Was ray tracing a scam?

 So Hardware unboxed came out with a video asking "was ray tracing a scam?" It's an interesting video I largely agree with but I wanna give my own thoughts. My opinion shouldn't be a surprise if you search my blog for previous articles on GPUs and ray tracing, but I do wanna reiterate some thoughts here.

I don't think it was out and out, full on a "scam." However, I would trace the end of the old GPU market as going back to RT becoming a thing. 

I remember when it came out I kinda did think it was scammy in a way. It felt very forced. Like, it was sold as this holy grail that was gonna change everything, and I was just thinking "who actually wants this?" I never heard of  ray tracing before this. The tech was always like something that was oversold, like "it was the future." Kinda like how AI is now "the future." And much like AI, I feel like it was pushed WAAAAY before its time. Like, as steve points out in the above video, the performance wasn't there, and many gamers still dont use it today, me being one of them. And I'll be blunt as to why. The performance hit was too much. 

It's not the 2000s any more. Back in the day, it was acceptable to play games on an old CRT monitor at 1024x768, 800x600, or 640x480, and run the game at 30 FPS. Hell, if you go back to the 90s, you had N64 games with framerates dropping down in the teens and running at like 320x240. And it sucked. And no one wants to play games like that any more. I've watched gaming evolve over time, and as gen 8 became prevalent, things kinda caught up to PC where now we were going up to 1080p/60 FPS. And that's where I'm comfortable playing games. And some wanna do even more. I like to keep my FPS consistently above 60 to keep it stable, often running minimum FPS around 70-80 with averages around 90-100 these days if i can make it work. Of course, with issues...stemming from the introduction of RTX cards, that's becoming difficult these days. 

RT requires TONS of horse power. And unimaginable amount of horsepower. And it's not a tool that's been better for the end consumer. There was an LTT video a while back asking people to pick between the RT and non RT lighted versions of a game and most couldnt tell the difference. What RT DID do was make things easier for developers where rather than implement their own lighting, they could just, BOOM, DONE. They hit the RT button and the RT simulates REAL light instead. It's kinda like me being able to BOOM, hit a button and simulate election outcomes in a way that I used to have to do manually, which would save hours of time. 

But that automation has also led to laziness among devs. It's led to higher system requirements, less focus on optimization. I know Asmongold had a video a while back that I think I discussed on here that mentioned how developers wanna spend as little time optimizing as possible. So that just leads to bloated messes of games. 

And then DLSS and other upscaling acts as a crutch. It's no mistake those technologies were sold along side ray tracing. To make ray tracing usable, they had to reduce the image quality resolution wise to reduce the load on the GPU, functionally regressing us back to the late 2000s in acceptable resolutions, which...look like dog crap on modern monitors. And to compensate, AI upscaling. Which did help extend the life of the old 1060 to some degree. I mean, its better to run FSR than it is to run at a lower res natively. But CLEARLY, neither are preferable. And devs have since focused on pushing graphics at an insane rate, and then expecting upscaling tech to compensate for their lack of optimization. Oh, a game only runs at 720p/30 FPS on a fricking 6650 XT or 3060? Just upscale it bro, what do you want me to do, actually make it playable for you LIKE WE ALWAYS USED TO BEFORE THESE TECHNOLOGIES CAME OUT?! Uh...yeah? yeah. We want games to run well on the hardware available. Again, not against progress, but against progress at all costs.

Like AI, Ray tracing seemed to come way too early, and is pushed way too hard. Its demands are just too high for the hardware available. Even then, ever since ray tracing came out, that's when things started going wrong for the graphics card market. We were told, oh, we cant have sub $300 60 cards any more, RT is too expensive! We gotta put all this extra stuff on the cards and blah blah blah. And that's why the low end GPU market functionally died. Because with the introduction of this crap, it no longer became possible to produce low budget GPUs that were capable of running games. Not only did they not have the horse power, but they also lacked the extra RT/AI components to make that stuff work. The LOWEST END RTX card was $350 at launch. And even now, a 2070 type performance only went from around $500 to around $250 before rampocalypse, and $300 with rampocalypse. And that can BARELY run RT games even now. 

I mean, we could've made GPUs just have more stream processors. It used to be that GPUs advanced in such a way where you would double performance in 3 years at the same price point. But if you look at where the market is in 2026, we're literally only at 2x 2016 performance per dollar. And most of the 2020s has been a massive stagnation. It's like all of these investments are going into RT and all this nonsense instead of just giving us more stream processors and cuda cores. So now we're adding ridiculous demands to games with ray tracing, and then compensating for it with all of these technologies, while the cost of GPUs just keeps going up. People act like this is just the way things are now, that we cant grow at the rate we used to, but MAYBE IF WE JUST PUT MORE CUDA CORES ON A CARD INSTEAD OF THIS EXTRA BS, MAYBE WE'D SEE MORE PROGRESS! 

And you know what? Maybe that progress would scale down too. I think one of the reasons the lower end market died is because they STILL cant even achieve a 2060 baseline of performance with RT. And again, that's just a terrible experience for ray tracing. 

This stuff only really helps the affluent. Those with large budgets willing to dump tons of money into GPUs. But if youre a normal gamer trying to game on like a 3060 tier card (about average these days), it's completely useless. Who the hell uses ray tracing at our price range? If anything, just like steve showed, a lot of gamers are more interested in LOWERING quality settings to run games at higher frame rates. And also, to simplify the graphics to make things more visible, like in the fortnite part of the vid. And I can attest to this. Shadows tend to KILL frame rates, and they tend to make it harder to see enemies. When I optimize games to run on my PC, I turn DOF nonsense off, film grain, all that crap, and then i go for shadows if i need higher frames. And it's just useful to play with lower graphics on competitive games.

So most of us want the industry to go in the direction of simplified visuals with higher frame rates, and these billionaires with a god complex who control the industry are trying to force us to go the other way. And again, there is a market for that. Since then gaming has become increasingly an upper class thing, and more and more out of reach of the masses. It's led to higher costs, poor performance, poor visuals, and people like me feeling like things were just better 10 years ago. 

If I could hit a button that would eliminate ray tracing from the timeline, and instead go in the direction of improving raster, I bet we would have better, cheaper GPUs with cleaner visuals in games. Not necessarily gonna say higher FPS because i think some developers are always gonna take whatever level of hardware is available and then turn around and say "30 fps is good enough", but I think that it would lessen it.

Much like with AI, I feel like these billionaires just tried to replace a lot of old ways of doing things with new workarounds that just arent as good in some ways. Like they are better in some ways, but in other ways, they're just not. And I feel like the gaming industry has just gone in the wrong direction in recent years because of all of this stuff. 

I wont say RT is a full on scam, but I think its impact on the market was always overstated. This is what happens when you leave the entire industry in the hands of a handful of these tech billionaires with a god complex trying to sell their weird visions for what life should be. And then because they hold disproportionate control over the entire industry, they just push it in that direction. And it just isn't all it was cracked up to be. 

Like with AI, maybe tech will get there....in a few decades. But not now, not with current tech. They pushed this way too early, thinking gamers would just accept playing games at some low resolution at 30 FPS again when in reality, no, we like the higher frame rates and higher resolutions more. It's like rather than just give us more raw processing power, they keep trying to sell us technologies instead that are one step forward and 2 steps back. DLSS, frame generation, ray tracing. And then when we tell these guys what we want they look at us like we're luddites. You can think that about me here, but I really do like to see myself as pro technology. But we have to actually think about whether the technology makes sense. 

Like, to go back to election models, yeah, I did GREATLY improve my election forecast abilities by switching to google sheets. And yet....I abandoned ever increasing complexity to my models, and trying to build a version of my simulator that would spit out hundreds, if not thousands of simulations at once. 

Why? Because it didn't make sense. It didn't actually make things better. More complex models have more that can go wrong with them, and I very quickly could tell what went wrong when I started using them. And Im still critical of these big names like 538 who create models so complex that they end up predicting nothing because they're so mired in variables that you can never tell what's going on because things can change. Likewise, I didn't go with the mass simulation model because the thing fricking broke whenever I had to change the data. I have my own technical debt and spaghetti code in my models because quite frankly, I'm not that good with excel. If I take that model and then ramp it up 1000x, the thing bogs down my entire computer when I use it. And if i change the variables or the data, even for routine changes, the whole thing just...breaks down and starts spitting out errors. 

If I were one of those tech bros, I'd basically be like THIS IS THE FUTURE AND I WILL FORCE IT TO WORK ANY WAY BECAUSE IM A SUPER SPECIAL VISIONARY OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY. But being the more reasonable human centered capitalist who tends to operate closer to bill gates "lazy person" approach to things, beyond some point I'm like "this is more work than it's worth, this is close enough."

Ya know? Technology is a TOOL. It's supposed to be useful. If it actually CREATES work and makes things harder and creates massive externalities, or arguably saves only a tiny bit of work at the expense of those externalities, maybe the tool isn't worth using. This doesn't even mean scrap it. I mean, i STILL mess around and experiment with my election models trying to find ways to make them better. I just find that when I do my efforts don't go anywhere, and I just revert to the older, simpler model. Simple works. Complex breaks down and has problems. 

The same can be said with computer graphics. Graphics are a good thing. Making games better is a good thing. BUT, if it comes at the expense of higher costs or the need for weird workarounds like DLSS or frame generation JUST TO BE BORDERLINE VIABLE, it's like...NO, I DON'T WANT THIS! And that's why ray tracing is in the state that it's in. it was released the second it was just barely viable, it barely functions, and the industry hasnt evolved it enough to make it worth using for most people. In the long long term, yeah, maybe it's the future. But we're talking, what, 20-30 years from now? By then we'll be measuring processors in picometers instead of nanometers (if we dont just shift to a different standard altogether) and we'll have tens to hundreds of times more processing power in theory. There's no need to force this crap before it's ready. Which is what these guys are doing. Again. 

Is COD even worth buying these days?

 So....not gonna lie. I know BO7 was mid, but i bought it anyway, figuring I'd be playing it a lot. I havent, in fact, been playing it a lot. I played a lot of BF6, but barely any BO7. And any time I try BO7 i jump on for a few games...and then dont touch the game for another month or two. It's just so mid. And today, i think it clicked with me why it's just so blah for me.

The fact is, it's the maps. The game has THE SAME FRICKING MAPS as virtually every other COD game I've played. I mean, it's more nuketown, more grind, more express, more meltdown. It's the same maps that you can play in the free mobile game, that were new back 15-20 years ago, and that have been remade several times since 2019. 

COD is hopelessly dependent on remakes. It's hopelessly dependent on remaking old maps, again, and again. And then they dominate the play list when you do play. You dont get to play many of the maps that actually were new with this game, no. I mean, sure, they do come up if you play enough, but i swear there are maps in that game I've only played like 1-2 times and then never again. The classics? They just come up again and again and again.  And it makes it feel boring and monotonous.

Here's the thing. These games are expensive. Your yearly COD is $70. It's $50 during the christmas sale. It's $35 when they're starting to sell next year's game. And when you spent all year playing BO6 and playing the same maps over and over again, and then half of the BO7 experience is just...the same maps as BO6...it's like...why even buy BO7? It used to be you pay for new content. That was the purpose in buying a new game. If youre playing the same maps in the new game as you do in the old game, it defeats the point in buying the new game. I can literally play these same maps for free on my tablet if I want. I can start up any older COD from the past 7 years and play them. Why do I need to buy BO7 just to play them? 

I'm not saying remakes are bad. They're not. I enjoyed remastering old games and their levels with MW2019. And BO Cold War. And I especially enjoyed MWIII 2023 basically being a MW2 remake. It's fine ONCE IN A WHILE. Like, oh, these were fun maps 10-15 years ago? let's bring them back, for ONE game. 

But when it's like...let's do this every year, after a while it's like, why am I throwing my money at this franchise? If I can play the exact same content on an older COD, or on the mobile game which is free and has ALL of the classic maps...why bother spending $50 on this? 

I wouldnt mind it as much if the old maps didnt come up as often, but they're a solid 50% of what i play. And to be fair, BO7's actual content isnt really that...good. Like their unique maps arent bad, but most of them arent great or memorable. I enjoy a couple of them I guess. But yeah, after playing so much BF6, this game just feels generic and mid AF. And not in a good, satisfying way which is why i normally buy COD. it does so in a particularly unsatisfying way. Which is why i play a couple matches, get bored, and then I never touch the game again for a whole month or more. The game just feels bad to play. Even by COD standards. I think it's a black ops thing. Treyarch games have always felt like jank to me. IW/sledgehammer games tend to feel better, at least in the modern era. Like the engine feels more modern, the gun play is more satisfying. Again, it's hard to explain but treyarch CODs feel more....floaty? Like the guns dont have impact. And oh my god the fricking movement fricking sucks. It feels like elliott carver's parody of kung fu from tomorrow never dies. Just so much BS sliding around all over the place. i get it, it might appeal to some zoomer twitch streamer, but to normies it just fricking sucks. 

Honestly, the problem to some degree is the yearly model. You pump out a new COD every year, you're gonna retire the actually good ones prematurely, churn out garbage, rerelease the same content year after year with minor variations in game mechanics and getting, and eventually quality declines, it gets old, and you get tired of playing. And that's where I am and why I feel like the entire internet revolted so bad against the game. Because eventually, after years of mediocre games of declining quality and repetitive content, even the fan base eventually reaches a breaking point. Especially when BF comes along and actually innovates and upstages it.

I honestly think BF is a better business model long term. You get actual innovation, actual graphical and game play improvements, and while yeah, they make mistakes as well, and for a while COD was able to take advantage of that and offer a better product (See MW2019 vs BF5, for example), but then BF finally returned to form while COD just ended up going full Ghosts-Infinite Warfare era again. Idk how these guys lost the plot so bad they decided "okay, you know those terrible CODs of the mid 2010s that we dont talk about any more? Let's do that but worse!" But here we are. 

Anyway, I think the market sent clear signals on this one. For all the talk of BF6 dying, COD aint really in great shape either these days. Because you release a mid product, and no one wants to play. In recent years, i think the only thing keeping me playing COD is so little actual competition to it actually exists. Most of the industry is obsessed with extraction shooters and battle royales and esports and the good old casual FPS has kinda died where COD just cornered that market, especially with BF dropping off and taking longer between their own releases. But yeah right now competition exists and it's eating them alive. Back to BF6 I guess. Way more fun anyway.  

Why I'm harping on dems so hard over the VRA thing

 So...I don't want people to get the wrong idea about me. I'm not harping on the whole VRA being gutted because I'm a racist ###hole. Rather, I just resent the democrats using race as a cudgel to preserve their existing electoral strategy, which works against my own interests. I want the democratic party to be a strong, class based movement toward making material improvements to peoples' lives. The democrats, however, don't want this. They are controlled by wealthy interests who want the democratic party to remain as neutered and useless as possible. And their goal is to ensure that no class based movement can come from it. 

That is why the democrats are as they are. After the Reagan revolution, it was taken over by a bunch of ideological centrists who wanted to sell the farm on economic issues. So now we got a system where the republicans gut everything, the democrats half agree with them and compromise everything away. Come election time they encourage their base to temper their expectations and not push for stuff. And they basically build their coalition in such a way it makes a class based movement impossible. Again, it's wealthy suburbanites and racial minorities. They appeal obnoxiously to social issues, and they avoid the economic stuff. This is INTENTIONAL. And its why I've been fighting the democratic party so hard since the 2016 election cycle. because I see through it. I've ALWAYS seen through it.

Initially, the strategy was to try to derail the change. That's why I was okay with Clinton losing in 2016. Because I figured, hey, if we basically punish the dems for pursuing this strategy, maybe we can get a working class party for a change. but no, they just forced more centrists. And since then we've been slow walking ourselves into fascism, where now even I have to begrudgingly support the democratic party to stop authoritarian takeovers of our government from the right. So sadly, my hand is forced too. I don't like it, frankly, I hate it, but I'll still call things as I see them and advocate for progressives in primaries, and we ARE in primary season right now.  But yeah, I just wanna let you guys no, I havent gone soft on these people, I just feel more restrained by our current situation and have to play their game for the time being. But that doesnt mean we shouldnt continue trying to oust these guys from the inside via primaries. There is a progressive wave coming, and democrats are unhappy with their leadership, and we need to take advantage of that to push as many progressive candidates as possible.

But back to the topic at hand. I'll go further, on the race baiting thing. Democrats KNOW it's annoying. They KNOW it alienates white people. And they don't care. They want them to vote for Trump. They don't want them part of their coalition. Because, again, if they were, they might join with the minorities in a multiracial working class movement and advocate for real change. if you go back to the inception of this country, and even the colonial days, resentment politics has always kept people in line. Normally, it's a one way thing. The whites are satisfied with their place in the society as long as they get to kick around the minorities. As long as they're not the bottom rung of the social hierarchy, they won't push for better changes. They'll instead direct their attention toward POC. And ever since then, blacks and whites in our society have been mortal enemies. It's a tower of babel like strategy of keeping people confused and fighing amongst themselves over superficial differences rather than uniting for real change. 

Even during the New Deal, when the system was forced to offer real concessions, they still employed that strategy. Blacks were intentionally kept out of it and exempt from the policy changes that benefitted everyone else. Which is something the centrist dems of today won't stfu about. DID YOU KNOW THAT THE NEW DEAL COALITION WAS RACIST?! Yes. Because I learned history and am aware of the same meltdown that the south had in the 1960s and 1970s that you are. And again, I don't support those politics. I don't want whites to focus on race. My goal is to get them to stop fixating on it too. But that means stop leaning into it so heavily and obnoxiously. As I see it, Lee Atwater's strategy of moving from "N word N word N word" to "forced bussing" and ultimately welfare queens created a new opportunity for us. Eventually conservative ideology got so divorced from the racial elements, that I honestly believed that younger generations were significantly less racist than their parents. I know I sure was/am. I thought that was the norm. That for us, the dog whistle was no longer really heard, and younger conservatives bought conservatism on its own merits, rather than racial resentment. And when those people start to realize that conservatism doesnt actually do F all for them, we get them to join the democrats, leading to a political revolution, with significant change. And that's why I was so gung ho on Bernie and his "class first" approach. you lean heavily into racial stuff, it just acts like nails on a chalkboard that makes a lot of us...wanna go back to the republicans. I wont because im too smart for that, but your average voter? Someone like me but without my education? Yeah, they're gonna vote for Trump! 

But again, what if the dems WANT us to vote for Trump? What if they dont WANT us to join the democrats, because then this whole system of keeping the classes divided stops functioning? As I see it, we could have buried the hatchet of race in this country once and for all had we taken a different direction. Okay, maybe not ONCE AND FOR ALL, but you know, it wouldve continued to be less prevalent. But that would be bad, because then we'd focus on REAL issues. So instead, that "original sin of 2016" I keep complaining about, that whole racialized dynamic where the left leaned into insufferable idpol and the right leaned into white resentment politics, ended up prevailing instead. 

It literally happened because a bunch of wealthy people in both parties WANTED us to fight over this. This is the problem with identitarian movements. Eventually, they run their course, the issues get solved, but rather than go away, they gotta create new things to fight about. Feminism has to start making new grievances against men. Black politics has to do the same. And the elites always want us fighting some sort of enemy. That's something I've been reflecting on a lot too lately. The Trump administration got us into this Iran war because the country was turning on him. The epstein scandal was making him look REALLY bad, his movement was imploding, so he's like "LOOK, WAR, YOU HATE BROWN PEOPLE WHO LIVE OVERSEAS, RIGHT? LET'S BOMB BROWN PEOPLE OVERSEAS." Again, these elites always need us to be fighting some enemy. If not some poor group overseas that has nothing to do with our troubles, like Iran, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, then each other. So the democrats hype up the identity politics to a 10. And the republicans do the same. And despite mass anti elite sentiment on both sides, we're too busy fighting each other over BS like "wokeness" to focus on the real material issues impacting our lives. And thus, the motivation of the masses to do something about them remains suppressed. It's a tale as old as time. 

 Anyway, I admit, I got a chip over my shoulder as a 2016 era "bernie bro" over this obviously. Because I AM a class first guy. I WANT a color blind version of politics. And sure, maybe I'm not for whatever special treatment the weirdo idpol dems want with whatever weird issues they wanna hyper fixate on. BUT, I also am gonna be that guy telling the white middle class dude in the cookie meme, that no, the foreigner is NOT taking your cookie, the wealthy guy is. I'm gonna be working at disarming whatever racial resentment, the white working class has. And as I always say, if they really hate minorities so much they'll continue to vote republican at the expense of their own interests, well, there's the door. I dont genuinely support throwing racial minorities or anyone else under the bus. I just have schadenfreude toward a party that literally rejected people like me as voters because they wanted to use those same voters as a cudgel against me. Or who would use half measures to carve out weird racial exceptions to gerrymandering while not actively working toward ending the practice nationwide, as well as encouraging further changes to the system to improve representation. 

Because again, stopping gerrymandering doesnt even go far enough. We need to reform how the house works, either by uncapping the number of representatives, or moving toward proportional representation. We need to eliminate the electoral college and encourage ranked choice voting. That would break the duopoly. And yeah, ultimately, we SHOULD break the duopoly. I oppose trump because i oppose the descent into a one party system like Russia where Trump acts like a dictator like Putin, but I also ain't too happy with a two party system controlled by big monied interests either. I want there to be many parties and many choices. Democrats typically don't. They WANT you to be dependent on them with nowhere else to go, even though they suck. They enjoy being the only game in town. And quite frankly, if we werent at the gates of literal fascism, I'd say, yeah, let them suffer the consequences of driving away their voters. But under the current situation, it's just too dangerous to risk it, so we gotta play their game for now. Even if it sucks and makes my stomach churn.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain the real conflict driven explanations for why the democrats are doing what they're doing. They're not really our friends. They support big business and special interests, and they dont want things to change. And they use all the race stuff explicitly to drive a wedge in a potential working class coalition in order to ensure things remain the same.  

Addressing the centrist argument that progressives don't care about the VRA being gutted

 So...I saw this on a centrist political sub. I wont post in this sub since I'd get banned and people of my political persuasion aren't welcome here, but I did want to address this given my own lukewarm reaction to section 2 of the VRA being overturned. His core point is this:

Unpopular point: A lot of leftists dont care if liberal black democrats may lose their seats in the south because they come from blue cities in blue states

Well, actually, I come from a purple state, and a SMALL blue city surrounded by the island of red known as Pennsyltucky. I'm a rust belt voter, ex conservative, and now progressive. And quite frankly, I will admit, I simply have different priorities than your typical 6th party system centrist democrat who is obsessed with race. That crap is like nails on a chalkboard to me. And you're darned right. I don't care much.

I mean, in a way I do, on a practical level. In this environment, seats are seats, and I'm gratutiously for gerrymandering as much as possible strategically to maximize our elections, and the VRA being struck down leads to net seats for republicans. In that sense, i do care.

But on the sheer PRINCIPLE of the thing, like on the higher minded principle of the thing, I don't care, no. And here's why. Because we allow gerrymandering for every other reason, but then we have this one protection purely for racial purposes. My city has been gerrymandered to hell for most of my life. My first election cycle I could vote in, I was taking poli sci 101 in college. I had to do a paper on my congressional representative, which first exposed me to the wonderful world of gerrymandering. My city was literally split into like 3 different districts. And I ended up doing the paper on the wrong one because the map was hard to read and we didnt have the internet tools to clearly delineate the boundaries. So I was like 2 blocks in some other guy's district and didn't know until election day. 

Then in the 2010s, I was in one of those "goofy" (if you catch my reference) type districts here in PA where my city was gerrymandered to hell again and I was thrown in with a bunch of rural voters from the next county over. It was obviously gerrymandered and clearly intended to suppress my vote. But because I wasn't a black person in the south, well, apparently that was a okay. Anyway, PA DID eventually overturn the map in the supreme court, but this introduced me to even MORE problems.

While I was thrown into a bluer district, well, that district didn't represent the small city vibe that defines my politics. The fact is, no one cares about 100k or so blue voters in districts with 750k voters. So this time I was in one of the poorest cities in the US and thrown in with rich philly suburbanites who are exactly the kind of wealthy people who would complain about their taxes being raised if we implemented a UBI. And my representative is a complete and utter craplib who doesnt represent my politics at all. 

However, when Tom Wolf asked voters for input on possible congressional maps, I found that it was literally impossible to give my own city proper representation. Why? Because the districts are too big. And we need further change, like not just banning gerrymandering, but uncapping the house of representatives to make districts more responsive to small city needs. Right now, under the current set of rules, the system ignores me. Oh, you live in a poor city with a bad economy with no jobs? Too bad. The dems only care about BIG city voters and suburbanites. And the rural areas are all Trumpy as hell. Ultimately, in presidential elections, my area is key. If 2024 ended up being as close as 2000 was where a handful of votes swung the entire election, my area would be ground zero. And both Trump and Harris campaigned in my area the day before the election. It was THAT essential to both campaigns. It was THE area that probably would've decided 2024 if the margins were 2000-style close. 

But in congress? No one gives AF what I think. And then I'm supposed to care about ermahgerd they allow gerrymandering for racial reasons now. They allow gerrymandering in general, and the house of representatives isnt very representative. Either uncap the house and ban gerrymandering, or implement some form of proportional representation if you want my honest opinion. That solves the problem for EVERYONE. Most people don't care about an explicitly racial solution that only impacts a different part of the country. If anything, it just feels like special treatment to the rest of us. Sorry to engage in resentment politics myself, but yeah. 

Anyway, to address the text of the guy's post, because this is juicy and I'm rearing to throw down with this guy.

Is anyone surprised by the fact that leftists do not eem to be concerned or upset by the Supreme Court undermining black political gains following the Louisiana v. Callais case that makes it harder to bring lawsuits claiming districts were targeting black voters in the south?

Why am I not surprised? Because Bernie sanders helped institute this current class is more important than race movement. A lot of leftists we see online are NOT from the south. They are from the upper north east or the west coast.

 Yeah I know I often reject the whole "politics is local" idea to some extent, but to some degree it is. And my politics are shaped by my area. I'm NOT from the south, and given the current political map, idk why we give so much attention to rural blacks from the south anyway. Sure, they net us a few congressional seats (a whopping 12 out of 435 apparently...), but honestly, the south is that one area of the country I'm fine with democrats not pursuing. Because it's just a cesspit of regressivism. And idk why we spend so much time focusing on what black people in the south think and put them on a pedestal so much. The only reason they're even democrats is because the whites down there HATE them just for existing. They're actually some of the most conservative democrats in the country and many of their views are indistinguishable from republicans. The dems hyper emphasize them in the primaries for some reason despite their contribution to the democratic party as a whole being relatively minimal. And we all KNOW why. It's because the establishment loves to use these guys to push the party to the right, while crying foul and racism if we dare point out what they're doing like we do.

But yeah. As I see it, those blue areas in the northeast and west coast, those are WHERE MOST DEMOCRATS LIVE. They're the real base of the party. But centrists like to ignore that because they ultimately wanna push the party to the center. Which is why I'm personally so nonchalant over this whole thing. Do you honestly think I care if, for example, Jim Clyburn loses their seat after he basically single handedly played kingmaker and foisted Biden on us in 2020 when Bernie was looking to run away with it? Nah. if anything, if those relatively conservative representatives disappeared, and that strategy was no longer viable, maybe they'd listen to people like me more.

because, again. I'm in Pennsylvania. I AM the median voter, demographically speaking. Sure, I'm a progressive, but my own progressivism comes from my rust belt background, and rust belt problems. As you can tell, I often have serious differences from blue state and large city dems, which lead to some policy differences. But it seems like the democratic party doesn't care.  

Why am I not surprised? Because Bernie sanders helped institute this current class is more important than race movement.

 And to emphasize this part again. Uh, YEAH, BECAUSE BERNIE REPRESENTS MY POLITICS, YOUR RACE CENTRIC VISION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DOESN'T! 

Seriously, what's wrong with focusing on class, other than the fact that it pisses off the donors? What's wrong with having a multiracial working class movement geared toward fixing problems for everyone, rather than super special solutions only for black voters that the rest of us don't get? Want to end gerrymandering? End it for all of us. Want economic justice? Get it for all of us. That's what I'm about. I don't care what skin color people are. And if anything, the democratic party has this image of only caring about black people while not caring about white ones. If there's any holdover attitudes I have from my conservatism, it's that yeah, they kinda got the dems' number there. Which is why they've bled white working class voters over the past few decades and especially in my state since 2016. And then these guys have the gall to be like "well that's a dog whistle." No, what's a dog whistle is you guys not knowing how to shut up about race every 5 seconds and making everything a racial issue. I WAS a republican. I KNOW how they think, how the median voter thinks. They see this hyper racialized crap and it makes them wanna vote republican. If anything is the answer for the future of the democratic party, it's moving away from race and BUILDING a genuine working class movement, across racial lines. 

Again, it's YOU GUYS, you centrists, who dont want that. You use the race issue to push progressives around, bully them, guilt trip them, take advantage of their empathy, while working class whites on the fence between two candidates see the dems as doing nothing for them, so they vote Trump in response. Quite frankly, I'd go so far to see the failure of YOU GUYS' vision of the democratic party is what got us trump in the first place. and I MEAN that wholeheartedly. Bernie would've broken us out of that pattern. You reinforced it. And that's why we've been losing ever since, because your average voter looks at the democrats and genuinely don't feel like they care about us or wanna make our lives better. It's at best a bunch of band aid fixes. 

Even more so, this is intentional. Chuck Schumer, who is currently the face and de facto leader of the dems right now, once said in 2016: 

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."

 He's talking people like me here. He's literally talking about trading ME for a bunch of upper class suburbanites who are functionally republicans in all but name, and combining them with centrist southern democrats who functionally vote democrat not because they have genuine progressive convictions, but because they fear the whites in their states. 

And honestly, that's why I got such a chip over my shoulder on this topic. Because as I see it, I'm a progressive. Im rearing to go. I wanna actually beat the republicans. But what's the point in beating the republicans if the democrats we get are just moderate republicans anyway? And that's when people like me start checking out of politics and stop caring about you, your party, or your success. It's why a lot of people even have that "burn it all down" mentality some trumpers like, say, asmongold have. Because we're literally not invested in the system. I literally feel disenfranchised myself. And it's centrists like you who did it to me.

Name a single popular leftist streamer from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, or Florida...

…I’ll wait...

 Yeah because most of those states...are red states. And some are turning more purple...but at the expense of my area also turning more purple...when 10-20 years ago I'd say it was a bit bluer. And we didn't need those states back then during the obama years. Look at the 2008 map. Outside of florida, not a single one of those states went blue. They were functionally irrelevant. Because, guess what? THEY'RE CONSERVATIVE.

But even then, I'll bite. Not quite "leftist" but what about the atheist community of austin which hosts the atheist experience and who was almost singlehandedly advancing the secular agenda? And quite frankly, I know a lot of southern leftists through debate groups. And some are further left than I am. Some of them are literally trans. Some are literally like full on socialist or communist. Those guys tend to be progressive AF despite living in a conservative craphole. Sure, they're a statistical minority, but they exist. They just dont have twitch or youtube streams with millions of viewers. 

 Precisely. The place where MOST black people live, in the South, is NOT represented in leftist spaces online where discourse about this stuff happens.

 Because most of them arent progressive. Most of them are conservatives who just vote democrat because the white southern republicans hate them just for existing. They're refugees to the democratic party. They're not ideological progressives. And those of us who are don't think that they should be the standard bearers for the whole fricking party. It makes zero sense given how little strategic importance those voters have in the grand scheme of things. The centrists just focus on that stuff because they have so little of everything else. Again, it's part of THEIR strategy to keep the democrats relatively right wing.

 The “blue city-red state” democrat perspective of most black democrats is completely overlooked in this regard. Leftist truly have this blind spot and wonder why black democrats never trusted them with their votes or took their issues seriously.

 Oh, just like you overlook me and therefore I dont trust you guys either? See, I can play this game too. *points to my introduction*

 Now? We’re about to lose a lot of districts held by black democrats in the south and leftists think it’s because of some insufficient prioritization of class.

 As someone who didn't vote blue in 2016 because I found "omg but the court!" to be an insufficient rationale, boo fricking hoo. So now those voters are in the same camp as the rest of us. Can we get some REAL change that fixes the issue for EVERYONE now? Gerrymandering should be banned nationwide. And districts should either be a lot smaller, allowing for more granularity, or, alternatively, representatives should be decided proportionally based on the total number of votes in each state. If you want REAL representation, you need to do that. But until dems care about my plight (or at least stop actively throwing ME under the bus as a PA voter), why should I care about this sob story about southern black voters? As I say, you can't force people to care. 

 Do you know what blue state democrats are doing ironically? Chasing rabbit holes around Israel/Palestine, platforming Hasan piker and other contrarians, and fighting elected democrats in already-blue seats over marginal issues making it easier for republicans to win general elections.

 Uh, let's see, caring about a genocide, and even I admit they often care too much, although given the foothold AIPAC has over our politics and how it's literally led to the war in Iran, I don't blame them at this point. Campaigning with a popular streamer while YOU GUYS are just running a hate campaign against the guy because guess what, YOU HATE US, and holding our representatives accountable in advocating for policy that improves our lives.

Meanwhile, what are YOU GUYS doing? The same old centrist hugbox of "we can't have nice things, but you better vote for us or else, or youre sexist/racist/privileged", while attacking progressives in bad faith for actually advocating for solutions that actually FIX THE FRICKING PROBLEMS! 

Really. If you guys could just go away, that would be great. We run against you because we want you out of politics. We want the geriatric political class full of worthless centrists to retire. And from the bottom of my heart, screw Jim Clyburn. I'm kinda looking forward to HIM losing his seat after what he did to tilt the scales toward Biden in 2020. Yeah, I got schadenfreude on that one.

 The red-state democrat is completely under attack from all sides right now.

 The legitimate red state democrat is tactically irrelevant. You wanna focus on blue and purple states if you wanna win elections. You wanna know what we call the majority of people in red states? Conservatives. And that includes many of those "red state democrats." 

But yeah. Idk. I just wanted to respond to this one. These centrists love to make themselves out to be the victims and act like progressives are responsible for everything wrong with the democrats, when it's them. 

I fully admit my own biases. I'm a rust belt democrat. And the democrats have largely abandoned us. But hey, we're supposed to care about those demographics they DO care about. I kinda have the whole schadenfreude mentality toward these guys. Sorry if that makes me a bad person, but I do.

Anyway, I wanna preface this in saying that I don't really have any ill will toward any racial group in particular, I just hate this weird reverence for red state democrats while the democratic party has functionally abandoned people like me a voters. And you know what? The impact of THAT is far greater than this ruling. We had the electoral college locked down well into the 2030 reapportionment at the very least until they F-ed things up. Because they turned the blue wall into a breeding ground for fascism, with their shameless trade of working class voters (LIKE ME!) for suburbanites. Theyre responsible for everything wrong with our politics, and they're why the democrats are so weak. But hey, we're supposed to drop everything and care because some conservative democrats might get gerrymandered out of existence? Cry me a river. 

But yeah, I just wanted to throw down with this guy, because MAN i hate these smarmy centrists. They eat, sleep, and breathe hatred for the progressive movement. And after pissing us off, they then complain about us being...understandably pissed at them. And yeah, that's kinda why I have schadenfreude for the whole thing. No offense to any black southern democrat in particular. I'm more mad at the entire democratic party for heavily prioritizing those voters when they provide so little strategic value to the party but then dilute it ideologically. But the ideological dilution is the point. Because centrists be centrists and they HATE the left and actual working class voters who wanna make their lives better. When they use black voters as a cudgel, I'm not exactly gonna be upset when that cudgel is suddenly gerrymandered out of existence. And for any centrist who points out that makes it harder for us to pass our agenda...yall dont wanna pass our agenda anyway, so why do we care? Again, we're not invested in this iteration of the democrats to care. Because it is hostile to our very existence.

Which is why when this ruling dropped, my first reaction was "okay, well hopefully this causes the dems to abandon their current strategy and start appealing to actual swing state voters who are electorally relevant again." Maybe instead of looking at us with disdain as they minmax demographics with my own demographic being on the "min" side of things, they realize, hey they kinda need us and actually reach out to appeal to us. Seriously, in the current environment, beating republicans shouldnt be that hard. They're literally evil inc. But the democrats are widely hated by a wide majority of voters even now because the dems are just...a different kind of evil. They dont try to be better. if anything, that's their whole point. They suck. We all know they suck, but we better vote for them anyway. Oh, and then they actually attack the people trying to actually make things better.  Yeah, I mean, it's hard NOT to hate them at this point. So if the dems lose one of their tools that allows their current coalition to be viable...well....hey, it's free real estate. Hopefully progressives can take over the party and lead it to victory.  

Explaining the minimum wage, social security, and UBI to republicans

 So, I just came across some "republicans against Trump" meme where they were still doing resentment politics and they were like "WHY SHOULD SOME TEENAGER MAKING $20 AN HOUR EARN $3200 A MONTH, THE MINIMUM SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENT SHOULD BE $3200 A MONTH!" or something like that. Ya know, resentment politics. The cudgel the right often uses to undermine any progressive idea ever because "it's not fair" to some other group who "deserves it more." I hate these politics with a passion. But given this was a republicans against Trump meme, I can't tell if they were arguing against the minimum wage or for that to actually be the minimum social security payment. Maybe they're just trying to get us to argue among both. Anyway, I'm gonna address these arguments here.

First of all, the minimum wage. The minimum wage applies to all workers, and I know that people like to think of minimum wage workers as like pimply faced teenagers just looking for fun spending money and not having any responsibilities, but that's the problem. Many people make minimum wage who are older. If I worked an actual job, I'd probably make close to minimum wage. It was all that I could get out of college. And the economy hasnt really improved much since, at least from personal lived in experience. Anyway, the typical minimum wage worker is older. Like 20s-30s or something. They're trying to feed a family, and rent is often like $1500-2000 a month these days so half these guys' paychecks are going just for a roof over their head. 

Second of all, I doubt many teenagers work full time. If they're in school, I'm guessing they're working closer to 10-20 hours a week, so their actual pay is closer to $800-1600 a month, not $3200. Maybe during the summer, but even then, say they work 3 months at $3200 a month, that's $10800. You can't really pay for college with that, although it can certainly help. And you know what, if any teenager puts in that amount of work, and thats the minimum wage, they should get that amount of pay.

Third of all, would I actively advocate for $20 an hour? Progressives have a habit of pushing the envelope. They like to out do each other. $20? More like $25. $25? What about $30. And here's the thing. While the minimum wage is a good thing, at some point you're just gonna drive up the price of everything and cause a wage price spiral. I do think there is a maximum sustainable minimum wage. I dont know exactly where that is, but my comfort zone, the last I studied the subject a few years ago (I think 2021-2023ish?) was like $17-18 an hour. So let's say $20 on the high end now. I mean, $20 is the new $15 (Bernie 2016) more or less. And $16 is the new $12 (Clinton 2016). And $13 is the new $10 (Obama second term). I would probably aim between $15-20 honestly, but $20 is acceptable, albeit at the maximum end of that range. I'm not opposed to it, but idk if I'd actively advocate for it being THAT high. I'd like to cautiously raise it first before being like "let's push the envelope a bit more." 

But yeah, the minimum wage is supposed to be high enough to support a family on. It's not intended just for some pimply faced teenager making some fun money. That might be how the right views it, but it's supposed to be a wage for adults working. Teens just happen to benefit from it too. 

Now onto social security. There is no such thing as a "minimum payment" for social security. Your check is determined by past contributions to the system. if you didnt work, you get $0. If you worked intermittently part time, you might get a few hundred. The average payment is around $2000. And keep in mind, the system, as currently structured, is probably gonna run out of money in the next decade or two. BECAUSE it's so contribution based, and BECAUSE it pays out more than it takes in, it's kinda running a deficit and when the surplus money runs out, benefits will be cut. This is why progressives wanna raise the tax cap on social security. Now, the average social security payment is around $2k a month. $3200 would be a 60% increase. Can we sustain that? Not without massive tax increases. And think about it, raising taxes on "working age" Americans so seniors can live better? Talk about a recipe for resentment politics. And keep in mind, $3200 is the MINIMUM amount in this meme. Like a guaranteed income. I'm the guaranteed income guy and not even I advocate for stuff that high. My guaranteed income would be around $1333 a month per individual. Although if you have a spouse, you'd get $2666 a month between you. Factor in roughly 80% of your current social security payment (so say $1600 instead of $2000) and your senior would be getting around $2933 a month. Not quite $3200, but close. That's an average, not a minimum.

The fact is, we can't reasonable sustain a $3200 a month UBI. Not per individual. Now, if you get $1333 per adult, and then throw a couple of kids into the mix at around $450 a month, well, you can get around $3566 for a family of four. That's close to the proposed $20 minimum wage. For a family. And that's a decent amount I think. I wouldnt wanna push it. That's a floor. And your teenager under 18 would get...$450 a month. Is that that "fair". Does that resolve this weird resentment based contradiction of the system for you people? Like why hate teenagers in the first place? You put in the work, you get paid. That's the point. It's the incentive structure of capitalism. Yeah, we can talk minimums. ANd honestly, I love that some republicans are talking about MINIMUM incomes for people. Keep going with that logic, just like I did when I left conservatism. Maybe one day you'll end up being a UBI stan like me. And you'll advocate for a guaranteed minimum income for ALL Americans, regardless of work effort, while seniors still get their social security to some degree (and generally get a net pay raise), and people can earn $20 in the market place regardless of age. Maybe some teenager can make $800 in fun money working 10 hours a week, while a 30 year old with a family can make $3200 full time. Even then, full time minimum wage jobs barely exist any more, so it's more like, they'd work 25 hours a week at one job making $2000 a month, and then working 15 at another earning $1500 a month, and then they dont get healthcare. Yeah. I wanna give them healthcare too. Which is why i support a public option. 

Again. I know this was at best some weird misguided conservative logic, and at worst, a malicious statement intended to keep the working class fighting amongst themselves and to argue against positive changes like a higher minimum wage, but yeah. It's almost like I have answers to these things. Detailed answers. And I can put numbers to my ideas and justify my policy decisions. If you like my ideas. Maybe you should run for president on them. Or maybe I should. Honestly, I don't think I'd be able to hack campaigning but yeah. That's my own answer to these questions, straight from my own internal ideology that has already MATHed (to use a Yang term) all of these things out. 

EDIT: I also wanted to address the whole "but I work so hard, why should someone else get something for free" thing. Because you get it too. Under a UBI, everyone is subject to the same rules and gets the same UBI. What differs is peoples' incomes from work. Someone who works 0 hours a week will ONLY get a UBI. Someone who works 40 would get that UBI + whatever wages they get. Yeah, they'd pay more in taxes on those wages. I estimate 20 percentage points. So your minimum wage guy making $3200 a month will pay back $640 in extra taxes....while getting $1333 back. And that's assuming they're single and live alone. Your typical household is gonna be probably 2 adults or 2 adults + 1 child so you'd get a lot more back. Quite frankly, 71% of income earners and around 78-84% of families depending on household makeup last I looked would benefit from my proposal. So if you resent that person not working, odds are youre allowing your misplaced anger to fight against your own best interests.

And if you are in that top 16-29% or whatever who pays more taxes...well...you're relatively well off. And while I get resenting me for wanting to tax you to give it to someone who "deserves it" less in your meritocratic mind...the truth is, you're still gonna be well off afterwards. Elon musk would still be a billionaire under my plan. And your $500k income earning family will pay an extra $100k in taxes, and probably still get back the same $30k or so depending on household size like everyone else. Is anyone gonna shed a tear a $500k income earner now gets something like $416k or $430k in income instead? And yes, I know there are other taxes, but still, point is, you're still rich. I don't really care if you're mad. Youre still living far better than the rest of us anyway. The wealthy are still wealthy, and the rest of us are better off. And to do a little resentment politics of my own: if you can barely live in $400k instead of $500k, how tf do you expect someone to live on a $40k or so minimum wage (what around $20 an hour is), or on a $16k a year UBI? Like, really, you're making 12x that wage, or like 30x that minimum income, and you're complaining about higher taxes? This is why I take the FDR: "and I welcome their hatred" mindset toward these people.  Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer. You wanna hate me, hate me, but the fact is my life would make the vast majority of peoples' lives better, and if you're one of the wealthy people harmed by this, I could literally care less. 

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.