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Notes -
I made a prediction that Iran might step up attacks before the midterms. Looks like that may be happening and the rates of attacks are up:
Two ships sink near Hormuz after being hit by projectiles amid surge in attacks
Container ship hit by projectile sinks in Strait of Hormuz, Singapore says
The decision to pause the war by Trump remains puzzling to me, and it suggests a lack of conviction in the war effort. A side confident of success would act immediately rather than grant Iran weeks to strengthen its defenses, plan retaliation, consult its allies, and position its assets. One thing it certainly isn't doing is helping with inflation:
Consumer prices rose 3.7% annually in September as gas prices skyrocket
Trump seems to have a plan though, although it is not popular even among Republicans:
Bipartisan group of senators call on Trump to rescind Russian diesel deal
Polling numbers and prediction markets also paint a pretty bleak forecast for the Republicans.
From Nate Silver:
If things go as they seem, we are about to witness the end of the age of Trump. If we get a Blue Tsunami -- and I believe we will -- Republicans are going to turn on him. Why wouldn't they? What can he offer them at this point but big fat L's. The only question now is what comes next on the Right, because it's certainly not Trumpism.
Trump was doing great until he decided to simp for Israel and attack Iran. The next Republican candidate could just keep Trump's playbook while doing away with the retarded stuff (Zionism, tariffs).
Sure, that person is J.D. Vance. But the problem is how does he get the retards motivated to vote? Trump is a uniquely talented politician because he can speak to regular people the way that someone like Vance or Buttigieg cannot.
It does feel existential because if Democrats get a trifecta in 2028, odds are high they will establish a permanent one party state.
No they are not. What an absurd claim.
It is not an absurd claim at all, in fact it's very likely to happen. But clearly need to explain what I mean.
I don't mean that Kamala Harris is going to abolish the republic and cancel elections. That would be absurd indeed. The odds are zero, or near to it.
Instead, a Democrat trifecta will pack the Supreme Court, abolish the filibuster, amnesty most illegal immigrants, and open the borders. None of this is at odds with statements that Kamala Harris and other top democrats have made. In fact, just yesterday Kamala reaffirmed her commitment to packing the Supreme Court.
Notably, none of this stuff is unconstitutional. It is eminently doable.
There will still be elections, but with all the new voters, the Democrats will have a lock on federal power for decades to come. Changing the rules for how elections work under the guise of fairness will also ensure a favorable result. For example, under the Voting Rights Act, states in the south were gerrymandered to give blacks special districts. Constitutional? Not really. But well within possibility and precedent. An enlarged Supreme Court with 4 new Kentanji Brown-Jackson level partisans will give official legal blessings to other similar efforts.
People think the two party system is a stable equilibrium. It is. But one party rule is even more stable. This is exactly what has happened in California. Republicans can still exercise some power in local areas, but they have been nearly entirely sidelined as a small Democrat majority ballooned into a supermajority through demographic change, left-wing justices overruling prop 187, and patronage networks.
So yes, if Democrats win the trifecta (with a little wiggle room for future Fettermans and Sinemas) I trust that they will do the things they have promised to do and fundamentally change the republic. As a result of these changes, it will become a one party state. There will still be Republican governors in many states. No one is getting sent to camps. But the only way to exercise power on the federal level will be through the Democratic Party. White people will face explicit racial discrimination worse than 2020. The type of grift which currently exists in heavily Democratic areas will extend to the federal level. Taxes will go up. Services will decline. We'll slowly slouch towards South Africa. And you'll be cancelled for noticing.
In other words, believe people when they tell you what they want to do.
I think this will not happen, I suspect they will go with what is seen as the compromise position in the democratic camp of establishing term limits such that each president gets to appoint a judge. Even if it did happen control of the supreme court does not end democract or cement single party rule.
This has been threatened every election and honestly I wish it would just happen finally. The filibuster only exists as an excuse for congress to not do their job because it's easier to tell voters that they aren't going to do the retarded things the voters want because of the filibuster than because the ideas are retarded and no one in congress actually wants to do them. Importantly the filibuster is not a ward against single part rule.
At most they'd give the Dreamers a pathway to citizenship and it would cost them a tremendous amount of their political capital. They are not going to open the border because it would be extremely unpopular, even among Hispanics. Who by the way are not a solidly Democratic voting base so long as you don't send under trained goons into their neighborhoods and constantly say weird white nationalist shit, you even associate with some weird blood and soil whignat adjacent people and do pretty well with them as evidenced by 2024.
Two parties is stable because if one party is totally out of the game then the one party splits. This happens in the Primaries in very red and blue areas because the national brand is too much overcome at this point. One part states are only stable if you can actually on an ongoing basis suppress any opposition and Americans are just not the type of people who would ever allow that. People on both sides are frothing at the mouth about the mere hallucinated fantasy of it happening so that they can resist whether it's in pink vagina hats or camo.
We've had big blowout elections before, this wouldn't be our first, just our first in a while because of Trumps monumental unpopularity combined with a legion of sycophants that demand the party embarrasses themselves for his honor.
While that would be reasonable, it's much harder to do without a constitutional amendment.
Hispanics are still a solid Democrat base although Trump was able to draw an unusually high number. The trend would have to survive a non-Trump candidate. We'll see. But there's still a big difference between the Mexican who've been here for a couple generations and the Guatemalans streaming across the border. The freshly arrived must be like 90-10 voting for the party that is going to give them amnesty and welfare. One cannot simply elide the difference. It's huge.
This hasn't happened since... ever so I'd chalk that up to theory. More likely we just go the route of California. One party equilibriums are extremely hard to break out of for the simple reason that the only path to power and patronage is through the one party. You see this in deep blue states where they can't find anyone decent to run for governor because why would they. Heck, you see it in Florida where obvious Democrats run as Republicans because they have to.
This is some pretty strong language. I'm starting to get the feeling that this is turning into a "it will never happen but when it does the Nazis deserve it." Being the voice of sober reasoning isn't so easy when deep feelings of anger and betrayal are evolved. And it's exactly this attitude that worries me. The blue team really, really, hates the red team. (Yes, much more than the inverse, there is data). Furthermore the left believes that hate is righteous, which makes it much more dangerous. We've seen some places go extremely far left as a result. Virginia and Massachusetts legalizing abortions of convenience up until the moment of birth was something that greatly saddened me. I can see how compassion can go out the window when politics gets too heated, and opposition just gets steamrolled.
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