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Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, are seen in a combination of file photographs taken on the campaign trail in October.
Eagle Claw and the death of the October surprise
Is there an October surprise that might make or break a president?
The October surprise dates back to President Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 this month and, surprising many, managed to cast his vote for Kamala Harris.
During his 1980 campaign against Ronald Reagan, Carter believed a daring rescue of the 52 hostages that Iranian revolutionaries held after storming the American Embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, would turn things around.
So Carter launched Operation Eagle Claw. On April 24, 1980, eight helicopters and a C-130 plane secretly landed in the desert outside of Tehran to start the rescue operation. It was a colossal failure. Several choppers malfunctioned in a sandstorm and one crashed, killing eight US servicemen. Their bodies were later recovered by the Iranians and used in a sickening public display in Tehran.
Years later, I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to interview Carter, and he told me that, in his unequivocal view, had that helicopter not crashed, the hostages would have been rescued, and he would have won the election.
Still, even after Eagle Claw failed, the Reagan campaign feared an “October surprise,” where, at the very last moment, Carter would announce a dramatic arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. It never happened, and the hostages were released under Reagan, but since then, campaigns have braced for a late-breaking event that might change the course of an election.
There have been other examples of October surprises since then. In October 1992, former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted, derailing George H.W. Bush’s reelection bid. And, of course, in October 2016, FBI Director James Comey dropped the news that he was opening up an investigation into Hillary Clinton, helping Trump win that election.
Will there be an October surprise this year?
The answer is likely no, and that’s one of the biggest mysteries of this campaign: Why not?
First off, the most consequential surprises this year came much earlier than October — Biden was pushed out in favor of Harris, while Trump was convicted of 34 felonies and survived two assassination attempts. Few things can top those.
What about this week’s revelation that Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general, alleges that Trump wanted to have generals like Hitler’s and that he’s an “authoritarian” who “admires people who are dictators”? The Trump campaign has denied this, but for all the press it’s getting, it’s hardly a surprise. Kelly and other former disgruntled Trump folks have long said all kinds of nasty things about the GOP nominee, and none of it has made a bit of difference to the campaign.
Trump remains slightly ahead in most national polls. Harris has run a solid, billion-dollar campaign, and while she can be vague and tends to serve up word-salad answers without any policy protein — as she did last night on CNN — Trump has had a far more ragged, rant-filled road, with significantly worse blunders, lies, and outbursts. And yet, it is still a coin toss, with the odds slightly favoring him.
That’s frustrating to Democrats, who think Trump has made a litany of disqualifying errors and statements, but none of them have stuck. Why not?
One reason may be that Trump’s main issues — when he stays on message — are the economy, immigration, and security, and those are proving to be more salient than the ones the Democrats focus on, such as democracy, abortion, and their record. They carry the weight of incumbency, and in 2024, that’s a drag.
A second, deeper reason is that Trump has become, essentially, surprise proof. He has so normalized personal character flaws and institutional distrust that it makes an October surprise impossible.
That merits a moment of reflection. The inherent assumption supporting an “October surprise” is that there are widely accepted conventions of behavior and social norms. When those are undermined or contradicted by a “surprise,” it will destroy a campaign. In past campaigns, that has been the exposure of lies, infidelities, corruption, a spelling error (the bar was so low for Dan Quayle), or a financial scandal. But we have had all of those in this run and … bupkis. Nothing moves. Harris might be more susceptible to a surprise because she is less well-known, but even her supporters don’t care about allegations of plagiarism or her policy flip-flops on fracking.
In 2024, the October surprise just doesn’t exist anymore. Polarization has so ossified the USA that partisans are shockproof. That may be a good thing as it means avoiding a cheap, manufactured scandal changing an election outcome, but it is also a sign that a healthy democracy is losing some of its early warning signals. Pain and surprise are signals to your body that something is wrong or threatening. It looks like today, the body politic feels no pain and, so, no surprise.
No matter what new story emerges in the final 12 days, don’t think for a moment it will make any difference. The biggest surprise will be on Nov. 5.
Bloc by Bloc: America’s Changing Voting Patterns
This GZERO 2024 election series looks at America’s changing voting patterns, bloc by bloc.
- The Arab-American vote in the shadow of Oct. 7
- The gaping gender divide in the 2024 election
- Can Dems win back the working class?
- How the youth and senior votes will influence the US election (pre-Biden withdrawal)
- Trump gambles to woo Black voters (pre-Biden withdrawal)
- Biden and Trump fight over a changing “Latino Vote” (pre-Biden withdrawal)
Ian Bremmer on the US election & crisis of democracy
With the US presidential election less than two weeks away, Ian Bremmer weighed in on who could come out on top in his "State of the World" speech at the 2024 GZERO Summit in Tokyo. Bremmer says the US faces a crisis of democracy, but who does he think will win the upcoming election? Watch to hear his prediction.
FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' face appears as a video plays on a screen, during a rally at Huntington Place in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. October 18, 2024.
Everything you need to know about the 7 swing states that could decide the election
The US election will likely be decided in the seven highly competitive swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Within these, there are various combinations that Kamala Harris or Donald Trump could secure to make it to the 270 electoral college votes needed to win.
If both candidates win all the states that solidly and likely lean their way, Harris would still need 44 electoral votes from the tossup states to win, and Trump would need 51. Here’s a roadmap of each candidate’s route through the swing states to the White House, and the key voters and issues in each state, in order of their number of electoral votes.
Pennsylvania is arguably the most important battleground state because it has 19 electoral votes, the most of any swing state, and it's hard to imagine either candidate winning the White House without it. According to election analyst Nate Silver, the candidate who wins Pennsylvania has more than a 90% chance of winning the White House.
Pennsylvania historically trended slightly blue, but in recent years the state has purpled — with a divided state House and a series of razor-thin margins in general elections. That was until the 2022 governor’s race in which Democrat Josh Shapiro won by almost fifteen points against a Trump-backed Republican, and his approval ratings in the state remain strong.
When it comes to the issues and key demographics, Pennsylvania is a microcosm of America. The economy is transitioning from manufacturing to newer industries, and agriculture is still the state’s second largest industry. It also has a massive energy sector – where fracking is and the green energy transition are major issues.
Demographically, the majority of the population is white, but the immigrant population is increasing. Twelve percent of the population is black, just under the national total of 13%. The two major cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, lean blue, and the vast rural stretches between them are dominated by Republicans.
Harris currently leads by less than 1 point, meaning it’s a dead tie. In 2020, Joe Biden only won the state by 1.2 points.
Georgia has 16 electoral college votes, and after years of Republican dominance, the state’s diversifying population gave Biden his closest win in 2020, at just 0.2 points, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state in nearly three decades.
It has also been the site of a battle over whether votes would be hand-counted on election night, but a judge struck down the proposal this week, ruling it would be too disruptive.
Just under half of the Peach State’s population is non-white. Thirty-three percent of the population is Black, and both candidates are vying to win their vote. Strong Black voter turnout – key to Biden’s Georgia victory in 2020 – was credited in large portion to the efforts of Stacey Abrams, who is also campaigning on Harris’ behalf this election. But Trump is trying to win those voters to his side by focusing on his economic policies, illegal immigration, and inflation.
Harris is also campaigning heavily on the state’s abortion restrictions, in recognition that women, who comprise 51% of Georgia’s population, could also play a crucial role in winning the state.
As of now, the state is leaning back toward its Republican roots. Trump is ahead there by two points.
North Carolina, with 16 electoral votes,has been won by Republicans in every presidential election since 2012. But right now, the state is a toss-up, with Trump ahead by less than one point.
Trump carried North Carolina in 2020 by just 70,000 votes, which has buoyed Democrats' hopes that this “purple” state could be winnable this year. The state is still reeling from Hurricane Helene, and Harris is trying to boost recovery efforts while Trump has criticized and spread misinformation about FEMA not doing enough – or even being completely corrupt. He is also campaigning on illegal immigration and the economy.
Next up is Michigan, which has 15 electoral college votes, and because it has the largest proportion of Arab Americans, it has become the epicenter of a nationwide backlash over Biden’s support for Israel's war in Gaza. During the Democratic primary in the state, more than 100,000 voters chose the “uncommitted” option on their ballots to push the US government to halt its military aid to Israel.
Most of these voters realize a Trump administration would be even more supportive of Israel. But they feel unrecognized by the DNC, especially after the party decided not to have a pro-Palestine speaker at the DNC. As a result, the appeal of voting third-party, or not at all, is growing in the Great Lakes State.
Arizona, with 11 electoral votes, is the focal point of the nation’s immigration debate thanks to its 372-mile-long border with Mexico. Trump is showing strength in this Sun Belt State and is ahead by 2 points, in large part because of support from the state’s Hispanic voters. At his rallies in the state, Trump has repeatedly attacked Harris’ record on immigration, because she was given a role by President Joe Biden to try to ease the border crisis.
However, Democrats are banking that ballot measures codifying the right to abortion in the state will help drive turnout. Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, state Republicans tried unsuccessfully to reinstate a 160-year-old near-total ban on terminating pregnancies, before the issue of whether to add the right to an abortion to the state constitution landed on the ballot to be decided in November.
Wisconsin, with 10 electoral votes,is a key component of the Democrats' clearest path to victory – which would be winning Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Like in 2020, it has the potential to be a “tipping point” giving either candidate the edge. Wisconsin was once considered a reliably blue Rust Belt state. But it became a big-time battleground after Trump eked out a victory there in 2016.
The state is overwhelmingly white, and white working-class voters are a key group for both candidates. Notably, Harris garnered the endorsement of the local Teamsters union in Wisconsin despite national union representatives deciding not to back a candidate in the race and dispersed internal data showing a majority of members backed Trump.
But another important group is independent voters. While Wisconsin does not register voters by political party, the electorate is fairly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with a notable independent population in between. These independent voters helped Trump win the state in 2016 and helped Biden take the reins in 2020.
The biggest issues in the state are the economy, crime, and abortion. As things stand now, neither candidate has a lead, with Harris ahead by less than one vote.
Last and with the least electoral weight, is Nevada. ThisSun Belt swing state is tricky to predict because it has more registered independent voters than Democrats or Republicans, but Harris currently leads – if you can call it that – by less than 1 percentage point. However, with just 6 electoral votes, it is much less likely to be decisive.
Once decidedly blue, the Democrats have been winning presidential elections here by smaller and smaller margins since 2000. It is also the most diverse battleground state, and Harris has shrunk Trump’s lead since she took to the ticket.
Even though the US economy has shown strong growth and job creation since Biden took the presidency, the post-COVID recovery has been slower in Nevada than elsewhere. At 5.1%, the state has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Trump has been campaigning in the state to lower taxes and lessen regulations.
It’s war game time. Harris’ most obvious strategy is Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. But this would get her to exactly 270 votes if she won all of the non-swing states Biden won in 2020. That means she would be highly vulnerable because any misstep, even just losing Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, could lose her the presidency.
If she loses Pennsylvania, she’d still need to pick up one of the two Sun Belt states as well as one of the two Southern states to win — so long as she carries Michigan and Wisconsin. There’s also the chance she will repeat Biden’s 2020 victory, winning Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
Trump’s easiest path to victory is blocking Harris in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. To do this, Trump would need to build on his 2020 performance in suburban counties. But like Harris, this strategy of winning exactly 270 leaves no room for error. If Trump loses Pennsylvania, he could reach 270 by winning the two swing states where he is ahead the most, Georgia and Arizona, as well as Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump works behind the counter during a visit to McDonalds in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, U.S. October 20, 2024.
Trump threatens tariffs on China, faces campaigning woes
Donald Trump has vowed to impose tariffs on China if it blockades Taiwan. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you at 150% to 200%,” he told The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board last week.
When asked whether he would use military force for Taiwan, the former president said: “I wouldn’t have to, because [Xi Jinping] respects me and he knows I’m f— crazy.” Beijing reportedly does see more upside in Kamala Harris, precisely because of Trump’s erratic behavior.
When asked about Vladimir Putin, Trump said, “I got along with him great,” but noted that he once told the Russian leader he’d hit him “right in the middle of fricking Moscow” if he invaded Ukraine.
Are Trump’s numbers fake news? Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign may not be reaching critical voters in Arizona and Nevada, where leaked data revealed nearly a quarter of door-knocks could be fraudulent. Canvassers for America Pac, a political action committee founded by Elon Musk, stand accused of falsely claiming to visit homes, potentially undermining Trump’s ground game with just 15 days to go before Election Day.
America Pac denies widespread fraud, but if true, it could be a serious setback as Trump and Kamala Harris remainneck and neck inboth states.
Putin's Home Shopping Nyetwork
As Ukraine continues to get aid from the US and EU, Russia's president Vladimir Putin is adopting some Trumpian tactics to bring in more cash of his own. #PUPPETREGIME
Watch more of GZERO's award-winning PUPPET REGIME series!
Pro-Palestinian protesters rally for a cease-fire in Gaza during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 19, 2024.
Bloc by Bloc: The Arab-American vote in the shadow of Oct. 7
This GZERO 2024 election series looks at America’s changing voting patterns, bloc by bloc.
________________________________
In 2019, Mohamed S, an Egyptian-born investment consultant who had lived in New York for more than 20 years, finally decided to apply for US citizenship, for one reason:
“I wanted to vote against Donald Trump.”
But the pandemic delayed his naturalization until after the election. Next month will be the 47-year-old’s first chance to vote in a US presidential race. But this time, Mohamed says, he’s not going to cast a ballot at all.
Mohamed, who asked that we not use his last name over concerns his views might affect his business, said that while he still opposes Trump, the Biden administration’s Gaza policy has made it impossible for him to support a Democrat this fall.
“Why would I vote for a person who has provided weapons and funding that have been used to kill children who look exactly like my son, speak the same language as my son?” Mohamed asks. “That’s an outrageous thing to expect me to do.”
Mohamed’s views echo wider shifts in the Arab American community in the year since Hamas’ murderous rampage through southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, provoked an Israeli response that has killed at least 40,000 people in Gaza and displaced nearly 2 million, according to local authorities. Israel has faced charges of genocide in international courts.
A small community with big electoral power
About 4 million people in the United States identify as Arab Americans. They are a community of diverse faiths, national origins, and viewpoints. Roughly two-thirds are Christian, and one-third are Muslim. They have a large presence in key swing states like Michigan, comprising about 5% of the electorate there, and Pennsylvania, where they make up about 2%.
The war in Gaza looms large for them. More than 80% in a recent poll by the Arab American Institute, an advocacy group, said it’s their top election issue.
That marks the first time that any conflict in the Middle East has topped the list of concerns among Arab Americans, says AAI chairman James Zogby.
“It’s a genocide. And the administration’s response has been abysmal,” says Zogby, “not just in its full-throated support for Israel, but in its failure to put any restraint on Israel.”
Democrats are now paying the price
For decades, Arab Americans were a reliably blue voting bloc. Only about a third of the community ever voted Republican. In 2020, Biden got 59% of the Arab American vote against Trump’s 30%.
But the AAI poll, taken in early October, showed Trump edging out Harris 42% to 41% among Arab American voters — a 12-point swing in Trump’s favor. Expected turnout, meanwhile, has fallen from a historical average of 80% to around 60%.
Given that Biden won Michigan by less than three points in 2020, and Pennsylvania by just over one point, Arab American voters’ choices – not only about whom to vote for but whether to vote at all — could shape the outcome in November. At the moment, Harris leads Trump by roughly one point in both states.
Feeling ignored at a fraught moment
Zogby says weak outreach from the Democrat camp has hurt Harris. The Democrats’ rejection of calls for a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention stung, and the failure to hold high-level meetings with Arab American leaders — as opposed to lumping them in as part of a broader outreach to Muslim Americans — has made the community feel marginalized at a painful time.
“I’d love for her to call for a cease-fire, of course, but if she just got up and gave a speech in Michigan and said, ‘I want your support, I know we have differences, but I know we can talk them through, it would make a difference,” says Zogby.
Some Arab American voters are going further than simply staying home on Election Day.
“Six months ago, I was a Democrat,” says Bishara Bahbah, a Jerusalem-born, Harvard-trained academic and journalist. Now he is the founder of Arab Americans for Trump.
“I came to the conclusion that not only do I not want to vote for Biden or Harris, I want to actually punish them,” says Bahbah, a Palestinian Christian who grew up in East Jerusalem and now lives in Arizona.
Financed by Bahbah himself, Arab Americans for Trump has been coordinating events with Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-born businessman and father-in-law to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, as well as former Ambassador Richard Grenell, who was Trump’s acting director of national intelligence. Bahbah has met with Trump directly at least once, he says.
The Trump campaign has sought to expand its small base of Arab American support with pledges to cut taxes, crack down on undocumented immigration, and defend traditional views on gender, which plays well in many socially conservative Arab households.
A recent endorsement by Amer Ghalib, the Yemen-born mayor of Hamtramck, a Detroit suburb and the only US city with an all-Muslim local government, has helped the Trump effort.
Bahbah dismisses concerns about Trump’s history of strongly pro-Israel policies and his recent pledge to bring the US “closer [to Israel] than it’s ever been.”
“The difference is the Democratic camp has blood on their hands,” says Bahbah, who says he lost three relatives in an Israeli airstrike on an ancient church in Gaza last October. “President Trump does not.”
Bahbah is confident that Trump, without reelection to worry about, would make a push for a two-state solution after all.
“I think he is interested in leaving a legacy of a peacemaker.”
Not everyone who has soured on the Democrats shares that optimism about Trump.
“I’m not naive enough to believe that Trump would be better,” says Mohamed, the New York-based consultant. “I just don’t see a scenario in which Kamala Harris wins and things change in Gaza.”
But Zogby still sees more opportunity with a Democrat in the White House than not.
“There’s a coalition that exists in the Senate around Palestinian rights,” he says. “I would rather be fighting alongside them with a Democratic president than with a Republican president or a Republican Congress that wouldn’t give a shit at all.”
“People tell me it can’t be worse,” he says, “but it can always be worse.”
Crisis time for the politically homeless
It is decision time for the politically homeless.
With 18 days left in the coin-toss US election campaign, both Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a form of political fracking, desperately trying to extract pockets of votes in hard-to-reach places. That’s why you saw Kamala Harris take on Bret Baier on Fox News on Wednesday night.
On the surface, it seemed like a waste of time. Most people who watch Fox News are not going to vote for Harris, but she’s betting that Donald Trump has alienated many long-standing Republicans, like Mitt Romney or Dick Cheney, and she wants to offer them a temporary political home. In an election where a few thousand voters in the key seven swing states may change everything, Harris believes polls telling her that disaffected Republicans are a growing, available group.
A recent New York Times/Siena College survey found that 9% of self-identified Republican voters nationally are voting for Harris, a number nearly twice what it was just five months ago. When Dick Cheney no longer feels at home in the big Republican tent, that’s not a Cheney problem, it’s a tent problem.
Democrats have their own tent problems. Some young people disaffected by the situation in Gaza are opting out of the Democratic Party, while some Jewish voters, traditionally Democrats, are backing Trump because of his overt support for Israel and his tough stance on Iran. And let’s not forget that about 20% of Black and Latino voters — especially men — see Trump as a better leader on the economy. As I have written about before, these men idolize the entrepreneurial genius and give-no-F’s aura of Trump hype man Elon Musk, who is consolidating that support. It is no surprise that former President Barack Obama is frantically out on the stumps chastising Black men for their lack of support for Harris.
This is the age of the politically homeless. Don’t like the MAGA Republicans because of their embrace of extreme voices like Marjorie Taylor Greene, or the rejection of free trade in favor of high tariffs and protectionism? Where do you go? The left has also embraced tariffs, and it too has an extreme side, with protest groups calling President Biden “genocide Joe” for supporting Israel’s fight against the terrorist group Hamas.
The right and left have drifted away from the political center in response to pressure from extreme positions on the fringes of their movements.
“There are a lot of politically homeless folks out there, which is a function of the political realignment we’re seeing to a large degree across the Western world,” my colleague Graeme Thompson, senior analyst at Eurasia Group, told me. “Some former Republicans can’t stand Trump, some former Democrats don’t like left-wing campus politics, but neither have a comfortable place to land.”
In Canada, a country that could face a federal election at any time given the precarious nature of Justin Trudeau’s minority government, it’s not so different.
“More than 4 in 10 people likely consider themselves homeless in Canada,” Nik Nanos, chief data scientist and founderof Nanos Research, told me. “Major swaths of voters are not voting FOR anything — they are voting against things — in many cases someone they dislike. The enthusiasm is directed against someone.”
What this means is that the center cannot hold. “The Liberals’ move to the economic and cultural left under Trudeau has forced out a lot of fiscally conservative, socially moderate ‘blue Liberals’ who might end up voting for the Tories but don’t feel it’s a natural fit. Similarly — although to a lesser degree — this is true for so-called ‘red Tories,’” says Thompson.
One consistent error the bleeding center makes is to blame the extremes for the polarization. There is a relentless focus on the “weird” or “crazy” things that happen on the edges. But all this misses the larger point. It’s not that the fringes are inherently attractive — most voters live in the center — but the center has failed to make its case for relevance. There is precious little self-reflection on why the center is suddenly so soft and why it has failed to deliver for so many voters.
“Small ‘l’ liberals seem to have forgotten that liberalism isn’t self-evident, revealed truth — its case has to be made in the political arena,” says Thompson. “Moderates are on the back foot, in part, because “the other guys are worse” isn’t compelling enough in difficult times when voters are demanding answers.”
In his book “Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy,” David Frum, maybe the most famous politically homeless Republican, does a superb job of outlining how the Burkean conservatives he championed squandered their arguments, especially on issues like the Middle East, the economy, and climate change. “In the twenty-first [century],” he writes, “that movement has delivered much more harm than good, from the Iraq War to the financial crisis to the Trump presidency.”
So while Republicans are trying to pick off small groups of politically homeless Democrats, like Black men and Jewish Americans, and Democrats are going after disaffected Republicans who believe Trump is bad for the country, the larger question remains: What can be done about it? Is the political center doomed, or can a new center emerge?
In the UK, Keir Starmer tacked to the political center to lead the once-more leftist Labour Party to a huge majority just a few months ago — a majority he now seems to be squandering.
But merely mouthing centrist words is just political lip-synching to cover up the fact that small “l” liberals no longer know how to play the instrument of government in a way that will solve the problems. Genuinely alienated voters have bolted to the fringes because they no longer believe government can actually solve the problems it promises it will solve. What to do about the cost of living, housing costs, and a feeling of powerlessness? These are deep problems that small “l” liberals have to solve to earn trust. That requires more than blame-game slogans.
“Being moderate isn’t a political program. You have to stand for something,” Thompson argues. “If there’s going to be a liberal, centrist, moderate political revival, it has to speak to the concerns of people.”
The paternalism of a government that spends money and gets involved in solving every problem for people not only fails to live up to its promises — it can’t solve everything — but it also creates a passive dependency, sending an implicit message that citizens can’t solve their own problems, only the government can. “When liberalism was successful in the past, it was about empowering people,” Thompson says. It doesn’t just rely on technocratic solutions from on high.
This doesn’t mean a new centrist party will emerge in the US or Canada. There is no real pattern for that, while the mainstream parties in both countries have a long history of changing and self-renovating, going from the extremes to the center and back again.
But for now, the fringes are ascendent, leaving behind wandering, zombie-like groups of politically homeless folks who can’t stand either side. These people are looking for reasons to vote Republican or Democrat without betraying their core principles, excusing crude mendacity, ignoring pressing problems, or ending up on the wrong side of history.
“With the advent of social media, voting against candidates or parties has been on the increase, which supercharges a negative political discourse,” says Nanos. “This has corresponded with increased anti-establishment sentiment. The impact is short-termism. Who can we punish today? Where can we vent our anger? The casualty is that discussions about long-term decisions are punted in favor of immediacy.”
That immediacy will likely mean most voters will ignore things they can’t stand and pick one salient issue — tax rates, climate, abortion, Israel, or Gaza — and cast a reluctant ballot.
“It’s hard to see the politically homeless being decisive this time around, either in the US or Canada,” says Thompson. “Except to the extent that they’ll hold their noses and pick a side.”