Yes, even though I have relatives there the USA has once again become a country I won’t visit.
The best friends I have there have decided to move to the UK. One is a dual citizen, as is their child, who is non-binary, went to university here, and stayed. So it’s fairly straightforward for them.
As a citizen of the US, I just want to apologize for…whatever the hell is wrong with about 50% of my fellow citizens!
Sadly, I see a number of factors. Some are upset at the current administration’s handling of Israel and Gaza and made a protest vote, despite the fact things will now be far worse. There was probably a small factor of sexism and racism. Then, sadly, there’s just a cult of personality that has grabbed a good 30% of the nation and has them basically worshipping a convicted felon and conman. And then there’s just the uninformed, who don’t look at policy but just go along with decades of propaganda to vote against their own interests. It is also amazing how short people’s memories are about how bad the last administration really was.
It’s going to be a rough four years, and hopefully we can course correct a bit at the midterms.
I’m more on the “it’s the economy, stupid” angle. Inflation is worse than unemployment. The most economically left-wing president for decades (he is so old he is pretty much an OG New Dealer) and his policies turns out to be bad and inflationary. Still, those policies wont push me to vote for Trump.
The I/P Conflict is a fringe issue only for Muslim voters and the coastal Progressives. These are Americans we’re are talking about here. They can’t point where Israel is, let alone know that there’s a conflict.
That is a factor as well, but really inflation is lower here than in most other countries. But we have corporations price gouging while blaming inflation yet making record profits. Which leads into a failure of messaging. It’s one thing to spout information and say things are fine, but people who are still feeling the strain on their bank account is not going to hear that. They do hear someone saying that they are going to fix everything over and over again (while spouting policies that will only exacerbate the issue) and that sticks.
And while the I/P issue may only be important to the groups you mention, they are key demographics in some swing states, that could have made all the difference in the electoral votes.
The vast majority of voters are highly uninformed. Most people do not read or watch any news source of any kind. Some people are absolutely swayed by arguments on any number of issues (I/P, sexism and racism, anti-trans ads, any actual policies, etc.) but people who care about and discuss politics on any level vastly over-estimate what filters through to the majority of people.
I 100% believe for most people it was: Grocery and rent prices went up = don’t vote for whoever is currently in power. Anything and everything else, they’ve never even heard of it. Doesn’t matter that the policies of the current administration have made the post-Covid inflation less bad in America than pretty much anywhere else in the world and the stated policies of the incoming administration will massively increase prices. Most voters aren’t aware of any policies of anyone.
As some news has noticed, every single party in power got voted out in 2024 globally, so this is a big part of it. Also, there are a LOT of people being interviewed who voted liberal on issues such as rights and abortion on the same day they also voted for Trump, and don’t seem to know the first thing about what he stands for.
On the plus side, that means there hasn’t been a huge rise in people who want the most harmful policies. On the other hand, we’re about to get a lot of this:
(mod hat about half-way on)
I’m not objecting to anything above, but my general feeling is still “let’s keep political discussion to the many many other places where political discussion is more welcome”.
I am also reading the new Jasper Fforde book (red side story). I thoroughly recommend his books for anyone who likes a bit of surreal fantasy/comedy. I especially like the Nursery Crime series because the main character is from Basingstoke (where I grew up) and whenever this comes up the response is “I’m so sorry” 
For the last months I am rereading the second book of Robin Hobb’s Fitz trilogy. It goes slowly because it includes a ton of political intrigue and I can’t stomach that very well this year.
But starting tomorrow book 7 of Dungeon Crawler Carl is available as ebook, so I will switch books then and will come back to Fitz at a later time when I can enjoy it more. It is a great series but all the lies and deceit is reminding me too much of the world around me.
Love Fforde - he’s a really nice bloke as well.
Wasn’t too keen on the Nursey Crimes books - but loved the Thursday Next stories
I’ve not been sleeping well at all, but that does mean when I can’t get to sleep or when I wake up early, I pick up Rhythm of War. Should easily be finished it before the 6th of December and Wind and Truth.
Definitely the geekiest book I’ve purchased in a while:
It provides calculations and software algorithms for a lot of different calendar systems, both modern and not-so-modern. Description in the preface.
I will probably get very little use out of this in practice, but I’ve been working with the authors’ calendar/lunar/holiday libraries in Emacs recently, and learned about the existence of the book as a consequence, and more or less ordered it on a whim. It’s larger than I was expecting :).
I showed it to a colleague at work, who replied:
“The subsequent addition—by popular demand—of the Mayan and French Revolutionary calendars to GNU Emacs…”
This says a lot about the Emacs community :).
At least two other forum members have copies.
I so want that Regicide box to be the size of Concordia…
Glad to see it reprinted! I ran across it in Heffers, mumble decades ago. I misread the title as “Cylindrical Calculations” and wondered what those were. When I saw what it was, it was an instant buy: I really like having definitive sources.
It does look a lot bigger this way 