They're building 1984

 Okay, so this is gonna sound a bit conspiracy theoryish, but I think it's worth grappling with. So...I talked about fascism, techno fascists, and how the trump administration is openly authoritarian, supporting people like the dark enlightenment people who don't believe in democracy, and that Trump might make a pass at going full on authoritarian. But one thing I do want to emphasize is the surveillance state aspect of it. What do flock cameras, data centers, and smart devices all have in common? They create a surveillance dragnet to watch everything you do. Gamer's nexus talked about it today and this has been going around in my head for a while.

Flock cameras 

So...flock cameras, they're everywhere now. And people keep pointing out that they're creepy and dystopian. I have mixed opinions on them quite frankly. I live in a high crime area and some have wanted cameras for years in high crime intersections to track criminals and get them arrested. While there's nothing wrong with this, if they're placed there through democratic consensus, they have a clear purpose, and clear guardrails, these cameras are popping up everywhere, often against the will of the people, they dont have a clear purpose, and they are ripe for abuse. They can track people wherever they go, giving them no privacy outside of their homes. And even if we're okay with THAT, well...buckle up.

Smart devices

So gamer's nexus mentioned smart tvs, but this applies to phones, tablets, laptops, etc. It's possible, in theory, for these things to listen to what you say and record everything you say or do in your own home. It's also possible for them to be used without a warrant if corporations just hand your data over to the government on demand. Which they are probably doing. So not only are you being tracked outside of your home, but in them as well. That heated political discussion at dinner where someone said something they shouldnt have said, its probably in a data base somewhere. Speaking of which.

Data centers

 So we all know AI data centers are being built like crazy. But there's a clear financial problem with them. It's a product/service with no real demand. The whole bubble is artificial. But....what if the real client is the government? All that stuff being recorded, the data needs to go somewhere, right? So...why not tons of data centers? And how are they gonna sift through all that data? AI, of course! So....yeah. Really crappy dystopian spy crap. 

Discussion 

And all of this seems to bypass normal 4th and 14th amendment protections. You have no right to privacy outside of your home, they hide behind terms and conditions and corpo speak no one reads to justify you giving your data to corporations, and the corporations partner with the government and give it to them. 

Now, under a normal administration,  this would be concerning as is. There were concerns about, for example, spying on people during the Bush administration due to the patriot act and its provisions. But during the Trump years? When this administration has explicit anti democratic tendencies and seems to be aligned with some really dark mofos who not just share those tendencies but are the same tech bros pushing this crap? Yeah....scary to think about. They're literally building 1984. They were just 40 years off. 

if our country goes to crap, this data will be used against us in significant ways. They'll find whatever crimes or infractions they can and charge you for them. They'll use directives like NSPM7 to justify spying on the political opposition. They'll try to go after dissenters and jail them. Oh, and they already are putting the apparatus in place to handle that, what with the militarization of the police, the use of troops on US soil, ICE being trump's personal army, etc. Oh, and those camps for migrants. They can quickly be converted into makeshift prisons for dissenters. Kinda like what Hitler did in the 1930s. That's how we got concentration camps btw, they started as places to send dissenters and they ramped it up to genocide in the later years. Fun fact. 

But yeah. This crap is CREEPY. Like....really creepy, and I've been thinking about it for the past few days, and I just wanted to discuss it a bit. We're heading toward a world where the government records everything you do, and if they dont like you, they can theoretically start jailing and disappearing you. This is America in the 2020s. Scary to think about. Vote democrat while you still have the liberty to and hope we can remove trump and the republicans without them going full fascist here. There's still time to reverse course, hopefully....

Election Update 9/4/26

 I figured I'm probably gonna be busy so I'm gonna push the election update out now. I still might do another one in a week or two if I feel like it/if I have time, but yeah. I gotta create one for a contest anyway so I might as well post it here. I won't really comment on it though, so it will be kind of abridged.

Senate

 

House

Governors

 Conclusion

 I don't have much to say on this that hasn't already been said. I just wanted to post the latest numbers since idk if I'll get to do my normal next week one or not. Not much has changed since the last one. House narrowed a little. Dems are doing well in the senate. The odds are what the odds are. Seriously, you guys know how to read my charts by now I hope.

Dear nvidia, can we NOT?

 So....I've mostly been ignoring the talk of DLSS 5, because I dont care about DLSS 5. As I see it, DLSS was created to solve a problem that we didn't need to have in the first place. Ray tracing had an enormous performance cost, and in order to make it run, we needed DLSS to upscale images to higher resolutions.

Now, upscaling is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I like the fact that I can upscale a game from a lower resolution to a higher resolution. In theory it can extend the life of aging systems. But then developers RELY on it as a crutch, where games expect you to use it and it makes games a blurry mess. 

Now, to be fair, I cant use DLSS< because I bought AMD. Why? Because nvidia thinks charging a 50% premium for a better upscaler and ray tracing I dont want is a justifiable business practice. I just see it as predatory. nvidia wants to be greedy, I'll buy AMD. Anyway, now they made DLSS 5. And the internet hates it. Basically, it takes AI and makes games look better with it. Now, it has mixed results, with some saying AI ruins the art direction of games by making everything realistic. I kind of agree. And quite frankly, I dont really care that much about it. Games look good enough already and I havent seen anything from DLSS 5 that makes me go "wow, I totally want this RIGHT NOW."

But heres the thing. This new tech, much like upscaling, which STILL isnt really worth using on most mainstream systems (keep in mind mainstream gamers game on 3060s/4060s, so basically those "8x 1030" cards that are generally the sweet spot in price/performance for the past 4-6 years), has INSANE performance costs. Like truly, insane, performance costs. Like you're losing 60-75% of your FPS using it. Now, let's be real, is it worth it? I mean, I could see some idiot who goes out and buys a $5000 RTX 5090 act like it totally changes the game and they cant live without it, but let's face it, they're just rich ###holes trying to justify a ridiculously expensive purchase. For mainstream gamers who actually care about getting good value for the money...well....NO.

Like, again. Do we need graphics to keep getting better? It would be one thing if we could just keep pumping out $250 cards that double in performance every 3 years like we used to, I mean, sure, if we do that, and PC gaming was still affordable and things kept getting better, that's one thing. But when we're hitting a performance wall like we are, it's not worth it. And now with rampocalypse making GPUs start appreciating in value like the COVID pandemic all over again, honestly? Who wants this?! No one can afford a GPU that can actually run this stuff at decent settings. Why the heck should I wanna play a game at like 30 FPS when I can play it at 120 FPS? Seriously. And that's if you have a newer nvidia card that can handle it. I mean, Im on AMD but when someone tested a 5050 today with it, it was like...13 FPS with DLSS5 on. On low. At 720p. Again, who wants this?!

I feel like these billionaires are just massively out of touch with the normal person. They have their little visions for the future, and they insist on telling us that their vision is the future, and we gotta get with it, and eventually the devs of major gaming companies start making their games around tech like this, and it forces us to upgrade to expensive GPUs we dont really need outside of the artificial obsolescence, and yeah, it's bullcrap. Idk why we cant just focus on optimizing games better. I dont want this crap. I've been fine with how games looked since around 2016ish. And I still insist most progress since then aint really progress. It's just a bunch of tech bros forcing fancy tech on us no one wants or cares about. Like yeah yeah yeah it looks a little better. Who cares? Games look good enough, theyve looked good enough since BF1. Just give me better frame rates and more longevity for hardware if we can't actually get more raster performance. And no, I dont mean frame gen. That tech is iffy as all fudge too. Fake frames introduce latency which makes games harder to play. it's not free performance and it only works properly ABOVE 60 FPS anyway. And given I run a 60 hz monitor for longevity purposes...yeah. What is this actually doing for us? 

Like again, I really hate all this crap. Everything's expensive, we cant afford new hardware any more, and OH HOW ABOUT A TOOL THAT KILLS YOUR FPS BY 2/3 THAT NO ONE BUY 5090 USERS WILL WANNA USE? Uh...HOW ABOUT NO! *puts pinky to mouth* 

Anyway, end rant.  

Discussing Amazon's sketchy cheap GPUs...

 So....another GPU related article. Sorry for my political audiences, but hey, fired up on this subject, and after seeing another topic about how expensive GPUs were, I decided to check amazon, only to be met with tons of listings for VERY cheap GPUs. Like too good to be true cheap. We're talking R7 350 or GT 740 (~0.8x 1030) for $60-80 cheap. We're talking RX 580s (4x 1030) as low as $120 cheap. Why dont these  show up on PC part picker? What's going on?

Well, it looks like a lot of these GPUs come from china. Googling them, most of them seem to be refurbished cards from china, or ex mining cards. With that said, many of these listings are very sketchy, and are they worth it? Eh....in this market, MAYBE? I mean, the market is pretty dismal for the sub $200 range. Obviously, if you have the money, just buy like an RX 5050 at $300 or a 9060 XT 8 GB for $360. If you really have money, the 16 GB of the 9060 XT for $470 is probably the best "budget" deal. But since when is $500ish "budget?" I mean, that's the problem with this market, it's insane. And given I dont like to pay more than $300 for a GPU if I dont have to, I believe in cheaper options for gamers. Even if they come with compromises. It's just good to know what the compromises are and what youre getting. 

So yeah, should you buy these? Eh...it depends. For the most part, I'm gonna say no. I will make one exception though. ONE of these brands isn't terrible to my knowledge and is a reputable brand partner to Nvidia and other major brands. It just doesnt actually primarily appeal to the US market, but rather, the chinese market. And that's Maxsun. Again, they're chinese, they primarily appeal to chinese consumers. And if you ever wanna do a warranty with these guys youre gonna be sending the card all the way to China, but that might be a risk you gotta take in this economy. The US market for older cards has dried up, and given my current $140ish recommendation is the Arc A380....well.....their 580s for the same price are arguably a better value. 

I mean, the RX 580 is one of the most legendary cards of all time. It's on par with the 1060 (4x GT 1030), it has 8 GB VRAM. It doesnt do ray tracing or have modern APIs, but it'll run most games through 2022 or so adequately and will at least start and maybe get 30 FPS in many made after that. It also is probably better with older games and less finnicky with older systems than an arc card would be. I imagine most people buying a 580 in 2026 are also using dated components like early ryzen or maybe some quad core intel 14nm CPU. Not all of those have resizeable bar, for example. So....again, if we wanna whip out old reliable for an old system, this might be the play. 

Other than that, I'd probably stick to my go to recommendations. GT 1030 for $100, but this would be a massive step up for $140 (4x the performance) and is not only faster than intel arc, but again, less finnicky with the aging systems that people will probably throw this kind of card into. 

In the $200-300 range, you got the RTX 2060 6 GB, I just noticed they're selling those again for $210 from reputable brands like ASUS. Id recommend that over the 3050 6 GB at the same price (4x 1030 vs 6x 1030). 

The 3050 8 GB has more VRAM at $260 but is less powerful than that.

And then beyond that it's the 5050 for $300 (my go to recommendation for a decent minimum gaming experience). 7600 is $320, which isnt great.

And again, Arc always has options. A380 for $140, A580 for $200, B570 for $260, and B580 for $310. They sometimes offer more value for the money, but again, spotty driver compatibility with older games and finnicky with older systems. 

Idk. I just wanted to throw out a few more options. 

Anyway to give you a low down:

R7 350 (sketchy brand)- $60 (0.8x 1030)

GT 740 (sketchy brand)- $80 (0.8x 1030)

GT 1030 (reputable) - $100

Arc A380- $140 (3x 1030)

RX 580 8 GB (semi reputable)- $140 (4x 1030)

Arc A580- $200 (7x 1030)

RTX 2060 6 GB- $210 (6x 1030)

RTX 3050 8 GB- $260 (5x 1030)

Arc B570- $260 (8x 1030)

RTX 5050- $300 (9x 1030)

Arc B580- $310 (9x 1030)

And yeah, that's the market right now. It's not great. The sub $200 options wont run new games). Most sub $300 options have compromises. My go to recommendation would be just get a 5050, if not a 9060 XT (either 8 or 16 GB depending on budget) if you can afford it. I just understand not everyone can, and I want to keep budget gaming open here. ANd yeah.

As always, do your own research, don't blame me if you end up with crap, especially if you do go for like, a sketchy chinese card. I mean, they ARE sketchy for the most part. But yeah. Again, trying to find ways to get affordable GPUs into the hands of gamers who need them, even if they do have compromises....

My opinion on DSA and working with the left

 So I've seen a lot of leftist infighting over the DSA, whether to work with them, whether not to. And I'm mixed myself. I've discussed my thoughts on this to some degree already, but I also kind of had a breakthrough tonight and want to write about it.

So...I'm gonna be brutally honest. I REALLY am politically homeless. I REALLY am part of the left out left. I've actually been feeling down in the dumps over it today after seeing a poll where most people HATE UBI these days and then I had an argument with a socialist who started spouting all of the same bullcrap at me. And it made me realize again, that yeah, I AM politically homeless. I dont vibe with the DSA or socialists at all. Quite frankly, the only reason I'm attached to them is because the republicans are sociopaths, the liberals are useless, and it seems like the left are the only ones advancing goals I agree with.

But even then, that left isn't MY left. Democratic socialism isn't MY ideology. These goals aren't necessarily MY goals. I don't want a jobs program. I dont want socialism. I have nuanced opinions on labor unions and the labor movement, believing that while they've done a lot of good, they're too jobist, ludditeish, and reactionary. I dont believe there is dignity in work. I want a society where people are free from work. I want a UBI, not means tested social programs. I'm okay with a public option, and dont necessarily want medicare for all. I agree with the left where I intersect with them, but I'll show disagreement when I don't. 

I feel like this is the healthy approach to take toward ALL of these factions. I purity test like a champ. I establish my goals, and then I weigh candidates and movements with how well they conform to what I want, I don't change my opinion to fit THEM. If the DSA wants to be run by tankie crazies, well, they're gonna fail my purity tests. If centrist libs wanna be worthless, well, they're not gonna get a good score from me either. 

The breakthrough I have is that I am free. I'm free from everyone else's BS, and I know what I want, and I set my own path. I don't give AF what others wanna sell to me. I care about how well you align with MY goals. And if you don't, well, you don't get my support, period.

This isn't to say i dont make compromises. Sadly, I gotta align with factions that I don't generally like very much. I align with democrats over republicans. I align with progressives and sometimes even socialists over centrist democrats, and the second you get someone who actually represents human centered capitalism, I'm all over that. But sadly, it's so rare we've only seen one candidate like that, and he was horrible at representing the ideology.

If anything, his entrance into politics alienated me more from the left. While Yang deserved some criticism for his inconsistency and abandonment of shared goals at times, he also faced a lot of weird purity tests from the left, and it kinda made me realize how much i dont vibe with these guys in reality. I just align with them because they're less crappy than the alternatives. The same couldn't have been made more stark today as I watched these guys once again tear UBI a new one, and I realize that wait, I don't actually agree with these guys much on anything. 

Again, I dont agree with ANYONE on much all things considered, all of these factions are not just imperfect but horribly flawed, even if I do have a clear hierarchy of preferences. The best ones might be better than the others, but not great.

Like, for me, the right is the epitome of evil, and their morals are just screwed. Centrist democrats' big flaw is basically compromising with these guys and offering a softer version of the same thing. Progressives and socialists want change, but we disagree on specifically what change we need and why. Our ideological bases are fundamentally different. I'm a social libertarian influenced by the basic income and anti work movements. I ultimately want freedom from coercive institutions like wage slavery. Socialists believe that work can be saved and merely want a better version of it with more fair rules, this is better than the psychotic attitudes of the right who basically believe in social darwinism, and the centrist democrats who want a version of that that is a little softer around the edges, but it isn't freedom. 

Again, if I'm not gonna just withdraw from politics altogether, sitting on my mountain of self righteousness and refusing to participate unless someone meets me 100% of the way, I'm gonna have to align with someone, but honestly? it's all lesser evils all the way down. Between republicans and centrist democrats, the democrats are the lesser evil. between centrist democrats and DSA, DSA often comes off as the lesser evil. if DSA goes full tankie, suddenly I'm back to backing the liberals again. And all goes on and on. 

I just want to declare my independence and express that I lack loyalty to ANYONE at this point. I am loyal ONLY to my own ideas. Everything else is a means to an end in achieving them. It should have been obvious all along, but I just want to express that. I am not loyal to say, AOC 2028. I'm not loyal to the democratic party. I just use these various factions as puppets to get as close to my own goals as possible. And the second these factions don't support my goals, well, I'll jump ship. 

Idk why this is so hard for people. It's like people have to be part of a faction or tribe. Even I fall into that, but try as I might, I realize that I just dont fit into any major faction, because my own ideas are so unique and niche that theyre fundamentally different than everyone else's. I really am a super special snowflake with super special needs, and while some people view that as denigrating, in my typical fashion of turning such denigration on its head, I'll embrace it, just like I always embraced being "entitled." Darned right I want a better world and act like im owed something when people say I'm not. I don't care about your stupid little social conventions and your morality. I care about my own morality.

And the same is true with how I approach the left these days. I just got an earful about how workers believe in the dignity of life and how they feel like heroes for sacrificing for their kids. Good for them, but I still see them as victims of oppressive systems and resent the fact that people have to sacrifice to begin with. I dont care if you think I suck because I denigrate your work ethic. I think you suck for embracing it. As I said of AOC, I think anyone who actively embraces the work ethic is a brainwashed fool. And as I pointed out recently, I see most people as ignorant and uneducated. I dont care what they think. I care what I think. They're in the cave, I'm not. And if you think I'm an arrogant little crap for being elitist and thinking you're dumb, well, I'm sorry you're dumb. I'm not sorry I think that way. 

Ya know? That's the kind of attitude I'm embracing here. I'm not conforming to other people's bullcrap. I'm not gonna sugarcoat things to preserve their feelings, if I think your ideas suck, I think they suck, and I'll say it. Maybe if more people thought like me, we could actually get somewhere in society, and maybe people would realize, "gee, that idea I believe really IS stupid, i know you're an ###hole, but thanks for pointing it out to me." Ya know, kinda like how r/atheism did that for me as a questioning Christian. That tough love attitude straight up freed me from the cave in the first place. You dont change minds by coddling peoples' feelings and reinforcing their existing views. You challenge their views by pointing out the absurdity of their existing perspective. And I'm sorry, if you embrace jobism, you're ####ing stupid and you should rethink your life choices. Sorry, not sorry. 

But I digress. Point is, this is how I'm gonna approach politics from this point on this political cycle. A ruthless approach of looking at where candidates agree with me, where they don't, and I'll grade them accordingly. "Metric 1" as I call it, which I've used through 2020 and 2024, does a good job here. Provides a basic understanding of what their worldview is, what their policy priorities are, and how they line up. I might fine tune it for 2028, as I said, I'm considering replacing the "are you a democrat?" Purity test with an "electability" one, but otherwise it mostly holds up. 

Rankings are accordingly:

S tier- 80+

Not many candidates reach S tier. I think Bernie is the only one who got this high. But yeah, I'm grading on a curve given this is scored out of 100. Normally an 80 is a B, but again, so few people are on my level that I feel like 80 is kind of the ceiling for your standard politicians with standard ideologies.

A tier- 70-79

A strong candidate, but has the standard amount of differences. Most progressive left candidate who aren't Bernie end up here. Andrew Yang also ended up here, being aligned with me ideologically but then just being an awful politician in his own ways. I expect the best 2028 candidates to end up here.

B tier- 60-69 

Eh, most moderate democrats top out here at best. I gave Biden and Harris scores in this range in 2024. Previously candidates like Elizabeth Warren ended up here, although it's possible A tier is better for her. 

C tier- 50-59

Mid candidates that I feel "meh" on. In 2020, I called these guys "fauxgressives" because they were fake progressives who sounded like Bernie but without the history to back it up. While my independence from the socialist left did somewhat renovate some of those candidates into B tier given my liberal social and foreign policy views, many candidates still end up here. Ironically a lot of leftists like Jill Stein end up in this tier, because even if I kinda sorta agree with them on economics, they aren't electable and are VERY rough around the edges.

 D tier- 40-49

Crappy centrist democrats who come off as overtly hostile to my goals. Hillary Clinton ended up here in 2016 in retrospect, although I may rehabilitate her into C tier. Explicit centrist democrats who have a hate boner for progressives end up here normally. They're not quite F tier, but they're just one step above that.

F tier- 0-39

While I could separate the F tiers into various rings of hell like Dantes Inferno, at this point, most people who score under 40 arent even democrats or they're some centrist third party ###holes like Howard Schultz who dont really belong in the party. The highest rung of this hell would be those types who score in the 30s, with establishment republicans scoring around the 20s, Tea party republicans scoring in the 10s, and Donald Trump types scoring in the 0s. Again, F tier is dante's inferno of politics, it's really just a matter of what rung of hell you end up on. I guess we could say 30-39 is F-1, 20-29 is F-2, 10-19 is F-3, and -0-9 is F-4.

I guess the same thing could be said if you score above 90, maybe there is like super S tier, like a hypothetical SS tier that no one has met yet above 90. but no one has scored that high. However, some have scored as low as F-4 before. Trump is in the single digits IIRC. 

 But yeah, that's where I'm at with this. I don't conform to you, you conform to me. I judge you by MY standards, I dont care about YOURS. I aint interested in conforming to anyone else's ideology, whether it be milquetoast liberalism or socialism. Again, there's a clear hierarchy here of what I like vs what I don't, but again, the whole thing is a matter of "what conforms to what I want?"  If you dont conform I dont care what you think. Your opinions suck and you'll be rated according to my standards. I'm not negotiating with you. Period. I'm giving you a number and moving on, if I even do that. 

AOC 2028? Let's have a grounded discussion about this and the progressive lane's chances here

 So, Kyle Kulinski had a recent debate about AOC for president, and I have some things to say about this myself.

Honestly? I don't think she'll win. It's not that I don't necessarily want her to win (my opinions on her are kind of complex), it's that based on current polls, she's a distant fourth place.

Quite frankly, the progressive lane of the democratic party has not been strong in recent election cycles. bernie could've probably won in 2016 had that cycle not been so dirty internally. 2020 was a lot more iffy, rather than 45% of the vote, Bernie had closer to 30-35%, and only enjoyed early primary victories because the centrist democrats were split between like 3-5 candidates. In 2024, the progressives didn't even put up a serious candidate. Marianne Williamson was "it", and more people voted for "uncommitted" or "free palestine" than her. And now, AOC is behind 3 centrist candidates, Harris, Newsom, and Buttigieg, and possibly could soon fall behind Ossoff who is the new "dreamy" JFK/Obama like figure that some people are attracted to. The fact is, among polled voters, progressives are a minority of the democratic party. They've been struggling to gain attention, and while ANYTHING can happen in the next 1.5-2 years in that regard, a progressive candidate is gonna struggle to break through. Here's the thing. We progressive types, we're highly educated, and highly engaged. your typical voter...is less educated, and less engaged. Centrist dems love to hang that over us like "you see you stupid progressive normie voters dont have time to ready theory and wait for perfect solutions to problems blah blah blah", and it's kind of true, but it's not the flex they think it is. Your typical voter is relatively uneducated and unengaged, and yet if you tell them this, they get offended, because they have dunning kruger syndrome. They think their ignorance is as good as your knowledge. And for them, they want the names they RECOGNIZE, that's Harris, Newsom, Buttigieg, ya know, the second stringers that were elevated in 2020 and became parts of the Biden administration. And Newsom, who wasnt in the biden administration, but was a governor of a large blue state. They're not thinking of AOC much, and when AOC comes up, people think "Omg isn't she a socialist? (without knowing what that means), isn't she 'too far left'?" Because the media goes full red scare on people who dont know any better. 

It's frustrating, us progressives often have the curse of knowledge. We're mostly downwardly mobile educated people who understand how screwed the system is, but because said system LITERALLY IS "plato's cave", and most of them are still chained up, they dont fricking understand that they're watching a puppet show. 

With that said, let's be realistic about AOC's chances, the progressive wing is gonna struggle. We're gonna be outnumbered by a lot of low information normies who work all day, barely follow politics, and then vote for the person whose name they recognize. When not working, these guys' minds are so fried FROM work that they spend their time on other crap. They know more about football quarterbacks and reality shows and crap than they know about politics, and yeah, most never leave the cave I mentioned. Hate to be cynical, but that's the conclusion I get from this data. 

Now, of the progressive wing...is AOC the right candidate? And this is what's debated. And I kind of agree with Kyle, we cycle through the options, and despite her shortcomings, she's still the one on the radar. They mentioned Ro Khanna who isnt enough of a fighter in their view, I disagree, I think Khanna is fine, but AOC has the numbers. A lot of progressives HATE Yang. I have a soft spot for him given my unique ideological roots, but let's face it, dude doesnt really stay consistent and tends to burn bridges even in the UBI online community. I've been participating more in basic income oriented discussions again and yeah, I see a lot of negativity toward the guy. Kinda happens when you dont stick to the idea or represent it very well. Still, he's another "this is what we got" kind of candidate and we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

As far as AOC goes, I understand some concerns. I know this is petty left wing infighting, but I don't care for her stances on work (she went all in with the work = dignity crap in 2024, literally a slave mentality IMO, the reason rich stock brokers were laughing at her is because they KNOW work sucks and its laughable when people romanticize it). She's not for a UBI, she wants a traditional demsoc/socdem agenda, and....well....I don't. Just because I'm in the progressive lane doesn't mean I think that approach is perfect. I have significant differences in policy goals with the progressive left at times and some of these goals are mutually exclusive due to the fiscal realities involved. Although I am somewhat willing to concede the issue somewhat because the alternative is the centrist faction literally bought out by billionaires who want literally nothing, or mere crumbs compared to what society NEEDS.

Like that's the thing, the reason I side with progressives over centrists despite our obvious differences is because at least we agree that change is needed, we just dont agree on what that change should look like. But that don't mean I like her.

Anyway, other than purity tests, why else dont I necessarily like AOC? I think she's still a bit green behind the ears. Like, on foreign policy, she froze and glitched out badly on the taiwan question not long ago. And if youre president, you need to be a commander in chief, you need to make the right decisions, unflinchingly. Yes, we will defend Taiwan. But again, anti war left can't do that. They suck on foreign policy. To be fair, the far left hates her for not being pro Israel enough. For someone with an "imperfect record" in their eyes myself, I'm fine with the more moderate position that Kyle seems to fear from democratic candidates. I'm not a radical leftist on palestine, I just think netanyahu went way too far and should be held accountable for it. 

On economics, I know her original green new deal was $10 trillion, which was laughable, but to be fair, that was posted like 8 years ago now and she's likely learned a lot since then. 

She also had the good sense to not endorse Hong and condemned "woke 1." Which...again, the radical left hates, but I'm fine with. So she has some good political sense. But yeah, she's not polished. it came up in Kyle's video with her not really being good under pressure and enjoying the rough and tumble of politics. And with me, I kinda see issues with that myself. But yeah.

Ideologically, let's face it, my own ideology is so unique and not very popular, that LITERALLY the only one who ever ran on it it seems was andrew yang. And even then, he did a poor job where he left a bad taste in a lot of peoples' mouths with it. I would still potentially support yang for a 2028 run if he commits to a proper platform that passes my purity tests, but yeah, it's unclear if he will, and even if he does, he might not pick up anything but the scraps of some "left out left" types (to make a pew typology reference) while losing both establishment dems and the progressive left at the same time. 

 Beyond that, I'm ideologically compromising, but if we think progressive lane, AOC is it. Ro Khanna could take over if AOC doesn't run, but I think he's less popular. And honestly, there isnt anything else. As I said in 2024, it's like with Biden's win in 2020 and Bernie being too old, the progressive movement ceased to have a bench and died. It's possible Abdul El Sayed could be good, but I doubt he'll run in 2028 either. Although I kinda wish he would. Like, that's why I'm pushing him. I'm looking at the "bench" problem and I'm like, okay, desperate times call for desperate measures, send in the n00b. El Sayed is a n00b. He's gonna be a freshman senator who will have to start campaigning IMMEDIATELY after winning his senate term. But, he has that Obama charisma everyone wants, and for all the balking about him, Obama faced the same criticisms in 2008 and he turned out fine. 

The fact is, if we want this democratic civil war to reach the presidential race, we need our strongest warriors for this. We dont have many, but as I like to say, you gotta fight with the army you have, not what you want. AOC is the best of the likely names running, but I do think El Sayed could be a strong candidate himself if he decides to run. Ideally I'd let him serve a term or two, but thats the thing. Whoever wins 2028 likely locks the party down until 2040...just like how HRC locked the party into the centrist lane until 2028. I thought the timeline would be HRC and then 8 years of a republican, but instead, we got Trump-Biden-Trump. 2028 is gonna be another 2008 style Obama win for democrats in all likelihood. 2032 could go either way. It could turn into Joe Biden again with them marching to certain defeat, or they could run again and win, meaning we wont see the dems open up until 2036. And in 2036, democrats will likely run whomever the VP is, or similar kind of "third term" candidate, and probably lose. This means that we won't have another shot until 2040 or 2044 in all likelihood. So....yeah. We gotta support the best person we can here. if it's AOC, it's AOC, I think I would push El Sayed to run if he can. Yang is an option although I dont think he'll go anywhere. Ro Khanna, etc.

To be fair though, all of this discussion is likely pointless though. We'll probably end up with Harris whether we like it or not. Or Buttigieg, or Newsom, or some flavor of the month centrist dem like Ossoff who all the centrists are fantasizing about lately for whatever reason. And yeah, we'll probably be shut out again. Because it's pain being a progressive. We're an overeducated minority of the country that knows too much but seems powerless to do anything because of the forces of organized money controlling everything, and most people being too stupid to be on our level. It's just the reality of things. So we gotta watch these idiots elect the same fricking losers who got us into the current situation AGAIN, and then we suffer the consequences of sub par policy decisions that dont fix the problem, followed by electing republicans who make everything worse because they're literal psychopaths who are only relevant...again, because big money. *sigh*, but that's American politics. I hate it, these days, can you tell?  

Election Update 8/28/26

 Okay, so it's time to do my biweekly election update. Not a ton has changed, so let's go through it.

Senate

So not a ton has changed since my last update. Michigan now has El Sayed leading which is something. It's not a huge lead but he wasnt down by much in the previous update. El Sayed is painted as some extremist weirdo, but my take is that perception only holds until Mike Rogers opens his mouth on ANYTHING. 

But yeah, same wild map that would be unthinkable in a normal election cycle. New Hampshire seemed to go down further into swinginess, which is weird. it's always been a weird state with weird politics, but given the national environment id normally expect states like NH and MI to be like SOLID blue, like if they made my chart at all, they'd be like D+8-12 or something. Seeing them along side places like Alaska and Texas is wild. The map really does seem to be changing as we shift toward a more post trump environment (I mean electorally, he's done, he's a lame duck, the country is against him, 2028 is looking to be a 2008esque powder keg at this rate). 

But yeah, 63% chance the dems win, 37% the GOP wins including ties. Most likely outcome looking 53-47D. 

House

Not a ton has changed, a slight regression for democrats but polls are gonna fluctuate. Democrats have a 95.1% chance of controlling the chamber, with the most likely result being 229-206D. keep in mind, this is a fundamentals driven model, and while I havent seen extensive polling data yet where I feel comfortable building a polls based one, I have seen some data that contradicts this and much of it seems to favor the democrats. We'll see how things continue to develop. 

Governors

Not a lot of change here. New Hampshire is again, strangely conservative, but Ayotte is apparently popular there and they have strange politics unique to their own state. Beyond that, the map is pretty good for democrats. Crowley in wisconsin is pulling further ahead. Georgia is becoming more swingy, which aint good, but I suspect Lance Bottoms will pull it off. 

Again, some data is strange given how we normally think of the maps. It could be that something is off, but based on that analysis of the 21st century's presidential election maps, I'm guessing the map is realigning to reflect a dislike for Trump and the status quo, and that the map is opening up in preparation for the 2028 battlegrounds. So states like Michigan and New Hampshire might remain swingy, but then states like Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska come into play more, at least for some races. It's strange, politics are shifting and our perceptions gotta change if we wish to remain relevant and not pull a Romney 2012. 

Conclusion

A pretty ho hum election update. Some minute shifts along the edges, maybe a flipped race or two, but it's generally very similar to the previous one, just with some things shifting around by 1-2 points. But that happens, and if that momentum continues, think of where the race will be a month from now or by election day.

Anyway, september is likely going to be a busy month for me. I'm not sure how much time I'll be spending on here. But I do plan to make another biweekly update around the 11th. Might be a little later in the weekend maybe, but yeah. I'm gonna try to stick to the current schedule for the most part. Maybe after thinks settle down going into october I can shift to a more weekly model leading up to the election itself.  We'll see. 

Anyway, that's where things are, see you for the next one.