Just a rant about how messed up this society is

 So...this isn't a problem with just this human society, but it's a problem of many human societies, including a lot of modern ones, and lately, ours.

So...basically, I feel like we're all slaves. i've said it before. But yeah, we're basically bred to be slaves to make rich people richer. That's, btw, why all of the sudden people are hand wringing over millennials and zoomers not having kids. They want people to have kids, so we have future workers, to make more money for the rich people. They'll say it's because of retirement funds, blah blah blah, but that's nonsense. Given the increased technological efficiency of our economy over the past century or two, we very clearly can fund a world where people can live well, and not have to work at all. If anything, we literally had to create consumerism in order to perpetuate this work based system well past its actual necessity, for the primary reason that the ruling class feared a world in which we didn't have to work. 

And on that, we're basically brainwashed more or less from birth to be wage slaves. We're always told we gotta work hard or we'll be miserable when we get older, and then a lot of us work hard and are miserable anyway. And that's kind of what got me going on this journey. I'm part of that "lost generation" that worked hard and succeeded in school and "did everything right", only to get screwed by the system. Of course, my education also helped me mentally break out of the system and leave "plato's cave." Leaving Christianity caused me to also challenge many underlying aspects of capitalism, and while I remain a capitalist for pragmatic reasons, yeah...I have long since abandoned the "work ethic." 

And that's the thing, our whole society is some weird bioshock infinite esque nightmare filled with constant propaganda about working hard, and don't you wanna work hard? You love work, right? You dont love work? What's wrong with you. You're immoral, you're lazy, blah blah blah. We're literally a society of wage slaves brainwashed into this, and we act like it's perfectly normal when it's not. 

And normally, you could say, okay, there's the conflict arguments for why we do things, but at the end of the day, there's still functionalist justifications, we do need SOME work, we're just WAY too overkill about it. We do need some capitalism, communism basically was a failure and made everything worse. At least we have FREEDOM. Ya know? if you step out of line in a communist society, they end up putting you in a camp, that's bad isn't it? Yay capitalism and yay freedom.

Except...now we got this current administration doing a red scare and trying to label people who criticize the system as fricking terrorists for just...criticizing the system and daring to offer solutions. And then they turn around, invoke LITERAL communism and say WE are the ones who wanna put everyone else in camps! I can't speak for the FAR FAR left, and the literal communist apologists, as I do believe some of them ARE authoritarian and potentially dangerous if left unchecked, but let's face it, I dont trust this administration to not just call ANYONE left of center a terrorist and to throw us all into camps. it seems very obvious that the point here is to criminalize dissent and thought crimes, not to actually keep us safe from the actual bad people. If anything, this administration seems to be the "bad people."

Ya know. For a while after leaving the faith, I wasnt super patriotic. A lot of it had to do with this weird paradox. If we truly value freedom, we wont make people worship the flag or whatever, the idea of nationalism and jingoism seemed really dumb, and I hated the whole saluting the symbol stuff. but in a sense, I kinda had the proper interpretation of "American values", which is that we have the freedom to live as we want, and if we want a nation where we all just sit around praising the country and dear leader, we would be north korea. because that's what THEY do. Ya know, the literal COMMUNIST country. But...we don't do that. We're AMERICA. You have the right to dissent. You have the right to criticize. You have a right to your opinion. FREEDOM. That's the whole point.

Except...now we're doing away with that. And this whole system feels cruel. It feels messed up that we're born onto a planet we didn't ask to be born on (at least not consciously in a way we remember, we could go into weird metaphysical theories of reincarnation on that one), we're basically slaves to this system, we're brainwashed into loving work, and heavily discouraged from stepping out of line, and when Americans do start waking up and we start seeing movements toward improving things, some ###hole tries to criminalize it and claim WE'RE the bad guys! Like, wtf? This crap just seems evil to me. 

I hope to god this administration doesn't succeed with its authoritarianism, because crap is about to get BAD if they do. And that just makes the whole thing worse. We have a society where we can improve things, but because a handful of rich people with all of the money want things a certain way, it ends up working that way, and then when they start losing the propaganda war, they start just imposing raw force to coerce people into line. Like, thanks, I hate it! Wtf America? I don't even recognize this country any more under orange man. We really are coming out full stop as being the evil empire. it's messed up. 

Again, for all of the talk that the right has of american values, it seems to ignore all the good stuff. Democracy, rule of law, checks and balances, freedom. And it seems to double down on religion and work ethic, all the worst parts of so called "western values."  They support the evil stuff, they ignore the good stuff. And then they call us evil because we lack the proper social conditioning (read: brainwashing). Idk, this world just seems so cruel right now. 

Trump building enemy lists and fascism

 So, kyle Kulinski covered this, but yeah, the Trump administration is building terror blacklists of popular left wing media figures, and it's scary as fudge. They're literally treating the left like radical Islamic jihadists, at least that's what they're saying. And it's disgusting. Look, we have free speech in this country, and there's a reason I'm darned near absolutist on protecting it. Any law that the left makes against the right, the right can do against the left, and we're seeing that now. DSA is now a terrorist organization in these guys' eyes. Zohran Mandani is a terrorist. A lot of groups like Code Pink and Black lives matter are terrorists. Anyone left of center is a terrorist. And yeah, we talked about David Pakman last night punching left at DSA, and Kyle said why is he doing that? He'll put Pakman in with Hasan in the gulags too. And Pakman IS...basically, on a list too. 

This is scary. It's full on red scare stuff. McCarthyism. but let's go deeper, this is fascism. This is why I'm suddenly "blue no matter who" in 2024, because I kinda realized after January 6th and how fascist the Trump campaign was shaping up to be that his second term basically would be something like this. And while, again, he can't criminalize free speech directly, putting people on terror lists does account for that.

What I find ironic is that he frames this stuff as "anti western." Again, I consider myself a defender of western civilization, but what is it about western civilization that's so great? it IS democracy, it IS rule of law, it IS our constitutional rights and freedoms, all of the things this administration hates. When this administration talks about western values, they basically mean the judeo-Christian worldview (with emphasize on "judeo" given the Israel worship), and the protestant work ethic. Ya know, all the crappy parts. 

And again, it isn't even as easy as "dont be a flaming tankie communist" either. Because, again, David Pakman is a "media enemy" according to Trump. Basically, they're trying to criminalize half the country, anyone left of center. 

This is fascism. This is basically, our enabling act moment. it's not as in your face as that since we DO have constitutional protections, but he's trying to go that way. It's scary that we're in this moment. This is authoritarianism, this is fascism. And let's not mince words about it.

Like, I get the whole thing of "oh, you shouldnt call them fascist, this is hyperbolic." NO! THIS. IS. FASCISM! Like, full stop. This is LITERALLY hitler. im not just invoking Godwin's law here, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. I'm not trying to cry wolf. THE WOLF IS HERE! FOR REAL! 

This is scary. if this keeps escalating, how long until these guys start throwing all left wingers into camps? And again, we're talking liberals too. We are literally getting to the point of "first they came for the X". Except, we gotta point this out because if we don't, as the adage goes, eventually there will be nothing left to speak up for us. 

This is scary. This is perhaps one of the scariest moments in America history. This is perhaps the greatest constitutional crisis since the civil war, if not ever. Really, we never had someone who flat out wants to turn us into a dictatorship before, and this guy has congress and the supreme court behind him, and his checks and balances are minimal. I honestly cant wait for the mid terms so we can at least restore some checks and balances, and I kind of expect Trump to try to steal those through some authoritarian plan. Like really, this is some psycho crap, and either we're all gonna end up in a gulag some day, or perhaps we can turn this around. Idk. Things look kinda scary right now. 

Let's have a frank discussion about the DSA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why we have the senate in the first place

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

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

Discussing the "tyranny of the majority" 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does the senate prevent or preserve tyranny?

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

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

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

But what about the filibuster?

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

It looks like Troy jackson will be the Maine nominee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Election Update 7/17/26

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

Senate

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

House

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

D+1-  222-213D, MI-07 flips

 

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

 

D+3-  227-208D, NJ-07 flips

 

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

 

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

 

D+6- 231-204D, no flips

 

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

 

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

 

D+9-  234-201D, no flips

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

Governors

 

 

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

 

Conclusion

 

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

Discussing the DSA's new platform

 So...a lot of people are freaking out about the DSA lately. Centrist democrats are yipping like little dogs over them, and the right is screaming about "communism", with them basically trying to start a full blown red scare. Mike Johnson even wants more war funding to "fight communism on our own shores." Wtf? He wants to declare war on socialists in the US? That's insane, and probably unconstitutional, if anyone is a threat to our country and its freedoms, it's these fascists on the right who want to weaponize the military against US citizens. They're even talking about criminalizing democratic socialists. This is INSANE. Like, by my estimation, the dangerous ones are the right wing ones pushing stuff like this. Anyway, let's look at the DSA's platform, which is causing this firestorm of controversy. 

I'm on mobile so I won't quote. You can read it yourself, it's not very long, but I will be going over the general sections and focusing on individual policies when needed. 

"Workers deserve more"

I already have mixed views on the preamble. It's not necessarily capitalism itself that's the problem, it's forced labor. And both capitalism and socialism have forced labor. If anything, the problem with socialism is it's worse. And if you read between the lines here, yeah, they're not for liberation. THey mention "you work as much as you're able and no more than needed." Who decides? "You enjoy your work", do I? 

THen they talk about not having bills, because they socialized all basic needs. Okay, but without prices to ration resources, how do we decide who gets what? LIke, this is where I fundamentally differ. I'm a human centered capitalist. I support "CAPITALISM", as in, the market system. I dont mind the idea of decommodifying industries where SEVERE market failures exist, I mean, Canada has single payer healthcare, some places have free college, we can debate how to fix housing, etc., but yeah. Socialists, as we know, kinda go too far. And a lot of this is kinda giving off warning bells of "too good to be true." Theres a reason a lot of americans are so skeptical of policies to improve lives, and anyone can promise stuff, but how many can deliver? Like that's the thing, I wanna solve many of the same problems they do, I just don't want to abolish capitalism to do it. When "democratic socialists" are basically pushing social democracy that's one thing but I kinda know already what kinds of policies these guys are gonna want and there's a reason my own ideal platform varies from them. 

Then they talk about your day off, okay, cool. I like the idea of days off and working less, I'm just not sure how much they'll deliver here. And then they mention not worrying about costs or going back to work. Again, prices are needed to ration resources. You get rid of bills and price structures and you get this big government telling you what you get. Basically literal communism, ya know, the scary kind. I dont mind making things easier and more affordable for people. Hell, I'm the UBI guy, but I go with UBI as an alternative to all this communism crap. And dreading going back to work, I get that, but would a socialist state actually liberate people there? UBI gives people a buffer against poverty and wage slavery, but it doesnt eliminate all work incentives. If anything, it's intended to offer a balance between that ideal and pragmatic realities. 

"How did we get here?"

While I dont deny that capitalism is part of the problem, again, our ideological outlooks are a bit different. Ultimately, the economic coercion to labor is the problem. If people had a UBI, people would be free to say no, within reason. I mean, again, UBI doesnt eliminate ALL of capitalism's incentive structure, but it's not intended to. Work is still socially useful and needed, and a more passive approach to incentivizing people is better than the inevitable coercion that comes with eliminating capitalism altogether. For all the talk of "no one has to work and everything is free, yay!", we've seen how THAT works. One of the reason communism sucked was because they replaced the coercion of capitalism with coercion of the state.

Still, they have a point about billionaires and the like. THe ruling class does keep us in a state of constant scarcity, poverty, and going from crisis to crisis to keep us in line, and to keep us occupied. And yeah, what Mike Johnson is proposing is basically right wing authoritarianism. I do believe that there are solutions to our problems, which currently go ignored because both the republicans and democrats are controlled by capital. HOWEVER, I'm remaining skeptical of these guys solutions because their vision is too good to be true and not even I'd oversell it that much. Again, I try to offer a more pragmatic way of doing things without fully destroying the existing system, which would make things worse.

"Thriving Working Class Communities"

So here we finally get to the policy aspects. 

"Freedom to flourish"- Pushes for paid family leave, 32 hour work week, a living wage, free college, and student debt. All pretty based.

"Healthcare for all"- Based. I mean, keep in mind the only reason I'm no longer full M4A is because of costs. But if you dont have a UBI you can do it. So this is a philosophy difference but I do support M4A in theory. I just know it's expensive AF and I'd rather do UBI.

"Housing for all"- New public housing, check, regulating investment properties, not a bad idea, universal rent control....uh no, that causes long term shortages. Right to counsel for all tenants. Eh...maybe? I mean, a mixed bag, but I support the general aims and at least some of this.

"Finish reconstruction"- As far as anti discrimination goes, cool. Indian treaties, okay. Reparations....hard no. I'd rather give cash to all than have some race based program. 

"End mass incarceration and police immunity"- in moderation fine, but they wanna abolish the police and prison system which is just insane.

"Feminism for all"- While there are some good goals here in moderation like eliminating discrimination and guaranteeing bodily autonomy, eh....I'm not sure about some stuff. I know feminists can get weird over crap at times (see: metoo, weird restrictions on gender relations that favor women at the expense of men, etc). so as long as this remains on the moderate side im okay with it, but who am I kidding? These guys are leftists and will always find ways to go too far.

"Green New Deal"- Jobs guarantee. I'm more in favor of a "build back better" or yang 2020 style proposal. GND often comes at the expense of a UBI, so I'm very critical here. 

So....on their economic platform, where does that leave me? Well, based on those proposals, it's not extreme. It's a decent "new deal liberal" platform, not a socialist one. They dont seem to be abolishing capitalism. But they do go too far at times. Rent control is bad, abolishing police and prisons is bad, idpol crap aint great, and the green new deal is direct competition for my own preferred proposals. Nothing here strikes me as OUTRIGHT offensive outside of the abolishing the police and prisons stuff, but yeah. Obviously I have my differences with these guys at times. Still is this the evil "communism" that we should fear that even I discussed above? No. This is more FDR with more intersectionality. The GOP is off their rocker wanting to criminalize this stuff.

"Working class foreign policy"

"End the US War Machine"- Okay, here's where these guys go full stupid mode. Defund the department of war (defense)? We need SOME defense, we dont need the bloated militarism we got under Trump, but yeah, we need some. End ALL foreign wars and close overseas bases? You realize that not everything we engage in is bad, right? These guys literally do stray into the "hate america" crowd sometimes and its so cringe. Like, seriously, mainstream liberal democratic policies are fine here. 

"Free Palestine"- Eh...nothing really strikes me as too far out there given current circumstances. We should end aid to israel and prosecute war criminals tbqh. THe Netanyahu regime has gone WAAAY too far.

"End blockades, embargoes, and sanctions"- I cant see ending ALL of it, as we do need it to control our enemies, but we shouldnt weaponize this stuff as much as we do. Like the cuba thing. We're just being cruel because we wanna do regime change here. Venezuela, our invasion was unjust. Iran, also unjust but Im not sure we have a realistic path out at this point. Iran seems to be intent on keeping us in and putting on the pain until we meet their demands, and some of THOSE arent realistic either IMO. Like closing all bases or letting them put tolls through the strait of hormuz. Again, there's a lot of complexity to foreign policy and these guys paint with too broad of a brush.

"Abolish ICE"- Eh, while we should stop ICE's reign of terror and move toward a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, they seem to want basically open borders, which is insane to me. 

I mean, this is where DSA often loses the lot. I dont think any of this is some existential threat to the country worth deploying military against its own citizens like the fascists on the right are talking about. But they very quickly lose the plot once you get away from economics and arent living in the real world. of course, the place to defeat them is the ballot box, not with men with guns. Again, what Trump and Johnson are proposing is outright fascist.

"Working class democracy"

"Democracy for all"- based, we should expand voting rights, have universal sufferage, and make DC and certain territories like PR into states. THe reason we dont is because republicans dont wanna lose their institutional advantages.

"A real democracy"- Getting money out of politics, based. Eliminating the electoral college, yeah, it's undemocratic. "Replacing the president and SCOTUS with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to congress"? Wtf? No. I know this is one of those things that is making the right freak out, and I kinda do see this as dangerous. We're supposed to have three coequal branches of government that serve as checks and balances on each other. The people should continue to vote for the president. SCOTUS should remain somewhat independent as well. 

"A democratic congress"- Yeah, we should have a larger house, we're capped at 435 to basically give undue influence to the rural vote, which favors conservatives. Proportional repesentation and ranked choice voting are based. Abolishing the senate? Controversial but I aint actually opposed. THe reason the senate exists is some when our country was founded wanted population to decide congress, but smaller states didnt want that so they proposed the senate. We got both chambers as a compromise between the "virginia plan" and the "new jersey plan." I personally am a fan of DEMOCRACY. People should vote, not land. And yeah the senate gives way too much influence to conservatives. Conservatives are crapping their pants and threatening military force against us because these guys are threatening to strip conservatives of their outsized influence over the system and establish REAL democracy. But they HATE the idea of real democracy and wanna rule by minority. Again, the right is authoritarian here. You can even criticize some of this stuff, like some might see abolishing the senate as too radical, but again, like....honestly? THere's a valid argument to be made here. I just dont like how these guys want that one chamber of congress to have power over the other branches. We should have checks and balances here. 

"Economic democracy"- So they basically wanna socialize the biggest corporations and essential industries. Hard no on that one. I like wealth taxes on the super wealthy though.

"Democracy at work"- Despite the name they seem to be talking about unions and union power. I'm pro union so this is fine. 

Overall impression

While there are certainly some cringe elements to this platform that go way too far, and to some degree my own ideological goals differ from these guys, I'd still say I probably support about 70% of this platform, and there's more good than bad. However, I will say that when it bombs, it sometimes bombs really bad. THese guys arent living in the real world on issues like foreign policy, criminal justice, immigration, literal socialism, and some of their more extreme political reforms.

Honestly, we need a moderate version of this that takes the best elements of this and emphasizes those without the bad parts (think an FDR style approach to it), or alternatively, we should go with my own more explicitly capitalist ideas instead like UBI. 

I feel like the most extreme parts of this are what is giving ammo for the right to "red bait" over it. Lke ERMAHGERD, THEY WANT TO ABOLISH THE SENATE AND PUT CONGRESS IN CHARGE OF THE OTHER TWO BRANCHES! ERMAHGERD, THEY WANT TO SOCIALIZE THE ECONOMY! yeah...no. Can we NOT do that? I dont think we should be deploying military force against our own citizens over this and it's insane that the right is floating this (but not surprising, I've been warning you guys trump and his administration have gone fascist for a while), but yeah, I wiill say I outright reject the more extreme elements of this. Again, DSA sometimes gets lost in their own sauce. They're right, we need left wing economic populism and they have some good ideas at times. However, they kinda tied up in their own BS where they unironically think that some of the more extreme stuff is a good idea, and it's not. And you know what? THis is where I agree with the moderate democrats, this crap is gonna cost us elections. It should be rejected and those of us who are sane should distance ourselves from it. 

Still, I remain convinced the real threat to our way of life comes more from Mike Johnson, Trump, and the far right. Those guys are marching us into fascism and talking about criminalizing holding beliefs like this, and they wanna act like the left is the problem? Pulease. After project 2025, they can stfu now and forever about this stuff. 

Air conditioning isn't bad, our energy grid is

 So...France recently blamed the US for...air conditioning causing heat waves. The argument is that our energy needs to power air conditioning is powering climate change, which is thus intensifying the need for air conditioning, which is causing more climate change. This is very misleading. 

The real cause of climate change is fossil fuels. I am of the opinion that the US should NOT have to rely on fossil fuels to power our energy grids. Between wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, etc., we should be able to have more than enough power to power our energy grid without causing global warming. We should have been working on this fifty years ago. I mean, Jimmy Carter had solar panels on the white house roof. but then the oil companies feared irrelevance, and launched a war on science. The Reagan administration went full "drill baby drill", and religious extremism brainwashed people against climate change even being a thing. So we literally ignored the problem for decades. And now in the 2020s, things are getting so bad we can't ignore it. The US is in a massive drought, this could ultimately impact food output, which is being compounded by the fertilizer crisis from the war with Iran. Europe is experiencing massive heat waves, hell, so is America. I'm only in my 30s and I've noticed a rather large shift in the climate from when I was a kid. From 2010 onward I've noticed summers seem hotter. I've also noticed winters seem to have less snow. And in the 2020s, it's like hell on earth. Every summer is the hottest ever, the climate is changing faster than the worst models predicted. Entire systems might be on the verge of collapse, or reaching a point of no return like the AMOC current in the atlantic. Entire areas of the world and the US might become unlivable. Sea levels are swallowing islands. The American west is becoming uninhabitable as much of it is desert in the first place and now the water that exists is drying up. 

Yeah...air conditioning, in terms of power use, is contributing to this. However, wanna know what else is contributing? Literally all of modern life. Your computer contributes to climate change. Cars contribute, and those NEED to run on fossil fuels. While the actual physical grid could be powered by cleaner energy, cars are more problematic. And if we wanna go into my thing, what about work culture? What about forcing people to commute to offices we dont need and not letting them work from home? What about forcing everyone to get a job so number on spreadsheet goes up? What about all this AI crap where we're building tons of data centers to meet demand for AI that doesnt exist yet in what seems to be the economic bubble of the 2020s? That's taking up TONS of electricity, tons of water, it's distorting the whole hardware market. We're killing the climate over this stupid crap. But sure, let's blame the one thing we do to try to keep us cool and comfortable.  

 In a lot of ways, blaming people for their habits seems to be missing the point. A lot of people on the left notice this. There's a lot of lecturing about what individuals can do to solve climate change, when in reality, most of it is driven by the interests of the ultra wealthy. They fly around on private jets everywhere, their enterprises destroy the environment on a massive scale, and they basically force all of us into their system of economic dependence. But how dare we not want to use pasta straws or keep cool in the summer. Ya know? It's dumb. 

Anyway, that's how I view the issue. The bulk of the issue is caused by the wealthy, it's caused by the powerful, and it's caused by those evil and batcrap insane ideologies I pointed out in the previous post. We should have nipped this in the bud 50 years ago but some rich people decided they wouldnt profit off of it and it would make them sad so let's drive the planet into the gutter so oil companies can continue to make tons of money. Even though it's a disaster waiting to happen since it's a finite resource, the supply is dwindling, it'll eventually become scarce, and our economy is functionally dependent on it. 

Really....short term profits are what's really killing us. Right wing ideology is killing us. Infinite growth on a finite planet is killing us. A refusal to invest in solar, wind, and nuclear is killing us. We should have a world with air conditioning, but that air conditioning being powered by an actually sustainable power grid that doesnt contribute to climate change. And you know what? We were mostly on the right track with Biden, I admit, we couldve done a little better than the inflation reduction act, but it was the best he could pass at the time. Beats Trump's spiteful mentality of ripping that up because screw democrats and then basically going back to an unfettered focus of fossil fuels...and then blowing up THAT market because of his dumb foreign policy decisions. 

Anyway, it just seems really dumb to blame air conditioning for climate change in particular because when you make Americans choose between comfort and the environment you're making the problem worse since most are short sighted and will choose comfort. And even worse, it's a fricking false choice. We should have sustainable energy AND air conditioning. And Im gonna be honest, I'd rather energy go to powering AC in summer than to all this AI crap. 

And yeah, that's how I see it.  

Discussing celebrating death and virtue signalling

 So another right winger died (Lindsey Graham), and while I wouldnt normally talk about it, since, my general view on these sorts of things is if I don't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all, a lot of left wing content creators I follow are absolutely giddy at this guy dying. And...idk, it rubs me the wrong way.

I guess I understand it if the guy is REALLY REALLY bad. I know I was doing a victory lap when we killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011. But...other than that, I try to avoid doing that. It sets a bad precedent. While I might think a lot of right wingers are vile people, I generally want everyone to have a good life no matter how misguided they are. I might dislike or hate people, but I dont' generally actively wish harm on them. I guess it can be said some obituaries are read with great satisfaction, but I'm meh on graham. He was a right winger. He really liked war. he was anti gay rights, despite being in the closet himself, and I've found out WAAAAY too much about this man's sex life today.  Like stuff I wish I can purge from my memory because oh god, why. 

But yeah. To me, he was just a rank and file right winger. A typical conservative. Someone who pre trump hated him, but then got on board the trump train and sold his soul to the movement. His values were just that, typical right wing chrsitian values. His views on war were that of a typical neocon. Now, that doesn't make him a GOOD person, dont get me wrong. I mean, I pretty much view right wing ideology as evil, but again, it's just a very much standard and common evil in today's world. Part of my interest in politics is destroying Graham's ideology. But that doesnt mean I want him to die. Rather, I want him to change, or at least for those adherents to lose influence over time as millennials and zoomers start flexing their political muscles. I will celebrate a progressive victory way harder than I will a man's death, because that's the right way of doing things. Celebrating a guy's death feels icky to me. First of all, it's one of those things conservatives do. Conservatives have an ideology, and they want people who dont follow it to suffer. If anything that's the source of much of the evil that drives them. And when it seems like the left celebrates a guy dying, it's like they're doing the same thing. but I try to avoid thinking that these people deserve anything. They might be vile, but again, I want them to live well. I want them to stop rolling around in their own moral filth. The world sucks because of these people, but I genuinely want them to realize that, like I once did, and to change. Despite right wing ideology being evil and much of what's wrong with the world, most individual right wingers arent bad people, they're ignorant and misguided people. I dont want the world to burn, I want the world to learn. And one guy's death doesnt mean much if he's just gonna be replaced by someone just as bad. 

Second, I don't like the weird virtue signalling the left is doing recently. We saw it recently with the other graham, graham platner. About how people are falling over themselves to point out that they always thought that something was fishy about the guy and they were the first to point it out and they were always on the "right side" of history. And as I said, I dont care. Im not interested in virtue. If anything, one thing that i value about the right politically,.which is why I've been using the rumors about mcconnell's death to make a point about the right and power, is that the right fights for their ideals. And they do so effectively. The left virtue signals, the right organizes, seizes power structures, and focuses on indoctrinating their views into the masses. That's why they're the dominant ideological force and the left isn't. They control the levers of power, they control the education system. They formulate policy in their image, and they indoctrinate the next generation with its ideas. They understand politics is a battle of ideas and they will fight to make sure theirs remain dominant. And that's the thing. The right is basically a handful of rich people who knows what they're doing is ####ed but they do it anyway to preserve their extreme wealth (the epstein class) followed by a bunch of useful idiots brainwashed into these ways of thinking by religion, the education system (or lack thereof), etc. And that's where I fight, I focus on ideas, I focus on attacking the core values, and the structures that keep us brainwashed. As an ex right winger, I want right wing ideas to die, but that doesnt mean I want right wingers themselves to die. As an ex right winger, I want them to learn like I did. 

But the left...well....they're just interested in weird public displays of morality, virtue signalling, and believing that those who dont share their virtues deserve to suffer. Which doesnt make them much better than the right. It just makes them look like out of touch self righteous A-hats to be honest. No one actually likes these people. The game amongst themselves is weird virtue signalling and having to be more moral than each other, or to all be in the same clique hugboxing about how morally superior they are while doing F all to advance the causes in the real world.

Again, the right siezes power. They aim for the power structures, they aim for the centers of propaganda. They're focused on enforcing and reinforcing a political ideology, and making it self replicating like a mind virus. Graham is just one guy in this whole system. And he comes off to be as a true believer. Maybe one who is closeted, but let me say something about that. Religion makes it where those urges seem like "sin". So rather than approach the situation for what it is, these guys remain closeted, fighting that "lifestyle" as they call it publicly, but engaging in it privately because hey guess what, they actually have those urges, and doesnt have a proper worldview for handle that properly. The worldview pathologizes that stuff, it makes them live unhealthily as a result, but rather than abandon the worldview, they maintain the beliefs, leading to this conflict. it's not as hypocritical as the left wants it to be. Graham probably genuinely believed that stuff was sinful. But he also recognized that he was a sinner himself. Just the nature of christian self loathing. That mind virus does that.

Again, I try to be charitable to the people to some degree, while recognizing that what's evil is the ideology. And the ideology didnt start with people like lindsey graham. He's just a believer in it, just like the rest of them. A lot of people on the right genuinely believe in what they're fighting for. And while yes, what they're fighting for is complete and utter crap, they dont know better. I would know, I was one of them, I was in that mindset at one time. People like LIndsey graham arent evil as much as they're horribly ignorant. And it's the IDEAS that should be condemned as evil, not the people. 

So...RIP Lindsey Graham. Hope you're having some freaky you know what in heaven if that exists. You know you want to, and God, to my knowledge, doesn't actually care. I guess your life review was kinda crap but eh....that's gonna happen. But hey, you didnt know on earth. So you couldn't have known better, right? I guess that's what life here is, a learning experience. So...learn from it and move on I guess.