Steve Salerno ... ᴏɴᴄᴇ ɪɴ ᴀ sʏᴄᴀᴍᴏʀᴇ ɪ ᴡᴀs ɢʟᴀᴅ

My platform is limited, and I wonder why anyone should listen to me anyway, lol, but REE-LAX, people. Last night was a snapshot in a cyclical pattern that NEVER resolves to some sort of static political reality. Though I want America to do well—no American should root for failure as a prelude to political advantage—I have every confidence that if the Dems surrender to their "energy wing" and try to implement even a third of what some of the outliers are giddily envisioning this morning, they will face a massive comeuppance. America is a centrist nation and no one is going to abolish prisons or summarily seize property or "key sectors" of the economy. Just will not happen. Insofar as the pearl-clutching over the fact that in exit polls 18% of us identified as democratic socialists...keep in mind that a few years ago on our college campuses roughly 100% of students identified as trans (I'm exaggerating for effect, but the number was outlandish), and now we've basically reverted to the expected distribution. We are a very emotional people and we get carried away; lots of sound and fury signifying nothing. #Election2026 #Midterms2026 #BlueWave @ChrisCuomo

Of course...otherwise only the Asian kids would be able to pass them. xitter.gq/i/trending/21184043617…

This may tell us a lot, not just abt Minnesota. Among those with IQs at or BELOW 90, there's been a 6-fold increase in men and a 10-fold increase in women who graduate from college. 1. If "college-level work" is accessible to ppl with IQs below 90, is it still college-level work? 2. Could this explain the manifest dumbing-down of higher ed? Even, as I've researched, in settings like med school? 3. If we are not designing college to challenge our best and brightest...what's the point of it all?

Dear GOP: I know, I know, we're all sick of the trans garbage...but you couldn't win on affordability, and this is the kind of stuff that really sticks in voters' craws. You have your finger on America's social pulse—this, DEI, race in general, the dangerously wacko prog lens on decriminalizing crime—you OWN THE DAMN FRANCHISE!—yet you play in sandboxes where you just end up getting sand kicked in your faces. It's NOT "the economy stupid" if you can't win on it! #Midterms2026 #Election2026 #BlueWave

Some further thoughts on the self-care craze—and craze may be the perfect word. Click link to read: stevesalerno.substack.com/p/… #MentalHealthAwareness #SelfCare #Psychology

Peltola's up too, now? (That weird race in Alaska.) My lord, this is beyond a bloodbath; it's a public evisceration. Thank you, Donald Trump. You actually won the popular vote in 2024, had all that good will and a genuine mandate in certain key areas...and look what you did...

There's nothing wrong, per se, with a senator being a Muslim. (People are incensed over that alone, regrettably.) But there's something very wrong with a senator being a Muslim who does not have America's best interests at heart. I see valid questions to be raised about El-Sayed.

So Trump disclaims responsibility for the bloodbath. This, after shouting for months, “pretend I’m on the ballot!” Mr. President, did you think only hard-core MAGA types were listening? Sorry if you don’t see it as a referendum on you, but that’s ALL it was. I’m betting 2/3 of the voters that swung the election to the left couldn’t articulate half of their chosen candidate’s positions on this or that (except for bland nostrums like “make life more affordable”). They might have rationalized their votes in policy terms, but this was clearly an anti-Trump groundswell. You’re telling me that the voters in Texas who made Gina Hinojosa governor fully understood and supported, say, her platform on education? No way in hell. Even a lot of the Republican voters you were counting on by now were sick of all the histrionics and silliness (how much time did you waste on getting your name on the Kennedy Center?) or at least ambivalent enough to not bother voting. That’s on you, 100%. Whether or not you still deny that you lost in 2020, you lost last night, sir.

The most succinct/insightful analysis I've seen here. There's no better way to explain the wild swings from Obama to Trump and back again, and the rest of today's political chaos/carnage.

I meant "standardized" testing.

Trump is a scumbag. And I've posted on this before, so it's not like I'm a Monday-morning QB. But even if he embezzles $1 million a month from the US treasury, it is better FOR AMERICA to have a Trump in office than someone like Gina Hinajosa (see below). Now should we be able to find prople who are good for America AND not scumbags?? ... Of course! But you have to pick your hills to die on, given the options.

Texas has elected Gina Hinajosa as governor. I give you a summary of her positions on education, from her own materials: Dramatically reduce standardizing testing and standard measures of student/school achievement, eliminate school vouchers, ban charter schools from eliminating applicants with past disciplinary problems. This is what Texas voted for, just in part. And there's more... This what I mean about how we vote on pique, not principle. And we elected people like this, and worse, nationwide tonight.