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Today I will post of the ballot measures. Similar to 2024, there were a lot. What is notable to me is that many states that ended up electing Democrat politicians also ended up voting for many initiatives that I'd consider Republican priorities, including lower taxes and voter ID. This includes four states that limited transgender athletes, transgender bathroom access, and more, those four states being Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Washington.
One of my friends in Arizona quickly said that this might be the death of transgenderism as a politically relevant issue. He thought it was likely that the issue would be dropped as an election loser, as something that the people obviously did not want since they voted against it by majority in even what you might consider quite "Blue" states. I said what could be summarized as "I doubt it", maybe along with "you'd be surprised". I think I have been vindicated in saying this, as the Colorado governor is outright saying that he's going to fight these measures that have been passed to the best of his ability, and there are already schemes to nullify those ballot measures. Anecdotally, I see transgender rights commenters saying that the Arizona propositions are illegal even if the people did vote for them.
Most of these culture war issues are not things that can be resolved by simple votes. They can only be resolved through decades-long grueling lawfare. Blues don't take 'no' for an answer, as their responses to Heller and Bruen and now this ballot measure show.
Not gonna leave any room for persuasion or the "changes come one tombstone at a time"?
See any persuasion happening lately?
I don't. Only cold, hard, pragmatism is what determines which issues get talked about and which get dropped, and only blood-boiling elections that are the barest step above outright war determine which ones are pushed through. The loser can cry about it until the next election, and he can abuse lawfare to the best of his abilities and resources, but he certainly can't use logic and appeals to human decency to convince the winner to not trample him.
True to an extent, but there are plenty of new voting-age kiddos coming in ready to fight about Current Issue. They get it from the media they consume, a never-ending fire. There would have to be a lot of tombstones to change that, any time soon. Which really isn't outside the realm of possibilities.
I saw a lot of persuasion in the last two years. Plenty of people were persuaded to try Trump one more time in 2024, and plenty of people were persuaded to keep him in check in 2026. Think of Obama-Trump voters, they must have been persuaded. Even persuading them to stay home and not vote is itself a kind of persuasion. Trump, in a way, persuaded people not to vote for him. Also, to chalk off entire groups of people as propagandized and kool-aid drinkers of the "never-ending fire" media is just being condescending towards the American people. Young men 18-29 didn't swing 39-points from +14 Republican in 2024 to +25 Democrat in 26 so that you can call them "new voting-age kiddos". And if the Dems fuck it up, I wouldn't be surprised if the population swung again.
I also think there is a tendency to overestimate the intensity of partisan conflicts. "blood-boiling elections" are still double-digit steps in the ladder of conflict before reaching "outright war". And I really don't see many people being trampled by the others. Maybe it's because I'm an immigrant, but America and Americans are quite peaceful and prosperous, and sufficiently high on the Maslow hierarchy of needs that Sayre's Law is being performed at societal scale.
So all the US needs to do is bring back mass starvation, cannibalism, and ritual human sacrifice to put things in perspective. I wonder if voting on who becomes dinner would make politics more collegial.
That’s essentially what happened this election, things got bad enough economically that the choice became easier.
Then explain why Biden didn’t suffer much worse in 2022? The economy was worse then compared to now (was literally a recession — the only reason NBER didn’t call it a recession was due to employment numbers that later proceed to be massively overstated).
Things got bad enough economically because of the president's choices. Gas prices did peak June 2022 but the average voter I'm sure is able to differentiate when it's Russia starting a war then vs America starting a war now.
Gas prices didn’t get to where they were primarily because of Russia in 2022.
Notably, diesel got to where it was largely due to Ukraine’s efforts which seem targeted to get Dems elected. I hope Trump turns off all help to Ukraine and Ukraine gets overrun.
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