Synopsis: No, Americans aren’t all crazy, but they feel what the centre calls progress may lead to they’re becoming disenfranchised.
The US election is followed by people even outside the US, and not just because having a reality TV star as a candidate has managed to make politics into a reality TV show, but because the basic problems faced by the US, are either already present in other countries, or soon will be present, and like in the US will create increasing percentage of the population feeling sufficiently disenfranchised by where they see progress heading in other countries driven to rebel to avoid feeling disenfranchised.
I suggest politics has moved from traditional “left-vs-right”, to Macron style “centre vs the extremes” and with this US election, to “progressives vs threatened with being disenfranchised”.
While many suggest Trump, and thus to some extent those who will vote for him are just weird, unintelligent or even crazy, perhaps the reality is the US election has become a contest between “progressives” and those fearing that at least some elements of the current direction of progress are problematic and/or disenfranchising them.
While not necessarily seen as a Macron style “centre vs the extremes”, it is certainly not just traditional centre-left-vs-centre-right, which, I suggest, is one reason why many long time Republicans are supporting Harris:
Several Republicans endorsed Harris at the Democratic National Convention in August, while a group of more than 200 who worked for former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, as well as Sen. Mitt Romney and the late Sen. John McCain signed onto a letter supporting the Democratic nominee.
Republicans who have endorsed Kamala Harris and spoken out against Trump
Rather a traditional “left vs right” this could become a battle between those fighting to end discrimination against the traditionally disadvantaged and those fearing that progress will result in discrimination against them. In any event, the trend of seemingly ever-increasing polarisation, has resulted in the strange situation where for many voters, it is at least as important that the candidate of the other major party does not become president than it is their candidate does become president.
When you look at key demographics showing support for Trump there is logic for many in those groups to feel at risk of feeling disenfranchised, with the factors driving those feelings listed in the section below: Areas of “progress” driving fears of being disenfranchised and votes for Trump.
In summary, the factors driving fear of being disenfranchised are:
- Belief US is on the wrong track with the political system not serving the people.
- Population & Immigration: Border policy.
- There is a cost to population increase, and Harris has done little to answer this.
- Economy: Things were better under Trump.
- Economic indicators say things are great, but there is a housing crisis and cost of living crisis.
- Trump is a businessman.
- World View: America First vs Trump delivering peace by silencing warmongers.
- Freedom: Why can’t I say what I want and do what I want?
- Societal “left” trends such as transgender and “woke”
However, I cannot see policies from either side really looking to address these issues.
- Trump has said he will “drain the swamp”, but more political appointees seems like the arguments for more guns to solve gun deaths, and Harris has not suggested changes while both sides look to record donations from Super PACs in order to be elected.
- Neither party has put forward a population plan that balances the upcoming global “pause” in population growth and immigration, and Trump simply blames his scapegoats.
- Trump blames economic disenfranchisement on the current administration and promises tariffs as a fix while Harris looks a price controls and housing assistance. Neither looks to lower the cost of housing or address economic problems.
- Both are vague on any real change other than Trumps promise to immediately end wars with little to support how this will actually work.
- Neither is really seeking to address what the other side sees as the problems with freedom.
- While a vote for Trump may be a protest vote, there is little evidence anything would be resolved without removal of freedoms.
Negative campaigning has long been a feature of politics, but the 2024 campaign has taken it to a new level with many on both sides claiming to believe the other candidate is a threat to democracy.
Basically, some Democrat supporters feel Trump will rule as a dictator, bullying the other two of the three pillars of US government into obeying the President or facing consequences, whilst some Republican supports feel that neither Biden nor Harris actually have control, and Trump may offer the last chance to overturn “the cabal” or “deep state” currently really running the US government.
There is an online video to follow on this topic, and several updates to this page to follow. The problem may not be that supporters of Trump are crazy, but rather, there enough problems sufficiently deep that they give rise to people like Trump.
Fear of being disenfranchised.
Disenfranchised: As the song says, sometimes words have two meanings.
From Dictionary.com
DISENFRANCHISED Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
- deprived of any of the rights or privileges of citizens, especially the right to vote:Given the illegal requirements reportedly imposed at some polling places, we can expect a lot of lawsuits from disenfranchised citizens.
- deprived of the rights or privileges of full participation in society or in any community or organization, especially of the opportunity to influence policy or to make one’s voice heard:A session on LGBTQ literature provided concrete examples and professional resources to support this often disenfranchised group.
- deprived of a legal or commercial franchise:A disenfranchised Noodles Only franchisee has opened up about his struggles operating in the town’s “business graveyard.”
The meaning being used in this context is meaning number 2, as the threat identified is not actually of the right to vote and more on whether having the right to vote will cease to have any impact.
Disenfranchise: deprive (someone) of a right or privilege
:”we strongly oppose any measure which would disenfranchise people from access to legal advice” · “a hard core of kids who are disenfranchised and don’t feel connected to the school”
The “track” to becoming disenfranchised: Fear, threats and reality.
Many aspects of society can be seen as on track towards many people becoming disenfranchised should trends continue. Arguably, any trend to end a minority being disenfranchised would eventually reverse the balance until the point where it is all others who are relatively disenfranchised.
It could be said the difference between Harris and Trump, is that Harris feels it is obvious everything has a limit, and things will never become so extreme as disenfranchise those traditionally with the most power, while Trump is suggesting those with traditionally the most power are already becoming disenfranchised.
Key examples of the fears:
- If migrant communities are growing faster than the US born population, will the current population effectively on day become extinct?
- If it feels like I am worse off economically today than 4 years ago when economic indicators say there is strong growth, are people like me being forced towards poverty?
- Women have moved towards equal wages, suffrage, and having rights previously restricted to men, will that trend continue until it is men who are disadvantaged?
- Homosexuality was illegal and trans-gender was something not even widely discussed, but on current trends it feels like these are almost headed towards becoming mandatory!
It is easy to laugh at these and conclude “of course not”, but satisfying voters may require more than just ridicule.
Areas of “wrong track” driving the fear of being disenfranchised.
Belief US is on the wrong track with the political system not serving the people.
When Harris was asked what she would do differently to Biden, the answers have been weak. Harris wants to avoid being perceived as criticising Biden, but Harris does not even point to her election platform points that represent change from those of current administration.
In reality the VP does not determine government policy, or the election would have the same focus VP candidates Walz and Vance as it does on Harris and Trump, but even this defence is avoided.
However, there is a narrative for those most fearing becoming disenfranchised, that Biden has long been too old and fragile to rule, and there are a group of people with their own agendas, referred to as either “deep state” or “the cabal” actually running the country, and Harris would just be a puppet anyway.
The belief is the threat to democracy is from leaders who allow the “deep state” to be the true rulers of the country.
Border policy: Too many illegal and/or unauthorized immigrants.
Both sides agree US border security is a problem.
First a side-note clarification of terminology. While most unauthorised border crossings are illegal, some are legal under international law and treaties to which the US is a signatory. The term “unauthorised immigration” can be taken to include all illegal immigration as well as those arguably technically legal, but not approved prior to their arrival. Side-note over.
Trump, republicans and the right wing take a tougher stance on border security, and if you feel the influx is leaving you disenfranchised, this matters. From the Springfield Ohio anecdotes to the comments by pastor Lorenzo-Sewell (video link to be added), most actual problems relate to legal immigration, and the reality is illegal immigration may almost be a distraction from the real issues, but there are real issues with links to those discussions to be added.
Economy: Things were better under Trump.
After Trump, inflation rose, and despite positive economic indicators and record stock market indices, for the average American, the situation has declined with both a housing crisis and a cost-of-living crisis.
The cost-of-living crisis is the same almost everywhere across the globe, and the housing crisis is echoed in almost every location where the population is increasing. The difference for America is those record stock market indices and positive economic indicator. Harris, who is in the position of needing to defend the economic credentials of the current administration, is left promoting those positive economic signals and trying to convince the public things are not so bad.
Problem is that the combination of the aftermath of Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and global economy supporting the huge revenues of social media and tech companies that have not delivered productivity gains to match their revenues all combine to ensure the average consumer, globally, was better off financially 4 years ago.
Economic indicators favour the total egg farm and thus suit the chickens, not the farm, and more chickens vote than farmers. The current financial trend is towards an ever-higher concentration of wealth amongst an ever smaller few, and really does need to be addressed.
World View: America First vs Trump delivering peace by silencing warmongers.
While claims of world peace under Donald Trump may be exaggerated, Trump did deescalate conflict with Iran by calling of retaliation he felt was disproportionate, and both the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza-Iran conflicts reached their current levels under Biden. Arguments as to whether the seeds of those conflicts began under Trump are too long to cover here, and the simple answer is things at least seemed better and the trend since Trump left office does not look good.
Freedom of speech: Why can’t I say whatever I want?
It does feel like freedom speech is becoming more problematic, but it can look like the solution proposed is centres around others being prevented from their freedom of speech. Regardless, a difficult problem does exist.
In a complex society, freedoms can require depriving other people of freedom. Does freedom to walk down the street carrying a pistol or even an AK47 encroach on other’s freedom to walk down the street without fear? How about freedom to fire that gun, or freedom to mix with other people without precautions when infected by a disease?
Societal “left” trends such as transgender and “woke”.
“The left” would say where things are now is how they should be, but what happens if the trend that brought things to this point continues?
Women went from having worse pay and rights than men, but does that now leave some men concerned that things will not stop at equality? Women do outnumber men, and now on average achieve better academic results. Do some even feel resentment at losing the “upper hand”?
During the period between 2000 and 2020, more women have completed secondary and tertiary education. Much of this study has focused on the adolescence of young men and women and has highlighted the superior performance of girls in reading and the slight superiority of boys in mathematics.
Girl’s academic performance is higher and more of them are graduating in increasing numbers. Boys do not progress, although they still dominate in STEM subjects
Other possible fears were covered above in ‘The “track” to becoming disenfranchised: Fear, threats and reality‘.
Background: What’s wrong in the USA?
Government in the US is quite broken.
When look at the billions spent on lobbying, often contrary to the interests of the public, the extent to which election outcomes depend on funding and donations that circumvent political funding regulations, and open Gerrymandering ensures incumbent political parties can increase the dominance and push further to extremes…… the list continues and will be expanded, but in summary, the system is quite broken.
See “Is US democracy for sale?” for how the attempts to limit the influence of those with biggest “check books” have now failed in the US, with SuperPACs ensuring that a very small number of very rich donors dominate funding of political campaigns.
Lobbyists spend billions of dollars each year with the shared goal of influencing policymakers and government officials. Lobbyists represent a variety of interests, many of which go against public opinion, such as gun rights, fossil fuel industries, abortion, and additional healthcare access. Although many are known to lobby the interests of large, controversial industries, other lobbyists vie to promote human rights issues such as civil liberties, environmental conservation, and data protection.
Lobbying in the U.S. – statistics & facts | Statista
“How the United States runs. You know, famous American President Abraham Lincoln said that the men who died for the North at the battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War had died so that a government of the people, by the people for the people would not perish from the Earth. But it’s perishing now, we’re not a government of people and for the people, we are a government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. We are more than not, governed by a matrix of corporate overlords. This has to do with insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, big food companies, big chemical companies, big agricultural companies, gun manufacturers, big oil companies, and defence contractors. We’re living at a time in the United States where 39% of Americans are reporting that they are regularly skipping meals in order to pay their rent. This is the deep dark dirty secret of the United States. … at this point, our government in too many cases and in too many ways, actually enables those forces because those forces are their donor class. It’s as very corrupt system that we have developed here.”
Marianne Williamson on Planet America.
The economy: It’s the economy stupid!
Consider the analogy of the economy and an egg farm, where the government, big businesses and billionaires are the farmers, and all citizens as chickens providing taxation “eggs” to the government, with consumers providing eggs for the economy in terms of their taxes and consumer spending.
The larger the population of citizens, the more eggs for the farmers. Some of the wealth of the farmers can provide better conditions for us chickens, but the prosperity of the farmers and the chickens are not always aligned. For the current economy, almost all economic indicators focus purely on the farmers, which is why economic indicators for the US can be very positive, while the people overwhelmingly feel the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Population, immigration, and the border problem.
However, there is a point where adding more chickens to egg the farm become and
from citizens being taxes to the government purchases from businesses.
A core axiom of this site is that, as the total biosphere of Earth is not increasing, population growth for any species is only beneficial for that species under special circumstances, and for humans in almost every country on Earth, such special circumstances “flipped” during the 20th century from population growth benefiting individual in 1900 too population growth benefiting only “the farmers” by the year 2000, as evidenced by a key indicator of population exceeding ideal levels now present in most developed nations: birth rates at or even below replacement rate.
The economic analogy is an egg farm, where adding more chickens always increases total output and provides more revenue for the farmers, but is not always good for the chickens.
It is very possible that use of immigration to override the natural instincts of people to avoid further population growth is feeding far right movements blaming immigrants or specific immigrations for social problems.
The US has social problems, such as increasing cost of housing, inadequate infrastructure and crime rates that, even if not currently increasing, are higher than desirable. All of these could be improved by e, which could be
The Biden Democrats administration and Immigration.
Although Democrats did introduce a bill to increase border security which was blocked at the request of Donald Trump, that was after numbers had increased and the effectiveness of the proposal is unproven. On the other hand, stats on immigration can be much like lies and dam lies and statistics on immigration are rampant. There are so many different numbers to quote, like border apprehensions, which can include the same person multiple times, the number who get through without offsetting how many are then expelled, and not adjusting for the fact that some illegals leave all by themselves or die. While data available in May 2024 showed 2.5 million authorised arrivals during Bidens’ first three years, departures and deaths meant the total of unauthorised migrants living in the US had increased by 1 million. Arguably still too high, but nothing like as high as for as many suggest, but that number fell under both Obama and Trump, so it is the return of a old problem.
It is almost certainly true that if the US did nothing to limit unauthorised arrivals, the US population would be swamped, but as the US is currently intentionally using immigration to grow the US population, and the illegal and unauthorised arrivals kept low enough to avoid either forcing any reduction in legal immigration or causing the US to exceed population growth targets, how big is the problem of “unauthorised arrivals”?
The latest data at time of writing is that there are currently over 21,000 of what are officially called “intentional homicides” per year in the USA, or just over 6 per 100,000 people. Although the net increase in authorised arrivals is only little over 1 million and more than 80% of undocumented immigrants have been lived in the US for a decade, the US, there is movement both ways and as many as 3 million of the current 11 million arrivals arrived under Biden. With the national average homicides at 6 per 100,000, statistics suggest from 3 million people over 4 years one would expect around 720 homicides! Even one homicide by an unauthorised arrival under Biden is enough to instill citizens with feelings they are being invaded by criminals, even if statistically, native born Americans and legal immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than unauthorised arrivals.
Crime and immigration.
Violent crime is one of the key issues in the US election, with research suggesting that many Americans believe it is on the rise.
But the latest FBI crime data shows it fell last year.
The much-anticipated report, released in September, shows declines across several serious crimes including rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
The number of murders saw the largest drop in 20 years, according to the FBI.
BBC October 19 2024: What latest FBI data shows about violent crime
However, there are claims crime data is now under-reporting crime. Even these claims state that the under-reporting began in 2021, with the move to a new system, and as the new system is refined under-reporting would decrease. While a new system introduced in 2021 could explain lower crime under the Biden presidency, it would not explain a decrease during the Biden presidency or in 2024.
The problems this election seems to be ignoring
- Guns and gun related deaths.
- The political donations corrupting the government and creating “the swamp”
- A rate of citizen incarceration behind only El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda and Turkmenistan
