Episode description

Nick Cohen chats to Washington-based journalist & substacker Ben Cohen about the November 5th presidential election - considered the most fateful and important poll in recent U.S. history, possibly since the election of 1861 that ushered in the presidency of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War.

Ben @thedailybanter says dodgy billionaires and rightwing pollsters are trying to con people into believing that the election is still incredibly close with dubious polls and betting odds in order to help facilitate a determined Trumpist post-election "stop the steal" campaign to put the fascist Hitler fanboy and multi-convicted felon back in the White House.

But Ben says the quality polls still show Harris in the lead across the country and in the so-called "swing states" and that she "win comfortably". "I could fall flat on my face and be, and be laughed at by the rest of the industry," admits Ben to Nick. " But, I'm not convinced that it's going to be as close as people think it's going to be. I think Kamala Harris is going to win comfortably."

Ben is sure that the women of the U.S. will turn out in big numbers to vote for Harris - mainly thanks to the decision by the Trumpist Supreme Court to overturn Roe-Wade and give individual states power over abortion rights and IVF access. This election has become a fight not only for the White House and the fate of the free world - particularly Ukraine - but also over women's bodies. Ben tells Nick, "I think what people are underestimating is the women vote, who are going to come out. This is a post Roe-Wade environment where Donald Trump is widely regarded as being responsible for repealing abortion rights in America."

But how can the election be so close when it's between a distinguished public servant like Kamala Harris, who has run an immaculate campaign, and the preposterous sociopath Donald Trump, indisputably the stupidest man ever elected president and one who attempted to overturn the 2020 election through violence and lies? Ben blames the emergence of the radical right media in the U.S., "I couldn't understand it, but having lived in America for decades now, the infiltration of the Murdoch media and the right wing hate radio and the industry, the conservative media complex is powerful, he says."

So, could we be seeing a re-run of the so-called "Red Wave - that wasn't" saga of the November 2020 mid-terms when the Republicans talked up the prospects of a crushing defeat for Biden's Democrats, only for the washing ashore of a large damp squib?

Read Ben's The Banter Substacks here and listen to his podcasts here.

Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond explores the recent humiliating capitulation by the @washingtonpost proprietor & Amazon boss @JeffBezos to Donald Trump.

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