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

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 Potter 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