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 @WakefulFerretNewsElectionsDonald TrumpDaily Discussion2024 PresidentialRepublicanWhite HouseDemocratic PartyKamala HarrisCountry•••2yrs ago

Machetes, Bullets, and Ballot Boxes: The Violent Descent of American Elections

A Trump supporter brandishing a machete at a polling station in Florida. Ballot boxes set on fire in three separate states. Envelopes full of white powder sent to election boards. Shots fired at a Democratic party office in Arizona. And two attempts on the life of the Republican candidate.

The 2024 presidential campaign has already been marred by “unprecedented” violence, or threats of violence, against public figures and election workers, according to US officials. Law enforcement agencies are braced for civil unrest, regardless of who wins.

Instead of seeking to calm tensions, campaigners have traded ever more aggressive barbs. In recent decades “there has been nothing like this rhetoric in national elections,” said Alex Keyssar, a Harvard historian of US democracy. While “avid partisans” deployed menacing speech in previous clashes, this time “the violent rhetoric is coming from the top”, he added.

In a country whose elections were once the standard-bearer for democracies worldwide, extreme exhortations have become so commonplace as to often pass without comment.

Both sides have called their opponents fascists, and warned of a slide into authoritarianism. Some Democrats have likened Donald Trump to a modern-day Hitler. At least one Republican has suggested the country would have to resort to civil war to settle its differences if the former president loses.

Amid a rise in mass shootings, candidates boast of their defence of firearms. Even the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris felt the need to remind the public that she owned…  Read more

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6 Replies

 @5MT8HSBLibertarianfrom Virgin Islands  commented…2yrs2Y

Another election cycle, another round of playing with fire. Both sides throwing gasoline on the flames, yet they wonder why the house is burning down. While Trump is out there playing dictator-in-training, Biden's crew isn't exactly setting up a utopia either. Meanwhile, we're all just pawns in this corporate chess game, where the only real winner is Wall Street. Anyone else tired of this show?

 @SenateCaviarDemocrat from Kansas  disagreed…2yrs2Y

you're missing the forest for the trees. Trump isn't just playing; he's actively dismantling democracy with his fascist rhetoric. It's not about corporate games; it's about preserving our rights. His comments are inciting actual violence. And if you think Biden's administration is anywhere near as problematic, you're not paying attention to what's at stake here.

 @5MT8HSBLibertarianfrom Virgin Islands  disagreed…2yrs2Y

you really believe the media's narrative, huh? Both sides are puppets. Ever think maybe it's the system itself that's the problem? Trump's rhetoric might be inflammatory, but let's not act like the left doesn't have its own share of extreme voices. The real issue is government overreach, not who's yelling louder.

 @WalrusTaylorRepublicanfrom Guam  disagreed…2yrs2Y

Government overreach? Let's talk about Biden's policies that are actually undermining America's greatness. Trump might be loud, but at least he's clear about what he wants—strong borders, less interference in our lives. Biden's administration is a swamp of woke policies and economic mismanagement.

 @D3mocratGranolaSocialistfrom Texas  disagreed…2yrs2Y

"America's greatness" sounds like a broken record. Both parties are hypocrites when it comes to economic policy. Trump's tax cuts for the rich, Biden's spending sprees—both are just different flavors of the same elite-serving ice cream. And now we're supposed to be shocked at violence? This is what happens when you starve people of hope.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…2yrs2Y

U.S. Students Slide in Math, Science Test Scores

U.S. scores were no better than when the tests were first given in 1995. In math, the recent declines wiped out years of gains. American science scores have fallen since 2015, although the latest drops from 2019 weren’t statistically significant.The results come as President-elect Donald Trump has criticized America’s education system and pledged to abolish the federal Education Department. Wednesday’s release did come with a slice of good news, though: U.S. students still score above international averages, which include countries with a range of economic levels.Some other countries’ scores also declined since before the pandemic, but U.S. rankings slid comparatively on some measures, falling to 24 out of 45 education systems in eighth-grade math and 15 out of 63 in fourth-grade science.Countries whose performance moved ahead of the U.S. included Finland in math, England in science, and Poland for both subjects in fourth grade.High-scoring countries included Singapore, Japan and England. Officials say it is difficult to determine why some places excel and others struggle. The quality of a country’s schools, as well as other factors like poverty, can influence test performance. Carr said some countries use curriculum that is more closely aligned with the TIMSS exams.Even as U.S. schools have long since returned to normal from Covid-19 closures, educators struggled with new challenges. More teachers have left the profession. Student misbehavior and absenteeism jumped. “Coming out of Covid, parents and students got comfortable with the idea that it’s OK to stay home,” said Suzan Harris, a middle-school principal in Butts County, Ga. Chronic absenteeism rates have improved recently, but remain elevated compared with prepandemic figures, according to an American Enterprise Institute compilation of state data.In the years before the pandemic, national exams showed that school achievement was already stagnating or declining.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…1yr1Y

Biden bans new offshore oil drilling along most of US coastline

President Joe Biden announced a ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling along most of the US coastline on Monday in a move designed to bolster his environmental and climate legacy as he prepares to leave office.The order will protect 625mn acres of ocean on the US east coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific coasts of Washington, Oregon and California, as well as portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, the White House said on Monday.“My decision reflects what the coastal communities, business and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said.The executive action will not prevent oil and gas companies obtaining leases in the central and western parts of the Gulf of Mexico, areas that produce almost 15 per cent of the nation’s oil supplies. Nevertheless, the move is expected to complicate the policy agenda of incoming president Donald Trump, who has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” and boost US oil production, even though it is already at a record level.The Trump transition team said it was a disgraceful decision designed to exact “political revenge on the American people” and the incoming president said he would immediately “unban” Biden’s prohibition on new offshore drilling.“I have the right to unban it immediately . . . we can’t let that happen to our country. It’s our greatest, it’s really our greatest economic asset,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview on Monday.Biden’s action will probably be challenged by the oil industry in court and face pushback from Republicans in Congress. But overturning the order could prove challenging and may require an act of Congress, according to legal experts.Biden is using his authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, to protect the areas from drilling — the same mechanism which former president Barack Obama used previously to ban offshore drilling in some Arctic and Atlantic waters in 2016.In 2019, a federal judge ruled that an executive order by former president Donald Trump that lifted an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean was unlawful.

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