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On 29 December, former US president Jimmy Carter died peacefully at his ranch house in Plains, Georgia, at the age of 100. Over the last few years, most people knew him as the old head of state in the rocking chair, surrounded by family and friends, whose sense of morality and numerous good works were the stuff of legends. Whether it was building houses for the poor or establishing an institution that monitored elections around the world, nobody could accuse Carter of living an unproductive life after the presidency. The former peanut farmer from Georgia, however, was also given a bad wrap. He is frequently remembered as the bumbler whose one-term

Donald Trump has become the first president since Grover Cleveland to be elected to non-consecutive terms in the White House. But how did he do it? Pollsters and pundits had predicted a close-run thing with Harris ahead in key states but in the end, the betting markets were right: Donald Trump swept to victory. When Big Ben bongs at 10 p.m. on election night in the UK we’re told straight away who the next prime minister will be. American exit polls don’t quite work like that. Instead, AP and Fox News’s exit poll showed us that the economy and immigration were the top issues for voters. But another poll for

There has always been a touch of snobbery in the way the French elite regard American politics. The word one reads and hears most often in the mainstream media is ‘vulgarity’. This is particularly true of Donald Trump, who is abhorred as much by the right-wing press as by the left. ‘Trump, vulgarity on the loose,’ was the headline in a recent article in the centre-right Le Figaro. This snootiness is long-standing, but it became more acute two decades ago during the war in Iraq. France’s refusal – correct, as it turned out – to join George W. Bush’s ‘coalition of the willing’ led to a torrent of abuse in Washington. The French

Hillary Clinton has a simple but bitter lesson to teach Donald Trump’s supporters in 2024: the best way to lose an election is to assume you’ve already won it a week before it happens.  ​The MAGA movement ­– aiming to Make America Great Again, namely by Making Trump President Again – has never been more confident. Opinion polls have Trump faring much better against Kamala Harris than he ever did against Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020. Indeed, the polling averages actually place Trump ahead, which wasn’t the case at this point in either of his earlier elections.  And since the polls underestimated his share of vote the

Joe Biden delivered a eulogy for his presidency and his political career from the Oval Office Wednesday evening. It was a sad, sluggish ending to a life in politics, decades in the Senate, two terms as vice president, and finally a single term as president.   President Biden needed to accomplish three things in the speech: explain why he decided to withdraw from the race after months of insisting he would stay in and after receiving 14 million primary votes; convince the country that he is still fit to serve the remaining months of his term; and promote the candidacy of his replacement on the Democratic ticket, Kamala Harris. Polls show most Americans are genuinely