenges swirling around.

The pessimists (or are they realists?) have tended to attach an ‘existential’ tag to the most dominant crisis of the moment. And in 2023 the tag has been attached to all the challenges above.

That’s not to say similar storms haven’t been experienced before. But memories are short, experience doesn’t tend to cross generations and history has a knack of repeating itself.

Politics has caused and shaped these crises. And in turn they are now shaping the political map ahead.

Buckle up

As we head into 2024, a year when 75% of the world’s democracies will hold elections, it feels to me that it’s a year to buckle up.

My focus over the year ahead will be the United States where surely the world’s most important election will take place. I hesitate to make predictions a year out – so much could yet change.

There may well be an upset of some sort – a bombshell court verdict, an illness or something else entirely – but for now it looks set to be Biden versus Trump, again.

The fact that most Americans yearn for a young, fresh face – whether they be Democratic or Republican – but are probably stuck with two elderly men each flawed in their own way, suggests that the mechanics of American democracy are broken.

More than that though – the polls suggest there is, across America, an anti-Trump majority – all Democrats plus a proportion of Republicans. Yet, the same flawed mechanics still give Trump a path to the White House.

As I said, it would be foolish to make any predictions about Donald Trump’s chances.

But we can say this: as he tries to win again, with a powerful base of support, the structures of American democracy and the constitution itself are being put under almighty, perhaps unprecedented, stress.

The nine justices of the nation’s Supreme Court will be asked to wrestle with and untangle huge constitutional challenges. Their position demands that they do so objectively, putting aside political affiliations, but in a deeply divided nation, that will be subjected to huge scrutiny.

A Trumpian return

We can also predict, with the benefit of hindsight, what a second Trump term might look like.

Were he to win in November, expect a mountain of ‘executive orders’ on hour one after the inauguration, undoing all of Biden’s work.

The great disrupter would surround himself with his very closest allies; people who will not stand in his way.

Remember, during his last presidency, when he rattled the world, a cast of characters did stand in his way.

The people he appointed – among them HR McMaster, Bill Barr, John Bolton and his own Vice-President Mike Pence – provided the internal checks and balances. They blocked his most radical ideas from becoming a reality.

This time, should he find himself back in the White House, he will be Trump the avenger; ‘a dictator for one day’, in his own words. His team will be rock-solid loyalists.

We know what he would be like because he spells it out at every rally.

Expect the return of the 2016-era policies but this time with the chances of completion much higher.

His focus would be America-first to the delight of many Americans who wonder why their country busies itself with faraway wars like Ukraine, but to the horror of globalists who still believe in the merits of American leadership.

The western alliance would be tested once again, but this time would Donald Trump follow through on threats like leaving the NATO alliance?

Those close to him suggest it may just be a threat to get other member nations to pay more again. They point out that it worked before, to an extent.

How would a resurrection of his Abraham Accords play out? Stewarding the reset between Israel and some gulf Arab nations was, he’d say, his landmark foreign policy achievement.

Could ‘the disrupter’, whose foreign policy lieutenants will not be establishment folk, cast a masterstroke even in wake of the Middle East crisis right now?

What about Ukraine? He says he would find peace in 24 hours. But would that require a capitulation to Putin, ceding him Ukrainian land in the east?

Of course, all of this talk of ‘Trump 2.0’ is getting way ahead of many hugely uncertain months for America.

But the issues above – Ukraine, the Middle East, America’s place in the world – will be directly impacted as America chooses its direction this coming year.

Global events shaped by small-town America

In real-time, we will watch US geo-political policy decisions being framed by domestic American politics over the next 11 months.

Some issues will become paralysed with no incentive for momentum. On other issues, like perhaps Ukraine, there will be great incentive.

Team Biden will want to find a resolution for the Ukraine war. There is chatter already in Washington of a shift in White House policy – pressure on Ukraine to find a settlement with Russia.

Such is the power of America, still, that the direction of global events will be driven by issues tangible to American voters; issues much closer to home.

The US economy is booming but it’s not trickling down to voters who feel that times are tough. Migration is seemingly out of control. Inner city drug and crime epidemics are agitating many voters. Culture wars are driving wedges deep into American society.

America’s shifting global influence, clear already, is wholly dependent on its domestic political twists. All politics is local.

Of one thing we can be sure: this US election is less of a fork in the road, more of a T-junction – two entirely different directions.

US

Adam Boulton: ‘Like those old guys on The Muppets’ – bad sign for democracy as Trump and Biden call shots on how they will debate

Published

5 hours ago

May 19, 2024

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Adam Boulton: 'Like those old guys on The Muppets' - bad sign for democracy as Trump and Biden call shots on how they will debate

That was easy. Donald Trump and Joe Biden duelled briefly over the airwaves about debating.

“Any time, any place, anywhere,” the Republican candidate had challenged. “Make my day, pal” the president retorted movie-style.

In just a matter of hours the two men agreed to Joe Biden‘s proposal for two televised presidential debates before the election on 5 November – at CNN HQ in Atlanta on 27 June and on ABC forum on 10 September.

There will be more role-playing between now and the agreed showdowns. Biden has already rejected Trump’s counter-offer of two further debates including one on Fox News.

But once again the US does seem on course to hold debates between the frontrunners for the White House, as it has in most of the presidential cycles since JFK took on Richard Nixon in 1960. The UK has only managed to hold proper equivalent prime ministerial leaders debates in 2010.

The two candidates will confront each other in different circumstances than previously. They will meet earlier in the cycle of the election year and without the usual rules.

Both sides have agreed to cold shoulder the widely respected Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which had proposed three debates before mass audiences closer to polling day.

The Republicans and the Democrats have decided that the CPD model is outdated because of the changing nature of campaigning and voting, the evolving demands of the media and above all because of the unique nature of this campaign in which the two main candidates have become clear so early in the year and in which they are the oldest in America’s political history.

“It’ll be entertaining, informative. Like those two old guys on The Muppets,” former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney quipped to Huffpost.

The traditional CPD debates are one of the many norms of US politics which have been subverted by Donald Trump.

According to opinion polls held afterwards as to “who won the debate?”, he is a poor debater.

He “lost” all three of his encounters with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and both of his debates against Biden in 2020.

Biden also “won” both his vice presidential debates against Sarah Palin in 2008 and Paul Ryan in 2012.

Yet what is remembered is Trump’s behaviour. He roamed about the stage and loomed threatening behind Hillary Clinton.

He invited her husband’s alleged ex-girlfriends to sit in the front row of the audience.

He called Biden “demented” before their first debate and abused him to his face, saying: “There’s nothing smart about you Joe.”

Trump refused to abide by the rules and talked over the moderator and Biden.

A senior White House correspondent summed up their first presidential debate as “a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck”.

Trump refused to take the required COVID test to take part and then developed it, resulting in the cancellation of their next scheduled debate.

At their final debate, a technician was employed to switch off the participants’ microphones except during their allotted speaking time.

It is usually the underdog who issues the challenge to debate. Biden has been trailing narrowly in key opinion polls and needs the debates to demonstrate that he is still up to the job at the age of 81.

Many observers think that the president is actually showing fewer signs of cognitive impairment than Trump, who is only four years younger and whose rally speeches are becoming increasingly incoherent rants.

When the two men debate this summer, Biden may well “beat” Trump again. But Trump’s antics could well dominate – and they certainly impress some voters.

The problems with the debates four years ago explain why neither side wants to put the commission in charge this time.

The Republicans have accused the CPD of bias and the Democrats blame it for not keeping order.

Significantly the first debate this year, on CNN, will be in a studio without a live audience for the first time in the US presidential history.

Both sides also wanted to have their encounters earlier in the summer because there is an increasing trend to vote earlier, with some states opening their polls as early as September.

The agreed debates will be head-to-heads between Biden and Trump, which suits them both because Robert F Kennedy Jnr is working flat out to get on enough state ballots to qualify for a CPD debate.

Polling suggests he would take votes from each of them and could have a decisive impact on who wins.

President Biden gift wrapped his debate invitation with the cheeky tag “I hear you are free on Wednesdays” because the criminal court where Trump is currently on trial does not sit on Wednesdays.

The dates they’ve agreed are actually a Tuesday and a Thursday but the dig still stands.

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The first Biden-Trump debate in 2020 drew 71 million viewers in the US making it the third most-watched presidential debate behind only Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Ronald Reagan versus Jimmy Carter in 1980.

But average audiences for the debates are diminishing.

Nate Silver, a leading political statistician, points out they are one of the few fixed points in a campaign which can have some direct impact today when “almost nothing moves the polls these days because the candidates are so well known and everybody is so partisan”.

America’s news networks have found out that Trump drives up ratings, even when the station’s editorial policy opposes him.

CNN gave his rallies saturation coverage in 2016 and apologised more recently when Trump was allowed to monopolise a “town hall” on the channel.

Now the networks and their guest debaters have parted company with the protections provided by the CPD and its heavily regulated debates before live audiences on university campuses.

They will be under pressure to show they can provide fair and informative programmes for their viewers and not just entertainment.

The precedents for success are not good from the UK, where broadcasters abandoned working together following a rigid formula after 2010.

By competing against each other they effectively gave the whip hand to the politicians, who were free to withdraw or bestow their favours.

Since then the subsequent debate-style election programmes have not made a significant informative or influential impact on the campaigns. The viewers, a.k.a the electorate, have lost out.

This year the two people vying to be the leader of the free world are calling the shots on how they will debate.

It is hardly encouraging for democracy that a senior senator like Mitt Romney’s first comparison is with The Muppet Show.

US

Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

Published

5 hours ago

May 19, 2024

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Dabney Coleman, actor who starred in Boardwalk Empire and 9 to 5, dies

Lily Tomlin, Morgan Fairchild and Ben Stiller have led tributes to “one-of-a-kind” actor Dabney Coleman following his death aged 92.

Coleman made his career playing comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and villains in films including 9 to 5 and Tootsie, as well as playing Commodore Louis Kaestner in Boardwalk Empire.

Lily Tomlin, who starred alongside him in 9 To 5 with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, said: “We just loved him.”

In her post to X, the actress shared a photo of her character Violet Newstead dressed in a Snow White costume beside a tense-looking Coleman as her egotistical boss Franklin Hart Jr.

Morgan Fairchild, who starred in Falcon Crest and Friends, described Coleman as a “great one”.

“So very sorry to hear of the death of the wonderful #DabneyColeman”, she wrote on X alongside a black and white photo of them together.

“We went out for a bit in the ’80s and I adored him. This town has lost one of a kind!”

Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica home on Thursday, his daughter said in a statement on Friday on behalf of the family.

“My father crafted his time here on Earth with a curious mind, a generous heart and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humour that tickled the funny bone of humanity”, she said.

“As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery.”

Ben Stiller, Zoolander and Meet The Parents actor, praised Coleman for paving the way for character actors.

“The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really – in a uniquely singular way – an archetype as a character actor.

“He was so good at what he did it’s hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him.”

Coleman starred in a number of films and TV series in the 1960s, then made his breakthrough as a corrupt mayor in the satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, in 1976.

His film credits include a computer scientist in WarGames, Tom Hanks’ father in You’ve Got Mail and a chief firefighter in The Towering Inferno.

He won a best actor Golden Globe for The Slap Maxwell Story and an Emmy for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 legal drama Sworn To Silence.

Coleman also won two Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the cast of crime drama Boardwalk Empire and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his starring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill.

US

P Diddy: ‘Gut-wrenching’ video appears to show Sean Combs assaulting singer Cassie in 2016

Published

1 day ago

May 18, 2024

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P Diddy: 'Gut-wrenching' video appears to show Sean Combs assaulting singer Cassie in 2016

“Gut-wrenching” CCTV footage which appears to show Sean Combs attacking singer Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel “has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour” of the rapper, her lawyer has said.

The 54-year-old, whose homes in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by Homeland Security Investigations agents in March, has faced a series of public allegations of physical and sexual violence.

Footage obtained by CNN appears to show Combs – also known as P Diddy and Puff Daddy – wearing only a white towel as he punches and kicks Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway on 5 March 2016.

The R&B singer, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura, was his protege and girlfriend at the time.

The footage also shows Combs shoving and dragging her across the floor, as well as throwing a vase in her direction.

It closely resembles the description of an incident at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles described in a lawsuit filed by Cassie in November that alleged years of sexual abuse and other violence from Combs.

The case was settled the day after it was filed.

Several more lawsuits were filed in the following months, along with a federal criminal sex-trafficking investigation that led authorities to raid Combs’ mansions in Los Angeles and Miami.

Representatives for Combs did not immediately comment on the video. He has previously denied the allegations in the lawsuits and his lawyers have said he denies any wrongdoing.

Cassie’s lawyer said: “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour of Mr Combs.

“Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”

According to NBC News, Sky News’ US partner, if Cassie were to make a complaint the LAPD could investigate, but charges would likely be declined by the district attorney because California law has a one-year statute of limitations for assault and the alleged incident happened nearly eight years ago.

CNN did not say how it obtained the video, but noted it verified the location it was shot by comparing the footage to publicly available images of the InterContinental Hotel.