Joe Biden won the 2020 election against Donald Trump, when Kamala Harris, also a Democrat, could not in 2024? Why?

Compatibilism has an ancient history, and many philosophers have endorsed it in one form or another. In Book III of the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384–322 BC) wrote that humans are responsible for the actions they freely choose to do - ie, for their voluntary actions. While acknowledging that "our dispositions are not voluntary in the same sense that our actions are," Aristotle believed that humans have free will because they are free to choose their actions within the confines of their nature.

Determinism is the view that all human decisions and actions, are inevitable. Historically, debates about determinism have involved many philosophical positions and given rise to multiple varieties or interpretations of determinism. Some philosophers have maintained that the entire universe is a single determinate system, while others identify more limited determinate systems. Another common debate topic is whether determinism and free will can coexist; compatibilism and incompatibilism represent the opposing sides of this debate.

An additional thought.

The brain takes a long time to form completely. The wiring in a teenager's brain is only about 80 per cent completed (which may not come as a great surprise to the parents of teenagers). Although most of the growth of the brain occurs in the first two years and is 95 per cent finished by the age of ten, the synapses aren't fully wired until a young person is in his or her mid to late twenties. That means that the teenage years effectively extend well into adulthood. In the meantime, the person in question will almost certainly have more impulsive, less reflective behaviour than his elders, and will also be more susceptible to the effects of alcohol. 'The teenage brain is not just an adult brain with fewer miles on it, 'Frances E. Jensen, a neurology professor, told Harvard Magazine in 2008. It is, rather, a different kind of brain altogether.

This writer's opinion.

Is that we have limited or constrained free will. He bases this option on three thoughts:

1.His dog: he has written a book on his dog Dodger. published by Amazon in which he notes that dogs have loved us for thousands of years. The book has a photo of a Roman couple in bed with their dog. His theory is that some Neanderthal kid offered a wolf pup a feed, the pup decided to stay and turned into our faithful friend. Search on the web for "Why do dogs love us?" Scientists believe that our friendship goes back 40,000 years. It is buried deep into their genes, passed on from generation to generation. If a behaviour can pass on through generations of dogs then it is not unreasonable to assume that human behaviour can be passed on through the generations.

2. Then if so, our behaviours are passed on from generation to generation, buried deep in our genes. So, if we evolved from some form of chimpanzee, that ancestry is tribal and we reflect what that tribal behaviour was like. It was survival of the fittest. The National Library has an article on it "The Law of Evolution: Darwin, Wallace, and the Survival of the Fittest". And how would tribes survive back then? By following the leader that promised the most, by taking the land that was the most productive, even though other tribes were there beforehand. In short, we have kept those genes buried deep within us. They are fuelling our conflicts today

3, The world today is seeing many conflicts, the Israel Palestine war and Ukraine invasion being the most objectionable. Historians tell us that we, the world, has suffered war for most of our existence Do we want that? This writer has written another book Ending War that says we do not want wars, so why have we experienced them? It is in our genes. It explains why we have followed autocratic leaders over the generations. It also answers the question of whether the world has free will, The answer is that war is a worldwide affliction that we have experienced for millennia.

So we do not have completely free will. I call it a guided, limited or constrained decision process. How to beat it requires more research and perhaps another article. But one area of research is clearly obvious The United Nations is charged with ensuring peace - it has been ineffective. The evidence is on our TV screens every night. This writer has written about it on On Line Opinion.

To return to the question that opened this opinion paper: Joe Biden won the 2020 election against Donald Trump, when Kamala Harris, also a Democrat, could not in 2024? Why? I hope this question has been answered. This writer was so certain that his analysis of the Harris vs Trump contest was correct that he even placed a small wager on Trump. Even though his preference was for Harris.