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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   20636 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026

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I really don't like making grand pronouncements (I think it's a bit narcissistic) but since I seem to have a reputation on The Motte I think it's only fair to take my licks:

  • Midterms were worse than I thought. I would have guessed 49-53 Senate seats for Dems and 220-230 seats in the House.
  • The collapse is so bad that I think it necessitates some new theories about how American politics works. I.e. I don't think Trump's record right now is worse than Bush in 2006 or Obama in 2010 or Biden in 2022. Voters clearly disagree? Inflation reached 8% in 2022, gas right now is lower adjusted for inflation than it was under Obama.
  • Obviously, Iran is very unpopular. I still accept Trump's judgment that it was the right thing to do and I still believe that the war is (plainly) a military success. (Call me crazy!)
  • Trump is a fighter and is going to strike back. I think all calls for his impeachment or step down are bad politics and also bad reads of Donald Trump.
  • Texas with Blue governance would be worse value than California or Illinois, because you don't even have the nice beaches and beautiful cities. But predictions that Texas is about to precipitously decline are overblown. (Texas has a lot of hot smart and beautiful people.)
  • I think the AI buildout will probably not stop, although it will have to reassess. I maintain that AI is so powerful that it's bad for Democrats to hand it over to Republicans even if it polls extremely well in the short and medium-term. I expect that a lot of AI Pause rhetoric will merely grease the wheels for Dems and tech to come to a new arrangement.
  • A lot of my friends who were loyal Trump guys are crashing out now. I do think it's still too soon to call this the death of MAGA, and there is no going back to the old establishment Republican consensus.
  • We're probably closing the window, globally, on a 10-year exuberance of populism and replacing it with something else. To those inclined to gloat, I suspect that whatever comes next will actually be worse for everybody. (For example, imagine a MAGA-Groyper fusion.) (You're going to miss Trump when he's gone.)
  • I think the Groypers might be earning a place in the future.
  • There have been a lot of predictions about Dems undergoing a realignment 10 years after the Republican realignment. I don't think this will happen at all. DSA and center-lib-left Dems will coexist quite peaceably in the way that only political allies that hate each other can.
  • The results were worse than I expected and losing will carry a lot of political consequences. But I maintain that midterms still matter for very little. The powers that Democrats are unlocking for themselves (such as imperiling the future of a Republican SCOTUS) are weak compared to the powers of the president.
  • I do not believe that Democrats are on the cusp of a permanent one-party state or any other despair narratives I see on the right. I don't think this will be true even if they do win in 2028.

Blah blah blah, words words words, excuses excuses, feel free to get your licks in now.

It’s not a victory because as I and everyone else here told told you over and over again the war wasn’t actually over and when the Democrats blow out the Midterms, Trump will have to cut an embarrassing and humiliating deal. The Iranian regime is still around and the US accomplished almost none of their stated war aims (only sank their blue water navy). The best case scenario is now the pre-war consensus. Nobody will ever be dumb enough again to try to topple this regime, so it completely backfired. They will almost assuredly keep their nuclear material. It was a national humiliation.

Like what pisses me off the most is that the rest of the world is now going to have to pay a Hormuz toll for however many next decades because of this crap. And if things get worse, we may also end up having to pay a Bab Al Mandeb toll to Yemen. The US is effectively insulated from this becuase it's literally on the other side of the world but the rest of us all have to suffer

the rest of the world is now going to have to pay a Hormuz toll for however many next decades because of this crap.

Maybe the rest of the world should have done something about it then, instead of sitting around and dunking on Trump.

Do what? Every time USA doing something bad, the response of civilized world is just wait and hope it ceases to do bad.

The post-ceasefire Strait of Hormuz ship-escorting was the window of opportunity for the 'civilized world' to shape the prospect of future maritime protection racket fees, because it was the chance for non-belligerents to credibly signal where they stood on the spectrum from sovereign defense of free maritime traffic through international waters to willingness to accept unilateral maritime boundary changes and corresponding extortion.

This might (or might not) have mattered because the Iranian strategy would have factored an international maritime escort coalition into their negotiating strategy differently than a US-only effort. Had, say, French and Indian vessels been escorting Qatari LNG and kept escorting despite the first few UAV attacks, then the Iranian strategic forecasts might have differed, seen it as a non-viable strategy, and shifted course month within a few months.

Instead, the Iranians (correctly) judged that the civilized world would rather pay protection racket fees than to defend their flagged shipping, would offset the blame of continued attacks onto the Americans, and so made the bet that they should prolong the conflict past the mid-terms to increase their negotiating leverage. Which is just as likely to be increased beyond 2029, since the midterms don't actually compel Trump to make a deal and in various ways make it less likely. Which could mean years more of the Strait of Hormuz disruption.

The civilized world's chance for a quicker off ramp to a world less likely to have tolls was back in April-May. The collective (non)decision since then has given the uncivilized world the better part of a year to start forming their own thoughts on further ways to get their own cut.

If the USA just vanished in thin air tomorrow Iran would still be bombing ships and charging tolls. So maybe if the rest of the world doesn't like tolls they should do something about it.

The question stands: do what?

Comment above pretty much explains it better than I can, I agree with this 100%: https://www.themotte.org/post/4059/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/495534?context=8#context

Trump is the whole reason that's happening, if it is. "Dunking on" him is entirely appropriate.

Maybe, but it won't help them resolve their situation at all

Maybe if Trump hadn't started bombing Iran in the first place we'd still have no tolls on Hormuz.

Yeah but so what. If the rest of the world would rather have tolls than lift a single finger, then they deserve it all the more.

This kind of mentality is why the right just lost Texas, South Carolina, and friggin' Mississippi.

Ideology is a hell of a drug, and some people just have a hard time letting it go. Not targeting anyone in particular, but at some point you have to ask yourself why you bother having these conversations when it gets to this point; and just walk away.

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