No, Jeffries didn't screw up the Hegseth impeachment

 Okay, now that I said what I really think of Jeffries and Schumer, I'm also gonna defend them on something again. Recently, Thomas Massie, the disgruntled libertarian republican from Kentucky who got the mob boss treatment from Trump, spent his last days in congress filing impeachment charges against Pete Hegseth for his crimes against humanity as secretary of defense war. He talked explicitly about Trump bombing that little girl's school in Iran, which is a very clear and flagrant violation of international law. I know the US is often criticized for bombing civilians on accident, but in defense to former presidents, it was by accident, typically, and such behavior was simply collaterial damage. The obvious goal of the president was NOT to kill civilians, but to kill terrorists, with some civilians happening to get in the way. However, with Trump's war in Iran, the cruelty is the point, and it's obvious Trump and his officials like hegseth are explicitly targetting civilians and explicitly dont seem to care if they commit war crimes. Holding such actors responsible is the right thing to do, and I wanna see more of this.

However, the impeachment measure failed. It fell short by a few votes because we still have the old republican congress there, and apparently, Massie did not coordinate this effort with democrats at all. He just did it, and several democrats who could have voted for it were out of the building at the time and couldnt get back in time to vote for it, causing the measure to narrowly fail. And for some reason, this is Hakeem Jeffries' fault? Look, I think Jeffries is useless. But he's not actually incompetent, his incompetence is  more of the "weaponized" variety. I'm in the camp of wanting to replace him. However, I like to keep things real and keep our discussions to substantive criticism here. And in this regard, I dont blame Jeffries at all. he and other democrats in leadership were apparently caught off guard and weren't in any position to actually do anything useful. They also promise to take up the topic again when democrats control congress next year. So apparently this pressure to oust jeffries after his original timid statement about not doing impeachments and moving forward is resonating, where even if we dont remove him, we could at least pressure him to actually get stuff done. But yeah, I'd lay off him on this specific topic. This is just a republican chucking a spear at Xerxes to show that a god king can bleed on his way out the door (300 reference). Just a completely random thing that the democrats were clearly unprepared for, and that's why it failed (and in all fairness if republicans were equally prepared it would've failed anyway as they'd get their people in to vote against it). 

The democratic party is up to its old tricks again...

 So, Kyle Kulinski already covered this and probably said it best, but it's like this. The democratic leadership is bullying its new house members into support Hakeem Jeffries as speaker, basically stating that if they don't, they're gonna make those freshmen congresspeoples' lives "a living hell." 

*sigh*

 This is why no one likes democrats. They do this crap with voters. They tried to do it to me, to us, in 2016 onward. Remember the YOU BETTER VOTE FOR HILLARY OR ELSE crap? They do this every 4 years with "vote blue no matter who." You're not allowed to not like them. Youre not allowed to show dissent. And when you do dissent, they use public pressure to blame you, the voter, and try to gaslight you and make you feel bad for not going out of the way to elect THEM. It's a toxic culture, and is responsible for most of their losses since 2016 in my view. This whole mob boss mentality as Kyle puts it is offputting to the American people, and the reason democrats lose elections when they lose is often because democrats would rather scold their voters than meet them where they are. And it seems clear they do this stuff behind the scenes with leadership too. New congress people come in, and they're told "this is how it's going to be" and bully them to support the status quo.

I don't like Jeffries. I dont' like Schumer. They're useless. And I dont think that's accidental. They cozy up to big money and the donor class, and then the rest of the system kow tows to those peoples' interests. The other congresspeople are bullied with threatening to destroy their careers if they don't fall in line, and the voters are threatened with the republicans winning. 

And then, despite voters sending them a message telling them this crap isn't acceptable, they blow it off. It's like all those 2024 autopsies where they just lazily said the problem was specifically Joe Biden, and then decided to throw the actual data out and "just move forward" because they started winning again.  

Democrats won big this week. They won big because THIS TIME, they were sending the republicans a message about screwing with their crap. You don't mess with your typical American's living standard. As we learned with Mississippi (which was formally called tonight for Scott Colom), you don't just tell people to "pick another protein" and expect to not be completely destroyed for it. Just as you dont tell people to wear sweaters and turn the heat down like Carter tried to do in the 1970s. Although unlike with Carter, the pain people are feeling financially under Trump was purely self inflicted by idiotic policies like tariffs, the war in Iran, and poor health policies leading to parasites growing in our beef, obviously negatively impacting supply and demand (hence the "pick another protein" comments).  

However, if the democrats don't deliver for the American people, they're gonna be thrown out on their butts with the people electing the republicans again, who will next time be even MORE extreme, because they have even LESS introspection and a greater propensity for evil than the democrats do.

If the democrats decided to, instead of merely being a lesser evil, instead be a greater good, they would own the future, and every election from now through like 2040 would likely be another 2026 style blowout. Don't believe me? Look at the Reagan Revolution for the republicans. Look at the New Deal coalition for the democrats. But for that to happen, useless establishment democrats with their bull#### mob boss intimidation tactics and merely being an ineffective lesser evil on everything else have to go. Jeffries and Schumer should not be allowed to remain in leadership positions. It looks like Schumer may be ousted on the senate side, but Jeffries seems to be far more entrenched in the house.

With that said, I support the removal of both these guys. Again, I think we'll get Schumer out if I had to guess. i think we're stuck with Jeffries though. Idk. I sure hope not, but even if we did remove him, who would replace him? I really don't know. I just don't think we can allow this kind of leadership to continue in the democratic party if we want them to actually be successful and responsive to the people. 

Either way, I respect all the people, including AOC, and that guy from OH-15 who are bringing this to our attention. And I hope that those who are "fighting the power" from the inside eventually win. The future of our country depends on it in my view. It's prime time for the democrats. If they're gonna realign the parties in a positive way a la FDR or Reagan, they gotta not F this up. Jeffries and Schumer would definitely F this up.  

Have I gone soft? (or moderate...)

 So...I know I discussed my AOC take on a few places on the internet and leftists are absolutely reaming me for it. it's like, they're trying to get everyone behind AOC, and how we cant wait for the perfect candidate, AOC is what we got, blah blah blah, and I kinda sorta agree, but I ain't really happy with her for a few different reasons. With that said, I want to explain why I'm differing so much from the democratic socialists right now and how I think differently. 

A differing ideology

So, one way in which I kinda sorta AM moderating a bit is that I've evolved into a different ideological direction from democratic socialists. Long time readers will know what I'm talking about but I'll sum it up. When Bernie ran in 2016, I was ALWAYS compromising. Bernie was "the guy", he was the only guy. UBI wasn't even discussed at all in the mainstream, and I latched onto his movement as the vehicle to best get progress that I wanted done. The main point of agreement is that we need BIG changes, not small changes to the economy, and that we should have a higher minimum wage, medicare for all, and free college/student debt forgiveness. UBI was a goal but no one met that standard at the time, so I just kinda went with him.

Then 2020 happened. By then, Bernie's movement had radicalized somewhat into being literally socialistic. I never wanted actual socialism. When I supported Bernie, I wanted social democracy. I dont care what you call it, and honestly, there's this preconception in America that socialism is when the government does things. Sure, there's some weird ideological stuff behind the scenes where demsocs kinda want literal socialism some day, with Bernie's socdem platform basically being a gateway to that. And we kinda sorta saw that purity testing happen in 2020. Some of it was legitimate, we didn't want the centrists pushing insincere posers (looking at you, Kamala), who would about face on their positions once elected, but some of it turned into brainworms. I was especially dismayed when these guys would get in spats with the Yang Gang, when Yang represented what I wanted all along. And when they declared war on yang, I took it personally, because as I see it, human centered capitalism is MY ideology, and I will fiercely defend it. It's fine to criticize yang as an imperfect representative of it. it's more than fair, if anything. But at the same time, some criticisms are so unhinged that it just alienated me from the Bernie base to some degree. 

And as I started really laying out and investigating the ideological and policy differences between the two campaigns, while I did initially support Bernie more by the 2020 primary season, as I went further with this through 2021 and 2022, I've kind of realized that yeah, we only have so much fiscal room for so many policies, and we have to choose. And while I could go in the demsoc direction if I gave up on UBI....seeing how UBI is my top priority, I've instead moderated on everything else. 

I mean, green new deal was obvious. I've never been a jobist. I never liked the job guarantee. A green new deal is basically that. if we wanna accomplish results, we can do so far more cheaply, it just wont create as many jobs. Not a big deal in my ideology, if anything, the moderate direction is preferred given I'm not a jobist, but the Berniecrats are. And that's just a big sticking point where we differ. I'm not actually more moderate in that sense. If anything, my ideology is very radical on wanting to do away with work. But again, it does lead to major differences.

And over time, differences emerged on medicare for all. i think the reason I stuck with the bernie camp for so long WAS medicare for all. But once I started doing the math, I kinda became leery of the policy as well. The fact is, I dont think we can fund a UBI AND Medicare for all at the same time, at least not well. One of the two policies has to be compromised. I could cut back on my UBI ambitions and just follow the crowd, but I decided to think differently and instead double down on UBI. This also puts me at odds with the Bernie Sanders camp of democratic socialism. And as I started outlining my own ideology, and really thinking about my proposals hard for that book I've been working on, it's really become apparent to me that yeah, I can't accomplish UBI and medicare for all at the same time. It's either a watered down UBI and medicare for all, or UBI and a public option. So I downgraded my healthcare plan support down to a public option. I understand this is a pragmatic compromise and not a moral one. In principle, much like Yang, I support the spirit of medicare for all. I just don't like its price tag and struggle to find ways to pay for it while maintaining my UBI and keeping taxation at a reasonable level. 

What does this mean for 2028? Well, let's put it this way. AOC is a typical democratic socialist. She isn't really for a UBI. She's for medicare for all, she's for a green new deal. She talks about how "work has dignity" and all of that bullcrap, and I just...don't...like that. Granted, she IS better than the other four main candidates running (Harris, Newsom, Buttigieg, Ossoff), I mean, keep in mind, for as much as I differ with the demsocs, I don't like third way slop. I hate the centrist wing of the democratic party with a passion, I see them as diet republicans, and I want change. But I also don't feel quite at home with the demsocs any more and aint overly impressed by their platform. I'm kind of my own thing, and while I view demsocs more favorably than moderates, that doesn't mean that I'm really passionate about demsocs either. 

And let's actually discuss 2028

Okay, so let's establish this. Of the five main candidates expected to run, AOC is the best. We gotta fight with the army we have, not the one we want. And we progressives gotta stick together over the centrists, okay fine. 

Well let's do the math. AOC is like....13% of the democratic primary vote right now. With the majority dominated by centrist types. Even if AOC expanded that to 20%...30%....even 40%....the centrist wing is just gonna swoop in and crush her anyway, organizing themselves to all drop out except one guy and then coalesce around them. And that's our 2028 nominee. I've seen this song and dance before, it happened in 2020 with bernie and Biden. With that said, we don't have the votes. It might be more productive to try to pull one of the centrists into a McMorrow lane of the party instead. Get some ideological concessions closer to some of those compromise positions I'm for like a public option and get crap done that way. 

Another reason this might be the play: AOC has HORRIBLE general election numbers so far. I admit, it's early. And the polling data I cited yesterday is quite old. But if AOC did somehow make it through the gauntlet of the primaries, which are very much stacked against her, she still has to win the general. And as I said, the data so far isn't showing that AOC can win. This isn't 2016 where I could argue with all seriousness that Bernie could run away with it and would do better than Hillary. No. Right now, AOC is the only candidate with consistently bad numbers from multiple polls. She's the worst polling candidate for 2024, and the only one who would straight up LOSE to Vance or Rubio. 

That's kind of the reality of the democrats in 2026 and 2028. While we certainly can win with progressives in some areas of the country. Troy jackson won in Maine, Abdul El Sayed won in Michigan, Annie Andrews won in South Carolina, and we even had Angie Nixon almost pull it off in Florida, nationally, AOC just has uniquely poor numbers. And I'm not sure people have an appetite for her politics. I do believe Americans are still populists who want change. But they are woefully ignorant on the change they want or need. Like they dont know what they want. You can tell them solutions and then they'll argue against them for the status quo, they're philosophically incoherent as a result of being ignorant on the issues. But I know this. The democratic coalition we just elected is unique. It has centrists in it, it has progressives in it, it has everything in between. And at some point, we all gotta work together somewhat. yes, we absolutely should push things left as we can, but above all, we need to WIN. The GOP is an existential threat to democracy. We just survived two years of fascism. Our counter revolution starts now. But here's the thing, the stakes couldn't be higher. The GOP isn't learning from their defeats well. Theyre doubling down and saying they lost because they werent extreme enough. With that said, think of right now as starting to take a course of antibiotics. You know how when you do, youre told, even if you start feeling better, DO NOT stop taking them until the prescription is through? They do that because if you do, the bacteria will come back and even worse possibly be resistant to that anti biotic. You wanna make sure you take ALL of your meds to make sure the disease is gone. The disease is fascism. And we can't do this half ###ed. We gotta deal a generational blow to the republican party and make sure we DESTROY it FDR style. But we can't do that if we lose. And if the data says running a demsoc like AOC risks losing to a republican, then i say we pick someone else. Period. If the data changes, Ill change my mind, and it's STILL early. It's not even 2027 yet.  But as long as she loses, I dont want to risk it with her.

At the same time, I do recognize the risk of doing nothing. If we elect a do nothing centrist, the public will turn on the democrats too. And we'll lose THAT way. So what's the play? To push the most progressive candidate that we can that's still electable. And we don't know who that is yet. And honestly, 2028 is still 2 years away. I'd rather spend at least the beginning of 2027 in "wait and see mode" and allow the situation to develop before taking a firmer "side." And that's what I'm doing. I'm not saying "I won't support AOC." If she's the best candidate, I will. But I'm kind of holding out and hoping for some new development that changes the calculus, or at least we get more data where I can feel more justified in supporting AOC. 

If AOC is the best candidate for the job, morally, but also electorally, then yeah, I'll support her. hell, I don't even need her to be the most electable candidate relative to the moderates. i just need her to WIN. As we just saw, I was willing to back progressives who polled around 1-2 points below the moderates. But with AOC right now, we're talking something like 4-10 points. AOC LOSES by 2-5 while the others WIN by 2-5. Again, we need someone who can win. The stakes are too high to just stand on principle. 

Conclusion

So yeah, I feel like I'm regurgitating a lot of what I said, but that's my stance. Ideologically, I differ enough from the democratic socialists that I feel like I'm already compromising with them. The fact is, no one actually represents my politics well except maybe Andrew yang, and he kinda sucks at it. But let's say AOC is the best person for the job. SHe might be, I'll still take a democratic socialist over a third way moderate, at least in principle. The next question is, CAN SHE WIN?! And the evidence I've seen seems to be going the other way. Until the evidence starts backing up the viewpoint that she can, I don't see any reason to commit to her, even if I heavily prefer her policy wise over the centrist wing of the party. 

Quite frankly, I'm just kinda hoping and waiting for a development that kind of gives me a better option. Maybe another progressive with better numbers jumps in. Maybe someone with a better platform does. We'll see. I just aint happy with my 2028 options so far, and I kinda wanna wait until the situation develops before I really commit to any one side. 

So let's discuss 2028...

 So....let's have a more serious discussion about 2028, and what awaits us in this upcoming potential dumpster fire of an election cycle. 

Republicans

Up to election day 2026, the 2028 republican primary has mostly been a two way race between JD Vance and Marco Rubio. I'm not sure if this pattern is gonna stick given how badly the republicans just got smashed. people are saying Vance's career is functionally over, and while Rubio is rumored to resign as secretary of state soon and very quickly distance himself from the Trump administration, the point is, if this is the field, people are toast.

Lurking conservative circles, it comes off like a lot of these guys are looking to shift to DeSantis. I mean, I can see why. He's MAGA enough to attract the base, but also distant enough from the current administration to not be as much of a liability. Still, given how extremely he's governed Florida, I don't think that he's really well positioned to be the nominee either. I think the public is turning on MAGA not JUST for economic reasons, but also all the fascism, and well, he'd kinda continue it. Of course, that IS what the BASE wants. As I've said previously, the base is extreme, even if the public turns on it. And a lot of MAGAts are basically going in the direction of "well MAGA lost because we weren't extreme ENOUGH!" So this might be a F around and find out move for them. 

Beyond that, you got other candidates. RFK Jr, who has been a disaster. Wouldnt be surprised if even his base is turning on them. I heard that measles coming back kinda pissed off some in rural southern communities who are dealing with it. Nikki Haley is a good moderate candidate. Like Marco Rubio without the baggage. But she's Indian, and as we saw with Ramaswamy, some racists would rather vote for a democrat than vote for an Indian for some reason. Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson, and a few others are on there too but have very little support. Kinda dismal. 

If I were a republican, of those options, I'd want Haley, just saying. I think the GOP needs to moderate and come back to sanity, and Haley is a very accomplished moderate who would make a decent commander in chief. I'd never vote for her as a democrat, but meh, if I were conservative still, and I really thought about it like I did back then, yeah, I'd go Haley. Or maybe Chris Christie or Mike Pence if they ran. Just get away from MAGA and go back in the moderate direction.

Of course, the propensity of MAGA to keep electing batcrap insane extremist psychopaths is also part of why I left, so...yeah. let's face it, that republican party of yesteryear is dead, and we're more likely to see the groypers take over than to see them moderate. 

Democrats

I'm gonna be honest. I am NOT happy with my choices of democrats. Long story short, the moderates are too moderate, and AOC just...isn't it for me. There are around five viable candidates. Kamala Harris is polling the best in the primary aggregates, although she's kinda the default option. After her 2024 campaign, I've soured on her. I could've kinda got behind her if she still had the same progressive flair that she did in 2020, but bleh. Gavin Newsom has some anti trump flair, but other than that he's kinda a centrist. Buttigieg is also quite centrist, kinda like a Joe Biden who never tried to compromise with the left. John ossoff is basically a wannabe Obama. And AOC...well...let's explain AOC a bit since I just got some grief from a leftist tonight for not being gung ho on her.

AOC is a leftist, but I'm not really. Sure, Im to the left of the rest of the democratic party, but I'm more a Yang style human centered capitalism, and she's more a conventional leftist. I want UBI, a public option, and build back better style climate policy, and she is more into the green new deal and medicare for all (single payer). I mean, is it better than the centrists who wanna do nothing? Sure, but I kinda occupy that wing of the party to the right of DSA, but not quite centrist. ya know, kinda like Mallory McMorrow, or James Talarico in a way. my biggest "leftist" style instinct is UBI these days, otherwise, I've moderated to make more fiscal room for it. Still, would I take a "democratic centrist" over a centrist? Absolutely. I am just kinda holding my breath hoping a better candidate comes out of the woodwork. I would actually like to see Yang run as a democrat again. Although he does have flaws too. 

Beyond that, let's be real about AOC....she's not gonna be elected. Look at the polling data above. She's the only leftist candidate at 12.5% of the electorate, and the rest of the field is going to coalesce behind some centrist. And for anyone thinking AOC can improve her numbers, eh....I've seen this before. It's 2020 all over again. She can maybe pull off a win in a divided field, but the centrists will consolidate behind one of those four candidates again, or maybe even whoever else breaks through, and then we lose.

Even if she made it to the general, and there IS polling data on this...can we talk about her numbers? She's literally the only candidate with consistent losses to the both Vance and Rubio across ALL polls so far. Yeah, you also have one Harris poll that's R+5 vs Rubio, but at least another poll suggests she can win. AOC is uniquely bad polling wise and the country is NOT in the mood for a democratic socialist right now. Sadly, the moderates are winning the ideological war right now, and if we ran AOC, it would do more harm than good. Hell, none of the candidates have the bonkers numbers I suggested yesterday with my simulation model. The best one is Buttigieg being around D+5, the others are around D+2-3 with AOC being like R+4. 

Let's look at what this looks like electorally.

 YIKES. So worse than harris 2024? yeah, Worse than harris 2024. if she somehow made it out of the battle royale that is the primary, with the rest of the party probably teaming up against her like they did with bernie in 2020, she'd go on to lose to both Vance and Rubio. Given the wins we just got last week, this is embarrassing, and the centrists will insist that they were right and that progressives cant win. This isnt Bernie 2016 where he outpolled Clinton by a landslide, or even 2020 where Bernie polled like 1-2 points below Biden but was still arguably electable. She's just uniquely bad polling wise right now. Even Greasy Gavin has better numbers than her at this point. Just yikes.

Meanwhile, most democrats have popular vote margins around D+2-D+5. Let's say a D+3.5 average margin among the centrist candidates, with Harris being the only one who actually struggles at all. 

 Here we win 6 of the 7 swing states with AZ being the only R victory. We have a comfortable 80% chance of victory, and while it is very possible we can underperform, it's also possible that Vance or Rubio won't have the charisma that Trump does. This is not some major 2026 style win, and for all we know, maybe the current polling data is vastly underestimating democrats. I mean, how can the democrats do so good they just cracked Texas, Iowa, Kansas, and Mississippi, but they perform so narrowly here? Maybe the electorate does think differently about presidential races. In 2026, republicans had typical level turnout, but democrats had presidential level turnout. In 2028, we'll have presidential level turnout. So if republicans come out in greater numbers, our margins go down, and we dont get the fancy blowout map we just had last week. And while I am of the opinion elections are won by enthusiasm and you need a progressive to turn out the base, if AOC is just alienating that same electorate where the republicans flat out win numerically, well, that's counterproductive. Think about it. We're in an era of conservative fascism. We gotta focus on winning above anything else. I've been thinking about this for a while, but it's not 2016 any more. The map is different, the zeitgeist is different, and the electorate is just in a different place mentally. We gotta adapt too. Doesnt mean we should give up our ideals (even if I did go in a different direction from the demsocs), but it does mean we gotta be adaptable. Win where we can, but play strategically where we have to. I think a fusionist strategy a la Mallory McMorrow or James Talarico is better than an outright AOC style socialist for a presidential run. We need someone who can get stuff done, but isnt so extreme they alienate the normies. Even if they're not everything I want, I'll vote for them, just to get the most that I can at this current stage of time. That's why Im currently not gonna endorse anyone, go be gung ho on anyone. it's still early. I wanna see who runs, what they run on, what "wing" of the party they represent, and go from there. I certainly dont want the most centrist or corporatist candidate. But neither do I want some leftist with ideas that contradict my own and who can't win. 

At the same time, I'll say this, I'm open to changing my mind. The polling data is still early and post 2024, we MIGHT see a more progressive map. If I had to predict the 2028 election, I'm guessing we're ultimately gonna get a 319-219 map kinda like this:

 I dont think we're flip those R+13 states that mostly went D this past election cycle. But can we win the big 7? Absolutely. And that is my primary goal electorally. As much as I'd like to deal the GOP a generational blow again and again, I dont think its realistic that we replicate last week's wins if the current polling is closer to a more neutral map. Last week was bonkers, but Im not sure we can carry that kind of energy into every cycle, especially if MAGA comes out to vote more strongly in 2028. 

A note on "centrism" in the democratic party

Speaking of 2026 though, I do wanna address this. I know I was watching Kyle Kulinski and he was talking about how the centrists are trying to "rat####" the progressive wing of the party. It is true, they're trying to manufacture consent for centrism, but COME ON, look at the map. We won seats in mostly deep south states. A lot of those new guys ARE going to be more conservative than we like. You ain't gonna run a socialist in say, Kansas and win. I mean, come on. 

WITH THAT SAID, I don't think we should go centrist. As I see it, the American people have legit economic concerns, and if the centrist wing decides to sit on their hands and do nothing, they'll be voted out. Still, that doesnt mean they want leftism. Not everyone who won was Abdul El Sayed. I don't think they're all Adam Hamilton or Scott Colom either, I mean, James Talarico is pretty progressive and populist for Texas. He just codes conservatively because he talks about Jesus nonstop. Annie Andrews seems to be outing herself as like a Warrencrat. She probably won't govern from the center that much. El Sayed, Flannagan, and Jackson are all northern progressives with much more progressive platforms too. So no, we didn't win just centrists. We won people ALL OVER the spectrum. I dont think the hard left is gonna have the numbers to do everything they want. hell, until 2028, I think we're gonna have a very unproductive congress constantly stonewalled by Trump and possibly senate republicans if we keep the filibuster around. But you know what? Again, the answer is compromise between the centrists and progressives. Instead of medicare for all, we go for a public option. Instead of a green new deal, we go for build back better again. Instead of UBI, maybe we'll get some tax credits or something. 

I know, i know, even expecting this might be setting myself up for disappontment, but I'll say, if the democrats DONT do at least SOMETHING, they're gonna be out on their ###es in a few years. if the democrats wanna seal the deal and make this a generational realignment, they gotta act. They cant just do the centrism game here like they did with Clinton, Biden, and Harris. The voters wont stand for it. Again, maybe a socialist cant win, but that doesnt mean we should do nothing either. Im trying to suggest a middle ground here. And in 2028, I'm STILL going to be looking for candidates willing to meet the moment, who move things the furthest in my direction they can, and who are willing to fight for change. AOC looks like she's gonna lose by 3-5 if she runs...but James Talarico just won Texas by TWELVE. if you're saying we can't do ANYTHING because "centrism wins", then STFU, because Talarico isnt exactly a centrist, he's kind of one of those progressive populist fusionists Im talking about. 

Conclusion

With that said, 2028 is gonna be an ugly king of the hill match on both sides. The top candidates of JD Vance and Marco Rubio on the republican side might implode, and who knows what happens on the democrats. I admit, Im not hot on any specific democrat, but that also makes me uncommitted to any of them. I'm open minded and I will go for the candidate I ultimately decide is best. On AOC, yeah she's the closest policy wise to what I want, but she aint really what I want, and the way it looks so far, she's flat out not electable. Let's be realistic. We're gonna get someone to AOC's right. The real question is how far left can we drag that candidate kicking and screaming while still ensuring they remain electable. And that's what my goal is for 2028. I aint giving up on my ambitions, but I am scaling them down and trying to figure out what we can get away with and what we can't. Again, it's not 2016 any more, and we gotta adapt to the modern era, so let's adapt, or else we'll be left behind. I'll still stand by my ideals, but as far as candidates I'll endorse and vote for, well, let's see where 2028 goes. Im not going to commit to anything at this time. 

My way too early look at the 2028 presidential map

So...I started putting together my model for 2028, it's still early, and one thing I really wondered was "hmm, so what is this map going to look like, what are the states that are going to be in play?" Based on 2024 and how people voted, here's my attempt to create it.

First, assumptions. This is based on actual 2024 presidential election data from wikipedia. You can see how this lines up in my model here: 

 

I'm going to apply a shift to the data based on shifts to the generic congressional vote. In 2024, the baseline generic congressional vote was R+2.7. This will give us an objective measuring stick that we can apply, say, the midterms to. We don't know exactly where the 2028 map will end up yet, but I would assume, relative to 2024, it will likely be to its left. With that said, I constructed this chart specifically to allow for massive electoral shifts to the left. The original version of this, which I created after 2024, stopped at texas, and the shifts we saw this year were so big I couldnt even account for the shift. Like it literally broke the model and its assumptions. That said, I had to redesign the map for this year to allow for much larger shifts to the left. This is why I cut out anything to the left of Maine, while adding a bunch of R+20 states. Because uh, if this midterm was any indication, some of those MIGHT be in play. With that said, let's begin.

So, first, let's start with a relatively neutral map, say, a GCV D+0.

Here, we get a pretty fair map, and one that would have given Harris a mild win in 2024. 286-252. If the republicans can claw back the national environment back to neutrality, they might have a chance. I mean, here, the race is only tilt D, functionally a tossup, with the democrats having a 59% chance of winning. This might be a best case scenario for the republicans this time around, given the depths of hell they have sank to.

With that said, let's say we step things up a notch. Here's a D+4 generic vote environment: 

 

 

This would've been a pretty crushing defeat for the democrats this year if it happened in the senate, the republicans would have overperformed the model by about 5, and the republicans would have kept the senate. This is why, going into 2026, I really thought the senate was a long shot for democrats. While this map would have allowed Harris to capture the 7 swing states pretty comfortably, and put the electoral college well out of reach for Donald Trump, I remember eyeing those R+10-14 states in 2025 and was like, yeah no, no way we're winning the senate, look at how insanely far the democrats would have to pull the national environment. And we see that here. Like, 319 is the ceiling for democrats unless you get some really crazy polling shifts happening.

With that said, let's step up things another notch. Here's the map if the GCV of 8.8% that was predicted this year by RCP actually happened:

For the senate, this STILL looks to the right of the map that was PREDICTED there. I mean, we're seeing Ohio and Maine 2 become tossups, with Iowa, Texas, Alaska, and Florida all become lean R, but in the real world, we actually all these states, minus Florida, go blue. So yeah. This could be what the 2028 map looks like, and if we're around D+9 or so, this is where I would expect the presidential race to be at. But wait, it gets worse (or better, depending on what side you're on).

Here's what a D+12.7 environment looks like, ie, how people ACTUALLY voted in 2026.

Here, the republicans are just...toast. They're losing Ohio by lean/likely D margins depending how you define them (I tend to go by 1/4/8 but I know this sub likes 2/5/10). This isn't far off from the margin Sherrod Brown won his senate race, and still underperforms Amy Acton's vote share. Florida, Alaska, Iowa, and Texas are all lean D. Kansas is a tossup, tilting toward Rs. And now we're seeing states like South Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana go lean R. And keep in mind, we DID flip Kansas, and we DID flip South Carolina in the real world 2026 Senate elections. So again, if you think anything I'm saying is unrealistic, minus maybe Blorida (which in the real world went like R+1-3), uh, yeah, cross reference this with the senate results, we're not very off at all.

And to take things one step further. Let's do a D+15 congressional vote, as if things couldn't get worse for republicans.

Again, we're seeing things that had with the senate happen here. Blue Kansas, for example. South Carolina a tossup. MIssouri is also a tossup. Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, and Utah are all lean R states. Louisiana and Mississippi are likely R, but they're only around R+4-6 here.

So yeah. This is a preview of what awaits us in 2028. If we get 2026 blowout style numbers we actually COULD see something similar to what happened then happen on the presidential level, with democrats getting 400+ electoral votes.

Of course, a lot can happen in 2 years. We might see the democrats put up a really bad polling candidate like, say, AOC. We could see the GOP get their crap together. Presidential level turnout might simply close the gap allowing republicans to do better, where low propensity lean R voters who sat out the midterms show up for Vance/Rubio/DeSantis. I honestly think there's a high degree of confidence the democrats will take the white house in 2028. Keep in mind, even a neutral generic vote slightly favors the democrats with a 286-252 win. But yeah, given the environment is probably something...between 2024 numbers and 2026 numbers, I would probably give it to democrats. Still, where we end up in 2028 map wise is debatable. If we get a favorable map for the GOP, it's back to the old reliable 7 swing states of 2020 and 2024. However, if we see the democrats able to capitalize on the map they just got for the senate, we could see all of those states that were once unthinkable for democrats to flip to actually be swing states in 2028. We'll have to see I guess.

Why Christians find me so offputting

 So....some Christians find me to be an ###hole. I know it. I don't deny it. I don't really intend to change. But I did want to do some self reflection on it and explain it. It's been an issue I've known about for a while. I've arguably lost friends over it before. And more recently, I got told that I don't understand someone and how offputting simply telling someone to keep their religious ideas to themselves in and not force them on me in the public square, so I want to explain it from my perspective.

In this country, we got a problem with Christian nationalism. We got fundamentalist, evangelical Christians who basically want us to be a "Christian nation" and who basically want the laws and morals of this country to reflect their religion. While they won't explicitly coerce people to convert, their preferred policies basically puts their morality into law, and forces it on the rest of us, and when I tell them I don't want that, they tend to get all uppity about it. Like we're supposed to respect the fact that they literally believe that God told them to advance their religion and that they have higher loyalties to that religion over say, the laws of the constitution. 

The problem is...the rest of us, don't want to live under their morals and their laws. And we DO believe that laws should be secular. I mean, don't get me wrong, despite my own dislike of religion, I fundamentally believe that people have freedom of religion. However, freedom to exercise religion stops when it basically becomes an establishment of religion within government, and it's forced on me. You're free to practice your religion as YOU want, but the second you impose it on me, that's a problem. Like really, am I supposed to be sympathetic with the "no no you dont understand, god commanded this of me, i cant not do this" crap? No, if anything, that makes you even more dangerous because youre literally a zealot. It's basically, because THEY believe that god commanded certain things of them, that god also commanded those things of all of us, and we gotta live according to their laws. In which case, i'm very bluntly gonna tell such people to go F themselves. Like, this is the whole paradox of tolerance at work. And how we can't tolerate the intolerant. Because when we do that, the intolerant will basically destroy tolerance of those different from them themselves.  

But, to be fair, my offputtingness isn't just straight up telling christian nationalists to F off. Even liberal christians sometimes got a problem with me. And I think it comes down to this. I admit, I got my own biases against christianity. Let's just say I was a christian before, I considered it a net negative experience on the whole. I left for a reason. I dont ever wanna go back. Even more so, after leaving the religion, I literally REBUILT MY OWN WORLDVIEW FROM THE GROUND UP. Like full stop. And this sometimes leads to me to conflict with a largely Christian worldview. And Christians have a lot of, shall we call it...privilege in modern society. Like, the world already revolves around them and their morals in the US. It's as natural as breathing air. Even if we exclude the crazy christian nationalist types. Take WORK ETHIC. That stuff as Christian origins. The modern work ethic didnt arise in a vacuum, it literally came from calvinism, and was secularized and twisted into what it is today. And when I come around, with this rebuilt philosophical worldview around secular humanism and the New Atheist perspective, i very much clash with this Christian perspective. 

And it's like that on EVERYTHING politically. A lot of people seem hung up on strange oughts and shoulds with morality and how people SHOULD live their lives, and when I investigate WHY people think a certain way, it becomes obvious that this originates from Christianity. Most christians dont notice it because it's just kind of natural. They dont think about it, they don't challenge it, they dont question it. They just enjoy their religion's philosophical hegemony over their lives, and act like I'm weird for pointing it out and opposing it. And that's the thing. Me simply thinking differently and being on that different level of thought often comes off as a challenge to them. It comes off like "come on now, now you're challenging THIS social convention that we all just take for granted? are you crazy?" No, actually. If anything, I'm sane and rational in everyone else's insane world.

And actually, we see a lot of this crap at play A LOT on our culture. Take the past election cycle. We had abdul el sayed being a muslim. A very inoffensive muslim. Totally not a guy who wants to impose Sharia law on people, but simply NOT having the religious conditioning of christianity made him dangerous. The christian right lost their minds over this guy so hard acting like he wanted to impose islam on everyone simply for existing. And the dude just...didn't have the same christian indoctrination, and people treated him as less American and less trustworthy for it. 

Atheists get the same treatment. A lot of evangelicals will believe atheists cant be trusted to be moral because they dont believe a god is watching them to keep them in check. Like lacking that belief system just makes them less trustworthy. And electing them to public office, forget it. A lot of the christian right fundamentally opposes secular humanism as an ideology and will wage an entire culture war against the progressive left, which doesnt share their values. 

The fact is, these guys cant tolerate ANYTHING that doesnt reflect their values, and I'll not only NOT reflect their values, but fight them on it push comes to shove and that really just leaves a bad taste in peoples' mouths. And that's the thing, going back to me. Just as they will quickly lose their crap when anything doesnt reflect their value system by default, I'll also point out when something is at odds with mine, or even point out the christian origins of some practice (like work ethic) that I quite frankly find irrational. And just doing this seems to send a lot of christians into a tizzy. They'll be like "we get it, you hate god, can you shut up already?" And my opinion is this. No. I won't shut up until you guys stop imposing your crap on me by default. Again, to these guys, christianity is as natural to them as water is to a fish. It's something so natural to them that when an environment lacks it, they'll VERY quickly notice and see it as hostile, ya know, kinda like how lacking air for us means we suffocate, even though you cant SEE air. You know? 

And again, that's my beef. I'm the guy that will point out and call out the influence this religion has and explain why I dont think why things should work that way, and how they should work instead, to which they just write me off as some ###hole atheist who wont stop dunking on their religion.

But to go back to say, Abdul El Sayed, I'll say this in my defense. He's muslim. And yet, I have no problem with him, despite not being any more favorable to Islam than I am to Christianity. Why? Because Abdul isn't trying to impose his islam onto me and my life. If I went over to say, Saudi Arabia, I'd have far MORE problems with living over there than i do in the US with Christianity. Because they're even more fundamentalist, and they do impose their beliefs onto others. Hell, I'd never go over to a country like that, because I dont wanna be beheaded to have my rights taken away for not believing in their religion. And I wouldnt wanna be forced to live according to their laws. I reject theocracy, and I also reject the implicit culture being based on a religion i dont even believe in.

The same is true of Christianity. And while I get it, after leaving religion, I was an "angsty atheist" for a while. A lot of us are like that in the aftermath of leaving. It's kind of a trauma response associated with the massive worldview shift you go through in leaving religion. For a while you just feel angry and cant help but dunk on your old religion. But eventually that gets boring, you kinda wanna move beyond the whole "hey did you know what sucks? christianity" part of your ex christian life, and it generally becomes more a live and let live situation. It's more, okay, you can believe what you want. You might even have decent reasons if your faith in god is based on like, personal anecdotal experiences or whatever (keep in mind even I have my own spirituality these days). Just...dont try to impose that crap onto me.

But again, that goes back to why a lot of us feel like we still gotta fight in political terms. Because this religion has this weird cultural hegemony over us, and we often are forced to live in ways we otherwise wouldnt want to because a bunch of religious people think that's just the way things should be and we're wrong if we dont think that even if it's irrational and has no real purpose outside of that religion. And even worse, we DO have religious fundamentalists who wanna make their morals the law of the land, and we DO have to take exception to that, because we quite frankly DONT WANNA BE GOVERNED BY THAT CRAP! Like again, it's fine if you have your beliefs, and you wanna practice privately, and you wanna live and let live. My problem these days mostly comes down to religion being imposed on me, and me wanting to live a life free of their, quite frankly, irrational and unjustifiable religious beliefs. And I'm sorry if I'm an "angstheist" or whatever for thinking that, but that's how I think, and I'm not sorry for that at all. 

And yeah, that's just my view on it, after significant self reflection about it over time.  

Discussing the idea that real innovation is a $300 console

 So, some ex Playstation guy is finally making sense saying what the PS6 eventually needs isn't more teraflops and ray tracing, but to do what we're already doing cheaper. 

And uh, this is kind of a no brainer for me. As I said, we've reached peak gaming. We're not seeing a lot of progress from more raw specs. We're just getting more unoptimized games that look slightly better than the previous generation, on hardware that costs way too much money, with the games costing way too much money, and the situation feeling unaffordable. As I look toward the future, I'm literally thinking, if hardware doesn't come down in price, I'm checking out next gen. I mean, Im not very satisfied with the state of modern gaming in general and find myself drawn more and more to the previous generations where games are cheaper and still fun to play. Obviously not all past games are winner, but the same is true today. The best still hold up though. And if the cost of entry is gonna be high for next gen, it's just...well...forget that, i'm going to just double down on that retro direction. 

As I see it, progress is exactly what this guy said. What made progress happen technologically is moore's law. Because we could roughly double processing power every 18 months, after about 4-5 years, we'd have 8x the power for generally the same amount of money. And because gaming was in its infancy in the 90s and even early 2000s still, generational leaps in compute power could cause generational leaps in gaming in general. However, eventually, we get to the point where enough is enough. I'd say gaming was "mature" by generation 7, although generation 8's processing power allowed for more open worlds, higher resolutions, and better frame rates. But that's where things started to stagnate. Now gen 9 just feels like gen 8 game play wise, just with slightly better graphics, but also jankier games, and it feels like with moore's law beginning to break down, the whole industry is beginning to cannibalize itself. And something has to give. For me, the answer is obvious. Rather than focus on making things better, we SHOULD focus on doing the same thing more cheaply. Like, at this point, we got smartphones as powerful as PS4s. If you have at least a snapdragon 8 gen 2 and 8 GB ram, congrats, you got a potential PS4 in raw processing power in your pocket. And that could play games like fallout 4, the witcher 3, and battlefield 4, 1, and 5. Why do we NEED more? And that's where "next gen" has fallen flat. For as great as cyberpunk is, what does it offer other than higher fidelity graphics that GTA V didn't? And remember, the original version of that could run on a PS3, and some people with more powerful phones are emulating the PC version on their phones. Starfield, was it better than fallout 4 or skyrim? I doubt anyone would say it was. Borderlands 4 is a joke while borderlands 2 runs on a potato these days. There's no reason the overwhelming majority of PS5 titles can't be scaled down graphically to run on phones, and with that PC emulation I mentioned, i wouldnt be surprised if Valve eventually did make a full blown arm/android solution for steam that's official. 

And for me, that's the future I want. To be able to play my games on ANY device. I mean Im not a console guy, I dont wanna be tethered to an ecosystem designed to extract maximum revenue from me. I want my games to run on ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. I want to be able to play doom on my toaster or smart fridge, in theory, assuming it had an operating system that allowed installing programs. 

I dont want more power. I want more versatility. I want to see my games run on cheaper and cheaper devices. And I want new games to run on existing hardware. Keep in mind, if Im gonna be paying for a new system, a new GPU, a new CPU, Im gonna want better games that look noticably better and do something different from games in the past. Ray tracing isnt it. And given games look "good enough" and have looked "good enough" for about 10 years by this point, Im not really interested in higher fidelity graphics at a price I cant afford.

But if I can run GTA5 (or even 6 when it comes out) on say, my phone, or some $300 mini PC or something, yeah, that's a big fricking deal. And i aint saying every game has to be scaled down to run on mobile. BUT...it shouldnt be scaled up to run on hardware no one can reasonably afford either. It's a balance.  

Reminder: elections are won by enthusiasm

 So....as the data on how people voted in 2026 comes out, the message is clear, the public wants change and what drove democrats to victory was enthusiasm. A huge wave of voters who didnt vote in 2024 came out to support democrats, while republicans were relatively demotivated and stayed home. 

This isnt super surprising given my analysis of previous elections. Wave elections tend to involve that. The base in power stays home, and the base out of power comes out in large numbers against the opposition. And we had a lot of people who stayed out in 2024 who came out this year. And they're PISSED. 

Why do I mention this? Because I've seen this happen before. People came out in massive numbers in 2008 for Barack Obama, but then they stayed home in subsequent elections, with democrats ignoring them and going in the direction of appealing to high propensity moderates who they believed to be more reliable. Of course, this strategy was a failure and just demotivated the lower propensity voters. But now with Trump screwing up THIS BADLY people came out in DROVES. 

And I just wanna say this. My thesis here is the same as it was during the Obama era. If democrats want to remain top dog, they have to do what the people want. Their governance has to be popular. They cant just sit on their hands and do nothing and then scold people for not turning out. You want these people out every election? You gotta do what they want. That means getting cost of living down, fixing the economy (including healthcare!), and holding the Trump administration accountable for crimes. Rolling back disastrous immigration enforcement, without being for "open borders." You need to keep these people invested so they come out again and again. Thats what Obama didnt do. When 2008 happened, he forgave the bankers who caused it, implemented mild reforms that only kinda sorta solved the problems. And then that massive wave Obama had evaporated and republicans came out and voted AGAINST Obama. 

We can say "well those people need to come out and vote every time", but think of it from the perspective of people seeing coming out as an inconvenience. It takes time and energy to come out and vote. People arent going to do it if they dont feel invested or they feel like both sides suck and nothing is gonna change because it's all corrupt. What's driving this wave is that Trump is just SO FRICKING AWFUL that people who dont normally come out and coming out to stop him and to fix the economy at least somewhat. But if democrats wanna KEEP those voters, they gotta actually do what they want them to do. And they gotta make it EASIER to vote, not harder. Republicans wanna make it harder because they WANT to demotivate people, the lower turnout, the better they do. Democrats need to expand voting to make it easy and convenient, and they gotta give people a reason to support them. That's how things work. This is human nature. You can scold people all you want, but you gotta motivate people and democrats suck at it. Democracy belongs to the voters, not to the party and the politicians. They're our SERVANTS. We are their BOSSES. We just fired a bunch of republicans and hired a bunch of democrats. But democrats gotta perform or the people will fire them again. It's that simple. 

So I hope democrats actually do things with their power. Dont just sit on their hands and let bygones be bygones. REIN. TRUMP. IN. FIX. HIS. CRAP. And fix the other stuff we've BEEN complaining about while were at it. It's that simple. 

Defending Schumer on not funding Angie Nixon

 So...as we know, I'm very critical of Chuck Schumer. However, he also is kind of the mastermind of the victory we just had. He controlled the democrats' purse strings and decided who got funded and who didn't. And he didn't fund Angie Nixon in Florida, and a lot of progressive are blasting him over it, claiming it was ideological. Maybe it was. The centrists want the party to remain centrist and I know Schumer did pick some stinkers for the primaries like Janet Mills for example. He was also for Haley Stevens in Michigan. BUT....he did come around to support Troy Jackson, and Abdul El Sayed, and he has been willing to at times support progressives when the populace arm wrestled him into doing it.

On Angie Nixon....I'll explain why he didn't put money into it. It was FLORIDA. For most of the cycle, Florida has been an R+6-8 state. By my own statistics, Nixon had around a five percent chance of winning, and while we were lucky, we werent THAT lucky. Progressives argue if only we put a few million into that race, we could have flipped it a few more points. The problem is, let's go back to before the election. We got my election map, and we want a majority. What do we do?

Well, the answer is simple. We put the money where it does the most good. We dont know what direction the polling error is going in. If anything, I spent most of the cycle saying this map is TOO good as it is, and that we should play defensively to make sure we can get a simple majority. I get it, in hindsight, we overperformed this map. But we very well could've underperformed. if instead of getting D+3, we got R+3, then we'd be struggling just to get a simple majority. We'd be struggling to get Maine and Kansas and Ohio and Texas. We can say goodbye to Alaska in such a situation, and Iowa, and getting South Carolina and Mississippi? Dont make me laugh. 

I went into 2026 with this thesis. Flipping the senate was darned near impossible. Not only would we need to hold Michigan and flip North Carolina and Maine, we'd need to break into Trump+13 states like Texas, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, and Alaska. I thought, okay, maybe we can get Ohio if Brown runs, but how can we get the other four? But then the map came to us. And we started seeing most of those, minus florida, flip in the polls. And we even got Kansas to flip. And that's the thing. Those states were COMPETITIVE. We COULD win. We were straight up favored, and even if the polls flipped the other way, we could put up a fight. And then you gotta keep in mind other things going on. South Carolina came within a point or two, with Annie Andrews' internals showing a dead heat. So Schumer was like, a few million for South Carolina. And both campaigns seemed to get a whiff of something happening in Mississippi. A bit of a long shot, but hey, even spending a little money there could force the GOP to divert funds away from more important battlegrounds. I wouldnt expect to win there, but I could see an argument for funding it. 

But Florida? It was too long of a long shot. Republicans outspent the democrats. Democrats had scarce resources relatively speaking and had to allocate them well. In a state where we had a 15% or 30% chance of winning, spreading a couple million there could cause the GOP to divert more of its massive war chest playing defense. But when you start getting R+6, or R+8, it's like, forget it. Sure theres a 5% shot but thats like betting on a 20-1 horse at the races. Okay, a 5-1 like Mississippi, okay, cant hurt to put a $2 bet down. 2-1 like South Carolina, yeah, play that crap. but 18-1 or 20-1 or whatever? Youre throwing money away. Just approaching it from a gambling perspective. 

And imagine this. The winnings of betting on a 20-1 horse pays the same as a 2-1 one. It isnt like a casino, one win is one senator. So yeah, your allocation is best spent on the races where we're already favored, or where when not favored, it's still within a reasonable realm of possibility. 

All in all, think about it in terms of the denotations of races we have. "Safe" races, you just dont invest in. No return on investment. You could blow your whole bank account there, and not get any returns. Likely races can flip, but they're long shots. Maybe you'll get 1 or 2 a cycle, but normally they dont flip. Leans, tilts, and tossups are where the money is. And Schumer did play it beautifully from that perspective, he put the money into the races he knew he could flip, he put a little investment into races that were lean R, but didnt go overboard with them, and he focused on what he could win.

On election night, the odds just went in our favor. We overperformed the benchmarks and now people are saying, gee if only we invested in florida, maybe we could've flipped it. Unlikely. it was a likely R state. And if anything, something I've been critical of democrats doing is doing weird gambling ventures into lean/likely R states at the expense of losing their home turf. I was critical of the dems and schumer in particular when we lost rust belt states we should've had locked down because the democrats were too busy trying to flip Georgia and Texas TEN YEARS AGO. Ya know? Like, I never thought we should've invested in the south back then. Well, I felt the same way about Florida here. The others, the math speaks for itself. We were favored to win in Ohio and Texas and Alaska and EVEN KANSAS FOR SOME REASON?! WTF! But hey, from a numerical perspective, if that's where Kansas was at as a state, DO IT! And you know, depending on what internals were saying, yeah, put some money down on South Carolina and Mississippi. Aint saying it'll pay off, but as long as it doesnt come at the expense of more important states, even if we dont win, it can force the republicans to spend money there to defend stuff. I just dont think Florida had that going for it this time. It was almost always gonna lose, and the fact that we overperformed like we did was something we couldnt predict with any certainty before hand. Sure, it was on the table. But I think playing the board like the polling error would go in the republicans' direction on election day was a safer assumption. Again, the goal was securing at least 51, and probably ending up with 53-54. Anything beyond that was a bonus. 

And yeah. I just wanted to give a rational defense of Schumer's strategy. I dont trust the guy as far as I can throw him to GOVERN properly, but as far as mastermining the national campaign strategy and allocating the money to maximize his returns, he played the board brilliantly. I literally couldnt have done better myself, and if I got that to say about the guy, I'll give him credit on this one. He was cooking here and it paid off. So let's give him SOME credit here, even if we dont want him as speaker because his boring govrnance style is gonna drive those voters away again.  

Thinking about the future of the republican party

 So, I've kind of discussed this before, but it's very salient now that the Blue Rumbling just happened. What is the future of the republican party? It's unknown and TLDR, it ultimately depends on how democrats govern over the next few years. No matter what path they take, their best path back to relevance is to let democrats implode from their own incompetence. 

As far as 2028 and forward though, they have two directions. Up until the midterms, it seemed obvious Vance and Rubio were the two strongest candidates going into 2028. However, this crushing defeat is causing people to rethink that. People seem to be distancing themselves from the Trump administration like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Vance is seen as DOA. There's talk of Rubio resigning as secretary of state, possibly to position himself as the anti MAGA candidate who had the inside scoop. And yeah, it looks like there's a potential civil war brewing within the party. 

As I see it, there's two directions that the GOP can go, and neither are great for them long term. The rational move, after seeing everything that's happened, would be to moderate. Some are calling for the GOP to get back to its roots in constitutionalism and the republican party of pre Trump. This is arguably the better future for the country, as moderating away from the far right fascist crap is probably for the best. However, I don't see this as a tenable move for them. Here's the reality for the GOP: the GOP is radical because the base as radical. As I said before when discussing republicans vs democrats, the republican politicians fear the voters, the voters fear the democratic politicians. by this I mean that on the left there's a slavish culture of voting blue no matter who, with democrats pushing for candidates that quite frankly make their stomachs turn in the name of "electability", while republicans let their freak flags fly and push for the most extreme and radical candidates who align with their values, regardless of electability. If the republicans push moderates on the party, it is unlikely that the party's voters will accept them. They might even buck the party and go full Nick Fuentes, who basically pushed his supporters to vote democrat because the republicans weren't extreme enough. The republicans have a long history of tarring and feathering RINOs, and the last time the GOP faced a loss this big in 2006 and 2008, the result was the tea party. The republicans are functionally allergic to moderation and won't turn for moderate candidates. Their base is driven by their extreme values, and if a candidate doesn't represent them, a significant number of them won't turn out. It also seems that with Trump throwing out Susie Wiles and replacing her with Stephen Miller, that Trump himself has learned nothing. If anything, the weak link in his administration is him, but instead of doing introspection he's firing people like a dictator punishing his generals for losing a war, and doubling down. 

However, if the republicans double down, they're going to probably repeat this week. The public is totally soured on the republicans in their current state, and only about 1/3 of the country actually likes these guys. So this offers a conundrum. If the republicans moderate, they lose their base. If they go extreme, they lose everyone else. That's the nature of the republican coalition. The democrats have similar issues in their own right, where they cant thread the needle between what parts of their base want and the public wants as well, but not as bad as the GOP right now. The GOP agenda is fundamentally unpopular, but if they moderate, they enter that uncanny valley of suck and kinda lose everyone as well. With that said, if anything, I suspect that the GOP is going to learn nothing from their loss and become even MORE extreme.  

This brings us to what I said earlier, the fate of the GOP is ultimately decided by democrats. When democrats take over, they have to govern. And if they cant govern well, the public is gonna turn ON THEM. And who will they run to? The republicans. And it doesnt matter if they moderate or go extreme, ultimately we will reach a tipping point where people will prefer the devil we dont know over the one we know. Just as the other night was a kneejerk reaction to trump, and not an endorsement of democrats and their agenda, the elections of 2030, 2032, and onward are going to be a reaction to how democrats govern. And if democrats cant stick the landing and all we get over the next four or so years is more hakeem jeffries and chuck schumer doing nothing, well....the republican will be able to come in and be the opposition. It doesnt matter if they're moderate OR extreme. Maybe the memory of Trump will be so scarred into the collective memories of the populace like Hoover and Carter that we WILL see a realignment where people will jsut flock to democrats no matter how poorly they govern, but normally a realignment like that requires not just a bad leader who F-s everything up, but also a good one, or at least a decent one, to set the tone for the next generation of politics. But if we dont get a good leader, we'll just get a turnover like a football team that ran out of downs. 2027, first down, 2028, second down, 2029, third down, 2030, fourth down, either make gains or get a turnover. Tick tock the clock is running as of the democrats getting sworn in, and especially after they retake the presidency in 2028.  This is why I say that the fate of the republicans ultimately depends on what WE do, and we better do it right, or we're gonna lose our newfound power to the other side who will only continue to become more extreme with every loss. And this is why I'm go critical of Schumer and Jeffries for not meeting the moment so far. The populace wants bold action, not wishy washy centrism that accomplishes nothing. We dont need to deliver full on democratic socialism, we don't need to deliver full on UBI centric human centerd capitalism. But we need to deliver SOMETHING. At least do McMorrow/Talarico wing style policy here. If we dont, then we're gonna be dealing with Groypers taking over in 2030 and 2032. And that possibility should scare ALL of us.

So the left seems united on this: we need actual leadership

 So...after writing that massive spiel about how we need bold leadership and democrats willing to fight for something, it seems like most people are on the same page. The 2026 midterms represents a possible once in a generation realignment toward the democrats. However, at this point, the democrats' greatest enemy is themselves. If we get weak leaders like chuck schumer or hakeem jeffries who dont do anything with this newfound power we just unlocked, we will lose it and the republicans will come back. On the flip side, the republican party looks like it's cooked. Once again, if the democrats take advantage of this, they can remain cooked, and given how awful they are, they SHOULD remain cooked, but their biggest ticket back is weak democrats not doing anything with their power, causing the public to lose faith in them and elect republicans again.

With that said, if Jeffries and Schumer are our next leaders, they need to fricking read the room and understand that we actually want leaders who can deliver. We need an economically progressive agenda to bring costs down, and we need to hold the trump administration accountable for its abuses. PERIOD. Not delivering on this is non negotiable. if you dont, you will lose in the future, and we will get MAGA coming back in an even worse form.

So yeah. Either we need to replace these guys as leaders of the house and senate, and I know some are already suggesting replacing schumer in the senate, or these guys need to grow a spine and some balls REALLY REALLY fast. We cant afford to have weak leadership centered around doing nothing and sending strongly worded letters. you got majorities in both houses, USE THEM. Pass bills, do investigations. I dont expect the bills to make it past trump's desk. I dont expect the investigations to reach the impossibly high bars to actually remove people from office. But show you're trying, show you're working. Do what you can. And when you can't, at least show the people you tried and leave the blame at the feet of the republicans and Trump. That way people will get pissed off and vote for even BLUER waves in the next election, until the obstruction is overcome. That's how you win. but you gotta try, and you gotta fight. If you do nothing, the public will be like wtf did we vote for and then get pissed, stay home, and the republicans will win again. And we really REALLY dont want that. not in this era of fascism. 

So yeah. We got off our ###es and voted, the politicians elected gotta get off of theirs and deliver.  

So what should democrats actually focus on?

 So....democrats...are their own worst enemies in my view. We're 2 days in and I'm already reminded why i REALLY REALLY HATE THESE GUYS! Seriously, now Jeffries is basically saying we're not gonna go after Trump for his crimes, what the actual ####? It's literally one of the only things we'll be able to do, since Trump is just gonna veto anything we do anyway. As the guy criticizing Jeffries in the article, this isnt just blind revenge. Trump has committed serious crimes against the Constitution. He literally tried to turn us fascist. We should hold him accountable.

I ain't saying that we shouldnt do cost of living stuff too. But what can we do with Trump in office? My expectations are this. We're literally not gonna pass anything but a couple budgets after contentious government shutdowns in which trump vetos crap just to hold stuff up. You know he is. Like, it don't matter if we get like, 260 house seats, which isn't even that unrealistic at this point. We need 290 to break a veto. It doesnt matter if we get 56 senate seats, we need 67 to break a veto and 60 to break a filibuster. Even with as insane as our wins are, we literally dont have the numbers to pass productive legislation in this environment. As I see it, the most productive use of the democrats' time is to run impeachment trials against him and other key officials. We wont have the senate convict, because we need 67 for that, but we can put it on record. 

To be fair, it can be controversial. We did this in 2021 and 2022 with the january 6th stuff, and a lot of people just tuned out and voted for the moron again anyway. And maybe some americans might find it distasteful to focus on that instead of "productive" stuff. But what else do you do when our government is gonna be dysfunctional? Again, i didnt go into this with an expectation of congress being productive. i went into it with the idea that this election is about restoring checks and balances and that we're gonna have divided government where little gets done. Holding inquiries into trump's crimes is probably the most useful use of our time, in lieu of being able to pass sweeping legislation to make peoples' lives better. 

With that said, let's turn to polls and see wtf Americans want US to focus on as a whole. Why did they vote democrat? We know a lot of it is inflation, the cost of living, etc, but again....what else can we do but check trump here? It's trump's tariffs and the iran war that are driving inflation. Not to mention data centers and downstream effects of income inequality, as fordism dies and the US economy just caters to the uber wealthy while the rest of us are screwed. Sure, if we had a president to pass legislation, we could do stuff, and maybe in 2028, we will finally get our ducks in a row to address stuff substantively. But again, right now? What power will democrats have? We can pass bills, but trump will veto them. Maybe we should for political theater's sake, i do believe it's better for democrats to try and fail than to not try at all, but still, again, what can we really do here?

 BBC poll

 If we go by this BBS poll from election day, the top issue is said to be the economy, with the state of democracy being a close #2. If we want to address cost of living, we should focus on its causes. Trump's tariffs have directly made stuff more expensive, and they should be repealed. The Iran war also needs to be dealt with, although with iran basically refusing to even entertain negotiations until he's out of office, well, we're in for a painful next few years. We could try to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, ya know, like Biden tried doing with build back better, but how can we reinstate BBB with Trump in office? Even worse, build back better is a long term project, not something that we can do to address the issue quickly. As such, we're screwed. 

I know healthcare comes up in a few other polls I looked at, and yes, if we implemented medicare for all or a public option, we could bring healthcare costs down. But Trump is, again, gonna veto that, and a lot of centrist dems aren't even willing to implement anything. They might do some tweaks to reverse Trump's medicaid cuts and do some weird BS with the ACA and tax credits or some crap like that, I don't think democrats as a whole are interested in solving that issue. Although, yes, it seems like the time for medicare for all has come, and we should be talking about healthcare reform more broadly if we want to bring down costs for people.

We should go after AI datacenters. We should rein in AI where they're NOT buying up the world's supply of computer parts, or using up so much electricity that it's driving up costs for everyone else. All this AI crap IS contributing to our cost of living crisis too, as billionaires and their massive purchasing power is just putting certain stuff out of reach of Americans'. 

And this kind of means we gotta address another elephant in the room. As I said, a huge reason why we got inflation is because of the long term consequences of income inequality. The businesses appeal to those with the money. The new deal economy was built on the back of fordism, the idea that henry ford could sell more cars if his employees could afford them. The middle class existing made good  business sense a hundred years ago. These days, as wealth and income are concentrated among the top 10-20% of income earners, the rest of us are just being left behind. We cant buy computers because billionaires like sam altman are buying up all the RAM, and then complaining when we peasants have 32 GB in our computers. We can't buy gaming devices or games because the costs are going up, and gaming is becoming a luxury of relatively wealthy households again, with normal people locked out. We cant do vacations any more like we used to because businesses are once again appealing to an upper class that has most of the wealth. The middle is being squeezed out. And it's everything else as well. Groceries are going up, power bills are going up, healthcare and housing have been beyond unaffordable. And we just give in an era of unchecked greed. We need a progressive agenda that helps reverse those changes. Sadly, I dont think democrats even have it in them to even begin seriously addressing the income inequality that's developed over the past 50 years. Sure, some people like Bernie Sanders and Abdul El Sayed want to do that stuff, but your median democrat in congress is actually pretty moderate and pretty useless. And a lot of the public, for all their bellyaching about the economy, seems woefully ignorant on actually fixing the issues. We're literally brainwashed to believe that addressing the core issues behind the economy are "socialism", and we're stuck moderating and pushing a watered down agenda that wont do anything.

If Jeffries approach this issue with the fire it deserved, MAYBE, just MAYBE, focusing on cost of living will work, but what's gonna happen is that he's gonna push some extremely milquetoast reform, not do much, and then the public is gonna turn on the democrats again as people remember just how useless we are, which is why the public voted for Trump in the first place. Once again, the democrats don't have the balls to do what's needed to KEEP the public on their side, the more I think about it.

To go onto issue #2, democracy. Trump threatened it. The democrats got in to put checks and balances in place. This means putting a stop to Trump's worst policies, and holding him and administration officials accountable for crimes. And we're not talking minor crap either. We're talking potential crimes against humanity with the ICE stuff. We're talking ignoring court orders. We're talking trying to concentrate power in the executive branch, fill the government with loyalists, and purge those who dont disagree. We need a full on detrumpification of our government. And we need to hold trump accountable for all of his unsanctioned renovation projects like his ball room and crap. And for the love of god, PROSECUTE THE EPSTEIN FILES CHILD FRICKERS!  Seriously. Again, if we cant actually do anything PRODUCTIVE with the economy, we should at least be looking into this stuff. 

 Gallup

So let's look at a second source. High cost of living, 17%, economy in general, 15%, fuel/oil prices, 7%. Yeah, people want prices down. But again, that means pursuing a progressive agenda. Seriously, that's all we can do. Get rid of tariffs, which could help, stop the war with iran, which we cant do with him in office, rein in datacenters and all this AI crap, and beyond that, we gotta address healthcare, and housing, and income inequality. Again, it requires a new new deal. It requires actually looking at how capitalism functions, and systemic analysis is something we americans seem allergic to because it seems to turn people leftist for some reason (gee, i wonder why...), and because we'd rather be moderate, we're also kinda useless, we focus on ineffective tweaks that wont do anything, and struggle to pass even those. Which is how biden's presidency became the failure it was. Even though he addressed the pre trump inflation, he never actually improved americans' lives. because he didnt have the balls, congress was useless and also didnt have the balls, and yeah, we just didnt do enough. 

 Beyond that, the government/poor leadership is a cause. Well yeah, we're getting rid of the republicans in congress, but we still got trumper dumper in office. What more can we do? Again, check and balance him, impeach him for all the crap he did do, and yeah. Again, beyond cost of living, all we can do is try to keep trump in check and maybe impeach him. Not saying vance is any better even if we did succeed. Republicans are gonna obstruct us even if we do try. But again, i think this moment requires a strong stand against the republican party and the trump administration. Not the meek leadership of bipartisanship and compromise Jeffries seems to be trying to do.

beyond that, immigration seems to be an issue, but that's mostly a conservative thing and a fake issue. if theres anything I learned about republicans is they seem perpetually concerned about issues that dont exist and are horribly ignorant on how things actually work. We shouldnt be like open border or anything, but i think the people who voted against the administration want ICE brought into check. And yeah, again, that involves....more criminal investigations into wrongdoing. Again, if you cant actually achieve worthwhile legislation to bring the cost of living down, we should focus on trump and his administration's abuses to bring checks and balances and accountability back to government. 

Ethics/morals/religious/family decline...oh please. This is just so conservative coded.

Healthcare, yeah, we should do healthcare but will democrats do so? Who knows?

The guardian

 Cost of living, again, government corruption...again (distant second). Then immigration (cringe), then healthcare, then taxes. 

Again, economic issues, and then corruption. 

And on both, we need an aggressive congress willing to fight and leverage its power as much as it can to get things done, even if it means not playing nice with trump. If the democrats are useless again, they're not really gonna be able to succeed much and they'll throw democrats out or just not vote at all. Theres a reason so many people are disaffected. 

Going down a bit, seems like they blame republicans for corruption which means...HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE. Jesus Christ, Jeffries, read the fricking room. 

And then going down more, what do people want us to do to address high prices.

Limit the influence of companies and lobbyists on government decisions. Yeah. Which means not servinf those interests.

Remove tariffs, check.

Limit how much companies can raise prices. Eh, price controls are actually really bad, from an econ perspective i just cant agree with this one. I get the appeal.

laws against unfair price increases. Again, price controls are bad.

Stop companies from adding hidden fees or cancellation policies. Sounds logical. 

Pass laws forcing companies to lower prices. jesus christ, the economic illiteracy of these people. Again, I get it, but this is how you get shortages and bigger issues down the road. 

Cut taxes on businesses, that wont work, they already got all the money. Trickle down doesnt work.

break up too powerful companies to increase competition. Yeah....fair. 

Rude government spending....huh? Wtf does that mean?

Also mentions california passing a billionaires tax. Which is based. Should be combined with a UBI maybe down the road, or some other policy like medicare for all. 

Again, some of this stuff makes sense, but here's the cold hard reality. The government cant just force businesses to lower prices or not raise them, doing so could cause shortages in the long term. Also, if I recall nixon era price controlled kept the economy stable for a few years but contributed to stagflation later on. So that isnt a long term solution. I already discussed my opinions, and heck, lets go further. A lot of what these guys are wanting sounds kinda soviet, like the government controls the economy and how much businesses can charge and stuff. We want markets that work. But we could do a different kind of socialism. Like zohran mamdani wants to do grocery stores that are government owned and remove a lot of those "middle man" type costs that for profit businesses have. That could work. medicare for all could lower healthcare costs. A decent housing policy could produce more affordable homes. Clean energy could reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Long term we might even have super cheap or free energy. 

Again, this goes back to the leftist agenda. If you want to bring costs down, do what the leftists want. Im even willing to hold off on UBI here since im not sure that's the right tool in the toolbox here. But a lot of leftists really do have a lot of policy tools that could help here, and they could work. 

 PBS

 Inflation again. Healthcare costs again. The idea that we're in decline. let's discuss this one. Yes, we are in decline. We're in decline because of president donald trump. We had it all with biden. A global world order and a network of alliances that worked. Relatively decent free trade policies. We were more respected in the world. We were trying to keep russia and china in check. Then trump threw it away with his horrid foreign policy, which alienated our allies, disrupted the work we were doing in containing russia in ukraine, raised the costs of everything, and got us into a pointless war with iran. 

We cant fully remove trump probably until 2028. BUT, yeah, the problem is trump, the problem is the republicans. Flipping congress is the right first step, but we need the presidency as well to actually be able to begin fixing the damage trump did in his first 2 years of his second term here. Again, for now, it comes back to checking him as much as possible and undoing what we can from the congressional side.

 Yougov

 Inflation/prices, jobs and the economy, and then healthcare. Same stuff. Already discussed all that. 

 Pew

So this is more comprehensive. Money in politics, yeah, no crap. Again, we need progressives willing to fight to end citizens' united. Affordability of healthcare. No crap. Medicare for all/public option now. Inflation, already discussed. Budget deficit. I mean, it is an issue, i dont think it's as bad as some say, but republicans tend to contribute most to it with irresponsible fiscal policies like tax cuts on the rich. 

Ability of the 2 parties to work together....how can we? We're never gonna fix this by being bipartisan. because the republicans are uncompromising and the party of bad things. Democrats try to compromise, come off as weak, and dont pass things that help on other priorities. It's why im such a firebrand. If you wanna actually fix crap, you gotta FIGHT THE GOP. They're evil inc. Seriously. And the democrats' problem is trying too much to be like them. 

Drug addiction. Not sure what you want us to do. War on drugs was a failure. We can address it via immigration but we're fighting a losing battle. People get weird about morality when we build addiction centers that help addicts shoot up relatively safely, and they seem to think that people who die to drug overdoses deserve them. So idk what the people want here. Gun violence, more partisan, more dem leaning, and the GOP clearly doesnt wanna help contribute to solutions there. And even im kinda leery on their solutions. Violent crime, everyone seems to live in fear of this stuff. Like, what do you want the government to do here? Lock people up? We tried tough on crime it doesnt work. As I see it if you want to solve it, solve the sociology behind it, which...again, means of progressive agenda. Climate change, only libs care about this and this should be higher but i understand it is abstract. Illegal immigration, GOP seems to live in constant fear of brown people. Terrorism, we got foreign mostly covered. DOmestic, we gotta address our MAGA problem,. seriously. But jeffries doesnt wanna do that. Unemployment. I mean, its 4%, if you wanna do better, we gotta tackle the system of jobs and employment as a whole in ways i always mention like UBI. Until then, we won't be able to solve those issues. And given inflation is the core problem, i find UBI a risky proposition in the current environment. I believe in it, it's my actual #1 issue long term, BUT....i dont think its very palatable atm. 

Conclusion

So what can i conclude? That inflation and corruption are the #1 and #2 issues. And that if you wanna address either of them, we're gonna need to be bold and progressive, not weak, timid, and centrist. We need to hold trump to account, we gotta reverse his disastrous policies, and long term, this moment is calling for a more conventional liberal/leftist new deal. Not my UBI centric one necessarily (although UBI is essential to solve income inequality IMO), but the more bernie sanders leftist type. With that said, democrats need bold leadership that will fight for things. They dont want weak hakeem jeffries type leadership where we dont do anything and the tell the public we gotta vote for them or we get trump again. You see this massive coalition we got? Even if a lot of these guys are centrists, be like talarico. be progressive but code as moderate. Seriously. I know i aint even a huge talarico guy, but looking at him compared to the other red state moderates we elected, talarico IS unique. He does this thing where he takes left wing policy...and then he frames it in ways conservatives can understand. Like hes more successful at messaging to those people than a secular, northern firebrand like me. I might be smart with politics, but im also too honest, and have values that many americans cant relate to. I might be right, but i suck at selling my ideas in ways that conservatives can understand. Talarico seems able to bridge the gap better.

With that said, I hope the fudge the democrats understand that what we need is bold, new leadership. not the same third way bullcrap that got trump elected in the first place. Americans are pissed. Americans want change. And they want this new democratic party to DO something. 

And even if we cant pass anything, we should try, and when that fails, yeah, we should investigate trump. I dont think these guys realize how ANGRY your median voter is about the situation. They want the administration held accountable for abuses. They dont want us to just let them off the hook in the name of bipartisanship. Everyone says they want bipartisanship, but no one actually does. It's like one of those things a lot of people pretend to like, but no one likes. Especially when the left and right have very different and fundamentally incompatible visions for the country. 

I aint saying the left has to emulate me exactly. We know my views and im giving a lot of concessions and credit to other wings of the party and their policies. We probably should pursue a more conventional progressive agenda, NOT UBI. We should probably frame things for this new democratic majority where this stuff CODES more conservatively without it actually being conservative. Again, my own politics sometimes arent right for the moment, and I feel like we gotta be adaptable. If we wanna beat trump and conservatism for good though, we gotta be bold and aggressive. The timid leadership of the jeffries and schumer types is probably gonna doom us to being completely ineffective, losing the trust of the people, and then we repeat 2024 again. Do you really want to do that? I sure dont. 

Anyway, things to think about going into 2028. Im pretty open minded this time. I like Yang, again, not sure he's right for the moment. Like AOC policy wise, but her numbers are bad. Harris and Newsom have baggage. Buttigieg is gonna be weak. I really dont know who the nominee should be and who can tick all of the boxes and unite the party behind a bold agenda. But what I know is this, we gotta come out swinging. We act weak and bipartisan and compromising and we dont pass anything worth a crap, the public will get mad, and we're gonna lose and hand the government back over to the same nutcases we just got rid of. The people giveth, the people taketh away. Dont waste this opportunity.