GooneriC buddy im as big a critic of the dems as anyone but there is a pretty big difference between harris and trump/bibi

Meatwad I'm of Indo/Caribbean descent , I live in Barbados. The majority of people in this region see it the same way. You'll soon see Harris will be " guided " to the same point of view as Biden who is as evil as anyone can get.

Mirth Conventional wisdom would suggest that Vance seems like a missed opportunity for the Republicans.

It makes Biden's team look more strategic. It hadn't really occurred to me that Vance would be very unable to hype a crowd. I expect to see revised tactics from the Trump campaign—an increase in Vance's derangement, and more joint appearances.

mdgoonah41 That Times profile on Vance is truly damning, but I don't think it'll matter unless he validates it himself somehow.

GooneriC in terms of foreign policy, yeah the US machine keeps turning and will continue to do until another apex power emerges which will be a hell of a ride when that happens, I'm sure.

But till we get there, there's further ramifications with Trump being President that the rest of the world will have to deal with. There's plenty of strong man leaders - some running the largest economies in the world - and far right parties that are waiting to take their cue from Washington to what the new normal will be. If the Democrats represent managed decline, Republicans are a shot to the head.

as the planet becomes more uninhabitable every year due to climate change, "managed decline" is pretty much like a 90th percentile outcome. i shudder to think what the earth is going to look like in 50 years.

GooneriC The world includes a hell of a lot people accustomed to thinking of the United States as a rogue nation, and questioning the gross, withering Frankenstein of Clinton-neocon foreign policy it's still practising today.

Every one of the world situations that's become a "foreign policy question" for the US has its concrete details, but the overall posture of the last decades has been a violent, unprincipled mess.

Burnwinter as a baseline, America is a crazy right wing country that has historically been prone to the influences of slavers, Nazi sympathisers, January 6 insurrectionists etc.
Kamala isn’t going to be a radical departure from this momentum. But here is a candidate who in the last few years has been talking about women’s right to choose and improved maternal healthcare, defunding of police, widely accessible healthcare, etc. she’s a much better option than what the US typicallly has.

Claudius Yeah, it's not a tough choice between Trump or Harris for me from a domestic perspective—it's Harris all the way. Trump is a horrible piece of work with a platform that's half ideological fantasy, the other half regressive tax cuts and reckless deregulation in greater degree than usual. For the rest of the world the implications of the choice are less clear, and not good in either case.

Side point but I wonder if the radical conservatives set on gutting the federal bureaucracies worry about state capacity at all, which is already relatively poor in the States.

Meatwad Same difference really. When the US passes a massive military appropriations bill, the first bullet point on the announcement is usually that two thirds of the cash is going to MIC profiteers in swing states.

And when Australia announces a vast military investment (by our standards), the first bullet point is usually that two thirds of the appropriations are going to MIC profiteers in the United States as well.

There is less difference in foreign policy. Some of this is domestic politics - no American administration is going to stop supporting Israel, and Biden's policy here has been as close to pro-Palestinian as is currently imaginable. Some of it is institutional, and on the whole I think that's a good thing. Big change in American foreign policy will not come from the democrats because they're institutionalists, whereas Trump's foreign policy "vision" requires the collapse of institutional constraints. I'd rather not see the US withdraw from NATO, surrender Eastern Europe to Putin, and start a tariff war with China. All while doubling down on support for uncontrolled settler violence in the West Bank.

Interesting you see it that way.

I think it's a matter of time. Time passes, allegiances shift. Alliances get reset and restructured. The new generation doesn't see Israel as some sort of sacred cow. We are entering a phase where unquestioned support for Israel is not taken for granted anymore. That's progress.

flobaba this is not a person I want my kids to look up to as an example of a "leader"

If my kids were looking up to any US president as a leader I'd be absolutely ashamed of myself as a parent.

Regarding foreign policy and influence, I think it's myopic (to one's own country) to think there's no difference between Trump and Kamala. Taiwan (and in turn Japan), Ukraine (and in turn the EU), and Mexico (in turn Central America) all have a vested interest in this election.

Mirth

The rest of the world is dealing with the ramifications of the current US administration and I don't know how Trump could make things any worse.

"Trump would be even worse" rings hollow when Biden and Harris are active right now in supporting, funding and arming what will go down as one of the worst genocides of the 21st century. Their administration has changed US law to arm the genociders quicker and with less oversight. This is worse than anything Trump did during his four years. Harris has offered nothing but full throated support and continues to gaslight Palestinians on behalf of the colonial army trying to eradicate them.

Like with Obama, it's alluring to see a less conservative POC as hope that the US may revert its assault on the rest of the world, but POC who reach leadership positions within the swampiest of swampy establishment institutions like the Democratic Party don't attain those positions if they have conflicting views to the donors and the Pentagon.