Reevaluating Hillary Clinton 10 years on

 So...I had some die hard Clinton supporter bump some old thread on reddit with a helping of WELL ACKSHULLY HILLARY DID HAVE POLICIES when I pointed out she didn't run on much and her campaign mostly bullied supporters into voting for her. They then posted her campaign page with her platform on it, and I figured, what the heck. Let's regrade Hillary Clinton in a more objective way. Admittedly at the time I was more pissed at her being an obvious downgrade from Bernie Sanders, and given the dirty tricks she used against him and his supporters, I really wasn't buying what she as selling. But...let's be honest. At this point my standards are a bit lower and more forgiving. So let's dust off metric 1 and evaluate HRC. Btw, one change I'm making to metric 1. I was gonna save this for 2028, but basically, I wanna replace those 10 points I gave to dem candidates over greens with an "electability" metric. Obviously greens will get a 0 but otherwise I'll judge the candidates by how likely they are to win an election out of 10. Because we know HRC lost, I'll instead use her polling data before hand to rate her. 

With that said let's begin.

 Basic Income Support- 1/10

 So...back in 2016, my metrics were pretty simple. I wanted 3 policies. UBI, Medicare for all, and free college/student debt forgiveness. Sanders supported 2/3, Clinton at best maybe supported a watered down version of 1/3. I was pretty unforgiving. And yeah, she ain't a UBI stan. To be fair, most dems aren't, but yeah. I really felt like Clinton screwed us out of having someone who at least met some of my prioriries some of the way. 

I have to give her one point for a child tax credit expansion, but it was extremely mild. Like $2000? Even at the time I had a UBI plan of $12,000 with $4000 per child. So...this is like 1 point's worth of UBI. 

But yeah, most of what she talked about was job creation which basically sums up why i can't stand her so much. Because jobs arent the answer, they never were, and she was an establishment democrat running in a populist era where more change was, and is needed. 

EDIT: one point I failed to mention last night is how she mentioned in her book she was actually considering a form of UBI but dropped it because she "couldn't make the numbers work." Imagine how I would have recieved her had she actually thrown caution to the wind and embraced the policy. It's one of the most frustrating things about clinton. She avoided doing the cool thing because her political instincts were so bad that she went in the opposite direction instead. 

Medicare for All (Public Option)- 0/10

She didn't support medicare for all, she didn't support a public option, she didn't support much of anything. Just band aid fixes. Again, some centrist thinks linking her platform is an own like "look at these policies", yeah, it's all a bunch of incrementalist BS. And then she gloated about it on stage.

Other economics- 6/10

I mean, she supported a higher minimum wage and labor rights, but I remember that the $15 on her website wasnt her original proposal. She wanted $12 and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to $15. She had free college, but I recall her original proposal had arbitrary work requirements to avoid the appearance of giving "something for nothing." She still has some weird income limit because she "didn't want to pay for donald trump's kids" (if it's a public service, everyone should get it, besides, trump's kids wouldnt be caught dead going to a public university). Her student debt forgiveness plan was basically a slightly modified IBR plan incrementally better than the one that already existed at the time. I mean, let's face it. This is mid. It's mostly just a whole lot of job creation nonsense and job retraining that isn't gonna amount to anything, because anyone who follows my blog and understands the economy as I do understands that the whole job creation game is a bunch of nonsense that sounds good in conventional terms, but never fixes the root problems of the economy. Clinton was just a horribly out of touch candidate for the time. She wouldn't have been terrible, but she would've been rather middling. I guess I'll give her some credit for paid parental leave though. So some good stuff here and there, but it's mostly a whole bunch of "meh." 

Social issues- 8/10

Most of her platform is just...feminism. Women this, women that. I mean, sure, that's an important part of it, but she clearly had her own thing going here. I dont even see a mention of abortion ironically, although it is 2 AM and I'm kinda just skimming. I know she was kinda weak on that issue, given her christian faith seemed to contradict with abortion and gay marriage. Which irked me given I was peak New Atheist at the time. Still kinda does. Like, come on, if you can't commit and give a full throated endorsement and gotta do that public-private position crap, how can you be trusted to act for those issues in office? Her gun reform is refreshingly moderate, I'll give her that. Her immigration positions seemed reasonable. If anything, she seemed to lean hard into that stuff when as a white new atheist type...yeah, I just didn't connect to her at the time. Looking at it now, was she okay? Well, she was better than a republican. And yeah, SCOTUS WOULD have looked different if elected. But yeah, I still cant give her full points because I just don't feel like she connected to me and my own priorities here at the time.

Actually she was anti citizen's united at the time, so that will make me give her an extra point in itself. 

Foreign policy- 10/10

Let's face it, foreign policy wise, I basically am in line with the libs here. I might have mild disagreements on Israel now, but in 2016, that wouldn't have come up. She also had some protectionist impulses as she caved to political pressure there. I mean, yeah, she was qualified AF for the "commander in chief" part of the job. 

Worldview- 11/20

Clinton...was a centrist lib. Her worldview was informed by her liberal christianity (methodism) and it showed up in her economics all over the place. Everything had the work ethic shoehorned in, and given I'm the pro UBI anti work guy...I really didn't vibe with her economically. On social issues, her ideas are more informed by idpol and especially feminism, but also a lot of deference to racial minorities on stuff, which I found offputting at the time. Like, again, white guy who would be considered an ABAWD under her policies and was mostly animated by a secular humanist/new atheist worldview. I really didn't vibe with her at all, especially compared to bernie who offered more universal policies at the time. So I really didn't like her as the nominee.

Consistency- 2/10

So remember the whole Graham Platner "political adultery" thing I was going on about recently? Yeah. That's what I measure with this metric. Like Bernie? Loyal AF to his ideas, 10/10. HRC? Flip flopper, regularly changed positions over the course of her campaign, had a public position and a private position. She was like Forest Gump's box of chocolates, you never know what you were going to get. I even discussed that because I explicitly remember her platform evolving over time, and how she changed her positions on issues, seemed all over the place, and just came off as fundamentally untrustworthy. 

Experience/Competence- 10/10

Say what you want about Hillary, but one thing she had was competence. She was one of the most qualified people to run for the position and basically trained for the position her whole life. She clearly had her eyes on it since her husband was in office. But yeah, extremely seasoned, extremely long resume. That just doesn't matter if you're not what people want.

Electability- 6/10

Again, she lost, but putting that aside...she was winning almost the whole time she was running. She had a 56% chance on election day, which gets rounded up to 60%. Her numbers gave her the advantage, she just got unlucky. Or...alternatively, she just ended up somehow throwing away what should've been a sure thing because of hubris. Which...maybe that should tank her numbers, but even in my final forecast, she was still the favored winner. So...grading her objectively based on that, yeah. She should have been able to pull it off. She had slightly better odds in 2016 than trump did in 2024. And Trump's path to the white house in 2016 was extremely narrow. He basically pulled off the unthinkable. So....again, objectively? I'll give her a 6, if I knew nothing about the actual outcome on election day.

Overall- 54/100

Now, let me present a rubric for how these numbers should be judged.

80+- S tier candidate

70-79- A tier

60-69- B tier

50-59- C tier

40-49- D tier

<40- F tier

 At the time, i would have judged her as a D tier, somewhere in the 40s. But at this point, eh, yeah, I'm happy to rehabilitate her to the 50s. Which is still...unremarkably mid, but she's not bad. She was a mediocre candidate. And that was the problem. We needed an actually good one.

But yeah, to the weirdo centrists who throw her platform in my face and act like I don't know what Im talking about because I dislike(d) her so much...yeah no. I did read her platform. I even gave a bit of knowledge about my mindset at the time. her economic policy was mid, and kind of out of touch with progressive politics. Centrists always seem impressed by the most mediocre of policies and always seem to love to lecture people about what they should find acceptable. And I;m sorry, you have low standards, and your ideas kinda suck. And on social issues, we have very different ideas of what "progressive" means. For a white male "new atheist" (in 2016) like me, I'm mostly talking about being unmoored from religion and mostly being pro abortion and gay marriage. I'm actually pretty moderate on the idpol nonsense that clinton leaned pretty hard into. So she was kinda moderate where i was progressive and progressive where I was moderate, and yeah, ideological mismatch. Still, clinton was very qualified for president, very good on foreign policy, and would she have been better than Trump? Oh yeah, definitely, of course what does trump score? I mean, he's pretty close to a fricking 0 by this point. We're talking single digits, maybe low double digits at best (like 12). But she wasn't good. And she didnt connect. And considering she displaced sanders, a literal S tier candidate, and did so in some pretty bad faith ways, yeah, I hated her guts at the time and ended up voting green. Was Stein any better? Eh, given my last metric gave her a 45....probably not. But in 2016, I was obviously a lot harsher on clinton than i would have otherwise been given the bad blood with the democrats at the time. What really tipped me toward stein was just the fact that i couldnt stomach voting for a dem after they basically spent the past 2 years prior to that crapping on my own brand of politics, tanking my own candidate, and basically trying to bully me into voting for her (given how obnoxiously offputting her online outreach was). It really was a matter of principle for me. 

Anyway, that's why I wanted to go over this today. Someone brought it up, and I wanted to objectively evaluate her given I've had time to cool off a bit. And also because some obnoxious clinton supporter basically pushed her platform in my face as if it was actually impressive. It wasn't. And you guys just dont understand what I want. of course, given this same poster seemed to constantly crap on sanders supporters even now, yeah. Again, I dont ALWAYS agree with the sanders types, but at least sanders broke 80, the last time I evaluated this. I mean, he IS the bar for a good candidate. Clinton was just the mediocre slop the dems wanted to sell us, and given we already had 8 years of democratic party fatigue and she wasn't offering anything unique or special we didn't already hear out of the big O for the past 8 years (Obama),  it just didn't resonate. That's something both parties need to learn. After 8 years, people dont tend to want a third term of the same thing unless that thing is transformationally popular (see: FDR, Reagan). You gotta shake it up or you lose, and clinton just....lost because it was a red year, and she wasn't an inspiring candidate. Had she run in 2008, she would've won in a landslide just like Obama did. Had she run in 2020, she also would've won probably. But in 2016? No one wanted THAT. And as someone who was there, I don't blame them. We should have way higher standards.

But yeah. Still C tier, still okay. Biden/Harris were better, but had she not pissed me off so bad, I probably would've voted for her tbqh. She actively alienated me from wanting to do so. That's how bad her campaign actually was.  And that's why despite the 6/10 electability rating, she somehow lost. Because she was actually bad at this.  

No, the Sega Nomad didn't do it right years before the switch did

 So I found an interesting new youtube channel and they discussed the sega nomad, claiming it got the whole switch concept down back in 1995, and acted like they were right all along. Uh...no. Im old enough to remember the nomad. Never got one, because guess what, it was too expensive, and that's the huge reason it failed, but yeah, this guy's acting like the concept was good, they just got the year wrong. I guess I cant complain somewhat, but there are some caveats to that.

Sega's handheld philosophy

In retrospect, sega was always a hot mess. They had a good product with the genesis and arguably the dreamcast, but they also had a lot of experimental stuff that failed. Add ons like the Sega CD and 32x, the saturn, and....the nomad. 

Their original handheld was the game gear. I own one. it doesnt work any more because of the same capacitor issue that's killed all of these off sooner or later, but let's face it, I always discuss them in complaining about the current handheld market. it cost $150 at the time, which is like $400 today, it had limited battery life, and while it was very technologically advanced, the cost limited its ubiquity and its battery life was atrocious. If you did use 6 AAs for like 2-4 hours of game play (the same issue the nomad had mentioned in the video) you'd be eating through the things like crazy. You'd end up having to just use it plugged in a lot of the time. My parents did invest in a rechargeable battery pack, but yeah those lasted only a few years and died. All battery powered devices eventually become tethered to a wall, but some take longer than others. And the game gear didnt have much to work with.

The nomad, as discussed in the video had the same issues. The cost was insanely high, the battery pack was also expensive, and when I wanted one...I never got it. Because my parents took one look at the cost, said F that, and got me something cheaper instead. I loved the idea, but it was never a practical reality back in the 1990s. It cost too much and had way too many drawbacks. 

How this has relevance today

The handheld market has gone in a similar direction as the game gear today, and I'm not gonna lie, I low key hate it. The 3DS had the size but it did cut the battery life a bit to get the graphical advancements. Still, I can see, given the rampant piracy of the thing which this channel pointed out why nintendo were desperate to replace it. And yeah, keep in mind, even the 3DS suffered from low sales because $250 was too expensive for a handheld in 2011. You get close to that $400 mark today and a lot of people...dont wanna buy. So they had to cut it to $170 to make it work. But eventually the tech was cracked on that too, as this channel pointed out, and that's why they gave us the switch. 

The switch was a bit different than previous handhelds admittedly. It wasn't intended just as a 3DS replacement, but also a Wii U replacement, uniting the entire nintendo ecosystem under one system. Which sold for $300. High for a handheld, but given it also replaced the Wii U...not terrible. A bit high for me, but that's mainly because I'd rather fund my PC gaming hobby instead, and don't have the additional money to invest in an entirely different ecosystem. 

Still, the switch had compromises. 3-5 hour battery life, barely enough for a handheld to be portable. High cost, but again, it was also basically the main console as well. It was decent, but as you can tell by my own opinions on it over the years, I never really cared for it. 

The switch 2 just took it a step further, $450 and soon $500 for a console. I dont blame ALL of that $500 price tag on them given the state of the industry in general, but still do blame them for the original $450 price tag, and believe it sets a bad precedent for the rest of the market, which is coming true. They decided to compete directly with the steam deck, itself a niche "game gear" like device I've been deeply critical of. Sorry, I don't wanna spend $400 $550 $780 to play "dave the diver" on the go. I'd rather invest in an android tablet/handheld instead for like $200 and use that. Maybe I wont get to play all the new and fancy games on that, but it's not like I cant game on the thing. And it's not like it's my primary gaming device. Handhelds have always been less powerful secondary devices that cant play the same games as the core consoles or PCs at the time. Quite frankly, trying to play current gen games in that form factor isnt feasible without the same compromises you get with the game gear/nomad/steam deck/switch 2. You get a high entry level cost, poor battery life, and eventually the thing loses its appeal as a portable console and becomes a wall unit. I've seen enough of these things over the years I'm just like "yeah no, I'm good." And quite frankly, I wish new handheld console makers would stop making such premium devices. Cheap handhelds won for a reason. And they're BETTER.

How things have changed

Now, the video's argument is that the only thing wrong with the nomad was the year. I argue it's the business model. But to be fair, times have changed and maybe it is the year.

Back in the day, the appeal of consoles came from the fact that PCs were too expensive. If you bought a PC, you'd be spending $600+ for the crappiest office PC in best buy with decent gaming ones costing THOUSANDS of dollars, only to be obsolete in 2 years. A console....it cost around $200 for a home console, or if you bought a game boy, like $60-80, and youd have a dedicated gaming machine with tons of games for it. In a way, console gaming was BETTER than PC gaming in the 1990s. 

However, as consoles became more expensive, reaching $400-600 for the 360/PS3, and PCs became cheaper, with budget ones being as low as $600 and good ones around $1000 in the late 2000s and early 2010s, I very quickly found consoles less and less attractive and went to PCs.

In the 2010s, smartphones and tablets became a thing. And I was attracted to those over consoles because they could do more stuff. I could go on the internet on a tablet. i could game on a tablet, and yeah most mobile games are crappy shovelware, but hey, it's not like the DS didnt have its fair share of those as well. If anything that's kinda what killed the handheld console market. When the DS came out, I liked it because I wanted it to be a portable N64. But then very few games used its full power, we got tons of shovelware, and I quickly lost interest in it over time. 

But yeah...when I talk to people today about what I want in a handheld, I'm told "but smartphones do that, what separates a handheld a phone at this point?" In a way, consoles are adapting to becoming game gear like to differentiate themselves from phones and tablets, which everyone owns, and are capable of playing basic 3D games. If anything, smartphones are getting incredibly powerful these days, with budget ones being as powerful as like an early 2010s office PC with an i5 2500k, 4-8 GB RAM, and period relevant integrated graphics. More powerful ones are on par with cheaper laptops, today, which pack as much power as early 2010s gaming PCs. Everyone has basically an Xbox 360 or PS3 in their pocket power wise. And we see some decent games that many kids play on them. Roblox, minecraft, etc. You can play sonic games. You got engines out there that will run doom, quake, wolfenstein, etc. THey dont port many games to mobile because people are cheap and wont buy them, so its mostly casual gaming on them. But yeah. Consoles are trying to be different. 

But I just see them as an additional cost that we dont really need. I mean, $500 for a handheld is A LOT. And then the battery life aint great. And the games are $60+ and rarely go on sale (thanks nintendo), and yeah, you get a premium experience, but somewhere you just end up getting caught between my gaming PC and my android devices. I'd rather take an android device on the go because I get way better battery life, can even charge on the go with battery packs, and I can still game quite a bit if I want. And at home, my gaming PC plays everything I throw at it. Sure, it's tethered to a wall, but with portability like you get from these things, those things always end up being tethered to a wall after a few years anyway.

 Idk, I just think that these handhelds these days are niche, for wealthy enthusiasts, and kind of lack a well defined role in my life. If I want the good powerful gaming machine, I go for the PC. If I want a portable experience, I go for an android tablet like my razer edge. I like the idea of mobile PC gaming, but I dont like the reality of it, ESPECIALLY in 2026 where the steam deck now costs nearly twice its original price. And I havent really had a clear role for nintendo for a while now, since they keep sticking to this antiquated console model that doesnt work in the modern era.

I mean, back in the 90s, you got one console and stuck with it. I was a sega guy, but i did switch to nintendo when sega crapped the bed for gen 5. Got into game boys, N64, etc. Nowadays, these consoles are trying to fit in somewhere between my PC and my android devices, and they just don't fit. Still, what would help them fit is cheaper prices. These handhelds used to cost the equivalent of $200-250 today.  Not $400+. Games for them used to be $30-40, and I got a lot more of them than the $50-60 titles on the big consoles. I get that those game prices seem tame as the inflation contrarians will go WELL ACKSHULLY YOU SHOULD BE PAYING $140 FOR GAMES TODAY...yeah STFU, not gonna happen. Game prices remained low because consumers dont wanna pay that much. And the lower cost over time has been good for consumers. Maybe not so much for devs and the companies, but eh...they seem to be getting by okay. I know some will say we absolutely NEED these massive 100+ teams to put out games, but we don't. Youre wasting your money. And ours. Again, does gaming really need to be so premium these days? Its like the answer to the ubiquity of cheap hardware (until recently) has driven devs to push gaming in an unnecessarily PREMIUM direction, and I hate it. 

Then again, that's consumerism for you. And something I realize about consumerism is that these companies dont want you happy. Happy consumers dont buy anything. Unhappy ones are constantly upgrading, constantly paying for games. You dont get a reliable stream of cash from people like me who literally wanna be smart consumers and minimize how much we spend. You wanna go after the whales who will keep throwing money at you for the new thing even if the old thing is just fine. For a while, computing was such where year, the interests of consumers and producers aligned. New hardware could produce a markedly better experience for the end user. Nowadays, everyone has that baseline where again, your typical smartphone has more power than a fricking Xbox 360/PS3 these days and is quickly closing in on the PS4/Xbox One. ANd because most consumers arent looking at spending big money on stuff, they're just making things more niche and expensive to induce demand. Suddenly the bar does move to "yeah we need little console to do the same thing big console does". And in order to maintain relevance, they're going in that direction.

But it's also making the big machines EVEN MORE premium because what differentiates little console from big console? More power. And just because little console can do what big console does. Little console doesnt do it well. It's a basic 720p/30 FPS experience (if that, with FSR more a 360p/480p with upscaling experience), so in order for big console to hit 1080p/60 FPS or more, it needs to be even MORE expensive. And that's how we're getting to the point of $700+ consoles next gen. Gaming is basically becoming gentrified and pushing out the little guy because we're not as profitable. And yeah.

With that said, I guess the market really has changed. Cheap ubiquitous technology should lead to a gaming golden age, but because consumerism is literally designed around inciting new wants and needs in the population, gaming is going in a premium direction. Back in the day, middle class people bought consoles because they were cheap and could play lots of games relative to computers. But with computing now being so ubiquituous, consoles are now becoming more premium experiences, and trying to redefine themselves in ways where models that didnt used to be viable now are.

Still, despite that, I will disagree with the video. Call me old school, but I still think that game gear and nomad died for good reason, and dislike the new direction that gaming is going in today. In a day and age where everyone has a rather powerful handheld in their pocket that they take everywhere they go, console gaming is redefining itself as a more premium experience. And I just find the business model fundamentally unattractive.  

Discussing jobism and the military industrial complex

 So....hobbyists are still going on about that one youtuber's comments. The video was taken down, the creator apologized, but the debate about it still goes on.

Basically, the guy reviewed a gaming hardware product made by a tech bro billionaire who also does defense stuff, particularly drones. The guy is controversial and people dont like him. The youtuber is, by his own admission, not knowledgeable of politics and tried to address the elephant in the room with some comments about how the guy creates jobs and how he might get a job in the drone factory. Given our current foreign policy discussions, this did not go over well. 

Honestly, I kind of think the comments almost came off as parody, but from what I remember, no he was serious, which makes it more cringe. So I wanted to address the issue, given my own unique ideology.

So...job creation. Our society is obsessed with it, I hate it. It's peak "jobism", ie the idea that jobs are inherently good and the answer to all social problems. We tend to value work for its own sake, and this leads to a lot of cringe. I dont see jobs as inherently good. The social contract linking money to work is artificial, and jobism is an artifact of that. But rather than question it, we just insist we create as many jobs as possible and people work them, often while being uncritical of the work created. This can lead to a lot of "BS jobs", jobs that dont need to exist, or even jobs that actively do harm to others. And sadly,...not very informed people buy these arguments because youre not against jobs are you? Yay jobs! Imagine if we threw those people out of work, you wouldnt want that, would you? Yay jobs!

Btw, this is how the defense industry is often sold to Americans. We have the most bloated military budget in the world, and while we certainly do get our money's worth (see how Russia is doing with their budget), we clearly are spending way too much and a lot of it is wasteful. Even worse, due to existing foreign policy conflicts, we are basically using the weapons created to do harmful and even evil things in the world. Like bombing kids (Iran). And funding others who bomb kids (Israel). And a lot of people are against that, hence the controversy.

I have a more moderate approach. While I hate jobs for their own sake, I do understand we do need national defense. We just dont need to spend $1.5 trillion a year on it (yeah, that's roughly the number we're up to now....). Ive historically been for minor cuts, but at this point the 50% reduction the greens want is looking more and more attractive. But let's face it, we do need to fund a military. And having some military is good. ANd hell, drones are the current thing. And we need drones to fight modern wars. Ukraine has used them to insane effect, and yeah, I am all for us building drones and giving them to ukraine, for example. So I'm not even gonna say military stuff is even all bad. 

Really, it's just...the current face of our military, with ghouls like donald trump and pete hegseth in charge where we're just openly doing war crimes and supporting war criminals thats the problem. And fiscally, its a problem with the republican party. We cut peoples' healthcare but then we throw that money into tax cuts for rich people and foreign wars we shouldnt even be involved in. So...yeah. Again, if you dislike the current administration and get angry when someone talks about drone factories creating jobs, yeah I can see that. Everything current admin is doing is very distasteful and evil. And I'd like to see these guys tried for war crimes when democrats retake power.

This isnt the Bush era any more. People complained about that, arguing that he was a war criminal, but at least Bush explicitly stated that we werent at war with islam and that our goal is to help people. Trump? "Here's a high octane video of us bombing a girl's school bro, isn't this so cool?!" No, it's not, you're a fricking monster and you should be impeached. I could see why most people didnt wanna try bush for war crimes, even if the far left was screaming for it. These days though? Yeah, trump has broken that illusion of respectability so much he's just evil. He doesnt even try to make us look like the good guy, and he's acting like anyone who doesnt outright support his behavior is just unamerican or not patriotic. Make no mistake, I'm pro America, but like with Al Franken's idea of patriotism, we gotta have an honest discussion about the weird criminal behavior we've been engaging with lately and not just love the country like a 4 year old loves their mommy. 

So yeah. If you dislike our current foreign policy, i dont blame you. If you hate the defense industries openly making killing machines for this administration, and who get a bit too giddy over killing people, i dont blame you. At the same time, Im not categorically against defense. We do need a strong military. However, im more of a "speak softly but carry a big stick" kind of guy. We're currently a "speak loudly, swing the stick, and then scream more on social media at 3 AM on a golden toilet" kind of country. 

As for the jobs. Well....again, jobism is a mental disorder as I see it. Like, not an outright one, but like....something we're brainwashed into. Jobs arent good for their own sake. Theyre good for what they do. And if what we're doing is evil, then it's evil. People who defend drone factories because jobs are like the people who parody star wars and call the death star a work program or something. It's dumb. And we should rethink jobs as a concept. 

Anyway, that's my thought on that. 

The future of the republican party

 So, we already know about the democrats. I've discussed them at length, but this time I wanna talk about what I see the future of the GOP as. There are multiple ways it can go post Trump. 

The moderate path

The best path for the country is if the GOP goes the moderate path, here, they kind of implode after Trump. The Trump administration is so bad it leaves a sour taste in the mouths of voters for decades, emboldening democrats and progressives to move left. This awakens a coalition that has long been coming for the democratic party, in which people are actually enthusiastic to vote democrat. We see the democratic party not just win in 2026 and 2028, but also 2030, 2032, and onward. The republican coalition just...implodes. Post Trump, the appeal is gone, and the demographic time bomb goes off as boomers start dying off and millennials/gen Z are the dominant voting blocs. It's over, done, and the GOP becomes a semi permanent minority party.

It will begin clawing back some support through the 2030s as an opposition inherently develops to the new democratic led paradigm, similar to how the GOP eventually came back after FDR and Truman, but they might not hit their groove until 2040 or later. Between now and then, they just find themselves unable to win elections, as the majority of the country overwhelmingly becomes comfortable with the democrats. It's only when people finally tire of democrats that we see a new republican administration take form.

The extreme path

I mean, the moderate path is the one I'd like them to take. It's the one that kills the coalition and leads to unconditional ideological surrender. But I dont think the coalition is just gonna die. The thing is, going moderate WILL kill it. Neocons are dead. That wing of the party has lost the ideological battle since 2010 and has been rejected over and over again. They aint coming back. If they did, the party would refuse to vote for them because they're not like the democrats and their "vote blue no matter who" crap. 

So...as I see it, the future of MAGA isnt gonna go quietly into the night, and quite frankly, I dont trust the democrats to land the fatal blow. Whats likely gonna happen is they're gonna reject the institutional conservatives with the Trump administration, the ones who are pro Israel, who wanted war. And they're gonna become more openly anti establishment, but also more anti semitic. Think Nick Fuentes. Think those republican group chat people talking about gas chambers, yeah.

And you know what? if democrats fail to deliver change in 2028, well, we're gonna see republican turnover in 2030 and 2032. That core MAGA base, that 30-40% of the country that's ride or die on them, will vote for them. And a lot of the same independents who have been swinging elections since 2008 or even earlier will swing back to the republicans. And the dems will lose, the GOP will win again, and once again we'll have to learn that you dont touch a hot stove. It seems cyclical at this point. Like that was the realignment. The GOP implodes, the dems implode, the GOP radicalizes and implodes, the dems moderate and implode. And nothing ever gets better, it keep getting worse. This cycle continues until roughly 2052 when we enter an 8th party system as some crisis blows up FORCING broader changes. If democracy even exists by then. I'm not sure it actually will at this point. And yeah.

Which is more likely?

We are on the path for the second one. Sadly, the democrats seem to be blowing it and are unable to land an actual fatal electoral blow to the GOP and its coalition. I suspect they'll win in 2026 and 2028...but 2030 and 2032 are not guaranteed, and its very well possible we'll see a GOP resurgeance after that as whatever MAGA remnants claw their way back to relevance as the dems run out of steam. I'd love to be proven wrong, but the dems just seem hopeless and we seem locked in this pattern. As I said, Im not sure if 2016 was a realignment or just the start of a dealignment. The current parties are closer to their 6th party system versions than something new. MAGA is just the stage 4 cancer version of the Nixon/Reagan coalition and the current dems are still fundamentally the Clinton coalition. Thats the problem actually. The parties are still stuck in their 6th party system versions when theres been a push toward wanting change that the system isnt delivering since 2016 and arguably since 2008. But if the democrats dont emerge as that change agent in a positive way, we're just gonna be stuck in an extended version 6th party system as the same voting patterns emerge as the parties resist change, so we just spend the 7th party system bouncing back and forth between the parties.

The closest historical analogue to this is the 2nd party system between the jacksonian democrats (MAGA and this case) and the whigs (dems in this case). And that party system was worthless and it just led to the civil war. We literally have whole eras where nothing good happens because the politicians just are serving whatever corporate or special interests exist at the time, and the people want a change that doesnt come. But then eventually a bigger crisis down the road forces the change to happen, leading to a period of rapid change followed by stabilization around a new status quo. We might be in one of THOSE realignments. Which sucks. It means we're a lost generation similar to the people who lived in the final decades of slavery, or in the gilded age where the politicians ignored the issues, but then eventually were forced to act.

If we are on this path, I'd expect this crisis to occur in around 26 years in 2052, or 36 years after 2016. 

However, if we assue a 48 year realignment schedule (similar to the 5th-6th party system), its possible that 2016 was a 1968 like dealignment, 2028 is the real realignment as the backlash to trump is so severe it leads to a transformational democratic presidency, and that will officially kick off the 7th party system, leading to its eventual collapse around 2064, and the next realignment to occur in 2076. It really depends on what timeline we're on and what assumptions we make. I guess we'll see what we get in 2028. Everything for now is speculation. 

Roleplaying as a republican strategist from 2008-2024

 Today's thought experiment of roleplaying a republican strategist for 2026 got me thinking: how would I handle the GOP if I remained a republican? I mean, I was a republican, but I left. But that begs the question, say I remained one, how would I have evolved with the party and where would I be with it today? I'm going to somewhat leave ideology out of it and focus on winning, but I will have a few frank moments where am blunt about where I feel like the party went wrong and crapped the best. With that said, let's begin. Btw, presidential elections will have maps but midterms won't, simply because i aint creating new spreadsheets based on old election data. 

2008

*sigh*, so this was painful. I was a republican back then. I didn't like McCain. He was too close to Bush. What the republican party needed at the time was a reset, a clean break from the Bush administration and its problems. It needed to get back to the basics of conservatism, which involved distancing itself from Iraq, and wanting to balance the national debt. That's what I thought at the time. I supported Ron Paul in the primary. I was willing to cross the aisle for Clinton, but not Obama. 

Anyway, with us basically locked into an unpopular Bush third term, with McCain promising to be in Iraq for 100 years if needed, and the country facing a massive recession not seen since 1929, and Obama being the hope and change guy, there wasn't much the GOP could do. Run a different candidate. Something more akin to the tea party. Again, Ron Paul caught my eye but the party was fundamentally uninterested in him. 

Looking at the map, we couldn't do anything with this. The fundamentals were just too bad for the GOP. You would need Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and Nevada just to barely win. It wasnt gonna happen, GOP enthusiasm was at rock bottom and the democratic enthusiasm was too high. 

2010

So...in 2010, the GOP ran against Obama. Claimed he was expanding the national debt, that he was implementing socialism, and the enthusiasm gap flipped. Those college students who voted for Obama in 2008 stayed home, and republicans acted like the sky was falling under Obama. To be fair, it worked, 2010 was a massive victory for republicans, and I wouldnt change a thing. That "reset" or "back to basics" I wanted in 2008 came to be with the tea party, and yeah. It worked. 

2012

Here's the thing. It's easy to campaign, it's hard to govern. The GOP was good at campaigning, but after it had to govern, enthusiasm dropped again. 

I would argue the GOP brand was fundamentally unpopular. If I had to sum up why they lost, it would be rachel maddow's election night take. The GOP was out of touch with constituents and reality. I made a horrible mistake, thinking that the answer was to go back to basics and to run the tea party. Because when the tea party got in, they proved they couldnt govern worth a crap. Their policies were poorly designed to the point of being dangerous. They were pushing some narrative that the problem with unemployment was the people being too lazy and we needed to cut unemployment to give tax cuts to billionaires to create jobs. The republican party was pushing religious based governance not based in reality. And yeah, 2012 is the year that broke me as a conservative. It was the year I realized, not only is this a poor implementation of conservatism, but conservatism itself is bad.

What could have saved the GOP here? Honestly, I'm not sure. Elections are won by enthusiasm. The republican base is too far right for its own good. It LIKED the tea party stuff, if you abandoned it, you would lose those voters. You cant do the moderation thing dems like to do on the republican side, because the republican base WONT TURN OUT FOR YOU. It's what I always tell liberals and why i base my own electoral strategy on running far left. But at the same time, the reality of winning elections for republicans is that while they have a very energetic base, their brand is gonna alienate independents. And it seemed, at the time, that over time, that base would grow smaller and smaller as more older people died out, and would be replaced by more liberal younger people. The GOP was facing down a generational shift that threatened to dislodge them from power. And much like in 2008, I'm not really sure what they could have done. 2012 was more winnable than 2008 was, but it was still a hard nut to crack. Priorities that played well with the republican base alienated swing voters hardcore, who were still pissed off over the economy. And that brand of conservative economics that the base loved, swing voters HATED, because reality didnt match the brand the GOP was selling. 

2014

While democrats were dominating nationwide, the GOP was able to carve out a political map that guaranteed them house control in 2011, so they did pretty well nationally. Even though democrats won the popular vote in 2014 in the house, that didnt translate to winning districts due to aggressive gerrymandering. They could take the senate because land voted, not people, but yeah, the GOP is mostly held together by this point by institutional advantages favoring rural voters that give them an outsized advantage in the electoral college. Their brand of politics does okay, but as we discussed, it's only popular among the core base. Swing voters HATE it. The core reason republicans could win was a combination of low enthusiasm from the democratic side, and aggressively abusing institutional advantages that made them the winner even in the face of steady coalitional decline. The reagan coalition was aging out. The likely path from here was actually the democrats having a realignment and the GOP needing to rebuild themselves back up as a moderate party. 

2016

2016 started as 2008 part 3 for republicans. Jeb Bush, "please clap", more trickle down guys. Yay... More religious evangelism, yay.... I mean, as you can see, my own biases and character shine through, but you understand why I left and decided 2016 was time to end the reagan coalition once and for all? To be a republican by 2016 who was self aware and not a delusional radical was an exercise in self hatred. But....fortunately, we were in a self hatred competition and our opponents were the democrats. They nominated Hillary Clinton, one of the easiest candidates to attack ever. Who has about as much energy as McCain and Romney did herself. And while yeah, for all intents and purposes, she should have won, she managed to basically throw the election, especially as voters made up their minds in october/november. 

And eventually, by election day, the map was this:

Remember this? I predicted this as a democrat. But yeah. The democrats kind of screwed up. They got cocky, arrogant, and ended up costing themselves the election. Yeah, kill all enthusiasm among your voter base (the opposite of what Obama did) and tell them they better vote for you or else. Brilliant! Yeah, they blew it.

And as a republican, I'd kind of feel like we just somehow got a gift here. A path back to electoral relevance when we should have been toast. I mean, I'd be lamenting the blue wall like most in the GOP would. But by election day, we got that mapp, and that at least gave us a path to success. 

The fact is, 2016, everything went right for the republicans, and everything went wrong for the democrats. The swing vote wanted change, and the democrats repeated our 2008 mistakes by basically running a third term no one wanted. The obvious path was to push for a democratic tea party here, and they did the opposite of that. They ran to the center, trying to pick up McCain and Romney voters that they didn't even need.

Meanwhile, Trump was able to unite and strengthen the party. Trump brought new energy to the GOP. While the democrats embraced woke (seriously wtf were they thinking?!), the republicans could now be the more rational social issues party, arguing against tone policing and in favor of free speech. We could activate the christian nationalists. The white nationalists, who we certainly dont support but they vote for us anyway. And we somehow got the swing vote. By blaming immigrants and outsourcing for the lost jobs (again, roleplaying here), we could get the swing vote to give fiscal conservatism another chance! Oh yeah, it's all coming together...

Which brings us to the map. My own pathway would've been those 4.5 swing states I focused on: Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and ME2. If we could get all 5 of those we could get exactly 270. I'd also probably focus on Pennsylvania and Colorado based on this map, but probably not expect Wisconsin and Michigan. 

In the real world, the map was all over the place. Clinton got Nevada, we got Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The vote that really did it was the white working class vote the democrats alienated. Seriously, they went after voters they didnt need and abandoned the ones that they did. They miscalculated and it cost them hard. 

And yeah, that's how I'd see 2016 if I were a republican. Much like I did in the real world, but just laughing at the democrats misfortune and wondering wtf they were thinking with such a terrible strategy. This was a totally winnable election for them. And it should've been the election the republicans imploded for good, leading to the rise of the 7th party system. Instead, their own strategy just breathed new life into the republican coalition, as they were able to appeal to their traditional voters but also appeal to disaffected swing voters who the democrats functionally abandoned. 

2018

However, much like with the Obama years, once getting into office, the GOP has to govern. And if the GOP brand of politics isnt popular, no amount of campaigning will fix it. The democrats siezed on the opportunity to attack Donald over everything. Just like we did Benghazi in 2012 and 2016, they started screaming conspiracy theories about Russian involvement (note, that was real, but again, roleplaying a republican here). And to be fair, Trump was kind of stupid and boorish. We had our best guys trying to help him govern, and we kept him in line with GOP priorities, but RINOs like John McCain and Mitt Romney (ya know, the losers who cost us 2008 and 2012) obstructed the GOP where it matters and we failed to pass much. Still, we got tax cuts and the economy was good. Arguably we were distant enough from 2008 where we could prove republicans could do a good economy. And we could even do a lot of press events with donald saving factory jobs. 

Still, people really dont like how boorish that guy is and how incompetent he is. It goes with the territory. Trump is gonna appeal to his base, but yeah, swing voters are gonna go the other way. Not sure what can be done here. It's the problem the GOP has had since the tea party took over. Bad at governing, unpopular politics that is unappealing once anyone has to deal with it in practice. Honestly the only thing keeping the GOP in the shape it was was the 2016 F up the dems did. 

2020

OH NO! WHY?! So...the bottom fell out. The economy crashed, and Donald's in office. ANd he's doing stupid crap claiming that COVID would just go away. Honestly, the best we could do as republicans is what the real world republicans did. Paint lockdowns as a liberal thing and run on reopening the economy, virus or no virus. THis wasn't popular. It was also dangerous. By this point, the GOP was just basically letting people die to COVID in the name of the economy and hope it wins them an election. The GOP played their hand well, but yeah, with this map, there was only so much the GOP could do:

2008 part 4....here we go...

And again, keep in mind until we saw 2020, I thought 2016 was a fluke. I'd probably have the same idea as a conservative. With that said, I'd be satisfied with the fact that the GOP did as good as it did. It looked like a reversion to the 2012 style map honestly. The republican base loved Trump, some independents loved Trump. But yeah, we just cant win when a global pandemic happens during election year and your candidate is out there talking about injecting people with bleach. 

The GOP may have staved off its imminent defeat by lucking into Trump, but the same problems remain. I mean, I would have to have no soul and no conscience in the real world to remain a GOP operative by this point. I'd be lying to the american people, with the lies becoming increasingly more dangerous. And by 2020, they were basically encouraging people to sit together and avoid pandemic protocols during an election rally? And then herman cain dies? I mean, again, this is just...dangerous. Real me has a conscience. I cant do that. Like really, this is getting to be some dark the end justifies the means kind of stuff. 

Anyway, what could I do with this map? Repeat the 2016 strategy basically. Which almost worked, but it didn't quite work, because again, you actually have to govern and the GOP is terrible at it. They lie to the american people, misrepresent the science, and while it's very popular among their psychotic voter base, normies are terrified by the GOP. They can gain power out of power, but they cant maintain it. At this point, the only thing keeping the GOP going is the dems not realizing the gold mine they're sitting on, and not actually being competent at politics themselves.

A note about January 6th, demographic change, etc...

So I wanna be real with people. I dont support january 6th. I dont support great replacement theory. I dont support the GOP's right turn. I believe the democrats rightfully won the 2020 election and earned it. 

However, in roleplaying as a republican here, I can understand why this party is getting desperate. it seems quite clear from 2008 on that this is a party that is in deep crap. They got an ever radicalizing voter base, they terrify the normies. Drive the moderates out of the party. It seems obvious that the only thing holding the GOP together is the dems not knowing how to do politics.

I can understand why the GOP would turn to authoritarianism as they have. I mean, the demographic time bomb has been apparent for them for a while. And they live in existential fear of losing their cultural hegemony. Between America becoming more demographically diverse, and the older generations aging out, it looks like all trump really did was delay the inevitable. I mean, for now, at this point, you could argue the GOP could win elections again because the dems arent doing much better. Im a democrat IRL, my opinions on them are pretty known. If I were to look from the outside looking in, as a conservative, I'd kind of realize they hold the keys to the future. They're checkmating us. THey are just blundering so hard themselves they dont realize they won.

And that's why the GOP took an authoritarian turn. They know their time is up and its only a matter of time before the dems get their own realigning election. So, the GOP strategy is to break democracy as much as possible to maintain their power. And the core voter base behind trump was willing to commit an insurrection to achieve that. 

So at this point, the GOP is leaving the realm of fair electoral politics and going into authoritarianism. 

2022

Mid terms. Clear pattern by now. Party that is out of power gains electoral strength, party in power loses it. Democrats got caught with a time bomb at just the wrong time. Republicans lost in 2020 due to the pandemic, but the democrats got the recovery. And that makes the job easy for us. We just complain about the economy and insist if WE were in charge, we wouldnt have these problems. It's lazy people who dont wanna work. It's all those checks. We got a crime crisis, we got a border crisis. Everything is a crisis. Everything is bad. It's all BS, but the people won't know that. And of course, it seems to be working. Republicans are up, democrats are down. But then....oh no. OH NO, NOT NOW. SERIOUSLY SCOTUS, DID YOU HAVE TO DO THAT NOW?! DO YOU HAVE TO REMIND PEOPLE HOW MUCH WE SUCK!? Yeah, they shot down roe v wade. It's been a campaign issue republicans have rallied around since the 1970s. But....it's the 2020s. It's NOT the 1970s. It's only the religious nuts who want this! Normies HATE this! And that's the problem with being a republican. The base is extreme, and the normies HATE the GOP when they actually do stuff because only like 30-40% of the country likes what the GOP stands for. The rest just vote for them because they dont like what the democrats are doing. However, the GOP cant abandon the base because then the base will abandon them and throw them out of power. But then because they have to cater to the base, they cant appeal to the moderates and swing voters who fundamentally agree with the democrats on social issues. And while this should be a very red year as people dont like the democrats either, it ends up being a lot more blue because the GOP reminded everyone how much they suck as well. The fact is, no one fundamentally likes either party in charge. Each party has its base, but swing voters just vote for the side they hate less at the moment. It's enough to keep the GOP relevant, as the democrats arent doing any better, but it's not doing the GOP any favors.

Can the GOP save itself?

I mean...this is the thing we really gotta ask. The GOP has that fundamental issue. THe base is too extreme, alienates swing voters. Normal politics that appeal to normies alienates GOP voters. The GOP is trapped. It cant appeal to normies without losing its base, it cant appeal to its base without losing swing voters, so much like the democrats it only wins when the other party is fundamentally unpopular. 

Trump does bring new opportunities to the table, being able to unite the base around social conservatism while moving ever so slightly left on economics. He has a populist branding that the tea party conservatives dont have. He's the only guy who seems capable of bringing the party together, but even then, when he governs, he has the same issues as all of the others. Because he's fronting an extremist republican agenda, he's fundamentally unpopular in office, he has that 40% of the public that is ride or die on him, but that isnt enough to win elections.

Even worse, Trump is becoming more authoritarian. Although, the GOP seems willing to enable that. So it's going in a direction of trying to dismantle democracy. It's got the dark enlightenment billionaires behind it, it's got these neo fascist types, and project 2025 aimed at accomplishing generational change. At this point, the GOP sees its future in rigging the electoral system. It needs to win, get into power, and then break democracy enough where they win every time. They want to systematically disenfranchise people who they dont want to vote. This is why they're focusing on extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. THey know they cant win reliably through fair electoralism so they're thinking "well maybe not everyone should vote." So yeah, they're to a point, after around 15 years of a demographic time bomb on their mind, and no clear answer for them to save their party, they're starting to eschew democracy instead. If only they vote, they can win. So now we're in a scary phase where they're trying to literally rig the system through authoritarianism where only they can win. Which is why they're so aggressive with ICE, they are using it to accomplish demographic change (keeping the white majority). It's why theyre focusing on voter ID and ending mail in ballots. It's why there may be another january 6th type coup this year. This is where the GOP is at. They're looking at the same problems Im looking at in this article and they're going "yeah, if we cant win democratically, then maybe its time to end democracy." 

2024

This brings us to 2024, where donald Trump runs a much more fascist campaign saying things like "vote for me and you'll never have to vote again." And thankfully for them, Joe Biden's approval is in the toilet. People arent happy with him. He's old, he falls asleep, we had all that inflation. Remember inflation guys? Arent you angry about that? What about the crime crisis, which only exists because in 2020 crime was down because of lockdowns. Same with immigration. Arent things SOOOO BAAAADD?! And with that, Trump was able to have his mojo again. He was able to be the outsider, who if he were in charge things were better, seriously, remember how great his first term was? Just ignore 2020. Remember when prices were low? Dont you want that again? 

Meanwhile the democrats were like "and when we finally defeat medicare"....oh no, Biden's brain broke in the middle of a debate. Or should I say...OH YEAH!

See, democrats have an issue of foisting fundamentally unpopular candidates on the public. They have the opposite problem. Democrats were the losing party last realignment, so they are experts at self loathing. The only thing keeping the GOP relevant is really the fact that they're in a self loathing competition with the democrats and the democrats have had decades of experience. No, a better world isnt possible, you better vote for us or else, and then when we lose, its your fault for not voting for us. Democrats are professional losers, conditioned by their losses when the republican coalition actually had real power. The dems, if they played it smart, probably could destroy the GOP for good. Run a progressive who fundamentally changes the values of the electorate through their sheer popularity like FDR did, and boom, you got a once in a generation transformational change that ends the 6th party system for good. But they dont do that so they keep giving the GOP a gift in the form of being able to pick up elections despite the obvious demographic issues they got going for them. 

And thankfully for us democrats, they cant govern worth a crap either.

But this is 2024.

Anyway, here's Biden's map, but then they got rid of Biden since they knew this was looking apocalyptic for them, and then we got Harris.

But yeah. Oh my god, if I were a republican I'd have to wonder wtf they were thinking running the senile old guy who no one liked again. I mean, really, its like the only thing holding the GOP together at this point is democratic incompetence. 

And yeah, as long as the GOP downplays all that scary project 2025 stuff and they let trump be trump in campaign mode, they can get in power again. But then we got harris.

Harris would have scared me a lot more than Trump, mainly because she had more popularity and enthusiasm with young people and initially, she was able to call out republican BS. Like calling us weird, wtf was that? We (republicans) ARE weird. Like, as a republican i wouldnt be able to deny that. We are the weirdos who wanna control people socially. And our economic ideas are just there to screw the working class and benefit the rich. The only thing catapulting us to relevance is the american people being fundamentally stupid (with us wanting to keep them that way) and democratic incompetence. ANd if the democrats become competent, well, they can win!

Fortunately, the democrats arent that competent, and Harris ended up listening to their own consultant class nonsense. Those guys are professional losers. They fundamentally dont understand politics. Anyway, being a republican from this article I guess I cant complain. 

Anyway was executed as well as it could have been. And Trump got into office. However, despite his attempts to concentrate power, he's been unable to break the electoral system, he screwed up the economy and now in 2026 we got a blue wave upon us. Speaking of which...

2026

Oh god this isn't good. We really dont know how to govern. Trump might be the one guy to keep the coalition viable, but hes an idiot who literally cant govern. His tariffs are destroying the economy, he invaded iran, and hes being far too blunt with his authoritarian impulses. At this point, yeah, the best we can do is hit platner with everything we've got hoping we can keep maine, but it's kinda hard when trump is THIS BAD at this. It's like american politics are in a race to the bottom of who can govern worse and despite democrats dropping the ball, now its our turn to have a fundamentally unpopular dementia addled 80 year old running things and alienating people. And now because he exerts so much control over the party he's driving out the only sane people who can theoretically save it. AND NOW WERE PROBABLY GONNA LOSE THE SENATE!

If I were still a republican by 2026 I'd feel like that guy from license to kill who yells at franz sanchez (the bad guy) that hes ruining everything and then gets shot him. GOP leadership is literally that bad. The only thing that can save the party at this point is the dems just....sucking almost as bad, and then people forget how much we suck.

Conclusion

Honestly, you can see why I left the GOP. I have a brain, I recognized their principles werent for me, and honestly, they're insane. They are driven by an ever radicalizing base of extremists while alienating normies. If I were still conservative at this point, i'd be like, yeah, maybe if you just go to the middle...but instead they run to the extremes. It does give them some success, in years where democrats drop the ball. But then democrats win in elections republicans drop the ball. 

We can also see where these authoritarian impulses are coming from. They are sitting on a demographic time bomb and they cant win without changing the voting demographics of this country, either through mass deportations of minorities, voter disenfranchisement, brainwashing the next generation, or taking away reproductive freedom ensuring more babies are born of the demographics they want. Which is...why they're so extreme. They cant win in the long term otherwise. The only thing keeping them relevant is the dems being just as unliked as they are, so the swing vote keeps bouncing between the two hoping one of them gives a solution to the economic angst they feel. The right never will. The left can, but won't. I would argue by rights, the future belongs to the democrats. But if they refuse to step up, we might be stuck in a pattern where we just flip back and forth. The 7th party system feels like an alignment no one wants. But we might be stuck with it, where no party wants to be dominant, or can't. The GOP wants to, but cant without force. The democrats can but dont want to. Or it might be that because the dems drop the ball, the republicans end up just eroding democracy and establishing a dictatorship around their ideas. Ideally, Id like to see the dems go full FDR but they are incredibly resistant to that.

But yeah, thats where we're at. Anyway, this was just a thought experiment. Trying to see things from the other side, since i used to be on the other side. And uh....yeah. 

Election Update: 6/5/26

 So I'm gonna start doing more regular election updates. Not sure on the schedule yet, I normally like to do "whenever I feel like it", but I am thinking maybe a scheduled one every month? Maybe every few weeks? It'll get more frequent closer to election time. But yeah. I figured, first Friday in June, they dont do polls over the weekend as much, let's go. 

Senate

 

 

The senate forecast is leaning toward democrats now. I would say they have roughly a 60% chance of taking it. Republicans have a 35% chance, with 5% being a tie. Of course, a tie is functionally a republican win, so that would be a 40% chance in practice. So yeah, basically a tossup, but one that's dem favored. 

The map is pretty bad for republicans. I was even thinking, if I were a republican strategist, what do I even do with this? As we'll get to with the house, the public has shifted 9 points in favor of dems since 2024. It was up to 11 but those bullish averages kinda dropped back down. I'd be like, we're tied in Ohio, we're losing Alaska, Iowa, and Texas, wtf are we even doing here? Like, these were R+13 firewalls in 2024's presidential. But...that's what happens when your president doesnt deliver and then he implodes the economy and gets us into a war he promised not to get us in. And then he gets up there and goes on about how he doesnt care and he wants a ballroom. Real "let them eat cake energy" there. As I said back in 2025, this should be a layup. Sure, maybe they'll lose a seat or two, but that should be the extent of the bleeding. Republicans are really crapping the bed.

Honestly, the best strategy I could think of is just to do damage control on Trump and focus on specific races. I mean, while Maine is likely D, with Platner, there is a vulnerability there. If the republicans can hammer away at his average by unloading on him with scandals, or even better, if they can dislodge him on the eve of the primary so they run Mills again (keep in mind Mills was barely winning against Collins if she could win at all), then maybe they can keep Maine. North Carolina is lost. Georgia and New Hampshire, fat chance. Nebraska....well....it's generally an R favored state, but they're up against Dan Osborn. I'd just hold the line and say if we did it in 2024, we can do it again. Texas, probably lost for republicans, Paxton is the GOP's platner with no charm. Wtf trump was choosing nominating him is just...no. Iowa, Alaska, just keep holding the line and hope that we can do damage control. Ohio, hold the line. Michigan, hope the democrats pick El Sayed and hammer him as an extremist. It's all the GOP can do. It's a very bad year for them. All in all, If they can get michigan, keep maine, and then get at least 2 of the 4 red firewall states, they'll at least hold it 50/50, but yeah, that's not an amazing chance. I'd be crapping my pants if I were a republican tasked with holding the party together. It's hard to do damage control and campaign intelligently when you got a dementia addled 80 year old who acts like a toddler and goes on about how he doesnt care about the plight of the american people in the worst inflationary crisis in 50 years, which he started btw. I'd just be witnessing the blue wave with dread.

Now, as a democrat (or dem leaner), I, on the other hand, am very happy with the current situation.  As a democrat, I'm looking at this like....yeah, Maine is almost locked down. THey're really hammering platner, but after roleplaying as a republican, you can see why they're going all in with the platner scandal, their best bet is to dislodge him before primary day so the GOP ends up with a weaker opponent. Dont fall for it, especially since the NYT article isnt landing well and is coming off like a hit piece on graham. North carolina is ours. I'd be cautiously optimistic about polling in the red firewall states, but i wouldnt count my chickens before they hatch. The polling is close and keep in mind, the polls can be wrong. Dems can still lose this. I wanna believe, but yeah, I'm not really fully confident either. MIchigan...idk what's up with that. it's way to the right of the other states. And while yes, that's El Sayed data, Stevens and McMorrow data arent much better, only bringing it from lean R to tossup. I think the dems can win here, after all, it's basically reverse texas polling wise right now. So yeah, cautious optimism for the GOP, cause of alarm for the dems. Ultimately, this can go anywhere between 54-46 Dem, to 48-52 GOP. Most likely result is 52-48 Dem right now. 

House

 

As always, take my house model with a grain of salt, this is experimental and a "fundamentals" based forecast. Even worse, it's a highly simplified one. We discussed it before, but yeah. As of now, we can expect a 9 point shift from 2024. We were up to almost 11 like a few days to a week ago, but yeah. It doesn't change much. Raw model gives me 234-201, although when I adjust for gerrymandered districts I get 232-203 Dem. Other models I've seen online seem to hover around the same results. I mean, this is where we're at probabilistically. When the dems having almost a 98% chance of taking the house, and with the republicans being functionally locked out of it. In statistics, when dealing with polling, 95% two tailed (97.5% one tailed) is the gold standard. That's about an 8 point advantage in my model. We're at 9, making the result even better, and only with slight corrections do we see it drop back to just over that 97.5% mark. I'm A LOT more confident we take the house than the senate.

And again, what does the GOP even do here? You cant do damage control for the loudmouth in chief because he keeps undermining you because he doesnt know when to shut up. All they can do is gerrymander like there's no tomorrow and try to implement the "Save America" act to destroy mail in voting and implement voter ID. The republicans are in a position of being fundamentally screwed. 

Governors

 

Yeah, here's the map. I have no idea what's going on in Georgia without polling. And yeah not a whole lot to say on this one. It looks mostly...normal to me. And yeah, PA isnt even in the prediction because they're like 20 points ahead or something crazy like that. 

Conclusion

All in all, the democrats are in good shape and republicans are in bad shape. The fundamentals look like they'll carry the dems to victory, even in the senate where they're somehow ahead in relatively safe R states. The republicans have limited ability to do damage control. Trying to empathize with their position is painful because imagine trying to do damage control and then Donald gets up in front of the nation and opens his big mouth again. His choice of paxton over cornyn was self destructive, and yeah, the GOP is basically imploding bad right now. 

Barring outright stealing it, I dont see the GOP winning here. They got the house locked down, and the senate is a tossup, but still slightly favorable to dems. It shouldnt even be anywhere near a tossup. GOP should hold firm control of it, but that red firewall is breaking this year, BADLY. 

At the very least, I can understand why they're throwing everything they can and the kitchen sink at Graham Platner. That's like the one thing they CAN attempt to control for. Even then it doesnt seem to be working. It's like frieza throwing an energy ball into a spirit bomb heading right for him. Ya know? 

So yeah. I'm feeling pretty confident right now, as a democrat.  

Discussing the NEW Graham Platner scandal

 So....apparently a NEW scandal dropped, courtesy of the new york times, and old girlfriends of platner are alleging abuse. I admit, this article was hyped up before it dropped and it was framed like he sexually assaulted someone. However, reading it, I'm not really seeing it. Like the worst thing he said was that he would rape someone in certain circumstances in order to assert dominance or something. Given the guy lived according to some weird "warrior code" from his military days...eh...I can give him some grace here.

here's the thing. Idk how many people know military people, especially ones with like PTSD....but uh...some of these guys are genuinely F-ed up. It happens. Especially when you're in an elite unit that sees a lot of combat. You gotta be a special kind of person to do that, and it kind of...corrupts you as a person. It messes you up. Majorly. A lot of those vets deal with PTSD, and sometimes they dont come off as the most...well adjusted people sometimes. And it takes them years, if not decades to become more normal again. In some ways, it never goes away for them, but I will say they improve. Platner seems to be one of those people. he seems to have come back from war totally messed up in the head, and then over the next 15 years slowly improved his life to the point he's ready to face the world again in a more proper way. And people wanna tear him down for it. So idk...I look at the allegations in this article, and I'm mostly seeing that. 

Anyway, even more so, the worst allegations are from an ex who happens to work for the republican party. So....yeah....I dont trust ANYTHING she says. Because she obviously wants collins to win, and she's not a reliable source. Other girlfriends noted some strange behavior, but most of them seem to think he's mostly peaceful, but just a bit...off. 

Either way, this doesn't move the needle for me. Again, the centrists are trying to play hard into respectability politics, acting like every scandal should break this guy's career, and uh...I'm just nto swayed. I mean, if the dude was running for president, I would say, maybe, yeah. Maybe someone with this F-ed up of a mindset shouldnt be trusted with nuclear codes. Sure, he would be better than the current mentally unstable dementia addled 80 year old in office now, but yeah. I mean, I can say in that circumstance I wouldnt trust him. As a senator? Eh, I'd give him a chance. He's better than mills or collins.