(photo A Owen 26 Oct 2024)
I have spent the past 18 days in North America – around half in Canada (Quebec and the Atlantic provinces) and the other half in north-eastern USA (mostly in New York city). During this time I have spoken with dozens of American tourists from all over the USA, as well as locals in the places visited.
The hot topic has been the US elections and, of course, the baseball World Series (only Americans would call a series between American teams the ‘World Series'), where the NY Yankees are currently being whipped by the LA Dodgers.
Here are my top 10 observations on the election race from New York.
1. Personal attacks, not policies
Most Americans I have spoken to – even rabid Trump and Harris devotees – are dismayed that the media coverage is mainly about personal attacks rather than what the candidates are going to do if elected.
2. Policies differences
For Harris, it is mostly about abortion rights, expanding welfare spending, and taxing the rich. For Trump it is mainly about tax cuts, immigration, and ‘drill baby drill!’ as the solution to inflation.
3. Policy similarities
A central policy pillar on both sides is for radical increases in trade protection to bring manufacturing back to America. Both sides plan to increase government spending, deficits, and debt (it's only $36trillion but who's counting?!).
Both sides also promise to limit the recent surge in illegal immigration.
Illegal immigration is especially an issue in New York, a staunch Democrat state, with its open arms policy and legal obligation to provide shelter and assistance to anyone who seeks it. Every day, busloads of illegal immigrants arrive in New York, sent by governments of the southern border states. Even NY Mayor Eric Adams says: "this issue will destroy New York City."
4. TV coverage is one-sided
From my scanning of TV channels in hotel rooms, Fox is wall-to-wall pro-Trump and anti-Harris, while the other major national networks, including public broadcasting networks, are all wall-to-wall pro-Harris and anti-Trump. Any semblance of independence, bi-partisanship, or balance from the ‘fourth estate’ (the supposedly independent, bi-partisan news media) is long gone.
The ‘mainstream’ media networks, even their so-called ‘news’ bulletins, have been reduced to paid mouthpieces of the parties they are pushing, and are now just narrow partisan echo chambers, just like other social media platforms.
5. TV is just for oldies
You can get a good indication of the demographics of the audience of any form of media by looking at what ads they run. From my limited assessment of US TV networks, the vast majority of non-political TV ads are aimed at retirees – focusing on ailments, medications, health insurance plans, incontinence pads, Viagra substitutes, retirement villages, and the like.
My guess is that these viewers are not swing voters, so there is no point offering balanced views. Just like other social media platforms, the way to build viewership of TV networks is to reinforce viewers’ pre-existing beliefs, not challenge them.
Non-retirees get their news from other media platforms, which don’t even pretend to offer balanced content or check accuracy.
6. Alternate truths
With the fourth estate absent, there is no quality/truth filter on media content. It is not really ‘mis-information’ anymore because everyone is now entitled to their own truth!
These are as blatant as social media ads containing the wrong election date – aimed at reducing the votes of minority groups – mainly African Americans, Latin Americans, and African immigrants.
7. Lawyers picnic
Lawyers are always the winners. There are thousands of Republican law suits aiming to require state election authorities to impose bans on the votes of individuals, groups, and communities.
There are also several law suits aiming to require Republican controlled state legislatures to assign their entire electoral college votes to Trump – ie essentially disenfranchising all votes in that state. Lawyers everywhere are having a field day.
8. Congress
There is more to the elections than just the Presidency. The new President’s effective use of power will be limited to a large degree by Congress – so the key questions are whether Republicans can retain the House and/or regain the Senate (ie whether Democrats can gain the House and/or retain the Senate).
About half of the political advertising I saw were for congressional candidates, and most seemed to be attack ads (eg. ‘XYZ voted 19 times for/against tax hikes/cuts’, or ‘XYZ was arrested in 1978 for marijuana use’, etc). It seems the only ads outlining actual policies are from independents with little chance of being elected.
9. New York vibe
In our travels before reaching New York, many American tourists (most were from Texas and Florida it seems) warned us about New York City being a dangerous and scary place once again due to the recent flood of illegal immigrants.
(I have visited New York many times over the past 50 years – including in the depressing bankrupt 1970s, the crime-ridden pre-Guiliani 1980s, and the post-Guiliani cleaned up 'safe' city in the 1990s, but this is my first post-9/11 visit to NYC.)
Given near-universal dire warnings from Americans about what to expect on this trip to New York, I find it to be no more scary than Sydney or any other city. We walked the streets every day and used the subway network extensively, day and night. Admittedly, we stuck to the lower half of Manhattan, and we did not visit the immigrant tent cities.
Even when we were obvious foreign tourists with targets on our backs, lugging our suitcases from the cruise ship terminal at pier 88 through the middle of the notorious Hell’s Kitchen district (mid-town, west of 8th Ave) to our hotel on 50th street near Broadway, we felt quite safe and un-threatened. Nothing more than regular experiences in Sydney or Melbourne.
Mind you, that chance of attack would have been higher had we not paid the mandatory minimum 20% tip on a restaurant or cafe bill, or asked, "So, how's that Freedie Freeman, eh?" (it's a baseball thing and an extremely sore point for New Yorkers at the moment).
10. ‘To the barricades!’
Yet, despite the peaceful and prosperous facade, barricades are being built all over New York City. Why? Are these in anticipation of a revolution, revolt, or civil uprising stemming from the election result?
No. They are for the upcoming New York Marathon, the World Series baseball playoffs, Thanksgiving Day parade, and endless construction projects (it seems there is not a city block in Manhattan without scaffolding or the road being upgraded).
It’s all about celebration and growth, not civil war or revolt. The stock market is hitting new highs, inflation and interest rates are falling, and the jobs market is strong.
Bring on election day!
For my summary of economic outcomes under the Trump and Biden presidencies, see:
'Till next time - happy investing!