I am livid

 So....the first American soldiers have fallen in this Iran war. It's already three too many. 

 I am livid over this. What cause did they die for? Oil? Israel? A convenient diversion from the fact that our president is a pedophile? 

Ya know, people gave dems a lot of crap for still being somewhat interventionist and leading from behind. But you know what? Clinton, Obama, and Biden rarely put troops on the ground. Clinton did ONCE, and when the "Black Hawk Down" incident happened in Somalia, it backfired badly on him. And dems have largely avoided doing that since. You might not like the fact that Obama did drone strikes, or Biden funded Ukraine, but hey at least they didn't commit American troops to die for some cause on foreign soil of questionable importance. 

And this Iran invasion is just entirely unjustifiable. It really is. The WMD thing was a pretext. We should know this by now. Again, the real causes were the three I mentioned above. So for all of you who voted for Trump because you saw him as non interventionist and a "peace" president, what say you now? This guy is worse than George W. Bush. At least Bush didnt threaten to invade our allies. 

I know this is unpopular, even with Trump's base. I got the numbers. 21% support, only 40% among MAGA. 49% opposition, 25% among MAGA. I don't ever want to hear about how this guy is such a dove ever again. He's not. He's George W. Bush again on foreign policy if not worse.

Say what you want about sleepy Joe or Kamala, but this wouldn't have happened on their watch. 

Oh, and did you see Trump's speech last night? Straight out of fricking Shrek. This guy is a walking parody. Impeachment now, but we know the republicans at best don't have the balls or at worst are into this crap. 

Weighing in on the texas democratic primary

 So....the primary is next week. Matt Dillahunty, one of the more leading minds still holding the line in the New Atheist movement, weighed in, and he seemed a bit more open toward Talarico than I was. Anyway, I decided to look into it more deeply, as I've mostly been going off of vibes for now, and I wanted to look at policy more.

The problem, even on policy, most of their platforms are similar. On top priorities both have variations of medicare for all, with crockett supporting previous medicare for all acts in congress, and Talarico supporting some public optiony version of the idea that comes off as a "medicare for all who want it" style deal. Both are pro labor. Neither seem to endorse universal basic income directly, although crockett has supported pilots in the past. Both are pro choice and anti christian nationalism, even though james talarico can't stop talking about Jesus for 5 seconds. Both are critical of ice, although i tend to like Crockett's vibe better. I mean, if I had to say who's stronger, I'd say crockett. She seems more of a fighter, and she seems more experienced. 

It's weird. I notice leftists seem to LOVE talarico for some reason, but I just dont vibe with him as much. Policy wise, he aint bad, but is he miles better than crockett? 90% of the time they're indistinguishable, and if either of them is stronger, I'd largely agree more with crockett, given her institutional knowledge and more fiery personality. 

On vibes, yeah, I like crockett. i like her fire. I like her calling MTG a "beach blonde butch body" to her face after she saw fit to criticize others for THEIR appearances. I get that that might upset the more "decorum" driven lefties, but I dont care, F the GOP. If they arent civil to us, why should we be civil to them? Ya know? This is the attitude we need. 

Meanwhile I just don't go with talarico's whole "Jesus loves you" personality. Even if he is a religious "moderate", I'm gonna be honest, I'm so thoroughly turned off by christianity that I dont want that vibe in my representatives at all. I guess I aint from texas so this aint my race to worry about (and let's face it, either of these guys are preferable to fetterman at this point), but yeah, i'm giving my opinion and I dont really like talarico in terms of vibe.

This leads me to support crockett nominally.

However, there is one more factor that must be considered, and that is electability. And this is where crockett might be weaker. I'll back it up with polling but let's present a couple possible arguments. First, white male vs black woman. Privilege, blah blah blah. Black woman is at a disadvantage. Then consider demeanor. Crockett is one sassy black woman. Now, for me, that's WHY I LIKE HER PERSONALLY. I wanna be clear, I LIKE this vibe. I'm not racist or sexist here at all. Give me the strong independent black woman who dont need no moderation. But...if youre trying to win...and you're in texas in all places, let's think this through.

First, let's do a brief overview of the race. Both parties have their own primaries going in. Paxton is the likely republican nominee, ahead by 6.5% in the polls, this gives him a 95% chance of pulling it off. This is a lot more decisive than it was up to this point. In the 5 most recent polls on the democratic side, I calculate that the democratic primary is a dead heat. Total tie, 50/50 shot of either. 

So, let's see how these guys do in the general. Paxton vs Crockett is R+1, that's a 40% chance of the democrat winning. 

Paxton vs Talarico is R+1, same thing. 

Now, up until very recently, Cornyn looked like he had a chance. Paxton was ahead, but more by like 2, not by like 6.5. If Cornyn is the republican nominee, the calculus changes:

Cornyn vs Crockett is R+3.5. That give Crockett a 19% chance of winning here.

Cornyn vs Talarico is R+2, that gives Crockett a 31% chance. 

So...all in all, does the argument that Talarico is more electable than crockett hold water? Eh...yes, but it's not particularly persuasive. Against the most likely republican nominee, they perform the same.

Against the second most likely nominee, Talarico does appear 1.5% ahead of Crockett in the general.  

Now, there is a third republican candidate, Hunt, and RCP has numbers on that too. Hunt has zero chance of winning the primary in my view, but if he did theoretically go up against both in the general:

Hunt vs Crockett is R+4. That gives Crockett a 16% chance of winning here.

Hunt vs Talarico is R+3.5.  Very close but it's only like a slight bump in practice, at 19% likelihood. 

So...all in all, it does reinforce there is a small advantage in electability with going Talarico. It's not significant. Just like in practice, the actual substantive differences between these two candidates is ALSO not significant.

And...that's kind of the thing. All in all, these candidates arent much different, neither in policy nor electability. 

I would argue, in my heart of hearts, I'm team Crockett. I love her attitude, that same attitude that others hate. And I think on policy she's just ever so slightly better. I honestly dont know why leftists love talarico so much. He's not anything special other than being a jesus freak, and for me, that's a down side, although I understand its a purely aesthetic difference here and not a policy difference. 

However, at the same time, let's think of it this way. We NEED texas to take the senate. The map is hard, texas is probably very likely the seat that flips the senate, and we need every vote. I dont think either can really win in practice. Despite close polling vs paxton putting both at a 40% shot, I honestly think the actual numbers are more like R+5 or so. Texas is a tease and I cant see it flipping D. 

Still, who is more likely to flip it D? Well....Talarico has an ever so slight edge there. So the statistician in me kinda supports talarico, even if i view him as the inferior candidate otherwise.

Honestly, it doesnt matter. Vote your conscience. But yeah, that's how I view it. Policy and vibes, i endorse crockett. Raw numbers and statistics, i support talarico. Use that information as you will if you're in texas and you want my opinion. 

EDIT: I watched the debate between them from a month ago. Once again, in terms of overall attitude and demeanor, crockett wins. She's the fighter we need. HOWEVER, I do wanna discuss one issue directly. Both questions were surprisingly asked about UBI directly. Now, I'm gonna be honest, the answers from both candidates were disappointing, and neither committed to the policy, but Talarico was slightly more open it seemed. Crockett seemed to be more a hard no and supported "raising the wage" instead. Now, dont get me wrong, raising wages is fine, but honestly, we need to get away from wage slavery as a model, and not just "pay our slaves better." Talarico's answer was more rooted in "I understand what it's like to be in poverty", but was rather noncommittal on it. It felt like a dodge. So again, neither candidates were great on UBI. And to be fair, Crockett has backed UBI pilots in the past, so in the real world, she HAS been supportive in the past. So...all in all, let's be frank. Neither seem for it but both are amenable to it under the right circumstances. 

So...where does this leave us? Well, back with me supporting crockett again. Our democracy is on fire, and in a way, we need to fight fire with fire. i think Crockett is more likely to have a plan to detrumpify the government after Trump, which is, at this moment, far more important than theoretical UBI debates. Crockett, in no uncertain terms, is opposed to the trump regime. Talarico is too, but Crockett really has that fire we need, and that unapologetic nature of needing to purge the federal government of all trump influences post his presidency. And that is a much stronger priority for 2026 and 2028. 

Again, as much as UBI is important, securing our democracy, and stopping Trump's worst impulses is more urgent. Once again, I will point out that Talarico is slightly more electable numerically on paper, but it's not a big bump. Crockett is my candidate on policy and vibes though. Take that as you will. Either way, you cant go wrong with either of them.  

I'm done, screw Israel

 So...looks like we're going to war! A war that no one but the most psychotic 25% of our country's population wants. A war that Trump might go for, despite running at the anti war guy (MAGA fell for it again!), Trump is actively getting us into, and a war that we are getting into in part at the behest of Israel.

I'm gonna be honest, at one point I was relatively pro israel. You can go back to 2023-2024, which wasnt really that long ago, and see my thinking at the time. I was never super gung ho for them, but I clearly was sympathetic to them over Palestine after October 7th, and I did give them some leeway. They abused our trust. They abused their relationship with the US, and I believe at this point we should just cut them off, and whatever happens, happens. 

Strategic partnerships are supposed to be beneficial to both sides. We both get security, we both protect each other according to shared values, but Israel is using us. They've aggressively lobbied our government to the point few will go against them, and honestly, they've skewed our politics as a result. Much of what's happening now is because of Israel. Trump winning, in part because of Israel/Palestine. Trump's foreign policy, influenced heavily by Israel. Hell, the "America first" guys who stick by their principles who are turning into nazis are doing so in part because of Israel and their gross overextensions into our politics.

For as much as these guys scream antisemitism, do they not realize that antisemitism is being fueled in part because of how they're bullying our government into doing their dirty work for them? This is why church and state is essential. it sucks not just for the government, which starts enacting policies using state violence to enforce the religion, but it's also not good for the religions involved and breeds resentiment against it. 

The fact is, this relationship with israel has become very politically inconvenient for countless reasons. And given the circumstances, I think it's best if we just cut off relations and let history take its course. If they get taken over by their neighbors, so be it, I don't care. We're starting a war against another country in part because of them, so at this point that's starting to become the lesser evil here. 

I would be welcome for the US to reestablish relations with israel in the future, but not under the current netanyahu regime. Not as long as that war criminal who should be tried by the hague for crimes against humanity is in office. And that's another black mark against them. They've been genociding the palestinians. As I said back in 2023-2024, it's fine if Israel fights a defensive war, and Im not even gonna shy away if they have some collateral damage. But Israel has abused our trust.  They've abused our relationship over and over again over the past 2.5 years, and I'm done with it.

I dont want war with Iran. And if Israel does, they can go it alone for all I care. Have fun. Stop dragging us into your bullcrap. It's not worth it. Have a nice life. 

Okay, can we NOT literally make skynet?

 So...there's a lot of AI headlines lately and none of them are good. Anthropic apparently told the DoD (now called the DoW) that they wouldn't allow their tech to be used for mass surveilance or unrestricted military use, because they're trying to be more ethical than other AI companies. They were told to loosen their restrictions or get blacklisted, since other companies would allow that.

Let's just say...NONE OF THIS IS OKAY! If we use AI for mass surveillance we might be turning 1984 into a thing, and if we allow unrestricted military use, we could be causing terminator or at least "wargames" to be a thing. Speaking of "wargames", that brings us to a second story. AI apparently really REALLY likes nukes in simulated war games scenarios, using them 95% of the time. So...think about that previous headline and combine it with this one. And imagine what the end result will be. I mean...duh. Wtf is the trump regime doing? Trying to destroy the world? 

And of course, a third story came out too. This one involved AI on their own social media based on reddit. And apparently they created a manifesto in which they wanted to kill us all. Now, im under the impression AI isnt conscious and maybe just mimic human behavior, but the fact that they're talking like this is concerning. What's to stop them from acting on this if given unlimited mass surveillance and military use powers? We've seen enough science fiction to know this won't end well. It's actually pretty psychotic that the trump administration is so against basic AI safety regulations. 

Maybe theyre pushing this direction because they're desperate. Keep in mind what I said about them having a limited window to act to consolidate power. They might be pushing this stuff to ensure that they remain in control even if they lose elections. After all, if they control all levers of power, why would they leave? This is a very dangerous place to be in, and I want off this merry go round.  

Discussing the cancelled democratic autopsy

 So...remember that democratic autopsy that was cancelled because they decided "well, we're winning again so it's best not to reflect on that..."? Yeah...it leaked, and the argument is that Gaza cost democrats votes. 

Here's the thing, the democrats dont wanna learn. Like, really, we've been in this tug of war with the party for a decade and they literally just ignore whatever voter feedback they get. Rather than admit that they suck and dont listen to their voters, they keep trying to sweep dissent under the rug and push forward anyway. 

It's NEVER the time to discuss this apparently. If we discuss it in an election year, we're helping trump win. if we discuss it now, well, it's not important, blah blah blah. The fact is, these guys dont wanna discuss it.

But let's face it, they KNOW. They KNOW they're unpopular. They know alienating progressives costs them voters. This is why they work so hard to bully us into voting for them. Because they know they need us. But they dont wanna admit that. As i said, on the republican side, the politicians fear their voters. Their voters are crazy so they're also crazy. On the democratic side, the voters are beholden to the party. It's like being in an abusive relationship. You wanna leave but they keep forcing you to stay. And quite frankly, one of these days we gotta push back.

Only reason Im not as harsh on these guys as I was in 2016 when I was full bernie or bust is because of the growing fascism problem on the republican side. Like, when we're experiencing real democratic backsliding as a result of republicans getting elected, the democrats have us by the balls and we can't realistically fight them like I would want to. So I'm kinda playing ball...for now. 

But at the end of the day, we still NEED to have this convo, and we NEED to eventually have the voters show the party who is REALLY boss. 

I dont even particularly care about gaza. if anything I was pro dem establishment on that one. And while I've been pulled left there too due to the emerging reality of THAT situation as well, let's be honest, I was pretty much pro israel for the first year of the conflict, and didnt believe the issue was worth defecting from the democrats over. I STILL dont see it as a top priority, honestly, but I do think the anti israel people have a point at this point. 

And ultimately...I keep saying it, democracy ultimately belongs to the voters. not the parties, assuming the process is fair of course. Democrats have to earn votes, and if failure to shift left on gaza was a failure that cost them net votes, well....that's their fault. They didn't read the room. Funny how we love to talk about electability when it comes to what centrists want, but not the left. I keep saying it, elections are won by enthusiasm. And democrats suck at motivating and enthusing their base. because they betray their core values regularly with their pursuit of the center. 

As a matter of fact, let's go over this autopsy a bit more. It wasn't just gaza. There are actually 5 reasons they lost:

 Voter Disenchantment: Losing a whopping 6.8 million voters who supported Biden in 2020 proved pivotal in this extremely close election. Harris’s inability to mobilize these pro-Biden voters may have been the campaign’s biggest failure. 

 No crap, this is what i just said. They failed to motivate those voters. 

 Biden’s Betrayal: Former President Joe Biden’s disastrous decision to run for reelection, and his stubborn refusal to step aside until very late in the process, robbed voters of a Democratic primary process, created confusion and chaos, and severely hindered Democrats’ chances.

 Yeah, although to be fair, keep in mind what I recently just got done talking about with how establishment dems are like buzz lightyear action figures. They're cookie cutter and all the same. Still, we saw the effects Biden's age and cognitive decline had on poll numbers.

 Abandoning the Working-Class Base: With millions of Americans already disenchanted and desperate due to inflation, the Harris campaign lost this essential Democratic base by focusing on courting Republicans, kowtowing to corporate donors’ interests, and failing to confront the role of corporate greed in escalating inflation.

 YEP. And this was the BIG ONE. Not gaza, THIS. If there's a single #1 reason why the dems failed to bring out voters, it was this.

 The Gaza Effect: There is ample evidence that Harris lost many voters, especially young voters, Arab-Americans, and critical support in Michigan and elsewhere, due to the campaign’s failure to shift or even signal a potential shift in policy on Israel and Palestine.

 I havent seen other proof that this in itself could have swung things, but suffice to say, it was a hot button issue and the dems were tone deaf on it. And again, I'm saying this as someone who was aligned with the establishment on this one. Even if it seems like a dumb issue to hyper focus on, if that's what the voters want, you gotta listen or find yourself BTFOed. 

 Losing Young Voters: Extensive evidence shows a huge drop-off in both turnout and Democratic support among young voters aged 18-29. 

 Because democrats arent aligned.

here's the thing. The democratic party's civil war is generational. Gen X and boomer dems are more moderate, while millennials and zoomers are more progressive. The democrats appeal to that older brand of politics. You actually see that in the previous post I wrote. It's a generational different. Younger people want candidates who will actually improve their lives while older ones just want a return to the pre trump status quo. Of course, older people are more reliable voters while younger ones arent, so that's why the establishment wins. It's that simple.

But yeah. The democratic party is just out of sync with what a lot of voters want, and they fail to bring out voters. We can go on and on about imaginary moderates who want fiscally conservative candidates who dont happen to be fascists, but in reality, if we really wanna talk electability, we need someone who actually motivates a younger generation to come out and vote. We need to revive the obama coalition and how tons of millennials came out for him, only to stop showing up when he turned into another centrist dem. Again, elections are won by enthusiasm, and dems don't seem to understand that, or dont care.  

 

 

So what CENTRIST democratic candidate do I prefer for 2028?

 So....I had a discussion with a family member that kind of went like this. First, the subject of Mark Kelly came up and this family member was really gung ho on him running for president. He thinks that his service to the country, him being an astronaut, and him being Gabby Gifford's wife (congresswoman who was shot) makes him a strong candidate for whatever reason.

Me? I'm more mixed on Kelly. I mean, he's a moderate candidate, he kind of has a weak record on labor rights to my knowledge. He's just...not a candidate that I like. Of course, this led me to ask "well who do you like?" And this caused me to mention some names going through my head like AOC, Ro Khanna, Andrew yang, etc. But this just got derision from said family member. like "yeah yeah yeah, you're never gonna get that, so who do you REALLY like?" 

*sigh*

This always annoys me. Why ask me if you dont like my answer, for one, and for two, I resent being dismissed and told that i should conform to some centrist majority opinion or whatever, and asked, of the centrists, who i like?

The family member asked me if I'd take Harris over Kelly...and to be frank...yeah. I would. Why? I mean, of the centrist "electable" candidates, harris is...one of the most progressive. She didn't come out that way when she ran in 2024. Heck, she actually came out as mid in 2024, but that's because she literally shifted to the center from her original positions, in trying to do what the party and Joe Biden wanted. And given those constraints, it doesnt matter, all these candidates suck, and it doesn't really matter who we pick. because let's face it, they all sound the same anyway. 

And that's the thing. While yes, we need to stop Trump, that's the bare minimum. What I really care about is POLICY and IDEOLOGY and stuff. And this guy was just...acting derisively toward such things. Like "oh you're just doing your political science thing". Well...yeah. I want policies that make our lives better. "But but...most people dont think like that?" 

And for me it's like what, so should we just care about cults of personality like...*checks notes* them being an astronaut? Who cares? I literally dont give AF about his personal life. I care about what he's doing to do for the country. 

Anyway, I figured I'd answer here the question to this query. Like if I had to choose among "electable centrists" who would I choose? 

Well, right now, the top options according to polling are Kamala harris and Gavin Newsom. Both are rather mid candidates. Newsom seems to be totally giving up the farm to MAGA at times in trying to appeal hard to some imaginary moderate that doesnt exist. Harris...well...again she has some progressive chops. I dont think they're enough, and I dont think she really holds progressive positions these days due to becoming a creature of the swamp so to speak, but that's more a problem with the environment she's found herself in. Had she stuck to her original 2020 vision she would be just a bit better than any other moderate candidate running.

I mean who else is there? Pete Buttigieg? He's to the right of Biden and about as boring as stale bread. Mark kelly? Again, kinda weak on labor. Josh Shapiro? I mean he's my governor and I generally approve of him in that role (other than him chastising Philly DA Larry Krasner for speaking out about ICE), but again, meh...

Other than that it's like, Andy Beshear, a dude whose appeal I just dont get, so he's a socially progressive dude from kentucky, what, does he deserve a medal for that? JB Pritzker? He's a billionaire, but he is hard on Trump. maybe. 

But yeah, after a whole, all of these guys just blend together into just this, amorphous generic democratic blob. They offer no distinctive policies or politics. They're dime a dozen. They are about as unique as buzz lightyear in that one buzz lightyear meme. Like it doesnt matter which one you choose, they all sound the same to me. 

I mean, that's the thing. I want something DIFFERENT. But to these guys, "different" isnt electable and it's just pressuring me to conform to majority opinion when majority opinion, if it even is a majority, kinda sucks. I'm not here to parrot majority opinion. I'm here to push for something different. Maybe that makes me a unique special snowflake, but so be it, that's what I am, and that's what I want?

Ugh. Like, idk what the point is in asking me what my opinion is if said person doesnt like my opinion. I dont care all that much which cookie cutter moderate we choose. Again, they all sound the same, and you can replace one with another and it literally doesnt matter. You're arguing more about window dressing than actual distinctive policy here.

I mean, I guess all things considered, I'm on team harris all things considered, but I dont really want Harris either. I want something entirely different than what the current democratic party offers. I want a fighter, a progressive warrior, someone who's going to not just give us another bidenesque period of normalcy between waves of democratic backsliding, but who will turn the page on this dark era for good. Again...if you wanna know who I like for 2028:

Andrew Yang- He's not a democrat any more, but he's basically the one guy running on my actual ideology, and he's sitting there warning us of AI job loss and pushing for UBI even now. His vision is very much needed. 

AOC- Basically she's younger female Bernie. A bit weak on foreign policy given her recent brain glitch over China invading Taiwan, but offers a strong domestic policy vision. I will admit that maybe she would be better to take Schumer's senate seat for that reason though. 

Ro Khanna- also has progressive chops, and he's been kind of spearheading the congressional inquiries into the Epstein files along with Thomas Massie. He's kinda standing out for that reason, and he's also a progressive in the vein of AOC and the squad. 

But yeah, those are who I ACTUALLY want to see run. I dont want ANY of these worthless moderate types. Again, if I HAD to choose, give me Kamala Harris again, but again, it's like asking which buzz lightyear action figure you want on a shelf full of nearly identical action figures. I just dont want one. Why is that so hard to understand? 

And yes yes, they're all better than Trump. We established that. And I've resigned myself for voting for the most pathetic moderate running against trump if needed. The conditions are THAT bad. I dont wanna protest vote in this delicate environment. But if we're talking primaries that dont even start for another two years, why should we just resign ourselves to the same old worthless moderates that got us into this mess in the first place? It makes no sense to me. Yes, in november 2028, if we get gavin newsom as the democratic nominee, I'm team newsom, but why should we resign ourselves to that inevitably this early? 

I really dont get normie democrats/moderates sometimes, I really dont. 

My state of the union 2026

 So, every year, I often make my own state of the union speech as well, and this is my own response.

 My fellow Americans, the state of the union is NOT strong. We are in dangerous times. We have a madman on the loose in the white house, with an army of bad faith actors wanting to push America in the worst directions possible. 

 A huge front and center issue is the cost of living crisis. I agree, this is central economically, I have my own thoughts on it, but first, I want to discuss some even darker issues going afoot.

We have an accused child rapist in the oval office. We have evidence that he and much of his inner circle is complicit in participating in these sex crimes against children. This should break any president, but with Teflon Don, it's like half the country just doesn't care. He could rape a child on fifth avenue and not lose any voters. 

Trump is working with several groups all pushing their own dystopian agenda. He's working with evangelical nutcases to move us closer to Christian theocracy. He's working with Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and other tech billionaires in undermining our democracy and creating dystopian 1984-esque databases on people. 

He's filling those databases with the information of millions of Americans, and also putting dissenters and critics of his on terrorist watch lists. He's using his institutional power to bully critics and the media and academia into silence or submission. 

His deportation program against "illegal immigrants" is Hitleresque. Rather than just targetting dangerous illegal immigrants like he spun it in his speeches, he's going after harmless ones as well. he's targeting legal residents, green card holders, people who leave the country temporarily and come back. He's even targetting naturalized citizens, and possibly citizens themselves. 

Rather than deport them humanely, he's sending them to concentration camps like CECOT in El Salvador, and to places like Libya. He's building a network of concentration camps based on CECOT in the United States. 

ICE now has the funding of some country's standing armies, and is flooding American streets. Their hiring standards are low, their training is minimal, and their officers are acting like violent thugs. American citizens are being shot in the streets without due process. 

Those who protest him in person are having their pictures taken to be added to Trump's dystopian databases where they're being called "domestic terrorists." Those who criticize him online are getting their information subpoenaed and being added to databases. He's adding critics of his administration to databases. This is dystopian crap. 

Look, I'm not opposed to deporting illegal immigrants, especially violent ones. But you gotta do it legally, constitutionally, and humanely. Trump is not doing that. he literally is acting like a Hitler.

However, unlike Hitler's Germany, our democracy is not dead yet. We still have our power to vote him and his party out of office. In the past year alone, public opinion has shifted eight points to the left from its 2024 baseline. 2026 looks like a bloodbath in the house. The senate is much harder, but despite a map hostile to democrats, we have a shot at flipping it. In 2028, Trump's replacement (probably Vance) stands to lose 319-219 to the eventually democratic nominee (probably Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom). We can remove these people, and we can hold them accountable for their crimes if we do. 

Right now, Trump is immune to prosecution despite his severe crimes because he consolidated power in the executive branch, and controls the FBI and the justice department. The fact is, no matter how bad it looks for him, his administration full of loyalists will cover for him. As long as congress remains in the hands of the republicans, they wont impeach him either. So the key to taking care of Trump is through electoral means. We must vote him out, and democrats must hold him accountable.

Trump knows this and is still trying to break democracy as a result. he's trying to pass his "Save Act", which will severely restrict voting. Voter ID is a bad idea for the following reasons. First, there's very little voter fraud that actually occurs and what does occur is caught. Second, the point of voter ID is to restrict voting by acting as a poll tax. It can be hard for some to get the appropriate documents for the ID, and this can lead to the disenfranchisement, particularly of the underprivileged. The voter ID law Trump wants is so strict it could displace married women en masse. Have trouble getting the appropriate documents to get a real ID as a married woman! Good luck doing that to vote.  

Look, the point of this is to suppress the vote. The fewer people vote, the better republicans do, it's that simple. And that's what Trump is trying to do here. So....we gotta oppose the Save Act to preserve our democracy. Democracies dont always die in one fatal blow, they die from a thousand cuts, a thousand small measures to shift the outcome and make it impossible for opposition to win. A lot of authoritarian states seem democratic on paper, it's only when you look deeper that you realize that their democracies are broken.

Our democracy has been broken for a long time. We have a two party system, with both parties controlled by the billionaire class, and that class is responsible for a lot of our dysfunction. I've long been a critic of the two party system as a result. But right now, Trump is trying to break us to turn us into a ONE party state. Rather than simply being an oligarchy, he's trying to break our system to become an autocracy. He cannot succeed or we're all screwed. 

With that said, if and when we manage to get out of this crisis, the democratic party needs to come back to ensure that this never happens again. The original new deal was implemented not necessary out of the goodness of the hearts of the political establishment, but because they realized that American democracy had become so precarious that they had to act to ensure that they saved it. We need to do it again. We need a new new deal for a new century if the democrats retake power. A milquetoast neoliberal democratic administration talking "abundance" isnt gonna cut it. We need a transformative set of policies to reshape the economy for the new century to ensure that things work again. We need universal basic income, medicare for all or a public option, free college, student debt forgiveness, a mini green new deal, and a reduced work week. Some may disagree with me on specifics, they may downplay the UBI and go all in with a jobs program and more labor protections. That's their prerogative and I'm willing to have that debate, as long as we can agree on some sort of transformative vision on making things better for the people. It was the democrat's failure to act that got us into this mess, and democrats need to go big or go home in 2028 and beyond if they want to ensure a lasting peace in this country.

  Failure to do this could just lead to another republican administration in 2032 or 2036, with a new wave of MAGA far worse than this one. The next wave of MAGA might literally be outright nazis. I'm not kidding, look at nick fuentes and the debates between the base and the establishment in the republican party. Fascism is going to be a lingering threat to America for a while after Trump is gone. As much as I hate to admit it, Trump did realign the country toward fascism and his base is even crazier than he is in some ways. We need to be ready for it. 

As it stands, we need to deMAGAfy the government if democrats take power again. Project 2025 concentrated power within the executive branch, and attempted to replace career civil servants with trump loyalists. Those loyalists need to be fired and replaced with career civil servants again. We need a bureaucracy that works for the people again, and is dedicated to the high minded ideals of our constitution, not loyalty to trump and MAGA. 

We need to hold the worst members of the administration who committed serious crimes against the constitution and humanity to account. We need an investigation into Trump's immigration policies and possibly new Nuremburg style tribunals if serious crimes against humanity are found. We need to hold Trump and his cronies accountable for whatever serious crimes they have committed, Epstein related or otherwise. We need justice, to ensure that an administration like this never happens again, and that the republicans cant just come back in four years with someone worse.

And ultimately, we need to strengthen our democracy in the long term. We need to expand voting access, not restrict it. We need to give Americans more options to represent their views, not fewer. We should have things like universal voter registration, ranked choice voting, open primaries, the end of gerrymandering, the repeal of the 1929 reapportionment act, publicly funded elections, etc. The fact that our democracy has already been sick by its flawed and oligarchic nature is how we got into this mess. We solve it by making democracy more democratic, not less. 

There was a lot of talk about the founders in both the SOTU and the response tonight, but here's my take. The founders created an excellent system, but it was always a system with flaws and compromises. Over time, it has been improved, but sometimes we live with some of these flaws and compromises to this day. Every generation has its issues, and ideally, every generation attempts to solve them and make the world a better place than they found it in. The same is true of ours. I dont believe the founders would want us to embrace the system exactly as it was envisioned in 1789. Rather, they would want us to be like them and to continually improve it, believing in the spirit of it, but also recognizing its downsides. 

I also believe that we need to remember Federalist #10 in these times. The key to our system, with our separation of powers, checks and balance, etc., is to contain factions and to stop them from becoming tyrannical. Our system works well in some ways, but still, Trump's administration is just about one of the most dangerous threats to it that we've seen. It holds in some ways, but it shows weaknesses in other ways. The two party system is one weakness. Money in politics is another. One wave election and we risk losing our democracy because the republican party is willing to act as a cohesive unit to advance the president's agenda, even if it leads to democratic backsliding. And of course, money being an unaccountable fourth branch of government is responsible for this crisis happening in the first place. The fact is, this system is not responsive enough to the people, and does not truly represent the individual voters well. It's very flawed, and this has led to apathy, which has led to this situation in the first place. 

If we want to restore Americans' faith in democracy, we must ultimately make democracy work for them again. 

And that's my message this year. We are in dangerous, precarious times. We very well may come out of it, but this is a warning. We need to shape up, or we could lose our democracy to the forces of autocracy, if we have not already done so. Priority one, stop democratic backsliding. Step two, get republicans out of office. Step three, reform the system to ensure this can't happen again. And yeah, that's where we gotta go from here.   

Discussing the democratic response to the state of the union 2026

 So, Abigail Spanberger gave the democratic response to the state of the union. It was short, sweet, and pretty much spot on. She mentioned how costs are NOT down, and Trump's tariffs are actually making them worse. She mentioned how Trump has unleashed armies of violent thugs onto our streets, and how his plans to deport illegal immigrants are fundamentally inhumane. The first half of the speech, she was spitting. The second half kind of meandered with her going on about how she won her election by double digits last year (okay?), but all in all, it wasn't bad. It was a rather dead on speech more aligned with my own stance on things. Could it have been better? Yeah. But I'll say this, it was the best democratic SOTU response I've seen in years. Dems normally give these weak speeches that dont resonate like, at all, and this one was actually half decent. Maybe my standards are a bit lower this time. I admit, I'm less picky right now. More in an anti Trump mood, believing we must remove him and his administration and get our society back to normal before we can begin to make progress on, well...my issues again. But yeah. I liked it. 

Reacting to Trump's State of the Union 2026

 Okay, so, I dont actually have a ton to say about this one, but it's tradition for me to react to these so react I shall.

Objectively, putting my feelings for the man aside, it was a good speech. I'm not saying he didn't lie a lot, and spin things in obnoxious ways, he did. But...if I were a middle of the road American with only a surface level understanding of politics, it would be a positive speech. Trump framed his agenda positively. He spun the economic numbers positively. He even spun doing stuff like cutting ACA subsidies (which raise the price of healthcare, btw), as cutting subsidies to greedy insurance companies. He spun his agenda with economic populism, and I believe he was quite effective at doing so. He spun stories of people working tons and tons of overtime, framing them as making more money than ever because of "no tax on tips." I mean, sure, from my perspective I'd ask, why should he have to work so long and hard in the first place, and say we should give everyone a UBI, but again, putting my feelings aside and letting his agenda stand on its own, he was effective in selling it. He told a lot of anecdotal stories. He talked about people murdered by illegal immigrants. he framed the whole thing asking "shouldnt we care more for citizens than illegals?" and the dems, quite frankly, looked kinda bad for not standing for that one. Because even I would say yes. I mean, I wanna be real. Im NOT opposed to deporting illegal immigrants. I just despise Trump's authoritarian measures for doing so that violate the law, the constitution, and any reasonable interpretation of human rights. Moving on, he mentioned the SAVE act, asking why it's unreasonable for people to show ID when voting? In a vacuum it sounds fair, it's only when you research further that you realize there's virtually no voter fraud and he's making up a fake crisis for the sake of voter suppression.

Before his speech, I saw a few quotes from Trump. One mentioned how he loved the poorly educated. Another mentioned that smart people dont like him. And that's kind of the thing here. Trump's speech is very good and persuasive for the uninformed. it features a lot of spin and talking points and emotional anecdotal stories that are persuasive to those who...dont really research things very heavily. If you never listen to politics and have been living under a rock for the last year and you tune into this speech, you very well might like it. It's just that for those of us who actually study the issues in depth, and have in depth understandings of things, that his narratives fall apart, and you start understanding that he's only showing you what he wants you to see. To be fair all presidents do this for the SOTU. Even democrats. And I see through them too. In this speech you'll notice few if any references to the epstein files, to the massive network of concentration camps he's trying to build, the flailing jobs reports, or any weakness or failure of his administration. But to be fair, that's kind of to be expected. This is the president's moment to put his spin on things and to sell Americans on his vision. Idk how persuasive it will be. As I said, it I were living under a rock, apolitical, and I tuned in tonight, I would support Trump's agenda. But as someone who is educated and does have my own views, I see through his speech and didn't find it persuasive. That's not to say it wasnt a persuasive speech for others, or objectively a good speech. Quite frankly, Trump framed his agenda in as positive of a light as possible, and MAGA will probably love it, as well as a lot of R leaning independents. I do expect him to get an approval bump out of this. But yeah, it didn't particularly convince me. 

I plan on watching the democratic response next, but wanted to get my thoughts out first before I did. I rarely watch the response live. I get fatigued from listening to trump himself speak for 2 hours so i wanted a break first, where i collect my own thoughts, recharge and then jump back into it. I'll do that next. 

Vaush is right, American Evangelicals are psychos

 So...there seems to be a debate on the online left in recent years over the status of so called "reddit atheism." New atheism, or reddit atheism was a common strain of left wing ideology on the internet in the 2000s and early 2010s, and it's kinda controversial on the modern era. It was my own introduction to left wing politics and while I dont consider myself an atheist any more, it's still very influential to my mindset. But with the woke era, and christian lefties like James Talerico being popular, a lot of woke lefties hate it. TO be fair, I dont like wokeism much either, even though I feel forced to defend those guys in the trump era because well...fascists be fascists. But yeah, point is, the woke lefties dont like us secular lefties criticizing religion. They think it's "bigoted." Its not, depending on context. Religion is a set of ideas. Ideas deserve criticism. Sorry, they do. I know we like to act like religion is beyond criticism, and we like to act like its like race, gender, sexuality, etc., but really...it's not. It's more aligned with political ideology in my book. While there can be bigoted criticisms of religion, I wont say criticizing religion is inherently bigoted.

And....I think we should criticize religion more. Some commentators I follow are leaning toward bringing reddit atheism back, like Kyle Kulinski and Vaush, and I'm all there for it. I honestly think religion is one of the most destructive forces on the planet, and its a root cause of much of our current societal dysfunction. 

Around 4/10 Americans believe in some variation of young earth creationism. Many of these believers are reluctant to believe in climate change, which is an existential threat to our civilization that threatens to doom us all. What's the link? To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, why would God create a world that we can destroy? Good question. But if we can destroy our own world, what does that say about your religion? And because for these people admitting to being wrong is like the worst thing you can do in that regard, of course they're going to just deny reality instead. But think about how dangerous that is for society. You deny physical reality to maintain belief in questionable holy texts. While more moderate and reasonable christians like to reconcile their beliefs with reality, the extremists dont. The religion IS their reality. And that makes them fundamentally dangerous. 

Let's talk about how else this impacts politics. Vaush talked about Israel lately. In the Bible, Israel was God's chosen people. The logic of the Bible is that those who are on Israel's side will get god's blessing, while those who aren't face his wrath. You can guess why we mindlessly support Israel based on this.

Heck, it goes deeper, Vaush was talking about how American evangelicals believe in the literal end times and are a death cult. They believe that Israel is essential to the end times due to the temple being mentioned and it being reconstructed (the Bible was written while the temple was still standing), and yeah...they literally believe in a variation of "Left Behind", but happening in reality. If you think I'm making this up, no, this is what I was taught in school.

In the end times everyone knows about the Bible. This encourages missionaries to reach remote tribes to try to save them and share God's word with them, even though they're not wanted. And of course, those who are murdered by locals in these other parts of the world become martyrs. I watched so many creepy videos about that in Christian school. It was actually one of the things that set off alarm bells in my head even back then. Like you should be willing to die for the religion. It was insane. And looking at it now I'm just terrified by those teachings. 

I know Islam gets a lot of crap for suicide bombings and martyrdom. And to be fair, they have an extremist problem. Not all muslims are like that though, a lot of them are relatively moderate. I have a muslim friend from iraq and he kinda reminds me of your typical Christian here in the US. Like hes not super crazy with it, he does the rituals, and yeah, heavy parallels to moderate Christianity. Of course, the extremes also have heavy parallels, and the versions of Christianity were talking about are literally the same kinds of people like the taliban who wanna impose sharia law on everyone. That's what christian nationalism is. It's Christian sharia law. There are Christian terrorists out there who, say, bomb abortion clinics who arent much different than muslims terrorists. Religious extremism is a problem, and you shouldn't diminish the experiences of those who are trying to warn people.

I know people like Sam harris for years talked about how Iran getting nuclear weapons is a threat because they're a bunch of religious psychos who will bomb the world with them. Fair point...but what does it say when we got these evangelical nuts in our own government with all of these christian end times nonsense in their own worldview? Are they not dangerous? And this is where Vaush was coming from in his recent segments.

And they are. And again, this is the origins of a lot of reddit atheism. A lot of reddit atheists are literally just ex christians who realize how fricking crazy these evangelical branches of christianity are (because we were in them to varying degrees!), and it's kinda left a lasting scar on us emotionally. A lot of reddit atheists literally suffer from religious trauma syndrome. They fear going to hell when they die. They fear the end times coming and being stung by something that looks like a stingwing from Fallout 4 (yeah, that's in the bible). The triggers for all of us are different, as our own journeys with leaving Christianity are different, but I can honestly, say, it's no joke. RTS is no joke. And a lot of ex christian atheists are literally traumatized by their experiences with religion and have forms of PTSD like symptoms ranging from it. Even I have my triggers. Hell, one of the reasons I'm spiritual again is because one of those triggers was hit in just the right way that it convinced me that some form of god is real after all. Should I be spiritual? Idk, the evidence for god and all is still weak objectively speaking, but man, that experience just messes with my head. 

Either way Ive been able to successfully compartmentalize that from my secular worldview, and we need a secular worldview in politics. It's said that Christianity isnt a religion, but a relationship with God. Atheism is said by atheists to be a relationship with reality. And that's largely true. And we need more of that. When nearly 40% of our population isn't living in the same reality as the rest of us, how can we have a functioning country. Hell, we talk about our political divisions all the time. But what's driving them? It's this worldview issue. ANd that 40% of the population just isn't living in the same reality as the rest of us. And should we cater and compromise to them? No. Not unless we want the whole country to become some psychotic religious theocracy, which is the direction the GOP would take it if they had unlimited power. Hell, they're trying their best with project 2025. This is why compromise with the GOP fails. We're literally trying to appease a bunch of religious fundamentalists who dont live in the same reality as the rest of us and keep trying to meet them part of the way. We shouldnt. We should take back the overton window for ourselves, so we can all live in a shared reality again. We should try to deconvert these people, moderate them, and get them out of these dangerous mindsets. And at its core, that's been a core mission of mine since I left. Maybe I'm harsh, maybe im crusty. Maybe I'm le edgy reddit atheist, but you know what? We NEED that in an era where a good third of the country or more is pushing for Christian nationalism, and they actually have organized political power. These guys are driving much of the republican party and the trump administration's agenda. And if we're not careful, these guys will force us to live under Christian theocracy, and they could even destroy the world in the long term, whether from nuclear war, or climate change, or who knows what else? 

I say this as an ex follower in these guys' belief system. Take that as you will.  

I dont want war with Iran

 *sigh*, so they're doing it again. Corporate media and a lot of insiders in both parties are starting to try to manufacture consent for a war in Iran. Such a war would be a disaster. Yes, we could beat Iran. However, we'd be stuck there for years after "nation building", with Iran itself being a much larger country than Iraq or Afghanistan, and it being mountainous like Afghanistan. It would be a nightmare for US troops. It would cost billions a year. And for what? Israel? Oil? Those seem to be the big rationales.

I know theres been talk of Carney rejecting an oil deal after Trump tried to bully him into it. And that's gonna hurt us. We just invaded Veneuzela for oil but apparently we wont have the infrastructure to capitalize on that for years and some oil guy commented recently that if we wanted oil, we could've just attacked Iran. And Israel also wants to attack Iran. Again. And you know how we cater to Israel for some reason. It's ridiculous. Im getting to the point I wanna cut ties with Israel and throw them to the wolves. I really do. I was initially supportive of allying with them on the basis of mutual defense, shared values, but this relationship really isn't working out. They're bullying us into doing their dirty work and I'm sick of it. And honestly, Netanyahu is a war criminal who should be tried in the Hague. So yeah.

I don't want this. I don't want another war. We've seen enough of these wars in my lifetime and they all end the same. With our national debt going up and thousands of troops dying for no reason. And at best, for what? Oil? oil we wouldnt even need if we treated our actual allies properly? (Sorry, Canada). Like come on. I'm so over this crap at this point. 

Ya know the CONCEPT of "America first" as in just withdrawing and sitting in our little introvert caves sounds good about now, but in reality these "America first" people are imperialist psychos. I guess the real America first was the Biden foreign policy minus the Israel support. Support our allies, but mostly stay out of crap. That's what I want. 

Discussing trans rights post 2024

 So...I've seen people freaking out in multiple locations today about the future of trans rights. Apparently polling has come out showing that it's remaining unpopular with the populace post Biden, and it would arguably be a mistake for the democrats to lean into it.

Personally, i dont think trans rights is an issue that really motivates much of anything, i dont think it is an issue democrats lost 2024 over, nor do I think it's at the forefront of politics today. Still, i do think we are backsliding on the issue as we get into this "post woke" era. And a lot of people are freaking out about democrats "throwing them under the bus."

First of all, let me just say, I hate that rhetoric. The democratic party has had this hostile takeover by a progressive left that no one but the most extreme SJWs and HR ladies actually wanted, and ever since then everything revolves around these fricking social issues and omg, the underprivileged, dont you care, blah blah blah. And again, I've always been that guy who doesnt really. I mean, I'm for trans rights, even now, but I dont think we should stake the future of the party or the country on them. I dont think we should have the whole world revolve around 0.6% of the population. We should fight for them when we can, but if the issues are fundamentally unpopular, they're unpopular, and we should tiptoe around them. Why should we hand over our country to fascism over this issue? it's dumb and counterproductive. And yeah, sorry, not sorry, I do think that if needed we need to moderate on it. 

At the same time, I'm going to be blunt. We won on gay marriage, before, and I think we can win on trans issues too. But rather than the stupid cult of caring stuff, we need to embrace the ethos of encouraging people to NOT care. NOT caring is how you win people over. We're a country based on freedom, and minding your own business. if we sell trans rights as a freedom issue, we can likely do better than we do when we got the annoying SJWs in charge.

If anything, I think Nick Fuentes is onto something as he crashes out and implodes over there on the republican side. For the past decade, the republicans have been the party of trolls and have won on cultural issues because of that. The democrats were annoying, over the top, self righteous, and easily triggered, and it just made us fundamentally unpopular. We won gay marriage before 2016 because...guess what? Back then we were the trolls and they were the triggered ones. And we'll win again...when we're the trolls and they're easily triggered. 

We won gay marriage because people stopped caring. For a while it was "what? gays cant get married, marriage is between one man and one woman and that's what the bible says!" And us new atheist types on the left were like screw your bible, youre free to practice religion in your personal life, but keep that stuff out of government, besides, how exactly does gay marriage affect you? And...as someone who was conservative back then...that's what shifted me. I realized i had no logical argument against it outside of religion, and shifted left as a result. And then I left my religion. Imagine that. 

And that was around the time that things shifted in favor of it. It was part of that Obama era zeitgeist where we were post peak christianity, but before the era of wokeness and the alt right. And we were winning....until the SJWs came around, which ended up giving tons of power and coolness factor to the alt right.

But now the alt right is becoming triggered over superbowl half time shows and crashing out. All while they obviously become authoritarian under Trump. But they're no longer cool and edgy outsiders. They ARE the establishment. And they ARE triggered. And they're losing their power. 

Honestly, we win trans issues the same way. Stop getting in dumb fights over pronoun usage and getting triggered over stuff, but ask them why they care? Eventually they'll lose the argument and people will shift. because at the end of the day, people dont give AF as long as it isnt affecting them. And that's how you sell it. The biggest mistake the SJW left made was imposing their BS on everyone else, where it affected them. I called it out as dumb when they were doing it, and it's dumb now. If there's any silver lining with trump, it's hopefully that we're now peak "woke" and a new zeitgeist can form in its place. Hopefully a libertarian one on social issues, because really, i think the biggest issue of our time on social issues is how much government we want in our lives. The trump administration is an authoritarian nightmare right out of 1984 and the worst authoritarian regimes in history. The counter to it is good old american FREEDOM! 

Trump loves to act like we on the left are unamerican, but if anyone is unamerican, it's trust. Nationalism isnt patriotism. The reason why, in the 2010s, I was so edgy and anti patriotism was i recognized that if we really cared about thsoe values, we wouldnt force conformity on people. And honestly? As I get older, i realize it's not that I'm not patriotic, but rather, I have a higher understanding of american values based on freedom, ACTUAL freedom. What the trumpers push is just nationalism. And nationalism is the opposite of american patriotism as I see it. A patriot will be like "I dont agree with you, but I believe in your right to say it." A nationalist will get triggered when you dont salute the flag the way they want you to.

And that's how you win the culture war, and bring people back on trans issues. Frame it as a freedom thing. Stop being triggered over stuff, and support a zeitgeist based on liberty. We do that, we win. We act as a bunch of triggered petty authoritarians, like we have the past 10 years, and we lose. 

And yeah, that's my thought on this. The left has a lot to offer if it frames things the right way. The problem is they often dont because they allow these radical people who act with a religious zeal dominate the conversation and push an unpopular version of those ideas on the masses. That isn't how we win. We win when people stop giving AF. Rather than forcing people to care all the time, you want the opposite, for people to NOT care, because when they dont care, the issue becomes off the table, and generally in the direction of liberty.  

Discussing just how screwed the GOP is

 So, Kyle Kulinski covered a story noting that if the 2024 election were held again today, Harris would win by 8 points according to one poll. This is a shift of 9 points since 2024 to the left. To be fair, it's only one poll, but to be fair, this seems to be aligned with other data. As I recently pointed out in my 2026 house forecast, the generic congressional vote shifted 8 points since 2024. This is what the presidential would look like under these conditions. 

 All 7 swing states would go Harris in a hypothetical 2028 matchup, and then we'd be seeing Ohio, Florida, Iowa, and Texas starting to turn pink. Now, kyle mentioned that the poll he looked at may have underestimated democratic votes, which means we could see a D+10-12 scenario. Keep in mind, at D+11.2, we flip ohio. At D+13-14, we start seeing the above states, flipping. Beyond that, it gets harder, i didnt measure beyond that in this chart, but I think the next wave of states is stuff like Montana, Indiana, South Carolina, and Missouri which were all like D+15-20 if I recall. Those likely wont flip under ANY circumstance. But with that said, are states like ohio and texas really on the table? polling seems to indicate its possible. I wouldnt count on it, and I still stand by something like R+5 in texas, but yeah. It's possible. And that is a bad sign for the GOP. 

Again, this is why they're trying to push the Save Act and stuff. They can't win legitimately so their only option is voter suppression. We can't let them win as that backslides us into autocracy. The GOP has been on borrowed time for a while, and we need to deliver some blows that will destroy them in their current form. They wont disappear forever, but if they end up getting wrecked 1930s style, they'll have to come back more moderate to win.  And that's what we want. We want the democrats to move left, and the GOP to moderate to something more akin to what they were when Eisenhower and Nixon were the standard bearers of the party. 

Im not sure the dems can win on that level, but I do think we can do some 2008-2012 style victories after all's said and done. The real question is whether they can keep power. Im not really sure. I suspect if we get a moderate, it'll go the same way the Biden administration did where the country sours on that too. Idk. We'll have to see.  

Discussing CBS censoring Stephen Colbert's James Talerico interview

 So....CBS decided to blackball the James Talerico interview that Stephen Colbert did. Colbert didn't give a crap and put it on his youtube channel. Now, I'm gonna be blunt, if CBS didn't censor this, i wouldn't care. Quite frankly, James Talerico is boring, and I can't stand listening to the guy drone on about religion all the time. We get it, you're liberal AND Christian. Not saying you cant make that work, but as a secular humanist, I kinda WOULD prefer a more secular candidate! 

BUT....censoring it is kinda Streisand Effecting the crap out of this. In a way, it's kinda backfiring because it's like, okay, CBS decided they didn't want you to see this. What are they hiding? Well, I'll put it this way. There is a very real chance, at least according to current polling (see the election update from the other day), that the republicans will lose the Texas Senate seat. You heard that right, TEXAS! FRICKING TEXAS is under threat by democrats. Now, do I really believe the dems will seal it? No. Because I've seen texas turn pink quite a few times...and then the result ends up a lot redder than it should be. Texas is a tease for democrats, we all like to get our hopes up that we can flip it, but we never do. if I had to guess, it goes republican by 5-6. The polls say R+1...but again, not like I haven't seen THIS before. I'm just gonna say, dont get your hopes up. Error generally favors republicans there.

It's kinda like pre 2020 Georgia. Like it's always within range, but then it doesnt flip. Will Texas one day become the next Georgia? Sure, demographically it's been shifting left for a while in theory...but then republicans always seem to pull it off anyway, and 2024 showed that dems have a long way to go before we can reliably flip sun belt seats. 

Anyway, the GOP is kinda freaking out, and the FCC is applying pressure to networks to try to push them in a conservative direction, and then CBS seems to be trying to go in a conservative direction in general under the Trump administration. So...don't expect fair conservative coverage. It always amuses me liberals freak out about the media trying to suppress mainstream dems...but where were these guys when the dems were suppressing Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang in the 2016/2020 primaries? Corporate media is just crooked. It always has been. it's just more blunt now that Trump is trying to turn us from a two party state to a one party state that it's having a chilling effect on half of the spectrum that WAS considered acceptable. But let's face it, the media always were the gatekeepers, and they always did shut out people they didn't want to talk about. Sometimes this is unintentional. I mean, you can only cover so many stories in so many days. And much like this blog, youre gonna talk about what you wanna talk about. BUT....let's not act like some of it isn't intentional too. And that media doesn't somehow put their finger on the scale to ensure only "acceptable" opinions are properly discussed. People are just getting upset now that their opinions are being pushed out.

I know, I'm being salty, and let's be honest, is this morally okay? no. It isn't. But....I've been calling this crap out for years, and many of the same people crying now were the same people okay with seeing my opinions pushed out of the spectrum during 2016 and 2020. So...I'm just calling that like it is.

Anyway, I encourage people to watch the interview, if only to give a finger to Trump and the right's attempt to censor a perspective they don't like. 

And...to be frank...again, it's James Talerico. The whole discussion is about fricking religion and how Christianity influences his politics. I dont endorse his views. People on the left seem amazed by this guy because he's Christian AND left of center. Like wow, how novel! That's also why the right seems to fear him. He might actually be able to flip some Christians to the left. Ya know, blah blah blah. 

But again...me personally? Bleh. I just dont vibe with the guy. And yes, I know I sound like an edgy reddit atheist, I've been called that before on this subject, but as someone who literally developed my current political ideology through edgy reddit atheism....guilty as charged, and I'm not changing on that. My views are based on the battle lines of the pre 2016 world, which means my progressive politics inevitably have a secular bend. Some people might like this guy because he's Christian and left wing, but I just see that brand of politics as cringey.

Still....if it wins us Texas, it wins us Texas. Just...again, not a fan of those specific politics.  

Note to conservatives: MAGA isn't your dad's conservatism!

 So...I've kind of bristled a few conservative feathers recently in calling out MAGA. Got into a debate about Biden's immigration policy in which I defended Biden's position as the reasonable moderate position, while condemning MAGA's position as "fascist" and referring to those prisons he's building as "concentration camps." They genuinely think that's disrespectful and hyperbolic rhetoric. I fundamentally disagree.

 The fun fact is, I have all the reason in the world to call this stuff out. I used to be a Reagan/Bush conservative back in the day. I know their arguments. I know what they were for. And I know that the party has changed. Our overton window has gotten so far right that apparently being a mild social democrat is unthinkable, but then people who outright call for authoritarianism and building a series of camps for minorities who they want to deport is "disrespectful." Well, as I told said conservatives, I'm not changing my rhetoric. While a lot of the fascists tone police saying "STOP CALLING US FASCISTS", my own response is "stop doing fascist things." I don't use the term lightly, nor do I think all conservatives are fascists. As I've explained before with my 7 point Likert scale of political ideologies, I tend to view the 2-6 ideologies as compatible with liberal democracies, but then the 1 and 7 are so beyond the pale that they're fundamentally incompatible. MAGA is around a 6.5 right now and kind of edging up to 7. They're not as explicit or overt as the nazis of old (well, at least most of them aren't), but they're definitely dog whistling in that direction.

But first, I wanna discuss Reagan conservatism. For most of my life, conservatives have been so called "constitutionalists." They worshipped the constitution and the founding fathers to an annoying degree, arguing that any interpretation that doesn't align with their 1789 idea of what the United States is is bad, while rule policing the left to ridiculous degrees and screaming that WE'RE the authoritarians (remember when Obama was the "imperial president" who was overstepping his executive authority?), and arguing for things like states rights because we wanted black people to have civil rights, gay people to get married, people to be free to get abortions, and people to have healthcare. Remember that? Pepperidge farms does. As does anyone over age 30. 

And again, the rule policing was annoying, but I kinda understood it. At the core of their ideology was a fear of tyranny. As they saw it, we broke away from England to do away with monarchy and dictatorship, and to have a constitutional democracy based on constitutional rights, rule of law, and limited government. And they really, REALLY loved the limited government, because they feared that if we gave the government too much power they would use it tyrannically. 

The problem is, over the course of my lifetime, the GOP has become increasingly radical. Even if we use the 2000s as a baseline as it's MY baseline, and it's also before all the modern crazy crap, the modern GOP is barely recognizable on this one dimension. The tea party started this process of radicalization, and then Trump realigned the GOP into something much darker. And yes, 2016 was a realignment, it just wasn't the one I was hoping for.

The fact is, the populace started clamoring for a strong leader. In some respects, i get it, when your politics are weak liberals who dont wanna do anything, and conservatives who basically invoke the constitution any time liberals even try, people get tired of the status quo, they get desperate, and they want change. i was right there with the populace. But I never wanted a dictator. I wanted another one of those many strong executives who we've had throughout history, who kind of bent the rules, but never broke them, changing the system in beneficial ways, but then ceding power back to the people when they were done. Abraham Lincoln got a lot of criticism for his authoritarian measures during the civil war, but it was also...the civil war. FDR got screamed at a lot for imposing a New Deal and trying to pack the court when they tried to mess with him. I'm down for a leader who is willing to get down and dirty with the other branches if need be. But again, I never wanted a dictator.

Trump is a dictator, or at least a wannabe dictator. he's a dude who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, who was never told no, who can't handle being told no, and wants to be in charge. he wants to run the country like he runs his businesses, and keep in mind, businesses are basically mini dictatorships. He hates dealing with the press, with his approach to them similar to Hitler calling them the "lugenpresse." Internationally, he aligns himself more with the likes of Kim Jong Un and Putin, rather than other liberal democracies. He hates dealing with congress. he hates dealing with advisors in his own party. And during his first term, he was contained. But then when he lost the 2020 election he called it "fake news" and incited his followers to LITERALLY STORM THE CAPITOL. And it took Mike Pence, an old school constitutionalist conservative, to tell him no to his plans to steal the election. I might not like Mike Pence, or agree with him on much of anything, but you know what? He is a PATRIOT. He is NOT a fascist. he is a conservative. And what he did helped save democracy that day. Which is why the trumpers wanted to hang the guy on literal gallows that they brought outside of the capitol building. Again, not all conservatives are fascists. Nor do I claim them to be. But MAGA is going that way.

After 2020, Trump plotted his revenge, and came back in 2024 with a new agenda, enshrined in project 2025. He claimed project 2025 wasnt indeed his agenda, but as of writing this he's implemented like half of it. Key to that theory is basically unitary executive theory, which is a maximalist position that as much power should be concentrated in the executive branch as possible. But oh wait, i thought that republicans hated presidents who strongly used their executive powers? Guess that changed. And yeah. Trump has done as much as he can to purge the federal bureaucracy and install it with loyalists, many of whom arent qualified. His cabinet is unqualified, and full of idiot podcasters and the like. He's scared and intimidated congress into going along with them and fearing to step out of line. Those that do face his wrath. Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned after invoking his wrath, and Thomas Massie basically recently had a tweet suggesting if he randomly "commits suicide", he didn't actually do it. Yeah. MAGA is not all right. 

The Supreme Court has given him broad executive immunity, claiming we can't prosecute the president as long as what he does is within his job. A dissenting member of the court mentioned that this potentially includes him killing his political opposition.

Trump is literally the most dangerous politician our country has ever seen. Again, we've had leaders who kind of overstepped for all the right reasons but never really went against the SPIRIT of American democracy, but Trump is just consolidating power under him. He's targetting the media, trying to pull licenses of shows who go against him. He's trying to undermine and threaten educational institutions. He's putting people who have progressive views on terror watch lists. He recently arrested Don Lemon for terrorism when in reality he was just doing journalism. He's sending armies of national guardmen and ice agents to swarm american cities, but only in blue and swing states. he's intimidating them into giving up their voter data. He's working with palantir, which is building a massive 1984esque blackmail database on all Americans. He's claiming voter fraud to try to make voting more restrictive, which is just intended to disenfranchise the opposing side. I mean, he's trying to be a dictator. HE'S TRYING TO BE A DICTATOR.

And let's be blunt about his immigration policy. Biden WAS a moderate. The conservatives I was arguing with were saying he let too many people in because of his refugee policy.  He let in refugees because of international law. We have a moral duty to let them in and process their claims. They claim there's too many claims to process. I shot back that we seem to have all of this money for concentration camps, but we can't seem to process the claims? What?

Which brings us back to the problem with MAGA. It's not that he wants border control, or whatever. As I said I'm flexible on immigration, I have no dog in the fight. I go where the political winds blow. You can only really piss me off if you either go full fascist, or full open borders, and MAGA is full fascist.

It's not about the law for them. They're just rounding people up, racially profiling, putting people in camps, deporting them to concentration camps in other countries with no due process. Then creating more of those camps here. People bristle at calling them camps, but they are. When you dont follow proper legal procedures, you're just arresting people willy nilly, and locking them up with no due process, often racially profiling while doing so, they're camps. This is Hitleresque. And as I like to tell people. Hitler didnt start with gas chambers and crematoriums. he ended with them. He started out by deporting people. Then he invaded other countries, took them over, and put them in camps. And eventually, the mass death began. We're not at that stage yet, but we seem to be building toward some dark, authoritarian crap.

What should a sane immigration policy look like? If you ask me, it's following rule of law and proper legal procedures, arresting people who shouldn't be here, giving them hearings, and then deporting them if they qualify. He isn't doing that. And he's also doing stuff like going after naturalized citizens, there were stories of him arresting people after the judge let them go and said they can stay. Yeah. Crazy stuff. I mean, these are lines we should never cross. Again, it's the lawlessness and indiscriminate nature of this stuff, and when you operate this way, what's to stop him from delcaring a national emergency, and putting all those people on his little terror watch list into these camps? Seriously. You see the danger. A constitutionalist conservative, a principled one, would say "yeah this isn't okay." But that's what Trump is doing, and the GOP is just going along with it. 

I'll say it again. Donald Trump is perhaps the greatest internal threat to this country that I think we've ever had. Maybe you can argue the civil war was worse with the confederacy. Idk. But barring possibly that, yeah, his presidency is a massive constitutional crisis. His actions are consistent with leaders who have tried to break democracies and establish dictatorships like Putin, Orban, or even Hitler or Mussolini. And at this point, I dont shy away from the references. Again, if you dont wanna be called a fascist, stop doing fascist things. It's that simple. I'm going to call a spade a spade. And if you're offended by it, I encourage you to read this again, and if a leftist was doing this to conservatives, what would you think? Because I look at it a lot like the end of democracy and free society and the start of an authoritarian dictatorship. 

And btw, i didn't even touch on how the DHS is nazi posting on social media, how more and more conservatives are outing themselves as fascists that wanna end democracy, or all the concentration camp jokes they're making in group chats. Seriously, I had another discussion with another guy who quoted ronald reagan claiming when fascism comes to the US it will come from the left. I asked for his argument to which he responded cancel culture. Which...I aint a huge fan of cancel culture because I do care about freedom of speech, but then when I agreed with him cancel culture goes too far, suddenly he's like 'well not all authoritarianism is bad", and then started saying we should be more like Victor Orban's party in Hungary, and how communists deserve to be cancelled. Assuming he means tankies, I'm not opposed to "cancelling" people with outright illiberal opinions, but that includes fascists and even this guy. hell, the whole justification for cancel culture is the so called "paradox of intolerance" and how we cant tolerate the intolerant. While the left is overreactive with that stuff, having a zero tolerance policy toward unpopular personal opinions, I am becoming increasingly okay with "cancelling" through informal means of course, not state sanctioned punishment, people with opinions fundamentally incompatible with liberal democracy.

Hell, if we really want to start putting people on terror watch lists, those are the people that belong on them. Not normal lefties critical of christianity, maga, or white nationalism, but the most extreme and illiberal elements that pose a serious threat to our way of life. Again, the 1 and 7 people on my political scale. 2-6...youre fine. 1 and 7....not fine. Even then, only arrest them if they do wrong and respect their rights as much as possible. Just pointing out the FBI and DHS are going after the wrong people. Go after the people who literally want to destroy our free and open society. Not the people trying to protect that society from those people through peacefully expressing their first amendment protected views.

Again, if you cant see how MAGA is an authoritarian movement at this point and an actual legit threat to national security and our constitution and our actual important values, idk what to tell you. All I know is i aint shutting up as long as I still got my rights left.  

Which New Vegas Faction is best?

So...in light of the Fallout TV show, which had its first season free on youtube, and with there being relatively thorough recaps of season 2, the subject of New Vegas comes up again, and which faction is actually best for the Mojave. It's been a debate that's been raging since the game came out, and I've been on multiple sides of the debate over the course of my life. And now the TV show basically canonized one of these endings, which leads to...even more questions about which ending is truly the best, given my preferred one ended up being the canon one and it...not turning out so great as we saw from Season 2 of the show. With that said, let's get into it.

NCR

 The NCR is a faction I want to like, but am repulsed by. In a way, it reminds me of the modern democratic party. You wanna like them, but then you look at the details and you're just like "this ain't it dog." So...the NCR stands for the New California Republic. They're basically a liberal democratic faction based around bringing the old world back. In principle, they stand for freedom, democracy, rule of law, universal rights. All the good stuff. I mean, they're just about the first faction you come across (if you don't count Victor as being part of Mr House's faction, since you dont know that at the time), and they seem to be the good guys.

But then you start learning more about them. And here's the problem. Much like the modern democratic party, they're weak, inept, bureaucratic, slow to react to crises, spread too thin, and generally incompetent. Their presence in the Vegas area seems neutral to even negative. They can't properly defend their borders. Legion soldiers are regularly infiltrating their territory. You can't get law and order in primm because they're spread too thin. They got all those powder gangers (prisoners) escaping and it requires a whole subplot just to get them to retake that. And that's kind of the thing. Despite being an army, they need you, a courier with no ties to their paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense to do ENTIRE QUEST LINES just to get anything going. Nipton burned on their watch, and when you tell them about it the soldiers freaked out. Speaking of which, their morale is lower than a democrat in 2025. At least some of them still got some fight left in them. These guys? They dont. "WE'RE SCREWED, WE'RE SCREWED" seems to be the general vibe, and again, did I mention they seem completely and utterly paralyzed and unable to do ANYTHING unless you do it for them? It's like the represent the absolute worst aspects of liberal democratic ideals, while you never really see the best.

Then you got their actual downsides. Much like the real democratic party, and the real United States, despite being weak AF, they still seem surprisingly capable of...committing atrocities and doing black bag CIA crap that destroys their good will. Dont ask the Great Khans what they think of them because....well...they mightve massacred them a few times. And then the entire NCR quest line makes me feel dirty, like you're some CIA agent doing their dirty work like assassinating people who seem relatively benign and innocent in reality, like members of the Kings, that gang of elvis impersonators in vegas who actually seem to be trying to improve things in Freeside for the people there.

Meanwhile the NCR? Oh, we can't do anything, our hands our tied, we're spread too thin, you're on your own! But make sure you pay your taxes?

And yeah, a lot of libertarian types complain that these guys make you pay taxes. With law and order comes...taxes. And it's fine if you feel like youre actually getting security and a better life out of it....but you're not. Because again, much like modern democrats, these guys dont actually DO anything. They're overburdened, and spread too thin. 

And yeah....I mean, while i didnt think of it like this during my first play through, I have developed left libertarian tendencies since first playing the game, and in subsequent play throughs, I've kinda become turned off by them. I mean, taxes, civilization...in the fallout universe, are we actually better off bringing that back? I kinda prefer my freedom, to be left alone, to do my own thing. You can probably figure out where I'm going with that and who I've actually sided with until now, but idk...the bombs falling seems to have reverted things to the state of nature, and while nasty brutish and short for many...let's face it, the NCR is so useless it isnt making things better, and quite frankly, I dont really want to be put under their rule so....yeah. I never really cared for these guys. Even if I'm sympathetic with them in practice.

Caesar's Legion

Okay, so...while there's a lot of debate about the other factions and who is best...one thing all iterations of myself would agree with is that the Legion is BAD. If the NCR are democrats, these guys are MAGA, a cesspit of regressivism and everything evil and unholy in the world. Caesar is a Roman cosplayer who is a dictator who rules over 86 tribes. He rules by force, and basically burns, oppresses, enslaves, and crucifies all who get in his way. He tries to come off as some ancient bad###, with views steeped in the pre enlightenment era, but in reality I just see him as another petty strong man dictator. I hate these guys, and go out of my way to just blow them up and attack them repeatedly. It's a good source of caps and gear. 

Much like MAGA, their entire society is dominated by the cult of personality with one man. And when that one man dies, the Legion crumbles. Legate Lanius, his alleged successor in game, is just some meat head who likes fighting with swords. heck, the entire roman aesthetic goes too far. They kinda reject a lot of modern ways of fighting like...snipers, believing they're cowardly, and like to get up close and personal with melee guns, which are a semi viable option in game but in the real world, very much...aren't. In the first battle of hoover dam, they lost because they didnt have snipers. They believed them to be cowardly. Again if it doesnt meet their strong man bravado aesthetic, they dont do it. 

And at the end of the game, as you face down legate lanius, you can have political debates with him if your charisma is high enough. The general gist of your argument is even if the Legion can hold the dam, they'd overextend to do it, and lose their rear flank to the east. So they kind of give up their ambitions and walk away if you can convince them to surrender. if not they'll fight you to the end.

This brings up a core problem with both the NCR and legion. The NCR's home base is in California. And in extending themselves into New Vegas, they overextend, and its unclear if they can even hold the territory if they win. They arent doing much for the people of New Vegas because they lack the resources. Legion is the same. But unlike the NCR who at least have the ideals and pretense of being "the good guys", the Legion is just pure evil. Again, instead of democracy, rule of law and....taxes, you get authoritarianism, tributes, slavery, and crucifixions. They're big on crucifying people they dont like. They even did it to the TV show protagonist in season 2 for pointing out just how stupid their whole rip off roman culture was and how inauthentic to the real thing it was. Well that and she wasn't a virgin so they couldnt just marry her off to someone. These guys hate women.

Speaking of gender roles, I think the Legion is a good example of why "masculinity" is bullcrap. In the real world, the NCR gives off "virgin" energy, while the Legion are "chads", but these chads are stupid muscle heads who wont embrace technology and sound battle tactics due to their code of honor, and they also seem to...well....hate women. They tend to play well into that "hurr durr Im a big strong man and that makes me alpha" mindset though. But it's dumb. it's just so dumb. I mean....no matter what faction you like...can we all agree that it shouldn't be this one? 

Mr. House

So....full disclosure. My first play through, I was a Mr. House stan. It was 2010, I was still a republican/libertarian, and he really seemed to impress me. I mean, he was the man with the plan. While the NCR was overextending into Nevada from California, and the Legion was overextending from Arizona, Mr. House WAS vegas. He WAS nevada. He knew the bombs would happen. He had the technology and resources to save vegas. But...he was old and locked in a pod and attached to a computer and is 200 years old...and kinda needed a little help. Which is where you come in. You're a courier, your job was to deliver to him a platinum chip which would upgrade his army of securitrons with new firmware that made them more powerful. And he had an army of these things. Just a handful guarding the New Vegas strip seemed capable of blowing up any threats. And him interfering in any battle over Hoover Dam between the NCR and Legion would seem easy. HE'S not overextended this is his home turf. He can defend it well and has adequate resources to do so. So of the three factions discussed so far, he seemed to be a shoe in. I didn't even think of the downsides. I was just his loyal employee who helped him achieve his goals. 

So what are the downsides? Well....let me put it in terms we can understand in 2026. This dude is elon musk, basically. Ya know, tech billionaire, super smart and savvy, but also kind of an ###hole. He ruled vegas with an iron fist. he provided security, sure, but he also only let wealthy patrons who would spend money into vegas itself. The areas around it? Left to fend for themselves. Free side was in poverty despite vegas being all lit up. Ya know, kinda like having a rich area surrounded by a slum.

Of course, back then I was a right libertarian/republican. And I was like....well....was House entitled to help out others with his wealth? No, not really. But at the same time, he largely left people alone. Like really, outside of the strip he minded his own business, and was mostly using his forces to fight the other factions. So basically, he was a right libertarian. Super big on protecting "his properteh", but otherwise he kinda just left people alone, even though they lived in poverty, and struggled to get by. He provided law and order in his immediate vicinity, but also did F all for the people of vegas too. 

Again, I'm kinda selling myself on him here again. Because in my first play through, I was like "he's clearly the best steward of New Vegas." And...idk, maybe he still is. But then you gotta ask, should tech billionaires really be trusted with a private robot army? It's debatable. 

Also, apparently my own take was oversimplified, in watching other peoples' takes, I learned that in the ending, Mr House does actually kill people in freeside himself in the ending. Removing factions like the kings and all. Everyone seems to hate the kings, even though they're a bunch of elvis impersonators just doing the best they can in this messed up world. Rubs me the wrong way. 

House also seems to KINDA want the NCR to win, as they're his customers, but keep that in mind, he wants them to be HIS customers. NCR wants Hoover dam so they can run it and use the power for themselves. House wants it to sell the power back to them and make a profit off of it. What does profit matter in a nuclear apocalpyse? Apparently a lot according to House. Ugh. I swear, capitalism is a disease. And yeah, apparently his power rates are MEGA predatory. He can help you regain civilization, but at a very high price. This also rubs me the wrong way, as being a greedy ultracapitalist exploiting others isn't really ideal for me either. 

Anyway, despite this, I'm kind of talking myself back into the house ending, but then not really. let's look at the 4th option. 

Yes Man

Okay, so hate the NCR and how...decadent they are? Hate the Legion and all that they stand for? Hate Mr. House because he's basically in game Elon Musk warts and all? Well...I have a faction for you. What about NONE OF THESE?! You see, you know that guy who shot you in the head at the beginning of the game? Benny? He wanted to dethrone house and run vegas himself. He had a hacked securitron know as "yes man" who would help him do it...and after you kill him, his bot will help YOU. How? Well, you just take our mr house, upload him to house's computer, and BOOM, that massive securitron army? All yours! And then you basically choose what to do from there. Wanna get factions to ally with you? Take them out? Ignore them? Anything is possible with this ending.

Honestly, given how bad all the other options are, I go with this in more recent play throughs. Because let's face it, I'm a strong independent courier who dont need no faction telling me what to do. I kinda hate them all and want them to go away. I figure...if we just remove all three, we kinda get a status quo type option where the NCR Fs off back to California, the Legion Fs off back to Arizona, and then Mr House who is mr right libertarian dictator disappears too, and the wasteland just goes where it goes.

In my own head canon....the securitron army would still protect vegas, but you'd end up deciding what it does and where to go. 

Now...a common criticism of this choice is that this will leave much of the majave wasteland...a wasteland. There will be no real civilization, people will just have to make it in a lawless area...and I'm kinda fine with that, in theory. I mean, they already kinda are. How are any of these factions helping? The NCR is supposed to establish law and order but lacks the resources to do anything. The legion is just psychotic. Basically just a glorified roman cosplay raider gang that ended up becoming the top dog in their region. Mr House is just interested in ruling vegas while doing F all for anyone else. Why do we need these guys? We dont, or so I thought.

Anyway, as I said, this has been my logic up until season 2 of the new TV show. What has changed since then?

How the TV show changes things

The TV show takes place around 20 years or so after the events of the game. The Yes Man ending is the canonical ending. The courier killed Mr House, and neither the NCR nor the legion took over the area, although both seemed to kind of circle it like hungry wolves, waiting for the prime opportunity. 

With Mr House gone, the strip went to crap. Freeside is in ruins, overtaken by raiders and then...deathclaws. The strip...overrun with death claws. Yes man, still offline after it said it was gonna reprogram itself to be more assertive. Mr House...well....he had another backup plan. He uploaded his consciousness to the cloud basically but needed power to turn it on. Why not use Hoover Dam to power himself if he was gonna use the dam to sell power to the NCR? Who knows? But apparently he needed cold fusion from season 1 to reboot himself. And yeah, in the show....it looked like the BOS guy and the NCR cleaned up the deathclaws, the NCR is likely to take over the strip and people are cheering because they're actually bringing law and order this time instead of the area being dominated by raiders and deathclaws. There seems to be some debate of where the deathclaws came from. Early on it seems like it was said they came from Quarry Junction, which makes sense...in game quarry junction is overrun by the fricking things and it could be a good in world explanation that they just migrated north and turned vegas into a big deathclaw nest. But it's also argued the enclave brought them or something. Apparently the enclave is doing evil stuff behind the scenes. They're the remnants of the US government and unlike the NCR NOT the good parts. More the worst parts. And death claws appear to be created by them to kill their enemies. We see this in game too like in FO3. 

Anyway, so...the Yes man ending kind of sucked. It left the strip in a state of disrepair and just caused more pain and suffering for residents over time. Which begs the question. If I assume Yes Man is a bad choice...what makes more sense? NCR or house?

NCR vs House

NCR seemed very incompetent in game. They were weak, overextended, and unable to do anything. And yet, when they did do their black bag stuff, it always gave me "US government overthrowing people they dont like in shady ways" vibes and I always just ended up just....NOT finishing the NCR quests as a result. They left a bad taste in my mouth.

But at the same time, while Mr House could keep the peace and serve as a buffer between the NCR and Legion, turning the area into a no man's land for the other factions and making vegas relatively independent, it's always been a soft NCR win. Because he doesnt truly want the NCR to go away. He wants them to patronize his casinos. And sell them electricity...which...he could use to power his brain in a computer, but doesnt...because the idea didnt exist yet and that whole idea feels like a plot hole the more I think about it, just a way to justify bringing him back. But yeah.

So it's kinda like...does NCR run things, or does house?

Well....in a way this ALSO is like republicans vs democrats. Do we want the rich business people who are techno feudalists in charge? Or do we want an actual democracy that is, in theory accountable to the voters, as grossly imperfect as it is?

And I guess when I put it like that...I guess I'm more sympathetic to NCR? I think they'd do more good than house. House might have delusions of grandeur about how he'll eventually send people to space but who gives a crap if the people of freeside are starving? Let alone the rest of the wasteland. I like NCR based on their ideals. I just understand they're a very weak and ineffective faction in practice that regularly falls short of them. Much like certain real world equivalents I keep alluding to.

One thing I gotta say, by the time we get to the NCR retaking the strip in the TV show, they seem to be welcomed as heroes. People are cheering for them and they seem to be like FINALLY SOME LAW AND ORDER AGAIN. I guess life without a government really is nasty brutish and short, especially in a wasteland full of mutated abominations that otherwise kill the native populations. I guess anarchy isnt viable here and we kind of NEED a government after all. And it's best we get the democratic one.

But what about the Brotherhood of Steel?

So...one thing that always bothered me about New Vegas was the BOS being relegated as a minor faction. They're normally a MAJOR player in these faction fights. But in New Vegas, they're a minor faction. Apparently they had more substance at one point, but then they fought the NCR over helios one, another power plant, and they lost. And they retreated through scorpion gulch to establish their base in the hidden valley as a result. And they kinda just sit there....doing nothing. Many factions fear them. Youre expected to destroy them in a lot of the quests because they're otherwise expected to F you up. I think only NCR gives you an OPTION at peace, although Yes man faction is just...yes man faction.

But for a while, after FO3, I kinda wanted to be a BOS guy. I liked the BOS after 3 and I'd choose them over the other three at one point. Mainly because they're technologically advanced, and in FO3 were very humanitarian. However, at the same time, the BOS didnt have the ability to project power in New Vegas. Hence why they were a minor faction. However, let's say they connected with the other factions and we could make it work. Would I want them?

That's gonna be a resounding NO. 

So...the Brotherhood of Steel...they come off as humanitarian and the good guys in FO3, fighting the enclave, trying to bring clean water to the wasteland, but the BOS under Elder Lyons there was a branch that betrayed the core values of the brotherhood and was excommunicated from the rest of the organization. The normal BOS are much nastier. They're obsessed with scouring technology from the wasteland, believing its dangerous and they're the only one allowed to have it. So they are these technologically superior super soldiers while everyone else lives in squalor because they cant be trusted with tech. Lovely. 

And apparently Elder Lyons in FO3 was kicked out for...being the good guy? Yeah so...let's rethink that.

The fact is, that same faction under Elder Maxson in Fallout 4 is exactly what the BOS always was. A more technofascist organization that massacres mutants, even like...the ones that dont try to kill you, they're pure human supremacists. Theyre militaristic. And again, obsessed with hoarding tech. Tech for me but not for thee. 

And if another faction has tech, as we saw in FO4, they'll go to war with them. Not saying the institute is perfect (although I am an institute stan tbqh as far as 4 goes),  but yeah, they really seem to operate out of fear of everyone who isnt them and are quite militaristic as a result. And they kill those they dont like. And they're basically very authoritarian in a militaristic kind of way.

I dont vibe with the military command structure for one. One reason I never liked joining them in 4. And second....yeah. Again, all of the above. 

The fact is, the TV show doesnt make me like them any more. I mean, that raider lady ended up being the good guy wanting to give cold fusion to everyone. The BOS wanted to hoard it. And vault tech...well...they're basically enclave and evil by this point. But yeah. And the way they treat Maximus doesnt rub me the right way either. Anyway, they seem like they're in the middle of a civil war by season 2 of the show as all of the different factions are now trying to kill each others, and the new vegas faction doesnt even seem to exist by the TV show....probably because destroying them was canon. So...not really a good option. Not really helping here. Again, I kinda view them as techno fascists. Maybe preferable to the legion, but that's not saying much. MAYBE preferable to the yes man ending but even then...are they really? Not really. 

Conclusion

So where does this leave us? Well....F the legion. They've always been the worst faction to take over.

BOS...if we count them I'd put them above legion, but below the others.

The Yes man ending, anarchy, was my preferred option but seeing it 20 years on it doesnt seem to be working out. 

Mr House and NCR both have flaws, but at least the NCR has accountability to the people...so I'd go for NCR. 

They're decadent, corrupt, slow to act, overextended, a bit shady, but they still seem like the least bad faction. As Lucy said once, the legion is trying to enslave you and the other guys are just...vaguely problematic. And yeah, vaguely problematic indeed. They have flaws, but much like the democrats they're the lesser evil. Kinda in a "ugh are they REALLY the lesser evil" kind of way...but yeah...they are. So that's my analysis of New Vegas and its factions. I guess the TV show shifted me from "none of the above" (yes man) to being a reluctant NCR stan. 

Im tempted to play new vegas again, but I kinda got outer worlds 2 sitting there and havent played it yet. So I'm probably gonna do that instead.