Discussing the ripple effects of 2026 and the interstate compact

 So...there is another possible path to the 7th party system that doesn't DIRECTLY rely on the south. And that is the "interstate compact." It's been getting attention lately because with state legislatures and governorships flipping and giving several states legislative trifectas, we might be seeing more states join this compact  But what does it do? Basically, it nukes the electoral college. We can't really abolish it directly, but if we get enough states to get 270+ electoral votes to join it, and all of those states agree to give their electoral votes to the popular vote winner, it basically renders the entire system obsolete. If most states just give their votes to the winner of the popular vote, then it's the popular vote that elects presidents. 

The ramifications of this could be party realigning in and of themselves. It could functionally destroy the republican party. The electoral college has been one of the only things keeping them relevant in the modern era. It's what gave Bush the 2000 election, and Trump 2016. Heck, since 1992, republicans have only won the popular vote twice. Once in 2004, when Bush was still riding some of that post 9/11 high, and in 2024 where inflation under Biden caused the republicans to narrowly win the popular vote as well. By normally, in a normal election cycle, democrats win that. This itself could destroy the republican party in its current form. And with democrats winning legislatures in states like pennsylvania and even texas, well....we might hit that 270 number. 

See, the republicans rely on the outsized influence of the rural vote and mechanisms like the electoral college to keep power. THey love to play these arguments about how we're not a democracy, we're a republic, and how the people cant be trusted to make the right decisions so we need...some weird complex institution our founders made to protect us from the will of the people. it's always been BS. As the legaleagle video pointed out, the electoral college was a half baked compromise that never worked well. It's been used by the south to cement their own power, which is why it's been so instrumental over the years. First, we had the confederacy and Jim crow, then they became the base of the republican party. If the interstate compact goes into effect, suddenly many of those states become less important, because people should vote, not land. And for all the arguments that the system gives all states representation, it really doesn't. Many states are taken for granted and we end up campaigning in like 7 states overwhelmingly, while large states full of people like NY, Texas, and California are largely ignored. There is talk of texas becoming a swing state, but imagine how horrible that would be in the context of the article I wrote right before this. It's 40 electoral votes, it would be THE state everyone caters to, and it would DOMINATE our politics. The whole country would have to put up with the whims of texan voters, which would actually make our politics more conservative. 

BUT....if we get rid of the electoral college in effect, the states that matter most would simply be the states where voters live. 50 state strategies might be viable. At the very least, the swing states would be where people live. Sure, Texas IS the second biggest state in the union. but California, Florida, and New York are rather large too. beyond that, there's lots of mid sized states like pennsylvania, ohio, georgia, north carolina, michigan, and illinois. We'd get a good mix of states, really. No one region of the country would dominate. Maybe the interior west would lose a bit but no one is going there anyway. The point is, doing away with the electoral college could functionally change our democracy where just doing THAT could create a realignment. it would literally change the whole calculus toward electing presidents, and, if anything, weaken the republican party in net because they rarely win the popular vote in the modern era. it literally took the post COVID economic environment to break the democrats' lock on the electoral college, because that itself touched on that cardinal rule of politics of not messing with peoples' living standards. Other than that, the republicans have been toast for a while, they literally needed the electoral college and its broken math to actually win elections mostly. So you wanna bring about the 7th party system, you an change the rules of the game, and the 2026 victories might do that. 

We also might see these blue states gerrymander the fudge out of themselves to preserve their power. I quite frankly think we should uncap the house, but barring that, the way I see it, the republicans started a gerrymandering war, and the democrats can finish it. While state legislatures rush to gerrymander the crap out of blue states, congress could offer a truce with the republicans by...banning gerrymandering altogether. Either we beat the republicans at their own game...or we ban the negative practice they decided to revive in a poor attempt to maintain power. And then we simply have fairer congressional maps. I personally would like to get rid of the reapportionment act and shrink the size of districts, but no one is touching that yet, but it's on the table.

Some democrats are also discussing things like court packing, term limits, age limits, etc, to break up SCOTUS's outsized conservative influence. I support at least some of these measures, like term limits. ANd if we hold the senate long enough we can pick up seats like alito's or thomas's. The point is, we might be seeing the ripple effects of 2026 in such a way that this political earthquake causes ripple effects that COULD usher in the 7th party system, not because it has permanent staying power, but simply because it breaks the rules that republicans currently rely on to keep relevance even as their coalition has been in decline for decades. 

And while some might see what we're proposing as evil and dictatorial, on the contrary, that's what THEY want. They want a system where we rely on BS broken institutions to maintain power. The whole goal of the Trumpian political project was to prepare American democracy for permanent minority rule. They dont want people voting, they want less people voting. That's why they fear monger about voter fraud and make up all this BS about a great replacement their side is obsessed with. They need their voter based obsessed with it to keep them voting for their side, and to also disenfranchise the other side. They broke up the voting right act starting the gerrymandering war to destroy black voting power in the south. They called for voter ID in the name of fake "voter fraud" to disenfranchise people. They use the arguments of "we're a republic" and go on about how we should fear democracy because...they dont benefit from it. They dont want people to vote, they want fewer people voting because that tends to benefit them. More extreme people in the republican party want to disenfranchise women, they want to disenfranchise minorities. They dont want demographics that dont generally vote for them, to vote period. For all of the faults of the left, our political project is different. We want MORE democracy. We want more people voting. We want more "one person, one vote." And if we can just straight up change the rules to make the system more democratic, then that's good not just for them, but for ALL of us. I'm not saying the democrats are perfect. They're not. They tend to be corrupt themselves, and they tend to want to limit, for example, the ability to vote third party, because it threatens their power. But....if we can pass reforms like mentioned here, that would radically change our democracy making it more representative of the people, and put the nail in the coffin of the current republican coalition, making it unviable for years to come, and perhaps radically changing our national politics in ways that we can't even fully understand yet. It WOULD benefit democrats initially, but republicans would have to find a way to change their entire strategy to claw back power. It would literally upend the entire 6th party system as we know it.

With that said, I'd rather do this than to adopt a strategy of trying to win the south more directly. Maybe for the house and senate we will continue to need to in some ways. But ultimately, I'd rather enact rules that break the republican party by doing away with the institutional advantages they rely on to win and maintain power relatively undemocratically.  That itself would trigger a realignment that forces the country as a whole to realign around a new set of politics centered around the will of the people, instead of giving an outsized influence to a handful of states that might be out of sync with the rest of the country.  

Discussing the south and how much the democrats should appeal to them

 So...with the 2026 midterms turning half of the south blue, there's debate in the democratic party about how much it should appeal to the south. Scott Colom, who recently won in Mississippi, basically said that the democratic party doesn't believe that they can win in the south and the party doesn't even try. He believes we should change that. Quite frankly, i disagree.

Don't get me wrong, I respect the crap out of Scott Colom for winning. However, let's be blunt. Colom's win only happened because 2026 was an insane election year with crazy levels of turnout for democrats. This was not a normal cycle. This was a political earthquake, brought on by the fact that Trump and the republicans did not respect the cardinal rule of American politics: don't #### with the American peoples' living standards. So when Cindy Hyde Smith told them to "pick another protein" in response to high beef prices, they picked another senator instead. 

However, this is basically a high water mark for democrats. Kind of like those signs that show how high the water got during hurricane Agnes here in PA, which was one of those one in a hundred year floods. It COULD be an early sign of a shift to the seventh party system, but let's look at it relative to 2024 again.

 

 This is a rough 15.4 point shift from 2024, which is about what we got with the generic congressional vote going from R+2.7 to D+12.7. Put onto an electoral college map with 2024's voter data, that amounts to basically a 400+ electoral vote landslide. This is a massive BLOWOUT for democrats. And again, sure, this could be an early sign of a shift to the 7th party system, that full on realignment I've been gunning for since 2016, it's unclear if it will stuck. We'll have to see how the democrats continue to hold up over subsequent elections. It's very possible that this amount of support quickly evaporates as democrats fail to perform and make peoples' lives meaningfully better. I mean, 2006 and 2008 were HUGE wins for democrats, but then the tea party wave of 2010 took the wind out of our sails and the enthusiasm and energy we had basically....died. 

And again, what does a normal year look like? Well, not this. More like this:

This is basically what a tied generic vote map looks like. Democrats win, but outside of Georgia, which is rapidly moving left due to Atlanta basically turning it into the illinois of the south, it's not really reliable. Texas is still solid red here. Arizona and North Carolina are moving left but arent reliable. Mississippi, forget it. Quite frankly, by the time you can reliably turn much of the south blue as we did just last week, you need to literally have an environment that in a normal cycle is unthinkable. Again, it happened because Trump and the republicans F-ed up on such a monumental level that it literally broke my model. I literally had to remake the version above showing states that are like R+16 and above because my normal maps literally wouldnt allow shifts that far. It's like breaking a scale because you put something so heavy on it the numbers just dont go up that high. I highly doubt that that's reliable. Like last year, I was thinking flipping the senate was gonna be difficult to impossible. Even if we saw a shift from 2024, I expected maybe a 4-8 point shift from 2024...leading to a generic congressional vote between like D+1 and D+5. What map would that produce? Something like this:

Like, once you get past the seven swing states, there's a HUGE CLIFF before we get to the next wave of states. The senate victories somehow cleared THOSE and then started flipping stuff beyond that like South Carolina and Mississippi. When that happens, it's beyond over. Again, not a normal cycle. It happened because Trump F-ed up so badly that it seems to be pushing the country toward a possible full on realignment. We saw this happen before. The carter years caused the Reagan revolution, where the political conditions allowed a shift, and the republican party was able to capitalize on it to shift the map in their favor. Even then, the democrats eventually won again, and Bill Clinton did win the south, but that showed itself to be temporary, as it then went red with George W. Bush and has only started showing the first signs of shifting back in the 2020s. 

Which brings me to my perspective. I understand by this point, I'm a bit older but my own politics are mostly informed by the Obama map and the spirit of the great recession and the 2012 election. For me, the south and the interior west states are the two regions of the country that are mostly a lost cause. We can win the west. We can win the northeast. We can win the rust belt. But the south is just...off limits. It's conservative. It's full of religious nuts and racists. It's literally the backbone of the republican party. And some are saying, with this realignment, we can break that backbone. And sure, maybe, but here's something I also keep having to ask. But why would I want to? As I see it, the culture of the south is fundamentally different than my own. I'm a liberal secular humanist. My own politics are informed by atheism. Why should I wanna appeal to traditionalism? it seems like this obsession with the south is centrist democrats who think if they can flip the south, they can not only screw the republicans, but also create a power base that keeps the democrats conservative. And that's my own kind of moral opposition to this strategy here. This up and coming coalition...I'm not sure I have a place in it. I'm not sure the progressive left has a place in it. Yes, it's populist in a way, until you start talking about solutions, then that's socialism and all the suburbanites say "don't raise MY taxes." And then you got the black vote, which we've discussed before. A lot of black voters in the south are very...churchy. They are conservative. They have low standards, which is why democrats love them, they'll "vote blue no matter who", and the centrist wing can weaponize those voters against the progressive left, accusing us of being overeducated and out of touch, and going on about how we just don't get them. There's a lot of animus between conservative black voters and white social democrats, with the first group not trusting the second because FDR's new deal coalition was in with the racists. And that's how the democrats in the centrist wing frame it. They say if we want social democracy again, we gotta throw black voters under the bus, and they pick a fight between us on the progressive left and these voters. This causes the opposite effect, driving me to be skeptical of a coalition that relies too much on the south. Nothing against black voters in particular btw. But if they're gonna be weird over us wanting things like universal healthcare and UBI, and the centrist wing is gonna try to turn us into pariahs and use these voters to undermine OUR interests, I'm skeptical of a coalition where they're a central part of it. Because im skeptical of centrists.

And if anything, that's what makes me leery about this 2026 democratic coalition. As I said, this isn't necessarily a coalition centered around my priorities. Southern democrats ARE more moderate. They are gonna be a bit more finnicky and hostile to my own political goals. Is Scott Colom gonna be for universal healthcare? is he gonna be for UBI? What about James Talarico?

Heck, I've discussed talarico before. And while yes, he's more progressive than i often give him credit for, he CODES conservative. Every word out of his mouth is about Jesus and it puts me off massively given my own secularism. I guess that's what you gotta do to win texas, and he sure did win and i wanna give him credit for that, but yeah....it's just like "is this what the future of the democrats looks like?" 

Again, as a white, northern, secular, yankee type I just find a lot of this to be offputting. And as some may have noticed, as I process this election cycle, I feel like I AM having to back off of my ambitions a bit because i recognize this new energy in the party is, quite frankly, more conservative than I'd like. And I'm NOT gonna get everything that I want. But I still want it. Dont get me wrong, I still want my priorities met. But the problem is, will the moderate candidates a southern coalition will generate deliver? Probably not. With the south being a central part of the democratic party, you can say goodbye to medicare for all. You can say goodbye to UBI. Any major change can be written off as alienating the more conservative "blue dog" parts of this new coalition. 

With that said, not only am I not necessarily convinced that we CAN win in the south, but even if we could, I'm not really in favor of moving that way. I fear that doing so would be counter to my own interests in the democratic party and my own liberalism. When I left the republican party, I did it as a rejection of conservatism. I didn't leave to watch the other side become conservative as those voters flee the mess they created without changing their minds. If the south comes to us, and I believe some parts of it slowly are due to demographic changes, fine, but I'm not necessarily on board to us coming to them, as doing so sacrifices what draws me to the democrats over the republicans in the first place. 

Right now, im going along with the democrats because I believe stopping the republicans is essential for the future health of our democracy and the country. BUT, that doesn't mean I want us to become conservative. And that's my fear. These guys are too conservative, and integrating them into the coalition will make US more conservative, hamstringing any solid progressive legislation that I support. Keep in mind, my own vision for the country IS closer to AOC than, say, John Ossoff. But...Im not convinced the people want that any more. 10 years ago when bernie ran, they did. But that zeitgeist seems gone, and the energy of the modern environment is different. Sure, there's populist anti billionaire style energy. But it's a much more moderate energy that rejects actual progressive solutions and is, if anything, quite hostile to them. 

And yeah, that's just how I see it. Maybe I'm wrong, idk, we'll have to see how this plays out, and there IS more at play here than just a southern shift. We could see the 7th party system happen simply because of the interstate compact that is being discussed. This political wave might lead to a 7th party system simply because the wave is big enough to lead to long term political changes that completely F the future of the republican party over.  

It seems like republicans forgot the cardinal rule of US politics

 DON'T #### WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLES' LIVING STANDARDS!!!!!

 So yeah, as Kyle covered here, Rick Santorum decided to say that Americans should sacrifice for Donald Trump's war in the middle east. 

 

...Should I say it again?

 

 Seriously though. You don't F with the American' peoples' living standards. These are the guys who when Carter told the American people in the 1970s to turn the heat down and wear sweaters the last time we had an Iran induced oil crisis, they rewarded him by throwing him out of office in a monumental landslide and electing Reagan twice, and then Bush. And that's how we got the modern era of conservative rule that started with Reagan. The american people were so traumatized by Carter that they were still invoking him in the 2000s when I was a teenager. The republicans held an iron grip on our politics basically until the great recession and Obama being elected in 2008, because, once again, you don't F with the American peoples' living standards. And when Obama didn't do enough because he was a rather milquetoast centrist democrat, Clinton was thrown out when she showed up with her "it's my turn" crap, leading to current guy to get elected to his first term, because you don't F with the american peoples' living standards. And when he messed up during COVID, he lost. Because you don't F with the American peoples' living standards. And when Biden happened to get caught with post COVID inflation, we threw him out for Trump again, because you don't F with the American peoples' living standards. And now, Trump suffered the biggest mid term defeat in the past 50 years, because you don't F with the American peoples' living standards. 

 

So yeah. i think I'm gonna say it again, loud and clear:

 DON'T #### WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLES' LIVING STANDARDS!!!!!

Americans will tolerate a lot of crap. They'll tolerate de facto enslavement and everything else, but the second you touch their actual living standards in a noticeable way that ISNT a frog in a boiling pot, they will go BALLISTIC. And that's why even Mississippi picked another senator.  

I mean...do you know how badly you have to F up as a republican, for MISSISSIPPI to go blue? It's like that moment from Die Hard where the FBI cuts the power and inadvertantly opens the vault the bad guys wanted to steal the stuff from. It's that level of incompetence. And then these guys in the face of doubling down are like..."gee, you know what? the American people are selfish, they should SACRIFICE for this iran war." I mean, F off. Or don't. You're actually doing the democrats a favor here. Like seriously the democrats are inept at making their own case half the time. But you know what's making the case for them? Castigating them for not sacrificing for Donald Trump's war in Iran. 

 

And...idk, I KINDA have mixed thoughts so hear me out. yes, the American people are selfish, and it frustrates me too. I think they did Carter dirty in the 1980 election. I mean, it wasn't his fault. And when in an oil constrained environment, I guess its hard to tolerate, but yeah, I mean, what else was carter supposed to say, consume as much oil as you want so we all run out and prices get higher? And then we have COVID. Trump deserved to be thrown out on his butt for sheer incompetence and actively mismanaging the pandemic, but watching how selfish the american people were when the economy reopened and they were like I WANT MY CREATURE COMFORTS NOW seriously rubbed me the wrong way. We do lack the civic spirit of past generations in a way when dealing with a legitimate crisis. For as much as we make martyrs of ourselves with work ethic and wrap that crap up in the American flag, we are ridiculously intolerant of any restrictions on our consumption habits. Oh, we're supposed to not eat out and stuff because a deadly disease is killing millions of us? Lets sacrifice millions for the sake of the economy. Oh, and let's nor forget the whole "you should be forced to work to provide me entertainment and cheap creature comforts" attitude of the early 2020s, which rubbed me the wrong way given my anti work indepentarian tendencies. 

But at the same time...with Iran? Yeah, that's totally self inflicted. let's never forget that Trump started this war to distract from the fact that he's a pedo piece of crap as described in the epstein files. Remember those? Yeah. And Iran...wasnt even a threat. He did that to himself, and to all of us. 

The fact is, normally, I dont blame presidents for the economy. But Trump is making so many unforced errors I cant help but blame him for the current problems. For as much crap as Biden put up with, he left the economy in a relatively stable state. But then TRUMP was the one who did the tariffs. He's the one who invaded Iran when any expert could've told him it was a horrible idea because they'd close the strait of hormuz and oil would reach the prices we're at now. He's the one who is cozying up to the AI industry and Nvidia and refusing to regulate them. And apparently through all of these things, the American people are just supposed to suffer. Oh well, I guess we gotta suffer for Trump's war. I guess we gotta suffer with AI data centers and an insane electronics market because we need AI for some reason. It's bull####, it really is. And the American people said NO to this. And you know what? In this case, they're 100% right. 

 

It's one thing to need to sacrifice when putting up with some sort of crisis that happened that wasn't anyone's fault, at least no one's fault in our own country. It's another for comically incompetent presidents like Trump to CREATE these crises, and then lecture the American people about how they need to suffer for them. But hey, if that's the game Trump wants to play, I say let him F around and find out. We really are probably gonna get our version of the Reagan revolution if things keep going like this. I just hope the democrats don't F this up as well, because as you can imagine, I don't really trust them either. Especially with current leadership.  

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.