The year ahead

Informed speculation suggests a federal election will be held in the second half of this year, though views differ as to whether it will be sooner or later.

Dennis Shanahan of The Australian, who is always well plugged into government’s line of tactical thinking, wrote on Monday on the likelihood of a federal election in the second half of this year ($) rather than the first half of the next, that being the full extent of the window for a normal election of the House of Representatives and half the Senate. This basically boils down to a view that the government’s perceived current dominance means the sooner it goes the better, tempered by a desire to avoid an election in winter.

An unidentified Liberal MP quoted in The Australian ($) said they were “almost certain” they were “almost certain” the election would be in August or September, although another felt November more likely since an earlier election would be seen as too opportunistic. Why November would be a whole lot better on that count is unclear, since there seems to be no particular obstacle to Morrison holding out until May next year, by which time it will have been a full three years since the last election. For what it’s worth, the latter MP was also quoted saying it “also depends on if Labor ditch Anthony Albanese and get someone more electable”.

In more definite news for the year ahead, the Western Australian state election is set for March 13 — I am presently furiously hard at work on my election guide, which I can assure those of you who like that kind of thing will be a classic of its genre. As for opinion polling, the silly season proved no obstacle to Newspoll last year, which opened its account with a poll conducted from Wednesday, January 8 and Saturday, January 11, so there may be action on that front this or (probably more likely) next weekend.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

3,782 comments on “The year ahead”

Comments Page 68 of 76
1 … 67 68 69 … 76

  2. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #3265 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 8:14 am

    C@tmomma @ #3328 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 4:12 am

    … He even live streamed the House Impeachment votes, despite it also being his birthday. …

    WOW!!!

    What trooper.

    Imagine having to work on your birthday!

    I knew some predictably cynical person would come in, spinner. Also ignore every other data point about the guy’s commitment to working 7 days a week and providing intelligent and perceptive commentary.

    Why, Barney? Why did you have to see it within your purview to make such a snide remark? I’m interested to know your thinking.

    And tell me, do YOU work 7 days a week? Doesn’t look like it to me with the amount of time you are on PB. Or, if you do, is it more than a few hours a day?

    BTC puts in an enormous amount of time and effort to produce his commentary on American politics and I could pretty well guarantee he’s not simply in it for the money, as BB also snidely tried to infer. So, why do irrelevant old white men on an Australian politics blog feel the need to attack a fine young American man doing his best to counter the worst President, and his party, in American history?

  3. Compare and contrast.

    On Jan. 6, several hundred supporters of President Trump charged inside the Capitol to overturn an election the president had repeatedly and falsely claimed was stolen. They were mostly White, and they roamed freely through the halls, taking selfies and stealing souvenirs, smashing doors and defacing statues, amid sporadic calls to “Hang Mike Pence!” Many shoved and beat officers, one of whom later died.

    On June 1, 2020, a crowd of similar size gathered outside the White House to protest after the police killing of George Floyd. They were a diverse group who called for an end to police brutality and racial inequity, and an army of federal agents, assembled after Trump demanded a show of domination, sent them running with chemical agents and rubber bullets.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2021/blm-protest-capitol-riot-police-comparison/?itid=hp-top-table-main-0106

    BLM protestors:

    Pro-Trump white supremacists on Jan 6:

  4. Confessions @ #3267 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 8:17 am

    C@t:

    Plus the obvious inherent racism in law enforcement is plain to see with the insurrectionists. Everyone keeps saying ‘imagine if they were BLM protesters’, because they were white people, their terrorist intentions weren’t taken as serious threats.

    But if you look at what White domestic terrorists are capable of, it’s a lot more serious and deadly than anything a BLM protester is capable of!

  7. My understanding is that the US Senate votes on impeachment does not require 17 Repugs to agree – the number could be as low as zero….

    ‘The Constitution doesn’t indicate that removal from office requires two-thirds of the Senate. It requires two-thirds of senators present for the proceedings.

    The inclusion of this single word in the Constitution’s impeachment clauses shifts the mathematical ledger of how impeachment, however unlikely, could go down. It allows for the all-important two-thirds threshold to exist along a sliding scale—far from the full attendance of the 100-member Senate. In theory, a vote to convict the President (or anyone else) would count as legal with as few as 34 members, not 67, assuming the absolute minimum (51) participated.

    “The Constitution contains quorum requirements [elsewhere] and clearly distinguishes between percentages of a particular chamber and percentages of ‘members present,’” said Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and the co-author of the book To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment. “That language in the provision for Senate conviction on impeachment charges is quite deliberate, creating precisely the possibility” described above.

    The Senate’s formal rules on impeachment, last updated in 1986, repeat the Constitution’s “present” provision numerous times.’

    https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/10/10/the-impeachment-loophole-no-ones-talking-about/

  9. Victoria
    Not surprised to see women among the leading reactionaries because there does seem to be a real divide between progressive and conservative women. This is why i think the feminist left might be a bit blindsided.

    Fessy
    Liz Cheney would be expecting it and will probably want them to come for her so she can distance herself from the trump crowd.

  10. Dave

    Agreed.

    Meanwhile wonder how she is going to feel when she wakes from her stupor and realises that it is her saviour Trump that is the one people needed saving from. I will never understand how anyone can be so brainwashed. It is baffling to me….

    ………..

    David Begnaud
    @DavidBegnaud
    ARRESTED: Christine Priola, a school therapist who stormed the Capitol & got to
    @VP
    ’s chair. She quit her job the day after the riot saying: I will be switching paths to expose the global evil of human trafficking & pedophilia, including in our govt & children’s services agencies

  11. Morning all. Thanks BK. Comments about the possibility of Trump happening here are plausible. This article looks at the demographics of those supporting Trump even after the “steal” attempt. Many could be described as middle-aged upwardly mobile bogans (Mumbos?) mainly wealthy from property ownership, and not necessarily well educated. Scomo’s electorate would fit the pattern.
    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/01/who-are-the-seditionists

  12. The National Museum of American History is collecting objects to help document last week’s deadly riot at the US Capitol, the museum’s director said.
    The museum “has an ongoing and deep commitment to document all aspects of the American political experiment: a government by the people,” Anthea M. Hartig said in a written statement.
    “A key tenet of this constitutional democracy is the peaceful transfer of power following U.S. presidential elections, dating back to the republic’s first presidential election. This week, that core belief was shaken,” the statement said.
    On January 6, hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters forced their way into the Capitol during the ceremonial counting of the Electoral College vote to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
    “As curators from the museum’s Division of Political and Military History continue to document the election of 2020, in the midst of a deadly pandemic, they will include objects and stories that help future generations remember and contextualize Jan. 6 and its aftermath,” Hartig said.

    So far, curators have collected and are sorting through three dozen protest signs, several small American flags, a banner, a couple of branded 2020 “Trump Keep America Great” campaign clothing accessories and a number of small documents ranging from pamphlets and handouts to business cards, museum spokeswoman Valeska Hilbig told CNN.
    The materials that aren’t selected for the permanent collection may be made available to other museums or historical associations, she said.

  13. Where are the Downfall Parodies –

    Inside Trump’s final days: Aides struggle to contain an angry, isolated president

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – “We are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” President Donald Trump exhorted his screaming supporters before they marched on the U.S. Capitol last week, saying he’d go with them.

    He did not – and what unfolded was a deadly breach of the citadel of American democracy that has left Trump’s world crumbling in the final days of his presidency.

    Reuters spoke to more than a dozen Trump administration officials with a window into the closing act of his presidency. They described a shrinking circle of loyal aides who are struggling to contain an increasingly fretful, angry and isolated president – one seemingly still clinging to unfounded claims of election fraud – and to keep the White House functioning until Biden assumes power.

    “Everybody feels like they’re doing the best job they can to hold it all together until Biden takes over,” one Trump adviser told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

    Trump’s focus on claims of voter fraud, egged on by personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, consumed most of his days.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-finale-insight/inside-trumps-final-days-aides-struggle-to-contain-an-angry-isolated-president-idUSKBN29J2J3

  14. Mexicanbeemer

    I don’t believe labels are instructive. There is cognitive dissonance going on in the minds of some people. They are not true conservatives in my view.
    There is something fundamentally wrong with their thinking. Taking out the racist aspect of their thinking.
    The fact that so many women have bought into the qanon crapola that Trump is trying to bring down a cabal of pedos is beyond laughable, and frankly makes no sense to me.
    Trump is the epitome of someone who doesn’t care or protect the rights of any child and I would go so far as to say, has probably had a big hand in endangering them throughout his life. My opinion only of course, but I don’t know how women can see what he does and says and believe he is one of the good guys. It continues to baffle me.

  15. dave

    You would think the covid crisis that has reached a peak in the USA right at this time, could have been a focus for an outgoing President. To actually do something Helpful before he departs.

    I know I know. Ridiculous notion. What am I thinking,

  16. Victoria
    I used the term in a simplistic political manner because labels can be problematic and the trump crowd are strange mix of things. The qanon movement is a strange outfit which seems to have come from nowhere in a short period of time.

  17. This is too funny.

    George Conway
    @gtconway3d
    ·
    4m
    Don’t anyone tell them that this would reduce the number of votes needed to convict … Shushing face
    Quote Tweet

    Phil Prazan
    @PhilPrazan
    · 51m
    .@SenRickScott on @hughhewitt says Rs might not show for Impeachment, saying it’s unconst w/Trump out of office. “I’m going to do the research. I’ve had my team giving me a lot of materials today, and we’re going to be going through it, because if it’s uncon., what are we doing?”

  21. Well, Rick Scott was one of those out loud and proud who was going to vote to overturn the results of the free and fair election. He’s just another one of those cynical Republicans who see the Trump base as necessary for their success in a run for POTUS in 2024.

  22. .@SenRickScott on @hughhewitt says Rs might not show for Impeachment, saying it’s unconst w/Trump out of office.

    It’s not.

  23. C@T
    The lead up to 2024 could be one of the most interesting primaries in many decades with a clear divide between Trumpians republicans and mainstream republicans.

  24. C@tmomma @ #3351 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 5:25 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #3265 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 8:14 am

    C@tmomma @ #3328 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 4:12 am

    … He even live streamed the House Impeachment votes, despite it also being his birthday. …

    WOW!!!

    What trooper.

    Imagine having to work on your birthday!

    I knew some predictably cynical person would come in, spinner. Also ignore every other data point about the guy’s commitment to working 7 days a week and providing intelligent and perceptive commentary.

    Why, Barney? Why did you have to see it within your purview to make such a snide remark? I’m interested to know your thinking.

    Because it was such a pathetic irrelevant point.

    And tell me, do YOU work 7 days a week? Doesn’t look like it to me with the amount of time you are on PB. Or, if you do, is it more than a few hours a day?

    I certainly have in the past when I was running pubs in the UK, but now days it’s only a six day week. In developing countries they don’t have the luxury of the weekend.

    By the way it’s 6 in the morning, so a little bit early to go to work. 😆

  26. Jennifer Jacobs@JenniferJJacobs·
    1h
    Replying to
    @JenniferJJacobs
    NEWS: Trump and Bannon have been talking regularly, multiple sources tell me. They’ve been in communication FOR WEEKS now, patching up earlier rift as Trump sought advice from anyone willing to help him fight his election defeat.

    Jennifer Jacobs@JenniferJJacobs
    · 1h
    SCOOP: Trump has repeatedly spoken by phone with Steve Bannon in recent weeks to seek advice on his campaign to overturn his re-election defeat, reconciling with his once-estranged ex White House strategist, sources tell me. Story out soon.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-14/trump-reconciles-with-ex-strategist-bannon-in-talks-on-election?sref=yYYRek8e

  29. Mexicanbeemer @ #3293 Friday, January 15th, 2021 – 8:59 am

    C@T
    The lead up to 2024 could be one of the most interesting primaries in many decades with a clear divide between Trumpians republicans and mainstream republicans.

    I’d factor in a more activist social media, from the companies’ perspective, as they try and root out radical extremism on their platforms (also as likely mandated by Congress) and the creation of new technology, such as deep fakes, which will be exploited by the more savvy candidates and new tech companies (in the vein of Parler and Gab), which will leverage profits in concert with these candidates. I think it’s going to be fascinating to watch.

    And that’s not even taking the Trump family plans into consideration!

  30. According to a new report from Reuters, President Donald Trump’s world is “crumbling in the final days of his presidency” in the wake of violence perpetrated by a mob at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

    Trump now faces a second impeachment — the first time in history a U.S. president has been impeached twice — due to his rhetoric during the buildup to the storming of the Capitol.

    “Trump’s last days in the White House have been marked by rage and turmoil, multiple sources said,” Reuters reported. “He watched some of the impeachment debate on TV and grew angry at the Republican defections, a source familiar with the situation said.”

    Sources inside the White House said that Trump is “still clinging to unfounded claims of election fraud,” Reuters said.

    His split with Vice President Mike Pence, senior advisers fleeing his administration in disgust, a growing number of GOP lawmakers abandoning him, getting banned on Twitter and Facebook, businesses distancing themselves from his family brand — all events that are sending Trump into a state of rage.

    “Everybody feels like they’re doing the best job they can to hold it all together until Biden takes over,” one anonymous Trump adviser told Reuters.

  33. This is a fascinating long form investigation into how facebook radicalises seemingly normal people and what effect it had on Americans in the lead-up to the Trump Insurrection Rally:

    By the time he drove from Tennessee to Washington to march on the Capitol, his Facebook group had swelled to more than 61,000 members, and he was eager to meet some of them in person.

    “Everyone has some type of thing that gave them a spark,” he said in an interview last week. “Facebook just so happened to be mine.”

    He’s not alone. Facebook’s algorithms have coaxed many Americans into sharing more extreme views on the platform — rewarding them with likes and shares for posts on subjects like election fraud conspiracies, Covid-19 denialism and anti-vaccination rhetoric. We reviewed the public post histories for dozens of active Facebook users in these spaces. Many, like Mr. McGee, transformed seemingly overnight. A decade ago, their online personas looked nothing like their presences today.

    A journey through their feeds offers a glimpse of how Facebook rewards exaggerations and lies.

    But the rewards are trivial compared with the costs: The influencers amass followers, enhance their reputations, solicit occasional donations and maybe sell a few T-shirts. The rest of us are left with democracy buckling under the weight of citizens living an alternate reality.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opinion/facebook-far-right.html

  35. His split with Vice President Mike Pence, senior advisers fleeing his administration in disgust, a growing number of GOP lawmakers abandoning him, getting banned on Twitter and Facebook, businesses distancing themselves from his family brand — all events that are sending Trump into a state of rage.

    What damn right has he got to be angry and rageful!?! He’s brought it all on himself.

  37. The last Emperor of the failed Empire and so the myths are perpetuating as we feed on the entrails of not only the failed Emperor but the oscillating punters and their elected dandies (and dandelions).
    Is this virus from the bastion of democracy to become a worldwide scourge?
    It would be great to have some polling to indicate the magnitude of reaction, if any, in Australia, in the middle of summer with a test series in progress.
    My guess is that ths veneer surrounding our own self proclaimed messiah will not endure so much as a scratch that can’t be glossed over with the help of a little China diplomatic application.
    The Covid-19 virus however has had a long and confused introduction, a disturbingly on-going centrepiece before returning to a prolonged, somewhat haphazard finale.
    Moderm humans aren’t programmed to endure.

  38. Victoria says:
    Friday, January 15, 2021 at 9:14 am

    Anyone surprised that the worst president ever is getting advice from one of the worst people around.
    —————————
    Victoria
    Its always been a problem with this administration and while Trump is the worst president in living memory but is he worst than John Buchanan and Andrew Johnson whose actions are still impacting American politics. Trump is differently worst than Nixon who for all of his faults was big enough to quit instead of staging a coup.

  39. meher baba says:
    Friday, January 15, 2021 at 5:37 am
    Re the vaccination issue, I found this article interesting.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-well-does-the-vaccine-work-israels-real-world-stats-can-be-globes-guide/

    ———————————-

    I think that any information coming out of Israel regarding the vaccine and its efficacy should be taken with a grain of salt. The vaccines are Netanyahu’s trump card (yes, I know…) for the coming election. He claims sole responsibility for acquiring the vaccine and is doing everything in his power to suggest that it’s extremely effective. To that end, anything coming out of the Health Ministry or the public service in general should be treated as coming out of his mouth, considering the recent history of information coming out of there regarding Covid-19 and the manipulation of it by Netanyahu and his many mouthpieces.

    The article claims that there is a large reduction in infections 14 days after the first shot. If you look at the table in the link below (scroll down a bit to “COVID-19 in Israel“ and you can click on the rows to change the graph) you can see the latest figures. Vaccinations have now been given for almost four weeks. Over the last week there has been an increase in infections, as well as an increase in the percentage of positive tests, despite a country-wide lockdown. Unfortunately the article does not provide the number of vaccinated people tested and what percentage it is of the total number of tests. While I suppose it’s possible that the figures in the article are accurate, I can’t see the evidence in the general figures as supplied by the Health Ministry to generate these graphs.

    https://www.haaretz.com/

  41. Nixon’s last hours as president – what will Trump do at that time?

    “What have I done?”: The Final Hours of Richard Nixon’s Presidency

    The 37th President of the United States was hysterical. Crumpled in a leather chair in the Lincoln Sitting Room, his favorite of the 132-rooms at his disposal in the White House, Richard Milhous Nixon called for his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. Nixon was drinking, Nixon was exhausted, Nixon was physically and mentally unwell and, hours earlier, Nixon had finally realized that he had no other choice but to become the first President in United States history to resign his office.

    A Presidential resignation was so unthinkable that nobody had ever agreed on how a President even resigns his office. Is his resignation effective the moment he makes his decision? Does he have to sign anything? If so, who does he hand his resignation into? What happens to his things? His belongings, his property, his papers? Is the Secret Service responsible for his protection? How does he even get home after leaving the White House? In fact, after making the decision to step down, Nixon questioned whether a President could resign at all. None of these questions had ever been contemplated until it became apparent that the Watergate scandal and subsequent cover-up was fatal to the Nixon Administration.
    When Kissinger answered the President’s summons on the evening of August 7th, 1974, he found that Nixon was nearly drunk, sitting in a darkened room, and lost in thought. Throughout the nearly 200 years of America’s life only 35 other human beings had held the office that Nixon was holding and Nixon was in the unique position of being the only one to decide on resignation. Nixon was the only person in the history of human existence that had to do what he was forced into doing.

    https://medium.com/@Anthony_Bergen/what-have-i-done-the-final-hours-of-richard-nixon-s-presidency-40ffbeac6c44

  42. Trump’s ‘base’ appears to be shrinking rapidly —

    ‘A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll pegs Trump’s approval at just 34 percent, the lowest in four years of tracking opinions of the president’s job performance. More than six in 10 voters — 63 percent — disapprove.’

    ‘….For nearly four years, Trump’s approval ratings have been extraordinarily stable, ranging between the high 30s and high 40s. Trump’s denial of the election results and the sacking of the Capitol, however, have managed to do what a failed effort to repeal Obamacare, the white-supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va., impeachment and other scandals couldn’t: erode his once-durable support to new lows.’

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/13/trump-approval-rating-poll-458602

  43. My nominees for worst president:
    1. Chester A Arthur. Tammany Hall criminal who accidentally became President when Garfield was shot. One commentator said the best thing about his presidency was that “he didn’t steal that much”
    2. Rutherford B. Hayes who lost the 1876 election to Democrat Sam Tilden but claimed it was stolen. The compromise of 1877 gave the presidency to Hayes and in return post civil war reconstruction of the South was stopped. This allowed the Southern Democrats or Dixiecrats if you like to largely ignore the 14 & 15 amendments and disenfranchise the Blacks for another 80 years

  44. What I have never got is the number of African Americans that support Trump, and still do (like the guy in the NYT article):

    I guess it takes all sorts to make the world go around.

  45. @KayJay:

    Just one of many Australian success stories ..

    https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/australia-deforestation-land-clearing-conservation/13054460

    More than 43 million hectares were lost in these fronts between 2004 and 2017, an area roughly the size of Morocco or six times the size of Tasmania.

    “Nearly a million hectares of forest has been cleared just in Queensland and New South Wales and just in the hotspot areas,” Dr Martin Taylor, Senior Scientist with WWF Australia, told Hack.

    _______

    If you click onto the article the main driver of that deforestation is commercial agriculture – which mean big agribusinesses- mainly foreign owned or owned by our own set of oligarch parasites – including Gina, lil’ Kerry and Rupert – and nearly all of it (85%) is beef cattle and sheep. This is a 100% export industry.

    Not one hectare of remanent bush has been cleared to ‘feed Australia’ – and that has been the case since about WW2. Fuck all jobs are being generated by this – in fact modern agribusinesses push even more farming family into destitution and farm workers barley get a slice of the action from this additional agricultural production, given automation of many practices (note – there is still a lot of employment, but no real net expansion in employment over the ‘traditional farming’ practices).

    Also, fuck all profits are keep in Australia, given foreign investment.

    Who do we have to thank for all of this?

    Why, who would have guessed it: the Liberal and National Party governments. Most of that deforestation happened in NSW and Queensland from 2012 onwards because of Newman and fucking Koala Killer and Bruz taking the axe to native vegetation protection laws.

    We need to move to a net zero land clearing laws immediately. Which won’t happen until we have Labor governments at a state and federal level.

  46. Zerlo
    John Buchanan is usually ranked as the worst president because his presidency saw the build up to the civil war and Andrew Johnson is criticised for not cementing the civil war victory and in doing so allowed the south to start down the road to jim crow and segregation.

  47. Slowly coming out of the shadows:

    Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said on Thursday that the House had acted “appropriately” in impeaching President Trump, signaling possible support for convicting him at a Senate trial in a statement that called his actions “unlawful” and said that they warranted consequences.

    Ms. Murkowski said the second impeachment of Mr. Trump stood “in stark contrast” to the first, which she and virtually every other Republican opposed. She said Mr. Trump had perpetuated “false rhetoric that the election was stolen and rigged” and launched a “pressure campaign against his own vice president, urging him to take actions that he had no authority to do.”

    And though the Alaska Republican did not commit to finding the president guilty, saying she would listen carefully to the arguments on both sides, she strongly suggested that she was inclined to do so.

    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/14/us/impeachment-trump#murkowski-trump

  48. C@T
    That is why the Democrats worst nightmare would be for the Republicans to go with someone like Condi Rice because its a mistake to assume anyone group is owned by one side.

  49. I still vote Dubya as worst ever. Look at the endless wars he started aka GWOT. Millions dead or wounded,tens of millions of people’s lives farked to this day. $5 Trillion pissed up against the wall….and counting. All based on lies .He let the fuckers from PNAC and bustards like Cheney and Rumsfeld try and fulfill their mad vision for the world. Two decades later the world is still not rid of the effects. Fcuk Dubya and all who sailed with him.

Comments Page 68 of 76
1 … 67 68 69 … 76

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *