Debating chatGPT about my house model

 So....I decided to ask chatGPT a few questions in light of section 2 of the VRA getting struck down, like how to win the house. The results were kinda obvious, but have a strong showing of democrats turn out to win the election. I asked them what their odds are of us winning the house are, and they seemed pretty skeptical of it. if anything, they seemed more inclined to believe that the senate would flip first, which was insane to me. Because, as we know, in 2024, the house BARELY went republican. It went 215-220 Republican. And I expect an 8 point shift in polling or so based on what I see so far. Meanwhile, the senate requires flipping rather hostile territory. We're talking states where the environments were R+13 in 2024, where even if 8 point shifts happen, we're theoretically talking R+5. We're starting to see polls showing some of those states CAN crack and shift in favor of dems, but I'm still skeptical, and despite my own model having the dems ahead, I really suspect the data might just be wrong. It's just too big of a shift and the data is weak and possibly contradictory with other priors of mine. 

But the house? That's a shoe in. 

So...I asked chatGPT why they think the house is harder, and gave my case for a 235-200 outcome based on current data. They said that not all districts shift uniformly. An 8 point shift might mean like 3-5 points in actual swing districts while 12 points in safe districts. They have a point. And admittedly, my model doesnt take that into consideration.

However, after listening to what they had to say, and their suggestions of grading different districts differently, and focusing on the swingiest ones, I went back to the cook PVI that I drew my data from. And....here's the thing.

They got 192 safe D districts,  11 likely D, 14 lean D, and then there's 16 tossups. Assuming a dem heavy environment, i doubt anything lean D will flip. So that's 217 districts out of the gate, one short of a majority. The the tossups, all the data I have in my models suggests they'd flip. Even if I left out the 2 lean Rs, which is how I get 235 seats, I'd get 233. Of course, chatGPT thinks not all of the tossups will go D, and thinks only 70-90% will. Okay, so let's assume 80%, that's still 12, which gives us 231. I point that out, they say, but keep in mind the lean Rs still might flip, so now I'm back up to 232-233. 

At which point, I have to ask...is it worth adding all of this complexity to my model? Like, that's the problem I noticed of complex models in 2020 and 2024. They account for more variables, but they're not a ton more accurate than my simplistic ones. Like, when you have like 5 extra variables where you're like, but these WILL go blue, but then these wont, but then these other things will, and you get a result that's like....2-4 seats off of my own projection, does that matter much? 

It's a lot like the AK47 vs M16 philosophies of warfare. The M16 is a complicated machine. It's more precise and accurate, but it has more moving parts and can break down more often. When introduced in vietnam soldiers didnt even have cleaning kits and it broke down regularly despite how good of a firearm it is.

Meanwhile, the AK47 was a bit less accurate, but it was "good enough". It was built with the philosophy of keeping things simple, and not breaking down. You can argue that an "M16" type model will get a slightly more accurate result, but does it matter when my own model is like an AK47, rugged and "good enough?" I kind of like the simplicity of my current models. Adding more complexity just means more moving parts and more things that can go wrong. And for what, a slight difference from my original model in the first place? As I said in 2024. A model that is, for example, perpetually at 50-50 4 months out from an election because it's accounting for so many things that havent happened yet is the equivalent of not having a model at all. because you're not really predicting anything. You're just throwing your hands up and saying "I dont know, anything can happen." Sure, anything CAN happen, but polling data as I used was able to get better results than all of Allen  Lichtman's keys and all of 538's fancy models that left us perpetually in the dark at 50%. So...idk. 

I'm probably not gonna stick with my current iteration of my house model all the way to election day. The landscape is changing too much and hopefully by October or so, there will be actual polling giving me a better picture of what's going on. But, im probably not gonna overcomplicate things either.

Tbqh, giving how chatGPT started out at republicans winning the house only to end at a slightly less favorable prediction than my original one shows me it cant be trusted anyway. It's kinda like that meme I'm seeing lately where it's like "yeah, this is a good idea", and then later "oh yeah, sorry, i was wrong, would you like to see why data on how?" Like, it started out being like "republicans will probably win", then shifted to "democrats will win but the results will be narrow" to  "democrats will win, but I'm predicting like 4 less seats than you are" is kind of a huge goalpost mover. Goes to show how accurate AI is at this sorta thing.

Regardless, i do admit it has points about the relative inelasticity of some districts and my model does have a weak point there. I do admittedly oversimplify things. but when an oversimplified model still gets us 90% of the way there, that kinda tells me it's "good enough", ya know? Kinda like an AK47 is "good enough" compared to an M16. 

Why centrist democrats hate Hasan Piker so much

 I know, I know, another Hasan article, but I really wanna drive this point home. I want to discuss why he's such a target and why he's public enemy number one. It's because he's campaigning for progressive candidates. In a vacuum, the democrats don't care about Hasan. He's a two bit streamer on twitch and youtube, and if he was really that useless, they wouldn't care. But he's not useless. He's advocating for change, and that is a threat to the system as it exists. Currently, we have two parties. As we know, the republicans are unhinged psychopaths. But the democrats are useless. And they're not useless in a benign, well meaning way, but in their own evil, malignant way. The democrats are controlled opposition of interest groups that represent wealthy special interests. They prefer republicans, but will accept democrats, because democrats have controlled and captured the left in a way where it stops actual lefties who want to actually fix things from getting power.

We are in a populist alignment of politics. Since 2016, populist elements on the left and right have risen up. The right wing populists are scary and dangerous. They're represented by Trump, MAGA, and the "America first" movement, and are a right wing xenophobic, christian nationalist, and authoritarian movement. They're fascist. Let's call them fascist. The definition fits close enough. The right wing populists are a bit more on the mark. They see the problem with society as these special interests, and want to actually change society to make it more responsive to the people. They want working class movements that have higher pay, and better working conditions, and stronger safety nets. And the wealthy and powerful don't want that. 

These democrats will do anything they can to ensure that the populist left never gains power. THey fight us harder than MAGA, and see us as a bigger threat to the system than MAGA. So they'll push all of this unhinged crap about Hasan to try to damage those movements by poisoning the well.  They'll start screaming about the worst things he's ever said or done, and with a man like hasan who does hours long streams every day, can be numerous, even if 99% of the time, he says stuff that makes sense. Anyone can cherrypick someone's worst takes and take them out of context, but honestly, that shouldnt discredit the individual. But your average voter is stupid, and they know that. So they do this hoping it hurts the campaigns of those who he campaigns for, and to some extent it does. Every topic I come across is flooded with centrist democrats calling him a dog abuser, and going on about whatever unhinged stuff he said 7 years ago. 

Some of the arguments seem largely contradictory. Like they'll say he doesn't do anything and he doesn't advocate for any change, he just attacks democrats. Except....he's being attacked because he IS doing something, he's campaigning for progressive candidates. And if you tune into the rallies he participates in, it's standard fare progressivism. it's just, "I wanna make your lives better, vote for me." What's so bad about that? I'll tell you what, it upsets the special interests who rely on the system sucking and being oppressive to make their money. it upsets Israel who floods the US political system to make our country subservient to their interests. And Hasan is a very harsh critic of Israel. 

They'll say Hasan doesn't attack republicans, but then like three hours before I read this, he posted a video about some BS Trump was doing. 

 But yeah, the big sin a lot of centrists hate him for is he doesnt blindly push "blue no matter who" and attacks centrist democrats. Except, and here's the thing that pisses ME off about centrist democrats, those centrists dont do anything. And it seems like they have this idea that politics is a "team sport", and you're just supposed to blindly support your team. You're not supposed to have "purity tests" like wanting universal healthcare, or to want Israel to stop committing genocide. You're just supposed to vote for who the nominee is.

 ...but never forget, the nominee will always be a centrist. Progressives can't win, blah blah blah, incremental change, moderation is key, F progressives. Yeah. And that's what turned me against them back in 2016. Because they talk a big game about blue no matter who, but they HATE progressives, they DESPISE them. They expect US to mindlessly fall in line, but they won't fall in line behind our candidates. They struggled to support Mamdani, and Cuomo even ran a third party bid against him. They struggle to support Grahm Platner, who just BTFOed Janet Mills, who was the Schumer approved candidate. And they HATE, HATE Abdul El Sayed for some reason. 

Honestly, again, here's the thing. If the campaigns between more moderate progressives and the hard left ones were a bit more cordial, I'd probably be more supportive of the moderate candidates. Again, I actually liked McMorrow over El Sayed initially. But when that brand of establishment politics gets control over a campaign like that and started launching deranged and unhinged attacks against El Sayed, it makes you wonder, what are they fighting so hard to prevent here? Someone who wants universal healthcare? And if McMorrow wins, what's she gonna do? Will she actually be for a public option or will she just start catering to the health insurance industry? Who is bankrolling this stuff? What interests are being served by McMorrow winning? Is she compromised? is she controllable? I mean thats how I start thinking.

It's the same crap that pissed me off in 2016. Like...the primary between Clinton and Sanders didn't have to be as nasty as it was either. If it were more cordial, I might have voted for Clinton. I didn't love stein, I even debated stein vs clinton on this blog. But...I just had too much pride to support Clinton, given how I was treated. Because it was the same toxic BS we're seeing now. It was the Clinton people who launched the first shot against the Sanders people. The reason the "Bernie Bros" was because some of us just refused to support clinton after we were treated like absolute garbage and were bullied online by the clinton people. because they basically came in, told us we cant have nice things, talked down to us, condescended to us, and told us we had to vote for them, and after over a year of that treatment, some of us (like me) were in a mood to just tell these people to go F ourselves. And quite frankly, I do think we were significant enough to throw 2016. And the dems will blame us, but you know what? They should blame themselves. Again, like, I'm NOT an irrational actor here. These people DROVE me to act as I did. Had they not pissed me off, I probably would've voted for clinton. It's not that I liked clinton, I didn't, but if I felt like the primary was significantly less nasty and the dems didn't spend so much time slinging crap at us for daring to disagree with them, ya know, I probably would've freely given them my vote. I just wasn't gonna gonna take their crap lying down.  

I still feel the same way, btw. I mean, I know I cave to them more, but that's really just a Donald Trump issue. Like, yeah, I REALLY hate these MFers in the democratic party, yeah, sure. BUT....when you're dealing with an outright fascist who is a literal threat to democracy and is creating the biggest constitutional crisis we've arguably seen since the civil war, even I have to be like "okay, you win, I HATE you MFers, but I'll vote for you for the good of the country." 

Still....I will trash them on my blog, and online elsewhere. I will still remind them that their caustic attitudes are why they currently have a -22% net approval rating, which, btw, is WORSE than Trump's and the republican party's, because at least the GOP LIKES their psychos in charge, the dems aren't really pleasing anyone. The only reason I dont protest vote them any more is because Trump just IS that dangerous. Protest voting is a great strategy when you can count on the continued existence of our democratic system. Like back in 2016 and 2020, honestly, pre Jan 6th in general, I basically assumed that the continued existence of our democratic system was a given. Even if trump was a wannabe dictatorship, I understood that there were enough people in all the right places to ensure that he couldn't functionally do anything to overthrow that. BUT....he made a serious pass at it, almost succeeded, and then came back with an army of yes people that he's filling the government with who will go along with whatever insane stuff he wants. And he's consolidating power. 

So...sadly, we need to hope those worthless dems are just competent enough to not fricking just surrender the country to trump on a silver platter. Which is an awfully low bar, and I'm honestly not even sure the dems can clear it, that's how bad they are. Like seriously. I do feel like the dems should be fighting trump harder. They seem to be slow walking us into fascism themselves by just being that freaking complacent and incompetent. And that's the thing that's really terrifying me. Even in the face of an obvious fascist threat, these guys are STILL more preoccupied with fighting hasan piker than Donald trump. And then they complain that WE'RE not dedicated to combatting donald trump because we dont join the blue no matter who brigade. it's ridiculous. We want someone who will fight trump, the problem is, the dems don't fight him hard enough. They make stupid nonsense bills condemning hasan piker. Why not spend that same energy offering condemnations of trump? And I wanna go back to what I wrote back in January. Just how bad to do you have to mess up to lose me as a voter? Well as it turns out you just stop fighting the opposition and end up being a diet version of them. 

And that's where I'll leave this. Establishment democrats are diet maga, except no one likes them. because MAGA thinks they're radical communists, and actual progressives just see them as diet republicans who have more in common with 2008 me than 2026 me. Seriously. We ARE getting to the point where Bush era republicans are functionally democrats now. And those of us who are REAL progressives fricking HATE them for it. 

But yeah. Always remember, this is why they hate Hasan. Because he's an actual progressive who, yeah, maybe he has some crap takes from time to time. I do wanna make sure I point out I dont endorse literally every bad thing he's ever said. I'm my own guy, with my own views. And sometimes I disagree with Hasan in significant ways. BUT....and this is important. I'll defend hasan against a centrist craplib who wants to attack him because they want the dems to remain a hugbox of uselessness. I'll defend them from the HRC types, the mcmorrow types. The types who think actually doing something with power to help the people is a bad thing, and we should just mindlessly elect worthless dems who don't wanna actually do anything useful with their lives. And that's why I'm writing so much about this.  

Hasan Derangement Syndrome reaches congress

Did I ever mention how much I REALLY hate establish democrats? Yeah, some democrats made a congressional resolution to condemn Hasan Piker for antisemitism.....yeah because this is REALLY the pressing issue of our day. Dont do virtue signals a la force the vote for Medicare for all or a UBI or even a fricking minimum wage increase, let's condemn FRICKING HASAN PIKER instead! And people wonder why I hate democrats...

Look, Hasan Piker is kinda cringe at times. I certainly dont support his most extreme statements, but that's the thing, his comments are taken out of context and made worse than they actually are. And even worse, he's not antisemitic. Even more so, I watched a video with him responding to this recently and I agree with his point. You do away with him, and youre gonna get ACTUALLY antisemitic people long term who take his place. Like, the whole antisemitism moral panic is just so overdone. Many people caught up in it arent even antisemitic, they just dont support Israel doing a genocide in the middle east. As I've stated many times, there is a difference. But if anything, we are seeing genuinely anti semitic people like Nick Fuentes ride these kinds of waves where actual anti semites take cover behind more honest actors, and if you start knocking out the honest actors and deplatforming them, the ones that will replace them are going to be the bad faih actors.

But that's beside the point. The point is, congress should not be wasting a second condemning some internet streamer. And even then, this streamer isn't that bad. Like again, I'm reminded of the McMorrow/El Sayed situation again. Policy wise, I'd be fine with mcmorrow on paper, but if you're gonna condemn el sayed for wanting to do good things for the American people, that makes me wonder where McMorrow is on those issues. Is she gonna be for good things? Are the democrats gonna be for good things? And that's the problem with democrats that I've had since becoming one. They arent for good things. Their literal ideological worldview is closer to what mine was in 2008ish when I was still a conservative. They're just the moderate wing of conservative at this point. They have the same values as the right, they're just not insane about it.

And on that subject, if we want a resolution condemning anyone, why not Donald Trump, for building concentration camps, deporting people simply for speaking out against Israel (oh wait, you frickers are probably for that), violating the constitution in so many ways, and basically trying to be a dictator? And I'm not even getting into the pedo island thing. Yeah, he was almost certainly involved with that. But no, let's go after some streamer who says controversial things about Israel! Because AIPAC is paying our bills, baby! 

It's so ridiculous. This is why i have a visceral hatred of centrist democrats. Not only do they not do anything, but when they do grow a spine and throw down, it's with the more progressive wing of their own party. They HATE us. They hate us more than the republicans. If anything has been shown to me over the past 10 years, it's that. They DESPISE us. They see us as the real enemy, not the republicans. Again, it's a big club, and we ain't in it, as George Carlin would say. And that's why I hate them. You treat me or people like me with such disdain and such dishonestly, can yall see why I'd wanna vote third party or not vote?! Like really, I feel like Im in an abusive relationship with these frickers and I can't leave. I mean, under normal circumstances, I WOULD walk out the door, take my pride with me, and let them fail. But....Donald Trump really is a fascist and we really do need to band together in the short term to stop him and the republicans. So I'm stuck, I guess. 

Still, this is why Trump won in 2016 and 2024. And this is why, even with Trump's approval in the toilet, democrats dont have strong approval themselves and people call the party "lost." because we've been watching this for a decade, and these people dont wanna learn, they dont wanna improve. They just keep forcing this caustic brand of politics that the vast majority of the country hates on us, and when they are incumbents, they lose elections to republicans. Because people are thinking "well this sucks, let's try the other party again." And then they vote for republicans, the leopards eat their faces, they come crawling back to the democrats, and the cycle continues.

Even worse, this brand of sheerly incompetent and unlikable democrats are likely driving people TO the maga coalition. I mean, we really have to wonder what drove us to this point, and why are people so willing to give MAGA a chance, no matter how bad they are. Well, it's because these people are the competition. And the American people HATE them. For good reason too. It's like they try to be the most insufferable, unlikable people ever. No one likes you, centrist democrats, NO ONE LIKES YOU, except that weird 20% of the country that has politics similar to 2008 me. And keep in mind, that worldview was so unstable and full of contradictions I eventually had an existential crisis and became a real progressive. 

Why can't centrist dems just be normal?

 So...my disdain for centrist democrats is nothing new, and I never particularly hid it. But MAN these guys piss me off. It's like they TRY to be completely unlikeable.

So...this post is a culmination of a lot of things in the news as of late. The refusal to release the 2024 democratic party autopsy, the McMorrow/El Sayed mud slinging, and now, the Graham Platner thing. Lately graham platner appeared on Jon Stewart's podcast, and stewart referred to the democratic party as "lost." There's also a lot of talk of how the democrats havent reached out to Platner after Mills dropped out. And then led to discussion online, where centrist dems just kinda act in the same insufferable way they always do. They're STILL railing about 2016 and how people wouldnt vote for Hillary "because she's a woman." And they're pushing the same argument with Kamala Harris, making caustic comments about how voters didnt like her because she was a woman, or because of her laugh. 

I mean...these people really ARE lost. I mean, I really dont think sexism had much of an impact in either race. In 2016, if clinton's gender played into it at all, it was her "vote for me, I'm a woman" attitude combined with accusing everyone who didnt find that an acceptable argument of being sexist. Hell, for all the talk of party unity and bernie bros, the reason most of us who didnt vote for her got so pissed was because these guys literally injected these toxic politics into the party and basically went after US for being white males who cared more about universal healthcare than if the president had a different set of genitalia than the rest. I mean, real talk, HRC being a woman doesnt make my life better. It doesnt pay my bills. It doesn't make anything easier. It doesnt ensure better work life balance. It's just some BS inspirational yay girlboss thing that doesnt resonate. And yeah yeah yeah, check your privilege, SHUT UP, no one cares. 

Clinton lost because she had nothing going for her. She was a weak candidate. She leaned into idpol and appeals to party unity because she had so little else going for her. And she lost. That's why. 

And then in 2024, Harris lost for similarish reasons. Biden was NEVER popular. He barely won in 2020 when Trump badly mismanaged COVID, which should have been a landslide for democrats. but to my surprise, Biden won basically by the skin of his teeth, and then things went downhill from there. ANd in 2024, he never had a shot. Some guy was acting like Biden was still popular and would have won, he wasn't gonna. We covered this. 

And as far as Harris goes, she started out strong and ALMOST saved the party, but then turned into black female Biden who had no universal healthcare in her platform and wanted to add republicans to her cabinet. And thats why she lost in my estimation. It wasnt her laugh. It was the fact that her campaign was a whole lot of nothing and people wanted something. 

But yeah, just....why are democrats like this? Why are they so toxic and unlikeable? It's like, they WANNA piss people off. Like, let's go back to the mcmorrow thing. I inherently dont dislike mcmorrow. She has a very good platform and given the direction my own politics go, i can tolerate slightly more moderate positions on healthcare and the like given they're more compatible with my UBI idea. BUT.....im gonna be blunt, I HATE her mudslinging against El Sayed. It's just so dishonest, and yeah. El Sayed is himself not a bad candidate. But painting him as a radical and single handedly creating the hasan erangement syndrome that is gripping the party when the guy just wants to make your life a bit better makes me wonder how serious mcmorrow is in wanting to make peoples' lives better yourself. because if youre not in politics to make peoples' lives better, why should we even vote for you?

Really i just have a visceral hate for establishment dems. Not only are they useless but they pick fights with the only people who aren't. They only exist to get in there and do nothing while acting like insufferable windbags for it the whole time. Like, i DESPISE these people. 

And yes, they really are lost. You'd think after several losses they'd, you know, learn from their mistakes and wipe that smug look of their faces, but again, they just go on about how people dont like them because they're sexist without understanding that their very existence is like nails on a chalkboard to the rest of us. I wish they'd learn already so we can actually win. But I guess that would involve abandoning that bland tasteless brand of centrism that their donors want and that just aint gonna happen. Ugh...

Janet Mills suspends her campaign

 So, centrist candidate for Maine's Senate race Janet Mills has finally suspended her campaign, leaving Graham Platner the presumptive nominee. And I'll be honest, she's been losing for a while. People just don't seem to want another establishment centrist dem, especially a 77 year old. I say good, times are changing. I know I've had some reservations about Platner's past myself, but I generally like him MUCH better than Mills. Honestly, it's water under the bridge. 

Platner is also far more electable for the general. Mills was trailing Susan Collins by 0.2%, meaning she would have a 48% or so chance to flip her seat. The reason I've been so confident in Maine going blue is because I've been using Platner's data, which has him up 7.6%, which is why my model has Maine having a 97% shot of going democrat. Sure, some people will insist that Maine's data is inherently unreliable, but 7.6% is enough of a buffer where I'm fairly confident that Platner can power through even if he underperforms. The polls would literally need to be off by around 8 points, my entire two tailed margin of error, just to put collins over the finish line here. The point is, it's unlikely to happen. 

There are apparently two other primary candidates, and we'll see if they can gain traction with the last 1.3 months left or so, but suffice to say, I think Graham's got this. 

Seriously though, democrats are getting way too hyperbolic about this

 So...I'm not gonna lie, striking down this section of the VRA does suck for us. I mean, it does cost us potentially 10-12 districts. However, we gotta remember, there are 435 districts, and those districts are all in southern states where democrats are largely uncompetitive anyway. Like...I get that it's a loss for us, but people act like OMG WE'RE DOOMED FOR A GENERATION. BS. Dems can come back from that, just gerrymander a few more blue states. 

I mean, that's the game the republicans seem to be angling at, gerrymandering the fudge out of everything, so...in the short term, so must we. Again, I'm not really a fan of gerrymandering. I support changes to the house that would make this behavior darned near impossible and ACTUALLY lead to an era of undisputed democratic party rule. I would basically eliminate the rural advantages the republicans currently have. More districts = more granularity = more democrats. In contrast, ten seats? I mean, it can make a difference, but it's not unwinnable. I mean, I currently predict around 235-200 for the house results, so this would mean what, 223-212? Not great, but not terrible. of course, I'm also expecting a huge blue wave. But still. Again, if dems gerrymander their states, we could potentially offset that. I'm more interested in finishing the fight that they started.

And on the racial implications, well, morally, I don't care. Why should race get such preference anyway? I get it, white southerners gerrymander to stop blacks from having their own districts. But then we allow gerrymandering for literally any other reason anyway, so what makes that so special? Again, this is what I think is the real problem with the dems. Their weird veneration of black voters and race politics is an achilles heel of the party. It's a crutch. And quite frankly, part of me is glad to see it taken away. Not because I have anything against racial minorities, mind you, I wanna make that clear. But because the weird pedestal dems put black voters on is weird, creepy, and offputting.

Like, I joined the democratic party in 2012 during the Obama era. I joined...as a pissed off white millennial in the rust belt who was 1) aggressively atheist at the time, 2) leaning economically progressive. But I never cared about race. I always saw those idpol people as weird. 

But then in 2016, I was forced into greater conflict with them. And as a white "Bernie bro" i was always lectured about the black vote and blah blah blah, and it was always used against me as a cudgel. And I hated it. And I really feel like the dem overreliance on black voters and minmaxing identity based demographics was offputting. I mean, that was the democratic party that I grew up hating. It was based on grievance politics. It actively alienated white voters. It literally took an existential crisis on top of the worst recession in 80 years to actually get me to vote democrat. And then they...alienated me. They basically told me they didn't need my vote, and while they wanted it, they wanted me to give it freely, not realizing that hey, I literally was a conservative before this point and i dont give AF about the privilege crap.So they used that stuff as a cudgel while ignoring me. It always left a bad taste in my mouth.

Honestly, I believe the dems can do better. And again, I'm gonna say it, if this forces the dems to shape up and consider an alternative electoral strategy where they just cant count on certain racial groups to vote for them no matter what and they have to actually go out and appeal to people directly with actual ideas and policy, well, that's for the better.

Basically, what I'm saying is I hope this decision leads to a democratic party that is far less racial in the future. I have no doubt they'll retain the demographic advantages with such groups. And to be frank, and this is why I'm not sweating the decision, this was an EXTREMELY narrow decision. if striking down that one tiny section forbidding gerrymandering is all that this decision did, then we can move on with our lives. Again, I really would rather the dems drop the race stuff and pursue a different strategy anyway. I think they should appeal to rural voters, semi rural voters, and small city urban voters more. I'm not saying they can win that way, but right now, their current strategy is literally the min max strategy. And that's why we're getting destroyed anyway. Instead of going 40-60 or 30-70 with rural voters, we go like 20-80 and then the dems try to make it up by going all 96-4 or something with black voters and 66-33 with latinos. That's LITERALLY what the dems were trying to do in recent election cycles. And if you're not part of the demographics they're trying to maximize the vote share of, they hate you and dont seem to care. Like, I'm a white male. "oh well, 70% of them will vote trump anyway, so F them." Like, they dont even try. And i've had convos with liberals where they dont even wanna attempt to appeal to such voters because unless they're seppukuing themselves on the altar of white male liberal guilt, they just see them as "racist" anyway. 

Again, to me, it feels like a weird cult mentality. And seeing the dems lose their crap over this like we're gonna have one party rule for a generation just tells me "GEE, YOU NEED TO COME UP WITH A NEW STRATEGY THAT DOESN'T DO THAT CRAP." And you know what? Maybe it's for the better. I feel like this stuff has been used as a shield to cover up the dems shortcomings for far too long. It's also been used as a cudgel against white progressives who actually want the dems to move in a more progressive direction for too long as well. 

Really, maybe getting race out of our politics or toning it down is what we really need. I keep saying that 2016 was like the original sin of modern politics, and that the hyper identity based crapshow we've had since is why the world is falling apart. Maybe this is the first step toward fixing it and being a proper working class party again. That's what I hope happens long term. Just my view. I know my view aint your normal "democrats" views, but again, I always hated the race crap, so...yeah.  

My controversial opinion of parts of the voting rights act getting shot down

 So...SCOTUS did it, they gutted a provision in the voting rights act that mandated that gerrymandering can't occur on the basis of denying a racial demographic the vote. This could allow republicans southern states to gain around 10-12 seats if they redraw their maps.

However, I'm seeing a lot of doomerism around this like it's over for the dems and they're not coming back from this. And I say BS. If anything, I'm gonna argue a controversial point, that this is some tough medicine that the democrats need to take to move into the seventh party system once and for all.

To understand why, let's revisit the last 6 decades of politics in a nutshell. In the 1960s, the voting rights act was passed. This gave blacks more representation, but it also backfired on the democrats and ended the new deal coalition. Since then, the democrats have cobbled together a coalition that's heavily racialized, in which they emphasize combining coastal urban interests with obnoxious identity politics. And that's been the defining features of the democrats in the 6th party system. This obnoxious condescension toward "flyover country" combined with obnoxious racial pandering. We saw in 2016 and 2020 how, when some of us wanted a more working class coalition, these same people would circlejerk about like, black voters in South carolina, and act like they're the "base" of the party. hell, I've seen centrists playing this weird definitional game with the idea of a party's "base" claiming that it isnt the most progressive voters who are "the base", but the most loyal voters, like black voters and urban centrist voters. Like they're the REAL base, progressives aren't the real base. Again, the democrats have been systemically ignoring working class voters for a while. It's the defining story of the 6th party system. The democrats abandoned working class voters, and as such, the working class voters abandoned the democrats. To the point that the "true democrats", those centrist 6th party system sycophants, dont even consider working class and progressive voters to be "real" democratic voters. No, they're just finnicky independents, and they dont care about them. Instead, their whole strategy is to rack up successes among minority voters by minmaxing demographics and appealing to suburbanite voters.

And that's where we are looking at a potential seventh party system. As it stands, democrats in 2016 traded white working class voters in the rust belt, for suburbanites down south. And this demographic shift of minority voters combined with growing suburbs is supposed to ultimately deliver the south to the democrats on a silver platter some time around the 2030s. We're seeing it with georgia, arizona, and north carolina, and we're seeing it with texas, potentially. 

With me...I always HATED this strategy. Because it just allows the centrists to be centrist. It encourages the abandonment of the rust belt and places like michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania, as well as states like ohio and iowa. It encourages the democrats to focus on identity politics instead of class politics. And it encourages them to be the useless centrist party that they've been. 

But...my own strategy was always different, more color blind. I have nothing against minority voters, I'm not racist after all, but I never gotten into  this weird obsession with race the dems have. And people will say that's privilege, but that attitude in itself is part of the problem. They use it as a cudgel, and as an excuse not to do better. They'd rather divert from class issues to focus on race issues. They bashed Bernie Sanders in 2016 for not appealing to black voters, whose votes were overprioritized in the primaries,  when in the general, Bernie would have wiped the floor with Trump. In 2020, the democrats relied on South Carolina as Biden's firewall to manufacture consent around him being the front runner, despite his ### being soundly kicked up to that point outside of south carolina. And in 2024, the democrats prioritized south carolina first instead of iowa or new hampshire because they knew that these old, conservative black voters would push the party in biden's direction. 

And what did my own strategy look like? Take the obama map and hold it. Hold the rust belt, rely on the blue wall. I admit, by 2030, the blue wall might lose some importance due to population loss, but as long as the dems can hold like one swing state outside of it, they can still win an election. Georgia is going that direction anyway. Nevada's another possibility. And if we can win back Ohio and Iowa, while holding the rust belt trio deciding elections lately, yeah, we can just hold things in perpetuity. The problem was that MAGA and the dems going all southern suburbanite messed that up.

here's the thing, I never wanted the dems to pursue the south. That's "god's country." It's conservative. it's regressive. I hate having to rely on it to win anything, because that means our ideology is compromised, because guess what, it's full of conservative religious people. Even the minority voters there are conservative and religious, outside of race issues. They just vote democrat because the whites down there hate them. And again, you can see where I'm going with this. As long as these guys have an outsized influence in the party, the party will not be a working class party. It will be a conservative lite party that's instead obsessed with idpol.

So what should the democrats do to counter this? Well, I'll give you two answers: 1) bernie sanders, 2) Minnesota. Bernie Sanders is a socialist from Vermont. Vermont is rural AF but he was able to break through with voters up there in ways that seem abnormal for the rest of the country, given how racialized the politics of the rest of the country are. That's why the rest of the country rejected him in 2016. They didn't think he was hip enough with minority voters because ideas like social democracy aren't what matters, it's idpol. But if idpol becomes toxic to democrats because the VRA is struck down in this way, democrats are gonna have to go back to the drawing board and find new ways to win elections. And one way is to find ways to win rural voters. Not through cultural issues, but economic issues. And that brings me to the second example: Minnesota. Perhaps the state democratic party in the whole country I respect the most is the DFL of minnesota. Their democratic party isn't the rest of the country's democratic party. it's actually the "democratic farm and labor party". Farmers. Laborers. It's a hold over from the New Deal, in a state that didn't have the idpol of the rest of the country because Minnesota, like much of the upper midwest, is mostly white. So rather than adopt the weird sneering cultural progressivism combined with centrism, they actually had to get off their ###es and appeal to rural voters. Now, their influence has declined in recent decades and they've followed the same trends as the rest of the rust belt. BUT...they are still the die hards holding out in favor of the democratic party. And they've gone democrat every election since like 1972. They're literally one of the only states that can say that. Now, if we export that model and apply it to Iowa, and Wisconsin, and Michigan, and Ohio, and Pennsylvania, maybe we can still have a shot. We can counter a republican southern resurgence with a northern blue wall, just like I always wanted to to begin with. 

Now, this isn't to say that the south is off limits entirely. This doesnt disenfranchise minority voters. it just screws over their congressional representation, allowing more gerrymandering. Well, to that, we in the north should gerrymander every single state we can get our hands on. This is, of course, a band aid. Long term I support the end of gerrymandering and the uncapping of the house of representatives, but that's also why I'm not sweating this. Gerrymandering has been functionally legal for every reason except race. And I personally HATE my current house representation. First, I was in some rural district that didnt represent me. Now I'm in some district full of suburbanites despite my politics being diametrically opposed to them. Of course, after trying to design my own maps, the problem is obvious, the districts are too big, and this unfairly favors rural voters. That's the core problem here with the house. Urban voters are underrepresented unless you live in a city that's too big to functionally gerrymander. It's why the dems are so attracted to suburbanites. They see it as "well we win in the cities, we lose in the country, let's win the suburban voters." But ultimately. That's why we need to rethink our entire strategy. Living in a small city, my issues arent the typical urban area's issues. Urban areas typically have stuff like jobs, and high cost of living. Here, the problems are the opposite, low cost of living, combined with crushing poverty from a weak job market. And let's face it, a lot of rural and semi rural america has the same issues. And the democrats just ignore that, because of those incentives.

So, as I see it, democrats need to change the game. They need to make more inroads with white working class voters in burnt out rust belt towns, and semi rural areas where the landscape is full of decaying main streets and blighted properties that have long since gone out of business and have never been repurposed into anything useful. And maybe this is the kick in the ### to do it. I don't know, maybe im wrong and this is entirely bad for democrats, but honestly, I think we can adjust and overcome this if only we change our electoral strategy, and I've been kinda wishing the dems had gone in a different direction that didn't involve insufferable identity politics for a while now. If this kills that strategy for good, then that's a silver lining here, and maybe democrats can start winning by being a genuine working class party again, instead one obsessed with minmaxing voter demographics.