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Goodguy  23hr ago (text post)   Edited 20hr ago   6713 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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https://x.com/JDVance/status/2118004988433641835

But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.

Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:

  1. End the war
  2. Focus on cost of living/inflation
  3. Put America First
  4. Change our relationship to Israel

In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.

The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.

How will the “Israel is our ally” crowd handle this admission from the VP? By the results, Israel is only the ally of the Democrats: they handed the country over to them by instigating a stupid war through the ears and advisors of Trump. They chose their own petty Middle Eastern feud over what’s good for America and American conservatism.

Joe Kent, as the Chief of Staff at the DNI in 2025 and early 2026, was one of only a dozen or so Americans with access to the totality of America’s intelligence across all 18 agencies. He knows things we have never and will never hear of. He resigned from his role in order to call out this dynamic:

Israel knew the war on Iran would not be quick or easy, they just knew they had to get President bought in by killing Ayatollah Khamenei. President Trump he was aware of all these risk factors, but he chose to listen to Benjamin Netanyahu and he chose to listen to very pro-Israel voices within his inner circle. The President was aware of it, but again, he had a very small circle around him saying, “No, no, Iran’s a paper tiger. They didn’t hit you after Operation Midnight Hammer. You were able to, you know, just slide into Venezuela, kidnap the President, There’s already protesters on the street.” This whole thing’s going to be over in three or four weeks. That’s what the Israelis told him. Meanwhile, getting him to sign on to killing the Ayatollah, The Israelis, when I would interact with them, they were always very clear-eyed. They knew that this was not going to be a quick war, but for them, getting us involved in this slog to take out the regime was always their primary objective. And they sold it to President Trump as something that was going to be very easy, knowing that all they had to do was get us bought in.

Further,

When Dubowitz says “for the next two & a half years” he is basically admitting that the initial goal of the pro Israel lobby was to get us into this war knowing that once we were in, it would be very difficult for us to get out. Dubowitz & the Israelis alway knew this would be a very long war, but lied to Trump & the admin with tales of a decapitation strike leading to a popular uprising, resulting in a quick victory. They knew this was a lie. They will continue to lie to get us to do their bidding, regardless of what it costs our nation. Rooting out foreign influence starts with cutting off access to Israeli surrogates like FDD.

And…

Traitors are people who lie and get our troops killed in needless wars that don’t serve our country. The Israeli lobby knows this war has been a disaster for public support, and they are panicking. It’s advocates are working overtime to try and justify the mess they got our country into.

Manipulating & inflating intelligence is how we got into the disastrous Iraq war—we should know better. Unfortunately, thanks to the Israeli lobby & its paid influencers, we’ve ended up in this situation yet again, this time with a much more consequential country and a war that is shaping up to be an even bigger mess.

I know a lot of people here still consider Israel an “ally” or at least a neutral country in the grand scheme of things. Do these midterm results change your opinion? Do they shift you toward seeing Israel as a dangerous “enemy within”?

In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.

Vance is widely hated and has to try to defend his future candidacy against Rubio (who despite being both more neoliberal than Vance and more in favor of the Iran War will be perversely less associated with it than Vance simply because Vance is uniquely ugly and unlikeable).

Neither are likely to win the 2028 nomination, which will be a bloodbath that will end in a compromise candidate rejected by Trump (who will endorse Rubio or someone even more venal), after an early primary defeat for Vance, lobbied against by the outgoing candidate, who will easily lose to Newsom or (god forbid) Ossoff.

[Ossoff would be the worst thing to ever happen to American Jews, so I can only cope by hoping he loses the primary race]

[Ossoff would be the worst thing to ever happen to American Jews, so I can only cope by hoping he loses the primary race]

Interesting. Could you elaborate?

I know a lot of people here still consider Israel an “ally” or at least a neutral country in the grand scheme of things. Do these midterm results change your opinion? Do they shift you toward seeing Israel as a dangerous “enemy within”?

In what sense is a country having their own goals and desires a cause for them to be neutral or even an "enemy within"? In the UK, you'll find plenty of right wingers who grumble about the so-called "special relationship" with the US, remarking that the relationship appears to be entirely one-sided, the UK doing anything the US wants while getting very little in return. And plenty of these people advocate for a more independent relationship because of that, which is fine. But absolutely none of these people will declare that the US is an "enemy within" just because they seek to gain things from the alliance.

Announcing that I voted democrat because I didn't like this or that, maybe I was told that I shouldn't like this or that - simplified, I know, but...

We all should know what is good for our lives, the lives of our families, neighborhoods, communities. We should know right now what we should be voting for next election, and the next, and the next. Doing the ultimate cut-your-nose-off to spite your face is unintelligent and should not be allowed.

I declared that there ought to be an intelligence test for US voters back in 2010.

Hypotenuse, harmony, harpy, hiccup. If you need to look up more than one of these words to either spell it correctly or to get its definition, then you should not be voting.

Hypotenuse, harmony, harpy, hiccup.

Why are you spelling hiccough wrong?

Doing the ultimate cut-your-nose-off to spite your face is unintelligent and should not be allowed.

You appear to believe that outcomes you don't agree with should be against the rules. It is hard to imagine a less productive concept of politics, particularly where you have no rule-making or -enforcing power.

Trump ran on no foreign wars, and then started a stupid, destructive foreign war. Republicans prominently mocked the idea of using government power to help the objectively most disadvantaged and most loyal constituency they had. You think they should be rewarded for these actions?

These “wars” end up in America whether you like it or not. Iran I guess you can say wouldn’t. Venezuela we already had millions getting US benefits here on asylum. While they also destabilized other neighbors.

Republicans prominently mocked the idea of using government power to help the objectively most disadvantaged and most loyal constituency they had.

What is this referring to?

Young white men, the $20 burrito affordability question, prominent Republicans pretending that they're going to balance the budget and that's why intervention in the economy just can't be done.

Can you tell me what policy could have helped the white men? Removing labor market competition they tried to do and was partially successful at. They did a solid job at hitting DEI which removed some roadblocks to jobs. Cutting food stamps and other UBIs in the economy would help with inflation and they should ramp that up.

But for 2 years in power they an ok jump at the “help the white man” levers.

Looting the treasury to give them money directly would have been a pretty good option. Serious retaliation toward the institutions that had been targeting them wouldn't have been bad. But actively mocking them and their concerns was a very bad idea, and a lot of Republicans chose to do that.

Which is why young white men refused to fight in the civil war-by-proxy.

There’s plenty of room for other nations to pick up the 100 dollars on the ground, at least. Ironically, a successful reform party seeking that demographic should probably be female; at least that way you’d have a leader that is at least attracted to the idea they exist.

(Glances at Alberta.)

In all my time of paying attention to politics, I don't remember ever seeing a Vice President so boldly question one of the President's core policies (Iran war in this case). Maybe I'm forgetting some examples, but this seems quite unusual to me.

I don't know what Vance truly believes about Iran. My guess is that he genuinely has no interest in waging the war. I remember some news that Vance was skeptical of the war before Trump launched it. But this is definitely good politics one way or another, if Vance wants to stay a major player.

Wild to see Vance rushing to put forth the optics that he basically agrees with Nick Fuentes on major aspects of where the right should go from here. (And these are actually some of the main things that Fuentes has been excoriating him for.)

Didn’t Trump announce cutting funding to Israel yesterday? This looks to me like the admin together admittedly a mistake. Which shows the ability to adapt.

Netanyahu has been floating that idea for over a year now. He then told Trump to stop sending them those 3.6-4bn that they've been receiving annually. Point being that, whatever it is, it's not Trump or the admin dumping the Israelis. At best it's Israel recognizing that they're becoming a drag on their own horse, and are trying to lighten the load so it doesn't collapse. But if that were a serious position, the timing is certainly awful and made completely irrelevant by the Iran war.

A much simpler explanation is that Netanyahu is making his own play for his own politics in Israel, and its effect on America is irrelevant to the decision being made.

There's been a long-running conspiracy theory on /r/politics that Vance would oust Trump after the midterms so he could get 10 years as president. Of course, they thought that would happen after the 2018 midterms.

??? Vance wasn't VP in 2018...

I assume he means

Of course, they thought Pence would do that after the 2018 midterms.

In all my time of paying attention to politics, I don't remember ever seeing a Vice President so boldly question one of the President's core policies

Cheney being pro gay marriage comes to mind. Though gay marriage was just barely within the overton window at that time so I'm not sure how core that was to Bush's platform or if the electorate even cared what Cheney thought.

I don't know what Vance truly believes about Iran.

He was shilling it in a live TV interview the day he was announced as Trump’s running mate. Unprompted!

Oh, what did he say?

When all is said and done, as much as I like Israel and want them to succeed, as much as I can justify their actions from their perspective, if they're a political liability, I'm in favor of dropping them. Their prosperity is not worth trading our own, and I don't like justifying actions we take in furtherance of their agenda to other bitter voters.

At the same time, I hope this means we drop Europe even harder, because they are far worse allies than Israel is (was?).

I hope this means we drop Europe even harder, because they are far worse allies than Israel is

Remind me, which of those shed blood and treasure when America asked them to go into Afghanistan to avenge 9/11?

That Europe is now 25 years ago and no longer exists. If you look up things like fighting men and equipment they don’t have it anymore to do 9/11 nor then political will to respond in that way again.

Yes you got old.

This is same as the Holocaust. Maybe Europeans owed Jews a debt in 1945. Now they’ve had 80 years to build and should be on their own.

Yeah, I find it amusing on how America fucks up essentially an unconditional alliance that is in reality impervious to any domestic politics in Europe (and at the very least, in relation to any alternative alliances), then proceeds to blame Europe for being a bad ally.

Think they'd do that again today? Not the same river, not the same man. And excluding Israel may have been more of a strategic decision since they are a lot closer to the conflict and get blood running hot quicker among the locals.

I understand there's a small percentage of disenfranchised right wing voters in these European countries. But it's kind of like giving aid to North Korea; you know that any alliances you build will be with the wrong people. That's democracy in action for you. It would be better for both parties if the postwar liberal order was destroyed.

Last time it went really badly, and not 25 years later Americans are calling us the worst allies ever. We’d have to be insane to do it again.

Sounds like the feeling is mutual, then. Why complain about it?

We should not have gone, and we should not have asked you to go.

We cannot be your allies, because there is no "we", and because there is nothing to offer you, no basis for cooperation. What did our previous cooperation secure? What accomplishment stands as the great testament to what a unified West can achieve?

Think they'd do that again today?

When is Israel going to do it for the first time? And when will it be held against them that they haven't yet?

Also, how many of your ships have we sunk?

Why would I hold it against them? There were already good reasons for them to stay out, as I just said, and the GWOT was a miserable failure anyway. New enemy's China, and most of Europe is flirting with China. I could hold that against Israel if you showed me that.

Israel also isn't ruining itself as fast as Europe. If we're gonna be married (aligned), do you have to get all those facial piercings and tattoos (foreigners) and refuse to do housework (pay your NATO fees)?

Frankly, I don't even know what you want. Do you like NATO? Do you like liberalism? Why, when it's brought you such eternal rewards? Not wanting to be cut loose is wanting all those eternal rewards.

Why would I hold it against them?

Just seems fair if you hold against us not repeating it in a hypothetical future.

If we're gonna be married (aligned), do you have to get all those facial piercings and tattoos (foreigners)

You're the one to talk!

and refuse to do housework (pay your NATO fees)?

Hey! Some of us are paying them!

Do you like NATO?

Sure.

Do you like liberalism?

Not so much anymore, but I'm not going to stick my nose into what you do at home.

Why, when it's brought you such eternal rewards? Not wanting to be cut loose is wanting all those eternal rewards.

Honestly, going our own ways is fine too. No hard feelings on my side.

NATO doesn't have fees.

No, but it has expectations which involve some costs. You know what seething_spendcel meant.

The argument that the US pays for Europe's defence is stupid because American defence spending mostly goes towards fighting its own pointless wars. Europe would be no less safe if the US hadn't started the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently Iran. Europeans wouldn't object if the US were to halve its defence spending, bringing it in line with Europe, with the savings being found in not starting pointless wars.

When Europe actually had to step up to fund Ukraine, it did. It has sent more aid to Ukraine than the US.

There was that weird incident in the Gulf War (1993) where Iraq was launching missiles at Israel trying to goad them into the war, on the basis that their involvement would make all the (closer) Gulf State members of the Coalition nope out of fighting on the same side as The Jews.

Things get weird sometimes.

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