Away from the back-and-forth of the campaign trail, thousands of students are taking part in pro-Palestinian encampment-style protests at more than 50 university campuses across the US

Hello, and welcome to the Guardian’s brand new US election newsletter.

Here’s what you need to know …

1. Trump’s mouth gets him further into debt

Donald Trump already owes $454m as a result of his civil fraud case in New York, and has been ordered to pay $88.3m to E Jean Carroll over a defamation lawsuit. Given Trump struggled to find the money for the former, the last thing he needed was to be fined $9,000 in his New York criminal trial, after he attacked witnesses online. Could the judge give him jail time if he does it again?

2. Biden’s banter bus

“The 2024 election is in full swing and yes, age is an issue,” Joe Biden said at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday. “I’m a grown man running against a six-year-old.” The joke continued Biden’s transition from grownup-in-the-room to Burn King in Chief, with the president and his campaign increasing their mocking attacks on Trump’s golf game, finances and mental aptitude.

Could student protesters turn the 2024 election?

Tensions on university campuses, already high as a wave of pro-Palestinian encampment-style protests sweeps the US, got even higher overnight.

The protests, which have seen students pitch tents or occupy buildings at Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and others, began as an effort to get universities to ditch investments in companies which provide weapons and equipment to the Israeli military.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    05·
    5 months ago

    Would Garland having started the investigation of Trump on January 7th, 2021 been the Democrats ignoring the rule of law?

    I’m just some schmuck dude, so I don’t have an expert plan to solve it all, but I keep seeing clear misses where there are opportunities to do something about this and we choose not to. I don’t have a plan for the future, but I’m smart enough to keep seeing fucking own-goals.

    We’ve been putting off nailing down the issue since Nixon stepped down and was pardoned by his successor. The fact that we’ve avoided the hard questions that long isn’t the flex you think it is.

    Avoiding those questions is why we let war criminals Bush and Cheney off the hook, and they paved the way for this. Literally, avoiding the question is the problem.

    Yeah it’s hard and will have far reaching consequences. That’s how everything is. Putting it off because it’s hard is pussy shit and more importantly enables Republican abuse.

    I’ve also literally had Democrats talking down to me exactly like this my whole fucking life (even though I’m a fucking Democratic voter…), because I have the audacity to critique them for being milquetoast pussies who don’t stand up for their constituents. There has never been a point in my 25 years of voting where I’ve voted anything but downticket blue, but fuck me for being willing to say “still not enough” I guess. Like, that’s how you depress voter turnout from your own voters, browbeating them for asking for better.

    Patty Fucking Murray, a Washington Democrat, agreed with Ted Cruz that airlines should be able to keep my fucking money if they cancel my flight. Real nice fuckin lady. Real standup for her constituents, my ass. These people are influenced by corporate lobbyists just the same as Republicans are, almost all of them have cushy lobbying jobs or Talking Head jobs lined up when they leave.

    EDIT: Further, on the whole “The Democrats must follow the law” bit. I’m reminded of Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail:

    First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

    Those last two sentences in there are where I am at with folks like yourself.