The James Talarico crowd is insufferable

 So, I'm gonna start this with a disclaimer. I formally support James Talarico for the senate. He's the dem nominee. He won fair and square, and while I hate the dude's aesthetics, he's pretty decent on policy.

But man, can we STOP fricking fawning over him? People need to stop treating this guy like he's this big rising star in the party, and how Crockett sucked, and Talarico is so great. Aesthetically, I liked Crockett. I liked her direct, confrontational approach to politics. I dont like Talarico's soft spoken obsession with religion. People seem to treat this guy like a novelty. Can you imagine? A hyper religious guy ON OUR SIDE, TURNING THEIR IDEOLOGY AGAINST THEM. Yeah, but it's still...their ideology. Sure, there's a lot of interpretation in the bible as far as economics goes, and one can make a strong progressive Christian case for left wing politics.

However, I'm gonna be blunt. It's not MY case. Again, I'm too reddit atheist to appreciate this guy. And Im gonna be honest, I define my politics in large part by my moral opposition to evangelical christianity. It's a fundamental worldview thing for me. And seeing this guy using that worldview against the right...doesnt endear me to him, because to me, it's still a bad worldview. i tolerate the guy, because he is the nominee, and because he has a good chance of winning texas, which is basically the buckle of the bible belt. But...I dont LIKE the guy...I dont wanna see more of him. he kinda alienates me. And his die hard supporters alienate me big time. 

I want to see a nonreligious left fighting against the evangelical nuts, and I see the moderate christians as this sort of swing vote. And keep in mind my views on moderation. Even if moderation is sometimes necessary, i dont value it for its own sake. And it seems like a lot of his appeal is because he has this unique "electability" among religious moderates when in reality, I'd rather just see people leave Christianity. 

Maybe had my life gone a bit different, I would be a "James Talarico" in a way. I could see a potential alternate life path where I remained christian but turned progressive. But at the same time, in stark worldview terms, I just see it as contradictory. Sorry, it is. I dont value the idea of having one foot living a myth and the other living in reality. I'd rather just...ya know...live in reality. 

I hope he turns texas blue, but my support for the guy is more transactional than full throated. And I wish my fellow lefties would stop acting like he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

I mean, maybe it's good some dems have enthusiasm for the guy, but I sure as fudge dont. Sorry, I can't just get hyper enthusiastic for good old christian boy over here.  

The marine was right: no one wants to fight for Israel

 So...there was a marine at a congressional hearing that yelled "no one wants to fight for Israel" and got unceremoniously escorted out of the room. That's what really got attention here. Because his arm got stuck in the door, the use of force caused a very loud crack to be heard on camera...which was the guy's arm breaking. And apparently Tim Sheehy (R-MT) helped the security push the guy out. After taking like $600k in cash for Israel. 

And I'm gonna be frank with you, I think the marine was right. We can debate whether what he did was acceptable. I'm not always a fan of loud self righteous anti war protesters. But idk, in this case it seemed somewhat justified. This isn't just an abstract "over there" issue like Palestine was. This is putting our troops on the line for what? And you know what? That soldier was right. Why the hell should we die for Israel? Screw Israel. I want nothing to do with Israel. And neither do most Americans. This is a fundamentally unpopular war.

However, even if we do say "okay well is interrupting a hearing justified? is security removing the guy justified?" Okay. But let's face it, this amount of excessive force was not. The dude's arm was jammed in the door and they kept pulling. Quite frankly, he got a much harsher treatment than 99.9% of January 6th rioters who unceremoniously stormed the capitol building. The only one you could argue had it worse was Ashli Babbitt. And you know what? In THAT situation, I could see breaking a dude's arm if he was trying to get into the capitol chamber. But here? nah, this is excessive AF. 

Either way, I'll just repeat what he said. NO ONE WANTS TO FIGHT FOR ISRAEL. If Israel wants this war, let them fight it themselves, without our help. Stop making us do their dirty work. The vast majority of the public wants less foreign interventionism, not more. Even Biden was doing too much in the eyes of many voters, and I thought Biden had the balance right 95% of the time. Seriously, half the public is like full on isolationist. They might at best support the liberal world order and leading from behind. But the last thing around 75% want is a boots on the ground war for regime change. 

Discussing why we're invading Iran

 So...I believe we are invading Iran for 3 main reasons. It's not nukes, it's not them not negotiating with us. That's all just the pretext, and a shoddy one at that. Here's the real reasons:

1) To distract from the Epstein files

 This really is a matter of trying to take heat off of the Epstein files. It's a long known political tactic among the powerful that when the walls are closing in and you fear some sort of revolt (like MAGA turning on Trump in this case), that you distract with a war. it takes the heat off, and causes the press to focus on that rather than the inconvenient issue(s) you no longer want them to talk about. This is Trump's way to take the heat off of the Epstein stuff.

2) Israel

At best, Israel has a long term geopolitical ambition of security in the region. They are surrounded by potentially hostile powers and see Iran as the biggest threat to their national security. By knocking out Iran, we theoretically make Israel safer long term, or so the logic goes.

The problem with this mentality is, to paraphrase an old political science professor of mine, that preemptively attacking you because you fear being attacked in the future is like just going up to someone and punching them in the face because you fear them punching you in the future. And that kind of makes YOU the bully and YOU the bad guy. 

And let's face it, at worst, this is all imperialism. Israel wants to expand into a form of "Greater Israel" across the middle east, and obviously, Iran is a threat to those ambitions. The entire Muslim world is, quite frankly. Do you think they're just gonna lay down and accept Zionist rule? hell no. 

And then you gotta consider how much Israel is influencing our government. To go back to point 1, The Epstein thing was arguably a Mossad operation to get blackmail on leaders to get them to do whatever they want. And most of our government representatives take AIPAC money and Israel has an outsized influence on our politics that should be concerning. Remember that scene from 300 when it was found that a lot of people in the Greek legislature took money from Persia and were basically pushing government policy toward supporting them? That's how I feel about Israel right now. And that's why Im out of good will with them. They're unduly influencing our government, undermining our own national interests, and pushing us toward a war that has nothing to do with us. And Trump's going along with it, because not only is he a psycho, but because he himself is compromised, probably because they still got TONS of blackmail on him over the Epstein stuff and possibly other things. 

3) Oil

 Yeah it all comes down to natural resource. Trump is burning our bridges with the world market. We could've probably had a good oil deal with Canada, but because Trump's a bully, Carney walked away from the deal and is looking toward China and Europe now. And that could have long term geopolitical consequences. So....Trump wants to make up for that with Venezuela. I know Kyle Kulinski had a segment like a week ago or so that discussed how oil guys were like "if Trump wanted oil he shouldve invaded Iran, not Venezuela" because it'll take years to build up Venezuela's oil infrastructure and Iran already has it so I could see Trump being like "okay, so I'll invade Iran instead." Again, virtually all wars post WWII and a lot of wars pre WWII are over natural resources, and oil being the paramount one. So yeah, that's why.

I mean, there are more reasons too, but those are the three big ones. Other reasons:

4) Long standing grudges

 Iran has been a public enemy of the US since 1979 when they had their islamic revolution to overthrow the Shah. now, to be fair, they hate us because the Shah was a dictator that the CIA put in place back in the 1950s because...once again, we wanted the oil. But yeah the people rose up, overthrew him, and the regime that took over was basically....what Iran has been since. A theocracy that hates the US because of our imperialistic tendencies. 

Anyway, we were on a positive path to normalizing relations with Obama thawing things a bit with the nuclear deal, which allowed Iran have access to nuclear materials for power purposes, under careful watch of the IAEA. It worked. And then Trump tore up the deal because...well....he's both a psycho and an idiot.  

Anyway, we could've invaded at any time, but we're doing it now for the above 3 reasons.

5) Trump wants a legacy

 Trump sees his legacy as expanding the US borders. He has outright imperialistic ambitions, pre 1945 style. He wants to take over places. Venezuela, Iran, and he wants to rule them directly. He also has interests closer to home with places like Greenland, Canada, etc. He's likely to attack Cuba next from what I heard. But yeah, he thinks it's still the 19th century when this made you a great leader when in the post WWII environment, it's not. It makes you look like a rabid dog that's just biting people. And that makes the world less safe. The modern world is based on respecting the existing order and NOT doing things like this. The UN and NATO, both institutions trump despises, exist primarily to discourage this kind of behavior. We want stability. We dont want war. But Trump is a madman so he's causing one. He really is America's Hitler. And I'm not just saying it to be hyperbolic. This is similar logic to lebensraum. This guy is gonna start World War III, if he hasn't already, with us being the new Axis powers.

Speaking of which, wanna know what some people are calling this? The axis of Epstein. Makes sense given the reasoning behind #1 and #2. 

6) Evangelical end times screwery

I do not believe Trump to be a religious man. Not for one second. However, he knows how to utilize that stuff and leverage that stuff to make us base happy and get what he wants. And a lot of conservatives and evangelicals literally support Israel because they believe they're essential to some end times prophecy regarding the return of Jesus. And we need this war to happen to bring that prophecy to fulfillment. Basically, a bunch of nutcases who want the world to end have heavy influence in our government. Can we like...take away the keys to the car at this point? Go home, America, you're drunk. 

Conclusion

We are living in very trying times. This is a very dangerous point of history. Some will wonder if we would still be here if Trump wasn't in office. I doubt it. Democrats supported the liberal world order and the institutions that guaranteed international stability. They acted reactively to problems, not preemptively. And recognizing most Americans simply dont have the stomach for war, including a lot of MAGAs, they've largely led from behind, mostly influencing the world through sharing of tech, weapons, and intel, and limited targeted action, but never boots on the ground. This is looking like it might be another Iraq War: an unproductive quagmire that Americans want nothing to do with and is a huge waste of lives and money. Way to go Trump. 

And...hate to say it, I know I also rip the dems for being as pro Israel as they are these days too, but how are my "i refuse to vote democrat because of gaza" voters doing right now? I mean, I get it, Biden's foreign policy wasn't perfect, and the longer the 2020s unfold, the more I realize the anti war faction was right all along in a way, but let's face it, giving the keys to Trump was not really the answer here. To be fair, because Trump IS letting the crap hit the fan it's causing public opinion to rapidly shift against Israel and American interventionism, keep in mind approval for Trump's current actions are somewhere in the 20s on this issue, but yeah. Was this worth it? Was it worth it. This isn't worth it. And this is why even I voted for Harris in 2024. I know a lot of those types arent gonna wanna hear it. I know i hated hearing it too when I voted green in 2016 and 2020, but you guys kinda F-ed up on this one. Say what you want about Biden and Harris, but they were orders of magnitude better than this, flaws and all. At least they weren't bringing us to the brink of World War 3 and the apocalypse.  

Discussing the Texas primary results

 Okay, so, Texas had their highly anticipated primary yesterday.

On the republican side, no one won, because apparently the candidates had to secure 50% for there to be a winner and no one did because it was a 3 way race. Cornyn got the most votes, which was surprising, as Paxton was expected to win, but again, that can still change since Hunt will likely be eliminated next round. 

On the democratic side, James Talarico won. In a way, I'm a bit relieved. Even if I liked Crockett better, if Cornyn actually has a chance of being the republican nominee, it's better we go with the candidate that has a higher chance of winning. To be fair, Im not really sure Texas CAN even flip here. But Crockett vs Cornyn is the worst possible matchup for democrats with only a 20% or so shot, while Talarico vs Paxton is the best outcome for democrats, with them having a 40% shot at flipping the seat. So Talarico can double our odds under the right scenarios, although Texas is still an underdog regardless. I will admit, I liked Crockett better on policy, I liked her attitude better, I liked her not bringing up Jesus every 5 seconds, but yeah...if we want to actually secure power, Talarico is admittedly a slightly stronger candidate on that front. 

So...yeah. Guess we gotta wait for the runoff for the republicans before we know what's going on for sure. I mean...don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of first past the post but I think runoff voting is like one of the worst possible alternative election methods. if we just did ranked choice voting, we'd already know what we're doing. and peoples' second and third choices would already be known, and we could just calculate it all at once. No need to bring everyone else to vote in like 12 weeks or whatever, inconveniencing voters and keeping us all in suspense. I mean, why hold a completely separate second election now? Again, there's just...better systems than this.  

Discussing the religious fundamentalism of the Iran War

 So...this is disturbing, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is reporting that they received over 200 complaints that the troops over in the middle east are being told that this new Iran war is about bringing about end times prophecies from revelation so that Jesus can come back and we get the rapture and the end times. I wish I was kidding, but this is serious.

Guys, if anyone dares question why I'm such a hardliner against religion at times, THIS IS WHY. These people are MENTAL. They're psychos. Again, how can you look at reality properly when you believe in a book that says the world is only a few thousand years old? How can you make sound policy decisions when THIS is your cosmology? You cant! And I dont believe Trump believes this stuff himself, but his underlings like Pete Kegsbreath (yes, I know what I said) does. 

I feel like I'm in the covenant with the prophet of truth going on about how genociding the humans will bring about the great journey or something. Or about how we must light the rings because blah blah blah great journey. Same crap. This guys are a death cult. For all the talk we have about Iran being full of religious hardliners, our fundie Christians are just as scary as any Islamic fundamentalist that I've heard of. It's the same mindset of religious radicalism. 

Nuts. Truly nuts. These people are nuts. And they're in charge of the biggest military in the world. We're going to war in part because these people want to literally usher in THE FRICKING APOCALYPSE (thankfully I dont believe most at the top believe that stuff, rather they use it to justify their stuff to the masses, so at least some people in government are slightly more sane, even if it doesnt make them less evil). Idk what else to say here.  

I am livid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weighing in on the texas democratic primary

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

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

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

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

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

This leads me to support crockett nominally.

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

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

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

Paxton vs Talarico is R+1, same thing. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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