Society

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Strength in Numbers by G Elliot Morris review – why polls matter

      by

      Strength in Numbers by G Elliot Morris review – why polls matterA valuable history of polling that examines the reasons for recent failures while arguing that it remains a vital tool It is no longer possible to understand politics without understanding polling. It doesn’t just drive the media narrative around politicians and candidates but, often, the policy agendas they adopt and the way they talk about issues. Yet it remains poorly understood, not just by the wider public, but by analysts and office holders too. In the UK, for example, you don’t have to spend long on social media to find an MP promoting an entirely unrepresentative poll from a newspaper website, or a talk radio host claiming a result they dislike is due to that pollster being in cahoots with some nefarious actor.In this short, valuable guide, G Elliot Morris gives us a brief history of how polls came to play such an important role in politics, and how they work. Its focus is on the US but the debates play out in a similar way in Britain.The history is interesting, particularly on the various polling gurus used by presidents, such as Emil Hurja, a mercurial small-town hustler who ended up working for Franklin D Roosevelt and transforming the way in which political parties used data.But the most useful part of the book focuses on the methodological challenges that make polling difficult, and increasingly so. The biggest problem is that people don’t answer phones any more. In the 1970s or 80s pollsters could achieve a representative sample of the population by calling randomised numbers. But now that’s impossible: only a handful of people will pick up and they won’t be typical members of the public.As a result, polling has moved increasingly online. This has some advantages – it’s much cheaper to collect large amounts of data and easier to do repeat surveys of the same people to identify trends over time. The downside is that companies can’t randomise their sample as they typically rely on people signing up to online panels. This then increases the importance of modelling the sample against ever more complex lists of variables.It’s when this modelling goes wrong that we see the kind of polling misses that have increased scepticism about their value, even as they become more central to political life. In the 2015 UK election, pollsters overestimated the number of younger voters who would turn out, failing to spot the impending Conservative majority. In 2016 many US pollsters oversampled voters with degrees, making Trump’s victory seem less likely. In 2020 they fixed that problem but again underestimated Trump’s support – possibly because, after he attacked polls, some of his fans stopped answering them.The reaction to this has been to employ increasingly opaque and sophisticated methods such as MRP (multilevel regression with poststratification). Even the more thoughtful political analysts struggle to understand how these polls are constructed. One result is that there’s little distinction in the amount of coverage well and poorly designed models get.Morris is surely right in his conclusion that pollsters and the media that use them need to do a better job at explaining complexity and uncertainty. He’s also right that issue polling, where being a few points out matters much less, is more important than voting intention data. It can be a critical tool in pushing back against vested interests by showing the level of public concern about, say, the climate emergency or its dislike of corporate tax cuts. Most of all Morris is right that, for all its problems, polling remains our best tool for understanding how people think about politics. The alternative is prejudice and guesswork.TopicsPolitics booksUS politicsreviewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on the Kansas abortion vote: voice of America | Editorial

      by

      The Guardian view on the Kansas abortion vote: voice of AmericaEditorialThis week’s vote to defend women’s rights mirrors US opinion on the issue more generally and may shape the midterm elections Nearly 20 years ago, the political writer Thomas Frank authored a bestseller to which he gave the title What’s the Matter with Kansas? It was one of the first books of the post-Bill Clinton era to try to nail the rightwing populism redefining middle America. Mr Frank, who is himself from Kansas, chose the title deliberately. Despite an earlier history of grassroots antitrust activism, 20th- and 21st-century Kansas had dug in ever deeper against progressivism; no Democratic presidential candidate has now won there since 1964. Donald Trump, who epitomises everything about which Mr Frank wrote, carried Kansas with ease in 2016 and 2020.At the heart of Mr Frank’s argument was the view that culture war campaigns on abortion and gay equality have been crucial in persuading economically insecure Kansas voters to move ever more solidly rightwards. Much of the book focuses on how the Democratic party itself contributed to the shift. The consequence of this process seemed to reach an even darker place in 2009 when the pro-choice doctor George Tiller was murdered in the Kansas city of Wichita.Yet on Tuesday voters in Kansas chose to make a stand. In an unexpectedly high turnout contest, they voted to uphold the state’s abortion rights by a 59% to 41% margin. They did this in the face of the widely held view that the US supreme court’s decision to overturn the Roe v Wade judgment has reset America’s political landscape more conservatively. They also defied the expectation that Republicans, not Democrats, would be more energised by the campaign.It is possible that there were special local factors at play in Kansas. The voting paper was confusingly written; abortion rights supporters had to vote “No” not “Yes” to keep the state’s protections. Tuesday was also a day in which hardline conservatives, supporting and supported by Mr Trump, scored well in other states, such as Arizona. Caution is therefore in order in extrapolating too recklessly from the Kansas vote. Nevertheless, the vote was a rallying call. If 59% of the people can vote for abortion rights in Kansas, the likelihood is that at least 59% will vote for them in many other states too, perhaps in at least 40 of the 50. It is also very much in line with national polling showing 57% national disapproval after the supreme court’s ruling. President Biden was right to emphasise in his reaction to the Kansas vote that the majority of Americans support women’s abortion rights.In Kansas at least, the justices have not, after all, had the last word. Most of all, this vote was important for the women of the state. But it has two wider implications. The first is that democracy has hit back, not just at the supreme court ruling, but also at the false idea that the court should have the final say in American politics. The second is that abortion rights may prove to be a potent mobilising issue in the November midterm elections more generally, which indeed they should be. It is high time that Democrats realised they do not have to campaign on economic issues alone and instead took the fight for abortion rights to the Republicans. The Kansas vote should embolden them to do so.TopicsAbortionOpinionHealthWomenUS politicseditorialsReuse this content More

    • 213 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      We hear Americans support gun control, but I know the truth is more complicated | Devika Bhat

      by

      We hear Americans support gun control, but I know the truth is more complicatedDevika BhatIt was only when I moved to the US that I understood that this issue, more than any other, encapsulates our differences The last of Uvalde’s slaughtered children had been laid to rest for barely three weeks before the latest mass shooting to terrorise America unfolded. This time it was a suburb of Chicago, its Independence Day celebrations shattered by a hail of bullets from a gunman with an assault rifle on a rooftop, killing seven and injuring dozens more.The month before, it was Philadelphia and Tennessee; before that, Oklahoma and Michigan, alongside a string of other incidents that hardly registered on a national, let alone global level. Such is the bar for international outrage on American shooting deaths, rising with every Columbine, Virginia Tech and Las Vegas. The horrific killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde were a another reminder that 10 years after Sandy Hook, even the smallest children are not safe from the violence wrought by a young man wielding an assault rifle – which he was easily able to easily and legally obtain, thanks to the anachronisms of the hallowed constitution.Uvalde, at least, spurred what no previous shootings have managed: to get some gun reforms actually signed into law, even if US president Joe Biden admitted the measures fell short of what he had hoped for. It is a step beyond what usually happens: an insistence from Democrats that it will be this particular tragedy, finally, that will lead to gun control laws having their day, followed by despair as barriers built into the legislative system prevent even modest changes passing Congress.It was a narrative that was already set in Washington when I moved there from the UK, just a few weeks after Sandy Hook in 2012. At the time it really felt as if change might – amazingly – be afoot. There was a sense of grim momentum: Barack Obama, recently re-elected to his second term, pledged at a memorial service to the young victims to “use all the power of his office” to prevent another tragedy, with tears and faltering voice shootings were still a fresh memory. Within weeks though, it became clear that there was no hope.US mass shootings are getting deadlier and more common, analysis showsRead moreI have never felt more alien – as non-Americans are charmingly termed under the visa system than when I saw those fraught weeks play out and realised that the mass murder of tiny children just a few years out of nappies was not to be, after all, the eureka moment that forced US lawmakers to rethink. It was the first in a series of wake-up calls for me about the problematic side of American exceptionalism: one tied in with a particular worldview born the country’s unique history, which values a perceived notion of individual freedom against the tyranny of the state above all else.It is a mindset not just limited to intransigent Republicans in the Senate. A common frustration voiced recently is that congressional inaction has been particularly egregious, given that most Americans favour gun controls. But though polling shows a clear majority in favour of background checks, the gap narrows when people are asked to consider other measures like banning specific guns or accessories. This is hardly surprising when 40% of Americans live in a household with a gun. What’s more, national polls may themselves overstate the reality of support for gun control, recent analysis by the New York Times suggests.Other nations may shake their collective heads and mutter “only in America”, quietly thankful their own children do not have to endure traumatic shooting drills and bulletproof rucksacks as routine necessities for an education. But this is a price many are willing to pay to uphold what they see as rights ordained by their forefathers.American civilians are estimated to hold a staggering 40% of the world’s firearms, despite accounting for only 4% of its population. As unpalatable as it might be to the rest of the world, not all these gun owners will be virulent NRA superfans, and many have complex, possibly contradictory views on gun ownership and regulation. Moreover, according to a Pew survey from 2017, while most gun owners could not entertain the thought of never owning a gun, the opposite did not appear to hold true: 52% of non-gun owners said they could see themselves owning a gun in the future.It was after Sandy Hook that the NRA’s president, Wayne LaPierre infamously declared that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. As ludicrous as such talk sounds, it is not limited to the most aggressive of the pro-gun lobby. Similar language is found in the very laws of US states: legislation in Colorado enabling gun owners to shoot an intruder in self-defence is known as the Make My Day law. A similar appeal to an idealised history of uniquely American heroes versus villains was invoked in May by a judge in California, who ruled that the state’s ban on the purchase of semi-automatic firearms by under 21-year-olds was unconstitutional, on the basis that “America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army”.Though we are familiar with this outlook, visible as it is in films, television, books and other behemoths of American soft power, it was only when I was living in the country that I was able to appreciate its reach. Guns may be at the extreme end of this particular brand of American exceptionalism, but it goes some way to explaining other matters too. There were echoes of something similar in the fraught debate over Obama’s other policy priority: the Affordable Care Act (2010), his signature healthcare reforms.The proposals were eviscerated by critics who held up the NHS as a warning of the ghastly horrors awaiting the US under Obamacare, never mind that the plan came nowhere close to being a fully nationalised health service. As if, scoffed those same critics, any other country could possibly have anything worthwhile to teach America.It was a dismaying wake-up call for a Brit who has deep ties to and a great admiration for the US, with its seductive promises of possibility and optimism. It is a promise that Obama himself has insisted he continues to believe in, even after the advent of Donald Trump’s presidency, and even after admitting that his failure to enact gun reforms were the greatest regret of his term in office. Others are less convinced: friends with the option to do so admit discussing whether to leave the country, as it rolls from one crisis to another. Each is a fresh reminder that its once-lauded system of government, with its supposedly unassailable checks and balances, may perhaps be failing the very democracy it was designed to protect.
      Devika Bhat is joint deputy head of International News at the Guardian
      TopicsGun crimeOpinionUS gun controlChildrenUS politicscommentReuse this content More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Americans lose faith in the US supreme court

      by

      More ways to listen

      Apple Podcasts

      Google Podcasts

      Spotify

      RSS Feed

      Download

      The US supreme court has struck down the constitutional right to an abortion, one of several landmark decisions that will affect the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come.
      Jonathan Freedland and Jill Filipovic discuss whether it’s still possible for a deeply divided court of nine judges, a group that now has a 6-3 conservative majority, to keep the promise to the American people of ‘equal protection’, and what happens if it can’t

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      This episode was originally played on Politics weekly America You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify Archive: CNN, CBS, C-Span More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Louisiana judge blocks abortion ban amid uproar after Roe v Wade ruling

      by

      Louisiana judge blocks abortion ban amid uproar after Roe v Wade rulingState temporarily blocked from enforcing ban as other US states pass ‘trigger laws’ designed to severely curtail access to abortion A Louisiana judge on Monday temporarily stopped the state from enforcing Republican-backed laws banning abortion, set to take effect after the US supreme court ended the constitutional right to the procedure last week.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls for supreme court justices to be impeachedRead moreLouisiana is one of 13 states which passed “trigger laws”, to ban or severely restrict abortions once the supreme court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that recognized a right to the procedure. It did so on Friday, stoking uproar among progressives and protests and counter-protests on the streets of major cities.In New Orleans on Monday, an Orleans Parish civil district court judge, Robin Giarrusso, issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the state ban.The case before Judge Giarruso, a Democrat, was brought by Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, one of three abortion clinics in Louisiana.“We’re going to do what we can,” Kathaleen Pittman, administrator of Hope Medical Group, told the Associated Press. “It could all come to a screeching halt.”The Louisiana lawsuit is one of several challenging Republican-backed abortion laws under state constitutions.In Utah, a branch of Planned Parenthood sued on Saturday over a trigger ban. In Ohio, abortion rights advocates plan to challenge a ban on abortions after six weeks that took effect on Friday. A Florida ban on abortions after 15 weeks is also the subject of a request for a temporary block.In Arizona, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and an abortion-rights group filed an emergency motion on Saturday, seeking to block a 2021 law they worry can be used to halt all abortions.On the national stage on Monday, a group of 22 attorneys general issued a statement promising to “leverage our collective resources” to help women in states where abortions are banned.A statement said: “Abortion care is healthcare. Period.”The statement was signed by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.They said: “We stand together, as our states’ chief law officers, to proudly say that we will not back down in the fight to protect the rights of pregnant people in our states and across the country.“While the US supreme court’s decision reverses nearly half a century of legal precedent and undermines the rights of people across the United States, we’re joining together to reaffirm our commitment to supporting and expanding access to abortion care nationwide.”The statement added: “Ultimately, what harms people in some states harms us all. The future and wellbeing of our nation is intrinsically tied to the ability of our residents to exercise their fundamental rights.“… If you seek access to abortion and reproductive healthcare, we’re committed to using the full force of the law to … fight for your rights and stand up for our laws.“We will support our partners and service providers. We will take on those who seek to control your bodies and leverage our collective resources – thousands of lawyers and dedicated public servants across our states. Together, we will persist.”02:03As of Saturday, abortion services had stopped in at least 11 states. Speaking to the Associated Press, Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said the group was looking at “all options” to protect access.But lawsuits may only buy time. Even if courts block restrictions, lawmakers could address any cited flaws.That is likely to be the case in Louisiana. The plaintiffs in the suit there do not deny that the state can ban abortion. Instead, they contend Louisiana has multiple and conflicting trigger mechanisms in law.The suit says the trigger laws, the first of which was passed in 2006, make it impossible to tell when they are in effect, if one or all are in force and what conduct is prohibited. The lawsuit contends that such vagueness has resulted in state and local officials issuing conflicting statements about whether the trigger bans are in effect.Judge Giarruso wrote: “Each of the three trigger bans excepts different conduct, making it impossible to know what abortion care is illegal and what is allowed, including what care can be provided to save a woman’s life or end a medically futile pregnancy.”Giarruso scheduled an 8 July hearing to decide whether to further block enforcement of the ban. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit on behalf of the clinic, said abortion care was resuming in Louisiana.The Republican state attorney general, Jeff Landry, did not immediately comment. On Friday, he said those who challenged state bans would be “in for a rough fight”.Prosecutors in some Democratic-led cities in Republican-led states have indicated they will not enforce abortion bans.The New Orleans district attorney, Jason Williams, said he would not criminalize abortions and that the overturning of Roe v Wade “is a cruel and irresponsible stripping of a woman’s agency”.‘A matter of life and death’: maternal mortality rate will rise without Roe, experts warnRead moreCondemning leaders for not focusing on issues such as lifting children out of poverty, he added: “It would not be wise or prudent to shift our priority from tackling senseless violence happening in our city to investigating the choices women make with regard to their own body.”On Monday, in light of moves by Cincinnati city leaders to support abortion access, Joseph Deters, the Republican county prosecutor, said: “I have repeatedly stated it is dangerous when prosecutors pick and choose what laws they want to enforce. When prosecutors do not follow their oath, it will promote lawlessness and challenge the basic structures of separation of powers.”Regarding the Louisiana case, Nancy Northup, chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said: “A public health emergency is about to engulf the nation. We will be fighting to restore access in Louisiana and other states for as long as we can.“Every day that a clinic is open and providing abortion services can make a difference in a person’s life.”TopicsRoe v WadeLouisianaAbortionWomenHealthUS politicsUS supreme courtnewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on overturning Roe v Wade: anti-abortionists reign supreme | Editorial

      by

      The Guardian view on overturning Roe v Wade: anti-abortionists reign supremeEditorialThe removal of women’s constitutional right to abortion will deepen hardship and division in the US The decision, when it came on Friday, was not a surprise. Even before the dramatic leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion last month, it was widely predicted that the US supreme court would grab the opportunity presented by the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case to rescind the decision made in 1973 in Roe v Wade. This, after all, was the purpose of President Trump’s three supreme court selections – and the culmination of a decades-long campaign by anti-abortionists to return to states the authority to ban the procedure. But the announcement still came as a shock. The US’s global influence means that the decision to remove a woman’s constitutional right to abortion there reverberates far beyond its shores.The speed with which multiple US states reacted is disturbing; already, abortion has been outlawed in 10, with 11 more expected to follow shortly. While all women should be entitled to control their own lives and bodies, there are instances when denying this is particularly cruel. Americans who oppose forced pregnancy and birth now face the horror of rape and incest victims, including children, being compelled to become mothers. The US is exceptional in its lack of federal maternity provisions; children as well as parents will suffer the consequences of unwanted additions to their families, with poor and black people the worst affected.Early signs are that the most extreme Republican legislatures could try to block girls and women from travelling out of state for treatment, and impose further restrictions on care delivered remotely including medication sent by mail. The potential for personal data stored online, including on menstrual apps, to be used against women is causing justified alarm. Having relied on Roe v Wade to protect access to abortion for half a century, politicians can no longer do so. Abortion is now set to become a key issue in this autumn’s midterms.How this pans out will depend on public opinion; polling data suggest that 85% of Americans support legal abortion in some circumstances, and Democrats hope that this could work to their advantage. But the anti-abortion right is a formidable force. With hindsight, President Obama’s decision not to codify Roe v Wade into federal law, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s choice not to retire when he could have nominated a replacement, look like disastrous errors.The three liberal justices who dissented said they did so with sorrow for “many millions of American women” and also for the court itself. With this decision, it has chosen to reopen deep wounds. The 14th amendment on which Roe v Wade rested granted rights to former slaves, and is the basis for other crucial decisions including on same-sex marriage. By dismissing Roe v Wade in the way that they did, and against the wishes of Chief Justice John Roberts (who argued to retain it, while allowing Mississippi’s 15-week rule to stand), the court’s hard-right wing has seized control.Unprecedented division, and greatly increased hardship and risk for those denied safe healthcare, will be the outcome. While there is reassurance in noting moves elsewhere towards liberalisation, US anti-abortionists are far from unique, as tightened restrictions in Poland and the situation in Northern Ireland show. It is too soon to say whether Trump’s justices and their backers have overreached from an electoral perspective. If there is an early lesson to be drawn, it is that once gained, women’s rights must be constantly defended.TopicsRoe v WadeOpinionUS supreme courtAbortionLaw (US)WomenHealthRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      The supreme court just overturned Roe v Wade – what happens next?

      by

      The supreme court just overturned Roe v Wade – what happens next?Court’s move will allow more than half of states to ban abortion, with an immediate impact on tens of millions of Americans01:39The supreme court just overturned the landmark Roe v Wade case, which granted women in the US the right to terminate a pregnancy. A reversal of this magnitude is almost unprecedented, particularly on a case decided nearly 50 years ago.The extraordinarily rare move will allow more than half of states to ban abortion, with an immediate and enduring impact on tens of millions of Americans.Roe v Wade overturned as supreme court strikes down federal right to abortion – liveRead moreWhat happened?The court decided there is no constitutional right to abortion in a case called Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In reaching that decision, the conservative-majority court overturned Roe v Wade, from 1973.Historically, the court has overturned cases to grant more rights. The court has done the opposite here, and its decision will restrict a constitutional right generations of Americans have grown up taking for granted.As a result of the reversal, states will again be permitted to ban or severely restrict abortion, changes that will indelibly alter the national understanding of liberty, self-determination and personal autonomy.Where will this happen?Twenty-six states are expected to do so immediately, or as soon as practicable. This will make abortion illegal across most of the south and midwest.In these states, women and other people who can become pregnant will need to either travel hundreds of miles to reach an abortion provider or self-manage abortions at home through medication or other means.However, anti-abortion laws are not national. The US will have a patchwork of laws, including restrictions and protections, because some Democratic-led states such as California and New York expanded reproductive rights in the run-up to the decision.Even so, new abortion bans will make the US one of just four nations to roll back abortion rights since 1994, and by far the wealthiest and most influential nation to do so. The other three nations to curtail abortion rights are Poland, El Salvador and Nicaragua, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. More than half (58%) of all US women of reproductive age – or 40 million people – live in states hostile to abortion.When will this happen?Across most states, this will happen quickly. Thirteen states have abortion bans “triggered” by a reversal of Roe v Wade, though the laws vary in their enforcement dates. Louisiana, for example, has a trigger law that is supposed to take effect immediately. Idaho has a trigger ban that goes into effect in 30 days.Other states have abortion bans that pre-date the Roe decision, but have been unenforceable in the last five decades. Michigan has a pre-Roe ban that is currently the subject of a court challenge.A final group of states intends to ban abortion very early in pregnancy, often before women know they are pregnant. One such state is Georgia, where abortion will be banned at six weeks. Several states, such as Texas, have multiple bans in place.In many cases, court challenges under state constitutions are likely, and experts believe there will be chaos for days or weeks as states implement bans.Can the federal government stop this?The most effective protection against state abortion bans is a federal law, which would precede the states. Public opinion favors such statute – 85% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances.Such a law would need the majority support of the House of Representatives, a 60-vote majority in the Senate, and a signature from Joe Biden to pass. A majority of members of the House of Representatives support an abortion rights statute, as does the White House.However, Republicans are almost certain to block abortion rights laws in the Senate, which is evenly split with Democrats. One Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has repeatedly crossed party lines to vote against abortion rights. That leaves just 49 Democrats, far short of the support needed to pass such a measure.To overcome the evenly split Senate, Democrats would need to win landslide victories in the upcoming midterm elections. However, despite the fact that popular opinion favors abortion rights, it is unclear how the midterms could be swayed by the issue.And, regardless of the outcome of the next election, Dobbs will forever change life in the US. The lives of individuals will be irrevocably altered as people are denied reproductive healthcare, face long journeys or are forced to give birth.TopicsRoe v WadeUS supreme courtAbortionWomenUS politicsLaw (US)HealthexplainersReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Palantir, the all-seeing US data company keen to get into NHS health systems | Arwa Mahdawi

      by

      Palantir, the all-seeing US tech company, could soon have the data of millions of NHS patients. My response? Yikes!Arwa MahdawiYou might never have heard of tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s CIA-backed analytics company. But it could know all about you if it wins a contract to manage NHS data Peter Thiel has a terrible case of RBF – reclusive billionaire face. I’m not being deliberately mean-spirited, just stating the indisputable fact that the tech entrepreneur, a co-founder of PayPal, doesn’t exactly give off feel-good vibes. There is a reason why pretty much every mention of Thiel tends to be peppered with adjectives such as “secretive”, “distant” and “haughty”. He has cultivated an air of malevolent mystique. It’s all too easy to imagine him sitting in a futuristic panopticon, torturing kittens and plotting how to overthrow democracy.It’s all too easy to imagine that scenario because (apart from the torturing kittens part, obviously), that is basically how the 54-year-old billionaire already spends his days. Thiel was famously one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors in 2016; this year, he is one of the biggest individual donors to Republican politics. While it is hardly unusual for a billionaire to throw money at conservative politicians, Thiel is notable for expressing disdain for democracy, and funding far-right candidates who have peddled Trump’s dangerous lie that the election was stolen from him. As the New York Times warned in a recent profile: “Thiel’s wealth could accelerate the shift of views once considered fringe to the mainstream – while making him a new power broker on the right.”When he isn’t pumping money into far-right politicians, Thiel is busy accelerating the surveillance state. In 2004, the internet entrepreneur founded a data-analytics company called Palantir Technologies (after the “seeing stones” used in The Lord of the Rings), which has been backed by the venture capital arm of the CIA. What dark magic Palantir does with data is a bit of a mystery but it has its fingers in a lot of pies: it has worked with F1 racing, sold technology to the military, partnered with Space Force and developed predictive policing systems. And while no one is entirely sure about the extent of everything Palantir does, the general consensus seems to be that it has access to a huge amount of data. As one Bloomberg headline put it: “Palantir knows everything about you.”Soon it might know even more. The Financial Times recently reported that Palantir is “gearing up” to become the underlying data operating system for the NHS. In recent months it has poached two top executives from the NHS, including the former head of artificial intelligence, and it is angling to get a five-year, £360m contract to manage the personal health data of millions of patients. There are worries that the company will then entrench itself further into the health system. “Once Palantir is in, how are you going to remove them?” one source with knowledge of the matter told the FT.How worried should we be about all this? Well, according to one school of thought, consternation about the potential partnership is misplaced. There is a line of argument that it is just a dull IT deal that people are getting worked up over because they don’t like the fact that Thiel gave a bunch of money to Trump. And to be fair, even if you think Thiel is a creepy dude with creepy beliefs, it is important to note that he is not the only guy in charge of Palantir: the company was co-founded in 2003 by Alex Karp, who is still the CEO; he voted for Hillary Clinton and has described himself as a progressive (although, considering his affinity for the military, he certainly has a different view of progress than I do).My school of thought, meanwhile, is best summarised as: yikes. Anyone who has had any experience of the abysmal US healthcare system should be leery of private American companies worming their way into the NHS. Particularly when the current UK government would privatise its own grandmother if the price was right. I don’t know exactly what Palantir wants with the NHS but I do know it’s worth keeping an eye on it. It’s certainly keeping an eye on you.
      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.comTopicsTechnologyOpinionArtificial intelligence (AI)NHSUS politicsHealthcommentReuse this content More