with CHARLIE HARPER

This is an exceptionally turbulent and dangerous period we’re living in these days.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton come and go, leaving terror, death and calamitous destruction in their wake. A one-year-old war continues to rage on the two of Israel’s three land borders, threatening to expand into a regional conflict pitting Israel against Iran with Syria, Iraq and the Gulf States potentially getting pulled in also. In Eastern Europe, a now 30-month-old war continues as neither Russia nor Ukraine sees its objectives achieved with any current cease-fire proposals.

The US is at the centre of all of it. Places like Asheville, North Carolina and Tampa Bay, Florida, comparatively unscathed by hurricanes for a century, have been clobbered just in the last month. Were it not for the consistent and largely unconditional support of the US for the past 76 years since its post-World War II creation as the world’s Jewish state, Israel might well have disappeared decades ago. And American military support continues to prop up the beleaguered Kyiv regime of Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky.

But while all of these complex, fascinating and critical stories play out every day in the American print and broadcast media, the recurrent, predominant narrative concerns something else – also consequential, but somehow wearisome.

That’s the saga of the current US presidential election, now mercifully to be conducted less than a month from now. Finally, we reach the end of a fraught, tedious, largely unwelcome distraction that is lasting years too long.

Just look at the example earlier this year of a general election of great consequence conducted in Great Britain. The Prime Minister initiated the electoral process May 22, formal campaigning began on June 4 and the general election for 650 members of the House of Commons was held July 4. That’s six weeks from start to finish.

In the US, this endless, dreary, dispiriting election campaign has dragged on formally for years, and informally since the disputed conclusion of the last election four years ago. What a stupendous waste of time and money that could much better be allocated to the numerous higher priorities in American society.

But as with other aspects of American political life, there is scant reason to believe even minor changes to the current process are envisioned. Too many people, from advertising to media to the vast apparatus of the major political parties themselves, depend on this endless cycle of politicking. Things are very unlikely to change.

Meantime, last week’s vice-presidential debate between Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance went pretty much as expected. Walz seemed a bit hesitant and stumbled in the early stages of the debate, but regained his footing as things developed, and may have salvaged a tie by the end.

Vance, a significantly more polished public speaker and debater, had a weaker position (Trump and his craziness) to defend, but did so about as ably as anyone could have expected. His attacks on the “Harris-Biden” presidency didn’t land with the effect they might have, at least partly because everyone paying attention in the US knows that vice presidents have little of substance to do while they are in office. The failures and sins of the past four years remain on the resume of Joe Biden, not Kamala Harris.

Maybe Walz will turn out to be relatable to voters in the key “swing” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and push Harris over the line to victory in just a few weeks. That will amply justify Harris’ selection of this homey Minnesotan as her running mate.

But Vance won the debate. He’s good on his feet, handles himself ably on camera, and speaks with a reassuringly calm voice that belies the blather he sometimes utters. But crucially, he comes across much differently than Trump. That might still make a difference on Election Day.

Much of the other political news concerns the polls. We have often reviewed how often these various public opinion samples have failed to predict the eventual results of recent general elections. Still, they appear at regular intervals and provide a steady supply of story ideas for journalists and broadcast news readers. As a result, they get far more news coverage than their forecasting record justifies.

In the New York Times this week, a Republican-aligned pollster offered the following prognostication: “Our closely divided electorate leaves little room for big swings in public opinion before Election Day, given how strongly views of Mr Trump seem to be anchoring the state of the race. His floor is high, his ceiling is low and the race is being contested in the narrow turf in between. Meanwhile, the campaigns are competing to define Ms Harris. Yet according to a recent YouGov/Economist poll, only three percent of Harris voters say they are even considering the possibility of voting for Mr Trump, and only three percent of Trump voters say the same about Ms Harris.

“I am often asked who will win? The only correct answer is that ‘Nobody should feel certain he knows.’ The data we have, if correct, suggest a race too close to be truly predictable with any confidence. We simply don’t know who’ll win. And if the polls are failing to capture something, then all bets are off.”

It says here that the polls – and this particular pollster -- are failing to capture several things that are pretty important. Most importantly, Trump’s ceiling and floor are not necessarily “high or low.” They are fixed. It seems almost unimaginable that many voters will make up or change their minds in the month ahead to favor the former president, who continues to drift off message and babble almost incoherently at rallies in remote spots far from voter-rich cities.

Trump gives voters no reason at all to decide now to vote for him. He seems to think that all he needs to do is motivate the roughly 35 percent of voters who constitute his base of support to actually cast a ballot in November. Who else could reasonably be attracted to his stale, almost pitiful recitations of past grievances and rude remarks?

Enough of that, already. Harris makes sense when she suggests that it is time for the US to move on past such tired laments and snide insults and get on with the business of trying to foster American ideals. Harris may or not turn out to be a terrific president if she prevails in a month. But her message leads a troubled nation forward. That should be enough.

Cuba a ‘malign influence’ on America

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was an attempt by the George W Bush administration to remedy dramatic American intelligence negligence, lack of coordination and failure to foresee the disastrous terrorist assaults on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

This act established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was designed to coordinate and make sense of the incalculable volume of data available to the 17 various US intelligence agencies. One of the principal directorates of this so-called ODNI is devoted to countering “malign foreign influence” on US society.

That directorate this week named Russia, Iran and China as key purveyors of ‘malign influence’ directed at the US. Russia was implicated for influencing Americans against further assistance to Ukraine – and in favor of Trump? Iran is seen as trying to help defeat Trump’s candidacy. China wants to defeat those who support assistance to Taiwan.

Of more interest locally might be another identified malign actor – Cuba. Not surprisingly, Cuba’s hostile attempts to influence US public opinion are centered on South Florida. Here’s what the ODNI reported on Tuesday:

“Havana is very focused on a few policy issues that it believes to be negatively impacting the Cuban regime, particularly the US embargo on Cuba and other economic and travel restrictions, all of which Havana perceives as an effort to force regime change. Havana considers election influence activities as part of its standing requirements to influence those policies, and Florida is a prime target of their activities. To that end, we have observed Cuba tailoring influence activities based on its perception of a candidate’s stances on policies toward Cuba. For example, in 2020 Havana intended to denigrate specific candidates in Florida and pushed to influence the Latin American community in the United States.”

This year? We’ll see.