Renton

Good question. And who's going to do the rich Republicans' gardening? Feels like an extreme version of Brexit. "What, Jose the handyman has been deterned? I didn't mean those type of immigrants....".

Working for an American Pharma consultancy, it very much is my problem. Look, we all know this is a problem in one way or another that will impact us in a multitude of ways. You can choose to face it, or ignore it. You seem to be in the odd place of failing at both.

Christ, I hadn't even thought what the effect of Musk cronyism might be on NASA. Hope you are okay Jimbo, unfortunately the UK has also turned to shit in your absence, although we don't have your levels of insanity.

Hi ghost Gemmill. Why do you think there will be a next time? There won't be. It'll either be an outright dictatorship or there will be some pretence of democracy akin to Russia.

It's not even restricted to football fans. Here's a typical thread about how great the Empire theatre is, apparently people come from miles around to visit it and it is much better than Newcastle's Theatre Royal. (They have threads like this time to time, like they have a bigger swimming pool. Also they bring up them owning the airport thing a lot more than any NUFC fan I can tell). Why aye!

There you go DK, don't Irn-Bru on his chips.

As a kid growing up in the 80s when the 4 minute warning felt like an all too likely possibility, I remember us talking as mates about what we would do in those 4 minutes. Think the unanimous response was pretty much "Yeah, I'd have a shag!". I mean for some reason now as low testerone middle aged bloke (hey, we can't all be MF), that really doesn't strike me as something that would be happening.

Jusat listening to some of my economics podcasts. If the US public hate inflation, they are in for a shock. "Returning" 11 million immigrants currently doing low paid work and introducing unilateral tariffs on imports will be massively inflationary. Also tax cuts expected will raise 7 TRILLION dollars on the US debt. I'm hearing the word "insane" from a lot of these economists. Oh aye, we will get "spill over" consequences here in the UK due to uncertainty, meaning today's interest cut is the last one you can expect for a long time.

Brilliant. Gemmill would love that if he hadn't left the thread.

Your work CV is quite the thing! MF: "Did I mention the time I was an underwater diver on the jovian moon of Europa?" "Ahh, yeah, that was when I Scarlett Johansson's personal anus cleaner (she was a stander btw....)" Me: 25 years sitting at a desk.

That looks like a painful stick for fucking with.

Trouble is, I haven't heard you say anything remotely tangible or concrete. In my ideal world, focussing on the UK, I would go for much, much closer integration witht the EU, with the UK joining the 4 freedoms as a matter of urgency. I would like us to join the EU, then the euro, and then the EU to become completely fedarlised with Brussels as the capital and major regional capitals like London in a hub and spoke model. Together as a cohesive unit the EU could stand against the tyranny of the US, China, and Russia. I'd pool our defences and use our nuclear deterrent as an umbrella protection for the continent, along with the French. There would be no place for NATO, although Canada and Turkey could become associate members. I would also unfortunately deregulate in some key areas relating to technology and commerce to make us more competitive with the US, but protect individual rights. I'd ban US and Chinese social media platforms and have more closely EU regulated ones as an alternative. I'd... I'd... And there I am typing horseshit. I live in the real World. In the real World, even the first of my solutions is not politically possible. We're an island off the coast of a diminishing economic super power on one side and an ascendent authoritarian super power some way off on the other. And because we are part of neither, we are pretty much in a doom loop at this stage. But history tells us, things will one day change. We just have to wait for that day.

I don't have one. We're fucked.

I think the state of Universities is shocking. And the idea of grading your tutor - well, that definitely puts me off a career in academia (that plus the terrible salary). Honestly, I think we should have capped university at a much lower proportion of places and made entry based purely on academic merit, with those students being subsidised. I gues I would say that. But now, it's just another industry, another service, with the purpose of making money. Not long 'til my kids will need to decide on this.

No, blame social media, again. Thatcher died years ago and has been out of power 35 years! This is a much more recent thing. Whether you're called a customer/consumer/ citizen/passenger/patient makes no odds, just people being dicks.

Except in the UK, it's usually some unemployed charver cunt hurling abuse who come out with this.

That's absolutely terrifying. Only one thing on that list I agree with. It's about as far away from the America of my youth as its possible to be.

Urghh, there will be a contagion effect. The EU is going to be massively tested.

Healthcare and education costs come out of their post-tax net pay, true. Otherwise "communist" (and other than healthcare, we now have the same issue with education here). But this is what they want, Trump hasn't promised to change this. Not sure about food shopping now, its gone up loads but it has everywhere. Petrol also has gone up, but still ridiculously cheap stateside. Interestingly, I don't think Musk will help them with petrol costs.

My wages have gone up much less than inflation despite successive promotions and even moving from the public to private sector. Doesn't make me want to vote for a fascist though. The US median wage is now nearly $60,000 pa, that's more than £46k. What type of job is that in the UK, a junior doctor, a senior nurse or teacher? Definitely graduate level job. Minimum wage in Claifornia is $16 per hour. How many Americans really can't afford to feed their family? The large majority of Americans are doing more than okay,and yet the majority still voted for Trump and utterly abhor policies that could improve their lives, because "they are communist".

I disagree, yet again you highlight the ineffectiveness of the anticancer treatment rather than the cancer itself. They haven't been able to counter a false narrative authored by a coalition of oligarchs with vested interests using powerful new technologies, which they own. When you are asked what the democrats should have offered, in a country that fundamentally hates anything perceived as socialist, you, like the democrats, have no answer.

There are always things parties promise out of power and fail to deliver. I'm not going to check what Biden did and did not deliver, but I've noticed a tendency from sceptics here to cherry pick the data. What did Trump fail to deliver last time round? The US economy has boomed duirng their administration whilst the rest of the World stagnated. The US is once again establishing dominance over the EU and China. Average salary figures are truly shocking - in 2008 the UK had a higher median salary than the US, now we are 50% lower. Biden also introduced huge capital industrial expenditure (inflation reduction act, promoting green energy) the type of which you would normally support. I also know that measure to reduce immigration on the Southern border were deliberately sabotaged by the Republicans. This is what they do and you ignore it. Post covid the US has had a cost of living crisis along with the rest of the World. People were negativley affected. There is also a housing crisis, as there is here, Australia and Canada. In the rest of the World, we knew it was a global problem. Americans are insular and were easily manipulated by Trump to blame this on immigrants. Trump and the republicans lied and lied and lied to the US public, who because many are inherently racist, lapped it up. And you blame the result on the democrats. Yes, they under performed, but this is not fundamentally a problem with the democrats. It signals something much deeper and malignant.

Completely ineffective campaign, clearly. The demographic numbers are horrendous. I just don't know how you counter Trumpism. He's Teflon, literally bullet proof. Half the country have no morals. They don't care he's a liar, sociopath and rapist. Hispanics don't care he is racist. Women ignore his misogyny. His obvious mental decline, no problem for him, that only applies to Biden. I could go on. I don't know how you counter that. Would Sanders have won? I personally really don't think so. Most likely the Overton window in America will swing even further right as the country descends ever closer to outright fascism. I'm worried about two things. The direct impact on the UK and Europe. Trade, economy, security, Ukraine. But much more, the spread of contagion. And I don't know how it can be stopped.

Have to get a dig in on Labour I see. Literally none of you, SB, or Rayvin have said what the Democrats could do differently other than some vague notion of turning the US into a socialist republic which is obviously impossible and really just batshit. The voting population of the US are living in a post truth post morality world now. The electorate is debased. I honestly can't see any solution to that now, other than they will have to go down the route of fascism until they wake up. But then, the country is the only hegemonic superpower left, it's not like any other country can stop them either.