Key events
Zoe Williams
The concept of “elite overproduction” was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs. It’s a byproduct of inequality: a ton of poor people, sure, but also a superfluity of the wealthy, without enough positions to house them in the influence and status to which they think themselves entitled. In a modern context, that would mean senior positions in the government and civil service, along with the top tier of finance and law, but Turchin tested the hypothesis from ancient Rome to 19th-century Britain. The names and nature of the contested jobs and titles changed; the pattern remained. Turchin predicted in 2010 that by the 2020s it would be destabilising US politics…
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Kamala Harris may never have visited Thulasendrapuram, a sleepy village in south India, but its residents claim to be some of her most devoted fans.
It was here, in among the verdant rice paddies and groundnut farms of rural Tamil Nadu, that Harris’s grandfather PV Gopalan was born. Though more than a century has passed since then, residents have proudly claimed Harris as a “daughter of the land”.
The outcome of the US election next week, where Harris is running as the Democrat party’s presidential nominee, has the community on edge. At the local tea shop, gossip has been pushed to one side to make way for chatter over the challenges posed by Harris’s opponent Donald Trump and the trends from crucial swing states.
Opening summaruy
Good morning. It is less than a week before polls close at the 2024 US election and more than 57.5 million Americans have already checked their ballots, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are still hot on the campaign trail in a fiercely contested race that is too close to call.
Trump made an appearance in a high-vis vest at the wheel of a garbage truck before heading off to a rally in Wisconsin, a key battleground state. Trump promised to protect women “whether they liked it or not”.
Harris was also in Wisconsin offering platitudes on climate change, gun control and abortion. She said those issues were “not political” but one’s “lived experience”. She was speaking shortly after the latest CNN poll showed her six points ahead of Trump in the state.
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Harris and Trump take their nail-biting White House race west later, seeking supremacy on border security and aiming to woo crucial Latino voters days ahead of the US election. Pop singer Jennifer Lopez will bring her star power to the stage for Harris in Las Vegas, as the candidates battle through the seven swing states expected to decide the next president. Meanwhile, Trump has scheduled an interview in Arizona with ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson and a rally in Nevada.
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On Wednesday, Harris spoke in Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania state capital, one of few counties that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Polls show a tied race in Pennsylvania.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that he is backing Harris in next week’s election. Schwarzenegger, 77, said that while he doesn’t “really do endorsements”, he felt compelled to formally endorse Harris and her pick for vice-president, Tim Walz.
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Trump refused to apologise for the comments made about Puerto Rico at his Madison Square Garden rally. “He’s a comedian, what can I tell you? I know nothing about him. I don’t know why he’s there.”
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A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday sided with Trump’s campaign and agreed to extend an in-person voting option in suburban Philadelphia, where long lines on the final day led to complaints voters were being disfranchised by an unprepared election office.
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A majority of voters in swing states do not believe Trump will accept defeat if he loses next week’s presidential election and fear that his supporters will turn to violence in an attempt to install him in power, a new poll suggests.
