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Goodguy  3d ago (text post)   Edited 2d ago   9605 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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These midterms scare me.

  1. The Country feels ungovernable to me now. I don’t think there is a true majority to rule in any direction. We have a right, a left, and some entirely confused middle. In theory you should run like Mitt Romney or some boring dude and crush it but I don’t think voter distributions are linear like that. The country just from Trump being able to win the popular vote to Sayed’s winning elections easily.

  2. I’m honestly scared with Texas going blue. Demographically it seemed like that was a risks in decades. It’s been very important in terms of deregulation and keeping America moving forward in the physical world. Texas can’t be a California version of Texas. Florida I don’t believe can be Texas in US politics. Florida might be the home of the red tribe now but geographically I just don’t think it can be a manufacturing, agricultural, and scientific hub that is Texas. Before recent history Florida sold sunshine and Texas sold Oil.

  3. Palestine has a realistic path of defeating Israel now. Israel has zero friends now. Sayed’s are the new breed US politicians.

  4. There is little chance at stopping third world US. A better Brazil has to be the copium now. Somehow you need to keep out the wrong parts of the Middle East and India from America and close the border to Africa. If America starts getting lower caste Indians instead of Brahmins then it’s over.

  5. I’m somewhat becoming a socialists with AI. It somewhat already feels like only 10% of Americans are productive + a huge medical industrial complex + it feels like a huge amount of America is already on UBI. Maybe AI is just going to turn all of commerce into what happened in agriculture (from 90% of population to 2%)

  6. The only Democratically viable election strategy seems to be to lean into Hispanic voters. You can probably partner with them to keep Somalians out of the country. There vote appears to be what shifted Texas blue.

  7. You might also need to figure out how to play Indian caste politics to get current Indians to agree with limiting unlimited Indian immigrants.

I'll push back on number 3. America's bonhomie with Israel goes beyond a handful of politicians, too many locked-in commitments to reverse in one election. Maybe they will slow-walk some munitions, but nothing else changes.

On number 4, we shall see. Democrats will certainly try to appear pro-immigration to counter the GOP's perceived bigotry, but I don't expect to see more H1Bs anytime soon.

We can only hope the GOP takes the midterms as a census on the economy and foreign policy, learn the right lessons. They will probably lose 2028 though.

I don’t mean necessarily today that Israel falls, but I do think a S Africa path is becoming politically possible.

I still don't believe it. There are things that a hostile public opinion cannot move. We're talking eight decades of military cooperation, intelligence integration, co-developed defense systems, congressional commitments, and bureaucratic planning that have created substantial institutional inertia. A Democratic administration could restrict arms transfers or adopt a more confrontational diplomatic posture without dismantling that architecture, but we've seen glimpses of this before even under Republican administrations (Reagan and Bush Sr). Israel simply isn't a client state waiting for Washington to withdraw its blessing.

I don’t like losing elections. So Jews either need to figure out how to win American elections or it’s Ciao. Sure some deep state connections will continue but not much else.

That those deep state connections and not much else are driving the foreign policy wrt Israel, is my point. Remember Genocide Joe?

It’s already over. Next Democratic administration equipped with a majority will naturalize millions and open the doors to millions of ‘climate refugees’ from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Refugee numbers are set by the President, he can literally make them five million in a year, ten million even. There is no mandatory cap.

I agree that Brazil is now the best case scenario.

Since Trump managed to piss huge cultural advantage, why do you think democrats won't do the same? 2028 are far from over.

Two reasons:

  1. Even if the Republicans win a legislative / congressional landslide in 2028, it’s very unlikely they’d win back a majority, almost impossible.

  2. Trump will still be president until 2029, so will remain an unpopular incumbent and ‘in charge’ on Election Day for voters.

I’m not crying over any votes losts over ICE. That’s where you needed to spend political capital.

I guess it’s a cliche to say move to Canada but the right does need to think about serious investments with Peter Thiel into S America. Maybe you can actually built a refuge for a century there.

I’m not crying over any votes losts over ICE. That’s where you needed to spend political capital.

It was spent in a horribly stupid way though. Why was 20% ICE in Minneapolis going gangbusters on a random city? Galvanizing the population and getting US citizens shot by the Feds.

I’m not crying over any votes losts over ICE. That’s where you needed to spend political capital.

Why did ICE need to be in Minnesota going after Somalis who almost certainly have status and/or citizenship by this point?

Trump made unforced errors with ICE too even as he spent most of his capital there.

True. Felt like there was actually hope there for a minute.

What's the long term strategy for an individual here? Don't be poor and insulate yourself as best you can from the chaos? Retreat into walled gardens and focus on your own family and friends?

The idea that you can hide in a red state just got shattered to little pieces.

Strategy for what exactly? Surviving a Democratic legislature we had that four years ago too what did you do then? The Republican's are going to win again so you could volunteer.

Strategy would probably be to abandon the cities and decamp to the small towns. Work in trades or work remotely. Prioritize effort on local elections over state and national ones. Start grilling.

Don't be poor and insulate yourself as best you can from the chaos? Retreat into walled gardens and focus on your own family and friends?

You could retreat to the white people reservation of ID/MT/WY, but you're about 15 years late to the rush.

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