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Democrats currently lead the U.S. House popular vote by about 13 points nationally and in 30 states, including Indiana, which Donald Trump carried by 19 points in 2024.
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Watching old 2016 GOP presidential primary debates, one is not only struck by their fawning - worshipful - attitudes expressed concerning Israel, but how 1) candidates direct completely unrelated topics to Israel (e.g. in clip related, Ben Carson is asked about taxes and changes the subject to Israel) 2) how candidates falsely accuse each other of being anti-Israel.
This was a cult. The fact that it appealed to voters is also highly disturbing. They didn't talk about the UK, Australia, Japan, or other (actual) allies in this fashion.
youtu.be/GasRDffe1Xg?list=PL…
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There's a tragic pattern playing out where voters reject the incumbent party for largely economic and material concerns, but this wave brings into power a group of ideologues with their own radical agenda and identity grievances incompatible with economic growth.
With Trumpism, you got:
- sudden tariffs and betrayal of international allies
- major war with no exit plan disrupting global energy
- immigration crackdown throwing wrench into workforce with no transition or reform plan
With Democrats, it's looking like they're leaning into:
- maximally complicate construction of data centers, despite these being the factories of the green economy Democrats 20 years ago saw as the future
- kneecap Elon companies out of spite
- public sector protectionism to enrich job holders at a time when value for money is a voter concern and major city public school enrollments are shrinking
- DEI reinstatement and racial spoils
At least with Trump the tariff and immigration impact was blunted, because the Republican party was still institutionally pro-business and was never going to pass a major immigration restriction bill or target employers of illegal immigrants. The high-visibility street enforcement satisfied the political urge while being ineffectual and creating no permanent policy.
Dems though, I don't see having much internal opposition to prevent them going fully insane. And they're actually competent enough to pass laws and create lasting effects.
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Salon was dumb but at least it consisted of articles which made arguments about policies that relied on factual claims which you could plausibly debate. Most of these sites at one point even had direct comment sections (remember those?) where outsiders could argue with them.
The young people today are all scrolling short form video feeds where they're presented with a ceaseless barrage of conspiracy and rumor and misinformation.
There isn't even much of a shared venue for discussing content now, like Facebook comments sections where you argue with your classmates about the article. The idea that we were coming together around pieces of journalism, which had some institution and brand with them, is gone.
fivethirtyeight.com is gone
Buzzfeed news is gone
Salon is gone
Gawker is gone
thinkprogress is gone
Jezebel shut down and revived shell of its former self
Vice declared bankruptcy, shell of its former self
mic.com laid off most of their staff and are a shell of their former self.
The 2010s online media sites many of which were responsible for mainstreaming wokeness are disappearing.
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fivethirtyeight.com is gone
Buzzfeed news is gone
Salon is gone
Gawker is gone
thinkprogress is gone
Jezebel shut down and revived shell of its former self
Vice declared bankruptcy, shell of its former self
mic.com laid off most of their staff and are a shell of their former self.
The 2010s online media sites many of which were responsible for mainstreaming wokeness are disappearing.
Today, after 31 years, we are saddened to announce that Salon is ceasing publication. It has been an extraordinary privilege. salon.com/2026/11/05/goodbye…
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I've seen this same sentiment passed around a bunch:
"LDS are the most GOP voting bloc"
Guys, it's because they overwhelmingly white. That's the reason.
In 2024:
77% of white Protestants voted for Trump.
It was 74% of white LDS.
And 67% of white Catholics voted Trump.
Exit polling shows that Latter Day Saints were the highest percentage of religious group that voted for the GOP.
So maybe boss babe conservative women like @conservmillen don’t actually have the best instincts when they decide to attack our faith 2 weeks before a midterm.
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Most people think that Trans rights have gone too far. But Dems are still able to peel off a good chunk of those voters. I think that Republicans ads often spam the issue too much and overestimate the amount that people care.
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How Democrats won in the deep South. In South Carolina the exit polls show the electorate being less black than 2024 and they voted about the same. Graham lost because whites voted about how they vote nationally, and not how they usually vote in the deep south.
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Republicans are going to have a terrible night, and the simple reason why is that Trump has put up perhaps the worst *performance* this term of any president in a century or more.
Remember that he entered with an actual mandate: the House and Senate, a popular vote victory and a swing-state sweep, and 6-3 Supreme Court. Democrats were afraid enough to vote for mild but real immigration restrictionist legislation in the Laken Riley Act. Everyone wondered how far the "Vibe Shift" would go.
Trump managed to turn that into essentially zero durable wins whatsoever. He personally *hates* the very idea of legislation, the notion that he would have to spend time going back and forth with Congress, learning details and making compromises. So he simply didn't do it! He didn't make a compelling case for abolishing the filibuster. He didn't try communicating clearly to the public in support of popular bills to get to 60 votes. He just decided not to do it at all.
So they passed an unpopular tax cut, some funding for ICE, and a sop to the crypto industry, and that was basically it. Least productive Congress in decades, due to the tastes of one man.
Trump adopted one of the worst macro policies we've ever had: high deficits, high tariffs, and attacks on central bank independence. We managed to pay higher interest rates while still having high trade deficits AND weakening the dollar. Just a total failure.
On immigration, perhaps THE signature issue, Trump essentially min-maxxed effectiveness and backlash. Instead of trying to leverage the political moment for new laws and a self-deportation agenda (that is, walling off the economy to remove the benefit of irregular presence in the US), he opted for a maximally aggressive approach. The administration spent attention, funds, legal manpower on stunts like deporting random people to Salvadoran prisons with essentially no due process. ICE and Border Patrol were encouraged to be aggressive and confrontational, which helped contribute to the shooting deaths of American protestors. It turns out, that's extremely unpopular!
What about the approach of going after employers? The obvious vector? Trump hated that idea! He repeatedly has said he doesn't want to target businesses (especially farms) that use large amounts of illegal labor. This is just an incomprehensible position. Instead of charging a few dozen businessmen and removing the incentive for millions of illegal workers to be here, you arrest people off the street one by one at the cost of thousands of dollars in manpower per each, while their crying wives and kids post TikToks about it.
Upshot on immigration: electoral strength turned into a crippling electoral weakness in exchange for deporting maybe 6% of the illegally present population.
The tariffs were a total shitshow. Embarrassing rollout, no underlying theory of action at all. No targeted focus on key industries. Our country tariffed products we can't grow. We tariffed *inputs* of our own valuable exports. The schemes and amounts changed constantly, sending the stock market reeling and presenting scenes of chaos to the world.
Trump's messaging throughout has been generationally bad. While facing nearly 2:1 unpopularity, he spends his days posting AI slop, saying he'll rename New Mexico or invade allies, among other bizarre remarks. He brags about a ballroom and a pool repainting while gas hits records. At no point has he ever attempted any kind of message discipline.
Then there are the deeply unpopular attacks on rule of law, his "game-recognize-game" pardons for all manner of scammers and criminals, the crypto schemes that he and his family engage in, the evilly conceived and embarrassingly executed legal attacks on Comey, Jerome Powell, and others. With his monthslong stand on NOT releasing the Epstein files, he became maybe the first president ever to stake out a 99-1 issue on the 1% side.
That's not even getting into Iran, DOGE, his candidate recruitment choices, or countless other things. Simply put: Trump has managed to royally screw up virtually every single facet of his presidency. It's been undeniable, voters have noticed, and there's really no escape from it. This is what the GOP base chose in early 2024, and this is the world they're living with now. Where they handed the reins of history to a fat, vain, washed-up old man and let him drive.
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Belgium, you may be interested to know, is tied with Ireland for the #2 spot on V-Dem's Freedom of Expression Index. I love political science.
Belgium is preparing a criminal case against philosopher @nathancofnas that could result in up to 3 years of jail time.
Why jail a philosopher? Because Cofnas has argued that some race differences in psychological traits might be due to genetic differences. And this allegedly violates a new law that Belgium passed a month ago against 'dissemination of racial ideas' and 'incitement to discrimination or racial hatred'.
Here @Rosalind_Arden_ breaks down this strange story of censorship, retaliation, and institutional bullying of scholars who address taboo topics.
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Trump lost white voters in the West by 1 point, and won White voters in the northeast by 1 point.
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Speaking of ContraPoints: My BreadTube article is coming out soon in @ElephantMag_ — here's a preview : )
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WHAT IS ‘JUGAAD’? - THE INDIAN CONCEPT OF ‘UNCONVENTIONAL PROBLEM-SOLVING’ (EUPHEMISTIC) 🇮🇳
After the concept of ‘Izzat’ went viral a lot of people online began using it as catch-all explanation for much of India’s dysfunctionality. Depending on who you ask, how real ‘Izzat’ is ranges from ‘completely made-up slander’ to ‘a very real always present lived reality’ to ‘a figurative sociological shorthand that captures some importantly real social dynamics’. YMMV. In any case if you want to actually understand ‘why India is like India’ maybe a more important term to know is ‘Jugaad’
Jugaad is a Hindi word that roughly means an improvised solution. In the strictest usage it describes fixing a problem with whatever materials, money or contacts are available, rather than with the proper tool or the official method. The word is believed to come from rural Punjab where it also referred to a homemade vehicle built by attaching a diesel water-pump engine to a wooden cart. In everyday speech Jugaad can describe anything from repairing a broken chair with wire to getting a government form approved through a friend in the office. See attached image for examples of improvised Jugaad contraptions and to get ‘spiritual sense’ of the term
Jugaad is then used in two broad ways. One refers to resourcefulness: making do with limited money and unreliable services by finding cheap, practical fixes. Some popular author have used it in this sense to describe "frugal innovation," meaning low-cost products designed for people with little money. The other refers to getting around rules, standards or procedures, often through personal influence or informal payments. Indians use the word in both senses and the meaning usually depends on context
The second sense is a part of daily life for many Indians. Common examples include paying a small amount to settle a traffic fine on the spot, asking a relative to help with a school admission, hiring an agent to speed up paperwork, skipping a queue through a contact, using temporary repairs on wiring or plumbing, adding to a building without full approvals etc etc. Because these practices are widespread they are often treated as a normal part of getting things done. The phrase chalta hai, meaning "it will do," is often used alongside jugaad to describe acceptance of work that is temporary or below standard
These practices are closely connected to patterns of social trust. When people expect others to work around rules they tend to adjust their own behaviour to match. A driver may not wait at a red light if others are driving through. A person in a queue may try to skip ahead if they assume others are also trying to. Following the formal process can come to be seen as slower or less effective than the informal route
This can affect trust in institutions too. If outcomes seem to depend on who you know or what you pay, people may slide into no longer believing that offices, courts or police treat everyone equally. They then rely more on family, caste or community networks to get things done which further weakens formal systems. Trust between strangers can also suffer. Buyers may doubt that products meet standards, tenants may doubt a building is safe, customers may assume a service provider will cut corners. People often spend extra time and money checking, negotiating or arranging their own workarounds
Access to jugaad is uneven. People with more money or wider networks generally have more options for informal solutions, while those with fewer resources are more likely to rely on formal systems or go without or perhaps even opt for more low-tech grasping and opportunistic kinds of Jugaad if they absolutely have to. (Similar practices of course exist in many other countries.) In India, the word continues to be used for both inventive problem-solving and rule-bending. While people's attitudes towards its ubiquity vary it has at least been formalised as a well-known term that ‘gets at’ something in the culture
