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.