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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   7028 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026

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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.

There’s not a huge difference between 53 seats and 56 Dem seats for the remainder of Trump’s term, but it could have big repercussions for the country down the line. A 56+ seat majority in 2029 with a Democrat house and president probably abolishes the filibuster, packs the Supreme Court, and admits Washington DC and Puerto Rico as states.

Yes. They will also open the border and amnesty the people who are already here.

It will lead to a permanent one party state.

Of course, this requires the Democrats to win the Presidency in 2028 as well. Nevertheless, the best way to prevent this from happening is to secure Republican control of the senate. Since senators are elected for 6 years, this election will influence the likelihood of a one-party state in the near future.

It will lead to a permanent one party state.

No, it will not. Demographics and attitudes have changed before. For example, around 1861, the (Southern) Democratic Party was openly pro slavery, and a few years later that was simply no longer a majority-winning proposition, thus the Republican party ruled in perpetuity.

Not. Instead, what happened was that the Southern Democrats went from pro-slavery to merely horribly racist, which still won them elections. As attitudes changed, so changed the parties, because any party which does not try to be palatable to the median voter will generally not win elections (depending on gerrymendering, obviously).

If your model is e.g. that the Democrats will invite in zillions of Muslim third-worlders to bolster their rank, I would predict that at some point the woke leadership would clash with the immigrants over LGBT and women's rights, for example. For a Republican, campaigning on "should minors be allowed to get puberty blockers against the religious objections of their parents" would be an easy win.

Democrats very obviously intend to grant themselves overwhelming electoral advantages by making significant changes to America's political structure. They've been publicly discussing methods to achieve these goals for decades.

  • add states that lean overwhelmingly Blue to shift the electoral math.
  • Pack the Supreme Court, declare Redness unconstitutional.
  • Grant mass amnesty and voting rights to all the illegals.
  • Crush the ability of opposition to organize politically through the power of the federal Bureaucracy, destroy various corporate allies (notably Musk) who stand in the way.
  • Use lawfare to discourage professionals of any sort from joining or cooperating with Republican governments in the future.

Most of these tactics, individually, stand a good chance of excluding Red Tribe from political power for the foreseeable future if implemented. You can claim that this is not the same as a one-party state and that all of these are legitimate and even necessary actions if you like; I'm sure that other Blues will agree.

I think the claim is that if these things happened, the Republican Party would simply move leftwards to maintain equilibrium; so you could get a hegemony of current-Blue-Tribe values without one-party rule. Which I realize might come across as a distinction without a difference to an actual Red Triber, but from an outside view, "the Overton window moves leftwards but the parties continue to exist as separate entities opposing one another" is something that has happened before without destroying the country, unlike one-party rule.

Yes, I think this is obviously how Blues would and do perceive the question, and this is my point. I think you and other Blues here could probably supply the negative space to the comment you've made here; my point is that you aren't really inclined to, and in the final analysis that lack of inclination is probably dispositive. Blues will do things they've said they want to do because they really do want to do them, and because they can't summon the conviction to argue that they shouldn't, or even to really grok why it might be a bad idea.

I'm torn. It's not a complicated conversation to have, and you and others don't even seem all that opposed to having it, but my point is that at the point that this is the conversation we're having, its probably already too late for the conversation to do much good. "Why is a one-party state a bad idea" would be the obvious starting point, but I've never seen a Blue get even that far; "It's not a one-party state though." Correct, it isn't. Do you think it should be necessary for someone else to argue why there's still a serious problem? I can do that, if so; I'm pretty sure I can do it entirely by quoting my own previous comments. We can probably have an interesting discussion about it. It seems to me that underlying this idea is the Blue axiom that there's some sort of foundational requirement for that conversation to settle the issue by mutual consent: if Reds can't convince Blues that it's a bad idea, then Blues have a right to do it and Reds have to suck it up. But of course, these issues are issues because Blues can't actually persuade Reds, so this rounds to "we will force you, you must persuade us", which is in my view a fair summary of Blue Tribe's understanding of how politics should, has, and does work generally. It's even true, as far as it goes; so how far does it go, and where are we when it stops?

Another example would be Trace's old argument about Reds getting wiped out of major institutions like the legal profession. It's a thing that is happening, and could plausibly continue to happen right out to the asymptote. Trace's argument is that this is Reds' own fault for various reasons, and so it's on Reds to solve the problem or accept complete exclusion. My perception is that he's not really interested in discussing the question of what happens if Reds don't aw-shucks and just take the L, and would rather imagine that excluding a third to a half of the country from (all?) major centers of power means Blues win and everything is basically fine. I think that's a very foolish way to look at the world, especially given recent history, but then I'm a Red, so what do I know?

Another example would be Trace's old argument about Reds getting wiped out of major institutions like the legal profession. It's a thing that is happening, and could plausibly continue to happen right out to the asymptote.

I think about that article any time I see lawyers in the Trump admin do something that leads me to believe they've never heard of the Administrative Procedure Act. It is the easiest possible way for a hostile judge to shut down something the administration has done, and they keep stepping on that rake repeatedly. "You can just do things," right up until you run afoul of basic notice of proposed rulemaking or public comment requirements. Sometimes it feels like Stephen Miller is the only competent conservative lawyer in the admin.

It doesn't matter if they follow the rules or not. The statutory language for ending Temporary Protected Status explicitly excludes the decision from judicial review, yet judges kept striking down the administration's ending of it for various groups (and now that the Supreme Court has ruled in the administration's favor, I believe some judges are still doing it).

It's not a matter of the Trump admin not following the rules. It's a matter of the game being Calvinball.

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