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Peggy Noonan says that Trump's group has broken from the Republican Party. She also describes the Republican party as broken, that it cannot look to the past or 1980. She says two unwon wars, with one a catastrophe, and a great recession are enough to break any party. Worse the top of the party believes in things such as immigration, trade, entitlements, that the bottom doesn't, says Noonan. You have a situation where the base has left the party leadership. She describes Hillary Clinton as having a web of relationships and arrangements from the past, and with the idea that is popular among Republicans that she is only interested in acquiring power. Sanders is respected by Conservatives for his sincerity. Noonan sees God's role as chastising in this election, reminding people about what can go wrong and what needs to be done as the damage is surveyed for democracy and the country. The only reason for hope Noonan sees is in the way the 2016 U.S. presidential election is turning the decision over to the young people of America, who can decide who shapes the future. ...

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The new bipartisan sanctions on Russia agreement in the U.S. Congress has the support of key senators, McConnell and Corker on the Republican side, Schumer and Cardin on the Democratic side. The agreement would impose new sanctions on Russia and provide for a mandated congressional review. This follows Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 election and cyberattacks. This measure is being considered as a sanctions bill on Iran is being passed.

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NYT Guest essay on Germany in 2026 with 6 state elections coming up, by Anna Sauerbrey, Editor of Die Zeit German Weekly. German leader Merz is on a 2 day visit to the US and will go over topics- Merz's visit to China, US trade policy after US Supreme Court decision, the war with Iran and German cooperation without being directly involved. Sauerbray looks at the situation in Germany with AfD expected to win in one of the states to form a government, the decline of the SDP and the role CDU now plays in Germany. The shift in mood to tight control over migrant entry in Europe.

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Whites are aging faster in the U.S., census figures show, and white deaths are higher than white births as the birthrate for whites declines. This is also leading to anxiety among whites about uncontrolled immigration, and behind the Republican party's moves on immigration. The effects of world trade and the hollowing out of some industries with the effect on local communities in the U.S. has exacerbated the anxiety. Signs of this were evident in the last decade leading to the Trump campaign based on immigration issues and trade in the 2016 election, which resonate more in the mid sections of the U.S. with the lack of the tech industry and financial industry of the two coasts.

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The racial polarization in the U.S. before the presidential elections of 2012 between Romney and Obama. During the 2008 elections Obama did as well as Clinton by getting 43% of the white vote, it now appears headed into the 30's. This situation is reminiscent of the one facing Mondale in the 1980 election with Reagan, when Mondale received only 35% of the white vote. Fully 91% of the support for Romney comes from white voters as he passes 50% among overall voters in a late Oct. 2012 ABC/Washington Post poll. One irony in this situation is that Obama contested the 2008 election as a person who could bridge the racial divide.

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As Britain goes to general elections in May 2015, one of the issues in the election will be new referendum on membership in the European Union promised by prime minister David Cameron. Cameron has said he will negotiate a better deal for Britain in the EU and hold a referendum by 2017. The last referendum was in 1975, in which two thirds of voters supported membership in the EU. British disapproval of the EU has increased with immigration from newer EU members since the 2008 financial crisis, and increasing unemployment. Some recent polls show 42% voting to stay in the EU, and 39% opting out, suggesting a close vote. Negotiations for better terms mean treaty change, which would be opposed by France. Germany's Merkel also opposes changes on the immigration rules that do not allow free movement of labor. Other EU leaders see Cameron's moves on the EU being an effort to counter the UK Independence Party's push for EU exit, as the UKIP could draw Conservative right wing voters in the 2015 general election. ...

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In a Fox News Interview with Sean Hannity Venezuela's Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado says her stand-in Edmundo Gonzalez won by 70% of the vote in the 2024 election. In 2026 she says she would get 90% of the vote. She tells Hannity:  "I do want to say today, on behalf of the Venezuelan people, how grateful we are for his courageous mission.” She wants to share the Nobel Peace Prize with DJT.   Secretary of State Marco Rubio, points out that one reason the US is working through the interim leadership is that most of the Opposition has left Venezuela. DJT has said "it would be very tough" for Machado to become the leader of Venezuela because of the military, gangs and other militias that Chavez and Maduro have created that would disrupt the country's transition. DJT's view is that “We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote...No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have — we have to nurse the country back to health." The key is maintaining the county's stability after Maduro and this is what the US president intends to do first. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pointed to this, that most of the Opposition is now outside Venezuela, sadly. Rubio told NBC Meet the Press - “We are dealing with the immediate reality. The immediate reality is that, unfortunately and sadly, but unfortunately the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside of Venezuela. We have short-term things that have to be addressed right away.”  For getting the right result to restore Venezuela and the US to carry out the Monroe Doctrine in the best possible way- the US is taking each step carefully to achieve good results well into the future. ...

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This WSJ article provides a detailed account of the positions of Clinton and Trump on Wall Street, the financial industry, banks, Dodd-Frank, regulatory reform, 6 weeks before the U.S. presidential election.

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Sebarros of the WSJ takes a closer look at the key words used by U.S. president Trump in rallies in city after city during the 2016 election campaign and in the months before the Congressional elections in 2018. Analysis by the WSJ counted the unique two word phrases, how often Trump highlighted topics, the content of audience respones in 48 post election rally speeches through Oct 27.  In 2018 the words "tax cuts,"fake news," and "health care," appeared more often than in 2017 after the Republican party's win in passing a tax cut. Other phrases used frequently were "law enforcement," "North Korea," and "Supreme Court" after the win in nominating Judge Kavanaugh. The use of the 2 word phrases are carefully done. The words "fake news" were not used during sensitive periods such as when pipe bombs were mailed to government offices, yet resumed few weeks later. His own name is the seventh most used word, even for someone such as Mr. Trump, showing that behind the impromptu remarks there is a carefully worded effort to steer voters in a particular direction with carefully developed appeals. Another example is when the Dow Jones averages were reaching new highs in September and October Mr. Trump highlighted the stock market growth, and then when volatility increased by November said much less on this topic. Graphs by Jessica Wang provide a good look at how frequently and in what manner Mr. Trump has continued his unique campaigning style before the 2018 Congressional elections, with two word appeals to already receptive audiences. The audience participation is a singular feature and the words "U.S.A." were used in 85% of the rallies with "Build that Wall" at 65% as the next most frequent.  Much of it is repetitive in city after city and the WSJ analysis shows that the major television networks including Fox News are not covering the speeches from beginning to end as they did before, only C-Span public network does. To receptive audiences in carefully scripted surroundings, including larger ones such as the Toyota Center Houston, where larger numbers of supporters worried about immigration, health care, trade, and other issues can come together, president Trump has rallied core supporters with this kind of appeal. ...

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This report by Martin in the NYT points out that Ohio no longer plays a critical role in U.S. presidential elections. It was critical for a Bush win over Gore, and president Obama carried it by 2 points against Romney in 2012. It is critical for Trump to win. For Hillary Clinton other states are gaining importance as they better reflect the demographic changes in the U.S. and the mix with minorities- states such as Georgia, N. Carolina, Colorado and Florida. Ohio has not seen an influx of Hispanics as other states, and is now more white, more evangelical voters, and reflects a mix that was prevalent earlier. 

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Cohn and Monkovic of the NYT show how the shift of blacks, hispanics, and white collar professionals is doing to the demographics in the eastern, coastal and southern states, and how this will impact 2016 and future presidential elections in the U.S. This includes North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and Florida. It means the electoral map may have changed by 2016 and 2020, as the less educated voters in rural areas are balanced by a growing minority and white collar vote in the suburbs and major cities of the South.

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Lee, Nicholas and Harris of the WSJ describe the responses being considered by president Obama to Russia's hacking of DNC, and other cyberattacks during the U.S. presidential election. Obama said the goal will be "to send a clear message to Russia or others not to do this to us because we can do stuff to you." He said some of this would be done publicly and other things would be done where the Russians know but not everybody else. Mr. McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia, is cited here saying that declassification of intelligence by president Obama in the remaining weeks in office is needed so that all ambiguity about Russian involvement is removed. Elections are coming up in Germany and France in 2017 and both president Obama and the Republican Congress leadership see the need to prevent any further cyberattacks on the U.S. or Western Europe.

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Only 27 of 249 Republicans in the House of Representatives have accepted that Mr. Biden won the presidential election, the rest refused to answer. And only 32 of these Republicans in the House say they will accept if this is certified by the Electoral College. The Senate is split 50 Republicans to 48 Democrats with 2 runoff elections in Georgia. In one Senate seat a Libertarian candidate too a slice of the vote denying a clear victory to the Republican Perdue for that seat. In the other election for Senate seat with  about 20 candidates running no one could secure a clear win. Mr. Biden with a very thin margin of 13,000 votes in Georgia over Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump contested the election because of the unprecedented nature of the 2020 election with mail in votes allowed in a way and in huge numbers that was not always well organized to be fault proof. With federal elections being run by state officials in 51 states and not by a national election commission as in India, and each state improvising its way of handling mail in ballots there was not a fault proof way of knowing if everything was 100% unquestionably correctly done. A national federal election commission not belonging to any party and unrelated to state or federal authority can ensure an election is free and fair better than the way it is organized in the U.S. Use of electronic machines for over 1 billion voters also ensures consistent way of doing it in India compared to the haphazard nature of the American process of vote ballots and separate counting in each state. This is the second election in which both parties differed on the election and disputed the result. The earlier one was Bush vs. Gore when Mr. Clinton was outgoing president following 2 terms in office. Yet surprisingly there are no calls for setting up a structure like that in India that would organize the vote collection under the authority of a national election commission and the use of modern technology consistently across the nation. ...

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After the 2008 election of president Obama rural whites left the Democratic Party, Following the election of president Trump educated suburbanites left the Republican Party. These two trends have accelerated as seen in the 2018 U.S. Congressional elections. Democrats won in and around major cities, and Republicans won in rural and small town America. Democrats won 27 GOP Republican COngressional seats to win the majority. Republicans added 2 seats to their Senate majority.  The electorate is sharply divided in terms of education in a way that is regressive and not good for America, and in a way that has never happened before. Republicans share of of House districts with lowest shares of college education bachelors degrees increased from 44% in 1998 to 60% in 2018. Democrats share of House districts with the highest share of Bachelors degrees went up from 50% in 1998 to 81% in 2018. Much of the Democrats support from educated suburbanites comes from lopsided support from educated women. The result is that the Republican Party is trading faster growing counties for slower growing smaller counties and now has a base of older voters. The Democrats have to find a leader who can rally support from this new combination of educated suburbanites, younger voters, and minorities. And big issues are at stake. About 77% of people in recent polls now support a national health care insurance like than in the UK and Canada. Poor reading skills and reading comprehension in school tests show a need for greater investment  in education. Infrastructure investment is a big priority for a decade that has yet to be tackled directly. Of the 50 new Democrats in the House of Representatives 24 campaigned on a promise for a national health insurance like that in Canada or UK. The focus on economic issues would move the Democratic Party back to where it was in all the post war years till the distractions from cultural issues  in the last decade shifted its focus from its historical base support of working class voters. ...

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The Labor Department reports that the U.S. added 255,000 jobs in July 2016.Unemployment remained steady at 4.9%. Of the jobs added, 70,000 were in business and professional services, 43,000 in health care, 38,000 in government mostly in local education, 18,000 in financial services. Yet growth remains slow at 1.2%. Businesses are willing to hire new employees, but reluctant to make new investments in the prevailing uncertainty. Wage growth for average hourly earnings was about 2.6% for the year. Improvements in the jobs picture is likely to influence the U.S. presidential election.

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On Facebook "Back the Badge" targeted at wives of police officers remembering killed police officers was seen 1.3 million times. Another ad "Woke Blacks" for Afro-American culture targeted at the civil rights movement was seen 750,000 times.These and other ads on Twitter were cited in Congressional investigations in the U.S., as ads paid for in rubles and conducted by Russian internet agencies. Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter managers answered questions in Congress about the ads during the U.S. presidential election of 2016.

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DW.com sees "back paddling" in Trump's latest foreign policy speech, replacing bigotry against immigrants with the idea of a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. with "extreme vetting" of new immigrants, including an ideological screening test. Trump it says repeated his claim that he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, which it says is false. Trump's statement that he would reduce the current nation building strategy pursued under president Bush, it says doesn't make sense because the current situation in the Middle East ( rise of ISIS and chaos in Syria) arises from American retrenchment reversing in the opposite direction the policies of president George W. Bush. It is also true that Bush started his presidency with no intention of nation building, it was only after 9/11 that he adopted this policy. The elder Bush, George W. Bush's father, is reported to have said that his son as president was ill served by bad advisors in the invasion of Iraq over weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Obama's retrenchment has also led to differences in policy, with Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton believing the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction, as shown in LyrArc's coverage. The speech was read using a teleprompter to avoid the frequent gaffes in previous speeches. Clearly an effort to make immigration and terrorism issues to win voter support, after previous efforts resembling bigotry and intolerance. ...

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The antiquated nature of the electoral college system that decides elections for president in the U.S. Under this system there can be a close election in the popular vote by a margin of 1-2 % and still have the winner take a huge majority in the electoral college. It also makes states where elections are not close irrelevant for campaigning purposes and framing the message candidates make- in the last three elections this means the South and Plains states which are Republican and the West and East coasts which are Democrat largely irrelevant for campaigning, creating a situation where large parts of the country are simply ignored.

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Gary Yonge provides this exceptional report after spending a month in Muncie, Indiana, before the U.S. presidential election of 2016. He talks to different women in the town that is known as Middletown, representing midwestern America. Linda Hanson of the League of Women Voters in Muncie, says that just as the election of a black president brought out the latent prejudice of people towards blacks, in the same way the latent misogyny of people has been brought out by this election towards women. Part of the difference in how Hillary Clinton is viewed comes from partisan views such as coming from women in Republican organizations. A college professor at Ball State University who supported Sanders is ambivalent, hesitant about Clinton as representing the working class. A young college student who is progressive says she is voting for Jill Stein of the Green Party. In Whitely a black part of town, a young woman who works with children and in after school education says she is for Hillary. Sousa, 75, former spokesperson of the League of Women Voters say Hillary is being held upto a higher standard, and there is no perfect candidate among women as there is no perfect candidate among blacks, and sometimes this is used to deny rights or opportunities to women. Also prevalent is the divide among women of older age who have experienced gender discrimination and were denied rights from a younger generation of women who have not experienced this and have no idea about that time. Muncie elected a female Mayor in 2008. Others including a counselor at a women's shelter see a lot remaining to be done, that she hasn't seen women being treated with respect. Sousa of the LWV says its a lot about what the candidate will bring to the country and what she is able to do, not just being a woman, which is the way to tackle the country's problems. ...

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This leader in The Economist reviews an essay in the magazine's October 8-14th, 2016 edition by U.S. president Obama. In it Obama points to the unfinished tasks of his presidency and what comes next as tasks to be done for the U.S. economy. The Economist points out the problems in the 2016 election campaign where there is a lack of discussion of economic issues as a serious problem. Obama lists as priorities efforts to improve conditions of people left out in the recovery, reducing inequality, offering more job opportunities, and increasing productivity.

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The U.S. tones down expectations of results in trade negotiations with China. President Trump says China may be thinking, "lets wait 13, 14, 15 months till the election." With the U.S. presidential election coming up China may be looking at the prospect of negotiating with someone from other parties.

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Chancellor Merkel's now widely quoted words were made in Munich on May 27, 2017, after a NATO summit meeting in Brussels and a Group of 7 meeting in Italy, in which she was disconcerted by U.S. president Trump's positions on NATO, Russia, climate change, and trade. These words "the times in which we could rely fully on others - they are somewhat over." Merkel added "This is what I experienced in the last few days." After the election of Emmanuel Macron in France, Merkel expressed great relief at the outcome of the French election with Macron winning about two thirds of the vote, setting the stage for the election in Germany after several months of difficult watching and waiting. Now there is new confidence in Germany shaping its own future, with France and the rest of the European Union without Britain. Merkel says she "experienced this" meaning that she had undergone a transformation in these few months, and visibly in the last few days. She was also sending a message to Germans and people of the European Union - "we have to know that we must fight for our future on our own, for our destiny as Europeans." This also complements tactically to form the approach of Germany and France at the leadership of the EU, as French president Macron said at the end of the Group of 7 conference that multilateralism was intact, and the U.S. and EU shared many common goals.   ...