Let's have a frank discussion about the DSA

 So...David Pakman put out a clip ringing the alarm bells about the DSA taking over the democratic party. He framed it from the perspective that he's a social democrat, but that these guys are literal authoritarian socialists and tankies and we are playing with the same fire the republicans were with the tea party, and then MAGA. 

I have mixed views on this. On the one hand, I absolutely opposed literal socialism beyond like worker coops and crap like that, and maybe having the government take over a handful of industries like healthcare where severe market failures exist. I'm still on the "capitalist" side of the aisle. I also dont like all the tankie crap you sometimes get from these groups. Those ideologies are disgusting and have no place in the overton window. 

At the same time, the centrists of the democratic party...suck. The reason why the DSA got the support they did in the first place is because the democrats are TOO centrist, TOO worthless, TOO unwilling to fight for things. Originally, it seemed like DSA style candidates like Bernie were just...social democrats. Many mainstream "socialists" like AOC and Bernie are just advocating for New Deal type policies. And I've been supporting those guys since, quite frankly, they align with me more than the moderates, and a lot of them dont seem dangerous.

Still, having been in online social circles that are DSA adjacent, and having even left some of them because they got too extreme and too toxic, I've watched these guys radicalize in real time over the past 10 years and yeah, some of these guys need to "touch grass" to put it lightly. As i always say, I dont think anyone wants ACTUAL socialism and ACTUAL leftism. They just want a better shake. I do believe we need a transformational economic agenda for the 21st century, but that agenda needs to remain within the realm of liberalism and reformism. And some socialist types....don't want that. 

It's kinda stupid. The online spectrum has gotten to a point where the liberals are die hard insufferable centrists, and even the likes of david pakman kinda suck for me, he was a die hard biden bro. But at the same time, again, I'm not for LITERAL socialism. My own agenda is equivalent to Yang's "human centered capitalism" with a more leftist flair. UBI, medicare for all, free college, student debt forgiveness, a housing program, a shorter work week. many of those proposals are supported by DSA candidates. And that's fine. one of the reason I vote for a lot of DSA types is because what they actually propose...is social democracy. For all of the utopian rhetoric, their actual policies are moderate. But yeah. I have been noticing there is something much darker behind that. Like that this movement has been radicalizing and runs the risk of further radicalization into authoritarian communism. Like Pakman mentioned Hasan Piker dressing up like Mao. I mean, F Mao. I don't like Mao. I dont like Lenin, I dont like Stalin, I dont like Castro, or Xi, or the Kim family. I'm not a communist. 

But...again...at the same time....these "democratic socialists" seem to be running on social democratic policy, policy that I largely support, even if I do have some differences. And the mainstream centrist democrats with their moral panics over this stuff...they're LITERALLY USELESS. So...idk. This puts me in a hard spot. Ideally, we would just have a faction of progressive democrats who want large scale social democratic or New Deal type policy without calling it socialism. or UBI without calling it socialism. But in a lot of ways, the left has become so polarized it feels like a choice between the DSA and the centrist craplibs who dont wanna do anything. 

So...I kinda end up supporting DSA candidates...because the dems wont step up. 

Again, I keep saying it, but FDR did the original new Deal in part to stop us from electing literal fascists or communists. The democrats had to move left to make the system work....to stop those who wanted to overthrow the entire system. And that's the problem, the democrats AREN'T DOING THAT! So people are driven to DSA types because they're the only ones standing up, and that's the reality.

Is the DSA a long term threat, like the tea party/MAGA became? Perhaps. Populism is like fire. It's useful when controlled, but when NOT controlled, it can burn everything down. We need left wing populism, we need fire, but we also need a licensed pyrotechnician to actually utilize it properly, ya know, like Rammstein, but for politics. Fun fact, ya know Till had an accident in his early days with the pyro that sent a few people to the hospital?  Then he got his license and now he does even crazier shows safely.

The democrats need to be like Rammstein, full of fire, but responsible with it. 

And..btw, I think centrist democrats are mostly fine on social and foreign policy. Abolishing the police, prisons, and borders is NOT gonna play well with the general electorate. neither will excessive wokeness. I do think we can swing the populace to the libertarian center left, but yeah, the leftists go way too far with it.

And on foreign policy, eyah, we should be less interventionist, but we should do it the Biden way. biden MOSTLY had an ideal foreign policy. You can argue that he wasnt good enough on Israel, but honestly, I dont think the public really cares about that either. Most of the reason the left at large is turning on Israel now is them influencing our elections, and manipulating Trump into wars. I dont think most democrats are the "FREE PALESTINE, GLOBALIZE THE INTIFADA" types. And it would be a tactical mistake to assume that they are.

Even on economics, I think that while the public DOES want a more progressive turn, and a more progressive turn is necessary, we gotta be careful with how we frame it. The public doesnt have a set ideology, if anything theyre just bouncing between the two parties hoping one of them does something. And while the dems need to be the ones to ultimately fix the problems, again, I think it's a mistake to assume that the public wants LITERAL socialism. I think we can sell social democracy to people, and heck, even my policies, as "anti work" as I am (a cardinal sin in the eyes of the american public), can probably be sold if we can convince the vast majority of people of them. But again, LITERAL socialism is a whole different animal altogether, and I think these guys would be in for a rude awakening if they tried to push that.

Ya know, social democrats often ask a question, why did leftist movements never shift to actual socialism in social democratic countries? The answers are two fold. First of all, social democrats did a good enough job at dissuading people from revolutionary action. People were comfortable enough under social democracy that they didn't want full blown socialism. Second of all, it's because the logistics of transitioning to socialism are tricky. Replacing the entire capitalist structure with something else entirely would require massively transforming our economy on a level even most socdems wouldnt attempt. And again, when we see countries do it, we see the actual communist ones that didnt work. For all the talk of "democratic socialist" theory, I have yet to see an actual demsoc offer a convincing pathway of how to get there, other than just nationalizing everything. And that's obviously bad. Like, we've seen some push "universal basic services" instead of UBI. And here's why i dont like that. You give people cash, you let them buy what they want in the market. You let supply and demand do its thing. You have the state do individual services, suddenly theyre telling you what food to eat, where you can live, etc. You're not giving power to people to do what they wanna do, you're giving that power to the state And that takes away peoples' freedom. Again, you can justify this with some policies like universal healthcare, free college, maybe even a public housing program. But ultimately we shouldnt need to axe the entire free market to make that work. Free college still means some institutions will be private. Public housing still means the private market is available. hell, even Zohran Mamdani's socialist grocery stores still compete with capitalist enterprises. And public option healthcare would leave the private market to exist if people want it.

We dont need a government monopoly on things to fix things. And I can get behind M4A, dont get me wrong. Canada has a decent healthcare system in a country that is still capitalist. The UK does too. So, on healthcare, I COULD theoretically go full state monopoly. I tend to advocate more for a public option these days than M4A, but...I'm not opposed to M4A in principle. As I keep saying, I support a public option primarily due to costs. Still, I could see a public option being a convincing alternative ideologically given my stance on other things as well. But yeah. I don't want socialism.. I dont want communism. I just want progress. 

Now, again, DSA is weird. I know a lot of the DSA people have brainworms, but most of them, running for office, are running on socdem priorities, and I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to that. And I would support DSA candidates in their current form. BUT...I did notice Platner had some tankie reddit history. I also notice some candidates like DAC are also way more extreme than just social democracy. They might have to back away from such statements running for office, but their history is their history, and some wonder if these candidates really are that extreme. And obviously is Hasan is literally cosplaying as a literal communist dictator, uh..that's bad. 

Like, again, actual communism bad. But if youre running on socdem policy, that's good. And if the socialists are running on progressive socdem policy that the mainstream dems refuse to support, they have no one to blame but themselves when they get in a moral panic about the DSA taking over their party. it isnt like this wasn't entirely avoidable. If the dems dont wake up and actually move left, they might lose their party to DSA types, and that is totally the democrats' fault. Because I've spent the past decade watching these guys run centrists and tell us to get ####ed every election cycle, and now that the left is starting to win they're freaking out about a hostile takeover. In the current environment, that takeover might actually be welcome. Again, because the establishment of the party is that fricking useless.

But...again, to come back around to why Im writing this...I get it. I get why the dems are kind of concerned. Because again, the DSA is like fire. A little bit, that's controlled, can be useful and cool. But if it gets out of hand, it burns everything down. There is a risk long term that if the DSA is allowed to keep radicalizing for long enough, we COULD see a similar trend to what the GOP has done over the past 15-20 years or so. But I would honestly hope that the dems would get some balls and triangulate back to the left before that happens. I think for now, if we vote for DSA candidates, we're MOSTLY going to get socdem priorities. But if they DO entirely take over and get their way, well that CAN be dangerous. So we do gotta keep our eyes on them, but I also do think, in the mean time, we also kinda need them to pull the dems back to the left in the first place. because let's face it, no one else is, and this moment does call for economic populism.   

The education problem is not a problem with democracy, but oligarchy

 So, on the tail of me making my arguments in favor of majority rule, Vaush basically came out and said democracy is dumb, 40% of americans are irredeemably dumb, and we can't have a functioning democracy as long as this problem exists. And I have a few things to say about this.

Yes, 40% of the country is dumb and irrdeemably dumb, however, their stupidity was planned by the oligarchy. We were toying with free college in the 1960s in places like California, but Ronald Reagan (yeah, THAT one, he was a governor back then) was opposed to it because he feared an educated working class and believed higher education had to be selective who it let through. he also REALLY hated hippies and saw institutions of higher education as a place where they gathered and organized protests. Like imagine the free palestine protests of 2024. Imagine if Trump basically said, we're not gonna have free college because universities like columbia had protesters protesting. Yeah. Basically that, but again, it's also a deeper issue. Again, the ruling elite in this country seem to fear a working class that's 1) educated, and 2) has time on its hands. That's why we work so hard, and we're all so dumb. The institutions are set up to MAKE us dumb. 

And going back to reagan, the reagan revolution realigned our politics around the moral majority types who themselves live in an alternative reality, and they gained power and influence, and spread their ideology far and wide. And then the fairness doctrine was struck down, once again by reagan, and this gave rise to a far right media environment that blatantly misleads the public. So the right has been pumping poison into our collective brains for decades by this point. Cut off access to education, pushed religion and BS like creationism and anti climate change narratives, and changed the media landscape to reflect their priorities. And then the population just are up all that propaganda, and here we are with 40% of the country so fricking dumb that they dont know what way is up and if you tell them they'll say its down and gravity is fake news. 

In a way, breaking democracy is very much in line with the conservative MO. Their stance on government for a while has been "well it doesnt work so we shouldnt have it", but it's broken...because they broke it. They literally sabotaged it and then said "it doesn't work!" And that's the same issue with democracy.

I've long been a supporter of free college. Part of that is because I believe that to have a strong democracy, we need a strong informed citizenry. Many people see college as a path to a job, or social mobility, and dont get me wrong, those goals are important, but I ultimately think that really REALLY makes me pro free college more than anything is the fact that we need a populace educated enough to actually utilize democracy properly. The stupidity problem has been on my radar for a while, quite frankly, it's been on my radar since I left Christianity in 2012 and I understood "the cave" as it exists. And keep in mind, I want people to get out of the cave, and the best way to do that is to give them an education. 

Moreover, I wanna make another argument. Remember what I said about the tyranny of the majority arguments and arguments against democracy. Who benefits from oligarchy, the alternative to democracy? Wealthy and powerful, not people. Who benefits from a "republican" form of government over a "democratic" form? Why, the "republican" party. The argument for the senate and how we cant trust the will of the people gives an outsized influence on a minority of the country that primarily skew conservative. The electoral college primarily skews conservative. Al Gore would've won in 2000 and Hillary Clinton would've won in 2016 if we had a more democratic form of government. And I believe in the modern era if we actually unleashed actual democracy, the republicans would struggle to win future elections. Their coalition has been on its way out for a while, its aging, it's losing numbers, it kinda relies on unfair institutional advantages to force de facto minority rule on people, because if we let the majority decide that would just be bad for....reasons that dont make much sense. 

So....that's the thing. The really really stupid people are still a minority of the country. Now, it's still scary the republicans got a coalition as robust as it is, and to go back to vaush, it's terrifying the republican party is still a viable party in the trump years at all. And that was somewhat of a miscalculation of mine back in 2016. Honestly, I thought if people experienced Trump back then, that they'd never want him again, but theres enough people who are dumb enough to actually like him. It's only around, like, 42% of the country or so, but Trump's coalition is viable in part because he can still win over swing voters and democrats can still depress their own turnout from their own suckage, so they manage to win anyway. 

But...to some degree, this is also a skill issue for the democrats. How badly do you have to suck to lose to Trump not just once but twice? I mean, Jesus Christ. We've beaten to death how we got here, but in general, mismatched priorities and low voter enthusiasm is a huge reason. And as far as im concerned, thats one of the reasons the dems cant consistently win either. Because voters genuinely think that they suck. And even I think they suck. They suck. And they need to stop sucking if we want them to actually win consistently. otherwise people are gonna give the stupid party a chance again when it's out of power. No one likes glados, and when people dont like glados, they vote for wheatley, and that's how we got here. 

But again, is any of this the peoples' fault as a whole? No. I mean, again, all of this is a result of oligarchy. The dems not being responsible to the people is due to oligarchy. The republicans dumbing people down is oligarchy. And the alternative to democracy is more oligarchy.

If we want to unscrew this country, we need democrats to win and pass an agenda thats popular. And from there, we gotta start deprogramming people through education. Maybe it'll be too late for the older gens whose minds are made up and whose brains have turned to jello because of watching fox news and alex jones all day.  But...we gotta start undoing the damage. I do believe our system of government is salvageable. But it does require the democrats to actually govern properly the next time they take power. And at the end of the day, we need MORE democracy, not less. 

And yeah, I just wanted to double down on that idea.  

Discussing the idea of abolishing the senate and "tyranny by the majority"

 Okay, so...the DSA's take on eliminating the senate has gotten some waves recently, and I wanted to discuss the issue myself, after having a debate about it. I would say I'm SOMEWHAT in support of it, but I also do understand there are some valid reservations, and wanna work through all of that. I ain't ride or die on this idea, heck, given steep political opposition I kind of see it as some long term thing that's never gonna happen similar to actually ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegals the RIGHT way (as in, super majorities and passing a constitutional amendment), but idk, i do think we should at least discuss the idea as I don't think it's as bad as people think it is.

Why we have the senate in the first place

 So, while conservatives love to revere the founding fathers as if they were demigods or prophets who could never be wrong, they were people too. High minded people, but themselves fallible, and subjected to the biases of their times, and the biases of things like their social classes (which is actually relevant here). 

The constitution itself was passed out of compromise. Their main goal was to get all of the states on board. For the legislature, there were two primary plans for it. You had the "virginia plan" that was based on population and favored large states like virginia and pennsylvania at the time, ya know, where the real population centers were. But some also feared that this would disenfranchise small states, like, say, new Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, etc. So we also had the "New Jersey Plan", a plan for a legislature that ended up representing all states equally. Basically, we passed both plans. The virginia plan became the house, the new jersey plan became the senate. This is civics 101. 

Discussing the "tyranny of the majority" 

Speaking of civics 101, I feel like when I argue with people online on this, they parrot civics 101 answers without thinking about what they mean. Like, a commonly held belief is that we need the senate as a way to offset the tyranny of the majority, the idea that the masses will make dumb decisions and we need checks and balances on them. Heck, a lot of aspects of our system were implemented because the founders didnt trust the people to make good decisions. People are uneducated, driven by passions, and the founders wanted to slow possible change and progress. So...they implemented a lot of weird wrinkles in our constitutional system, like the electoral college for electing the president, the senate existing and senators originally being chosen by the governors of each state, with no input from the people. And yeah....they didn't actually make our system democratic. "it's a republic" as the dudebros who support this line of thinking say. 

But, I look at things like this: if the people aren't making the decisions, who is? If we read plato's republic, he basically has three main forms of government, i mean, its technically 6, with good and bad forms of each one, but Im gonna boil it down to three: rule by one, rule by a few, or rule by the many. 

Rule by one is obviously bad. That's a dictatorship. And people are fallible and we need checks and balances to ensure more people have input than just one. But at the same time, let's say we dont trust the masses. What does that leave? Well, it leaves the rule by a few. An oligarchy. A term we hear a lot in this populist era of ours. Heck, any time the word is uttered these days I read it in Bernie Sanders' strong Brooklyn accent. Rule by the few. And the idea is that these few know better than the masses. is this true? Well, it CAN be? But also...no. 

 Virtually every problem of the modern day i would argue is called by oligarchy. Money in politics, corruption, the GOP having an outsized influence on our elections despite being a minority. And that's the thing. In the modern era, what do these "checks and balances" do? Well, it takes power out of the hands of the people and ensures that rather than getting the tyranny of a majority, we gotta suffer a minority's viewpoint instead. Conservatives get far outsized influence over the government. We can have the people choose a democrat for president but the republicans still win because of the electoral college. The majority of people might want more progressive policies, but a minority ends up holding us back because institutions like the senate give an outsized influence to rural people and their preferences. The house was capped at 435 members, with massive district sizes intentionally designed to dilute the impact of cities and preserve the rural vote. As one person I debated recently say, basically, these institutions are DEI for the rural vote. So instead of having the majority have their views heard, we get a minority. And is that any better? No, it's not like these guys are oh so enlightened and know better than us. They're not technocrats, they're basically a bunch of undereducated hicks with dunning kruger, to be blunt. Even if they were technocrats, we've seen the "technocracy" make a come back under Trump...do we really trust ###holes like Peter Thiel or Elon Musk to be oh so enlightened and to make decisions for the masses? NO! They're gonna make decisions that improve their own pocketbooks. Like, again, we keep having this idea that the masses are stupid and we need these enlightened technocrats to guide us to a prosperous future. Again. How is that working out for us? We're being outmaneuvered by our intellectual lessers. We're putting power in the hands of wealthy oligarchs looking to enrich their own pocketbooks. How is this helping us? How is this benefitting us?

Also, let's not forget, this brilliant idea of the founders is what gave us Donald Trump in the first place! While Trump DID win the popular vote in 2024, he lost it in 2016. Clinton actually won the popular vote by 2-3 points. But because "oh we can't trust the majority to make good decisions" for some reason, we ended up electing the stupidest and most "anti American" president we've ever had in terms of the spirit of our institutions. And the dude IS going in the direction of tyranny. LIke, if our constitution wasnt so robust and had such strong protections on free speech, we'd basically be at the enabling act stage of losing our democracy. I mean, NSPM-7 and this red scare stuff Trump is trying to do over democratic socialists is basically that. 

Even for the founders. Did THEY have everyone's best interests at heart? Well, I mentioned class biases, so let's be frank: no. They designed a system where only white male wealthy landowners could vote. And IMO, I think this really gives some insight into their priorities here. Like in the modern day, the US was designed to constrain the masses because if the masses actually had power, they might actually vote away the wealth of upper classes. I mean, they werent gonna give slaves the ability to vote, not only would the southern states not go or it (although we did do the 3/5ths compromise where they counted as 3/5 of a person so they got a boost to their population count even with them being disenfranchised), but could you imagine giving slaves the ability to vote for their own freedom? I mean, it would never happen.

But when we think of modern capitalism, and even the economics of the late 1700s, it's the same thing. Clearly, this economic system benefits some at the expense of others. Well, we can't have a system where those who DONT benefit can vote to, you know, make the system fairer, can we? I mean, think about that. We got a system set up by wealthy aristocrats who lived in existential fear of the masses voting away their property rights and privileges. ANd just like, we couldnt have the literal slaves voting for their freedom, the wealthy aristocrat types today, the real power wielders, the wealthy people who break the system through unlimited campaign donations, who lobby for changes that benefit them, and who basically sometimes run stuff directly in the trump administration, like Elon Musk running DOGE, they dont want the masses voting away THEIR privileged either. They dont want to make the economic system fairer, because then they wouldn't have anyone to exploit, and they might lose their wealth as much of it is redistributed to the masses. 

Does the senate prevent or preserve tyranny?

And with that, I wanna leave the discussion on this here somewhat. The people who advocate for preserving the senate see it as a bulwark against tyranny, but what if it actually preserves it? What if it actually is there to protect the wealthy from the masses? 

As a matter of fact, let's go even further. As I said, a lot of the nastiest and worst elements of this anti "tyranny of the majority" type system is giving power to a minority, who in the modern day is looking at taking us down a path of authoritarianism if they cant maintain their power. You got the electoral college giving Donald Trump power. You got the senate which gives an outsized influence to a minority of rural voters. The house districts are too big, giving more influence to rural voters, you got gerrymandering, giving influence to the republican party. 

And when DSA types start FLOATING ideas like this, you got these guys talking about waging war against communists on our own soil, arguing for larger defense spending. Mike Johnson LITERALLY said that. You got NSPM7 in which anything that goes against republican party orthodoxy is considered "left wing terrorism", with Stephen Miller going on about how were gonna use the power of the government to crack down on left wing terrorists. We got Trump outright calling for the jailing of democratic socialists. We got the mass militarization of the state under trump, and we got trump building what amounts to concentration camps to deport "illegal immigrants", but, again, if we read about the history of Germany's enabling act, this sounds a lot like THEIR playbook. How long is it going to be before Trump decides to weaponize the military against US citizens and throw people in the camps? Like, holy crap, this is what we're on the precipice on as a country, and we're worried that abolishing the senate MIGHT lead to tyranny and gulags one day as Mike Johnson was rambling about? The real tyrants of the American system are the right.I'm not saying we should necessarily let the DSA off the hook, thinking about the long term consequence of their rise, we COULD be in a situation decades from now where they offer a similar threat that the right does today, and some of their proposals flat out SHOULDNT be considered (like making the president and judiciary subservient to congress, I think that's a terrible idea as we're supposed to have 3 coequal branches of government checking and balancing each other), but yeah, right now, the biggest threat to the american system of government comes from the same right that's virtue signalling about saving it from the evil communists. if anything, the narrative of evil communists is a pretext for THEM to get power and do all kinds of tyrannical and F-ed up things to US. 

But what about the filibuster?

 The filibuster is, these days, often seen as the last line of defense to shut down what the opposing party is doing. However, it isnt an inherent constitutional part of the senate. It was a rule they enacted. originally, the filibuster was related to speaking rules and how youd need 60% of the senate to vote to make a guy stop talking, allowing people to just keep talking for hours, and hours, and hours. Like Strom Thurmond who spoke for 24 hours straight, or Cory Booker who more recently spoke for 25 hours straight. But somewhere along the way, we just decided to have like an auto filibuster that stops the senate from doing anything without 60% of the senate on board. This wasnt how it was originally supposed to work, and this change has been rather negative in the modern era of GOP obstruction. Mitch McConnell if I recall was one of the first who weaponized the filibuster in a way to just shut down ALL legislation. And he did it to Obama, while acting like he was just preventing overreach or something. It was about sabotaging democrats. And now, we got the democrats using it to stall the republicans. This CAN be a good thing in the sense that Trump is failing to change the rules with his "Save America Act", which would heavily restrict voting, but it's also been a thorn in democrats' side. The reason Obamacare never had a public option was the filibuster, and the reason Biden was so ineffective was because of it as well.

So it has its ups and downs. BUT....let's also consider another point. If we werent so concerned about tyranny of the majority, I doubt we would be at the gates of tyranny from the right in the first place. If the democrats could govern more effectively, they'd probably do a better job maintaining voter support. If we didnt have the electoral college, Clinton would have won in 2016. And again, if Biden were more effective, maybe we wouldnt have had Trump rise again in 2024. So we wouldnt be in this situation. We're in this situation because we're like Weimar Germany, with weak ineffective left wing parties losing the support of the people, and a strong right looking to take power by any means and implement whatever authoritarian BS they want. yes, the senate is a check on the trump administration's current power, and their failure to abolish the filibuster is saving us right now. However, we also likely wouldnt be here in the first place had we had a more effective government that worked for the people. 

Moreover, I'll be blunt. When democrats retake power in 2028, and we hopefully have a house, senate, and presidency all run by democrats, if we wanna preserve democracy, the democrats gotta RUN WITH IT! They gotta pass their own bills to ensure we cant get a trump again, or we're....gonna get a trump again. And I dont mean bills that disenfranchise people, but bills that make it easier to vote. That actually DO gut the republicans' institutional advantages. And unlike the right, the left will make us MORE democratic. Quite frankly, the whole screams about "tyranny by majority" seem quaint when the other party that benefits from those advantages seems to be trying to take us down a dark path of fascism and permanent minority rule. We wanna give voters MORE power, not less. And these guys crying crocodile tears over "tyranny of the majority" can quite frankly cry over it. But you know what? To make that happen, we need the senate, and we might need to axe the filibuster ourselves. And that's where we're at, btw. I mean....either WE win, or THEY win. I dont doubt that Trump would scrap the filibuster in a second to pass the save act if not for a handful of senators like Thom Tillis who are stopping him. So let's face it, abolishing the filibuster is like that loaded gun on the floor between a hero and a villain in an action movie. Whoever gets to it first wins. And I would actually argue, we might literally need to axe the filibuster just to ensure our republic actually continues unimpeded. I'm dead serious, that's where we're at. If the democrats can't make use of their next blue wave to actually reform the system to safeguard democracy, the next wave of republicans might actually succeed at ensuring permanent minority rule instead, and possibly the actual open persecution of the political opposition. 

Conclusion

All in all, whether you're for or against abolishing the senate or not, it's kind of one of those wish list ideas that would never actually happen because the checks and balances of the system are so massive that i cant see a scenario in the foreseeable future where this actually happens. We'd require supermajorities across all levels of the government so discussing it is mostly academic.

You can argue either way on it, but I will say, I dont find the conventional arguments in favor of preserving it as actually convincing. if anything, the more i delve into it, the more I kind of feel like these ideas were intended to disenfranchise the people in favor of an unaccountable minority looking to preserve their own privileges and wealth. 

Moreover, when I think about the threat of tyranny in the real world, I am FAR more scared of the modern republican party, who is the primary beneficiary of the institutions staying as they are, as they seem to actively be moving in the direction of tyranny. It's kind of ironic for Mike Johnson screaming about democratic socialists wanting to abolish the senate and how leftism leads to tyranny and gulags when these same people would probably literally stick leftists in literal concentration camps to preserve their own power if they could get away with it. 

Like really, the virtue signallers on the right who talk so strongly about preserving America as they understand it are the ones who are the biggest threat to it, if anything. And they're basically to the point of arguing they're destroying the country to save it. In reality, they're just saving their own hides and hiding behind institutional screwery to impose minority rule on the country, claiming that the masses cant be trusted with power, only they can. I mean....if you find that convincing I leave that up to you, but I ask, "what bullcrap is this?" 

And yeah, that's how I see it. Also, for the love of god look up the enabling act of 1933 and compare and contrast it to how the republicans are acting right now in 2026. The historical parallels are creepy. I dont think they'll be able to pull it off due to our checks and balances still being a bit more robust than germany's back in the day, but the trump administration is clearly attempting to "go for it" here, and that should alarm us all.  

It looks like Troy jackson will be the Maine nominee

 So, Maine is choosing its nominee this weekend, and while all of the delegates aren't in yet, it looks like Troy jackson is running away with it. I say, good. As I said, he was the first guy floated to replace Platner who has similar politics, and I consider him a suitable replacement. It's a shame platner imploded due to his sex scandal, but hey, as long as we get an adequate replacement, I'm happy. I just dont want some neoliberal type forced on us. 

 EDIT: Troy Jackson is now officially the nominee for Maine's senate seat. Make sure to support him as you are willing and able.  

The politics of parenthood (and why I'm not impressed)

 So...apparently a GOP candidate from texas said something inappropriate about parents and politics, and to paraphrase it, "just because you let somebody (blank) you, doesnt mean i have to give a crap about your political opinions". It goes on, but it just gets worse from there.

This quote got a lot of ire from people as it was disgusting, and considered insulting. But I kinda wanted to discuss it. Yeah, it's crass, but he has a point. There is a kind of person who tends to perceive the entire world through their parenthood, and many of them have crap opinions. Like if you have to qualify all of your opinions with "I'm a mom" or some crap, I automatically take you less seriously, same with any group that tends to have "moms" or "mothers" in the title. Many of them end up being these weirdo suburban conservatives who turn into petty authoritarians who want the whole world to revolve around them and their kids. 

 So what do I have against parents and politics? Well, nothing really, if you're a reasonable person about it, but there exists a kind of person who when they have kids, their kids become their entire world, they're obsessed with their kids, they post 50 pics of their kids a day on social media, they cant shut up about their kids, and their political opinions become terrifying. Parenthood can change a MFer. I've seen it take perfectly normal and reasonable people and turn their brains into pudding. They become hormonal, defensive, and protective of their kids, and even worse, they expect the whole world to cater to them.

This leads to terrible consequences politically. Every fricking moral panic I've ever seen is driven by these people. Now it's age verification for the internet, with there being a moral panic around social media and porn. When I was growing up, it was harry potter, pokemon, and video games. Before that it was the satanic panic and R rated movies. Before that it was that darned rock music, and blah blah blah. And everything is suddenly OMG WE GOTTA PROTECT THE KIDS, DONT YOU WANNA PROTECT THE KIDS, YOU'RE A HORRIBLE PERSON IF YOU DON'T WANNA PREDICT THE KIDS, OMG WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN! 

Here's the thing. The world doesn't revolve around you and your kid. People shouldn't have to suffer your weird authoritarian bullcrap because of your kid. It's your job to protect your kid, and sure, I aint saying there ain't room for government regulations and restrictions at times, when you start inconveniencing everyone else, that crap can cause problems. And I don't want to have my freedoms and privacy taken away because you got an authoritarian streak because you gotta protect your kid.

All of this stuff is very conservative coded, btw. Like, the weird Trump administration authoritarian stuff in which we're living in constant fear of some boogeyman where we gotta give up our freedoms NOW for more security, that's who falls for it. A lot of them are authoritarian minded parents who are like OMG i wanna protect muh kid! Same with the Bush administration. Hell, even a lot of centrist democrats are like this too, Hillary Clinton helped spearhead the moral panic against video games back in the 2000s. And as we discussed in 2016, a lot of her welfarist policies were only aimed at kids, and no one else. It's like, omg we gotta take care of the kids, but if you're an ABAWD, well, screw you, you get conservative economics instead. 

And sadly, me pointing this stuff out ruffled a lot of feathers. I got some "mombie" type who started going on about how im immature because I like video games and need to grow up and stuff, and it was hilarious, I read her reddit profile and she had some comment about how she was emotional thinking about her kid as an 85 year old in the distant future with dementia and how they'd regress into childhood and expect their mom to show up and she would be dead by then and uh...yeah, this is the kind of brainrot I'm talking about. This is your brain. This is your brain on kids. Kids, not even once.

Speaking of which, i feel like the whole reason we've had to suffer the war on drugs is in part this "OMG GOTTA PROTECT THE KIDS" mentality. Not saying we shouldnt protect kids from drugs, but the war on drugs was insanely heavy handed, was ineffective, and ruined lives. But hey, try convincing one of those hormonal parents of that, you cant reason with them and their weird "momma bear" brains. And that's the problem. These people aren't reasonable.  They just live in a state of constant fear of threats to their kids and expect the world to revolve around them and expect us to pass all of this heavy handed authoritarian policy that makes the world worse, because of them. And that's why I'm kinda defending these comments. Because a lot of the time when people wear their parenthood on their sleeves politically, it always comes with weird authoritarian tendencies backed up by overly emotional thinking and not enough reason. 

And yeah. Again, this isn't intended to be a dig against all parents. Many parents are also reasonable people. i'm specifically talking about the most emotional ones who seem driven by hormones and who wear their parenthood on their sleeves, push for authoritarian policies, think the world revolves around them, and oh, thinks thet're oh so much smarter than everyone else. Because we get that too.

Here's the reality. I know with politics we encourage everyone to have an opinion, and people are free to their opinions, we have democracy, we have the first amendment. but a lot of people experience dunning kruger syndrome with politics where they dont understand things. And yet, they think they're so enlightened because they squirted out a kid and act like it was this transcendent experience that made them oh so much more enlightened than everyone else. And "you just dont understand" if you arent there. So they dunk on CF people like me, act like we're stupid, act like we're immature, bash us for playing video games, when I'd rather play video games than whatever tf they're doing with their lives (and they'd laugh at me for saying that), and in reality, again, I do understand. You're having a very hormonal experience as part of being a parent. Your brain rewires itself to make you protective of your kid, and you think the world revolves around you, and you apparently fantasize about all of these weird scenarios where your kid is in danger, and omg, we gotta protect the kids. 

Basically it's...ironically, like being on drugs. You're basically on drugs. Natural drugs known as hormones, not controlled substances, but still, it's a similar effect. And that's how you look to someone like me when youre like this. I'm not impressed, I don't take your opinions seriously, and I resent you trying to impose your stupid BS onto me.

Anyway, that's the one way in which I think that crass person running for congress has a point. Once again, nothing inherently wrong with being a parent, but if you get all hormonal on me, or use your parenthood as a qualifier to justify your political opinions, Im just rolling my eyes and going "here we go again." Seriously, you're not qualified, you're not smart, and if anything this kind of person holds society back politically as they often end up going all conservative brained and supporting regressive policy that takes us in the wrong direction. Sorry, not sorry. 

Discussing Stephen Miller, NSPM-7, and the fascist crackdown on left wing political opposition

 So, I've discussed NSPM-7 before, it's that national security directive that makes anyone deemed "anti christian", "anti capitalist", "anti American" or in favor of basically social justice ideology potential domestic terrorists. While it doesnt criminalize belief in those ideologies themselves, it does allow the government to deem those guys potential terrorists, leading to law enforcement to monitor such people more closely.

Now, the right seems to really be ramping up the rhetoric. We had Mike Johnson talk about how DSA are radical communists and this existential threat to the country. And now Stephen Miller is ramping up rhetoric in a similar way. This is scary because it mirrors what Hitler did in 1933 after the Reichstag fire where the Nazis outlawed political opposition and threw them in concentration camps. And yeah, while we're not at the point of throwing left wing activists in camps, we are inching closer to it. Basically, DSA are considered domestic terrorists. Hell, I'd probably be considered a domestic terrorist according to these guys. It's insane. This is about criminalizing the political opposition. It's not about terrorism. As many articles covering this point out, there's no evidence that these guys are terrorists, and if anything, Trump's opposition has been rather peaceful so far. So let's not mince words about their real goals: to fear monger about a non existent threat to crack down on our civil liberties and constitutional rights. These guys love to claim to care oh so much about western liberal democracy, but they don't. They're basically fascists.

On the DSA, we read their platform on here recently. It does have some questionable reforms I dont agree with. Like putting all power in the hands of a unicameral legislature. Not a good idea. However, most reforms are about STRENGTHENING democracy. American democracy is flawed. It's not representative of the people. It gives massive, outsized influence to the rural vote, which gives massive outsized influence to the republican party, allowing them to rule by minority and impose their nonsense on the rest of us. Their coalition has been thinning for years now. Trump is arguably the Reagan coalition's last hurrah the way Carter's presidency was the New Deal coalition's last hurrah. And a lot of us want to simply make democracy work BETTER. When people want to dismantle the electoral college, they want to replace a system that theoretically allows a candidate to win with 22% of the vote with one that requires 50%+ of the vote. Uncapping the house of representatives would also reduce district sizes, which would reduce the rural influence as well. Getting rid of the senate, a controversial measure to say the least, even for me, but something I'm not opposed to, would also take away a massive conservative leaning institution. None of this destroys liberal democracy as we know it though, it simply makes it more responsive to the people, and would functionally implode the GOP in its current form. And that's what the GOP is really defending, not democracy, but their party and their power.

And that's the GOP's real philosophy. They don't believe in "democracy", they're the type to say "we're not a democracy, we're a republic" and to hand wring at how the populace are too stupid to make decisions and THEY need the power and how the US always ruuled by minority rule and we have TOO MUCH democracy. They're the ones talking about disenfranchising people because they fear losing (their vision of) the country . About how we need more white babies and less immigrants. About how we should only have the father in a household vote for everyone in it. They understand that if they arent careful, they will lose power permanently. Not because democracy no longer exists, if anything, what they fear is being outnumbered and outmaneuvered by those who think differently. What they want is either to ensure that they remain a majority, or at least the majority of the eligible voting population. This is also why Trump is so desperate to pass the SAVE act and gave that deranged speech last night. He understands that without legislation to suppress those who think differently from him, that his coalition may lose their power for good. Especially if the left comes around and makes things MORE democratic. 

Who you consider the good or bad guys here is up to you, but again, I view the right as fascists and authoritarians, and while I cant say the DSA is perfect and that leftist types do often have an authoritarian streak themselves, most of what is proposed is pretty tame. Again, you can critique individual planks of their platform, but calling them terrorists or treating them like tankies is a bit ridiculous. 

And honestly, let's be honest. If they go after DSA, how long will it be before they go after someone like me? What about the forward party, with its pushes for ranked choice voting and ending gerrymandering? Or just about any progressive liberal organization that wants to overturn citizens united? Since when is discussing changing our constitution or reforming our institutions considered terrorism? Again, it's ridiculous. This is more geared toward punishing constitutionally protected speech and dissent. 

Anyway, if this blog ever goes down, it should be obvious why, because I fear for my safety. But that's where we're going in this country. Screw this entire administration. They literally are a bunch of fricking fascists. And Im not saying that to be hyperbolic, no, this is literal Hitler crap. This is what the nazis literally did. They've been building a network of camps to go after illegal immigrants, they're weaponizing the military and police against the citizenry, and they plan to eventually arrest us for opposing them. 

Election Update 7/17/26

 There isn't a whole lot to discuss this week, other than the house, it's mostly relying on data from the previous update.

Senate

 

 

 

 The senate is still at 51-48D, with Iowa as a true tossup. We don't know what's going on with Maine at all, I'm just holding Platner's numbers for now when he dropped out. It's close to 50-50 anyway and that's roughly where the race is. Democrats hold a slight advantage, but due to declining GCV numbers, we might be seeing a sagging here too that isn't represented by these dated numbers.

 

 If the senate shifts as much as the house over the last two weeks, THIS is the actual outcome: A 52-48 republican blowout. And it can happen. This is an extremely possible outcome. heck, I dont trust nebraska's numbers either so this could even end up being 47-53R, with the senate maintaining its current composition except trading Michigan for North Carolina. Anything can happen and a slight breeze can flip the senate either way. 

 

House

 

 As indicated by the senate discussion, the real shift since two weeks ago is the house. The generic congressional vote has narrows significantly. I started noticing it sagging with the last round of predictions, but yeah, it's narrowing a lot. Why is that? Well, here's my theory. Once again, we got 40% of the country ride or die on republicans, 40% ride or die on democrats. The remaining 20% bounce back and forth, either not voting and being less reliable voters, or ping ponging between the parties. You got some voters who are less reliable, are more motivated to vote for democrats when republicans are in office and vice versa, and you got swing voters who bounce between the two. neither party is really popular. Even though the democrats stand to gain over 2024 simply by being out of power, they're not really popular. And a lot of their gains is due to backlash to the Trump administration.

 

I think gas prices have a lot to do with this for example. The Iran war spiked gas prices A LOT, but now things are stabilizing a bit more, even going down a bit. Gas is nowhere near back to normal, but the shock of the change has worn off, and people are slightly less reflexively against him. Still, you got around 7.5% of the country that has shifted from 2024, and while it's normally around 8-9% this election cycle, yeah, the GCV has gone down a little for democrats. Still a solid showing that doesn't fundamentally change the model, but it is going to reduce the projected margin to 230-205, with a 93% chance of them taking the house. And because people are wondering how the model works because I dont show the whole spreadsheet due to its sheer size, I'll discuss a bit what this model looks like under different scenarios.

 

 So, if we get the 2024 result again, we get 215-220 in raw results, although due to gerrymandering I would predict 213-222R under such circumstances. There are 4 gerrymandered races on my radar, with 3 being gerrymandered in favor of republicans, meaning the dems are projected to win 3 seats simply due to gerrymandering, while the dems are projected to win 1. This gives us a net of 2 seats in favor of the republicans, hence the "corrected result" category.

 

 If we have, say, a 0% tied GCV, it shifts the result 2.7% to the left, because the end result of 2024 was R+2.7. This would give us a 223-211 raw result, or a 221-213 corrected result, with the dems having a roughly 61% chance of winning the house under those circumstances. All it would really take for dems to flip the house from 2024 is a R+1.1 GCV, meaning a 1.6% shift to the left. And just to give you an idea of what the result is at various milestones and what seats flip, this is what we get:

R+2- 214-221R, IA-01 flips

 

R+1-  218-217D, CO-08, PA-07, PA-10, PA-08 flip

 

D/R+0- 221-214D, NE-02, AK-AL, AZ-06 flip

 

D+1-  222-213D, MI-07 flips

 

D+2-  226-209D, AZ-01, IA-03, VA-02 flip

 

D+3-  227-208D, NJ-07 flips

 

D+4- 229-206D, MI-10, NY-17 flip

 

D+5- 231-204D, CA-22, MT-01 flip

 

D+6- 231-204D, no flips

 

D+7- 233-202D, AZ-02, FL13 flip

 

D+8- 234-201D, WI-01 flips

 

D+9-  234-201D, no flips

D+10- 235-200D, MI-04 flips

 

Now, some of these flips might be questionable. Some balk at say, AK-AL or MT-01 flipping. However, they went red by such a narrow margin in the previous cycle that we gotta consider it a possibility. The model suggests they should be flippable, although individual races and candidates might shift things. 

 

Still, I think it's pretty reasonable that the dems will flip the house no matter what, as long as they comfortably outdo their 2024 baseline, which should basically be their floor given this is expected to be a blue wave year. D+4-5 seems to be where we're at right now, although we were at D+6 not long ago. Honestly, any of these results should comfortably put the house in democrat hands. 

Again, the real question is what the SENATE is gonna do. As we know, while the house is relatively inflexible, the senate has the potential of wide variation with only a 1-2 point shift in either direction. Well, if anything, despite what my model says, I'd be inclined to believe a more conservative outcome where the dems have a competitive showing in a lot of states like Ohio, Texas, Alaska, Nebraska (Osborn/Independent), and Iowa, but I dont think they'll take them. I've seen this song and dance before. We keep having this weird trend as a party where polls have us within a few points of some "red wall" states and then they end up going R+6 or something. I think it'll happen here.  We'll flip North Carolina, and maybe Maine, and maybe keep Michigan, but honestly? Im not a big believer in us going further than that. Now, it CAN happen. And even a few flips could make a huge difference for us here, but again, I'd be inclined to lean a bit more conservative on the senate. Even the house, we might underperform my prediction a couple of seats, but even, say, 226-209 or something would likely benefit us. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the house is a foregone conclusion, it's just what the margins will end up being. 

 

Governors

 

 

As far as governor races go, not a lot has changed. Im still using data from July 1, so literally nothing has changed here. 

 

Conclusion

 

So yeah, we've had a lull in polling. I probably would have cancelled this week's prediction if I didnt wanna ramble about the house as much as I did. And yeah. Not much has changed. Senate data largely the same, governor's data exactly the same, house is a bit narrower due to a sagging GCV average, but all in all the house is pretty rock solid and likely gonna flip no matter what happens unless trump massively reshapes the electorate through authoritarianism. The real question is whether the senate is shifting too, and a lack of polling data isn't showing it. That can be consequential.