Indecision

I live in the UK, so every observation I make about US politics is made as an outsider who is not involved in the political machine and has no say in its outcome. Having said that, the influence of the US on the global stage both economically and politically make it almost impossible to ignore. Some of us don't actively follow US politics but whether we follow it or not, we inevitably hear about it.

There are those that say the US is an exception, this whole concept has an entire field of political science devoted to it, rather aptly called US Exceptionalism. Personally I consider it complete bollocks, most of the justifications used for proposing its existence stem from gross misunderstandings and deliberately misconstruing the birth of other nations or how they formed. US exceptionalism posits that the US came into existence due to a unique combination of societal and political factors not shared with other nations so the observations of other nations' political systems don't apply to the US - which again to reiterate is patently untrue.

The US is not the first nor last country to come into existence as the result of colonisation, nor is it unique in its emergence as a nation in the aftermath of a civil war, nor is it the only country that declared its independence from Britain and a fought subsequent war of independence. Its political system whilst often times considered quirky and confusing to international observers is also not without precedence, other countries have distinct triple branch systems with Legislature, Judiciary, and Executive separated with complex systems of checks and balances intended to arbitrate conflict between the three. None of this is unique to the US and even the argument that whilst the individual components aren't unique, the specific combination used by the US is unique, completely ignores the fact that ultimately the root of power in a democracy is the people, and there's nothing unique about the people who live in the US.

Human Psychology whilst often influenced by culture, doesn't change when you cross a border. To that end there are observations of the political systems of other countries that are valid to make and apply to the US in an attempt to make sense of the maelstrom. There are lessons to be learned from the UK's recent general election for instance that forebode the possible outcomes of the forthcoming US election.

My most controversial political opinion is that swing voters do not exist, or as they are referred to in the US as "undecided voters" - whilst there may be a very limited number of voters and I stress the emphasis on limited, I do not believe they exist on the scale that polling organisations and political pundits would have you believe.

My view is that people fall into 1 of 3 camps when you examine their voting intentions, they are people who are on one side, and people who are on the other. You might be asking how these two sides form 3 groups and the answer is rather simple, for each side there is a dedicated base that always turns out to vote for that side, and a shy base that votes for that side when they think they need to. These people are considered shy because they don't openly express their political positions and don't engage in political discourse. In the UK we call them Shy Tories as they usually vote for the Conservative Party. In Northern Ireland they are called Garden Centre Unionists and vote for Unionist parties that favour Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK. In the US, some political pundits have acknowledged the existence of this voter base and referred to them as Shy Trumpers.

Whether or not an election is won in this context is therefore decided by whether this shy base turns out to vote or not. The idea that people change sides and need to be convinced to vote for one side instead of the other is a fallacy and there is an entire field of Psychology dedicated to Behaviour that emphasises the fact that people behave in reliable, predictable ways. I have never met a single person who watched a political debate and changed their view as a result of it - debates are a public spectacle, nothing more, they don't change opinions, they let voter bases know whether or not the candidate they have already decided they are going to vote for needs them to turn out.

The key take away from this whole position, is that if Kamala Harris wants to win then the path to the Presidency lies in turnout, there's no argument to be had, or won, this idea of swinging people from one side to another is propaganda nothing more, it's a distraction from the real obstacle - getting people to actually vote.

While the Electoral College system makes it possible for a party to win the popular vote nationally and still lose the Presidency, that too is not unheard of - it is possible in the UK for the party that wins the most seats to lose the popular vote nationally, this last happened in 1974 when Labour won 301 seats as the largest party and lost the popular vote by almost 230,000 votes. I understand that the US Election will be decided in "Swing States" but lets be clear, the people in these states aren't actually changing their minds from one party to another, who wins is determined by who turns out. Obama won two elections because he formed a coalition of progressives and got those voters to turn out, Hillary lost because many in that coalition did not turn out to vote for her, realistically very few people who actually voted for Obama went and voted for Trump and if you really believe they did then you need to re-evaluate your understanding of Human Psychology and ignore the political posturing of prominent public figures associated with one party or another "switching sides" - they're not actually changing who they vote for, they are capitalising on public opinion in an effort to raise their prominence and include their name in political discourse.

Looking back at July 4th when Labour won a landslide in the UK, their vote share remained largely unchanged, in some areas it actually declined, the reason they won the election by such a majority was because the shy voters that normally back the Conservative Party did not turn out to vote. I understand that the US voting system is not seat based, and that voting is more complicated, but in the vast majority of states the number of electoral college seats awarded to a candidate is determined by the popular vote in that state with a winner-takes-all determining factor - in other words you may not have constituencies with seats in a parliament but each state is in effect a constituency, and the electoral college votes for that state are your seats and just like the UK, first past the post determines who gets those seats.