This is #transitzone USA Election Update 11 recorded on Friday 11 October 2024.

Only 24 days to go to voting day on November the 5th.

To say the USA electorate is febrile is an understatement.

Events external to the actual election campaigns are dominating the USA news cycles and playing into those campaigns in various and significant ways.

Right now, Florida is reeling from the impacts of Hurricane Milton: storm surges, intense winds, widespread flash flooding and a score of highly damaging tornadoes spawned by this tropical storm that came on the heels of Hurricane Helene that had already caused multi-state destruction. There have been fatalities.

Tensions remain high in the Middle East with missile exchanges between Israel and Iran and a looming widening of that regional war as Israel continues its attacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, against Hezbollah in Lebanon and operations in the West Bank.

The war between Russia and Ukraine seems to have reached another inflection point.

The two presidential candidates, Kamala Harris for the Democrats and Donald Trump for his cult version of what was the GOP, have increased the tempo of their media appearances and rallies especially Harris who is spreading herself across many outlets from 60 Minutes to Call Her Daddy.

Trump is exploiting the natural disasters of the hurricanes, peddling a torrent of blatant lies about the Biden Harris response, and FEMA, the USA Federal Emergency Management Agency, tying those lies to illegal immigrants. Social media is full of bitter attacks on FEMA and specific civil servants.

GOP lawmaker, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has gone another step to push an unhinged conspiracy theory that the government is controlling the weather to punish and disadvantage Republican states.

As a strange historical echo, the widow of Robert F Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, has died at 96. Her third eldest child is Robert F Kennedy Jr, formerly an independent presidential candidate now, ostensibly, an avid Trump supporter.

This time in the#transitzone, we want to delve into aspects of social media, its potential regulation, artificial intelligence, journalism and propaganda as it relates to this extraordinary USA election campaign.

Peter Clarke is in conversation with Associate Professor Fiona Martin from Sydney University. Fiona is a lecturer and researcher in Convergent and Online media.

RESOURCES

LINKS TO FIONA MARTIN

Fiona Martin is Associate Professor in Convergent and Online Media at the University of Sydney, and Associate Dean Research Education for the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/fiona-martin.html

https://sydney.academia.edu/FionaMartin

This is #transitzone USA Election Update 10, recorded on Wednesday 2 October 2024.

Just 35 days to go to the 2024 voting day on November the 5th.

Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke watched the vice presidential debate between The Democrats, Governor Tim Walz, running mate to Kamala Harris, and the GOP’s, Senator JD Vance, Donald Trump’s VP pick. The debate was hosted by CBS News in their New York studios.

Neither Peter nor Margo scanned nor consulted other media takes or analyses. including from social media, before recording. What you’ll hear are their uninfluenced comments.

The larger “real world” context was stark. The still unfolding loss of life and widespread destructions from Hurricane Helene. And the threatening regional Middle East war with Israel and Iran, now facing off again after Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and ostensibly Hezbollah.

The contrast between the style and "mood" of this event and the Donald Trump, Kamala Harris debate was striking. This was almost an "old school" encounter with both Vance and Walz choosing, strategically and tactically, at least the veneer of a kind of comity and reasonableness, even fleeting moments of agreement, as opposed to the unrelenting Trump style of bitter, curmudgeonly denunciations and declarations of impending American dystopia.

THE 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE REPLAY:

https://www.youtube.com/live/hWva-5l_qB0?si=goqOOF5XGyhG_6gF

This is #transitzone USA Election Update 9, recorded on Saturday 27th of September, 2024.

This last week of the election campaign has seen Donald Trump become even more overheated in his rhetoric. His fixation on whether Kamala Harris had a summer job working for McDonalds about 40 years ago, as she claims, has become a recurring feature of his rally rants. He has not relented an iota on the Springfield, Haitian attacks or his 2020, “rigged” election Big Lie, even as the voting machine company, Smartmatic, settles at the last minute a defamation case with far-right outlet NEWSMAX. Fox News is next in that litigation queue

But gradually, economic policies are coming into focus with Trump emphasising his across the board tariffs policy and 15% corporate tax offer to encourage manufacturing in the USA plus a grab bag of other throw it against the wall policy promises.

Kamala Harris delivered a major speech followed by a solo cable TV interview around HER economic policies. And yes, "opportunity economy" and ‘middle class” were repeated themes from her as you’d expect. There was some detail.

Peter Clarke, Margo Kingston with their guest, Nicholas Gruen, discuss the "competing" economic policies of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump (such as they are), with under 4o days to go to the USA election voting day on 5 November.

We are now in the fifth year of the corona virus pandemic. New waves of infections are occurring.

From those earlier years, starting in January 2020, before vaccinations were available, until today, has been a turbulent history of public health measures, including stringent lockdowns, vaccine and mask mandates and socio, economic, political debates and disagreements around “living with covid”. There has been a plethora of often conflicting or at best, ambiguous information and, from certain political actors outright denialism and disinformation about the pandemic and the nature and character of the disease.

Today, despite the persistence of the corona virus in our communities, and the widespread evidence of various forms of “LONG COVID”, we find ourselves in a situation where, overall, complacency rules. People go to work with covid symptoms now! A long way from those days of government enforced quarantine hotels.

Whereas, once we had easy access to daily data on infection numbers, ICU patients and deaths etc., we now have little idea. That data has been submerged.

Hospitals themselves, once strictly fortressed from SARS-CoV2 infections, are now places where being infected is often highly likely. More veiled are the continuing infections and deaths in aged care facilities. They still seem to be ground zero for covid19 deaths.

Back in August 2020, we released our first #transitzone PANDEMIC PRIMER PODCAST. Four more followed examining the VIRUS itself, its variants, vaccines and global responses to the pandemic.

#transitzone's expert guide was Professor John Potter, UK born, Australian raised and educated, but now based in Nelson, New Zealand. Previously, John worked in a range of overseas institutions including as Senior VP and Director, Public Health Sciences Division at the renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre, in Seattle, in the United States.

Professor John joins Peter Clarke again, from Nelson, for this #transitzone PANDEMIC PRIMER PODCAST, 2024 UPDATE.

RESOURCES

This podcast is intended as an incentive for you to seek further high quality information on the covid19 pandemic especially around "LONG COVID", in the form of academic papers and well researched journalism.

"Long Covid in Aotearoa NZ: Risk assessment and preventive action urgently needed."

https://www.phcc.org.nz/briefing/long-covid-aotearoa-nz-risk-assessment-and-preventive-action-urgently-needed

"Potential for an avian influenza pandemic: Time for NZ to ramp up preparedness'

https://www.phcc.org.nz/briefing/potential-avian-influenza-pandemic-time-nz-ramp-preparedness

This is #transitzone USA Election Update 8, recorded on Wednesday, 18 September.

It is a week since the Kamala Harris, Donald Trump nationally televised debate, which most saw beforehand as a pivotal media event. It was certainly a revealing one. The #USA media journalism sector has been awash with post debate analyses and opining ever since.

When Trump dropped his meme quality, “they’re eating the dogs”, during the debate, it was perceived primarily as part of his unravelling under the repeated needling from Harris. But it’s clearer now that the Springfield Ohio, “they’re eating the pets” lie is central to the Trump, GOP, cult campaign, propaganda operation. GOP VP nominee, JD Vance, in a testy interview with Dana Bash on CNN, admitted that he, “creates these stories” for effect. There has been no credible evidence for the claims.

Springfield has been deeply affected by bomb and other threats against Haitians and lockdowns.

And this week, an armed lurker in the bushes on the perimeter of a Trump golf course was flushed out by the Secret Service shooting in his direction and later arrested, charged with firearm offences. He apparently fired no shots and Trump, who was playing golf there at the time, was unharmed. But the incident has been described almost universally as an “attempted assassination”.

Of course, Trump and the GOP cult campaign have exploited it to the full, again blaming the “inflammatory rhetoric”, criticising Trump, from the Democratic Party, for inducing the violence. Trump's career long, personal hallmark has been vitriolic, inflammatory rhetoric and "insult politics"

Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke look back on another febrile week in the USA 2024 election campaign as the Springfield, Ohio situation worsens and GOP propaganda becomes even more bizarre and deceptive.

FORTY SIX DAYS TO GO TO VOTING DAY.

#TRANSITZONE, USA election update 7, recorded on Wednesday, 11 September, 2024 ,immediately after the ostensibly “pivotal”, live telecast of the presidential debate between former president, Donald Trump, and the current Vice President, Kamala Harris, hosted by the ABC television network in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, home to the cracked Liberty Bell, location for the first and second Continental Congresses leading up to the war of independence from Britain, where the USA Declaration of Independence was issued and where the American constitution for a federal republic was debated, forged, and ratified at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention.

The city was also the nation’s capital until Washington DC was built and established.

That same USA constitution, via “a compromise” with the then slave owning states, embedded a now antiquated electoral college, that prevents a direct popular election of America’s key national office holder, the president, and makes a joke of “one person one vote”.

That’s why today, there’s such an intense campaigning and media focus on a tiny number of US voters in a handful of “swing states”, including the crucial one of Pennsylvania itself.

Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke watched the live debate, then recorded this podcast without scanning or consulting any other media including social media. What you hear is their unalloyed take on this crucial media event before it was sliced, diced, interpreted, framed, labelled, “decided upon” within the USA and wider media, journalism ecosystems including social media.

A personal, "objective" response to the presidential debate.

THE DEBATE IN FULL

We decided not to include any audio clips of the Harris, Trump presidential debate in this #transitzone episode. We felt, as a 90 minute, complex encounter, that was essentially a VISUAL and audio presentation, brief excerpts may be misleading. So here is the debate, in full, from ABC News, for your perusal and personal analyses.

https://www.youtube.com/live/GdSDngmDLmY?si=fR0mljXivJQSM3p5

This is the sixth #transitzone USA election update.

It was recorded on Friday 30 August. (Please see news update below.)

Vice President Kamala Harris, since emerging as the presumed then formally nominated Democratic presidential candidate, has been under considerable pressure to do some formal media interviews and full cry media conferences.

Some of her "critics" have suggested Harris is OK on the teleprompter doing rally speeches but less accomplished and confidently communicative when she is extemporising under journalistic questioning.

Another more substantive aspect of doing more interviews was to “explain” shifts in her policy positions including around, for example, fracking and how to deal with the border.

Historically, candidates from both parties have shifted their overall policy profile once they face a general election after the primaries are done with.

Harris, and her VP pick, Governor Tim Walz, have been touring the crucial swing state of Georgia in their emblazoned campaign bus. They chose veteran journalist, Dana Bash, from CNN, for their first sit down interview.

Bash pre-recorded the interview in a plain unadorned room with that bus visible parked outside the glass doors before the two candidates headed to a rally in Savanah Georgia.

Peter Clarke and Margo Kingston appraised Harris's first formal journalistic interview and the current state of the competing campaigns.

NEWS UPDATE

Former President Donald J. Trump said on Friday that he would vote against a ballot measure in Florida that would expand abortion access in the state, clarifying his stance after having suggested a day earlier that he might support the measure.

“I’ll be voting no,” Mr. Trump told Fox News, even as he said he disagreed with his home state’s current ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/us/politics/trump-florida-abortion-measure.html

RESOURCES

GEORGE LAKOFF

Peter and Margo referred to the linguist, activist, George Lakoff.

https://x.com/georgelakoff/status/1829010468327080438?s=61&t=LsaW4g5LZrmuvsdTgt2l2w

LAKOFF WEBSITE: https://george-lakoff.com

KAMALA HARRIS INTERVIEWED BY DANA BASH AT CNN

PART 1 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-1-digvid

PART 2 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-2-digvid

PART 3 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-3-digvid

This is the fifth of the #transitzone, USA 2024, presidential election campaign updates, recorded Saturday 24 August.

It has been 34 days since Joe Biden withdrew from the race. A truly extraordinary month in USA political history.

The Democratic Party held its national nominating convention in Chicago for four days this week. But there were only the most minor echoes of the turmoil and police brutality of their roiling 1968 convention, held there in the midst of the Vietnam War and in the aftermath of the withdrawal of Lyndon Baines Johnson from the presidential contest and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy.

The expected Pro Palestine protests were muted and overall, non disruptive.

This convention was a smooth, slick, crafted affair with highly co-ordinated rhetoric emphasising the Kamala Harris, Tim Walz themes of freedom, moving forward, renewing democracy and relentlessly describing, attacking, ridiculing their Republican opponent, Donald Trump.

"Fraudster, Philanderer, Felon" was one piece of alliteration a Democratic speaker used. But there was much, much more, including even a suggestive hand action from, of all people, the ever serious Barack Obama about size: crowd size that is.

At the end of the week, the so-called scion of the Kennedy dynasty, Robert F Kennedy Jr, suspended his presidential campaign, as an independent, to endorse Trump.

In his typically fickle way, Trump, who had earlier blasted Kennedy as a “dangerous radical”, now heaps praise upon him.

Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke, who followed the Democratic Convention closely, listened to the speeches, observed that very American, often cheesy, saccharine sentimentality, hoopla and razzle dazzle, discuss this pivotal week in the upturned 2024 presidential campaign.

RESOURCES

Margo Kingston, in her commentary, drew upon a range of USA podcasts and other sources. She's including this selection for your information and reference.

"Kamala Harris Wants to Win". The Ezra Klein Show

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/kamala-harris-wants-to-win/id1548604447?i=1000666403310

"A.B. Stoddard: Only in America". The Bulwark Podcast

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-b-stoddard-only-in-america/id1447684472?i=1000666394258

"Kamala Harris is not going back to the failed politics of 2016". Nate Silver - "Silver Bullet" Blog

https://www.natesilver.net/p/kamala-harris-is-not-going-back-to