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Let's talk midterms. I haven't been keeping up with the races too much, but some quick research shows that Polymarket has odds for Democrats to take the House at ninety four percent and Democrats to take the Senate at seventy two percent (House market, Senate market). Apparently, the odds of a Republican sweep are down to five to seven percent (Balance of Power market).
Obviously, we can't really trust polls entirely. But I do trust the markets to be at least somewhat accurate, and so things are looking pretty horribly bad for Republicans. What are the actual implications if this happens? Because like I don't know, the second Trump term after Doge flopped, or rather, after Trump pulled back on Doge and was afraid to actually back them when it mattered. This whole term feels like kind of a mess.
What actual goals are going to be blocked by the Trump administration if the Democrats win a sweep? And I guess how much can they get done if they don't control the presidency? Or is it mainly, like, if they win the presidency in 2028 that things are gonna be bad? Walk me through the real ramifications of midterms flipping for the Democrats.
Why would it be bad?
I mean, I do not dispute that there are generally election outcomes which are bad, even capital-B Bad. Hamas winning the 2006 elections in Gaza comes to mind. Nor is it the case that US elections can not be bad or even Bad for people. I for one would not tell people killed in this or that airstrike by Obama or Trump that their outcome is not bad. Or more centrally some kid in the global south who previously benefited from some cheap health interventions courtesy of USAID.
But my impression is that for the median US citizen (as well as for most citizens of the Western world, thankfully), the outcome of a US election is rarely good or bad but seems mostly meh. Sometimes you get abortion bans (which can be circumvented through going to another state, ideally permanently if you care about that kind of thing), or Obamacare, or more DEI or less DEI or an Iran deal or Iran bombed or a federal minimum wage or a relaxation of environmental standards or deported immigrants or whatever. Perhaps a few more kids die of measles or get prescribed puberty blockers. The price of gas might move up or down, some large bodies of water might change their official name.
What Trump's policy which you consider a resounding success would be threatened by the Dems taking over Congress? They could certainly put a stop to his tariffs, thus costing every American whatever check he had promised them again. They could put a stop to his Iran adventure, but that was well within the expected outcomes from the start. They might get rid of all the cuts on social services from his Big Beautiful Bill scheduled to take place after the mid-terms, but if the GOP had been serious about cutting expenses why did they postpone these?
Or do you think that this time the woke Democrats are finally getting around to establishing Sharia law and making gayness mandatory? Or abolishing private property?
The strongest argument I can think of would be that due to the rise of
AISI, we are not living in normal, boring times but in a pivotal time for the future of our light cone. For example, the USG ASI alignment strategy seems to be that their president is very smart and thus can not possibly get outwitted by a rogue ASI. Under this premise, I agree that the US electorate picking someone who is less of a genius than Donald Trump might indeed spell disaster for mankind. Fortunately, I consider the premise so implausible on the face of it that I will not lose sleep over it.I don't think Democrats will do either. Washington has quietly coalesced around tariffs in general if not always in the particular. (Biden kept most of Trump 1's tariffs without much fanfare.) Iran is similar but different, in that Democrats are not actually going to capitulate to Iran -- their criticisms of Trump's foreign policy do not rise that far.
Because, ultimately, Democrats do not want to solve tariffs or Iran: they want to continue to campaign on them, forever. There are a few meaningful actions they could actually take that won't just get vetoed. They might even take them. But, on the whole, every incentive is screaming for them to write strongly-worded letters to the voters that, gosh, we tried, but we you need to vote for us in '28 or Donald Trump wins after all.
I do think it will be interesting which of Trump's positions get left in place. He's always been a bit of a bull in a china shop on policies, but "he's willing to gore just about anyone's sacred ox" is something I have occasionally seen cited as a strength. I think which changes get immediately reverted and which get left as-is will be revealing of the insider thinking in leadership.
I expect simple renaming things to be reverted, for example, but do I expect a reconstruction of USAID? Will we still build new "battleships" at all, or just rename the class? Missile defense? Mosquito and tick xenocide? I think the next Blue administration is going to have to think a lot about their border control strategy: there is probably room to be "kinder", but the issue probably sank the Biden campaign and I can't expect a return to those policies. I could even see "Department of War" sticking around: that used to be a pet issue for both progressives and Ron Paul types.
I have yet to see that the Democrats (or Republicans for that matter) actually learn from stuff like this.
The republicans have learned that shutting the texas border down against federal orders will win them the hispanic vote.
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