The Guardian reports:

Merseyside police announced last week that 18-year-old Rudakubana, who is accused of murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport in July, had been charged with two further offences – producing the toxin ricin and possessing an “al-Qaeda training manual”.

The force said the new charges had not changed counter-terrorism policing’s decision not to declare the Southport attack terrorism, and urged people not to jeopardise Rudakubana’s forthcoming trial with speculation.

So he burst into a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop for children and stabbed 11 children and two adults, killing three children. He has a supply of ricin, and a study of a terrorist training manual.

Yet somehow this was not a terrorist attack!

Being terrorism doesn’t mean multiple people were involved. It is the unlawful use of violence in pursuit of political aims.

1 News reports:

But Labour leader Chris Hipkins said there is “absolutely no evidence to suggest that this is going to reduce smoking”.

“It’s a $200 million-plus tax cut to the country’s biggest tobacco company,” he said.

This is a falsehood, no ifs and no buts.

I deal with this here. The Government has agreed to halve tax on heated tobacco products to see if that will lead to more smokers using them, instead of cigarettes. They are less harmful.

The actual tax on these products is $5.97 million, so the reduction in tax is $3 million, not $200 million.

So what is this $200 million figure? It is an estimate of the reduced tax revenue from smoking, on the assumption 7,200 smokers stop smoking, and substitute to heated tobacco products.

This is not a tax reduction on tobacco companies. It is less taxation, as fewer people smoke and fewer cigarettes are purchased. Labour are complaining that there will be less tax revenue from smoking, because fewer people will smoke.

The media should not just repeat claims that are so fundamentally false.

A 16 year old almost beat a man to death. Instead of being sent to prison for attempted murder, he “avoided a jail sentence and was given a stern warning to stay out of trouble or he’d come up for sentencing again.”

The offending involved:

• Attacking the man as he lay in his bed at home
• Was armed with a crowbar
• Hit him in the face and teeth
• Fractured his leg so badly a bone stuck out
• Multiple bones broken, as hit over 50 times with a crowbar and hammer

When police arrived they found the badly injured man with his face covered in blood and a fractured bone sticking out of one of his legs.

“They hit me in the teeth … There was blood everywhere… They just laughed,” the victim would later say in court.

His staying out of trouble lasted three months. He then robbed a man, stole from a petrol station, and resisted arrest.

He went back before the same judge, who this time gave him …. 12 months home detention.

Wow, that will really teach him not to offend.

NewstalkZB reports:

Auckland Council’s cultural and economic agency, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, has defended the cost of a campaign aimed at getting people to feel more positive about the city.

Figures obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act showed Tātaki spent a total of $737,208.58 to address what it said was a decline in perceptions of Auckland among locals and the rest of the country. …

The mayor told RNZ it was a waste of money.

“I am very dubious about the merits of this particular campaign,” he said.

“Spending over $730,000 of ratepayers’ money on some bloke from Finland having a sauna and eating a kebab while telling us Auckland makes him happy doesn’t sound like value to me.”

I’m with the Mayor.

In July 2021 Australian Labor Leader Anthony Albanese promised to”deliver the same legislated tax relief to more than 9 million Australians as the Morrison Government”.

Then in February 2024, Australian Labor reneged on their promise and abandoned Stage III of the legislated tax relief.

In June 2024 UK Labour shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised no significant tax increases and in October 2024 announced 40 billion pounds of new taxes – the second largest increase in history.

Is this a pattern? Labour Parties promise one thing on tax, and then once they are in, break that promise.

The Post reports:

New figures show that a “frustrating” cycleway beneath the noses of a disapproving Government has made for a longer bus commute.

The issue of the new Molesworth St bike lane, outside Parliament, was brought to the fore this week with reported “gridlock” on surrounding streets stretching all the way to Bowen St, where one person reported a 20-minute bus ride to Karori took an hour on Tuesday night.

While the Wellington City Council said a number of factors including a traffic light issue and construction caused Tuesday evening’s congestion, new figures from the Greater Wellington Regional Council show that bus commutes through the area are taking longer since the new cycle lane was installed.

Molesworth Street is effectively a motorway onramp. It is one of the worst streets to put a cycleway on, let alone the terrible design they have gone for (the cycleway is between parked cars and the footpath).

Yesterday I covered the first 5 reasons why Trump won. Here are the last 5.

6. Greatly improved Republican ground game

There are four areas where Republican efforts more closely matched or even exceeded those of the Democrats whereas in all four, GOP campaigns in 2020 were significantly outspent and outsmarted:

• Media spending. Trump was outspent by Clinton by 3:1 in 2016 and by Biden 5:1 in 2020. Whilst Trump closed the gap in 2020 somewhat with free publicity from his controversial statements (something that is called earned media), the volume of Democrat material disseminated to voters was vastly more in 2020. In 2024 this gap was significantly narrowed to the point where, allowing for Trump’s natural publicity seeking antics, it is fair to say there was virtual parity for the first time in many election cycles,

• Ballot harvesting. There are legal variations as to the extent of ballot harvesting that can be done depending on relevant state law but regardless of that, in 2020 Republican campaigns engaged in zero ballot harvesting. That changed dramatically in 2024. Both the formal Trump campaign and various offshoots such as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action and Scott Pressler hired hundreds of young people across most of the swing states to actively chase ballots. This was encouraging low propensity voters to register and vote early in states that allowed it and the chasing of high propensity voters on election day to ensure they voted. Each used sophisticated Apps that fed from real data from state election offices that identify voters yet to cast a vote by party affiliation where allowed. These groups wrung out 10,000’s of votes many of them from people who had either never voted or rarely voted. The most dramatic example of this was Pressler’s efforts just in Pennsylvania where he and his team registered 180,000 Amish! The Amish traditionally don’t vote but regulatory overreach by the Democrat administration in Pennsylvania in seizing and destroying raw milk so upset the Amish that they were propelled into political activism and voted en-mass for Trump.
• Campus outreach. Charlie Kirk, as a young 30-year-old articulate and knowledgeable debater, had for years visited large university campuses across America but in the run up to 2024, he ramped up his efforts. Often all it involved was setting up a TPUSA tent and advertising that he was there to answer any questions from student voters with a particular emphasis on Harris or non-committed voters. Kirk’s exchanges are legendary and as the swell of support for Trump grew, these events attracted thousands of students each time and Kirk gave away 1,000s of MAGA hats each time at literally hundreds of events over the years. Exit polls show that Trump made huge inroads into the Gen Z vote and won a plurality of Gen Z males, and this result was largely because of Charlie Kirk’s efforts, and this campus outreached was barely matched by the Democrats.
• Defensive lawfare. Trump’s campaign in 2020 ran out of money 3 weeks out from the election for anything other than his huge rallies. Media advertising almost dried up and there was no money to pay lawyers to defend the vote from illegal actions by mostly Democrat election officials at the state and county level. In contrast, in 2024 a vast sum was spent recruiting hundreds of lawyers and hundreds of thousands of poll watchers and these lawyers were judiciously deployed in battleground states and were phenomenally successful. Various incidents cropped up in the weeks leading up to the election and on the day itself from shutting down early voting lines too early, to deliberately malfunctioning machines to barring Republican poll watchers. The lawyers were specific to each states’ election laws and swiftly intervened and the threat of legal action was often enough to get a behaviour change and when legal action made it to court, the well documented evidence was almost always sufficient to have a capricious and incorrect ruling or procedure overturned or aligned with state law. NONE of this was possible in 2020. There were myriads of acts of fraud and election malfeasance committed in 2020 and none of them could be intercepted on or before election day and often they were left to be litigated after the event when courts often ruled against Trump and the GOP due to out of time filing or lack of standing. This time around small, localised attempts at fraud were intercepted and quickly dealt with. Whilst there was undoubtedly fraud in places on November 5^th, this time it was far less impactful because of the aggressive defensive lawfare waged by the Trump campaign.
• 7. The fall of legacy media and the rise of alternative media

Donald Trump began labeling the mainstream media as fake news pretty early into his 2016 campaign. Since then, he has gone a step further and often called the MSM “the enemy of the people”. It has been known for many decades that the world’s legacy media generally have a liberal left leaning bias. For many years institutions like the big 3 US networks, Canada’s CBC, Britain’s BBC, Australia’s ABC and NZ’s TVNZ and RNZ journalists tried hard to hide their biases and reported the news in a more neutral and professional way. But as time has gone by and as journalism schools have been churning out more and more ideologically activist and more overtly political graduates, the newsrooms of legacy media globally have become more openly biased and more nakedly partisan. Parties and politicians from the right are subjected to more slanted coverage, more hostile questioning and way more investigative scrutiny whilst favoured candidates and parties on the left increasingly face limited scrutiny, soft ball questions and outright suppression of news stories that might make them look bad. But when Donald Trump came onto the political stage, he provoked a veritable firestorm of MSM opposition that has intensified and not abated. The MSM have rushed to cover hoax after hoax that initially made Trump look bad (I covered a bunch of these here). The US corporate media peddled the lies that Trump only won in 2016 with the help of Russia, they gleefully published lies of the 51 Democrat friendly intelligence experts who claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation and they lied about the origin of Covid and pilloried and banned people who said the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. All these lies were eventually uncovered and debunked, but the media have continued to peddle any lie that makes Trump look bad.  In the current Presidential campaign, this is but a sample of the massive anti-Trump pro-Kamala skewering that has occurred on MSM outlets:

* During the ABC sponsored debate between Trump and Harris, ABC executives agreed in advance to limit certain types of questions to Harris and stayed away from all ‘no-go’ topics as suggested by the Harris campaign. Trump was only asked questions of concern to Democrats and was subjected to attempts at real time fact checking by the moderators whilst ABC agreed in advance to no fact checking of Harris. It was obvious to even the most nonpartisan observer that Trump was debating not just Harris but the moderators as well.

* Harris’ 60 Minutes interview reached a new low of the MSM putting their thumb on the scales when they replaced a long rambling word salad nonsensical answer that Harris gave to a question posed about the administration’s response to the Gaza war with a more simple and rational answer that she gave in another part of the interview. That is extreme journalistic malpractice AND election interference that will have profound repercussions for CBS once Trump changes the partisan makeup on the FCC and FEC.

* The MSM are notorious for amplifying outlier polls that favoured Harris. Perhaps the most egregious example of this was the famous Des Moines Register poll by Ann Seltzer, considered by many as the gold standard of polls. Whilst Seltzer had a prior track record that has been pretty accurate, any polling expert could’ve told you that a poll showing Harris up 3 in Iowa when all other polls had Trump up by 7 to 10% (and the fact that Trump won Iowa by 11% and 8% in 2016 and 2020 and eventually won in 2024 by 13%!) was a dramatic outlier. But in the heat of the campaign with Trump tied in national polls and slightly up in swing state polls, the prospect of a hidden Harris blue wave was too tempting to pass up and so this poll was blasted from legacy media rooftops (and was even given prominence from our esteemed site owner Mr. Farrar perhaps because of his well-publicised disdain for DJT). The pollsters who picked Trump’s eventual result were ignored and even scoffed at. The pushing of outlier polls is a deliberate conservative voter suppression tactic engaged in on a regular basis by the MSM.

* The Media Research Centre analysed the positive/negative coverage of the 3 major networks for the GOP versus Democrat nominee over some Presidential elections since 1992 and you can see the trend dramatically:

                Dem      GOP      Dem advantage

1992     52%+    33%+    +23

2004     59%+    37%+    +22

2008     68%+    33%+    +35

2020     66%+    8%+       +58

2024     78%+    15%+    +63

People aren’t stupid, they can see this bias and they react accordingly.

What has been the impact of the media’s descent from neutral, a-political, down the middle reporting to slanted, ideologically driven coverage and outright hostility to the GOP candidate for the most powerful office in the world?

* Gradual but accelerating ratings and subscription declines – more on that later.

* Decline in profitability – MSM newspapers like the Washington Post have laid off hundreds and look at the closing of TV3 and layoffs at TVNZ and Stuff in New Zealand.

* Slump in public trust as indicated in polls that show the MSM polling worse than Congress.

* A widespread belief that the MSM are biased against Trump and protecting Kamala has inevitably led to a rise in viewership of alternative media.

Into the void left by the increasing partisan legacy media has stepped a variety of conservative commentators who have been able to rack up substantial views and social media impressions that have come to swamp who views the legacy media. Many of the people I am about to mention have podcasts and shows that they broadcast from their websites, Twitter, Rumble and even mainstream social media platforms that regularly match and exceed even the major network news shows and far exceed equivalent shows on CNN and MSNBC. The biggest players on this list have audiences that vastly outstrip even the biggest MSM shows or podcasts. These include the following:

* Megyn Kelly – former top NBC host and now the host of the number 1 conservative podcast The Megyn Kelly Show.

* Dan Bongino – former Secret Service agent and founder of alternative social media Apps such as Parler (that was exiled in 2020 by internet hosting sites) and Rumble, the conservative alternative to You Tube. Dan hosts a very successful radio and live streamed show that reaches on average 200,000 viewers every day. Dan is close to Trump and has interviewed him multiple times.

* Charlie Kirk – owner and founder of Turning Point Action and TP USA, the largest conservative youth outreach organisation with chapters in thousands of high schools and college campuses nationwide. More significantly, his clips of exchanges on college visits where he forcefully makes the case for Trump’s election have had over TWO BILLION combined views across Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. Kirk employs popular conservative commentator Jack Prosobiec, and he features frequently on his shows.

* Tucker Carlson – he was Fox News’ most popular commentator with a show that used to be the No. 1 show on cable TV until he was fired for his outspoken support for Trump and his controversial interviews. He formed his own media show called TCN and has interviewed a range of conservatives including his interview of Donald Trump that garnered almost 200 million views on Twitter.

* Steve Bannon War Room – Bannon was a strategist for Trump in the early years of his Presidency and had been a senior executive with Breitbart News. His War Room daily show has a huge outreach, and he interviews almost all the prominent conservatives. He became infamous for having to spend 90 days in Federal Prison for defying a Department of Justice subpoena to appear and testify before the January 6 committee.

* James O’Keefe – founder of Project Veritas until forced out by his RINO donors, O’Keefe pioneered undercover journalism exposing numerous scandals involving Democrats and left leaning organisations like Planned Parenthood. O’Keefe carried on his undercover work on his own as O’Keefe Media Group and uncovered numerous election related frauds and scandals in the run up to November 5^th the most prominent being exposing the Democrat Party’s funding arm ACT Blue using unsuspecting small donors to launder hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal overseas donations.

* Steven Crowther – one of the most prolific conservatives who also uses You Tube to publish humourous ambush style interviews of liberals.

Glen Beck – Owner and Founder of conservative media empire The Blaze with its own TV channel, radio station and podcast. Beck was a protégé of the most famous conservative talk back radio host the late Rush Limbaugh and styled himself in a similar mold.

* Ben Shapiro – Owner and founder of the Daily Wire, another major player in the more mainstream conservative new media space. Shapiro for quite a while was a Never Trumper but got on the Trump train for the 2024 election.

Trump became very adept at using new media despite his age. His youngest son Barron, who is an 18-year-old college student in New York, mingles with all the big conservative Gen Z and Millennial influencers from the so-called Manosphere including Theo Von, the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Andrew Schulz and Shawn Ryan. Trump appeared on all their shows each with millions of views and came across as natural and funny to huge audiences of disaffected young males. Of course, the grand poohbah of the Manasphere is former UFC executive Joe Rogan whose centrist Spotify show has the biggest reach of any podcast in the world, each with an average viewing audience of 16 million. Trump’s famous 3-hour unscripted riff with Rogan where Rogan asked whatever questions he wanted (and Trump answered without ducking and diving) garnered across Spotify, You Tube and Twitter almost 100 million views! These appearances helped propel Trump to dominating the under 30 male vote in a way that Harris couldn’t come close.

The net effect of all of this: the Trump hating MSM are losing their grip on the narrative. Whilst they still have some influence, they are increasingly becoming a liberal echo chamber religiously watched mostly by left leaning true believers whilst Independents and right leaning folk are consuming their news from alternative sources that increasingly have a far greater reach then the legacy media. This played a vital role in Trump’s victory and his decisive win will only accelerate this decline unless the MSM return to their roots in reporting unbiased straight news and let go of the politically slanted advocacy that poses for news.

8. The proliferation of global conflicts

Trump is the first President in 40 years to not commence a new war. Reagan invaded Grenada, Bush 1 fought the Gulf War, Clinton attacked the former Yugoslavia, Bush 2 invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama toppled Gaddafi and Biden has sent hundreds of billions to fund Ukraine. Trump withdrew troops from Iraq and laid the plans (that were massively cocked up by Biden) for an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump negotiated and signed the Abraham Peace Accords ushering unprecedented diplomatic rapprochements between Israel and various Arab nations. Trump defused the escalating nuclear tension with North Korea all while getting NATO countries to pay their fair share of military expenditures.

More significantly is what Putin didn’t do during Trump’s 4 years. Under Obama he invaded Crimea and Georgia and under Biden, he invaded Ukraine. Putin made no territorial incursions under Trump. There was relative stability in the Middle East from 2017 to 2021. There is no way Hamas would’ve attempted their brazen infiltration into southern Israel under Trump and yet their actions under Biden have sparked the most prolonged and bloody conflict in Gaza and such tension and military retaliatory action with Iran as to see the whole region on the brink of war. Biden’ poor handling of the Ukraine war, for a while, saw the very real threat of US and NATO boots on the ground in an escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russia. And if that isn’t enough, the Chinese also sensed Biden’s weakness and have threatened the sovereignty of Taiwan in a way that Xi never remotely attempted when Trump was in power.

The supreme irony in all this is that in 2016, the Democrats said that Trump would plunge the US into global wars and that his warmongering would lead to an unstable world. The truth was the opposite happened – Trump presided over a period of relative peace and only used US military muscle selectively to quickly destroy the ISIS Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, a task that eluded Obama for 8 years. It is Biden and his weakness as a leader that sees the world on fire and on the brink of something akin to WW3 and it is Trump who was and will be again the candidate for peace. The prospect of America’s sons fighting in the midst of a Slavic conflict thousands of miles from home was a motivation for some voters to hold their nose and vote for the man who sends mean Tweets.

In the two days since Trump was elected, Zelenskyy has called him, Putin has scheduled a call, Hamas is saying it will end the war, Qatar has asked Hamas’ leadership to leave and I’m guessing the Chinese won’t be trying any drills where they encircle the whole island of Taiwan any time soon.

9. The RFK Jr – Tulsi Gabbard coalition

I covered the positive political impact of RFK Jr’s endorsement here. Trump has brought into his inner circle three high profile Democrats: JFK Jr from the closest America gets to a political royal family, Tulsi Gabbard who once was deputy chair of the Democrat National Committee and ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 2020 and Elon Musk who publicly backed and donated to Democrat politicians for years. Each of these people brought key constituencies to Trump’s cause and, perhaps more importantly, they gave permission for centrists and moderate Democrats, disgusted by their own party’s decent into left wing identity politics but turned off by Trump’s bombastic and at times arrogant persona, to vote for Trump. Joe Rogan (and many others) made the case that voting for Trump is not just about Trump but you’re voting for Tulsi, for RFK Jr and for the thousands of political appointees that will implement the policies that resonate with an actual majority of voters. Trump drove the Cheney’s, Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger to support Kamala and in exchange, he got Kennedy, Musk and Gabbard. I think that’s an awesome winning exchange and in the end, so did voters.

10. The lawfare and the assassination attempts against Trump backfired.

I covered this topic more extensively in these two posts. In summary, Trump’s opponents thought they had him on the ropes with all the various indictments when in actual fact, the politically motivated lawfare against Trump worked in his favour. When Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis insisted Trump be arraigned in person at the County Jail in a seedy inner city part of Atlanta, Trump’s defiant mug shot became a viral sensation but, much more significantly, it helped cement Trump’s record level of black male support that helped propel him to victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The footage of thousands of poor blacks lining the streets to the jail to cheer Trump as he exited the arraignment went viral in the African American community.

I don’t need to overstate the political impact of the two assassination attempts, most particularly the July 13^th attempt at the rally in Butler, PA. The photo of a bloodied Trump with his raised pumped fist under a huge American flag ranks up there with the shot of Churchill’s VE Day speech to a monstrous crowd in London, the flag raising at Iwo Jima, John Kennedy Jr saluting his Dad JFK at his funeral, the fleeing Vietnamese refugees from the My Lai massacre in 1968 or the lone protestor holding up the tanks on Tiananmen Square. Trump’s pugnacious and defiant response reinforced his image as the ultimate alpha male in the eyes of millions and, whilst not intended nor sought after, became a major electoral plus for him.

Conclusion

Whilst the electoral magnitude of Trump’s victory is not on the same scale as the two Reagan victories in 1980 and 1984 (489 to 49 and 525 to 13) nor the Nixon 1972 49 state sweep, nonetheless it will go down as one of the greatest comebacks in US political history given the unique nature of Trump and his experiences. His defeat in 2020 was shrouded in controversy with allegations (credible IMO) of election fraud that were of a magnitude that, in his mind and in the mind of many supporters, cost him the election. The events of January 6, 2021, came to overshadow and dominate Trump’s prospects with unprecedented levels of negative publicity aimed at Trump as his opponents sought to blame him for the events at the Capitol that day. He faced two impeachments, he was the subject of two Special Counsel enquiries, he was indicted 94 times on politically motivated charges (many of which will now melt away now that he has won and the rest will be reversed or die in appellate courts), the state of New York tried to bankrupt him and seize key properties, he has faced the most unrelenting media opposition of any politician, he faced two assassination attempts that came close to succeeding, frankly any other person would’ve given up. He faced a wall of negative media coverage of his campaign and fawning sycophantic coverage of his opponent, and countless attempts yet again at electoral fraud and he faced down the lot AND WON and won convincingly. It is a feat that may never be equaled in the annals of US political history!

Mike Hosking writes:

So it is on that note I pose this very simple premise – if and when Labour get back to power, they are going to need most likely not just the Greens, but the Māori Party too. 

This is correct. Without Te Pati Maori, Labour and Greens in the TU-Curia polls since the election have varied between 45 and 52 seats – well off the 61 needed for a majority.

The Māori Party are radicals. 

When the police raided the Mongrel Mob the other day in Opotiki, Rawiri Waititi called it “state sponsored terrorism” driven by a race agenda. 

How do the Labour Party live with that? How do they explain it? How do they justify being in Government with that? 

If I was running the campaign in 2026, I would do billboards around the country with quotes from Te Pati Maori MPs. When people realise Labour can only govern with the support of Te Pati Maori, they will run a mile

Todd McClay announced:

New Zealand and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have concluded negotiations on a trade agreement that will open up significant opportunities for New Zealand exporters in the Gulf region, Minister for Trade and Agriculture Todd McClay announced from Doha today.

Today’s announcement follows significant reengagement with the GCC following meetings with GCC Ministers at the WTO Ministerial Meeting in Abu Dhabi in February of this year and delivers on an 18 year-long ambition for New Zealand to agree this high-quality trade deal in the Middle East.

“This is the highest quality deal the GCC has done to date and its first with a major agricultural exporter,” Mr McClay said.

“It delivers duty free access for 99 per cent of New Zealand’s exports over 10 years and when combined with our recently concluded NZ-UAE CEPA, 51 per cent of our exports to the region will be tariff-free from day one.

New Zealand and GCC trade is worth over $3 billion annually, with New Zealand exporting $2.6 billion in the year to June 2024. This includes $1.8 billion of dairy, $260 million of red meat, $72 million of horticulture and $70 million of travel and tourism services.

This is a great deal. To get 99% of exports tariff free over time is what you want, and we have been trying for 18 years got get an FTA here.

Our history of FTAs is:

• Australia 1983
• Singapore 2001
• Thailand 2005
• TPSEP
• China 2008
• Malaysia 2009
• ASEAn 2009
• Hong Kong 2011
• Taiwan 2013
• South Korea 2015
• TPP 2018
• PACER 2020
• RCEO 2022
• UK 2023
• ACCTS 2024
• EU 2024
• UAE 2024
• GCC 2024

Good to have so many agreements in place, but we may take a big hit next year as Trump has pledged a 20% tariff on all exports to the US which would cost us US$1.6 billion a year, plus a likely drop in export volumes.

The Spectator reports:

Last night in Amsterdam, a scene unfolded that should send shockwaves across Europe: hundreds of Jews were hunted and beaten by mobs following a football match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax. Whether a spontaneous flare-up or organised assault, terrified fans were forced to jump into the city’s canals to escape violence. At least ten were injured, and three remain missing. As Israel dispatched emergency flights to evacuate its citizens, one must ask: how long until this happens in London?

Who would have thought Israel would ever have to send emergency flights to the Netherlands to evacuate Jews. A modern pogrom.

The Herald reports:

Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris is under fire after he was heard saying “f***ing racist” following a submission at a parliamentary select committee on amendments to foreshore and seabed legislation.

Act says it has raised the remarks with the Speaker as a matter of privilege. The privileges committee is already considering whether Ferris misled the House with comments he made last month.

This goes beyond rudeness. Select Committees are about allowing members of the public to have their say on proposed laws. To have an MP verbally abuse submitters like this is disgraceful.

This is from the Government’s latest Benefit System Insights report, showing the expected length of time someone on a benefit is projected to remain on welfare. As you can see it was reducing from 11.3 to 10.7 and then something happened after 2017 that saw it skyrocket up.

Before I cover the first 5 points, I will cover an important point by way of an introduction as it overlays all these reasons and that is that a big reason why Donald Trump won and won convincingly is because of a series of unique skills that Trump brings to the table. For his opponents they are character flaws but to his supporters they are features not bugs:

* His phenomenal resilience in the face of a wall of overwhelming hostility and opposition from the his opponents, media, governing elites (some from his own party), the unrelenting lawfare that could have led to prison time and the attempts to bankrupt his businesses due to the corrupt actions of Federal intelligence agencies and New York state and city law enforcement and finally the near successful attempted assassination. Any other candidate would’ve given up.

* His work ethic. Trump thrives on an average of only 4 hours sleep a night and has energy that belies his age. Trump held 80 rallies since the US Labor Day on 1 September that signals the business end of any US Presidential election campaign. In the last week he was averaging 3 rallies a day and in the final three days, he managed 4 full campaign rallies, often ending in the small hours of the morning and beginning at 10am the next day.

* His personal wealth not only helped top up his campaign during fund-raising lulls but he was able to pay millions to a large team of lawyers to defend himself in the various court cases he was involved with. It also meant he was never beholden to the elite Republican consultant class to whom GOP Presidential candidates invariably must turn to fund their campaigns.

* His phenomenal political instincts combine with a great sense of humour. Trump is a genuinely funny guy, but he also responds to events on the fly with the aplomb of the most seasoned pol. To rise from the floor of the stage at Butler, PA after being protected by Secret Service agents after the attempted assassination and fist pump Fight Fight Fight beneath a giant US flag created not just one of the most iconic political photographs of all time but sent a signal of Trump’s power and courage. That single act earned Trump probably a million new votes. His trolling of Kamala Harris’ false claim of working at McDonalds by donning an apron and serving burgers and fries to customers of America’s most iconic fast-food giant was epic…. and highly effective, as was his garbage truck appearance and hi-vis jacket wearing at a rally mere hours after Biden’s “garbage supporters” throw way comment.

* Much is made of Trump’s aggression, his inartful speaking style and partisan, personal barbs at his opponents. To millions of Americans, sick of being lectured to and abused by governing elites, Trump abrasiveness and forceful personality is seen as essential to getting the job of draining the swamp done. Media and governing elites all over the globe hate Trump for this trait but tens of millions of voters see him as the last hope to actually get things done, break some eggs, crack heads in Washington DC and to stand up to the Putin’s, Xi’s Khamenei’s and Jung Ill’s of this world.

1. Harris and Waltz were poor candidates

Harris replaced Biden at a crucial point of the campaign after Biden’s disastrous summer debate performance against Trump where his clear cognitive decline could no longer be hidden by a biased and incurious MSM. Biden’s polling was weakening before the debate and cratered after the debate pushing the Democrat elites to find a replacement. Rather than turning to its bench of seasoned, experienced, media-savvy operatives like California Governor Gavin Newsom or Michigan Governor Gretchen Witmer or even a media super star like Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, the woke DEI obsessed Democrat elites felt the optics of skipping over the sitting Vice President Harris as a woman of colour would be too devastating to the liberal base of the party and so they opted for Kamala in the hopes that their superior war chest and wall to wall favourable media coverage would cover for her manifest deficiencies. The gamble didn’t pay off because her failings couldn’t be hidden. They include:

* She ran an awful campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2019/2020 with faltering debate performances and a grab bag of far left policy positions that became frequent fodder for Trump campaign ads (anti fracking – a killer in PA, defund the police – she actually raised money for people arrested for arson during the hugely destructive Minneapolis Floyd riots, no restrictions on illegal immigration and defanging border enforcement, state funded trans gender surgery for prison inmates AND illegals, etc. etc.)

* She came across as scripted and inauthentic with her every public word crafted by her handlers. When teleprompter scripts stalled, she was unable to go off script and would seemingly glitch and repeat previous lines over and over unlike Trump who can riff off the cuff for hours. After Trumps’ 3 hour long spontaneous unscripted appearance on No. 1 podcaster Joe Rogan’s show, Harris was invited on as well but attempted to limit the time and the questions and Rogan declined. She would never have been as remotely authentic and real was Trump was in that interview. Teleprompters were used in seemingly ‘spontaneous’ town halls, questions and questioners were screened and known in advance and every voter interaction was choreographed often poorly.

* Her few interviews, almost exclusively on Democrat friendly venues like CNN and The View, went poorly. She could not answer simple expected questions except with rambling incomprehensible word salads. Her first interview as a candidate was awkward with poor camera positioning and with her running mate present like a minder. Her Fox interview with Brett Baier was so disastrous that her team frantically cut it off 30 minutes into an expected 50 minute sit down and her 60 Minutes interview was so bad that CBS actually edited her rambling answer about the Gaza war and spliced in a simple better answer in a brazen act of political interference. Trump on the other hand faced multiple lengthy hostile interviews (National Association of Black Journalists and Blomberg) that he handled with ease.

* She talked confidently of what she would do as President to solve the big problems like the cost-of-living crisis and the border crisis and when confronted as to why she hadn’t done anything about these pressing voter concerns over the almost 4 prior years as VP, she descended into yet more word salad circular answers.

* Her rallies were the definition of astroturf. Unlike Trump’s huge rallies that were packed to the gunnels with ordinary unscreened voters, Kamala’s rallies were often by invitation and held in locations small enough to create an illusion of a large full crowd. Many had paid attendees who, based on the analysis of cell phone pings, criss crossed the country as professional rally attendees attending 3, 4 even 5 rallies across state lines and that were bussed in by the thousand.

* The Harris campaign tried to run on joy, “brat summer”, happy vibes and a New Way Forward when she was an integral part of the poorly run Biden Harris Administration. Her campaign tried to create distance between her and Biden except that she was joined at the hip on all his policy failures (e.g. the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan) and when asked twice if she’d do anything different from Biden, she essentially said no thus undercutting her own campaign strategy.

* Vice Presidential picks are usually not too impactful with the top of the ticket hoping to do no harm with the pick. In this election, Trump’s selection of JD Vance enhanced his candidacy and Harris’ choice of Tim Waltz diminished hers. Despite a relentlessly negative media campaign against him, Vance proved to not only have a compelling back story of the hillbilly working class boy made good from an addicted solo mum home (turned into a successful book and Netflix movie) but he was a powerful and articulate advocate for the Trump agenda going into the lions den of hostile media interviews and knocking it out of the park over and over again. Conversely Waltz was poorly vetted and was confronted by friendly mainstream media about untruths about his miliary record and rank, his purported movements at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China in 1989, his over 30 visits to China and his very liberal track record as Governor of Minnesota. Waltz proved to be almost as bad in interviews as Harris being stumped a few times and the mismatch between him and Vance became painfully obvious during the single VP debate that was one of the most one-sided debate victories in favour of Vance of this type of contest in a generation.

2. “It’s the economy stupid.”

In the 1992 election when Bill Clinton beat popular Ronald Reagan’s Vice President George HW Bush (who had won easily 1988), the main reason was the recession of 1991/92 and its economic impact. Clinton’s famous aggressive Louisiana hard ball advisor James Carville kept Clinton and his campaign focused like a laser on the economy to the point where everywhere in their campaign offices was the sign “it’s the economy stupid” to avoid distraction on other issues. The massive printing of money that began with Covid and accelerated with all the Green New Deal spending boondoggles had the predictable effect of driving up inflation. The Biden Administration’s war on traditional energy (cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline, cancelling new oil and gas leases on Federal land and the EV mandates) all had the effect of scaling back the massive domestic energy boom under Trump’s first term causing a rise in energy prices, a process accelerated by the war in Ukraine and the uncertainty in the Middle East. This had the effect of driving up grocery prices in leaps not seen since the high inflation of the ‘70’s and a substantial increase in prices of petrol at the pump. Whilst the high inflation rate did come down somewhat as did prices at the pump, for the latter part of the Biden Harris Presidency, increasing numbers of Americans were struggling to make ends meet and suffered a decline in their standard of living.  When combined with a doubling of mortgage interest rates due to the Federal Reserve’s efforts to curb high inflation (which in turn increased domestic rents), job uncertainty and massive house price inflation fueled by the Covid supply chain shortages and untrammeled immigration, the American dream of home ownership for the rising generation became a more distant and unreachable goal. For the first time since the formation of the Republic in the 18^th century, Gen Z became the first generation of young American adults to face a country less prosperous and with fewer economic opportunities than the previous generation.

American voters across almost all age, gender and race demographics were demonstrably and intuitively worse off under Biden than they were under Trump and in this election, for the first time since Andrew Jackson ran for a second term in 1836, we had a race between an incumbent (Harris) and a challenger who had recently been President in the previous term and the economic juxtaposition proved to be electorally damaging for Harris.

3 . The weeping sore of the open border = rising crime

This was a hot button issue that sailed somewhat under the radar for the first two years of Biden Harris until the cumulative numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the border reached a critical mass in cities and towns across America. For many years, the problems of illegal immigration were largely confined to the border states of CA, AZ, NM and TX. Trump worked hard to seal the border with a raft of policies: ending catch and release, the ‘stay in Mexico’ policy for asylum seekers, no benefits for migrants and building sections of a border wall. The net effect was, by the end of his Presidency in 2020, that the US had the lowest number of illegal border incursions in a generation.

Biden ended all that on almost Day 1 of his Presidency reversing a raft of effective Trump Executive Orders essentially throwing open the border. Asylum seekers could enter and then be given a court date years hence and then be released with no repercussions for failing to appear. Border Patrol and ICE were re-instructed to release captured illegals rather than deport them and when so-called asylum seekers arrived, they received a cell phone, an EBT card (Federal Government pre-loaded debit card for buying food) and in the liberal so-called sanctuary states and cities, free accommodation in hotels, motels and hostels. Conservative states like Texas and Florida began an aggressive bussing programme where State agencies and law enforcement would bus illegals captured to the large liberal cities of the northeast and mid-west due to being already overloaded.

The impact of this steady stream of illegals, many being young men of military age, into many more northern cities led to pressure on resources usually only seen in border states, a very visible presence on streets and in places like parks and swimming pools but most significantly, because of zero vetting of unsuitable migrants, a surge in violent crime that saw a string of high profile rapes and murders of innocent usually women at the hands of criminal illegals who had been previously convicted of serious crimes in their home countries. In late September, the Assistant Director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent a letter to the relevant House of Representatives Oversight Committee representative detailing that 11,000 murderers and 15,000 rapists had been allowed illegal entry into the country. Trump masterfully personalised the illegal migrant crisis by highlighting one of the more bizarre cultural side effects of untrammeled immigration by pointing to the killing of domestic pets like cats and dogs in the small Ohio town of Springfield where some 22,000 Haitians had been allowed in on flimsily disguised refugee status. Trump was fact checked by the ABC debate hosts and the MSM for sensationalising the situation but the reports were true despite the Democrat mayor of the town claiming otherwise plus it swung the spotlight onto the way small rural communities across the country were being ravaged economically and socially by the uncontrolled influx of essentially illegal migrants from 3^rd world countries with a history of violent crime and disregard for property and culture. The straw that broke the camel’s backs was the reports of violent Venezuelan gangs taking over whole apartment complexes in middle class suburbs like Aurora in Denver Colorado and other cities like LA and Seattle and of organised Chilean gangs of professional thieves robbing wealthy homes in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Trump and Vance hammered these huge negative impacts of illegal immigration relentlessly at every opportunity and the promise of a mass deportation of illegals beginning with the high-profile criminals wreaking havoc across cities and towns across America. At first the Democrats tried to gaslight the electorate that there was no border crisis, then they tried a bait and switch with RINO Republicans on a border bill that was amnesty lite and offered only a minuscule improvement in numbers of illegals and then blame Trump and the GOP for not properly securing the border until Harris, finally sensing the electoral damage the open border was causing her party, became all bullish and strong on the border vowing to do as the new President what she never did as Biden’s VP despite being appointed by him as the Border Czar. It was too little too late and Trump’s extreme sounding solution to the problems caused by illegal migrants began to resonate with more and more voters.

4. Trump is winning the cultural war

The Democrat Party and liberal elites are obsessed with abortion and trans gender rights. Many liberal and never-Trump commentators (such as the guest post on November 5 by yokeovermarmite) made much about how pro-choice Democrat candidates in the 2022 mid-terms and subsequent special elections (like our by-elections) overperformed versus the polls and this signaled somehow that with most polls showing a close 2024 race that abortion post the overturning of Roe v Wade was the secret sleeper issue that would propel Kamala to victory. The problem was the left, as they often do, over egged the abortion pudding with a drumbeat of inflammatory rhetoric of women dying due to restrictive abortion laws since the overturn of Roe v Wade. The trouble was the picture child case of Amber Thurman’s death in Georgia was due to medical complications from an abortion pill she ordered online and poor subsequent medical treatment rather than being denied an abortion by Georgia’s more restrictive abortion laws. This was a medical malpractice issue and not an abortion rights issue. But more stupidly, Harris (and many Democrats and the MSM) went all in on claiming Trump was going to enact a nationwide federal abortion ban and they relentlessly scare mongered off that. Trump deftly defused the abortion issue’s potency during the campaign by doing three things: (i) he disavowed any claim to be at all supportive of any Federal abortion ban saying he’d veto one if passed by Congress, (ii) he rightly placed the Dobbs v Jackson decision (overturing Roe v Wade) in its proper legal context as merely returning the abortion issue to the States where constitutionally it belongs and, (iii) rather than being afraid to touch this third rail of US politics, Trump and Vance sometimes went on offence on the issue of late and post birth abortions (both allowed in a handful of uber liberal states) and rightly surmised that majority US public opinion was opposed to, and deeply concerned about, these types of abortions. Pro-choice candidates and media would then straight up lie repeatedly about all three of these points: they banged on endlessly about Trumps’ planned abortion ban, they mischaracterized the overturning of Roe v Wade, and they denied that pregnancies were terminated weeks prior to birth or even after birth. Trump drained the venom out of the abortion stinger such that it was not the decisive factor in 2024 that it was in 2022.

The left’s obsession with trans rights was personified by Harris when she bragged that when she was Attorney General of California, she arranged for the State to pay for trans gender surgeries for inmates. As more and more biological men who benefited from male puberty chose to transition and compete in women’s sports and to invade women only spaces like bathrooms, changing rooms and refuges, gradually this became the pointy end of the cultural war between traditional views on sexuality and the progressive left who see gender as a fluid continuum with an ever increasingly long acronym to cover all of the new sexual gradations on this everchanging spectrum. Often Democrats and their sympathizers became advocates for trans gender hormone treatment and even surgery for minors and in some states, the whole binary male/female structure of society was upended with Parent A and Parent B on birth certificates, male menstrual products, mothers became a birthing person and breast feeding becoming chest feeding. A stark divide opened up between Harris and Waltz (who installed tampons in boys’ toilets in all public schools across Minnesota hence his Trump nick name of Tampon Tim) and Trump/Vance who pledged to end men in women’s sport. The New York Times just reported that the most potent and effective of all the political ads that the Trump campaign ran was the one where Harris bragged about trans gender surgery for prisoners and illegals with the tag line Harris: They/Them – Trump: You! Consumers had voted with their pocketbooks and destroyed the brand image of Bud Light after Anheuser Busch allowed prominent trans woman influencer Dylan Mulvaney to front an ad campaign. The boycott of Bud Light, once the largest single beer brand in the US, at one stage wiped billions off the asset value of Anheuser Busch. The 2024 election gave voters the opportunity to use their silent majority electoral muscle to end what many see as nonsense and stop the imposition of extreme liberal values being forced on middle America by an out of touch elite. A vote for Trump was seen as a vote for a return to sanity and normalcy in the cultural wars.

5. The impact of a free Twitter

In the run up to the 2020 election and in its aftermath, the Democrats and governing elites were able to augment their overwhelming sympathetic support of the mainstream broadcast media with indirect ability, through the intervention of the FBI and other government agencies, to silence the voices of critics through the major social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, You Tube, Tik Tok and Snapchat. This meant that information that might be politically damaging to the left (such as the release of Hunter Biden’s laptop just prior to the 2020 election and the accusations of fraud in the same election) could be ruthlessly suppressed. The cutting edge of this suppression was Twitter 1.0 because it was the social media space most frequented by the politically active and influential media, celebrity and businesspeople. In tandem with weaponising intelligence operatives (past and present ) to falsely declare Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation, the Biden campaign used law enforcement agencies to pressure Twitter to take down all posts (and even suspend accounts) promoting or linking to the laptop story most particularly the New York Post who broke the story and had a link to the full contents of the laptop that had been digitized by the Marco Polo App. This was election interference at its most effective and sinister because post 2020 election polling showed that, had the truth of the laptop been allowed to disseminate and not be blocked by mainstream and social media, a significant minority of Biden voters might have changed their vote.

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in the summer of 2022, he not only fired the woke compliant left leaning management team but 75% of the whole work force and repositioned Twitter 2.0, renamed “X”, as a more neutral public square on social media. He engaged the services of prominent left leaning journalist Matt Taibbi who he allowed to pour over the files and, in a series of posts called the Twitter Files, revealed the extraordinary efforts undertaken by the Biden campaign then Administration to suppress any information critical of things like the Biden family corruption, Hunter’s laptop and 2020 election fraud as all this was deemed as dis or misinformation. Musk spent time removing the various algorithms that were embedded to screen for ‘misinformation’ and he restored the accounts of high profile Biden critics like Trump and even controversial figures like Alex Jones.

Whilst Mark Zuckerberg, via his ownership of Meta, has been able to continue to control content deemed to be damaging to the left on Facebook and Instagram and the same is true of Google influencing searching of Trump v Harris (against the former and in favour of the latter) and blocking accounts critical of Harris on You Tube, a raft of high profile conservative influencers who were suspended from Twitter were restored then allowed to tweet and post without restriction through the run up to the 2024 campaign. Twitter/X became the favoured platform for numerous releases of information that were restricted or never covered by the other social media platforms and the MSM such as:

* Tucker Carlson’s explosive interviews with people from new right wing Argentinian President Milei, Barak Obama’s alleged former gay lover, January 6 whistleblowers and a raft of people with critical and controversial things to say.

* Robert F Kennedy Junior’s fight against his own former party to stay on the ballot as an Independent candidate for President and then his subsequent endorsement of Trump.

* Libs of Tik Tok who shines a light on the crazy social media posts of the radical left.

* Trumps rallies and indeed the speeches and campaign ads of a raft of conservatives whose content is banned elsewhere.

* On election day and in the run up, various abuses of election integrity perpetrated by local Democrat election officials were revealed in full making it harder to hide and easier to counter.

Breaking news of a controversial nature that would either be ignored by legacy media or suppressed by all other platforms can now be done freely on Twitter where, contrary to the naysayers that predicted that Twitter 2.0 would fail, it has increased its reach and viewership even more since becoming a genuine free speech platform. Musk’s decision to liberate Twitter has had a profound impact on the type of dialogue that could be had in the run up to the 2024 election and it became impossible for Harris and the Democrats to silence their critics in the way they were successfully able to during the 2020 election.

Tomorrow I will cover the last 5 points:

6. Greatly improved Republican ground game

7. The fall of legacy media and the rise of alternative media

8. The fear of global conflicts

9. The RFK Jr – Tulsi Gabbard coalition

10. The lawfare and assassination attempts against Trump backfired

The FSU reports:

Rather than admit to suppressing Oliver’s right to free speech, the principal has stubbornly maintained that Oliver’s entry never made it into the speech final in the first place, implying it wasn’t good enough to qualify.

There’s one problem the school hadn’t realised. Oliver – frustrated with the hypocritical treatment he was receiving from certain staff – had taken it upon himself to record some of his meetings with them discreetly.

The recordings repeatedly and very clearly show that the school accepted him into the finals of the competition, and then censored Oliver, solely for his views.

We obviously don’t recommend secretly recording others. But given what the recording shows, we think the school has absolutely no right to be lecturing Oliver about ethical standards.

Isn’t this so sad. A school leadership that lies to its own students and gaslights them. They have forced a 15 year old to record conversations with school leaders because they were saying things differently in public and private. What sort of moral example do the school leaders set for their students?

The Taxpayers’ Union has been exposing the massive costs to ratepayers of simple steps to beaches.

Some stairs at Milford Beach are costing $263,000, and Mayor Wayne Brown didn’t just knee jerk defend his Council, but agreed it was “disgraceful”. That is real leadership – recognising his responsibility is to ratepayers, not to defend the Council regardless.

Then this week the TU exposed that New Plymouth was spending $1.2 million on some access stairs to a beach. No that isn’t a typo. But Mayor Neil Holdom rushed in to defend it.

A real tale of two Mayors. I knew which one I would want as a ratepayer.

Chris Penk announced:

The Government is proposing further significant action to reform the building and construction sector to support more affordable homes and a stronger economy, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says.

“If we want to grow the economy, lift incomes, create jobs and build more affordable, quality homes we need a construction sector that is firing on all cylinders,” Mr Penk says.

“That is why the next action in our reforms of the sector is to construct a new self-certification scheme for trusted building professionals and accredited businesses carrying out low risk building work.

“The building consent system is intended to protect homeowners from defective building work by requiring work to be inspected and consented by a Building Consent Authority. But the regime is inefficient and adds cost and time to the build process, which makes it harder for Kiwis to realise their dream of homeownership.

“It takes on average 569 days for a home be built and consented – amid a housing shortage, that is simply too long to wait.

“Today we are announcing plans to develop a new opt-in self-certification scheme for trusted building professionals and accredited businesses. The scheme, which will go through a robust consultation process, features two key pillars.

“The first is that qualified building professionals, such as plumbers, drainlayers and builders, will be able to self-certify their own work, for low-risk builds, without the need for an inspection. This brings them in line with electricians and gasfitters who can already do this and is something the industry has been calling for, for years.

“The second pillar is that businesses with a proven track-record – for example, group homebuilders who build hundreds of near identical homes a year – will be able to go through a more streamlined consent process.

“At the moment, a single-story basic home might go through 10 or more separate inspections. This is clearly too many and the cost-benefit has become unbalanced.

These sound like pragmatic changes which should make a difference to the ever increasing time and cost of construction. I note even Labour ave said they are supportive, which is great.

I lived in the Bay of Islands for 6 of the last 10 years and I am adament NZers going to the Treaty Grounds is important for NZ’s pathway forward. Especially so given the current Bill ACT has introduced. The opinion piece is behind NZH’s paywall – here are a few key points.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/why-the-waitangi-treaty-grounds-should-be-a-pilgrimage-for-every-student-alwyn-poole/G2JPNYEWGFH3THIR5XHPNDC3EU/

“All of these [Bay of Islands] experiences are wonderful and should be highly sought-after by New Zealanders and overseas tourists.

However, the real driver to bring our young people to the area is the foundational history of our nation as exemplified by the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.

The whole place is awesome – in the true sense of the word. Te Whare Rūnanga, The Treaty House, Te Kōngahu Museum of Waitangi, Te Rau Aroha Museum of the Price of Citizenship, Flagstaff, the Waka. Add to those features the sheer beauty of the site and the wonderful views across the bay and out towards those 144 islands.

…..

The Treaty Grounds enables deep learning and a fountain of knowledge on the foundations of our nation; from the arrival of Maori, to Abel Tasman clashing in Golden Bay, to Cook’s three visits, to the tribal wars and early clashes between cultures, to the traders that followed and onto the first missionaries and James Busby.

You can learn so much about what happened in the 1830s and 1840s; the flag and Declaration of Independence by the United Tribes, the Treaty of Waitangi and the signatories. You learn detail of many of the clashes and developments that followed. You learn of the names of the people of the time and their deeds for good and bad. You can also find many of their gravesites in the nearby towns which is a great anchor to reality.

…..

This makes the Treaty Grounds the pivotal geographic place to visit for a complete education. It is a place that rips away misunderstanding and bias while leaving plenty of room for passion and developing views.

…..

Our nation is still very young on a world history scale. That there is so much learning in one place is remarkable and the more of our population, young, adult and elderly, that experience it – the better we will be as a society.”

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com
Innovative Education Consultants Ltd
Education 710+ Ltd
(both sites currently being re-done)
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

On my (paywalled) Patreon I detail how I think the New Zealand Government should deal with President Trump to get the best outcomes for NZ. The primary foreign policy goal must be to have NZ exempted from his 20% tariff policy on exports to the US.

It involves Chris Liddell, Peters, Luxon, Peter Thiel, Rod Drury and Peter Beck!

Trump’s victory over Harris was decisive enough that Democrats don’t have to try and second-guess decisions such as not picking Shapiro as VP, or not going on Josh Rogan. The fact almost every county in the US showed a swing to Trump indicates this was not a victory that could have been stopped by better tactics.

This may be a blessing in disguise for the Democrats because rather than make excuses like they did in 2016 (The Comey letter, the hacked DNC e-mails), they need to accept that they need to make changes to be more electable in future. I will come back to this.

Looking at the results, we have:

Presidency

Trump will win 312 to 226, having swept all seven swing states. This is slightly better than the 306 to 232 he got in 2016 and Biden got in 2020.

He also looks to have won the popular vote, where he has a 3.4% lead currently. So Democrats can’t say he only won due to the Electoral College.

Senate

The GOP has won 52 seats already, and are ahead in Nevada and Pennsylvania which would Gove them 54 seats. Trailing slightly in Michigan and Wisconsin.

A 54 seat majority will mean that the two more moderate Republicans will not have the balance of power, and Trump will be able to get most things easily through the Senate. It also ironically helps the moderated Republicans as they can vote against Trump on some issues (which helps them get re-elected) but not actually stop the agenda (which can upset the base).

I think it is also very likely the Republican majority willed the filibuster, so laws can pass with a simple majority. The Democrats made the fatal mistake of saying they want to end the filibuster, but being unable to do so. This means the Republicans know that the Democrats will get rid of it next time (if they can), so there is no incentive to keep it, as when the Republicans hit the minority it will go anyway. So this will be a key thing to watch for – does the filibuster go, and who becomes the new Senate Majority Leader.

House

The Republicans are at 202, and need 218 to keep the majority. They have four fairly safe seats which brings them to 206. They lead in 11 toss-up seats. If they keep the lead in those they make 217 – one short. But they have leads in two seats that Democrats were seen as likely to hold. However one is only 71% counted, while the other is over 95%. So they have a path to 219, but could fall short. It may take days or longer to know who wins the House.

If the Republicans retain the House, then Trump will be able to pass significant legislation. If he doesn’t, then more rule by executive order.

Demographic shifts

They did exit polls in 10 key states (so not the whole country). Some key data points:

• Trump got 21% of the black men vote
• Trump won Latino men by 55% to 43%
• Trump won men under 30 by 49% to 47%
• Trump won never attended college by 63% to 35%
• Harris won post-graduate degree holders by 59% to 38%
• Harris won those earning (family income) over $200k by 51% to 45%
• Trump won those earning $30k to $50k by 53% to 45%
• Trump won veterans 65% to 34%
• Trump won voters who said the economy, immigration of foreign policy was the most important issue
• Harris won voters who said abortion or democracy was the most important issue
• While Harris won by 87% to 10% those said abortion should be legal in all cases, it was 495 each for those said it should be legal in most cases.

The changes from 2016 and 2020 are massive in some cases:

• Women went +13% for Clinton and only +8% for Harris – so Trump did relatively better with women
• Men went +11% for Trump in 2016 and +13% in 2020
• Clinton won Latino men by +31% and in 2024 Trump won by +12% – a massive massive change
• Latino women went from +44% Clinton in 2016 to +22% Harris in 2024 – also a big swing
• Voters of colour with no degree went from +56% Clinton to +30% Harris
• Under 30s went from +19% Clinton to +11% Harris
• Those who think abortion should be legal in most (not all) cases went from +38% for Biden in 2020 to tied in 2024

This has huge ramifications for Democrats in a number of areas. The massive swing for Hispanics to Trump could lock the Republicans in power for a generation, if they can keep them. After 2012, the Republicans were facing the Hispanic vote becoming like the Black vote – locked in for Democrats. Trump won Hispanics over, despite the conventional wisdom that his attacks on immigrants would see Hispanics vote against him.

The big lesson for Democrats is that have to stop seeing voters through a race lens. They seemed to think that as most Hispanics are immigrants, they will vote on the issue of immigration. They voted on incomes and jobs and leadership.

The abortion issue is also one that didn’t play as well for Democrats as they thought. Certainly for those who think abortion should be legal in all circumstances, it was a huge issue. But for those who want abortion legal, but in most (not all) circumstances they voted equally for Trump and Harris.

For the Democrats to win in 2028 (and JD Vance could be a formidable candidate), they need to do the following (in your opinion):

• Enthusiastically support making the border more secure. You can be 100% pro-immigration but also 100% pro a secure border. If the Democrats want to win in 2028, they should support construction measures that make the border more physically secure, and also support some sort of out of country processing of asylum claims as this has become a rampant backdoor.
• If Trump proceeds with his tariffs, they should use this to position themselves as the party of low inflation. The fact they presided over two years of very high inflation was a major factor in their result.
• They need to get less woke. They need to understand that working class voters and many Hispanic voters are not into DEI and don’t think men should compete in women’s sports. Of course they will never be “conservative” on these issues, but they need to stop seeing everything through an intersectional lens. A huge number of voters were prepared to overlook all of Trump’s flaws because they thought the country’s institutions were so hostile to them.
• Recognise that abortion will not be a major issue by 2028, unless there is some sort of federal ban, or mail order abortion drugs are restricted. If abortion rights did not win in 2024, it won’t in 2028. This is not to say Democrats should change their position (I personally support abortion being legal up to viability) but that they shouldn’t see it as the main issue to campaign on.
• Democracy may be an issue that works for Democrats in 2028. Trump won’t be on the ballot again, so the issue will probably be less potent. But if he acts in an excessively authoritarian way in office, then Vance may find it uncomfortable to defend those in 2028

This is more a list of what the Democrats shouldn’t do, rather than what they should do to win. That is because it is too far out to know what will be the issues most useful to them. However it is clear that if they don’t get many Hispanic voters back, they are unlikely to be back in power anytime soon.