The closest thing we're going to get to a leader in the middle is gridlock. For example, like the current polls predict...Harris with GOP control of both houses. From my mouth to god's ears.
Ray Dalio on Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris: 'Neither is what the country needs'
The Bridgewater founder said the U.S. "needs a strong leader of the middle and to alienate the extremes"
By William Gavin, Quartz Media
Sept 20, 2024
Neither former President Donald Trump nor Vice President Kamala Harris are what the U.S. needs to succeed, according to billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio.
The Bridgewater Associates founder told CNBC on Thursday that neither the Republican nor Democratic candidates are “what the country needs.” Rather, a team of moderates need to come together and work toward making “great reform” to achieve what he called “broad-based prosperity” — or a society that rewards productivity and high standards of living.
“[The U.S.] needs a strong leader of the middle and to alienate the extremes,” Dalio said. “One extreme is going to have a war with the other extreme.”
Dalio, who also called the 2024 presidential election the “most consequential of my lifetime,” added that he’s questioning whether the U.S. will see an orderly transition of power and whether the results of the election will be accepted. On Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump and his allies refused to accept that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, a mob of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers were meeting to certify the results.
“There are two different countries going on basically,” Dalio said, pointing to class and other divisions in the U.S., including the nation’s literacy rate and “kids going to school high” from smoking marijuana.
The billionaire has previously said he sees a 35% to 40% chance that the U.S. could end up in a civil war, telling the Financial Times in May that “we are now on the brink.” Dalio said such a conflict would be less blood soaked and more focused on the erosion of acceptance between people with different beliefs, who would move to states they feel more comfortable in and ignore federal rules from officials they don’t trust.
On Thursday, Dalio said he couldn’t see a potential leader among the moderates already well-known to the public. He had previously — somewhat jokingly — touted the unification brought about by Taylor Swift and her economy-boosting concerts. But even the singer-songwriter has found herself in the middle of a partisan feud after false claims that she endorsed Trump partially led her to actually endorse Harris, as she did for Biden in 2020.
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social, the social media company owned by his Trump Media & Technology Group. Despite that, his campaign has started selling Swift-inspired merchandise, something the Harris campaign had already begun.
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