Doff retweeted
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
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
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
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.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
Spencer nails it once again, Republicans better find a way to market their brand, or they will never win again.
We're in a new era of communication, and only one side seems to be living in it. The old guard consultant class is about to be relegated to the dustbin of history.
If you think that high prices lost the election for the right, you don't understand marketing. Humans have no problem paying a premium for a good quality brand. Notice the word "brand", not "product". Are Nikes better than New Balance? Nope. But the brand is better. And notice what happened when they tinkered with the brand and screwed their core narrative? Nike stock fell through the basement. Did the product change? Nope. The brand did.
It's not the product, it's the brand. Results don't sell the product, the storytelling does. Will these newly-elected commies lower prices? Of course not. Are they gonna get you free healthcare? No, your insurance is gonna get even worse, just like it did the last time they tried socialized medicine. They're not going to do anything they've sold you, but...like Saul Goodman said: if you're committed enough, you can make any story work.
The committed storytelling of a couple insane podcasters was enough to fracture an entire political coalition from their own side in less than 2 years...they have zero power, zero credibility, they've never actually governed anything nor produced any results, but...they're good storytellers, and that's all that matters. Are they telling a good story? No, it's atrocious, but they're telling their atrocious story effectively and compellingly.
It is 100% true that everything's too damn expensive, and we all know that inflated prices are always sticky. Does anyone know that it's entirely the result of shutting down the global economy over the flu and (both naive republicans and democrats) printing infinity dollars for several years? Nope...because nobody has effectively told that story, and it's an unsexy story to tell. "Free stuff!" is a VERY easy story to tell, and when everyone's gotta take out a second mortgage just to pay their insurance premiums, "free healthcare" is an unbeatable story. It doesn't matter that "free healthcare" doesn't exist and socialized medicine is a terrible product...it's not the product, it's the brand. And "FREE!" is a great brand.
You can't get mad at people for having the financial literacy of a 9 year old. I mean, you can, but they outnumber you a million to one, so it's not going to be productive. You need to figure out how to make an unsexy story sexy, or else the "free stuff!" crowd is going to eat your lunch every time. If you give people a choice between earning a six pack on a treadmill or taking Ozempic, they're gonna choose Ozempic...they don't care about the side effects. If you give people a choice between fiscal discipline or free stuff...guess what they'll pick? They don't care about the side effects.
With projected growth of 5%, the economy right now is stronger than it's been in generations. Is that the story you hear? Nope. Is that the vibe you feel? Absolutely not, especially when every time you fill up your gas tank, it feels like a diesel enema.
It's not the product, it's the brand. A great product can fall into oblivion with bad messaging...a single bad review from one effective storyteller can tank a restaurant. The "influencer economy" is lucrative for a reason; everybody inherently understands the importance of effective storytelling...except the right. Zohran Mamdani gets it...he has an army of influencers on staff. In a perfect metaphor of this transitional phase of old guard vs new wave political messaging, Zohran nuked the Vice President into oblivion with maybe the biggest ratio in the history of the internet. By simply posting the subway assistant meme, Mamdani got 2 MILLION likes, quoting a post from the VP that had only 10K likes. If you're reading that sentence thinking "this is fucking ridiculous, you're talking about social media likes as political analysis now?"...you are the problem.
Yes, this stuff matters. Rizz matters. The President did a masterful job of this kind of retail politics in his historic 2024 campaign...you can be angry that this is what politics has been reduced to, but you can either adapt or die.
"No the problem is, you didn't deliver enough for the American people!" Are you a moron? Since when does anybody care about that? What have democrats delivered for Californians in the last 20 years? Unmitigated wildfires, homeless drug zombies everywhere, roads that look like Fallujah in 2004...people don't care about results. They think they care about results. That want you to believe they care about results, just as Nike wants you to believe their shoes are better than New Balance...but at the end of the day, all people really care about is the swoosh.
Adapt or die.
Doff retweeted
I am not here to tell you that Republicans have done a wonderful job. I am here to tell you that the Democrat Party has been fully captured by communists who want you dead and seek to destroy western civilization itself. Go vote against them. It’s the only choice.
Doff retweeted
This is the only way we can avoid catastrophe tonight. The simple fact is we got outvoted in the early vote, which is why both the data and the polling points to a blue tsunami.
But we still have this thing called “Election Day” where Americans have a chance to prove them (and myself!) all wrong.
If patriots show up en masse to the polls today, we have it in our power to turn this thing around and overwhelm the Democrat early voting edge they’ve built in many states.
I have minute snapshots from Florida Election Day 2024.
As of the latest data pull, we are exceeding same-snapshot margins compared to 2024 - literal Presidential turnout on a midterms.
And it's accelerating - in one ten minute pull, we pulled ahead of 2024 by 5,000 votes.
An incredible last-minute turnaround in Florida. This is the kind of performance we need to sustain across the country.
Go vote!
Doff retweeted
If you can’t find the motivation to vote today, here it is. Charlie wouldn’t have sat this election out. You’re his vote now. Go use it today. For God, for country and for Charlie. Oh and ignore all of the polls. Polls don’t vote, people do. 🇺🇸
Doff retweeted
TO THE GREAT PEOPLE OF WASHINGTON, GET OUT AND VOTE for these Great Patriots! They have my Complete and Total Endorsement and will never let you down! President DONALD J. TRUMP swampthevoteusa.com/washingt…
Doff retweeted
Is it just me or is this already the most unhinged midterm election ever?
Swallwell... looking at prison
Platner... legit nazi and possible rapist
We got a fake Dan Sullivan
An actual Jihadi in Michigan
Threats against our POTUS and his cabinet nonstop.
Wtf is happening?
Doff retweeted
We need to start a doomsday panic scorecard.
Every time someone declares a civil war, or climate apocalypse, or nuclear armageddon & WW3 for the 9,000th time, it never comes to pass, but we just move on, so 5 months later they do it again, and people fall for it, again.
The apocalypse isn't happening in your lifetime, folks. The real shit is some overpaid bureaucrat in your municipal water district is gonna get lazy with their emails, and your reservoir is gonna be empty when some other overpaid state park bureaucrat forgets to monitor a smoldering plant for an entire week, then your entire town burns up in a wildfire, your grandma burns alive and then 400 more people die from accelerated cancers from the toxic smoke.
Buying into these theatrical fantasies of global catastrophe only serves our corrupt government, distracting you from the true menace in your life. It's so exhausting. I used to indulge in these catastrophic conspiracy theories, but I had to learn the hard way that it's just plain old government incompetence that's the biggest threat to your daily life.
Whether it's getting stabbed in the neck by some zombie that your taxpayer dollars are paying to keep drugged up, a foreign truck driver with a fake CDL issued by your state DMV plowing through your family minivan, or the esophageal cancer you get from the carcinogenic lining in the save-the-turtles paper straws they make you use...despite all the Chicken Littles throughout time, warning of some cinematic end to your life, it's communists in government who've quietly racked up 100M+ body count in the last century.
Stop indulging these cartoonish macabre fantasies and get real.
Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer.
Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war.
To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha.
The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people.
And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final.
We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it.
Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.
They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making.
One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.
Doff retweeted
Dear VP Dumbledore,
We are eating plenty of candy. Tell Dobby to pick up the pace.
Love,
Potter and Malfoid
Doff retweeted
Michigan black leader rejects El-Sayed as 'snake oil' salesman in undercover video: 'Just flat-out disdain' trib.al/LNxcA1j
Doff retweeted
There is an important reason that the right never wins the culture war overall, despite the left being so poor at tactics that they often end up shooting their own feet.
That is the reality that logistics are more important than tactics, and tactics only matter once you have sorted logistics out.
The left has sorted logistics out by creating patronage networks, while the right refuses to do so because it's still controlled by a curious kind of boomer paleoliberal who thinks that "free market" means "everything should pay for itself".
Thus, both the cultural and political struggles of the right must be waged by broke young men as a side project to their careers, while fighting for the left is a career.
The young men fighting for the right are simply expected to purchase their own rifles, ammunition, uniforms and kit, provide their own transport to the front, then organize themselves into units to defeat the communists.
If you understand this, then you will understand why the retards manage to win a lot despite being retards.
The left is giving people 100K fellowships for writing lesbian novels, while the right is charging its own guys $200 to listen to some theoretical ramblings about the antichrist.
No, that's not a metaphor. I wish I had made either of those two facts up as some sort of hyperbole.
Only the left understands how to get and use political power.
The left understands that power is a form of currency. So if you want it, you have to buy it, with some other form of currency. Such as money.
The right thinks that political power is a side effect... something that you naturally accumulate while doing business.
Possibly this is because most wealthy right-wing people are investors. They start a project, or put money into it, and they expect to get their money back and then some. That's what they are used to.
That's how investment works.
But that's not how power works.
And if you have wealth, but no power, then the people with power will just take whatever you built.
I don't know exactly what the tech right, the business right, the wealthy right, should be spending on political power. But what they are spending is clearly not enough and in the wrong places.
Because George Soros sure as hell isn't selling people tickets to listen to him talk.
Doff retweeted
So, basically, 500 million Europeans expect 300 million Americans to protect them from 120 million Russians who can’t even defeat 40 million Ukrainians while those 500 million Europeans don’t even realize they are being conquered by 2 billion Muslims who claim they are being persecuted by 8 million Israelis. Is that about right?
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Doff retweeted
Isa Cayahuga is not an American citizen, and our country should not tolerate her existence in our borders for a second longer.
Her and her entire shitlib immigrant family need to be deported immediately.
At @UTSA for Pick Up the Mic, a student read a poem celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk with such glee, then told me I was brave to be out here without my neck covered.
I told her I’d pray for her.
This is the climate. We pick up the mic anyway.
Doff retweeted
We need more of this. The answer to Left-wing identity politics is Right-wing identity politics.
Democrats hate White people. We should probably tell the more than 200 million White Americans in this country more about this!
Doff retweeted
America, more than any other nation in world history, was shaped by the Christian tradition of spreading the gospel unto all nations.
Join us in celebrating International Religious Freedom Day.
Doff retweeted
This is a reminder of the stakes today, not only for Western nations but also for those who enter politics on the right. Failure doesn’t mean you get to go back to a normal life. Failure means you go to prison or are tortured under house arrest or killed. A sobering thought.
“Flávio has given up,” an adviser to the Bolsonaro family told me. “He’s terrified. He is worried his father will die in jail, that he himself will be jailed this week and that he may have a long prison term ahead.”
washingtonpost.com/politics/…
Doff retweeted
If you’re a Republican upset with what happened in Brazil, I ask you to consider voting early today.
Doff retweeted
I can guarantee that the founders of D&D and the first commercial RPG, TSR, that we worked harder, longer and with more elan to establish, against strong headwinds then, a before unheard of industry, first on the block, than the idiot ideologues at WotC have done in destroying and purposefully mutilating all of what we accomplished. It's a joyous chore to create something born of vision and nurtured and sculpted by unselfishness and hard work, but it takes little energy to deface and suck the life out of same.
Postmodern robber barons suck don't they? They have infiltrated the entertainment and arts industries right down to their various fandoms, the latter whom cheer on the takeover of once highly regarded franchises with the same hope of being something along side their new leaders that none from each group are: creators, nurturers and honorable custodians.
The recent BioWare debacle is on-point comparable to what has happened with Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro regarding their custodianship of D&D. The timelines, trajectories, their separate rises, their mystifying and beleaguered course changes which defied their once successful and merged creative<>business models, and their ultimate falls. EA wasn't swallowing it for BioWare as Hasbro continues to do for the D&D brand, the latter company which has a 3.4-1 debt to equity ratio and should be in shareholder revolt mode.
And this is but one such example, from beginning to end. There are myriad other examples out there; and they are not nonsense. Far from being that, they are the battle lines formed on one side by the uncreative, uncaring, and manipulative robber barons versus the creative, reasonable, vision-workers on the other.