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

This is the sixth #transitzone USA election update.

It was recorded on Friday 30 August. (Please see news update below.)

Vice President Kamala Harris, since emerging as the presumed then formally nominated Democratic presidential candidate, has been under considerable pressure to do some formal media interviews and full cry media conferences.

Some of her "critics" have suggested Harris is OK on the teleprompter doing rally speeches but less accomplished and confidently communicative when she is extemporising under journalistic questioning.

Another more substantive aspect of doing more interviews was to “explain” shifts in her policy positions including around, for example, fracking and how to deal with the border.

Historically, candidates from both parties have shifted their overall policy profile once they face a general election after the primaries are done with.

Harris, and her VP pick, Governor Tim Walz, have been touring the crucial swing state of Georgia in their emblazoned campaign bus. They chose veteran journalist, Dana Bash, from CNN, for their first sit down interview.

Bash pre-recorded the interview in a plain unadorned room with that bus visible parked outside the glass doors before the two candidates headed to a rally in Savanah Georgia.

Peter Clarke and Margo Kingston appraised Harris's first formal journalistic interview and the current state of the competing campaigns.

NEWS UPDATE

Former President Donald J. Trump said on Friday that he would vote against a ballot measure in Florida that would expand abortion access in the state, clarifying his stance after having suggested a day earlier that he might support the measure.

“I’ll be voting no,” Mr. Trump told Fox News, even as he said he disagreed with his home state’s current ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/us/politics/trump-florida-abortion-measure.html

RESOURCES

GEORGE LAKOFF

Peter and Margo referred to the linguist, activist, George Lakoff.

https://x.com/georgelakoff/status/1829010468327080438?s=61&t=LsaW4g5LZrmuvsdTgt2l2w

LAKOFF WEBSITE: https://george-lakoff.com

KAMALA HARRIS INTERVIEWED BY DANA BASH AT CNN

PART 1 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-1-digvid

PART 2 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-2-digvid

PART 3 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-3-digvid