US General Elections 2020

{{ Some stats from CNN-













So much for the land of the free!
One has to wonder how long America can sustain the myth of itself, of American Exceptionalism when the only international league tables you top are the ones no one wants to be top of.
Out of developed nations you shoot and incarcirate more of your citizens, you have the worst health coverage of any developed nation, some of the worst scores for quality of life and happiness, some of the worst poverty, the poorest social security and benefits system for the most vunerable. Oh and your also now the worst developed country for coping with Covidwith more deaths per capita than any other country. And given the approach being taken for political reasons in the US thats likely to get worse before it gets better with the latest news not being good-

'the past few weeks have seen wider spread in inland states, including Arkansas, Texas and Arizona. "Today's 18.5% positive test rate is double yesterday's (9.4%),"health officials in Utah said they were "very concerned" about the rise in new cases over the past week.
The state has recorded more than 12,000 infections.'

And thats just off the top of my head. Currently the US is just a basket case.}}

Your last plot shows that in the UK the imprisoned/population is 4/1 versus the US 3/1, but I can't quibble with most of the rest of it. I'd also add that if a larger percentage of blacks are arrested or have violent arrests it's largely because of greater crime rates - but that points at underlying social problems that need to be addressed. Right now the move to partially defund the police departments is in order to put the money towards social programs to address these issues. Is the country capable of doing this successfully? Fixing social problems is rife with difficulties and good intentions gone bad. It remains to be seen if this is possible.

{{ Indeed the Uk isnot blameless in this either, not by a long way. Its the US stands out still as worse than anywhere else of the developed countries. Given the US likes to think of itself as a global leader, a superpower and a beacon of freedom it makes it even worse you are none of these things.

Boris has been striking a note coser to Trumps- talking about law and order and preventing damage and looting etc, unlike Trump though he is backing the protests in principle.
As usual I found Sturgeons response to be more honest-

“However legitimate I think it is to be critical of Donald Trump’s leadership we should also be looking at ourselves in the mirror because there is no country nor society, and I include Scotland in this, that is immune from racism or doesn’t still have issues of racial injustice and inequality,” she said. “I sit as First Minister in a parliament that is still in its 21 years of existence had too few people elected to it from our ethnic minority communities, it’s never had an ethnic minority woman elected to it.”
We all have big issues to confront, so, yes, let’s focus on America and let’s put pressure on Donald Trump and America, but let’s not forget that we have our own houses to put in order as well.” }}

Here's an example of how starting the police department over from scratch can work. Camden New Jersey went from having one of the highest murder rates in the country with a solve rate of only 16% to a solve rate of 61%.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872470135/new-police-force-from-scratch-n-j-city-proves-its-possible-to-reform-the-police

Trump's saturday rally in Oklahoma was 1/3 empty.  This *might* be due to a nationwide wave of teenagers signing up for tickets they never intended to use as a way to punk the campaign.  Around a million tickets were signed up for, less than 15,000 showed up.

But there's never a reserved number of rally tickets, it's all first-come first-served. The tickets this time were just to sign a covid waiver.  So the teens may have just inflated the expected number without keeping anyone out.  Still, it was a nice trick.

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/tik-tok-kpop-zoomer-trump-rally-tulsa-124646592.html

{{ So at his rally Trump says he asked his people to slow down testing as they were uncovering to many cases and that makes him look bad.
Then immediatly afterwards the White House puts out an official statement saying Trump was clearly being sarcsstic and he was beig tongue in cheek.
Which brings us to today-

"Our Coronavirus testing is so much greater (25 million tests) and so much more advanced, that it makes us look like we have more cases, especially proportionally, than other countries," Trump tweeted, "My message on that is very clear!"

Trump has mentioned in the past that the more people test positive for the coronavirus, the worse it makes the crisis look, despite the fact that experts have said a robust testing system is necessary for the nation to fully get back to normal in the wake of the pandemic. And his administration has been largely behind the push to quickly increase testing capacity in the U.S. as part of what Trump called a "phenomenal" response to the crisis.'- Fox

Does he understand that even if you do no testing the disease hasnt actually vanished? Youd still have just as many cases in the US youd just not be able to trace or track who has it and who might, or how bad things are. Meaning you cant plan emergency wards and the like as youve no data to work from. Does he understand that testing for the virus doesnt create new cases of the virus, testing just finds out who has it? Does he even realise that its not actually about him? Or if the virus makes him look bad or not?
Also clear even his own White House realise what a stupid, politically dangerous thing it was to say, but Trump's obviously not having their excuses for him- he really does think testing is just making him look bad by revealing how poorly the US has dealt with the virus. }}

Petty - I am not sure this is even a question is it? Does Trump do anything for the sake of anything other than trying to make himself look good?

He seems like the quintessential scrooge.... I wonder if even the ghosts to pick out a moment where he has done anything purely to benefit someone else and none for himself (you can excuse the feeling of doing something for someone else from that... although I am not sure he is capable of feeling good about that).

{{ Probably not Lance, dont think he understands the word selfless.
I see a total (so far) of 8 Trump staffers involved in his rally have tested positive.
I wonder if Trump also made them sign waivers on catching it at his rally, like the folk stupid enough to turn up had to do. }}

{{ So Trump is going after Obamacare again, with aprently a reasonable chance of getting rid of it.
He is going tt remove healthcare coverage from millions of Americans, with nothing to replace it with, in the middle of the worst health pandemic in modern times.
How is this meant to get him relelected?
From my understanding thelonger Americans have had Obamacare the more folk have come to quite like it, even among Repulican supporters.}}

Trump may well have accepted that he'll lose, in which case all that's left is his thirst for vengeance against Obama that was what propelled him as a candidate to begin with.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-seemingly-tells-sean-hannity-that-biden-will-win-saying-hes-going-to-be-your-president

{{ Thats frightening if its just for vengeance, especially if you rely on Obamacare for your health coverage. Horrible thing to do.


On another topic, given the current police crisis in the US I was very shocked to learn that compared to European countries police training, required qualifications and training is, well shocking. And from a European perspective damn near nonexistant in comparison.

'The Minneapolis police academy trains young soon-to-be officers for 16 weeks before they're assigned weapons and sent out on the streets as rookie cops. They then spend six months paired with training officers who show them the ropes.
In the U.S., training to be a police officer, and carry a gun on behalf of the state, ranges from as few as 10 weeks to as much as 36 weeks.'

No wonder its so bad in the US, that is woefully inadequate.

For comparison heres what you need to join the UK police force, there are three main options for potential candidates-

Degree apprenticeship - you'll join as a police constable and undertake a three-year apprenticeship in professional policing practice. This gives you the chance to earn while you learn. Successfully completing the programme will also mean passing your probation and achieving a degree-level qualification too.

Degree-holder entry - if you've already got an undergraduate degree in any subject, this two-year pathway could be for you. As a police constable, you'll combine work-based and classroom learning, leading to a graduate diploma in professional policing practice once you complete your probation.

Policing degree - study a three-year undergraduate professional policing degree at university. You'll apply to join a police force when you graduate, and start your career with a shorter on-the-job training programme.

And bear in mind, our regular police arnt armed and we still train police for this long before unleashing them on the public.

And its the same across Europe (or even stricter), in Norway for example would be candidates for the police-

'must attend their nations' three-year police universities, and leave with degrees that are equivalent to a bachelor's. The first year of police education in Norway is focused on the role of police in society and ethics. In the second year, students shadow training officers, before returning full time for a third year focused on investigations and completing a thesis paper.'

In Finland where the police are armed-

'after three years of college, including time spent working in a police internship-like setting, 30% of a student's final grade is a series of combination personal interviews and psychological tests intended to ensure that young Finnish cops can be trusted with their guns and power.'

'Use of force training doesn't begin in Finland until four months into the curriculum, when a Minneapolis police rookie would already be awarded their badge and gun.'

So I think a large part of the problem is pretty clear. The US police force in geenral is woefully undertrained, woefully undereducated, woefully screened for psycholigical issues and put into difficult and dangerous situaions without anywhere near the proper training or instruction.
No wonder its a shit show. }}

There was a good clip on Joe Rogans podcast with an ex-military (I want to say marine or SEAL) talking about how much they train.... 18 months for 6 month deployments.

Given how militarised the police in the US are and the kind of things the likes of SWAT get up to, you would think that training of police would be closer to military level than supermarket level.

In my opinion 2 things need to happen:

1 - refined funding of the police. And by this I dont mean getting rid of police, I mean taking them from the level of an army to that of police, with specialised units to deal with specialised threats.

2 - redirection of some funding to tackle root causes. This would include funding for the "war on drugs." Which is completely political and has caused far more damage than good. Local social programmes specific to the needs of communities would then benefit from this free pool of money.

"Defund the Police" has always been a stupid slogan. The correct phrase would be "reset the police". Camden New Jersey had one of the highest murder rates in the country. They reformed the police department, everyone had to be re-interviewed, they rehired 2/3 of the police with different training and community objectives, and spent the money saved on social programs. The result was a drop in the murder rate with the percentage of unsolved cases going from 61% to 16%.

I think the short training is linked to the old posse mentality of getting together a group of people to do something. More like Sherifs in the Shire rather than a professional force.

quick thoughts
on Trump vs Obamacare- i agree vengeance plays a part but also Biden has started campaigning on improving and expanding Obamacare so of course Trump will try to knock that platform down at any cost.

on police training- more training is definitely necessary in this world, but it can't be one-size-fits all. No matter where you are the officers NEED to understand the community they're working in or it will all go horribly wrong sooner or later.
Also un-training is critical. To Lance's comparison to Navy Seals, I'm afraid there's been too many military veterans with exactly that training and wartime experience who have taken police jobs in civilian life and brought the culture of an Occupying Force to local policing since 9/11 and all our recent wars.

{ One of the major differences Ive seen in footage fomr Uk and US police forces is UK police are trained to deescalate a situation as fast and peacefully as possible. US police seem to try to porvoke suspects into violence in order to justify their own violence.
This video illustrates the difference well.

From 2.57 }}

Minneapolis city council has voted to abolish the police department and replace it with...something else. This is not well defined, and never has a city of this size done such a thing. Will be following with considerable interest.

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/minneapolis-city-council-votes-abolish-police-force-154501338.html

David H wrote:
Also un-training is critical. To Lance's comparison to Navy Seals, I'm afraid there's been too many military veterans with exactly that training and wartime experience who have taken police jobs in civilian life and brought the culture of an Occupying Force to local policing since 9/11 and all our recent wars.

To be clear, I am no way in favour of replicating military training for your regular police officer. Maybe some specialist stuff for specialist units.

My comparison was the quality and quantity of training the military receives to do its job versus a police force that in many places had military grade equipment and duties. Even your regular police officer can have an arsenal in the back of the car but little training on when and how to actually use effectively.

{{ Found this very informative, and equally worrying. }}

This is all common knowledge. Do you actually believe all of this applies only to America? Or even predominantly? The only thing that is probably unique to the US is gerrymandering (goes clear back to the 19th century). Closing polling stations is more recent and done almost entirely by Republicans. How it is they've gotten away with it is beyond my understanding.

Do you actually believe all of this applies only to America? Or even predominantly? - Halfy

{{ In short, no and yes.
Slightly longer, lobbying and interest groups and big buiness have undue influence in all democracies. But America is 100 times worse for it than anywhere else I know of.
And I was astonished by the polling station stuff- how thats not illegal beggers belief. }}

I think you're being naive if you think big business doesn't have a huge impact on British democracy. It's just more sly.

{{ I agree they have undue influence in our democracy, I said that, I just think America has taken it to a whole new level. }}

{{ So according to Treump America is ina good place with cornavirus, and according to Pence everything is fine, get the kids back in school now!

Meanwhile relaity continues to defy the fanciful thinking-

'More than three million people in the US have tested positive for Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Over 131,000 deaths have been reported, and on Tuesday the US broke its record for most new cases reported in one day.'

Pity the fanciful thinking, wishful desire to have an open economy come what may is costing so many US lives. A disgrace from day one. Underplayed the threat, under played the needed response, and turned a matter of public health into politics. Then drove for qiuick reopenings way, way too soon when the virus wasnt under control. The end result- more deaths per capita than anywhere else on the planet an dmore cases per capita than any nation on the face of the planet. Just awful. Easily the worst attempt at leadership I have seen in my lifetime. This is failure on a catastrophic level. And sadlyt also a lethal failure of leadership for over 131,000 people and their families. How can they not be held accountable for this travesity?}}

It's funny that everyone quotes Johns Hopkins data. It's draw is it happened to be first, but it was created by a systems engineer and her grad student: not real experience in health data. They just pull and pool various sources. Once it took off the university diverted funding and increased the team, but there's no reason to trust it any more than anywhere else.

{{ Pretty sure it doesnt matter whose figures you use, there isnt a version where the US is doing well on this. }}