The Brown Note

It's been eight years since I got an election wrong, and the irony of the last time being Trump winning in 2016 is not lost on me. One thing I didn't get wrong is that Democrat voter apathy would decide this election and by a mile it did. With Trump's vote near unchanged from his massive 2020 defeat, over 10 million Biden voters failed to turn up for Harris. 13 takeaways from this epoch defining election.

The parallels between Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election and Adolf Hitler in the Germany 1933 election are overwhelming. From the treatment of vote counters, to the judiciary, to opposition politicians to the media to the weaponization of race. This time though it's with the benefit of hindsight. The outcome could shape the Western world for a generation, lead to civil war and the end of empire. High stakes indeed.

After being promised a landslide victory in Queensland, once again, the Liberal vote fell way short of both the polls and the media predictions. Aussie PM Anthony Albanese would've been smiling broadly at the result. If this were repeated at next years federal election, Albo will walk it. Sadly for the people of Queensland, with a lackluster win, the right-wing, onward Christian soldiers in the Liberals and fringe parties, will be out for their pound of silver.

In a modern world crushed by anxiety, election cycles are unbearable. But that's because the news media and polling companies need to sell a lie - that things are really close and changing every day. But they aren't, they just wouldn't have anything to sell if they didn't say that. I've got elections right for eight years now, and here's my stress free way to do so - with the benefit of you still winning if you lose.

The news media and polls in Australia, will tell you opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is leading a resurgent right wing Liberal party on the road to victory. The public and the elections do not. Two overnight results in show if anything he's going backwards with the electorate.

Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese has honorably launched the fight against the appalling, economy trashing welfare cheque for the wealthy, negative gearing. Predictably the Australian news media, particularly the usual suspect the Sydney Morning Herald, has come out swinging in defense of all their delicious money. What will you do this time Australia? Wake the hell up or let yourselves be conned, again, into voting to carrying on kicking yourselves in the face to benefit the rich?

Even after a year of genocidal mass murder in Gaza, the West has shown it can fall even lower morally, as Netanyahu's war mongering government expands its attacks to terrorism and bombing of a sovereign nation it is not at war with. Amazingly, the West's silence is even louder than for the deaths of Palestinians.

Trump has almost solely specialised on inflammatory rhetoric for 8 years, leading to incidents like Charlottesville and the attempted insurrection on Jan 6, but we've all been waiting for when this explosive atmosphere would result in political assassinations. Well, now there have been two back to back attempts, and both on Trump. Like Fox News before him, has he created a monster now beyond his control?

Part of my infrequent series, "How to make friends":, including such vote winners as, "It's Time to Forgive Kevin Spacey" and, "Why I stand With JK Rowling".

The recent Venezuelan elections - as always a fight between socialists who want to keep their oil and Western back right wing candidates that want to sell it - was the closest in years. With the electoral council claiming victory for the incumbent leftist Nicolás Maduro, but that they cant release a breakdown of the votes, due to a cyber attack, the West has predictably - and with no credible evidence - claimed victory for the right wing opposition. A look a the current situation and how the country with the largest remaining oil reserves on earth is treated by the West for not letting foreign multi-nationals rape and pillage it.