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Goodguy  2d ago (text post)   Edited 2d ago   9093 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”?

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?

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?

A: You're a shitty friend.

B: I helped you move house.

A: Sure, but that was weeks ago. What have you done for me lately? And anyway, you wouldn't do it again.

B: Since it got me this, I sure wouldn't.

A: See, you don't want to be my friend anyway!

You see the issue, right?

Look, from my perspective, 9/11 happened before I could even remember it, and the entire GWOT happened while I was too young to know much about it at all, and everyone hated it. The more appropriate analogy was not "you're my friend who helped me move my house last week" and more like "we were two fellow childhood delinquents who set fire to the school and now 30 years later we're both drugged-up squatters in our own houses". In this analogy, yes, the two former friends would have to be crazy to try to help each other. They can barely even help themselves.

Really, the U.K. isn't the worst of Europe, I'd say that award goes to Spain. But to me, most of Europe seems to be bloated and useless. In contrast, Israel blows people up every day, and they do it mostly face-to-face. They still do shit because they have to do shit.

I've seen you in other threads decrying anyone who wants to cut ties and break alliances. But why? What do you get out of such an alliance? That was more my point.

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