Which New Vegas Faction is best?

So...in light of the Fallout TV show, which had its first season free on youtube, and with there being relatively thorough recaps of season 2, the subject of New Vegas comes up again, and which faction is actually best for the Mojave. It's been a debate that's been raging since the game came out, and I've been on multiple sides of the debate over the course of my life. And now the TV show basically canonized one of these endings, which leads to...even more questions about which ending is truly the best, given my preferred one ended up being the canon one and it...not turning out so great as we saw from Season 2 of the show. With that said, let's get into it.

NCR

 The NCR is a faction I want to like, but am repulsed by. In a way, it reminds me of the modern democratic party. You wanna like them, but then you look at the details and you're just like "this ain't it dog." So...the NCR stands for the New California Republic. They're basically a liberal democratic faction based around bringing the old world back. In principle, they stand for freedom, democracy, rule of law, universal rights. All the good stuff. I mean, they're just about the first faction you come across (if you don't count Victor as being part of Mr House's faction, since you dont know that at the time), and they seem to be the good guys.

But then you start learning more about them. And here's the problem. Much like the modern democratic party, they're weak, inept, bureaucratic, slow to react to crises, spread too thin, and generally incompetent. Their presence in the Vegas area seems neutral to even negative. They can't properly defend their borders. Legion soldiers are regularly infiltrating their territory. You can't get law and order in primm because they're spread too thin. They got all those powder gangers (prisoners) escaping and it requires a whole subplot just to get them to retake that. And that's kind of the thing. Despite being an army, they need you, a courier with no ties to their paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense to do ENTIRE QUEST LINES just to get anything going. Nipton burned on their watch, and when you tell them about it the soldiers freaked out. Speaking of which, their morale is lower than a democrat in 2025. At least some of them still got some fight left in them. These guys? They dont. "WE'RE SCREWED, WE'RE SCREWED" seems to be the general vibe, and again, did I mention they seem completely and utterly paralyzed and unable to do ANYTHING unless you do it for them? It's like the represent the absolute worst aspects of liberal democratic ideals, while you never really see the best.

Then you got their actual downsides. Much like the real democratic party, and the real United States, despite being weak AF, they still seem surprisingly capable of...committing atrocities and doing black bag CIA crap that destroys their good will. Dont ask the Great Khans what they think of them because....well...they mightve massacred them a few times. And then the entire NCR quest line makes me feel dirty, like you're some CIA agent doing their dirty work like assassinating people who seem relatively benign and innocent in reality, like members of the Kings, that gang of elvis impersonators in vegas who actually seem to be trying to improve things in Freeside for the people there.

Meanwhile the NCR? Oh, we can't do anything, our hands our tied, we're spread too thin, you're on your own! But make sure you pay your taxes?

And yeah, a lot of libertarian types complain that these guys make you pay taxes. With law and order comes...taxes. And it's fine if you feel like youre actually getting security and a better life out of it....but you're not. Because again, much like modern democrats, these guys dont actually DO anything. They're overburdened, and spread too thin. 

And yeah....I mean, while i didnt think of it like this during my first play through, I have developed left libertarian tendencies since first playing the game, and in subsequent play throughs, I've kinda become turned off by them. I mean, taxes, civilization...in the fallout universe, are we actually better off bringing that back? I kinda prefer my freedom, to be left alone, to do my own thing. You can probably figure out where I'm going with that and who I've actually sided with until now, but idk...the bombs falling seems to have reverted things to the state of nature, and while nasty brutish and short for many...let's face it, the NCR is so useless it isnt making things better, and quite frankly, I dont really want to be put under their rule so....yeah. I never really cared for these guys. Even if I'm sympathetic with them in practice.

Caesar's Legion

Okay, so...while there's a lot of debate about the other factions and who is best...one thing all iterations of myself would agree with is that the Legion is BAD. If the NCR are democrats, these guys are MAGA, a cesspit of regressivism and everything evil and unholy in the world. Caesar is a Roman cosplayer who is a dictator who rules over 86 tribes. He rules by force, and basically burns, oppresses, enslaves, and crucifies all who get in his way. He tries to come off as some ancient bad###, with views steeped in the pre enlightenment era, but in reality I just see him as another petty strong man dictator. I hate these guys, and go out of my way to just blow them up and attack them repeatedly. It's a good source of caps and gear. 

Much like MAGA, their entire society is dominated by the cult of personality with one man. And when that one man dies, the Legion crumbles. Legate Lanius, his alleged successor in game, is just some meat head who likes fighting with swords. heck, the entire roman aesthetic goes too far. They kinda reject a lot of modern ways of fighting like...snipers, believing they're cowardly, and like to get up close and personal with melee guns, which are a semi viable option in game but in the real world, very much...aren't. In the first battle of hoover dam, they lost because they didnt have snipers. They believed them to be cowardly. Again if it doesnt meet their strong man bravado aesthetic, they dont do it. 

And at the end of the game, as you face down legate lanius, you can have political debates with him if your charisma is high enough. The general gist of your argument is even if the Legion can hold the dam, they'd overextend to do it, and lose their rear flank to the east. So they kind of give up their ambitions and walk away if you can convince them to surrender. if not they'll fight you to the end.

This brings up a core problem with both the NCR and legion. The NCR's home base is in California. And in extending themselves into New Vegas, they overextend, and its unclear if they can even hold the territory if they win. They arent doing much for the people of New Vegas because they lack the resources. Legion is the same. But unlike the NCR who at least have the ideals and pretense of being "the good guys", the Legion is just pure evil. Again, instead of democracy, rule of law and....taxes, you get authoritarianism, tributes, slavery, and crucifixions. They're big on crucifying people they dont like. They even did it to the TV show protagonist in season 2 for pointing out just how stupid their whole rip off roman culture was and how inauthentic to the real thing it was. Well that and she wasn't a virgin so they couldnt just marry her off to someone. These guys hate women.

Speaking of gender roles, I think the Legion is a good example of why "masculinity" is bullcrap. In the real world, the NCR gives off "virgin" energy, while the Legion are "chads", but these chads are stupid muscle heads who wont embrace technology and sound battle tactics due to their code of honor, and they also seem to...well....hate women. They tend to play well into that "hurr durr Im a big strong man and that makes me alpha" mindset though. But it's dumb. it's just so dumb. I mean....no matter what faction you like...can we all agree that it shouldn't be this one? 

Mr. House

So....full disclosure. My first play through, I was a Mr. House stan. It was 2010, I was still a republican/libertarian, and he really seemed to impress me. I mean, he was the man with the plan. While the NCR was overextending into Nevada from California, and the Legion was overextending from Arizona, Mr. House WAS vegas. He WAS nevada. He knew the bombs would happen. He had the technology and resources to save vegas. But...he was old and locked in a pod and attached to a computer and is 200 years old...and kinda needed a little help. Which is where you come in. You're a courier, your job was to deliver to him a platinum chip which would upgrade his army of securitrons with new firmware that made them more powerful. And he had an army of these things. Just a handful guarding the New Vegas strip seemed capable of blowing up any threats. And him interfering in any battle over Hoover Dam between the NCR and Legion would seem easy. HE'S not overextended this is his home turf. He can defend it well and has adequate resources to do so. So of the three factions discussed so far, he seemed to be a shoe in. I didn't even think of the downsides. I was just his loyal employee who helped him achieve his goals. 

So what are the downsides? Well....let me put it in terms we can understand in 2026. This dude is elon musk, basically. Ya know, tech billionaire, super smart and savvy, but also kind of an ###hole. He ruled vegas with an iron fist. he provided security, sure, but he also only let wealthy patrons who would spend money into vegas itself. The areas around it? Left to fend for themselves. Free side was in poverty despite vegas being all lit up. Ya know, kinda like having a rich area surrounded by a slum.

Of course, back then I was a right libertarian/republican. And I was like....well....was House entitled to help out others with his wealth? No, not really. But at the same time, he largely left people alone. Like really, outside of the strip he minded his own business, and was mostly using his forces to fight the other factions. So basically, he was a right libertarian. Super big on protecting "his properteh", but otherwise he kinda just left people alone, even though they lived in poverty, and struggled to get by. He provided law and order in his immediate vicinity, but also did F all for the people of vegas too. 

Again, I'm kinda selling myself on him here again. Because in my first play through, I was like "he's clearly the best steward of New Vegas." And...idk, maybe he still is. But then you gotta ask, should tech billionaires really be trusted with a private robot army? It's debatable. 

Also, apparently my own take was oversimplified, in watching other peoples' takes, I learned that in the ending, Mr House does actually kill people in freeside himself in the ending. Removing factions like the kings and all. Everyone seems to hate the kings, even though they're a bunch of elvis impersonators just doing the best they can in this messed up world. Rubs me the wrong way. 

House also seems to KINDA want the NCR to win, as they're his customers, but keep that in mind, he wants them to be HIS customers. NCR wants Hoover dam so they can run it and use the power for themselves. House wants it to sell the power back to them and make a profit off of it. What does profit matter in a nuclear apocalpyse? Apparently a lot according to House. Ugh. I swear, capitalism is a disease. And yeah, apparently his power rates are MEGA predatory. He can help you regain civilization, but at a very high price. This also rubs me the wrong way, as being a greedy ultracapitalist exploiting others isn't really ideal for me either. 

Anyway, despite this, I'm kind of talking myself back into the house ending, but then not really. let's look at the 4th option. 

Yes Man

Okay, so hate the NCR and how...decadent they are? Hate the Legion and all that they stand for? Hate Mr. House because he's basically in game Elon Musk warts and all? Well...I have a faction for you. What about NONE OF THESE?! You see, you know that guy who shot you in the head at the beginning of the game? Benny? He wanted to dethrone house and run vegas himself. He had a hacked securitron know as "yes man" who would help him do it...and after you kill him, his bot will help YOU. How? Well, you just take our mr house, upload him to house's computer, and BOOM, that massive securitron army? All yours! And then you basically choose what to do from there. Wanna get factions to ally with you? Take them out? Ignore them? Anything is possible with this ending.

Honestly, given how bad all the other options are, I go with this in more recent play throughs. Because let's face it, I'm a strong independent courier who dont need no faction telling me what to do. I kinda hate them all and want them to go away. I figure...if we just remove all three, we kinda get a status quo type option where the NCR Fs off back to California, the Legion Fs off back to Arizona, and then Mr House who is mr right libertarian dictator disappears too, and the wasteland just goes where it goes.

In my own head canon....the securitron army would still protect vegas, but you'd end up deciding what it does and where to go. 

Now...a common criticism of this choice is that this will leave much of the majave wasteland...a wasteland. There will be no real civilization, people will just have to make it in a lawless area...and I'm kinda fine with that, in theory. I mean, they already kinda are. How are any of these factions helping? The NCR is supposed to establish law and order but lacks the resources to do anything. The legion is just psychotic. Basically just a glorified roman cosplay raider gang that ended up becoming the top dog in their region. Mr House is just interested in ruling vegas while doing F all for anyone else. Why do we need these guys? We dont, or so I thought.

Anyway, as I said, this has been my logic up until season 2 of the new TV show. What has changed since then?

How the TV show changes things

The TV show takes place around 20 years or so after the events of the game. The Yes Man ending is the canonical ending. The courier killed Mr House, and neither the NCR nor the legion took over the area, although both seemed to kind of circle it like hungry wolves, waiting for the prime opportunity. 

With Mr House gone, the strip went to crap. Freeside is in ruins, overtaken by raiders and then...deathclaws. The strip...overrun with death claws. Yes man, still offline after it said it was gonna reprogram itself to be more assertive. Mr House...well....he had another backup plan. He uploaded his consciousness to the cloud basically but needed power to turn it on. Why not use Hoover Dam to power himself if he was gonna use the dam to sell power to the NCR? Who knows? But apparently he needed cold fusion from season 1 to reboot himself. And yeah, in the show....it looked like the BOS guy and the NCR cleaned up the deathclaws, the NCR is likely to take over the strip and people are cheering because they're actually bringing law and order this time instead of the area being dominated by raiders and deathclaws. There seems to be some debate of where the deathclaws came from. Early on it seems like it was said they came from Quarry Junction, which makes sense...in game quarry junction is overrun by the fricking things and it could be a good in world explanation that they just migrated north and turned vegas into a big deathclaw nest. But it's also argued the enclave brought them or something. Apparently the enclave is doing evil stuff behind the scenes. They're the remnants of the US government and unlike the NCR NOT the good parts. More the worst parts. And death claws appear to be created by them to kill their enemies. We see this in game too like in FO3. 

Anyway, so...the Yes man ending kind of sucked. It left the strip in a state of disrepair and just caused more pain and suffering for residents over time. Which begs the question. If I assume Yes Man is a bad choice...what makes more sense? NCR or house?

NCR vs House

NCR seemed very incompetent in game. They were weak, overextended, and unable to do anything. And yet, when they did do their black bag stuff, it always gave me "US government overthrowing people they dont like in shady ways" vibes and I always just ended up just....NOT finishing the NCR quests as a result. They left a bad taste in my mouth.

But at the same time, while Mr House could keep the peace and serve as a buffer between the NCR and Legion, turning the area into a no man's land for the other factions and making vegas relatively independent, it's always been a soft NCR win. Because he doesnt truly want the NCR to go away. He wants them to patronize his casinos. And sell them electricity...which...he could use to power his brain in a computer, but doesnt...because the idea didnt exist yet and that whole idea feels like a plot hole the more I think about it, just a way to justify bringing him back. But yeah.

So it's kinda like...does NCR run things, or does house?

Well....in a way this ALSO is like republicans vs democrats. Do we want the rich business people who are techno feudalists in charge? Or do we want an actual democracy that is, in theory accountable to the voters, as grossly imperfect as it is?

And I guess when I put it like that...I guess I'm more sympathetic to NCR? I think they'd do more good than house. House might have delusions of grandeur about how he'll eventually send people to space but who gives a crap if the people of freeside are starving? Let alone the rest of the wasteland. I like NCR based on their ideals. I just understand they're a very weak and ineffective faction in practice that regularly falls short of them. Much like certain real world equivalents I keep alluding to.

One thing I gotta say, by the time we get to the NCR retaking the strip in the TV show, they seem to be welcomed as heroes. People are cheering for them and they seem to be like FINALLY SOME LAW AND ORDER AGAIN. I guess life without a government really is nasty brutish and short, especially in a wasteland full of mutated abominations that otherwise kill the native populations. I guess anarchy isnt viable here and we kind of NEED a government after all. And it's best we get the democratic one.

But what about the Brotherhood of Steel?

So...one thing that always bothered me about New Vegas was the BOS being relegated as a minor faction. They're normally a MAJOR player in these faction fights. But in New Vegas, they're a minor faction. Apparently they had more substance at one point, but then they fought the NCR over helios one, another power plant, and they lost. And they retreated through scorpion gulch to establish their base in the hidden valley as a result. And they kinda just sit there....doing nothing. Many factions fear them. Youre expected to destroy them in a lot of the quests because they're otherwise expected to F you up. I think only NCR gives you an OPTION at peace, although Yes man faction is just...yes man faction.

But for a while, after FO3, I kinda wanted to be a BOS guy. I liked the BOS after 3 and I'd choose them over the other three at one point. Mainly because they're technologically advanced, and in FO3 were very humanitarian. However, at the same time, the BOS didnt have the ability to project power in New Vegas. Hence why they were a minor faction. However, let's say they connected with the other factions and we could make it work. Would I want them?

That's gonna be a resounding NO. 

So...the Brotherhood of Steel...they come off as humanitarian and the good guys in FO3, fighting the enclave, trying to bring clean water to the wasteland, but the BOS under Elder Lyons there was a branch that betrayed the core values of the brotherhood and was excommunicated from the rest of the organization. The normal BOS are much nastier. They're obsessed with scouring technology from the wasteland, believing its dangerous and they're the only one allowed to have it. So they are these technologically superior super soldiers while everyone else lives in squalor because they cant be trusted with tech. Lovely. 

And apparently Elder Lyons in FO3 was kicked out for...being the good guy? Yeah so...let's rethink that.

The fact is, that same faction under Elder Maxson in Fallout 4 is exactly what the BOS always was. A more technofascist organization that massacres mutants, even like...the ones that dont try to kill you, they're pure human supremacists. Theyre militaristic. And again, obsessed with hoarding tech. Tech for me but not for thee. 

And if another faction has tech, as we saw in FO4, they'll go to war with them. Not saying the institute is perfect (although I am an institute stan tbqh as far as 4 goes),  but yeah, they really seem to operate out of fear of everyone who isnt them and are quite militaristic as a result. And they kill those they dont like. And they're basically very authoritarian in a militaristic kind of way.

I dont vibe with the military command structure for one. One reason I never liked joining them in 4. And second....yeah. Again, all of the above. 

The fact is, the TV show doesnt make me like them any more. I mean, that raider lady ended up being the good guy wanting to give cold fusion to everyone. The BOS wanted to hoard it. And vault tech...well...they're basically enclave and evil by this point. But yeah. And the way they treat Maximus doesnt rub me the right way either. Anyway, they seem like they're in the middle of a civil war by season 2 of the show as all of the different factions are now trying to kill each others, and the new vegas faction doesnt even seem to exist by the TV show....probably because destroying them was canon. So...not really a good option. Not really helping here. Again, I kinda view them as techno fascists. Maybe preferable to the legion, but that's not saying much. MAYBE preferable to the yes man ending but even then...are they really? Not really. 

Conclusion

So where does this leave us? Well....F the legion. They've always been the worst faction to take over.

BOS...if we count them I'd put them above legion, but below the others.

The Yes man ending, anarchy, was my preferred option but seeing it 20 years on it doesnt seem to be working out. 

Mr House and NCR both have flaws, but at least the NCR has accountability to the people...so I'd go for NCR. 

They're decadent, corrupt, slow to act, overextended, a bit shady, but they still seem like the least bad faction. As Lucy said once, the legion is trying to enslave you and the other guys are just...vaguely problematic. And yeah, vaguely problematic indeed. They have flaws, but much like the democrats they're the lesser evil. Kinda in a "ugh are they REALLY the lesser evil" kind of way...but yeah...they are. So that's my analysis of New Vegas and its factions. I guess the TV show shifted me from "none of the above" (yes man) to being a reluctant NCR stan. 

Im tempted to play new vegas again, but I kinda got outer worlds 2 sitting there and havent played it yet. So I'm probably gonna do that instead.  

Election Update 2/13/26 (Midterms)

 So....I've been building my 2026 forecast system. It's not perfect so far, but I do have enough to discuss the house and senate somewhat.

Senate

So, where do things stand? Well, it looks like we're likely not gonna see much progress at all here. I dont have data for all states, but right now, it looks like we're gonna end up with another 47-53 Republican result, but with us trading Michigan for North Carolina. 

Now, to discuss individual results though, this is where things get interesting. 

Michigan is weird and the result depends on who wins the democratic primary. While for most races I just went with the most likely candidate to win, the race between Stevens and McMorrow is in a dead heat. If Stevens is the candidate, dems win with 1.3%, but if McMorrow wins, republicans win with 1.5%. And keep in mind these guys are pretty close to each other in the primary. So I averaged the two together and I basically got R+0.1.

However, we seem to have a soft lock on North Carolina to make that up.

Maine is another contentious one. If Mills wins, the republicans keep the seat. If Graham Platner wins, the democrats win. Mills is currently ahead in the primary, so the republicans are more likely to win. It's a lean R for me. 

Ohio and Texas are surprisingly squishy here given how strongly they went for Trump and are de facto tossups. In Texas, there's uncertainty as there are primaries on both sides. For simplicity's sake, I went Paxton on the republican side, and that gives us R+1 for both Crockett and Talerico (both of them are tied in the dem primary currently). 

Honestly, I think the polling for Ohio and Texas is too good to be true. I think its weird they're so squishy while Maine and Michigan are so uncertain themselves. Even if we did flip 8 points since 2024, we're still looking at R+5. Still, to keep my own opinion about what way the polling error is likely to go out of it, that puts all 4 seats in near tossup territory, where the GOP only has a 60% chance of winning the senate, the dems have a 31% chance, and there's a 9% chance of a tie.  

House

So, before I post the house forecast, I want to explain what I did here, and what its methodology is. First, here's the full unredacted version of it. I wont lead with this in future updates because look how small it is, and how hard to read it is, but I at least wanted to post a screenshot of it so people know what I'm looking at when I make these things.

 So, here's what I did. I realized using Cook PVI scores themselves are kinda misleading. I know in 2024 I had a system where I used the actual PVI score in lieu of polling data, but the PVI scores dont necessarily translate that way voting wise in practice. So instead, I took their ratings for individual districts, excluded the safe ones, looked up the 2024 election results in each of them, and put them in the above spreadsheet. This gave me 60 districts to look at. And then...I took the generic congressional vote from 2024, the ACTUAL results, btw, not the polling projection (it was R+2.7), I looked up the current generic congressional vote for 2026 currently (D+5.2), and then I shifted the above 60 districts the net difference (7.9 points) to deduce how I would expect people to vote if the public actually did shift the 7.9 points it appears that they did (and I believe this is actually accurate, given I saw something else recently suggesting the public shifted 8 points on biden vs trump). 

Will this be accurate? To some degree. I mean, individual districts very, and I know gerrymandering attempts in some states are throwing a wrench into things. However, when I actually looked at what districts are likely to flip from gerrymandering, I find the GOP is stealing 5 districts which can be seen above. Dems are stealing 2 back. And then there's a bunch more that are accounted for among the safe districts where the dems are getting a net 2 more. So, the GOP is taking 5, the dems are taking 4 back, and the net difference is R+1. 

Which....brings me to the results. Here's the short version of the above chart with only the important stuff I need for an overall forecast:

So....as I said, we're seeing a shift of 7.9 points from the 2024 result. And keep in mind, the GOP only won 220-215 under such conditions and I actually thought the house was a tossup in 2024. But with this shift to the left, we're seeing a 97% chance of democratic control. As for the margins, the model spits out 235-200 Dem, but again, keep in mind the net effect of gerrymandering seems to currently be 1 seat, so we're talking 234-201 Dem. 

That's my current prediction, that's what the data says and I think it's fairly accurate. It's basically a repeat of the 2018 results. That sounds about right. And yeah. Expect the GOP to lose a lot of seats. 

Conclusion

I may make a governor map at some point, but I'd like to see more data come in. I also might switch to a more conventional house election chart later on. However, for now, this seems to be what I can do this early and with limited polling data (to be fair congressional races are horrendously underpolled). 

But yeah....2026 is shaping up to be a bloodbath for the republicans. Assuming free and fair elections they will almost certainly take the house assuming polling is accurate. Their margin will basically be a repeat of 2018's midterms. 

The senate is more interesting. While I still give the edge to the GOP, it's shaping up that there is a real and growing chance the dems can just win big enough to flip states I previously saw as near untouchable like texas and Ohio. However, there's a lot of "ifs" at work here, and there's a lot of data that doesnt make sense. Michigan should be near solid blue if texas and ohio are in play, and if we applied the same trick I did to the 2024 senate results, i think the odds of the dems flipping those states is a lot lower. I'd expect more like R+5 in them honestly. Even though I think winning maine, north carolina, and michigan are plausible. 

Still, keep in mind it is early. These are very early predictions with very limited data. Nothing about these projections are final, they're about as valid as this prediction from 2024. Although that one actually did get it right...

Hmm...

Well, we'll see. Just take it with a grain of salt.  

Vaush is sounding like me, and I'm sounding like Vaush

 So...2024 broke the left. And...it's weird. Now people who were die hard Biden bros are now radicalizing into anti establishment progressives (to be fair Vaush has always been a leftist...), and people like me who were anti establishment progressives are turning into "democratic party shills", kind of. I mean, I'm not really a shill. I'm kind of in that Vaush territory of obviously being to their left but arguing to vote for democrats because of harm reduction, while these guys are like HELL NO I AINT VOTING FOR GAVIN NEWSOM. 

So what's Vaush's argument? Well, it's still harm reduction.  It's based on the idea that he advocated for people to vote for Biden in 2020 and 2024, people didn't in fact vote for him, and then the democrats turned around, did nothing, and then Trump came back in 2024 FAR WORSE than he was in 2020. Like...if Trump won 2020, he would've been a lame duck, would've been an ineffective president and then left office, but the democrats winning put their own gross incompetence on to such a blunt display that it caused Trump to win again. Meanwhile, Trump started out relatively tame, went bonkers when he lost 2020, been on the big lie ever since, and now he's morphed into full blown authoritarianism and fascism. Basically, if Trump won in 2020, we'd be in a better timeline.  

Now, to be fair, this is the same argument I've been making since 2016. in 2016, I figured I didnt want clinton to win because she'd do nothing with her power, and then the GOP would come back in 2020 and win big, possibly establishing a mandate. It would be better for Trump to have a relatively ineffective presidency because the dude was a moron who didn't know what he was doing, had no real agenda, no real means to materialize his agenda, etc. But he would be bad enough that people would look at that and go "yeah let's never do that again." And then we'd come back, run Bernie (hopefully the democrats would learn their lesson) and then we'd be in the GOOD timeline.

However, I must admit, I did make some miscalculations, some of which I was warned about.

1) The republicans were able to fill 3 SCOTUS seats. To be fair, part of this is the dems being their own corrupt mess of incompetence too. RBG shouldve resigned during the Obama era instead of dying of cancer under trump. And then they filled scalia and kennedy's seats. This has shifted the courts to the right, leading to an era of right wing judicial activism that largely benefits trump. This isn't fatal in and of itself since I do believe we have a shot with thomas, alito, and roberts have their seats up for grabs in the 2030s some time, but right now, SCOTUS can't be trusted to contain this trump administration in his second term. It would be one thing if they acted like legit constitutionalists, but they're not. 

2) The democrats never learned, tried the same 2016 playbook in 2020...and 2024...and probably in 2028....

3) That trump would be fundamentally unpopular after his first term. He hasnt been. He only narrowly lost 2020 and in 2024 he still had a coalition behind him. Even now, with the authoritarianism and concentration camps, politics has only shifted about 8 points to the left, which is substantial, but not like, coalition breaking. His coalition is still viable, and will remain viable for some time to come.

4) Knowing the future of MAGA and the GOP is tenuous, the GOP sees their future in voter suppression and radically changing the demographics of the country by purging and disenfranchising certain demographics hostile to its interests, and they are in a very real position with a very real danger to do this. This could head off any Obama era "coalition of the ascendant" that would otherwise happen. 

I'm not saying that we'd be in a better timeline had Clinton won in 2016. I do believe Vaush is right in that democratic incompetence and unwillingness to fight would get us in some variation of total GOP domination one way or another. If clinton won in 2016, she'd lose 2020 in a landslide, giving the GOP an in that way. But I am just pointing out that I thought like Vaush back in 2016 and 2020, and how the solution was to refuse to vote democrat to force them to change. But the GOP is doing unimaginable damage now, and the dems still havent learned, and quite frankly dont seem interested in learning. These are very dangerous circumstances.

And honestly? The fact that Trump is now so dangerous is why I sound like Vaush. In 2016, I'd argue we had the luxury of being able to pull off a protest vote. Trump wasnt that dangerous. He was just a normal politician at that stage as far as I'm concerned. While he always had some authoritarian impulses, it seemed clear that we had enough checks and balances to contain him if he tried anything. I mean, back then the GOP were so called "constitutionalists", and I believed the GOP itself would support those principles enough where they would push back against anything too crazy and authoritarian. And you know what? They kinda did. Trump tried January 6th, he failed, in part because of Mike Pence, his own VP, and the system worked. The system worked. it stopped trump's attempted coup. 

But things are different now. He went insane with the big lie since losing 2020, and in 2024, he morphed into something much darker. He wasnt just getting normal republicans in his cabinet, he was getting loyalists. He had the heritage foundation write project 2025. He had a plan to consolidate power. He had a cooperative congress, a cooperative supreme court. And he's GOING FOR IT. He's trying to dismantle our democracy.

Look, for years, I've criticized the democratic party for being useless. And I still do. Their uselessness is on full display during the trump era. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are a joke. They are not vigorously opposing Trump. And most 2028 candidates are establishment lightweights who won't be able to deliver better than Biden. Even if they win in 2028, and if we still have fair elections, they should, quite comfortably, we're at a D+8 scenario right now give or take based on more recent polling projections, they're gonna make the same mistakes Biden did and then lose again.

And the next wave of MAGA? Hooh boy. We're already seeing outlines of what they could be. If you think these guys are bad? The next wave WILL be worse. They'll be the Nick Fuentes types, the MTG types, ya know that anti establishment "America first" faction that sounds more and more like outright fascists. Trump is fascist lite. He has authoritarian tendencies but lacks the ideological commitment to the bit. he only cares about power. The next wave are gonna be the true believer types who are ideologically committed to the bit and who are openly fascist and white supremacist. That's where we're going. 

And I would agree with Vaush, the only way to head off this fate is if the democrats themselves change. But that's probably the worst thing about all of this. it seems quite clear that they have no intention of being responsive to the voters and will just come back every 4 years and demand we support them to avoid the fascist, and we're in a tough situation where we're darned if we do, but also darned if we don't.

In 2016 and 2020 I saw through their behavior, and I responded with their threats with my own that if they dont appeal to my politics, I aint gonna vote for them. It's a reasonable reaction in a world where democracy is assumed as a constant. You vote for a third party, the democrats lose until they get the message, and then they change. But that CAN take a few cycles of repeated losses to actually make it sink in. Here's the thing. We no longer have that luxury. Trump and his administration is too dangerous, and I'm worried about us having free and fair elections THIS YEAR. All it would take is a few congressional bills making it to his desk and him being able to implement strict voter ID laws, or destroying mail in voting, or reducing the number of polling places, or having the federal government (his people) counting the ballots, or him declaring a national emergency that allows him to suspend elections. And none of these are all that unthinkable. All he needs is 218 house votes (or whatever a majority would constitute these days, 214? 215? 216?), 50 senate votes, vance voting as the tie breaker in the senate, the bill reaching his desk, him signing it, and when challenged, SCOTUS either rules in his favor or he just ignores SCOTUS and does whatever he wants anyway since he also controls the justice system via pam bondi and kash patel. 

And that's what has me so freaked out. We dont have the luxury of forcing the dems to learn their lesson over a certain period of time of F-ing around and finding out.  We need these guys out NOW. 

However, Vaush is also right. If the dems truly learn nothing, they'll just make the same mistakes again, and we'll have a worse iteration of MAGA come back in 2032 that will not just finish what this one started, but worse. 

It's as if...the democrats really need to learn not to push wishy washy centrists, and I'm with Vaush, stop putting these people up, no one likes them, give us fighters. it's what I said since 2016. BUT....again....can I really embrace third party voting when the consequence is the guy who wins is literally Hitler? 

And that's the rub. Vaush is right. He's late to the party, or I'm early but he's right. BUT...maybe he's too late. I've been thinking about this, and I thought, okay, dealignment in 2016, maybe a realignment by 2028? (mirroring the new deal dealignment in 1968, but reagan winning in 1980) But with the 2028 candidates looking to be more Gavin Newsoms, and Kamala Harrises and Pete Buttigiegs and them running the party, I'm not seeing a progressive bench. bernie Sanders was our once in a generation realigning figure, and we blew it. And the democrats left are just...the same uninspiring clinton types I've been opposing all along. AOC is in there sure, but she's 4th and not well positioned for a win. We need a whole new candidate to come out of nowhere and win people over. 

Idk...2016 might've been the realignment, and now we're screwed. The time to fight was 2016, and 2020, and now, it's too late. The current alignment seems locked in and I dont see a way out. It's just the whigs vs the jacksonian democrats again. An ineffective opposition party opposing a crazy populist. It didn't have to be that way, but that's the way it went. 

So...idk. I'm kinda resigning myself to a vote for harris or newsom right now. That's where 2028 seems to be going. I hate that it's going that way, and by rights, these MFers should NEVER get our votes....but when I think about it...what would it take for me to vote democrat under those circumstances? It's basically that they'd literally need to run against someone like Hitler. And that's....precisely where we are. I hate to say it, but that's where we are. 

Maybe I'll change my mind after 2026 if we win big. If we can get checks and balances in and get this national emergency that is the trump administration and MAGA cancelled, I'd be willing to behave more normally. And maybe it would be better for the GOP to win in 2028...ASSUMING we have checks and balances from congress and the courts to contain their worst impulses. 

But right now, given that the trump administration is literally working on breaking elections and building concentration camps and terrorizing americans (not just illegal immigrants, but americans) with his ICE gestapo thugs, well....I can't afford to be picky. Democrats are sleeze balls, but at least they're not outright fascists. 

Still doesn't mean I wont be critical of the party. I'm very much gonna be critical of the party. And thats the thing. Centrist dem apologists hate you just for criticizing them. I had some biden bro type trying their weird pam bondi esque talking points (see the hearing the other day?) about how biden was the most progressive president ever and youre dumb if you didnt like him and blah blah blah. F off. I mean, you can maybe force me to vote for someone like that given the alternative is a fascist, but you'll never get me to actually speak more positively about them than they deserve. Biden sucked. harris sucks. Newsom sucks. Democrats suck. DEMOCRATS SUCK. 

I just understand that we're reaching levels of evil with trump that even I cant like...refuse to vote for them. So yeah, I guess I will support voting blue no matter who until this crisis passes. But like I said in 2024, this is a tactical retreat based on the circumstances, not a surrender. I dont like these people, and my principles have not changed. by rights, these people dont deserve a vote. But...again....if we dont back them, we might lose our democracy altogether. So let's not be stupid about this.  

ELECTION RED ALERT: Trump's plan to steal the 2026 midterms

 So, this one comes from Kyle Kulinski, who had a pretty thorough video on Trump's plan to steal the 2026 midterm elections. Basically, Trump wants to coerce Maduro (ya know, THAT one, the one he kidnapped from Venezuela) to claim he helped Biden steal the 2020 election so he can seize voting machines and have ICE do the counting. It sounds kinda crazy, but to be fair, it's Trump, and he's done crazy stuff already, so...

He also wants to disenfranchise mail in voters from voting by claiming voter fraud, and kyle is encouraging people to vote in person. I get the logic, but I also just mailed by mail in voting request for the year the other day, so that's already set. And I doubt my family would want to vote in person either given their age/physical conditions. Still, if you can manage to do it, it, it would help.

But yeah. As far as I'm concerned, this represents another possible attempt/scenario that Trump might weaponize to steal the elections. You are now aware of it, plan your vote accordingly. Just passing the info along since I plan on covering anything that could disrupt the 2026 midterm elections if I can. As I've been saying it's kind of essential for the future of the country for elections to remain free, and Trump is gonna try to break them. 

Responding to the post: "The problem isn't DICE, it's the community"

 So, I came across this post on reddit, but didn't get to it fast enough in time to respond to it and it got locked. And given this is very much...blog material given my blog at this point extends to gaming discussion if it has some deeper intellectual merit, and given I've posted on several adjacent topics, I wanted to give my thoughts here. 

 You can read the full post on the above link, but I'll copy the TLDR, as while I agree with the premise of the discussion, I very much don't think he made a positive argument for modern gaming, and I would actually hit the red button here to some degree.

 TL;DR: BF6 maps take longer because they’re way more complex. Paid DLC doesn’t fix that; it only adds paywalls. You won’t get BF4-style map quantity unless you accept BF4-level simplicity. You can’t have 2026 fidelity and 2013 output speed. The end.

 So...first. Let's discuss the obvious. DLC. This post was made in response to the myriad of whiners in the community going on about how paid DLC was SOOOO much better than live service. Hard disagree. Even if we got more content, it was more expensive. people are complaining we'd be on our way to getting our 3rd DLC if we were on BF4's release schedule, and how we got so much more content back then. The argument is live service is worse because the content is free, which disincentivizes businesses from making it. I would actually somewhat agree with the premise, but you know what? FINE. 

I HATED DLC. I HATED season passes. I'd rather get 1-2 maps free every few months, than have to pay almost double for a game to get the full experience. And from what I understand the business model wasnt that successful anyway, since only a small minority actually bought and played the premium maps. IIRC, origin actually gave a lot of them away later for free just to get people playing them again. 

But yeah, DLC sucked. I hated it, I'm glad it failed as a business model and largely disappeared. I'd rather get half the content for free, than to get 2x as much but then have to also pay 2x as much. I paid $90 for BF4 back in the day with the premium. It was one of the few games I ever bought with it since i despised the model, but I just loved BF so much I shelled out for it. I paid $40 for BF2042 and $50 for BF6. I paid as much for BF4 as I paid for 2 BF games, and that's with inflation. F premium. Even if BF4 was a very good game in part because of the strong level of support. 

Now, with that out of the way, let's address the post. Basically, this guy is saying even if we changed the model, we couldn't get more content now because gaming takes more time to make maps. Okay. Well...I am VERY opinionated on 2020 gaming and think that games being too ambitious is part of the problem. I've previously discussed my idea of peak gaming, and how the ever increasing complexity of games is making development cycles more expensive, last longer, and also require increasingly ridiculous hardware demands while the price of computing is also going up due to moore's law. Basically, this guy is saying we can't have 2013 level content output any more because of this complexity. 

And...you know what? Go back to 2013. or, more specifically, 2016-2018. Still gen 8, still beautiful looking, better than 4, but not as good as modern games in theory. Because let's face it, I barely notice the difference these days. As I've said lately, I hate how modern games look anyway. Developers in modern game play cycles make games have such good fidelity on paper that gamers can largely no longer play them at native resolution, and the games tend to try to scale down using TAA, or FSR/DLSS by default. This makes the games extremely blurry. And you know what? I dont care how good your lighting and other effects look if the game is running at fricking 720p just to hit 60 FPS on low on a $250 GPU. I really don't. It looks like TRASH. And I keep feeling like, playing my new 2025 era games that I'm like, whats wrong with me? Why is everything so blurry, is my eyesight going back? And then I see some old game from like 2007 and it looks so much clearer even with lower graphical fidelity and I'm like "oh, it's not me, it's the game." I HATE THIS, DEVELOPERS! STOP DOING IT! I don't give AF about your art style, if games look blurry AF on reasonable hardware. I swear, we are seeing the downfall of gaming with this stuff. And I almost kinda wish for a video game crash like the 1980s, where these big budget blockbuster games fail because they bite off more than they can chew and their business model becomes unsustainable, so that the market resets to something that works.

I don't want to wait until 2029 for TES6. I don't want to wait until the 2030s for fallout 5. It used to be in gen 7 that you could pump out a new game every 2 years or so. Don't believe me? Oblivion, 2006, Fallout 3, 2008, Fallout New Vegas, 2010, Skyrim, 2011. Now it takes 5-10 years just to make one. I'd rather have more content at lower fidelity....than to keep doing this 2020s era BS.

Btw, since that post from last month about modern games being blurry, I looked into modern AA methods and why we dont use the old ones like MSAA. And it's the same arguments this guy is making above. The technology of modern games is different. It's supposed to be better, but in terms of anti aliasing, I think it's markedly inferior. Because it DOES basically impose blur on the player. TAA is horrible. It's such a joke this is the default. It's SOOO BLURRY. AMD's suite of ideas like FidelityFX CAS and FSR are better, but not perfect. Apparently DLSS and its AA version, DLAA are great, but you need to buy nvidia which is overpriced for that. And yeah I know some are gonna say I should've bought nvidia, but I shouldnt have had to pay 50% more just to get games to be less blurry. I just want good old native resolution. I HATE this new tech. Again, if we could go back to like 2016 or so, that would be great. I always hated this modern tech, it's always been forced on me, and when you're like "oh but you see, you gotta go back to like 2013 to not have these issues with modern gaming" like it's an own I'll say DO IT, DO IT NOW! SLAM THE RED BUTTON, SLAM IT! Because to me, those games still look good. Again, ideally I'd go like 2016-2018, but the point is, I would go back to before this modern crap existed. I dont think games in the 2020s look appreciably better than that stuff, if anything, they look WORSE because of this stuff. While being more demanding. Again, peak gaming. Learn about it.

So yeah. The 2010s can keep their crappy DLC business practices, but if the problem really is the 2020s era tech being so hard to use, yeah, go back to the previous gen and stay there. I'd rather have my games look reasonably good and get content in a reasonable time frame than for it to take months and years to make content only for the games to look like crap at the end of the day anyway. That's my take at least.  

As for the community...is OP right about the community? Yes. And I've stated my own thoughts already on this. This community is in a state of collective delusion and bashing the best game we've had in a decade. Now they're screeching over content release cycles (which are pretty standard and reasonable tbqh) and going on about how DLC is better. I think it's wild we literally got a group of people defending DLC as a model. It sucked then, I'm glad its gone. And again, if the devs listen to these people, they're gonna ruin the game. Their views arent based on reality but on some weird sense of nostalgia about how great the game used to be while not living in the same reality as the rest of us. I like the classics too but I aint completely and utterly delusional about them either. 

So let's talk about Trump's concentration camps

 Yeah. I'm calling it as it is, this is what they are. So....Trump is building a massive network of "Alligator Alcatraz" like facilities across the country, including two in my state. As the first article I pointed out mentions, this doesn't seem like a temporary thing based on the funding and logistics, but camps that could be in operation for years. There's also references to crematoriums in them....so....fun....

Look. I'm not trying to be alarmist, but this is Nazi level crap. This is EXACTLY what they did. And they might say well it's to process and deport illegal immigrants. But keep in mind, the number of illegal immigrants is already massively overstated by this administration. It's possible at some point that they'll go beyond just immigrants, locking up political dissidents and people who disagree with them. There's already been a lot of talk of a lot of the people in these camps not being illegal immigrants. And honestly? it's very well possible even if the current citizens rounded up were so in error, what's to stop Trump from expanding detentions in the future? We know under NSPM7 that anyone who basically dares disagree with fear leader is considered a suspected domestic terrorist, with them actively taking pictures of protesters and putting them in databases. 

This is really scary crap. And I don't wanna hear "oh you shouldnt call the administration fascist, you need to turn the temperature down." NO, THESE ARE FREAKING CONCENTRATION CAMPS. THIS IS WHAT THEY DID IN GERMANY, AND I'M CALLING THIS CRAP OUT WHILE WE STILL GOT FREE SPEECH RIGHTS LEFT. Ya know, the whole, "they came for X, but because X wasn't me, I said nothing, then they eventually came for me" thing. Because one of these days, they might come for me. They might come for you. They might come for all of us. We all know I have views that are critical of Christianity, of capitalism, of conservatism. And if you stay silent while you still have your rights, you're gonna lose them. This is insane. This is what this administration wants to do. Their own sick and twisted "final solution" to the problem of those they disagree with them. They know they can't win through legitimate means so they're doing this to suppress and potentially kill off the opposition down the line. 

Some may think I'm hyperbolic. I hope the frick I am. I don't want to end up in one of these camps some day. I dont want my friends, my family, people who I know to end up in these camps some day. Vote democrat in 2026 and 2028 and hope to god they have the balls to put a stop to this before its too late.  

I'm very disappointed in the media coverage of the epstein files

 So, in my social circles, everyone is focusing on the epstein files and the horrors within them. You turn on the media and they're obsessed with Trump posting a racist depiction of the obamas and savannah guthrie's mom. It's kind of sad, really. This is literally one of the biggest presidential scandals of my life, and it's getting virtually no coverage. I get it, they can't really discuss a lot of it because of how horrible it is and how they need to make it more PG rated, but still, they should be discussing it somewhat. And honestly, everyone above a certain age/maturity level should at least be keeping up with the story. It's serious. I mean, it's horrifying how evil these people have been, and yet, it gets virtually no coverage? That disgusts me, if anything. We basically got a cabal of elite pedophiles who run the world and created the entire alt right movement from the shadows and some new anchor's mom being kidnapped gets more coverage? Really?

I would discuss it more, but I dont wanna be nailed for posting disgusting crap on my blog, so I won't, but I'll just say this, just about every crazy conspiracy theories about the world run by some shadowy group of billionaire pedophiles is true in some form, and it's so much worse than pedophilia, we're talking sex trafficking, murder, cover ups, fricking CANNIBALISM, rich people going to the middle east to just casually hunt people in war zones for their birthdays. It's sick. It's just...sick. But hey, they're not being held accountable, trump is telling the world to move on and stop talking about it, and the media isn't doing it's job. It disgusts me.

Do better, media. Do better.