Should we be worried about a Donald Trump presidency?

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5 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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A man described by not one but two of his closest former aides as a fascist will become the most powerful man in the world when he takes office. How worried should we be?

Very, say another dozen White House staffers who served under Donald Trump and watched him in action for his first four years in power.

In a second term, they are warning that those who once tried to prevent him from acting on his worst impulses will no longer be there to rein him in.

Follow latest: Trump wins US election – as world leaders congratulate him

“The grown ups”, as they were called in Mr Trump’s first administration, will have gone, replaced by people more aligned with his agenda and pushing their own.

What is that agenda and what is to come? That is harder to say. We have learned not to take Donald J Trump literally – his empty promises, lies, and false threats come thick and fast.

The first time round, many of his promises came to nothing; to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it, to bring peace to the Middle East, to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, and Iran’s too.

But we can say what is likely; trade wars with China, Mexico, and Canada seem probable.

The extent of the tariffs Mr Trump imposes are harder to predict but the impact on the global economy will most likely be considerable.

He could rip up more treaties the US has signed, including climate commitments made by his predecessors.

Mr Trump is likely to undo much of the Biden administration’s work to reverse climate change and the negative impact on the planet may be substantial.

And he is likely to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war largely on Moscow’s terms if his words and those of his team are anything to go by.

His running mate JD Vance says Russia will keep the land it has taken and receive a guarantee of Ukrainian neutrality. Putin could not have hoped for more.

Those hoping for an end to the war in Gaza may be disappointed too.

Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are close allies.

He is likely to give the Israelis plenty of latitude when it comes to the conflict. And there are fears he would not restrain Israel in any future confrontations with Iran unlike the Biden administration, with all the risks of a wider Middle Eastern war that might ensue.

NATO’s uncertain future

Trump’s impact on NATO is harder to predict. His team has floated various plans for the alliance. They all arguably weaken America’s support for it.

Without America’s cast-iron guarantee, will other countries seek their own security arrangements? It seems likely.

One of the great pillars of the post-world war order will have been weakened. But Mr Trump in his first term showed contempt for all its multi-lateral, multinational organisations.

America swings through cycles of isolationism, retreating from the world, then having to re-engage at huge cost to protect its interests.

Mr Trump may prove unwilling to learn the lessons of that history.

Those who regard America, for all its faults, as a positive influence in the world, an example to follow, will be most worried and disheartened.

A demagogic populist, regarded as a fascist by some of those who know him best and who openly admires authoritarians and dictators, will be taking up the reins of power again in the world’s most powerful democracy.

Half of American voters have opted for a man who refused to accept election defeat four years ago, used lies and dirty tricks to try and undermine its result, and stood by while an angry mob ransacked the citadel of American government.

All of that will only embolden other strongmen the world over and damage, perhaps beyond repair, the democracy that Americans have long believed stands as an example for all the world to follow.

World

Ireland’s Prime Minister Simon Harris reveals planned date for general election

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5 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Ireland's Prime Minister Simon Harris reveals planned date for general election

Ireland’s prime minister has announced the planned date for a general election to be held this month.

Taoiseach Simon Harris said he hopes the election will take place on 29 November, formally kicking off a truncated campaign which will last mere weeks.

Mr Harris, 38, was appointed Irish prime minister – the youngest in the country’s history – after Leo Varadkar’s shock resignation in March.

He will travel to Aras an Uachtarain on Friday, the official residence of the Irish president, to seek the dissolution of Ireland’s Dail parliament.

Speaking to RTE News on Wednesday, Mr Harris said: “As I would have discussed with the other coalition leaders, it’s my hope that we will have polling day on this country on November 29.”

He added: “I’m looking forward to the weeks ahead and asking the people of Ireland for a mandate.”

There’s a clear reason why this election has been called

So the worst kept secret in Irish politics is finally out, and the people look set to head to the ballot boxes on 29 November.

The taoiseach employs several lofty explanations for why he has decided upon an early election, but it’s hard to look beyond political expediency.

The Fine Gael party has been flying in the polls since Simon Harris became leader in April, while the opposition is in freefall. Sinn Fein, Ireland’s main opposition party, dropped to 16% in one recent poll – the lowest level of support since 2019.

Its leader Mary Lou McDonald – once seen as Ireland’s first female taoiseach in waiting – has been battling a serious decline in support for a year, and is bogged down in firefighting a damaging series of internal party scandals, north and south of the border.

Why wait until next March for an election?

You can read Stephen Murphy’s full analysis here

After refusing to be drawn on the election date for weeks, Mr Harris made the announcement less than an hour after his coalition partner-turned-campaign rival Micheal Martin revealed that the election would be called on Friday.

Mr Harris could have waited until March when the coalition’s five-year term comes to an end to go to the polls, but he has been paving the way for an election in recent weeks, announcing 10.5bn euros (£8.75bn) in tax cuts and spending increases last month.

The election will bring to an end the historic coalition that brought together Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, who had been rivals dating back to the civil war.

It saw Mr Martin, the Fianna Fail leader, taking the taoiseach role for the first half of the lifetime of the government, later replaced by then-Fine Gael leader Mr Varadkar.

The last election was seen as a monumentally successful performance for Sinn Fein, which had the highest percentage of first-preference votes, but the party has struggled in more recent local and European elections.

World

Ireland’s election was a badly-kept secret – and there’s a clear reason why it’s been called

Published

5 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Ireland's election was a badly-kept secret - and there's a clear reason why it's been called

So the worst kept secret in Irish politics is finally out, and the people look set to head to the ballot boxes on 29 November.

The taoiseach employs several lofty explanations for why he has decided upon an early election, but it’s hard to look beyond political expediency.

The Fine Gael party has been flying in the polls since Simon Harris became leader in April, while the opposition is in freefall. Sinn Fein, Ireland’s main opposition party, dropped to 16% in one recent poll – the lowest level of support since 2019.

Why wait until next March for an election? Going now ensures the voters will be getting the first benefits of the recent bumper €10.5bn (£9bn) giveaway budget (“buying votes” according to the opposition) as the polling cards arrive.

Going the parliamentary distance risks the current government buoyancy being sunk by events. A week is a long time in politics, four months an eternity. Why take the risk?

This election will largely be fought on the same issues as 2020. Four years of this coalition government has done nothing to convince voters that Ireland’s chronic housing problem is healing. Homelessness has hit a record high of 14,500.

The health system still creaks and groans under pressure, despite huge investment.

Immigration may be a new factor; concerns over a surge in asylum-seekers arriving in Ireland mean the topic could be a key issue for the first time in an election here.

A chunky budget surplus, full employment, tax cuts and benefit hikes – what Sir Keir Starmer wouldn’t give to be in Simon Harris’s shoes.

But for many citizens, Ireland is a rich country that often feels like a poor country. So the saying goes, at least.

Success for the government parties in this election will rely on reminding the voters of the first part of that truism and glossing over the latter part.

Extra pre-Christmas cash for punters, a hamstrung opposition and that new leader bounce all help greatly – Mr Harris kicks off this campaign in a strong position to be returned as Ireland’s prime minister.

It’s the government’s election to lose.

World

Usha Vance – the lawyer who is now America’s ‘second lady’

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5 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Usha Vance - the lawyer who is now America's 'second lady'

Usha Vance is a lawyer, a Yale graduate, the Hindu daughter of Indian immigrants – and has just become the United States’ “second lady”.

She was thrust into the spotlight after her husband, JD Vance, was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election.

Almost immediately, she quit her job as a lawyer and appeared on stage to introduce him at the Republican Convention.

There, she gave a flavour of her husband; a “working-class guy” who had overcome childhood traumas to attend Yale Law School.

A “meat and potatoes” man who had adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned to cook Indian food for her mother.

A “tough Marine” who had served in Iraq but loved nothing more than “playing with puppies and watching the movie Babe”.

That duality was also present in the way the pair positioned themselves as committed Republicans, but parents first and foremost.

Mrs Vance talked of her husband’s “over-riding ambition” to have a family, while he called her “an incredible lawyer and a better mom”.

Early life and family background

Mrs Vance, 38, was raised in San Diego by parents who had moved to the US from India in the 1970s.

Her mother is a biologist and provost at the University of California at San Diego; her father is an engineer, according to Mr Vance’s campaign.

In her introductory speech at the Republican Convention, she said her middle-class upbringing was very different to her husband’s experience growing up poor in Ohio.

“That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry is a testament to this great country,” Mrs Vance said. “It is also a testament to JD.”

In a June interview with Fox News alongside her husband, Mrs Vance talked about being raised in a religious household.

“My parents are Hindu and that is one of the things that made them such good parents, that made them really good people. And so I have seen the power of that.”

Mr Vance told the broadcaster his wife had helped him “re-engage” with his Christian faith.

Mrs Vance received an undergraduate degree at Yale University and a master of philosophy at the University of Cambridge through the Gates Cambridge scholarship.

She then returned to Yale for law school, where she met her now-husband.

How the couple met

In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Mr Vance said the two got to know each other through a class assignment, where he soon “fell hard” for his writing partner.

“In a place that always seemed a little foreign, Usha’s presence made me feel at home,” he wrote.

In a 2017 NBC interview, Mrs Vance described liking that Mr Vance – then just a friend – was “very diligent” when they were assigned to work together on a brief in law school.

“He would show up for these 9am appointments that I set for us to work on the brief together,” she said.

The pair graduated in 2013 and got married the following year.

They live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have three children together: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.

Career as a lawyer

After law school, Mrs Vance spent a year clerking for Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who is now on the Supreme Court – when he served as an appeals court judge in Washington, followed by a year as a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts.

During that time, Justice Roberts authored a 5-4 ruling upholding Mr Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries.

In another ruling, he was in the 7-2 majority that backed a Christian baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

Until recently, Mrs Vance was an associate at the 200-lawyer Munger Tolles & Olson firm, where she focused on civil litigation and appeals.

The firm has counted Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of America, and PG&E among its clients.

Her clients there included a division of the Walt Disney Company and the Regents of the University of California, court records show.

A Munger spokesman said she had been an “excellent lawyer and colleague”.

What JD Vance has said about his wife

Talking about meeting as law students in a 2017 interview, Mr Vance said: “The thing I remember about Usha is how completely forward and confident with herself she was.”

In his memoir, he credited part of his success and happiness to his wife.

“Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion – I can be defused, but only with skill and precision,” he wrote.

“It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me.”

He also told the Megyn Kelly Show podcast in 2020 that he benefits from having a “powerful female voice” on his shoulder.

“Usha definitely brings me back to earth a little bit, and if I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud, I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am,” he said.