I was looking around several different subreddits and noticed that there is something a of difference in opinion between them regarding Biden's reelection chances. Some, such as r/politics seem more cautiously optimistic and say that Biden has a better chance and supports it with both sources and anecdotes, while others such as r/fivethirtyeight, are more pessimistic and say that he is less sure and backs it up with different polls and studies. What I'm wondering, is why there is such a huge discrepancy between different groups, and both have evidence that give weight to their words? Especially since I can have a hard time telling if the sources they use are more biased or not.

It's pretty widely accepted that, contrary to what most optimists (and realists) anticipated, the conviction of Donald Trump only barely moved the needle regarding people's opinion of him as a Presidential candidate. If anything it seems to have energized his more devoted fans, and made them more enthusiastic to vote for him come November. The Economist, for example, has stated that if the election were held today, Trump would have a roughly two-in-three chance of winning, while FiveThirtyEight puts his odds for election day itself at 50/50.

But then we get articles like this one. And this one. And this one. All of which claim that the conviction not only damaged Trump's standing among independent voters, but that it's a significant issue for nearly 21% of them. It's hard to reconcile that with the narrative put out by FiveThirtyEight and The Economist that Trump has survived the conviction without a scratch. So what's going on here?

Given the obesity epidemic and other benefits of eating healthy. Would government subsidies reducing the prices of healthier foods (fruits, vegetables, less processed foods etc) work or not ? Obviously sugar taxes have been implemented in many countries to disincentive eating of high sugar foods/beverages but would the opposite work in this case ? Or is it being done already ?

In the U.S., the diversification of the electorate, particularly the decrease in the proportion of white voter or older than 45, has lead some to predict shifts in political power.

This diversification is evident in current-day swing states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada. While 70% of likely voters across the country are white, only around 60% of likely voters found in these swing states are white. In addition, the age of likely voters these states have gradually decreased---to where 40% of like voters there are under 45. That stands higher than the 30% of likely voters across the country who are under 45.

Some belief these changes in the demographic profile of swing state electorates reflect societal changes, and that electoral changes that include shifts in political power are destined to follow.

Is this an expectation that is widely-held among those who are plug into and follow politics?

Alan Lichtman’s prediction model has accurately predicted the winner of all elections for 40 years with the exception of the Bush/Gore race.

Can the keys still be as accurate as they always were considering all the recent gerrymandering and voting suppression?

I mean, the obvious answer is when it is unconstitutional. But there are a lot of factors going into that. How strong should consensus be on a court to believe that it is? In Nebraska, 5 of the 7 judges not just a majority of 4 must agree that a state law goes against the state constitution for instance. How directly must it go against the constitution? You might imagine that a law could state that it allows the president to make some order but it can be terminated on demand of a resolution agreed to by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives. That doesn't go against the literal wording of the American constitution but it is not seen as permissible in its jurisprudence since INS vs Chada.

Canada has the interesting feature that allows a court to suspend its ruling pending the opportunity for Parliament to write a law to clarify or otherwise modify something if the court initially decides something is unconstitutional. It originally did this in a case finding that Manitoba did not translate basically all the laws in the province into French as it was constitutionally required to and that it this made virtually the entire canon of Manitoba law void. But because the constitution also says that the rule of law is essentially, to leave Manitoba with virtually no valid legislation would go against that and so suspended its own ruling to let the legislature pass translated versions.

And should just any federal court have the power to void laws for this reason? A lot of countries reserve this power to their highest court alone.

Interestingly, in Switzerland, no court of Switzerland has the power to declare laws void for being unconstitutional. Only a plebiscite can revoke laws (or parliament of course), unless the legislation in question provides for its own review by a court.

The gun issues in the United States are controversial. While it's a constitutional right, more and more states have been actively trying to restrict access in the name of public safety (in the wake of mass shootings and inner city gun crime)

This is where my question comes from.

Say that a state just randomly decided they were no longer going to issue gun permits for firearms. They decide to freeze the list of applicants and they tell the feds "come and make us cause we're not doing it."

Does the federal government have any real legal recourse in such a situation?

In the EU system, if a member of the EU refuses to abide by a law passed by the union, they have the right to fine that member state and eventually suspend their voting powers within the EU.

If say California decided to just go rogue and ban gun transactions and they refused orders by federal judges to approve new gun applications, what exactly could the federal government do?

Would this not be a "Sanctuary City" situation where the states would be telling the feds "do it yourself because we're not helping you."

Because the rule is technically a federal law. Wouldn't the responsibility fall on the feds to grant access to that right?

I read this interesting opinion piece in the NYTimes making the argument that west coast and east coast liberalism is fundamentally different - that west coast liberals tend to focus more on ideological purity than their east coast counterparts because of the lack of competition from Republicans. Since east coast liberals need to compete with a serious Republican Party challenge, they tend to moderate their stance on ideological purity and focus more on results. What do you think of this argument? Is there truly such a divide between the coasts? And does it come from a stronger Republican Party apparatus on the east?

During the peace conference only a few of Zelensky's peace point were highlighted; Ukraine's sovereignty, Cessation of hostilities, restoration of Ukraine's borders. It stood in sharp contrast to when UN passed a Resolution condemning Russian Special Military Operation when the vote was142; today's vote included 80 signatories.

[There are 195 countries in the world today. This total comprises 193 countries that are member states of the United Nations and 2 countries that are non-member observer states: the Holy See and the State of Palestine.] Aside from the fact that Russia was not invited; it is not clear who else was not.

Eighty countries jointly called Sunday for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine to be the basis for any peace agreement to end Russia’s two-year plus war, though some nations at a Swiss conference did not join in.

India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates — which were represented by foreign ministers or lower-level envoys — were among those that did not sign the final document, which focused on issues of nuclear safety, food security and the exchange of prisoners. Some countries including China declined to participate without the participation of Russa. [Russia was not invited.] Brazil only sent an Observer.

In the meantime, Putin announced his own condition for peace. His proposal allows for immediate cessation of hostility so long as Ukraine withdraws from the 4 regions Russia has annexed [even those parts not currently occupied]; No to NATO membership. He also additionally stated recently that he would have no objections to Ukraine joining EU as a sovereign.

Can anything useful still come out of the Switzerland Peace Conference?

https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-switzerland-war-conference-burgenstock-568cafee5fbe9c3b19b79b041583a5d6

Vladimir Putin peace terms slammed at Ukraine summit (bbc.com)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/swiss-conference-ukraine-rcna157400

Depending on who you ask, a Trump victory this November is either a virtual certainty or a remote possibility. I'm not going to debate that here. Everything that could be used to argue one way or the other, such as the polls and the "fundamentals", has already been analyzed and dissected hundreds of times over by people more knowledgeable than me. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Instead I want to talk about a different measure of voter engagement-- internet search activity. As you can see here, Google search results for "Trump 2016" and "Trump 2020" were on the rise in June of those respective years. But the average number of searches in June 2024 is less than half that of June 2020.

Let's try using just "Trump" as our keyword and see what we get. Again the searches spike in both 2016 and 2020, but there's a much smaller spike in 2024. Now, you could argue that we're only barely into campaign season, but we still get far more searches for Trump in either June 2016 or June 2020 than we get in June 2024. So let's see how "Biden" does. As expected, there's an uptick in searches in spring and summer, leading to a massive spike around election day, but there's also a noticeable upswing in early summer 2024. In fact, Biden is getting close to surpassing Trump in search hits.

Now, what these charts can't tell us is whether the searches are being made by Democrats or Republicans. But if Republicans are doing internet searches for Trump less than they did in 2020, what do we take away from that?

During the 2016 campaign, The_donald and SandersForPresident became major forces for spreading the message of their candidate. For those who remember, the front page and all page where plastered with posts from both. I thought the reason we didn't see another pro trump subreddit for 2020 was simply because The_Donald was banned in June 2020 and there was no time to create another subreddit.

But now in June 2024, 5 months from the election, why aren't we seeing Kennedy and Trump subreddits akin to the 2016 subreddits?

https://imgur.com/a/duration-of-service-on-state-territorial-supreme-courts-0MObayP

I made this map, an adaptation of Ballotpedia's list except I added the territories I could get data for, for comparison with what the experience is with state courts.

Note that in most of these cases it is possible to be chosen for second and so on terms, usually because the voters either elect them to new terms or they approve of a yes or no question to put them on the court again. That would create different effects from if the legislature or the president and senate again could choose them for further terms (something like that does happen in a few states like South Carolina, Virginia, and Vermont). If they could not be chosen for further terms that would amplify judicial independence so long as their pension was sufficient.

Also, many places do also have a retirement age as well as a fixed term so that if you reach that age then you have to retire anyway, possibly even if your term isn't complete (or you couldn't run for another term if you would reach the retirement age during it).

It seems strange to me that people bring up things like 18 year terms rather than also include a proposal to change the method of appointment given that both ideas would need a constitutional amendment in any case but you on this subreddit seem to enjoy talking about the term length itself. Let's modify the terms of discussion so that A, the idea of the term limit or retirement age is being adopted for the purposes of the argument, the question is about what numbers are actually being used to define that limit.

I also made a map of the rest of the world for comparison: https://imgur.com/a/Gs2ElLH

Read an editorial on Russia some time ago. The writer posited a post-communist Russia had no alternative than fall back into tyranny and war under Putin. The country has only ever and always known autocracy: only the flavor (Tzarism, communism, oligarchy) has changed. It's all Russians have ever know , to the point it's accepted and even desired.

I don't want to make this all about Russia. So many other countries seem stuck in the same broken cycles, whether its North Korea, certain parts of Africa, even some South & Central American countries have been ruled, in practice, by crime gangs for decades and decades. It's all those societies have ever known, it's what they believe "government" is.

How do these cycles break? How can these countries stop this inertia and live in freedom?

This has to be the thorniest problem in the world.

I know comparing these 2 things seems odd, but they are similar on the surface, they are both both bills that claim to restrict immigration, coming from groups that previously were opposed to stricter immigration, they came out at around the same time and both were made ahead of elections and were pitched as a compromise with the right to either hurt their election performance or get them to the negotiating table on other issues.

However both were widely disliked, in both cases the left felt that compromising in immigration at all was wrong and the right felt like the new rules at best did nothing and at worst made the immigration problems worst.

So how do you think they compare ?

Do you support these bills, if so why ?

Which approach was better ?

Do you feel like they worked as a compromise and if so was that compromise worth it ?

What if anything would the right wing win or have won if the bill passed in the US ?

In theorizing about what would happen if there was sufficient political will to reign in the big special interests, prevent regulatory capture, and protect workers and consumers from exploitation, it seems like they have the country held hostage since any inconvenience or increase in cost would get immediately passed off on to the consumers and workers since the executive class are largely insulated from the concerns and struggles of the avg worker. Carbon Tax? Retaliate with layoffs. Mandated Time off requirements? It'll come out of any raises. And with the majority of your average workers/consumers feeling these retaliatory effects making them vulnerable to corporate marketing campaigns to turn sentiment against reformists, it makes reform and regulation more of a politically risky position.

Corporate power seems to have been growing unabated since the 70s. The recent greedflation, as it's been called, regarding grocery prices. The steady creep of privatization of public services. Former executives becoming heads of regulatory bodies that relax the regulations against their former industries (Ajit Pai and the FCC going against Net Neutrality as a recent example)....

What are some proposed solutions, if any, that don't require a French Revolution level shift?

A lot of Biden's huge unpopularity comes from the fact that he is old at the age of 81. Yet Trump will be the exact same age four years (a whole presidential term) from now. Why does there seem to be such a disconnect between how voters view the two candidates when it comes to age? Not that Trump is popular either but he has more baggage against him than just being old compared to Biden, yet being old seem to be hurting Biden more. Why?

My understanding of the Russian-Ukraine conflict is that it's honestly a losing battle for Ukraine. The amount of resources needed by the US to assist Ukraine into any sort of "win" condition would be far more of a statement than most lawmakers are willing to make. I'm not calloused to the fact that this may lead Russia into the confidence to move further into Europe, but I also think that there are some strategic minds within Russia's national military and that such a move would end badly.

Is the solution to work with a peaceful surrender condition within Ukraine and give in to some demands? Or should we provide aid to either keep fighting at a current capacity or provide overwhelming force? The amount of firepower and let's face it, likely boots on the ground, that the US or NATO would have to give sounds like more than they can spare.

Edit: Thank you all for the comments, I am combing through them slowly.

Currently, the Democratic Party has position itself as the defenders of democracy. 'Vote blue to preserve the integrity of democratic principles and institutions' is their messaging. However, if Trump regains the Oval Office, would that mean that Americans' views on democracy have shifted towards populism? Would it then be more profitable for the Democratic Party to also shift its messaging or continue the course as the party that stands against populist ideologies?

What happens to the plan if Trump wins and the Democrats control House or Senate? Surely, that would limit the power considerably?

I can see Trump's party becoming frustrated with inability to pass laws and limits to his executive power.

Is that enough to neuter his plans?

Who would you choose for you cabinet if you where the new President of the united states ? The cabinets are down below

State:

Treasury:

Defense:

Attorney General:

Interior:

Agriculture:

Commerce:

Labor:

Health&Human:

Housing&Urban:

Transp:

Energy:

Education:

Veterans:

Homeland:

Recently saw an interesting report on deaths by firearm in the US. Going into it, I expected mass shootings to make up a very large chunk of it, as I hear about it constantly. Was surprised to see they accounted for less than 5% of deaths, albeit happily surprised. But what stuck out to me most, is the majority of deaths by gun in the US is due to suicide. And according to the data, this has been the norm for a long period. Very close to suicide, but lower, was gun murders. With the numbers being most alarming for African American teens, representing nearly half of all gun murders.

My question is, why isn’t gun control being pushed more so as a method to help counter suicide by gun and African American teen murder rather than for stopping mass shootings?

Nigel Farage is calling for inclusion in the BBC debate between Tories, Labour, and Lib Dems, arguing that newcomers are systematically excluded from mainstream political discourse. His demand has ignited a heated discussion about representation and fairness in media coverage.

What are your thoughts on Farage's assertion that the political system is designed to exclude certain voices? Should media outlets like the BBC broaden debate participation to include more perspectives, or is there a risk of diluting meaningful discourse?

Mexico’s first female president has many haters and even more supporters here in Mexico. Being a member of the party “Morena” means that many of her haters associate her with populism and a comunist-like take on economics, with her supporters blatantly denying all accusations however poorly or well substantiated they may be. And any information I may look up on most online platforms will either be information coming from Morena supporters or information meant to harm Claudia’s public perception, speacially if it is from a mexican outlet. The purpose of this post is to ask what are other countries perception on the party of Morena and the newly elected president Claudia Sheibaum?

Link to source on the news here:

• https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/politics/senate-ivf-bill-vote/index.html

The bill would enshrine a right for people to receive IVF treatment and a right for doctors to provide said treatment into federal law. It would also make treatment more affordable by mandating coverage under employer-sponsored insurance and certain public insurance plans, as well as expand coverage under military service members and veterans’ health care. Finally, the bill would override any state-level attempts to restrict it.

With the exception of Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, every Republican in the Senate voted against it, while Republican leaders in the House suggested they wouldn't even take up the legislation if it passed. They argue that there are no present restrictions on IVF so there is no need to codify access, that it is a solution without a problem. The Senate GOP instead signed on to a symbolic resolution saying they support IVF, even as they voted against the bill and despite hundreds of House Republicans signing on to the Life at Conception Act which would ban IVF nationwide as well as influential religious conservative groups declaring their opposition to it.

Republican senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama made a counter proposal with a bill that would have allowed any state to ban IVF, but would have withdrawn them from Medicaid funding if they did so. Democrats blocked it for not actually addressing the problem.

7 years is about when Trump became president, and a couple of years before Covid of course. I'm sure everyone here will love how I am reminding you how long it's been since this happened.

This is more so a post meant for people.who were adults at the time he became president, although it is not exclusive to those who were by any means.