It has been about 40 days since Donald Trump was re-elected to become the 47th president of the United States.

He won in the antiquated US electoral college, a relic of the late 18th century, that prevents a direct popular vote of the USA’s apex federal office and one-person-one-vote.

Trump, this time, also won the popular vote but not a majority of it.

Trump has rapidly announced his picks for his cabinet members and other high office holders. Many of those have alarmed and dismayed observers especially Fox News presenter, Pete Hegseth, for Defence Secretary, Kash Patel, for FBI director, Tulsi Gabbard, for National Intelligence Director, Kristi Noem, for Homeland Security and Robert F Kennedy Jr, for Health Secretary.

Billionaires and millionaires will pervade Trump's administration.

The world’s richest man, reputedly, Elon Musk, with his own large reach, social media platform to broadcast pro-Trump propaganda and to spread his personal, often fickle, brand of disinformation, has emerged as a very powerful although entirely unelected figure. A ‘first buddy”?

Trump and his proxies have increased the tempo and intensity of their drumbeat attacks on the media and public interest journalism. The ABC television network, owned by the Disney Corporation, have settled, for 15 million dollars US, a defamation action against them by Trump over an on-air statement that he was legally liable for raping E Jean Carrol. Many legal analysts opined that it was a thin case and, under “normal circumstances”, would have failed.

A chill has settled over the media scape.

Just before the November 5 election day, Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke spoke here with John Lawrence.

John has been a consummate Washington insider. For 38 years he served as a senior staffer in personal, committee and leadership offices in the US House of Representatives. From 2005 to 2013, John was Chief of Staff to now speaker emerita, Nancy Pelosi.

He’s visiting professor at the University of California’s Washington Centre and the author of Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi's Speakership 2005-2010, and the The Class of 74: Congress After Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship.

John contributes many articles on politics to leading journalism outlets.

John Lawrence returned to the #transitzone to reflect on the re-election of Donald Trump in the 2024 USA election with Peter Clarke.

This is #transitzone USA Election Update 12, recorded on Thursday 31 October 2024, Melbourne time.

Just days to go, United States time, to their 2024 voting day on November the 5th.

It has been an extraordinary and hyper intense period in USA political history from that CNN hosted debate between the incumbent president, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, on June 27th, the attempted assassination of Trump on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania, the triumphal GOP national convention, immediately after, from July the 15th and, after a roiling period within the Democratic party, Joe Biden stepped aside as their presidential candidate on Sunday afternoon July 21. Within 24 hours, Kamala Harris was the de facto replacement presidential candidate for the Democrats and the roughly hundred day presidential campaign was in full swing: Trump versus Harris.

The two met but once in a formal televised debate which, by general consensus, Harris won, and, during which, a dour and glowering Trump exclaimed, “They’re eating the dogs!” underscoring his campaign’s central theme – IMMIGRATION and the claimed flooding of American cities with illegal aliens.

All through this campaign, Trump has kept up his Big Lie of a stolen 2020 election and, as he did in 2016 and 2020, made it clear that, if he lost this 2024 election in the electoral college, he would again denounce it as “rigged” and a “fraud”.

Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke have charted the main events and key dynamics of the US election campaign over the last three months with a series of eleven #transitzone podcasts. As the election day looms, this time, a voice from Washington to helps them contextualise and analyse this historic and deeply consequential US presidential election.

John Lawrence has been a consummate Washington insider. For 38 years he served as a senior staffer in personal, committee and leadership offices in the US House of Representatives. From 2005 to 2013, John was Chief of Staff to now speaker emerita, Nancy Pelosi. He’s visiting professor at the University of California’s Washington Centre and the author of Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi's Speakership 2005-2010, and the The Class of 74: Congress After Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship. John contributes many articles on politics to leading journalism outlets and, as a sidebar activity in his “spare time” writes intriguing pastiches of Sherlock Holmes stories.

This is a feature length conversation.

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