I feel like I am not good at anticipating election results, but anyway, the people arguing that the midterms will be a referendum on the economy make sense to me.
Expensive gas and groceries are pretty unpopular. I guess some chunk of people will find a way to wholly blame Biden or whatever.
I guess some chunk of people will find a way to wholly blame Biden or whatever.
Markwayne Mullin, DHS Secretary, just yesterday:
“You have a Biden administration that is failing the American people because they are allowing millions of people to come into this country illegally.”
20 months in to a 48 month term and they're still blaming the last guy, and phrasing it as if the last guy is still actively doing things other than having cancer.
The whole admin is a bunch of clowns. And unfortunately they benefit from a right wing media machine that reinforces the nonsense, and a general media environment that is more than willing to sanewash and downplay.
Dems are certainly less evil and marginally more competent, but they are still an unpopular shit show. Even with trump attacking America left and right and becoming deeply unpopular for it they're only a coin flip to win the senate. Vance is the single most likely person to become the next president.
Polls for the last few decades haven't really been all that accurate or good ("it's 50/50" - worthless).
You also seem to be ignoring all the systematic changes that have been made during Trump 2 in your prediction for such huge wins for the democrats. Things like the final destruction of the Voting Rights Act and the extreme Gerrymandering have gone mostly towards republicans. Also 32% of voters (or more) still don't really see a distinction against Donald Trump and The Almighty. Forgive me but I'm not convinced it'll be the bloodbath you think it's going to be. Democrats might have a minor edge in the house when all is said and done and literally nothing else to show for it.
Gerrymandering can help Republicans in the lower chamber† but it can't help in the Senate where they're most scared. Every voter in Texas gets to decide whether to pick Ken Paxton or James Talarico and perhaps more importantly if they can't stomach voting for somebody with a D next to their name, they can decide they were too busy that day to go vote at all so it's not really their fault.
† But it might not, if you turn five 7/3 R seats and two 9/1 D seats into six 6/4 and one 9/1 you risk a dummymander where too many of "your" voters vote the "wrong" way and you have seven Democrats elected even though you still took almost 50% of the vote in some districts and you drew the maps.
Now the trouble is that voters seem to be imagining that if the Democrats take the Legislature that's the whole ball of wax and it just isn't. If there's a narrow D majority in both parts of Congress you can expect that to stall the stupidest stuff from Trump which was subject to congressional oversight, but the useless "We need bipartisanship" mewling will start almost immediately from people who apparently were 100% fine with party-line Republican decisions or executive override.
Gerrymandering is backfiring on the GOP now. It involves reducing GOP margin in supposed safe districts while concentrating DEM voters in others. But if they get the estimate on GOP voters wrong this ends up creating more DEM districts. And this appears to be happening in some places, including 3 supposed GOP districts in Texas where the DEM candidate is leading.
When it became clear this was happening some gerrymandering attempts were aborted, for example in Indiana.
It’s called dummy-mandering, when you try to create more districts that are less safe with tighter margins, but you get the math wrong or sentiment changes by the time the election comes.
By attacking Iran, Trump fucked up the one thing that the average American voter will never forget, because they are reminded of it every day: the price of gas.
It does feel as though the best chance the US had to fix this in living memory would have been if Biden's response to the "United States v. Trump" verdict had been to immediately execute the Justices who said that's fine.
They're clearly OK with that, so it's not a problem that we can't ask them because they're dead, but the remaining Justices might now want to weigh in on whether it's OK to kill Supreme Court Justices if you're President, and might perhaps be expected to decide that's not OK and the earlier judgement was flawed.
Your preferred response to Trump trying to unilaterally seize power when an election didn't go "the right way" is to have Biden execute Supreme Court justices when a case didn't get decided "the right way"? You think that's better?
It's justice. The only sensible way to respond to "We've decided that your Office is above the Law" is to kill the people who made that decision. Most likely the remaining Justices have you incarcerated for murder, because um, yeah, that "The law doesn't apply to Presidents" decision is clearly a terrible idea as you have now demonstrated.
It's not even that many deaths, Trump's decisions have directly killed far more people than that without them having any say in the matter - He isn't (and never will be) in jail for it because of course these assholes get to do whatever they want and a Democrat will maybe send them a stern letter
The response we saw would be appropriate for toddlers but the Justices aren't toddlers, they're adults, they knew perfectly well what they were doing and so the only way to deliver justice was to ensure their decision has consequences.
Such laws would be useful everywhere. First rule: whatever you decide, it's effective after 6 months. Second rule: you can't change first or second rule.
That's because the Democrats are controlled rather than true opposition. It still makes the party a better option than Republicans often times, in that they won't intentionally (but will sometimes accidentally) break things or start new fires, but they rarely (if ever) try to fix what's broken or put out existing fires.
What we really need is to sweep away the existing party duopoly, particularly by dropping the bullshit and actively harmful first-past-the-post electoral system which effectively mandates it.
Tariffs are very populist and both sides have some amount of support for them, so I don’t see them going away. If anything, the democrats are less libertarian than the republicans (historically, before Trump), so I just don’t see them liberalizing tariffs so much as going back to a more sane Obama-style normal.
The socialist wing of the Democratic Party is even less libertarian than the moderates, and it’s hard to call them controlled.
Tariffs as a concept are fine. They're one of the economic tools available to a nation.
What's particularly damaging about Trump's approach to tariffs is the uncertainty. The targets don't always make a lot of sense. They're done haphazardly through questionable paths, which means they're subject to legal challenges. They're changed on a whim when Trump decides he needs to make a splash, or when someone says something he doesn't like, or when he wants to blow up a negotiation, or whatever.
It all leads to a situation where business owners and investors can't really be sure what the tariff landscape is 6, 12, 18, 24 months into the future. Will the tariffs survive legal challenges? Who will Trump decide to tariff next? Which tariffs might be increased drastically next week?
That is not an environment that fosters investment and business growth.
Moderate, business-oriented Democrats and Republicans would all agree with you, BUT these are a group of people that both sides of the party are railing against so they have basically no influence at this point. Even Obama, people selectively remember him fondly (or not) for his compassion and mild socialism, not for his strong free trade stance.
Yes, but it's also Trump and the GOP self-immolating. November is going to be a historic electoral wipeout.
I expect the next administration will push through some laws limiting this sort of idiocy.
The problem is that the bar is now so low that basically anybody will win, by design.
They'll pass some surface level bullshit to treat symptoms, like how lakes can or cannot be renamed. But they'll fail to address any root, systemic issues that allowed this BS to unfold in the first place, paving the way for the other half of the Uniparty to resume power 4-8 years later.
Swiss democracy is doing just fine, it has frequent changing of power and lack of concentration of it built in much more robustly rather than US' pinky promises and wishful expectations. If only EU would be less pushy in bilateral talks and stop bullying it on internal matters and rather focus on its own rising internal... catastrophe(s) behind the doors.
Plus frequent public votes on actually important matters, the mark of adult smart population. Politicians globally will go out of their way to explain to you why Swiss model is bad for other places, but it boils down to who holds actual decision power and accountability.
They did vote to ban minarets, which was odd. Also, the Swiss are fairly conservative in the classical personal responsibility sense, which makes for good citizen voters. They do this through an aggressive policy of education and assimilation that emphasizes “Swissness.” Dropping Swiss style into other countries might not work out as well.
Make public votes elsewhere and you will see laws like those minarets passing left and right. This is what an actual democracy looks like - majority's opinion prevails, not only topic one likes to see happening.
Folks generally like to feel they are objective, but only to the point when something they don't favor is winning. I am guilty of same behavior, part of human nature I guess but its good to realize one's own fallacies
The swiss system mostly works because the people are disciplined, believe in lots of self responsibility, they actually have militias with mandatory participation (like America's 2nd amendment, but the first clause isn't flavor text), you have to join the volunteer fire brigade, etc... Immigrants who want to become swiss citizens...they do a spot check of your home cleanliness to make sure you are "swiss enough".
Swiss democracy is doing just fine, it has frequent changing of power and lack of concentration of it built in much more robustly rather than US' pinky promises and wishful expectations.
Nothing there of that sort apart from maga-level typical claims 'they have nazi gold' which ain't true but it gives a fuzzy feeling of knowing a bit to some less educated folks.
Its most direct democracy globally having most free citizens (depends on viewpoint but I stand behind this claim firmly), bar none. They just don't need to shout about it all the time like US folks do, they simply just deliver, over 800 years and counting.
That’s just another way of saying “whoever you vote for, the government always gets in” if you limit terminology like that. The rise of the Reform and Brexit party undermines the argument of the Wikipedia page somewhat.
And what systemic problems have they addressed since then? I don't live there, but it seems that NHS is increasingly gutted by capital interests, with no end in sight.
At best, you get an illusion of progress. That's not progress.
Comments
Yes, but it's also Trump and the GOP self-immolating. November is going to be a historic electoral wipeout.
I expect the next administration will push through some laws limiting this sort of idiocy.
So you have faith in the average American voter? (Or at least a plurality of them?)
I feel like I am not good at anticipating election results, but anyway, the people arguing that the midterms will be a referendum on the economy make sense to me.
Expensive gas and groceries are pretty unpopular. I guess some chunk of people will find a way to wholly blame Biden or whatever.
Markwayne Mullin, DHS Secretary, just yesterday:
“You have a Biden administration that is failing the American people because they are allowing millions of people to come into this country illegally.”
20 months in to a 48 month term and they're still blaming the last guy, and phrasing it as if the last guy is still actively doing things other than having cancer.
The whole admin is a bunch of clowns. And unfortunately they benefit from a right wing media machine that reinforces the nonsense, and a general media environment that is more than willing to sanewash and downplay.
A new dimension of doublethinking insanity if they’re having to hold and express that kind of thought in the present tense.
The polls are increasingly dire for the GOP. They're even losing the military vote.
Dems are certainly less evil and marginally more competent, but they are still an unpopular shit show. Even with trump attacking America left and right and becoming deeply unpopular for it they're only a coin flip to win the senate. Vance is the single most likely person to become the next president.
As awful as it is, this is what America is now.
Polls for the last few decades haven't really been all that accurate or good ("it's 50/50" - worthless).
You also seem to be ignoring all the systematic changes that have been made during Trump 2 in your prediction for such huge wins for the democrats. Things like the final destruction of the Voting Rights Act and the extreme Gerrymandering have gone mostly towards republicans. Also 32% of voters (or more) still don't really see a distinction against Donald Trump and The Almighty. Forgive me but I'm not convinced it'll be the bloodbath you think it's going to be. Democrats might have a minor edge in the house when all is said and done and literally nothing else to show for it.
Gerrymandering can help Republicans in the lower chamber† but it can't help in the Senate where they're most scared. Every voter in Texas gets to decide whether to pick Ken Paxton or James Talarico and perhaps more importantly if they can't stomach voting for somebody with a D next to their name, they can decide they were too busy that day to go vote at all so it's not really their fault.
† But it might not, if you turn five 7/3 R seats and two 9/1 D seats into six 6/4 and one 9/1 you risk a dummymander where too many of "your" voters vote the "wrong" way and you have seven Democrats elected even though you still took almost 50% of the vote in some districts and you drew the maps.
Now the trouble is that voters seem to be imagining that if the Democrats take the Legislature that's the whole ball of wax and it just isn't. If there's a narrow D majority in both parts of Congress you can expect that to stall the stupidest stuff from Trump which was subject to congressional oversight, but the useless "We need bipartisanship" mewling will start almost immediately from people who apparently were 100% fine with party-line Republican decisions or executive override.
Gerrymandering is backfiring on the GOP now. It involves reducing GOP margin in supposed safe districts while concentrating DEM voters in others. But if they get the estimate on GOP voters wrong this ends up creating more DEM districts. And this appears to be happening in some places, including 3 supposed GOP districts in Texas where the DEM candidate is leading.
When it became clear this was happening some gerrymandering attempts were aborted, for example in Indiana.
It’s called dummy-mandering, when you try to create more districts that are less safe with tighter margins, but you get the math wrong or sentiment changes by the time the election comes.
By attacking Iran, Trump fucked up the one thing that the average American voter will never forget, because they are reminded of it every day: the price of gas.
The midterms won't look pretty for him.
I hope you're right, but forgive me if I don't party yet. I thought the same thing two years ago.
"In a 5-4 decision..."
It does feel as though the best chance the US had to fix this in living memory would have been if Biden's response to the "United States v. Trump" verdict had been to immediately execute the Justices who said that's fine.
They're clearly OK with that, so it's not a problem that we can't ask them because they're dead, but the remaining Justices might now want to weigh in on whether it's OK to kill Supreme Court Justices if you're President, and might perhaps be expected to decide that's not OK and the earlier judgement was flawed.
Your preferred response to Trump trying to unilaterally seize power when an election didn't go "the right way" is to have Biden execute Supreme Court justices when a case didn't get decided "the right way"? You think that's better?
It's justice. The only sensible way to respond to "We've decided that your Office is above the Law" is to kill the people who made that decision. Most likely the remaining Justices have you incarcerated for murder, because um, yeah, that "The law doesn't apply to Presidents" decision is clearly a terrible idea as you have now demonstrated.
It's not even that many deaths, Trump's decisions have directly killed far more people than that without them having any say in the matter - He isn't (and never will be) in jail for it because of course these assholes get to do whatever they want and a Democrat will maybe send them a stern letter
The response we saw would be appropriate for toddlers but the Justices aren't toddlers, they're adults, they knew perfectly well what they were doing and so the only way to deliver justice was to ensure their decision has consequences.
Unfortunately November is going to be a historic voter supression event like nothing ever seen before.
Such laws would be useful everywhere. First rule: whatever you decide, it's effective after 6 months. Second rule: you can't change first or second rule.
Gavin Newsom has indicated he won't remove all the tariffs if he becomes president in 2028, so some of the idiocy will continue.
That's because the Democrats are controlled rather than true opposition. It still makes the party a better option than Republicans often times, in that they won't intentionally (but will sometimes accidentally) break things or start new fires, but they rarely (if ever) try to fix what's broken or put out existing fires.
What we really need is to sweep away the existing party duopoly, particularly by dropping the bullshit and actively harmful first-past-the-post electoral system which effectively mandates it.
Tariffs are very populist and both sides have some amount of support for them, so I don’t see them going away. If anything, the democrats are less libertarian than the republicans (historically, before Trump), so I just don’t see them liberalizing tariffs so much as going back to a more sane Obama-style normal.
The socialist wing of the Democratic Party is even less libertarian than the moderates, and it’s hard to call them controlled.
Tariffs as a concept are fine. They're one of the economic tools available to a nation.
What's particularly damaging about Trump's approach to tariffs is the uncertainty. The targets don't always make a lot of sense. They're done haphazardly through questionable paths, which means they're subject to legal challenges. They're changed on a whim when Trump decides he needs to make a splash, or when someone says something he doesn't like, or when he wants to blow up a negotiation, or whatever.
It all leads to a situation where business owners and investors can't really be sure what the tariff landscape is 6, 12, 18, 24 months into the future. Will the tariffs survive legal challenges? Who will Trump decide to tariff next? Which tariffs might be increased drastically next week?
That is not an environment that fosters investment and business growth.
Moderate, business-oriented Democrats and Republicans would all agree with you, BUT these are a group of people that both sides of the party are railing against so they have basically no influence at this point. Even Obama, people selectively remember him fondly (or not) for his compassion and mild socialism, not for his strong free trade stance.
The problem is that the bar is now so low that basically anybody will win, by design.
They'll pass some surface level bullshit to treat symptoms, like how lakes can or cannot be renamed. But they'll fail to address any root, systemic issues that allowed this BS to unfold in the first place, paving the way for the other half of the Uniparty to resume power 4-8 years later.
Democracy is illusory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty
*American Democracy
Not according to the link above, and the growing array of solvable yet perpetually unsolved problems in other countries.
Swiss democracy is doing just fine, it has frequent changing of power and lack of concentration of it built in much more robustly rather than US' pinky promises and wishful expectations. If only EU would be less pushy in bilateral talks and stop bullying it on internal matters and rather focus on its own rising internal... catastrophe(s) behind the doors.
Plus frequent public votes on actually important matters, the mark of adult smart population. Politicians globally will go out of their way to explain to you why Swiss model is bad for other places, but it boils down to who holds actual decision power and accountability.
They did vote to ban minarets, which was odd. Also, the Swiss are fairly conservative in the classical personal responsibility sense, which makes for good citizen voters. They do this through an aggressive policy of education and assimilation that emphasizes “Swissness.” Dropping Swiss style into other countries might not work out as well.
Make public votes elsewhere and you will see laws like those minarets passing left and right. This is what an actual democracy looks like - majority's opinion prevails, not only topic one likes to see happening.
Folks generally like to feel they are objective, but only to the point when something they don't favor is winning. I am guilty of same behavior, part of human nature I guess but its good to realize one's own fallacies
The swiss system mostly works because the people are disciplined, believe in lots of self responsibility, they actually have militias with mandatory participation (like America's 2nd amendment, but the first clause isn't flavor text), you have to join the volunteer fire brigade, etc... Immigrants who want to become swiss citizens...they do a spot check of your home cleanliness to make sure you are "swiss enough".
Recent rebuttals to the Swiss model:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451032
Nothing there of that sort apart from maga-level typical claims 'they have nazi gold' which ain't true but it gives a fuzzy feeling of knowing a bit to some less educated folks.
Its most direct democracy globally having most free citizens (depends on viewpoint but I stand behind this claim firmly), bar none. They just don't need to shout about it all the time like US folks do, they simply just deliver, over 800 years and counting.
There were more important points made there than "nazi gold"
That’s just another way of saying “whoever you vote for, the government always gets in” if you limit terminology like that. The rise of the Reform and Brexit party undermines the argument of the Wikipedia page somewhat.
And what systemic problems have they addressed since then? I don't live there, but it seems that NHS is increasingly gutted by capital interests, with no end in sight.
At best, you get an illusion of progress. That's not progress.
Very different questions to the one I was answering.