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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26608 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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Apparently Trump is seeking a 10% cut in non-defense spending and a $500 billion increase in defense spending.

These numbers are so high that I feel like this is probably some kind of bluster or a gambit to get a smaller increase by asking for a larger one.

This would raise US defense spending as a fraction of GDP to the same level as the height of the War on Terror, except with no 9/11 to motivate political will to support the increase.

A 10% cut in non-defense spending would hurt many people, including many Trump supporters, especially given that the DOGE experiment was cancelled and so one cannot expect much efficiency increase to offset the cuts.

A $500 billion defense increase makes no sense except if the US is increasing preparations to engage in a war with China. No other potential adversary even comes close to justifying such an increase. But China is not currently threatening any vital US interests other than Taiwan, and defense of Taiwan could be increased to effective levels without $500 extra billion. It is, after all, an island with rugged terrain, 24 million people, and its own military.

If a war does happen, it carries enormous risks one way or another, even with the extra budget. If a war does not happen, it is money largely wasted in that it could be spent better instead.

It would also be a huge experiment to add on top of the already ongoing tariff project, with difficult-to-predict consequences to the economy. The consequences might be hard to predict, but I feel like it's safe to say that the money could be spent in more productive ways.

The political fallout of actually getting these changes implemented, which seems like an extreme long shot, would drive everyone other than hardcore MAGA "I love the troops" types away and people who directly benefit from defense spending away from the Republican coalition and would give non-Republicans a huge amount of fodder for campaign material.

Even the fallout of just trying to get the changes implemented is bad. It is coming not long before the midterms and it is also a ready-made gift to Newsom or whoever else runs in 2028.

What is Trump doing with this?

It seems rather clear to me that in a war with China, every participant would lose. I am bearish on it staying contained, for one thing.

Any war involving Taiwan will involve striking military installations on China's soil. Typically, these things escalate. After Hegseth bombs the first Chinese school through carelessness, China may well feel that it is in their interest to make US civilians bleed as well, and unlike Iran they are probably able to do so. And if there ever was an administration which I do not trust to have the strategic savviness to avoid a war turning nuclear, it was the current one.

But even if a US-China war stayed confined, it would be devastating for the global economy. Between sanctions and blockades, most of the international trade in SE Asia would come to a halt. Neither side has much hope to push the other side out, never mind regime change. A war is unlikely to end with the US ceding their Asian interests to China, nor with the US invading Peking and installing a new regime. So both sides have far much more to lose than they have to win.

One of the big reasons I joined recently was to try and recalibrate my understanding of Trump, and really US foreign policy in general. I really did not predict Iran, I used to be a proponent of "Donald the semi-dove", so I clearly needed to update my models.

One political change that I think is overlooked is that the Blob of 2010s and 2020s is a lot different than the blob of the early 2000s. The blob learned from the Iraq war, and pivoted towards either minor interventions, such as Syria and Libya, or just a supporting role, such as Ukraine. Afghanistan certainly was a black mark, but they didn't start anything major after Iraq. They even resisted going into Iran during the later part of Bush II and backed the JCPOA. Once you take into account the Blob's moderation on this issue, they go from "out of touch warmonger" to "interventionist, but within the public Overton Window".

It does reality is the inverse of how many people thought of it from 2015-now: Trump is more aggressive, for better or for worse, than the Blob.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that it is entirely possible that behind the scenes information alters the calculus such that most, if not all presidents would have jumped in on this one.

It's not popular to consider, but if Iran actually went ahead with nuclearization or was reaching a break point with missile/drone production...both of those essentially "require" intervention if we are to keep with our foreign policy goals.

These things are part of the "official" stated reason for the war and are quite possibly actually accurate, even if many Americans aren't happy for them. The underlying motivation might be something like "we have to go now or Iran will be able to destroy Israel and we can't do anything about it. You might be okay with destroying Israel but the U.S. government isn't (at least for now).

Additionally Trump and likely any replacement Republican president would be tempted to pull the trigger if it was a near thing and not yet profoundly dire due to a fear of ending up like Biden (in the sense of permitting Russia to attack Ukraine).

Biden begged Zelensky to take the threat of invasion seriously and Zelensky refused. It was almost pure luck that Ukraine happened to have troops in the right area to blunt the initial thrust.

Biden was a Russia hawk in rhetoric only. It was like Reverse-Teddy-Roosevelt stuff. Its pretty obvious in hindsight why Putin waited for him to be President to invade.

Biden was a weak president and was likely perceived that way by foreign adversaries, especially with what we know now.

I strongly belief if Trump, Obama, Bush, or Clinton was the president then Putin would not have invaded.

The problem with this analysis is the belief that nothing happened between 2014 and 2022. For pretty much the entirety of that time Ukraine was fighting with "separatists" armed with Russian weapons. Europe had arranged ceasefires, with Russia negotiating for terms which benefited the separatists, but those ceasefires were repeatedly broken (each side of course blames the other for violating it). Hell, in 2017 Putin announced that he was issuing passports for citizens in Eastern Ukraine.

Trump did send some weapons, but that's about the extent of it that I remember.

Putin also invaded his neighbors under the Obama regime (which Biden is best seen as the 3rd term of). The defining thing about the Obama people long term is their consistent lack of seriousness in foreign policy. Grandiose speeches paired with feckless actual policy. JCPOA is the crowning achievement of this "strategy" if you can call it one.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that it is entirely possible that behind the scenes information alters the calculus such that most, if not all presidents would have jumped in on this one.

I agree with that. If Iran was within a year of getting nukes, proactively attacking would be within the Overton window. It probably would have been the consensus or near consensus.

It's not popular to consider, but if Iran actually went ahead with nuclearization or was reaching a break point with missile/drone production...both of those essentially "require" intervention if we are to keep with our foreign policy goals.

These things are part of the "official" stated reason for the war and are quite possibly actually accurate, even if many Americans aren't happy for them. The underlying motivation might be something like "we have to go now or Iran will be able to destroy Israel and we can't do anything about it. You might be okay with destroying Israel but the U.S. government isn't (at least for now).

While Israeli interests do push the US in a more hawkish direction, I actually think Israel is not the biggest consideration here. If Iran gets nukes, that sets off a chain reaction of nuclear proliferation and really changes how not just people in the Middle East, but quite likely outside the Middle East interact with both nukes and Iranian power. The Saudis will get nukes 0.5 seconds after the Iranians get them. Iran actually having nukes likely just flips the table in very hard to predict ways. That scenario is complicated enough, and calculating the force need to stop it and/or how much force is worth it quickly gets into complex territory.

Once the territory gets that complex, I'd say reasonable and informed minds can disagree and one can really only tell if a war is ultimately a good idea or bad idea in retrospect. While the current war so far, in both motive and conduct, seems like a bad idea to me I wouldn't be surprised if in a year in hindsight it turns out "yeah, it was a necessary if imperfect action."

Additionally Trump and likely any replacement Republican president would be tempted to pull the trigger if it was a near thing and not yet profoundly dire due to a fear of ending up like Biden (in the sense of permitting Russia to attack Ukraine).

I don't think you can say the US meaningfully "permitted" Russia to attack Ukraine. There is a lot of intermediate actions between doing nothing and starting WW3 over Putin's invasion, and the US has consistently aided Ukraine and injured Russia through that aid. If the goal is to discourage violating other nation's territory, the US has definitely shown that it will seriously hurt non-allied nations that do that. I'm not sure any other US president would've acted too differently to what Biden's Administration did since doing nothing encourages territorial revisionism, which destroys the nice pax-Americana we want to keep, and WW3 is too costly for a non-NATO ally.

EDIT: To be honest, I'm also not 100% confident how much AIPAC and pro-Israel sentiment really changes US policy. The Cold War US friendship with Israel, which as Suez showed was not 100% agreement, was mostly utilitarian against the pro-Soviet Arab Socialists. The US was allied to the Arab monarchies for the same reason. Especially given that the Arab monarchies are de facto Allies of Israel, I'm not sure how much US policy would change if every Evangelical and Israel lobbyist suddenly got Thanos snapped away. There are good non-sentimental reasons the US allies with who it allies with.

Don't really have any objection to your clarifications. A lot of people in general have bit on the propaganda, or are reflexively anti-Jew or Trump (thus my mentioning of Israel at all).

How much of a success this was won't be something we know for years, and how much necessary it was may not be something we know for decades.

Lots of people looking at painful short term costs and assuming that's all that matters for the discussion.

From "no new wars" to

"Just one more $100 billion bro i swear bro just $200 billion this time it’ll fix the middle east for real like actually stabilize everything. We just need $300 billion to get it right trust me bro it’ll finally bring peace. Just one more $400 billion please bro it’s gonna work this time I promise. If we just have $500 billion we can achieve our strategic goals for real this time."

One theory: the war with Iran is going far worse than expected. The nominally 'neutral' government of Iraq is about to fall without oil revenues to pay workers. In addition the US has been bombing elements of the pro-Iranian PMF militias that are the primary force in Iraq, they're stronger than the Iraqi army. To a certain extent, the US is now at war with Iraq as well.

The US is flying in a large number of troops to the Middle East in C-17s. We may be looking at a multi-year campaign to retake Iraq as a staging post for a ground invasion of Iran.

Desert Storm but much more retarded and much more costly.

At any rate the airborne troops being deployed are there to do something and it probably won't be cheap.

The US is flying in a large number of troops to the Middle East in C-17s. We may be looking at a multi-year campaign to retake Iraq as a staging post for a ground invasion of Iran.

What are your sources for this? Not asking out of disbelief but because I want as solid information as possible before making more oil bets in the coming days.

I found one X account that showed a lot of planes flying from eastern US and across Europe but I don't know for sure if it's real info.

https://nationaltoday.com/us/tn/hunter-tn/news/2026/03/31/us-deploys-special-forces-airborne-troops-to-middle-east/

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/03/30/thousands-of-us-army-paratroopers-arrive-in-middle-east-as-buildup-intensifies/

https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/25/pentagon-orders-thousands-of-troops-to-deploy-to-middle-east/

These are mostly paratroopers, heavy equipment will take longer to be brought in if at all, given sealift constraints. But perhaps the idea is that heavy forces won't be needed for the start of the campaign since they'll mostly be fighting Iraqis? Plus the cost-effectiveness of heavy armour has declined in recent years.

Or perhaps they're going for a more ambitious offensive to win the war quickly. IDK. Far too few to get anything serious done I think. The invasion of Ukraine required about 300K Russian troops and that clearly was not enough, so what are 80K at most Americans going to do?

so what are 80K at most Americans going to do?

Get killed, I guess? The coast there looks like a defender's dream and an attacker's nightmare. People talk about how China is going to struggle to land on Taiwan, but the US forces are likely to take heavy casualties and perhaps fail altogether here.

Watch Trump complain just as shamelessly this year when he fails to get the Nobel Peace Prize as he did last year.

If a war does happen, it carries enormous risks one way or another, even with the extra budget. If a war does not happen, it is money largely wasted in that it could be spent better instead.

How would it be wasted when the alternative is social programs which may have a lower ROI? This presupposes that defunded social programs have an unusually high ROI, which I don't think it's possible to conclude this.

As Eisenhower remarked,

Every hungry person who is fed, every cold person who is clothed signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those warships which remain unlaunched and those rockets which remain unfired.

Neither military toys nor social programs have an easily determined ROI.

Consider the Manhattan project. For the purpose of winning WW2 at a total cost of 2G$ (e.g. on the order of a percent of the total war budget), it failed to help with defeating the Nazis and arguably was not needed to get Japan to surrender without an invasion.

On the other hand, it also helped to establish the US as a prime superpower and likely prevented a hot war with the USSR. And in the counterfactual world where the Nazis had worked on nukes in earnest, it would have prevented them gaining a monopoly on them. So it is hard to put the ROI in monetary terms.

For evaluating social programs, there are two approaches. One is to look at them from an utilitarian/EA perspective, but this requires terminal values like preferring people not to die of starvation. The other is to look at them from the perspective of buying social peace: one good reason to feed the poor is that they are not likely to peacefully watch their kids die of starvation when you do not have food programs. Instead, most of them would turn to crime to feed their kids. In a country where food is cheap and labor is rather expensive, it is probably cost-effective to just feed the poor rather than hiring enough police (and lawyers and prison guards) to neutralize any food riots. Relatedly, the other disruptive thing the poor can do even before they turn to crime is vote. Capitalism can create immense amounts of wealth, but this is unlikely to persuade poor people who feel that they do not profit from it personally. So social programs can be also seen as a bribe, where society gives the poor a cut of the spoils so they don't rock the boat. Still, I will concede that it is just as hard to quantify these benefits as it is with military spending.

Neither military toys nor social programs have an easily determined ROI.

Consider the Manhattan project.

Not strictly germane to the conversation, but a fun tidbit is that the Manhattan project wasn't close to the most expensive weapons program USG ran in WWII - that was the B29, whose development at $3T cost 50% more than the Bomb.

Military investment can also be a boon to the mass populace. My understanding of WW2 spending is that it helped to bid up wages, by creating an enormous demand for labor, while simultaneously denying growth potential to the capitalist class by forcing them to forego commercial developments in favor of facilitating the war effort. The result was the most egalitarian period in American history following the war, where the gulf between the mass populace and the capitalist class had been reduced to almost nothing. Ensuing this was an explosion in the creative arts, high taxes on the rich (a symbol of their reduced power), and a period of social calm, arguably broken in part once inequality began creeping upwards again.

Although, Trump's budgeting probably will not accomplish this, and the conditions necessary for the post-war boon were probably unique to that time in history. His war in Iran is expected to cost trillions of dollars in the long-run, though, so perhaps we can infer that is the true reason for the spending and the one objective it will accomplish, counterbalancing an enforced burden.

There was a fear that the massive number of returning GIs would flood the labor market and restart the depression. This was deftly avoided by sending them off to college.

A $500 billion defense increase makes no sense except if the US is increasing preparations to engage in a war with China. No other potential adversary even comes close to justifying such an increase. But China is not currently threatening any vital US interests other than Taiwan, and defense of Taiwan could be increased to effective levels without $500 extra billion.

"Currently" is doing some heavy lifting there. Just to support the US's AUKUS obligation, to say nothing of reaching the Navy's target force structure, how long do you think it would take to build just the infrastructure, industrial base, and skills needed to scale up shipbuilding, let alone the ships themselves?

I'm not saying that's what Trump has in mind, but the state of US shipbuilding -- military, civilian, and Coast Guard -- is pretty shambolic, and a defense budget increase would make perfect sense in that context (and also the same thing but on a lesser scale for armament stockpiles).

Why is the $500B being discussed as a news? Trump had announced his plans for a $1.5T military budget long ago, in early January iirc (was a bit hard to find).

To quote it in full (I've just been told "Don't pay any attention to anything on Truth Social ever and you'll probably have a clearer view of world events" but just this once):

After long and difficult negotiations with Senators, Congressmen, Secretaries, and other Political Representatives, I have determined that, for the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars. This will allow us to build the “Dream Military” that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe. If it weren’t for the tremendous numbers being produced by Tariffs from other Countries, many of which, in the past, have “ripped off” the United States at levels never seen before, I would stay at the $1 Trillion Dollar number but, because of Tariffs, and the tremendous Income that they bring, amounts being generated, that would have been unthinkable in the past (especially just one year ago during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, the Worst President in the History of our Country!), we are able to easily hit the $1.5 Trillion Dollar number while, at the same time, producing an unparalleled Military Force, and having the ability to, at the same time, pay down Debt, and likewise, pay a substantial Dividend to moderate income Patriots within our Country!

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Now Trump is not very numerate, so he presumably misunderstood how the tariff revenue changes the long-term balance, and he's seemingly still committed to at least not blowing up the debt further; so something had to give.

And yes, this is about China, and anyone else who might pose a challenge (as can be seen, even the decapitated Iran is something of a challenge). China has been steadily increasing their defense spend by 7% a year, for the last decade or more, and their 2026 target is ≈$277B, keeping it well under 2% of GDP. In 2027, accordingly, we may expect almost $300B. Given the differences in productivity, in fighting age male population, the level of corruption, and the share of US DoD (DoW) spend on veteran benefits and such, a 70% overmatch was too close for comfort.

Trump is in a bad place.

It's 6 months before the mid-terms and polls imply a blue wave. In 2018, He had higher approval ratings, a thriving economy and no war....yet he got knocked down by a blue wave. With the way things are trending, it would take a great fumble for Dems to lose the house. Trump may also lose sufficient seats in Senate, so that 2028 could shape up to be a trifecta win for a Democrat.

Remember when Biden was making stupid decisions, and every Republican was (correctly) convinced he'd gone senile? That's the center-left on Trump right now. Occam's razor. Trump is losing a war. He's out of ideas. He is panicking. His incompetent and arguably America's all-time lowest IQ cabinet does not help. Rubio and JD are smart, but they can't salvage this mess.

2028 will be very hard to predict. The next (likely Democrat) President will either need to be a great uniter or a technocrat policy wonk. Newsom is highly divisive, esp in Republican states and seems kinda stupid. Would be quietly disastrous for the US. I hope he doesn't win the primaries. I like Pete, but black-homophobia may tank his campaign again. Would not be surprised if an out-of-left-field candidate showed up for 2028.

It's 6 months before the mid-terms and polls imply a blue wave.

Not that this makes it better for Trump, but the opposition doing very well in midterm elections (and in state elections) is very normal for US politics. E.g., the Obama administration got smacked so hard over the course of his presidency that when he left office, though still personally quite popular, the Democratic party was in a worse place nationally than it had been since 1920.

With the way things are trending, it would take a great fumble for Dems to lose the house. Trump may also lose sufficient seats in Senate, so that 2028 could shape up to be a trifecta win for a Democrat.

I'm not sure the bolded part follows. Yes, recently there's been a trend against presidents being able to hand off the office to their successor, but as you point out, that's also heavily-dependent upon candidate quality. For example, it's far from clear whether Trump would have been able to beat Joe Biden in 2016, had he decided to run. HRC was a uniquely polarizing candidate who also was personally bad at retail politics and took bad campaign strategy advice, and Trump only just squeaked out a victory over her in the first place. If the Dems nominate Newsome some other cypher, they may dig themselves the same hole this time as well.

Additionally, whatever happens in 2028, there will be major changes to the electoral map in 2030, with major blue states losing significant population share and thus electoral votes to red states, and possibly even changes like striking down of Section 2 of the VRA act, which as currently read compels the gerrymandering of Dem-locked "majority minority" districts across the otherwise solid-red deep south.

It's 6 months before the mid-terms and polls imply a blue wave. In 2018, He had higher approval ratings, a thriving economy and no war....yet he got knocked down by a blue wave.

I semi-dispute this. From what I recall, 2018 was a clear democratic victory but not a blue wave. I suspect that at this point the country is too polarized to have Wave elections at this point. Democrats and Republican were both excited over recent victories that, by Cold War standards, would be considered quite close.

2028 will be very hard to predict. The next (likely Democrat) President will either need to be a great uniter or a technocrat policy wonk.

It seems the trajectory, at least for my lifetime and most of the past 40 years, has been steadily declining quality on both sides matched by increasing venom and promises of injury to the outgroup. I see no mechanism for the Democrats, or the Republicans, to buck that trend any time soon.

In my framing, Blue Wave in house = House flips decisively, and Senate flips a few unexpected seats. Blue Wave in Presidental election = trifecta. My 'probably wrong' opinion for 2028 is that Dems will try to remove the filibuster. In such a world, you don't need a 60% majority for a blue wave.

increasing venom and promises of injury to the outgroup

Unfortunately true. A significant and consistent trend.

By that definition, I agree with your predictions. That being said, I'm not sure they will get rid of the filibuster; it's just too useful for politicians since it lets them avoid so much accountability.

In 2018, He had higher approval ratings, a thriving economy and no war....yet he got knocked down by a blue wave. With the way things are trending, it would take a great fumble for Dems to lose the house. Trump may also lose sufficient seats in Senate, so that 2028 could shape up to be a trifecta win for a Democrat.

The economy is doing well though. GDP strong, unemployment low, CPI lowish. Trumps 's approval rating is in the same 2pt range now as it was before the raw. There has been no massive loss of support as many predicted 4 weeks ago when it started. Trump has the same problem Biden had, and the same low approval ratings: he's too polarizing to win over the middle/undecideds. Like with Biden, there is nothing that can change this.

It's amazing how effectively Buttigieg has branded himself as a nerd technocrat chungus and gotten so much support from, well, the type of people who want that, given that we've now seen him in a national-level role perfect for wonky technocrats and he was useless at best. Maybe being President is easier than being Secretary of Transportation? (At this point, I think that might not be a sarcastic thing to say)

President has like actual powers and heft. Transportation feels like an area where the swamp is particularly thick and cloying on the basis of the amount of go nowhere infrastructure project blackholes.

TBF, getting anything done as secretary of transportation under the woke, catty and obstructionist Biden admin may be a harder job than being President. Look at Kamala. I don't know her personal opinion on open borders, but it didn't look like she had much power to affect what would happen at the border.
Did the Biden admin get anything done ? Cabinet members were seen blocking policies, doing woke stuff and allocating budgets. Sounds like those were the only things the wider apparatus allowed them to do.

It's not branding. Compared to the other candidates (Kamala, Newsom, AOC), he is the the technocrat chungus. Then there are the 'blue-winners-in-read-states' candidates, none of which have differentiated themselves.

OK, sure, compared to the other candidates he probably knows how to read policy briefs the right way up. And he has glasses and eats weird. Some people are just desperate for a Revenge of the Nerds president, but Pete has done nothing in his entire career to show he's capable of more than dealing with local property developers in South Bend. If there was any substance there, he would have been able to ram through some wins either around the obstructionists in the admin, or just under the table. Even just do something to slow the decline in e.g. air traffic control. Instead the sum total of his accomplishments, in one of the Cabinet jobs that most needs an effective technocrat, was to dispense some NGObuxx and go on a stunningly brave paternity leave. At what point does it become obvious it's all branding?

Kamala thought he was too gay to take a risk on (and my jaw dropped over that, because Pete is the least gay gay they could pick, in fact he's been criticised for being too normie). I have to think this is her explaining away her poor choice of Walz:

Of the eight names on the list for vetting, I might as well say that Pete Buttigieg was my first choice. Harvard grad, multilingual Rhodes Scholar, business consultant, naval intelligence officer, twice-elected Midwestern mayor, cabinet secretary, loving husband and father: he was well qualified in so many respects. I love Pete. I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends. He is a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them. He knows the importance of taking our case to people who aren’t usually exposed to it and is magnificent at sparring with opponents on Fox News.

He would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man. But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.

I wonder if he has a chance as a VP pick? The problem is, he's a white male and that may not run with the Democratic party who will not pick white guy for President and white guy for VP both. As to how he'd do in the job, well he didn't shine in Transportation (but as people have pointed out, that's a morass) but he would need to be really terrible to be worse than the Coconut Queen. If it's a Newsom/Buttigieg ticket and by some miracle the Dems win 2028 with that, Gavin might be open to letting Pete handle the technocrat stuff (after all, Gav is dyslexic as he reminds us all) while he does the Statesmanlike Man Of History stuff.

Now I kinda want to see that ticket running! 🤣

He'd be an excellent VP. A Newsom-Buttigieg may work. I get the sense that Newsom loves to be a pretty face, while an in-the-weeds VP gets work done. A Reagen-Bush1 / Bush2-Cheney ticket if I've seen one. #ReturnOfTheNeolibs ?

The Dems heavily rely on American Black voters and are equally heavily subservient to their interests. Black people hate gays (per polling data).

This kills Buttigieg. Full stop.

Southern Blacks don't decide elections anymore. NC and GA have lost importance. Dems don't need either state to reach 270. PA, MI and WI are the most important swing states now.

On a longer timeline, the Democrat's dream of a multi-colored coalition is no more. They imagined an impregnable blue wall built off the increasing number of Hispanics, Browns, Blacks & Liberals. That illusion has been fully shattered, as many men of all persuasions have gone full MAGA.

The Democratic National Committee will choose one state each from four regions as well as a possible fifth state:

  • East: Delaware, New Hampshire.
  • Midwest: Illinois, Iowa, Michigan
  • South: Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia
  • West: Nevada, New Mexico

If Pete gets through the primary, Blacks are still going to vote Democrat. Losing a small percent of black voters isn't disastrous. For these primaries, early voting states will matter a lot. I'd say Pete has a good shot with 3/4 regions.

Southern Blacks don't decide elections anymore. NC and GA have lost importance. Dems don't need either state to reach 270. PA, MI and WI are the most important swing states now.

It's not just southern blacks; it's blacks in general. While their percent is smaller in northern states, without their solid black support, the Democrats cease to be competitive. Look at Wisconsin, for instance: the 2020 margin for Biden was 0.5% . From wikipedia, the black population of Wisconsin is 6-7%. If they vote 85-95% Dem, and their voting population is roughly their state population, then their presence turns an R+5 victory into a D+0.5 victory. It's the same story in many other Northern states.

I was curious about how crucial the black electorate is democrats in the north. I asked ChatGPT to crunch the numbers on the non-black electorate in 2020, and it calculated that, in regards to the northern states:

Biden still wins the non-Black electorate in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Maine. He loses the non-Black electorate in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

That's 2020. In 2024, even states like Illinois start to be competitive without the black vote. While I don't think Pete is going to make blacks a republican or neutral constituency, blacks are a necessary part of any Democratic coalition if they hope to win.

I like Pete as well, but we all know it's going to be Newsom.

Predicting Democrats won't fumble a good position is bad epistemic hygeine.

Like predicting the Jets to win a super bowl.

you're right....

Yea, Trump's wins in 2016 and 2024 are of course very impressive given that he came from a non-political background and defeated many very experienced rivals, but he's never had a landslide. He narrowly beat two of the least charismatic presidential candidates that I can remember ever seeing, Hillary and Kamala. To be fair, there's a good chance he would have beat Biden if it hadn't been for COVID, but Biden also isn't exactly a Bill Clinton or an Obama level candidate in terms of charisma so I don't know if that's saying much. Right-wing populism has a solid future - after all, it's a popular response to many real issues. But the Trump form of it is vulnerable.

He narrowly beat two of the least charismatic presidential candidates that I can remember ever seeing, Hillary and Kamala.

As I liked to say, the 2016 election was never about Trump winning but Hillary losing. The dems picked so bad candidate that even Trump managed to win over her.

312 vs 226 was not exactly close even though the popular vote was closer. With so much at stake, the political process has become increasingly optimized . The GOP has learned from its mistake of running uncharismatic candidates as seen in the 90s and 2000s. And combined with an increasingly polarized country means closer elections.

The cuts it involves are insane IMO and not worth it unless you think out of all that excess spending, benefits will fall out of it and accrue to other industries and subsectors

Defense spending is only about 50% fraud and mismanagment. Social spending, at this point, is 100% fraud and mismanagement. Basic infrastructure is about 50% F&M. Any government speding cuts at this point are a good thing.

Sounds to me like if it was fraud and mismanagement it wasn't being spent on social spending and defense anyway.

Correct. At this point the majority of what the US government does is redirect money from people who have earned it with productive labor to those with the right political connections and ability to game the system. The fact that anything gets done at all is a testament to the durabilty of the inital arrangements.

Right. And so I’m not for cutting all spending necessarily. I’m for the government money going where it’s supposed to go…

“Non-defense,” spending huh? So presumably, offense?

In context of "a 10% cut in non-defense spending", it means federal/domestic programs. Research, agencies, welfare, grants, subsidies, etc.

It's standard budget verbiage, and has been used by every administration since I've been alive. "Defense spending" and... "everything other than defense spending". But the latter is a lot more words than "non-defense".

It's neither new nor partisan

And it’s also been disputed since its inception up until today.

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