Trump Is a Bigger Drag on Republicans Than the Democratic Party Is on Democrats
A trio of new polls conducted as part of The Cook Political Report’s Battleground Project found Democrat Josh Turek ahead of Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson 46% to 44% in Iowa; former Sen. Sherrod Brown leading Republican Sen. Jon Husted 49% to 43% in Ohio; and former state Rep. James Talarico besting Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton 49% to 44% in Texas.
The polls, which were conducted for The Cook Political Report Oct. 9-13 by Democratic firm New River Strategies and Republican firm GS Strategy Group, also showed Democratic candidates leading in two of the three governors’ races in these states, each of which President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024.
In Iowa, Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand leads Republican Zach Lahn by 11 points (54% to 43%). In Ohio, Democrat Amy Acton is ahead of Republican Vivek Ramaswamy by five points (49% to 44%). In Texas, incumbent GOP Gov. Greg Abbott is leading Democrat Gina Hinojosa by just two points (48% to 46%).
Democratic Candidates Are More Trusted on Voters’ Top Concerns
In all three states, the Democratic candidates are more trusted than their Republican opponents to handle inflation, corruption and lowering the cost of energy and gas prices. Republicans still hold an advantage on taxes and immigration, but those issues have become less salient to voters in a cycle dominated by day-to-day cost-of-living concerns.
For example, in Texas, Talarico leads Paxton on the three issues that about nine-in-ten Texans rate as important or very important to them: corruption (Talarico leads by +6), inflation (+4) and the economy overall (+3). In comparison, 61% of Texas voters call immigration and the border — the rare issue that voters say they trust Paxton more to handle — as important or very important to their vote.
“Republicans have spent years trying to make ‘Democrats will raise your taxes’ an automatic fear,” said Democratic pollster Lindsay Vermeyen of New River Strategies. “But the fundamental problem for Republicans is that voters see a tax system rigged for billionaires and large corporations — and it’s hard to be the party of working people when that’s the system you’re fighting for.”
Trump Is a Bigger Drag on Republicans Than the Democratic Party Is on Democrats
All three Senate Democratic candidates are breaking even in their favorability rating, while all three of their Republican opponents are underwater by double digits.
“The economic center of the American electorate is collapsing on Republicans,” said GOP pollster Greg Strimple of GS Strategies. “Voters are so upset with the lack of leadership on reducing their cost of living, they appear willing to propel Democrats to upset victories in reliably Republican states despite the fact that Democrats are less popular than either President Trump or Republicans. The level of voter discontent is truly unprecedented.”
Third Party Candidates Could Be Critical
Even the strongest Democrats in these deep red states could struggle to get to 50% support, given the makeup of the electorate. But they may not need to.
In Iowa and Ohio, third party candidates are taking a significant share of the vote, especially among independent voters. In Texas, Libertarian Ted Brown is taking 3% of the vote.
For example, in Iowa, 8% of voters, including one in five independents, currently support Libertarian nominee Thomas Laehn. It’s possible that some of these voters are confusing him with Republican gubernatorial nominee Zach Lahn, but it’s also likely that many of them are simply disaffected with both parties and are parking themselves in the Libertarian camp for now. Given the closeness of this race, the winner may depend on whether these voters ultimately stick with a third-party candidate protest vote, hold their nose to vote for Hinson or Turek, or just throw up their hands and stay home.
The Bottom Line
Earlier this cycle, Republicans counted on three key advantages to hold the Senate majority: financial firepower, a map dominated by historically ruby red states, and an unpopular Democratic brand.
Yet, with just two weeks until Election Day, those advantages have faded. The narrative of the election is indisputably a referendum on an unpopular president whose policies and priorities voters blame for their economic anxiety and hardships, even in states where he coasted to victory two years ago.
Mish: Narrow Lead or Substantial Lead?
Cook Political: In Ohio, where 7% of all voters —including 13% of independents — are picking either the independent or Libertarian candidate for Senate, Brown would only need win a small percentage of these to reach a majority of the vote, whereas Husted would need all of those voters to ultimately break his way to reach a bare 50% of the vote.
Is that a narrow lead or very substantial lead?
Even a two percent Iowa polling error could result in a Republican hold. But Turek has some additional wind behind his back with the Iowa Governorship certainly headed Democrats’ way.
It’s easy enough to vote straight Democrat and walk away, or simply not vote at all if you are a disgusted Republican.
Cook Political still rates Ohio, Texas, Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, and Maine as tossups which I view as overly cautious if not downright silly.
At +6 in Ohio and +5 in Texas, Democrats could win with a three percent polling error easily.
Governor Races
If you want to discuss “narrow lead” look no further than Greg Abbott leading Democrat Gina Hinojosa for Texas Governor by just two points (48% to 46%).
In Iowa and Ohio, Republicans are going down hard in gubernatorial races.
Other polls show you can add Alaska to that mix.
Nate Silver Number of Seat Odds
I concur with Silver that +6 is the single most likely outcome.
+7 would include Kansas. +8 would add Nebraska. And +9 would add South Carolina or some other state no one is even discussing.
Silver has +3 at 8.3 percent. That would be something like Republicans holding Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Texas but losing North Carolina, Alaska, and Ohio. Switch Ohio and Texas if you like.
Silver has +9 at 7.6%. Anyone buy that? It’s possible. That’s how angry everyone is.
I am willing to put a lot of weight on these new Senate polls.
And a new New NYT/Siena poll today shows Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by 11 percentage points in New York Times/Siena poll.
Plus we are running out of time. The election is only 12 days away.
As a result, I am upping my odds of Democrats winning the Senate from 65 percent to 70 percent.
I live in Texas Mish, and know many Trumpite Republicans. Not a one of them is “not voting”. They are all voting straight R ticket because the Dims R So Bad!!!
I hope this is right, but, Lucy has pulled the ball away too many times here in Texas during my lifetime. I’ll believe it when I see it, unfortunately.
the greatest modern Texan of all time was W the dumber. after 9.11.01 he unified the whole empire by telling all amerikans to GO SHOPPING. no wonder our boys got their asses kicked even though we outspent the “enemy” 500,000 to one. of course 9.11.01 and the rest of it is just one big grift. read the neocon think tank in 1990s, project for the new amerikan century if you have doubts.
Phil in CT
21 days ago
Just a reminder for anyone doubting my claims that a lot of what you see is disinformation from US adversaries-
Covert Russian Group Injects Baseless Claim Into the Texas Senate Race
Russian influence operations appear to be stepping up efforts to meddle in the midterms, according to intelligence officials. Most are targeting Democrats.
“According to intelligence officials…” Like the 51 intelligence officials that Blinken got to sign a letter saying the Hunter Biden laptop story had “all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation”? When will you start to understand that American Intel is driven by ideology and the major media outlets are state-affiliated media?
Sentient
21 days ago
Am I the only one who won’t be surprised if Nixon wins in Florida?
Webej
21 days ago
American politics is now more than ever between Scylla & Charybdis.
Regardless, the ship of state will stay on the same heading.
Voter turn-out is completely dependent on whether they hate the other side enough to turn out for their two minutes of hate.
Anyone who thinks the Democrats will be responsible and keep the middle of the road is going to be sorely disappointed.
Anyone who chooses a side is so level 1 and dunning-Kruger in my mind.
How can anyone believe selfishness = ethical = capitalism.
Capitalism just right-wing tyranny, might makes right, he who has the money makes the rules. What kind of fucked up system is this?
History is going to shit all over 100% business people and capitalists. Such monkey level thinking to believe rich people or politicians care one iota of your health or well being. Your neighbor cares more about you then the capitalist politician banker.
So after winning WW2, America forgot all politicians are literal pieces of shit who lie and will sell out your children for their own gains?
Politicians are the scum of the earth, that’s the whole point of democracy in the ideal, to stop politicians from having absolute power; because politicians since the dawn of time are the worst people on earth.
You either want rule by the strong or you give your neighbor some trust.
Be honest and conscious.
there’s a reason every empire ends in horror and death and millions dying, because politicians are evil.
I disagree. I think the young are clamoring for a changing of the guard and it will come, someday soon, if not in this cycle.
To me, the idea of traditional R’s and D’s will soon be over. But, I see young Democrats with ideas about the future, while I see old Republicans yearning for an age that will never return.
Rogerroger
21 days ago
The only difference between trump and the Republican Party in general is trump is out in the open. The graft/ hate/ support for very wealthy etc. maybe the base is starting to see the light.
Example
I caught a bit of an interview. Npr was talking a republican candidate in ca. when asked about gerrymandering he said trump made a mistake when he put it out into to open where he should have just made a phone call. went on to say the other states would not been able to react in time. He then proceeded to kind of back track.
I do hope the gerrymandering in ca brings the dems a bit back to the center. Since reps will have to take the republicans in the district a bit more seriously.
Mike
21 days ago
ZH: FCC Chair Warns Broadcasters On Airing Fake Polls
Pollster Cited By NY Times, Other Outlets Admits It’s Fake
Wasn’t it H.R. McMaster who wrote something like, in Trump 1.0, the Trump morning briefings were reduced first to 3 short bullet points, then it was realized he only read the first 2, so the content was squeezed and dumbed down into the first 2.
Most of the new winners from +3 to +6/7/8/9 will be automatic Rotating Villain candidates. Add to that, a few from the 47+3 crowd as well and we are done!
William Jacksona
21 days ago
The voters know the traitorous Illegal immigration voter base build of the Democrat gang would return if they are allowed to return to power. Polls are manipulated in favor of the Gang every election.
The polls are generally accurate. It’s going to be a blue wave. The thing about staunching the flow of illegal immigrants into the country is that it moves that issue downward on people’s list of priorities. Republicans are viewed less badly on immigration than they are on every other issue. It’s not a positive for them (probably because of ICE tactics), but it’s their least bad issue. I’m pretty adamant about keeping the border secure, but after Trump’s illegal and monumentally stupid war on Iran, he, the GOP and zionists generally need to be punished and thwarted as much as possible.
Yes the Iranian Islamic CULT with a Nuclear BOMB is no big deal –STUPID
Libtards –Islam is a political cult like the Natzies wanting world domination they use religion as a cover for brainwashing and propaganda for the stupid.
The west has fought Islam for thousands of years—If they follow the Quran they are terrorist as well
Yeah, that’s why they’ve had so much success in 39 years completely shaking up our lives on a daily basis in the USA. Wasn’t oil coming out of the straits fine until precisely the moment Trump attacked them?
IN Minnesota a register voter can vouch for up to 8 others to register to vote
Albert
21 days ago
The Republican Party as a whole is by now so openly embracing into-your-face corruption that you have to worry that it has decided to simply ignore the outcome of the midterms.
Agredd, always has been. Successful societies rely on a social contract where the elite are allowed special privilege as long as they meet the needs of the masses. Caesar : “you must only shear the sheep, not flay them”. History is very clear that when this contract breaks it never ends well. When multiple greedy, ignorant, small minded fools end up in power due to the breakdown of the social contract, its a bad sign. Hopefully the USA can recover, but the odds are not great
Sad? Think of all the new people that they’ll be able to shift blame for their moronic actions to!
Tom
21 days ago
I hope the results are decisive. The Republican party needs to change or die out. We can’t throve as the White Christian nation they want.
We might survive in the same way N. Korea survives but we definitely won’t be living well.
Personally, I think Trump has brought us a generation of great difficulty. He has destroyed our global reputation, turning us into something to avoid at all costs. He has reduced our economy to oligarchs only. Everyday there are thousands of bankruptcies in the agricultural community and every single one of those bankruptcies is being picked up by the Big Agriculture. Nobody wants a data center but data centers are being installed and communities which are too poor to defend themselves against the legions of lawyers that are coming from other parts of the country. This destroys those communities and reduces them to industrial neighborhoods with they pollutions.
This country is never going back to what it was. That’s been destroyed. I don’t know how we go forward. Historically, the wealth inequality suggests the oligarchs will need Flock to police every person on their actions, words, and thoughts. They will need Ai to regulate the population and prevent any unpleasant disruptions to their new society. That is what we will be fighting for the next generation.
If you can’t tell the parties apart at this point that’s on you.
Let me give you a hint: mega billionaires are funding one party almost exclusively, through dark money hidden behind pacs, while the other is funded mostly by small donations. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, well, that’s on you again.
Biden and HRC were entirely dependent on superPAC cash, to a greater extent even than Trump.
Fraid it ain’t that simple.
JCH1952
21 days ago
Actually I think having the house committee investigate why the WNBA does not want to define what a woman is will turn the tide Red. It’s a savvy political move. Seeing these big strong conservative males grabbing those liberal lesbian WNBA women by their pussies and forcing them against their wills to define what a woman is will excite MAGA voters everywhere.
People are sick and tired of those conservative males being in the room because they have proven themselves to be nothing but predators. They seek money and power and what better expression of power than the abject subjugation of women and especially girls. There’s a lot of dominant power being expressed raping a little boy/girl and that’s what they crave, power
Like Gitmo? Like the bankruptcy act of 2006 that made it harder to discharge student debt? Like another war or another troop surge? Maintaining sanctions and tariffs? Using the Hague to jail 3rd worlders?
There is no collateral to reclaim when the debt isn’t paid. You can’t repo an education like you can repo a car.
The only thing student debt has done is make education impossibly expensive. If nobody could borrow a quarter of a million dollars there would be no school asking for a quarter of a million dollars for an education.
Every time here is a flow of benefits set up, businesses evolve to maximize guaranteed public payouts. Health care, etc. But what are we to do? Stop assisting people? Audit more tightly, but is costly too.
Every public assistance program has leaks. They cannot be eliminated, but need to be watched and managed. And that is by principled regulators, a breed Trumpists are trying to make extinct/.
Government has to set the prices. Basically, we’ll pay $x per class or you get nothing. Make $x a reasonable number. Same thing with healthcare. Socialism some say, but universities and hospitals are free to NOT take federal dollars.
But that’s not a completely blind loan. You get a credit card based on your credit rating which most people don’t have when they’re trying to apply for college.
I argue that you do make a comparison although it is flawed. A student loan has no collateral and there is no credit history. From a lending perspective, this is bad combination.
A tenured full professor at an Ivy League university earns an average base salary of $250,000 to $315,000 per year for a standard 9-month academic contract.
I read and believe it’s true, that Harvard has an endowment large enough to NEVER charge a student for tuition and would never run out of money….ever.
Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. When Trumpstien’s gone, the problem he created will remain, and his idiot followers will blame the people trying to fix it.
They’ll be back, with a new name, just like the tea party.
The Window Cleaner
21 days ago
It won’t matter that much until the dems get the guts and good sense to take on Finance with a 50% Discount/Rebate at retail sale, but it will be a tremendous relief of the constant stress of hearing Trump demagogue everyone and everything as the more and more republicans get the balls to cross him. The emperor has never had any clothes and now everyone will know that.
Enough delusional people clothe the delusional emperor with enough power to really screw some lives up. Ask Adolf.
Many of the themes Trump grabbed onto were already out there and popular, and they will outlive his personality cult.
Last edited 21 days ago by peelo
Tony
21 days ago
According to a republican politician in Texas, the dems have mailed/distributed fake literature suggesting the dem candidates are for sex change operations, higher taxes and other related bs while the clown in the white house is offering bribes to farmers to vote for his boot lickers, among his many extortion attempts (in which will never see the light of day).
No worries. These fools’ memory spans and sense of accountability have been so damaged, they won’t remember this next week. They will be scooted on to the next rage and fear meme.
Last edited 21 days ago by peelo
Mike R
21 days ago
I think the odds are conservative and underselling the real likelihood of a blue rout.
Look at what the R politicians are doing and acting for what I think is a better indicator of what is likely playing out:
· Drumpf is only rallying in deep Red states now, giving up any pretense of campaigning in any Blue or Purple state. I think the last Purple state was AZ a few days ago. My god, he was in MT a week or so ago!
· Drumpf has gone to all dark rhetoric, all fear and doom. Fear of foreigners, fear of Muslims, fear of dark skinned people from so called shithole countries (aka fear of anything not like ‘us’ good white Christian folks).
· That odious Vivek released a disgusting video featuring his opponent’s estranged mother, who hasn’t seen her since she was 12 and pulled from her home after being molested by her step dad.
o Side note – I personally think Vivek will do anything to get elected and is a wretched human being.
· The ‘moderate’ Vance is stuck playing straight man to counter all of this. He’s having to try to distract the electorate away from all of the above, and also away from the electorates disgust with Iran, gas prices, inflation, tariff messes, etc. Good luck with that.
I think that speaks at least as loudly as any polls.
This RINO is dropping three of the families ballots off tomorrow at the drop box from myself my wife and my younger one. Need to get the older one to get off her butt and do hers but the three are pretty blue. Too bad it’s Cali where it doesn’t matter, except for the stupid number of ballot initiatives that this dumb state insists on foisting on us every two years.
“Side note – I personally think Vivek will do anything to get elected and is a wretched human being.”
I agree with the former. Not sure about the latter but I definitely don’t like him. He is a carpetbagging tech bro and I never heard of him before 2024. He is just trying to get some gubernatorial stink on himself before running for president again.
I voted early yesterday – it felt good to pull the lever for the Libertarian candidate.
Get f*cked, Ramasalami. Learn to code, MFer. Which I will be thinking again tomorrow when I fill up at +$4 per gallon.
I’m just offended at a tech bro with no technical skills is all. I spent 30 years in Aerospace as an engineer, and I can’t stand the tech bro types who can’t actually do anything technical. Maybe I’m wrong and he’s a tech whiz, but I doubt it.
Then you’re in action is endorsing the most wretched of our society to continue their power grab. I’m sorry you don’t see that. Did you know that you can vote for a Democrat once and not go to hell?
Actually I think I now understand your statement. My point is, if you want to vote Libertarian as a protest, then you are throwing away your vote. Might as well not vote as all. I’ve not voted in the past, but now I just vote for the subset of the ballot that I actually care about and can have a potential impact with. Voting Libertarian is pointless to me, I’m not into protest voting.
And I’ll leave up the Billy Madison clip because I love it.
Vance is so viscerally a weird chameleon, I think lots of people sense it. I can’t model any kind of base inside that person, but I can sense it bends and warps towards lots of things I am suspicious of.
Tony
21 days ago
Trump and his proud boys, along with his billionaire associates who he has helped to make rich beyond reason, are going to steal the elections in every manner possible. The most corrupt administration in our nation’s history is going to have free reign over the next two years as the fake ads and verbal vomit are winning.
Absolutely they will try. America is incredibly pathetic but maybe, just maybe, taking away our votes might actually motivate us.
If it doesn’t then there’s no reason to stick around unless you are a white supremacist misogynist.
Mike R
21 days ago
I think these odds are conservative and underestimate a blue rout. Pay attention to what the R politicians are doing now:
Drumpf is only going to R strongholds now. He’s not even bothering with any pretense of campaigning in a Blue or Purple state anymore. I think the last purple state he went to was AZ a few days ago.His rhetoric has devolved to the MAGA base red meat of fear. Fear of foreigners, fear of Muslims, fear of the dark skinned and those not like ‘us’ (shhh….that means white Christian people).That odious Vivek released a shoot myself in the foot ad against his opponent featuring her mother that she hasn’t seen since she was 12 and rescued from her step dad. Most if not all Rs in the state have come out against it and I’m sure are saying ‘wtf are you doing!’ behind closed doors.Vivek truly seems to be an awful alleged human being who will say or do anything to get elected.Vance, an alleged ‘moderate’, is having to play straight man and try to refocus the electorate on not Drumpf, not Vivek, and anything but the broad electorate discontent on the economy, Iran, gas, tariffs, etc. Good luck on that, Mr Couch Lover.In short, I think the behaviors of the Rs are indicative of the underlying rout that is underway (most states are already voting).
We have three ballots that are pretty much all blue that this RINO is dropping in the ballot box tomorrow. Too bad it’s in Cali where it won’t matter much, except for our slew of stupid ballot measures.
Enough with this. Simply untrue!
Maybe to your old ass
But again, ask a black person, a gay person, anyone who had an abortion…
Labors been screwed, and lots of Dems suck
But I’d rather have the people o agree with some.of the time than people I hate all of the time
wrong. see biden’s and Ds policies and votes over the decades on war on drugs………..i said the only difference was abortion. and even before roe v wade was overturned you really could not get an abortion in any red counties in usa. i agree on abortion difference. but everything else you could not pass a blind test on who was in power. FFS obama surged 100k troops into afghanistan when that was a lost cause. to prove he wasn’t a pussy. he firebombed libya for no good reason. the obama CIA put ghaddaffi on a truck and stuck a metal rod up his rectum and scalped him and filmed it. and hillary laughed about it. you are delusional if you think the red and blue team are any different. besides abortion rights. i’ve been a lifelong activist against all the imperial warfare and prison industrial complex and brutalizing our own people. that’s a bipartisan policy the past 150 years.
Your preference is understandable and right. But you’re missing the slightly bigger picture.
The D’s are your “good cop” to the R’s “bad cop”. Sure the good cop does something for you occasionally.
But it is a mind game you’re playing in. You feeling better about an occasional win is a small cost to the oligarchs paying the cops (who mostly perform private security for the oligarchs).
Why play their game? Voting for the oligarchs’ candidates is already wasting your vote. Even if “your” candidate wins, you lose.
It is not at all “defeatist” to (a) identify a strategy that leads to defeat time and time again and (b) stop doing it, because I recommend a different strategy of locally organizing and promoting an honorable neighbor or else at least voting for independent candidates.
Should I mock you in kind for your remark borne of misunderstanding?
Last edited 21 days ago by most of you voted for the uniparty all your lives
You’re admitting to not knowing how to read the USA’s balance sheet
Name
21 days ago
could be they are “Cooked” reports too
MPO45v2
21 days ago
“As a result, I am upping my odds of Democrats winning the Senate from 65 percent to 70 percent.”
Well I’m upping my 2-star Mishelin award to 3-star Mishelin on this post because you will be vindicated and the MAGAs shall nash their teeth and weep.
‘Lil Mr.
22 days ago
As for the libertarians all I can say is rank choice voting. And not that crap California does guaranteeing two dems in the general. RCV could change the game in just one election. And it could all happen at the state level. No need to mess with any federal rules. Give it a try. Many places are.
I think right choice voting would be a tremendous improvement but many people are far too stupid to understand how that can play out.
I ran into some interesting videos on YouTube that walk through the mathematics of various selection processes. It turns out that nothing works perfectly. Everything can be gamed to force an outcome. I think ranked choice voting worked about the best but it could give inconsistent results.
It was an interesting video. It’s a bit complex and how you get there but, yes, not everything is going to be perfect
I can see how it would be confusing when it’s called right choice voting. Yes I know what you meant. Just shining a flashlight on the complexity of humans interacting with one another.
GOP had four years to seize and program voting machines. Let’s hope this is not what happened.
‘Lil Mr.
22 days ago
Republicans are in full blown “burn it all down mode”! Never seen so many nasty attack ads and the prez and vp are just putting their feet in their mouths and asses playing switch. They are going down hard and it’s just throw in the towel, burn it all down, no apologies.
This is rhetoric and hysteria no more shrill and vitriolic than the 1790s. or the 1830s. Which is not to justify it. Just saying. The bipartisanship of the mid-20th century was probably the anomaly. That was for giant teams for giant wars, with mega-death as a central feature, so I’m not all nostalgic for it.
Vivid history on this, my favorite US history book, finance-hued, as I like it: A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America’s Financial Disasters, by Scott Reynolds Nelson.
They had handbills printed everywhere, the Internet of its day. Lots of people were engaged in debate, not to mention actual insurrection (Whiskey rebellion). It was noisy and raucous and full of the exact kind of BS we see now. And plenty of insiders were cutting themselves deals, and being accused of it.
politicians beat each other in the us congress into comas. duels were the way men sometimes settled differences. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Founding Father Alexander Hamilton died after being shot in a duel by sitting U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr on July 11, 1804.
How is war now a winning election strategy? It will only drive up fuel prices if Iran starts blowing up more pipelines, refineries, ships, and data centers. They have threatened to end the Internet too, recent PHP vulnerabilities and AI may bring the whole net down. There are so many exploits being found it’s a miracle something terrible hasn’t happened yet.
well in 2000 W won against Gore after 8 years of peace and prosperity, on a message of “CHANGE THE COURSE”. 4 YEARS later after 9.11.01 and a catastrophic / obvious response by “losing” bin laden’s trail in tora bora and invading the wrong country called iraq. He ran on WAR and idiocracy, stay the course. and won both times. PRO tip. the ancient greeks and romans who invented western democracy/republics warned. if you have assholes in your city/states you will elect assholes to do asshole things. NOT A SPIT WORTH OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RED AND BLUE TEAMS. BESIDES ABORTION RIGHTS AND A FEW OTHER SOCIAL ISSUES.
War definently gets the blood rushing through the brain. The primal brain that is. The US is always up for a good fight although it took some convincing the get into WW2. Ironically, in one of the 3 Bush v. Gore debates, W said, paraphrasing, “we have to be careful about getting into war, you have to have an exit strategy”. Right hand to God. I know this because I was searching for another part of the debates where Gore was taking about the math of SSA and some other gov’t expenses. That’s when W invented the phrase “fuzzy math” and diverted attention from debating anything financial or economics related. I thought he was history. No one would vote for someone so dumb. But dummies elect dummies. Gore was so much smarter but the bar had been lowered for W. Is this what is known as something like the lowest common denominator?
I doubt that. The architecture to change the electoral process is not in place. I think Trump and Wiles and Miller are just dumb enough to expect restarting (escalating) the war to bring a “rally around the flag” effect that would boost GOP chances. The opposite will happen, IMO. I wish more Americans opposed this war on purely moral grounds, but its obvious effect on energy prices and inflation bothers them more. I suspect there is hidden, unspoken Israel fatigue that is worth an unexpected couple of points on Election Day, especially if Netanyahu wins next Tuesday.
Yes, but it was literally playing before the J6 event. I wanted to see if the reports of the speakers egging on the crowd were taken out of context. So I jumped on YouTube to watch from beginning to end if necessary. The video was like 4 hours but I had my answer in the first 30 seconds. That song was playing beforehand I am sure to gin up the crowd. Big events often play loud, upbeat music to get a crowd revved up for a rally. But imo that song, in particular, was meant to egg on the crowd for fighting just like the speakers were saying. “Trial by combat”. “You gotta fight like hell or you’re not gonna have a country anymore “. No doubt in my mind J6 was planned. They just had to lead the horses to water.
OHHHHH!!! Thank you. I wasn’t aware they played the song. I barely watched any footage.
Just to make sure I understand, are you in the camp of people (like me) believing it was a regime setup to justify more of the solution all the talking heads recommended after: surveillance?
I remember radio ads promoting J6 (maybe the week before?) featuring a clip of DJT saying “It’s gonna be wild”. I heard that and thought “oh, no…the regime is planning some kind of spectacle and something bad is going to happen”.
The days leading into J6 were all fire and brimstone with barely hidden threats of ‘something big’ to come. I vividly remember being worried about J6, because J6 had never been something to think about before. It had always been pro forma, and never been a real event.
I remember walking into my office in mid afternoon PST and seeing the headlines on the computer and was actually not surprised to see the carnage, bc Trump.
What amazes me is that six years later, people have to ask if it was the total shit show that it was. But that’s the state of the world we live in.
back about 4 or 5 years ago, i met a few of the people from a political betting site, predict it. there was a political debate going at the montauk club in brooklyn, and we decided to meet each other in person. was very enjoyable. i think it was matt taibbi hosting the debate.
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I live in Texas Mish, and know many Trumpite Republicans. Not a one of them is “not voting”. They are all voting straight R ticket because the Dims R So Bad!!!
I hope this is right, but, Lucy has pulled the ball away too many times here in Texas during my lifetime. I’ll believe it when I see it, unfortunately.
the greatest modern Texan of all time was W the dumber. after 9.11.01 he unified the whole empire by telling all amerikans to GO SHOPPING. no wonder our boys got their asses kicked even though we outspent the “enemy” 500,000 to one. of course 9.11.01 and the rest of it is just one big grift. read the neocon think tank in 1990s, project for the new amerikan century if you have doubts.
Just a reminder for anyone doubting my claims that a lot of what you see is disinformation from US adversaries-
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/us/texas-senate-race-russia-influence.html
“According to intelligence officials…” Like the 51 intelligence officials that Blinken got to sign a letter saying the Hunter Biden laptop story had “all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation”? When will you start to understand that American Intel is driven by ideology and the major media outlets are state-affiliated media?
Am I the only one who won’t be surprised if Nixon wins in Florida?
American politics is now more than ever between Scylla & Charybdis.
Regardless, the ship of state will stay on the same heading.
Voter turn-out is completely dependent on whether they hate the other side enough to turn out for their two minutes of hate.
Anyone who thinks the Democrats will be responsible and keep the middle of the road is going to be sorely disappointed.
Anyone who chooses a side is so level 1 and dunning-Kruger in my mind.
How can anyone believe selfishness = ethical = capitalism.
Capitalism just right-wing tyranny, might makes right, he who has the money makes the rules. What kind of fucked up system is this?
History is going to shit all over 100% business people and capitalists. Such monkey level thinking to believe rich people or politicians care one iota of your health or well being. Your neighbor cares more about you then the capitalist politician banker.
So after winning WW2, America forgot all politicians are literal pieces of shit who lie and will sell out your children for their own gains?
Politicians are the scum of the earth, that’s the whole point of democracy in the ideal, to stop politicians from having absolute power; because politicians since the dawn of time are the worst people on earth.
You either want rule by the strong or you give your neighbor some trust.
Be honest and conscious.
there’s a reason every empire ends in horror and death and millions dying, because politicians are evil.
I don’t think we’ve had a non-“middle of the road” Democratic president since LBJ.
I disagree. I think the young are clamoring for a changing of the guard and it will come, someday soon, if not in this cycle.
To me, the idea of traditional R’s and D’s will soon be over. But, I see young Democrats with ideas about the future, while I see old Republicans yearning for an age that will never return.
The only difference between trump and the Republican Party in general is trump is out in the open. The graft/ hate/ support for very wealthy etc. maybe the base is starting to see the light.
Example
I caught a bit of an interview. Npr was talking a republican candidate in ca. when asked about gerrymandering he said trump made a mistake when he put it out into to open where he should have just made a phone call. went on to say the other states would not been able to react in time. He then proceeded to kind of back track.
I do hope the gerrymandering in ca brings the dems a bit back to the center. Since reps will have to take the republicans in the district a bit more seriously.
ZH:
FCC Chair Warns Broadcasters On Airing Fake Polls
Pollster Cited By NY Times, Other Outlets Admits It’s Fake
Aww, what are you doing out of your safe space, lil’ guy? You’re gonna get your fee fees hurt if you hang out here.
Mish how much of project 2025 has been implemented.. Trump did not know anything about it so it must have been done behind his back.
Ha! I hope this is satire.
“behind his back.” — so his jagged signature on all the executive orders were behind his back?
The reality is he’s too goddamn stupid to read through it all.
Wasn’t it H.R. McMaster who wrote something like, in Trump 1.0, the Trump morning briefings were reduced first to 3 short bullet points, then it was realized he only read the first 2, so the content was squeezed and dumbed down into the first 2.
Approximately 50%.
Most of the new winners from +3 to +6/7/8/9 will be automatic Rotating Villain candidates. Add to that, a few from the 47+3 crowd as well and we are done!
The voters know the traitorous Illegal immigration voter base build of the Democrat gang would return if they are allowed to return to power. Polls are manipulated in favor of the Gang every election.
“Boo hoo”, cried the loser.
The polls are generally accurate. It’s going to be a blue wave. The thing about staunching the flow of illegal immigrants into the country is that it moves that issue downward on people’s list of priorities. Republicans are viewed less badly on immigration than they are on every other issue. It’s not a positive for them (probably because of ICE tactics), but it’s their least bad issue. I’m pretty adamant about keeping the border secure, but after Trump’s illegal and monumentally stupid war on Iran, he, the GOP and zionists generally need to be punished and thwarted as much as possible.
Yes the Iranian Islamic CULT with a Nuclear BOMB is no big deal –STUPID
Libtards –Islam is a political cult like the Natzies wanting world domination they use religion as a cover for brainwashing and propaganda for the stupid.
The west has fought Islam for thousands of years—If they follow the Quran they are terrorist as well
Yeah, that’s why they’ve had so much success in 39 years completely shaking up our lives on a daily basis in the USA. Wasn’t oil coming out of the straits fine until precisely the moment Trump attacked them?
Illegal immigrants can’t vote. I guess the Democrats weren’t smart enough to give them citizenship when they had the chance.
IN Minnesota a register voter can vouch for up to 8 others to register to vote
The Republican Party as a whole is by now so openly embracing into-your-face corruption that you have to worry that it has decided to simply ignore the outcome of the midterms.
Trump will not go quietly into the night.
And how would they do that?
By preventing Democratic congresspeople from going to work?
Polishing up my drones.😡😂
The MAGA’s are going to be sad about the their clown show of ignorance coming to an end….
Everyone else will be trying to pick up the pieces
But we still need to count the votes. I never count ignorance out when it comes to humans
Cognitively overwhelmed individuals outsource their “reality” definition to “leaders.” Walter Lippmann wrote about it starting in the 1920s.
Agredd, always has been. Successful societies rely on a social contract where the elite are allowed special privilege as long as they meet the needs of the masses. Caesar : “you must only shear the sheep, not flay them”. History is very clear that when this contract breaks it never ends well. When multiple greedy, ignorant, small minded fools end up in power due to the breakdown of the social contract, its a bad sign. Hopefully the USA can recover, but the odds are not great
Sad? Think of all the new people that they’ll be able to shift blame for their moronic actions to!
I hope the results are decisive. The Republican party needs to change or die out. We can’t throve as the White Christian nation they want.
We might survive in the same way N. Korea survives but we definitely won’t be living well.
Personally, I think Trump has brought us a generation of great difficulty. He has destroyed our global reputation, turning us into something to avoid at all costs. He has reduced our economy to oligarchs only. Everyday there are thousands of bankruptcies in the agricultural community and every single one of those bankruptcies is being picked up by the Big Agriculture. Nobody wants a data center but data centers are being installed and communities which are too poor to defend themselves against the legions of lawyers that are coming from other parts of the country. This destroys those communities and reduces them to industrial neighborhoods with they pollutions.
This country is never going back to what it was. That’s been destroyed. I don’t know how we go forward. Historically, the wealth inequality suggests the oligarchs will need Flock to police every person on their actions, words, and thoughts. They will need Ai to regulate the population and prevent any unpleasant disruptions to their new society. That is what we will be fighting for the next generation.
Yeah, but he stuck it to the Libs!
Surviving more like France.
France needs to turn lemons into lemonade. Make it a tourism draw: “Come to France and Burn Shit Down!”
No longer the high class destination for Americans.
What is the point in uniparty system?
According to superhero Captain Obvious,it’s to maintain status quo.
If you can’t tell the parties apart at this point that’s on you.
Let me give you a hint: mega billionaires are funding one party almost exclusively, through dark money hidden behind pacs, while the other is funded mostly by small donations. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, well, that’s on you again.
Biden and HRC were entirely dependent on superPAC cash, to a greater extent even than Trump.
Fraid it ain’t that simple.
Actually I think having the house committee investigate why the WNBA does not want to define what a woman is will turn the tide Red. It’s a savvy political move. Seeing these big strong conservative males grabbing those liberal lesbian WNBA women by their pussies and forcing them against their wills to define what a woman is will excite MAGA voters everywhere.
Not pictured: the Epstein files, or your grocery money, for that matter
Actually, this will turn the tide blue.
People are sick and tired of those conservative males being in the room because they have proven themselves to be nothing but predators. They seek money and power and what better expression of power than the abject subjugation of women and especially girls. There’s a lot of dominant power being expressed raping a little boy/girl and that’s what they crave, power
Yeah that was sarcasm, but your right still
I sure as hell hope it was sarcasm….but it has a lot of truth in it.
Let us ad the /s – or pick up your dunce cap at the office on your way out. Choose wisely
Nobody cares except you tranny fetishists.
And what exactly will they “fix”
The things the Republican have broken.
Like Gitmo? Like the bankruptcy act of 2006 that made it harder to discharge student debt? Like another war or another troop surge? Maintaining sanctions and tariffs? Using the Hague to jail 3rd worlders?
It’s a ratcheting effect.
Student debt never made sense.
There is no collateral to reclaim when the debt isn’t paid. You can’t repo an education like you can repo a car.
The only thing student debt has done is make education impossibly expensive. If nobody could borrow a quarter of a million dollars there would be no school asking for a quarter of a million dollars for an education.
Agree strongly regarding the tight coupling between loan pushers and tuition hikers.
The wealthy used to subsidize higher ed through higher tax rates. The regime shifted the burden from wealthy to young.
Every time here is a flow of benefits set up, businesses evolve to maximize guaranteed public payouts. Health care, etc. But what are we to do? Stop assisting people? Audit more tightly, but is costly too.
Every public assistance program has leaks. They cannot be eliminated, but need to be watched and managed. And that is by principled regulators, a breed Trumpists are trying to make extinct/.
Government has to set the prices. Basically, we’ll pay $x per class or you get nothing. Make $x a reasonable number. Same thing with healthcare. Socialism some say, but universities and hospitals are free to NOT take federal dollars.
> But what are we to do?
Re-read what I wrote: “The wealthy used to subsidize higher ed through higher tax rates. The regime shifted the burden from wealthy to young.”
Gee, peelo. “What are we supposed to do?”. How about “do what we once used to”?
Banks make unsecured loans all that time. Most credit cards, for example.
But that’s not a completely blind loan. You get a credit card based on your credit rating which most people don’t have when they’re trying to apply for college.
I argue that you do make a comparison although it is flawed. A student loan has no collateral and there is no credit history. From a lending perspective, this is bad combination.
A tenured full professor at an Ivy League university earns an average base salary of $250,000 to $315,000 per year for a standard 9-month academic contract.
I read and believe it’s true, that Harvard has an endowment large enough to NEVER charge a student for tuition and would never run out of money….ever.
They might end the war on Iran. Cut off the money for it. They may be too late, though.
They will do no such thing, any more than they ended the War On Iraq in 2007.
Instead, democrats and liberals bitched from the sideline about process, while insisting they could run the war so much better if they were in charge.
If Trump can veto a War Powers Act resolution stopping his war, what is the point? My hasty AI inquiry dodged the question.
Democrats will then force Republicans to vote to override the veto. Voters will then know exactly where their Congressman/Senator stands.
Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. When Trumpstien’s gone, the problem he created will remain, and his idiot followers will blame the people trying to fix it.
His followers won’t matter – they’ll fade back into the general pop, from which they sprang.
They’ll be back, with a new name, just like the tea party.
It won’t matter that much until the dems get the guts and good sense to take on Finance with a 50% Discount/Rebate at retail sale, but it will be a tremendous relief of the constant stress of hearing Trump demagogue everyone and everything as the more and more republicans get the balls to cross him. The emperor has never had any clothes and now everyone will know that.
Team D will do no such thing.
Enough delusional people clothe the delusional emperor with enough power to really screw some lives up. Ask Adolf.
Many of the themes Trump grabbed onto were already out there and popular, and they will outlive his personality cult.
According to a republican politician in Texas, the dems have mailed/distributed fake literature suggesting the dem candidates are for sex change operations, higher taxes and other related bs while the clown in the white house is offering bribes to farmers to vote for his boot lickers, among his many extortion attempts (in which will never see the light of day).
No worries. These fools’ memory spans and sense of accountability have been so damaged, they won’t remember this next week. They will be scooted on to the next rage and fear meme.
I think the odds are conservative and underselling the real likelihood of a blue rout.
Look at what the R politicians are doing and acting for what I think is a better indicator of what is likely playing out:
· Drumpf is only rallying in deep Red states now, giving up any pretense of campaigning in any Blue or Purple state. I think the last Purple state was AZ a few days ago. My god, he was in MT a week or so ago!
· Drumpf has gone to all dark rhetoric, all fear and doom. Fear of foreigners, fear of Muslims, fear of dark skinned people from so called shithole countries (aka fear of anything not like ‘us’ good white Christian folks).
· That odious Vivek released a disgusting video featuring his opponent’s estranged mother, who hasn’t seen her since she was 12 and pulled from her home after being molested by her step dad.
o Side note – I personally think Vivek will do anything to get elected and is a wretched human being.
· The ‘moderate’ Vance is stuck playing straight man to counter all of this. He’s having to try to distract the electorate away from all of the above, and also away from the electorates disgust with Iran, gas prices, inflation, tariff messes, etc. Good luck with that.
I think that speaks at least as loudly as any polls.
This RINO is dropping three of the families ballots off tomorrow at the drop box from myself my wife and my younger one. Need to get the older one to get off her butt and do hers but the three are pretty blue. Too bad it’s Cali where it doesn’t matter, except for the stupid number of ballot initiatives that this dumb state insists on foisting on us every two years.
“Side note – I personally think Vivek will do anything to get elected and is a wretched human being.”
I agree with the former. Not sure about the latter but I definitely don’t like him. He is a carpetbagging tech bro and I never heard of him before 2024. He is just trying to get some gubernatorial stink on himself before running for president again.
I voted early yesterday – it felt good to pull the lever for the Libertarian candidate.
Get f*cked, Ramasalami. Learn to code, MFer. Which I will be thinking again tomorrow when I fill up at +$4 per gallon.
Hate that guy. As an engineer, it’s personal. But yeah I think he’s also wretched.
I get the voting Lib as a protest but I also just can’t do it personally.
Can you share why/how it’s personal for you as an engineer?
I’m just offended at a tech bro with no technical skills is all. I spent 30 years in Aerospace as an engineer, and I can’t stand the tech bro types who can’t actually do anything technical. Maybe I’m wrong and he’s a tech whiz, but I doubt it.
Then you’re in action is endorsing the most wretched of our society to continue their power grab. I’m sorry you don’t see that. Did you know that you can vote for a Democrat once and not go to hell?
I read this several times. After thinking about it for a bit, all I can respond with is the following:
i grant you no points billy madison – Yahoo Search Results
Actually I think I now understand your statement. My point is, if you want to vote Libertarian as a protest, then you are throwing away your vote. Might as well not vote as all. I’ve not voted in the past, but now I just vote for the subset of the ballot that I actually care about and can have a potential impact with. Voting Libertarian is pointless to me, I’m not into protest voting.
And I’ll leave up the Billy Madison clip because I love it.
He’s a creepy little dwarf.
He’s not just a tech maximalist, he’s a grifter climber. Where have we seen that before?
Vance is doubling down on defending that piece of shit… He’s just as bad. The whole party is beyond rotten.
Vance is so viscerally a weird chameleon, I think lots of people sense it. I can’t model any kind of base inside that person, but I can sense it bends and warps towards lots of things I am suspicious of.
Trump and his proud boys, along with his billionaire associates who he has helped to make rich beyond reason, are going to steal the elections in every manner possible. The most corrupt administration in our nation’s history is going to have free reign over the next two years as the fake ads and verbal vomit are winning.
Absolutely they will try. America is incredibly pathetic but maybe, just maybe, taking away our votes might actually motivate us.
If it doesn’t then there’s no reason to stick around unless you are a white supremacist misogynist.
I think these odds are conservative and underestimate a blue rout. Pay attention to what the R politicians are doing now:
Drumpf is only going to R strongholds now. He’s not even bothering with any pretense of campaigning in a Blue or Purple state anymore. I think the last purple state he went to was AZ a few days ago.His rhetoric has devolved to the MAGA base red meat of fear. Fear of foreigners, fear of Muslims, fear of the dark skinned and those not like ‘us’ (shhh….that means white Christian people).That odious Vivek released a shoot myself in the foot ad against his opponent featuring her mother that she hasn’t seen since she was 12 and rescued from her step dad. Most if not all Rs in the state have come out against it and I’m sure are saying ‘wtf are you doing!’ behind closed doors.Vivek truly seems to be an awful alleged human being who will say or do anything to get elected.Vance, an alleged ‘moderate’, is having to play straight man and try to refocus the electorate on not Drumpf, not Vivek, and anything but the broad electorate discontent on the economy, Iran, gas, tariffs, etc. Good luck on that, Mr Couch Lover.In short, I think the behaviors of the Rs are indicative of the underlying rout that is underway (most states are already voting).
We have three ballots that are pretty much all blue that this RINO is dropping in the ballot box tomorrow. Too bad it’s in Cali where it won’t matter much, except for our slew of stupid ballot measures.
Meanwhile, Vivek does a full Nixon. On himself.
that dude is a joke. a real weirdo. kind of funny watching his path to power. pardon the pun and hat tip to robert caro. and LBJ
yeah the Rs are imploding which is a big indicator of how things are playing out, I think.
Never underestimate the power of ignorant arrogant hate memes on scared white guys.
nobody could pass a blind test of which idiot team, blue or red was in power in congress or whitehouse for the past 60 plus years. nobody.
Enough with this. Simply untrue!
Maybe to your old ass
But again, ask a black person, a gay person, anyone who had an abortion…
Labors been screwed, and lots of Dems suck
But I’d rather have the people o agree with some.of the time than people I hate all of the time
wrong. see biden’s and Ds policies and votes over the decades on war on drugs………..i said the only difference was abortion. and even before roe v wade was overturned you really could not get an abortion in any red counties in usa. i agree on abortion difference. but everything else you could not pass a blind test on who was in power. FFS obama surged 100k troops into afghanistan when that was a lost cause. to prove he wasn’t a pussy. he firebombed libya for no good reason. the obama CIA put ghaddaffi on a truck and stuck a metal rod up his rectum and scalped him and filmed it. and hillary laughed about it. you are delusional if you think the red and blue team are any different. besides abortion rights. i’ve been a lifelong activist against all the imperial warfare and prison industrial complex and brutalizing our own people. that’s a bipartisan policy the past 150 years.
Your preference is understandable and right. But you’re missing the slightly bigger picture.
The D’s are your “good cop” to the R’s “bad cop”. Sure the good cop does something for you occasionally.
But it is a mind game you’re playing in. You feeling better about an occasional win is a small cost to the oligarchs paying the cops (who mostly perform private security for the oligarchs).
Why play their game? Voting for the oligarchs’ candidates is already wasting your vote. Even if “your” candidate wins, you lose.
exactly correct.
Thanks for the defeatist input Ivan
It is not at all “defeatist” to (a) identify a strategy that leads to defeat time and time again and (b) stop doing it, because I recommend a different strategy of locally organizing and promoting an honorable neighbor or else at least voting for independent candidates.
Should I mock you in kind for your remark borne of misunderstanding?
So you prefer happy horseshit and name-calling.
Maybe not but I am very certain that we could pass a blind test on the last 30 years. Essentially, since RayGun
not a shot. nobody could.
Maybe if you are dumb or Soviet
You’re admitting to not knowing how to read the USA’s balance sheet
could be they are “Cooked” reports too
Well I’m upping my 2-star Mishelin award to 3-star Mishelin on this post because you will be vindicated and the MAGAs shall nash their teeth and weep.
As for the libertarians all I can say is rank choice voting. And not that crap California does guaranteeing two dems in the general. RCV could change the game in just one election. And it could all happen at the state level. No need to mess with any federal rules. Give it a try. Many places are.
I think right choice voting would be a tremendous improvement but many people are far too stupid to understand how that can play out.
I ran into some interesting videos on YouTube that walk through the mathematics of various selection processes. It turns out that nothing works perfectly. Everything can be gamed to force an outcome. I think ranked choice voting worked about the best but it could give inconsistent results.
It was an interesting video. It’s a bit complex and how you get there but, yes, not everything is going to be perfect
I can see how it would be confusing when it’s called right choice voting. Yes I know what you meant. Just shining a flashlight on the complexity of humans interacting with one another.
RANKED CHOICE. grrr
It is starting. Tennessee is reporting all kinds of problems.
What do you mean by “problems”?
There are reports of people doing early voting, casting ballots for Democrats and when they check the printout it’s been changed to Republicans.
Interesting…
This
Got any bread crumbs to share i.e. links to stories?
There’s a number of reports from different people that votes are being applied to Democrats but then switched by the machines to Republican.
Ironically, this is exactly what the Republicans were claiming the Democrats were doing in the election where the Republicans won the presidency.
GOP had four years to seize and program voting machines. Let’s hope this is not what happened.
Republicans are in full blown “burn it all down mode”! Never seen so many nasty attack ads and the prez and vp are just putting their feet in their mouths and asses playing switch. They are going down hard and it’s just throw in the towel, burn it all down, no apologies.
This is rhetoric and hysteria no more shrill and vitriolic than the 1790s. or the 1830s. Which is not to justify it. Just saying. The bipartisanship of the mid-20th century was probably the anomaly. That was for giant teams for giant wars, with mega-death as a central feature, so I’m not all nostalgic for it.
Vivid history on this, my favorite US history book, finance-hued, as I like it: A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America’s Financial Disasters, by Scott Reynolds Nelson.
What, you know from personal experience? 😂
They didn’t have TV ads playing 24 hours a day.
They had handbills printed everywhere, the Internet of its day. Lots of people were engaged in debate, not to mention actual insurrection (Whiskey rebellion). It was noisy and raucous and full of the exact kind of BS we see now. And plenty of insiders were cutting themselves deals, and being accused of it.
politicians beat each other in the us congress into comas. duels were the way men sometimes settled differences. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Founding Father Alexander Hamilton died after being shot in a duel by sitting U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr on July 11, 1804.
Unless the vote count shows that this is what Americans want and the GOP wins. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen!
meanwhile: Israeli military conducts massive “power projection” operation near Iran’s border https://www.axios.com/2026/10/21/israel-military-training-sortie-iran-borderExpect a large scale US/Israel attack, maybe this weekend.
Israel elections in 5-6 days, US midterms in ~2 weeks.
How is war now a winning election strategy? It will only drive up fuel prices if Iran starts blowing up more pipelines, refineries, ships, and data centers. They have threatened to end the Internet too, recent PHP vulnerabilities and AI may bring the whole net down. There are so many exploits being found it’s a miracle something terrible hasn’t happened yet.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/php-maintainers-tell-web-devs-to-prepare-themselves-for-critical-security-patches/
well in 2000 W won against Gore after 8 years of peace and prosperity, on a message of “CHANGE THE COURSE”. 4 YEARS later after 9.11.01 and a catastrophic / obvious response by “losing” bin laden’s trail in tora bora and invading the wrong country called iraq. He ran on WAR and idiocracy, stay the course. and won both times. PRO tip. the ancient greeks and romans who invented western democracy/republics warned. if you have assholes in your city/states you will elect assholes to do asshole things. NOT A SPIT WORTH OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RED AND BLUE TEAMS. BESIDES ABORTION RIGHTS AND A FEW OTHER SOCIAL ISSUES.
War definently gets the blood rushing through the brain. The primal brain that is. The US is always up for a good fight although it took some convincing the get into WW2. Ironically, in one of the 3 Bush v. Gore debates, W said, paraphrasing, “we have to be careful about getting into war, you have to have an exit strategy”. Right hand to God. I know this because I was searching for another part of the debates where Gore was taking about the math of SSA and some other gov’t expenses. That’s when W invented the phrase “fuzzy math” and diverted attention from debating anything financial or economics related. I thought he was history. No one would vote for someone so dumb. But dummies elect dummies. Gore was so much smarter but the bar had been lowered for W. Is this what is known as something like the lowest common denominator?
Us versus them is always a good strategy.
They like to go to war on Saturday nights.
If there is a war before the election, then I suggest about 1-3 days before accompanied by a national emergency
Can’t think of a better reason to not hold elections when they are mandated to be held.
I doubt that. The architecture to change the electoral process is not in place. I think Trump and Wiles and Miller are just dumb enough to expect restarting (escalating) the war to bring a “rally around the flag” effect that would boost GOP chances. The opposite will happen, IMO. I wish more Americans opposed this war on purely moral grounds, but its obvious effect on energy prices and inflation bothers them more. I suspect there is hidden, unspoken Israel fatigue that is worth an unexpected couple of points on Election Day, especially if Netanyahu wins next Tuesday.
civil war? because amerika has always been at war, since the day i was born almost 67 years ago.
Saturday night’s alright for fighting.
A J6 reference?
An EJ (Elton John) reference.
‘my sister looks cute in her braces and boots’
that’s a song lyric, not a personal observation. /s
I used to suspect you’re really Jamie Lannister. But, your story checks out.
indeed it does…I prefer Tolkein, I’ve never gotten into George Arrr Arrr Martin
lol … you made him a pirate
That’s a South Park reference. Watch the Thanksgiving three part episode. Classic Butters.
Yes, but it was literally playing before the J6 event. I wanted to see if the reports of the speakers egging on the crowd were taken out of context. So I jumped on YouTube to watch from beginning to end if necessary. The video was like 4 hours but I had my answer in the first 30 seconds. That song was playing beforehand I am sure to gin up the crowd. Big events often play loud, upbeat music to get a crowd revved up for a rally. But imo that song, in particular, was meant to egg on the crowd for fighting just like the speakers were saying. “Trial by combat”. “You gotta fight like hell or you’re not gonna have a country anymore “. No doubt in my mind J6 was planned. They just had to lead the horses to water.
OHHHHH!!! Thank you. I wasn’t aware they played the song. I barely watched any footage.
Just to make sure I understand, are you in the camp of people (like me) believing it was a regime setup to justify more of the solution all the talking heads recommended after: surveillance?
I don’t know about surveillance but the flock camera sure are taking over.
I remember radio ads promoting J6 (maybe the week before?) featuring a clip of DJT saying “It’s gonna be wild”. I heard that and thought “oh, no…the regime is planning some kind of spectacle and something bad is going to happen”.
The days leading into J6 were all fire and brimstone with barely hidden threats of ‘something big’ to come. I vividly remember being worried about J6, because J6 had never been something to think about before. It had always been pro forma, and never been a real event.
I remember walking into my office in mid afternoon PST and seeing the headlines on the computer and was actually not surprised to see the carnage, bc Trump.
What amazes me is that six years later, people have to ask if it was the total shit show that it was. But that’s the state of the world we live in.
More importantly, how good are you at karaoke? Would be nice to get all of us Mishheads together and we each sing a line… 😉
I don’t know who gave you a thumbs down but that does sound interesting. But we are probably far away location wise and I am terrible at karaoke.
back about 4 or 5 years ago, i met a few of the people from a political betting site, predict it. there was a political debate going at the montauk club in brooklyn, and we decided to meet each other in person. was very enjoyable. i think it was matt taibbi hosting the debate.