As someone in the Midwest, I’m open to persuasion, but I’m looking for evidence. When I scan the big-city examples most associated with progressive governance, I don’t see reference models that make me say “yes, that’s where I’d want to live”. Until Democrats can point to a few places where the basics are reliably working ( public order, services, affordability) governance will remain their credibility gap. And I’d be persuadable even if the case weren’t “this will help me”, if there were clear, sustained examples where Black residents in big, blue cities are seeing measurably better outcomes (safer neighborhoods, stronger schools, higher graduation rates, rising incomes, lower family instability) because of how those cities are governed. I don’t see that proof-of-concept either. Promises aren’t the proof. Outputs are the proof. If the system can’t repeatedly deliver stable outcomes, the public assumes the management system is the problem.
Love the Midwest reference. I live in the intermountain West but was born & raised in the Midwest and spent my first 26 years there. I'm proud of those roots, and often describe the Midwest as the citadel of pragmatism in America. "We are in favor of what works, and against what does not work."
When the Midwest elected socialists, they were "sewer socialists," not the Mandamis. Chicago was the first big American city with a sewer system. North Dakota's wheat farmers were getting screwed by the grain mills and forced their state government to build a grain mill in Grand Forks, which to this day is the biggest flour mill in America, runs at a profit, and sells the best flour in the United States at less than half the price of anything else in the grocery store. It goes on.
Missouri, the "show me state," as in prove it. Harry Truman, who made his bones with the universally respected Truman Commission that whipped the military contractors into shape in World War II. Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers, mocked for predicting that they could make 500 planes a day -- until they did it. Henry Ford, who paid double the prevailing wage and cut the prices of cars so far that everyone could buy a Model T, and who then showed Henry Kaiser how to mass produce ships during World War II.
Much of that heritage is gone now, but not all of it. What does remain in most of the Midwest is pragmatism, and the failure of the Democrats to make shit work has turned Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Ohio into Republican states, with Michigan and Wisconsin trending that way. Even Minnesota is on the bubble.
Prove it, Democrats. We Midwesterners are unforgiving bastards toward people who cannot make shit work. No excuses for you, no evasions, no empathy. Don't tell me. Show me. If you can't make it work, then what the hell are you doing there? Get out, or we will throw you out.
"...The back door for mass immigration is closing; only an immigration realist left can be successful in the second quarter of the 21st century." Maybe, maybe not. There is plenty that Trump can do - is doing now - to make it likely that a very left-wing Democrat is elected President in 2028 to go along with Congressional majorities for Democrats.
In any case, this is an academic question because Democratic politicians everywhere won't publicly support ANY meaningful enforcement of immigration laws. Every ICE operation everywhere is described as heartless, illegal, betrayal of American values, etc. The Wokester Left controls Democratic primaries almost everywhere, and they will not budge an inch on their pro-open borders agenda.
I am a recovering Republican who swore off that party after GWB took us into two wars of choice that eventually killed over 10,000 young Americans for no good reason. For the last 22 years I have found myself politically homeless because the Democrats were increasingly too batshit crazy to be a viable alternative.
Unrestricted illegal immigration, the attacks on our First, Second and Fourth Amendment rights, nanny state surveillance and control, and the complete and utter intolerance for dissenting opinions make the so-called Democratic Party a sad, but very dangerous joke. Republicans blather on and on about "liberals," and yet Democrats have become more illiberal year after year after year.
Ruy, I wish you well in your quest to restore sanity to your party. As an independent, I am a gettable vote, but only after the items mentioned above have been corrected.
I was a strong middle of the road Democrat until the mid-teens when they went off the rails. They complain about Trump, and in many ways I can't blame them, but do they ever bother to ask themselves just how such an ass got elected not once but twice? Nope, the Democrats other than those who run this website don't dare ask just how it is that the Democratic Party has managed to offend tens of millions of Americans including millions who have voted for them over the years.
To put Robert Burns in modern English: "Oh what a gift it is / To see ourselves as others see us." Democrats, look in the god damn mirror!
At some point, though, to ever hold power again---and this will be a LONG rehabilitation I think is impossible---Ds will have to not only disavow people like Tim Walz, but actively pursue him legally for the incredibly obscene fraud that has occurred in MN, and which now appears to be the tip of the iceberg of fraud, with new revelations about the corrupt government in Kollyfornia. In short, before anyone will take Ds seriously---other than hard core Democrats---the party must show that it can prosecute its own and eliminate cesspools of graft and stupidity.
Oh, and despite polls showing Rs losing some ground---which I don't believe at all given the actual real evidence of voter registration---take this poll for what it's worth, but just yesterday Democrat approval sank far lower than Rs, to a third-party level 18%.
Spot on Ruy. Unfortunately, Dems already seem to have settled on an immigration policy. They have turned the US into a giant home base, where any non violent world resident can stay forever, if they can reach US soil. No accurate background check, valid asylum claim or economic self sufficiency required, nor any House and Senate vote.
Dems have simply deemed all interior enforcement of non violent criminal migrants, racist. If possession is 9/10ths of the law. location is 9/10ths of US Immigration law. Once here, chances of removal, even under Trump, are very slim. Migrants and Dems both know that.
Perhaps people outside of Texas, do no understand what transpired at Biden's border. Migrants presented themselves, often with no ID whatsoever. Hundreds of thousands of IDs from around the world, were purposefully dropped on the Mexican side of the border or floated down the Rio Grande. Migrants gave a name and country of origin, on the honor system.
No passport, no ID, no birth certificate, no proof whatsoever of their actual name or country of origin was required. Then they said the word "asylum", were finger printed and handed one of the most generous taxpayer funded Welcome Wagon baskets in the history of the earth. All before anyone checked any backgrounds or fingerprints.
The notion that all migrants standing in front of Home Depot or "grabbed off the streets" are all law abiding is comical. Much of the time, we have no way of knowing if they are or are not, because accurate background checks, outside the US, were never made. We have no way of knowing if even the names and nations of origin were accurate. In much if not most of the 3rd world, records and fingerprinting, barely exist. Now toss in a fake, generic name and possibly the wrong nation of origin, and we are not looking for a needle in a haystack, we are looking for a needle in millions of haystacks, of needles.
That is how a serial killer, accused of 2 dozen South American murders could walk across the border and reside in the Midwest for years, before being found. And his fingerprints were widely distributed due to the nature and number of his crimes. Now imagine a single murder or child rape committed a decade ago in a Latin American village with no electricity, and only paper records. If that criminal walks into the US, claiming a different name and nation of origin, they will likely never be discovered, unless they kill or rape again.
The situation is not remotely tenable, just for crime, before we get to driving records. Migrant drivers now regularly take US life in auto accidents, on a near weekly basis. Add in welfare, healthcare and education costs, along with a housing shortage and the negative effects on US wages.
Dems have been greatly aided by Trump's horrendous deportation optics and lousy messaging. Eventually Reps are likely to realize, they need an Immigration Information Czar, that does nothing but explain the actual Immigration situation and laws, in an easy to understand fashion. When that happens, many Dems will keep screaming at ICE agents, but many Independent voters are going to question the "Let Them All Stay Forever" de facto Dem policy.
An unintended consequence of people entering our country illegally is not only their entry broke the law, but also how they may learn how to best maneuver around their new home.
A longtime former Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) employee told lawmakers and media at the State House on Wednesday during a meeting of the Government Oversight Committee about a scam to get a drivers license.
“The scheme is simple: a non-English-speaking resident who wants a driver’s license hires a translator who supplies them with the answers, not just translation assistance. English speaking test takers have a 70% pass rate, non-English speakers have an 100% pass rate,” according to the whistle blower.
Unfortunately, several people have died at the hands of drivers who don’t know what they are doing.
If the Democrat party wants to transition to effective governance, they need a commitment to end such practices and then officials committed to operating within the law. That means, making enemies of everyone who is benefiting from the status quo, as well as building a voter and donor base of supporters committed to effective governance. Who are the turn around leaders in the Democrat party?
Piracy in the western hemisphere. NATO? The Council of the Americas? The Pan American Union? These were not unpatriotic. The US severed ties for want of what the earth yields. Measley borders do not stop greed.
As someone in the Midwest, I’m open to persuasion, but I’m looking for evidence. When I scan the big-city examples most associated with progressive governance, I don’t see reference models that make me say “yes, that’s where I’d want to live”. Until Democrats can point to a few places where the basics are reliably working ( public order, services, affordability) governance will remain their credibility gap. And I’d be persuadable even if the case weren’t “this will help me”, if there were clear, sustained examples where Black residents in big, blue cities are seeing measurably better outcomes (safer neighborhoods, stronger schools, higher graduation rates, rising incomes, lower family instability) because of how those cities are governed. I don’t see that proof-of-concept either. Promises aren’t the proof. Outputs are the proof. If the system can’t repeatedly deliver stable outcomes, the public assumes the management system is the problem.
Love the Midwest reference. I live in the intermountain West but was born & raised in the Midwest and spent my first 26 years there. I'm proud of those roots, and often describe the Midwest as the citadel of pragmatism in America. "We are in favor of what works, and against what does not work."
When the Midwest elected socialists, they were "sewer socialists," not the Mandamis. Chicago was the first big American city with a sewer system. North Dakota's wheat farmers were getting screwed by the grain mills and forced their state government to build a grain mill in Grand Forks, which to this day is the biggest flour mill in America, runs at a profit, and sells the best flour in the United States at less than half the price of anything else in the grocery store. It goes on.
Missouri, the "show me state," as in prove it. Harry Truman, who made his bones with the universally respected Truman Commission that whipped the military contractors into shape in World War II. Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers, mocked for predicting that they could make 500 planes a day -- until they did it. Henry Ford, who paid double the prevailing wage and cut the prices of cars so far that everyone could buy a Model T, and who then showed Henry Kaiser how to mass produce ships during World War II.
Much of that heritage is gone now, but not all of it. What does remain in most of the Midwest is pragmatism, and the failure of the Democrats to make shit work has turned Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Ohio into Republican states, with Michigan and Wisconsin trending that way. Even Minnesota is on the bubble.
Prove it, Democrats. We Midwesterners are unforgiving bastards toward people who cannot make shit work. No excuses for you, no evasions, no empathy. Don't tell me. Show me. If you can't make it work, then what the hell are you doing there? Get out, or we will throw you out.
"...The back door for mass immigration is closing; only an immigration realist left can be successful in the second quarter of the 21st century." Maybe, maybe not. There is plenty that Trump can do - is doing now - to make it likely that a very left-wing Democrat is elected President in 2028 to go along with Congressional majorities for Democrats.
In any case, this is an academic question because Democratic politicians everywhere won't publicly support ANY meaningful enforcement of immigration laws. Every ICE operation everywhere is described as heartless, illegal, betrayal of American values, etc. The Wokester Left controls Democratic primaries almost everywhere, and they will not budge an inch on their pro-open borders agenda.
True. They're so focused on their hatred of Trump that they can't admit they were wrong on anything they see as supporting him.
They're putting 100% of their eggs in one basket, but he's not going to be on the '28 ballot.
A Republican opponent just has to stay far enough away from the Trump personality but embrace the successful policies.
I am a recovering Republican who swore off that party after GWB took us into two wars of choice that eventually killed over 10,000 young Americans for no good reason. For the last 22 years I have found myself politically homeless because the Democrats were increasingly too batshit crazy to be a viable alternative.
Unrestricted illegal immigration, the attacks on our First, Second and Fourth Amendment rights, nanny state surveillance and control, and the complete and utter intolerance for dissenting opinions make the so-called Democratic Party a sad, but very dangerous joke. Republicans blather on and on about "liberals," and yet Democrats have become more illiberal year after year after year.
Ruy, I wish you well in your quest to restore sanity to your party. As an independent, I am a gettable vote, but only after the items mentioned above have been corrected.
I was a strong middle of the road Democrat until the mid-teens when they went off the rails. They complain about Trump, and in many ways I can't blame them, but do they ever bother to ask themselves just how such an ass got elected not once but twice? Nope, the Democrats other than those who run this website don't dare ask just how it is that the Democratic Party has managed to offend tens of millions of Americans including millions who have voted for them over the years.
To put Robert Burns in modern English: "Oh what a gift it is / To see ourselves as others see us." Democrats, look in the god damn mirror!
Way too reasonable.
At some point, though, to ever hold power again---and this will be a LONG rehabilitation I think is impossible---Ds will have to not only disavow people like Tim Walz, but actively pursue him legally for the incredibly obscene fraud that has occurred in MN, and which now appears to be the tip of the iceberg of fraud, with new revelations about the corrupt government in Kollyfornia. In short, before anyone will take Ds seriously---other than hard core Democrats---the party must show that it can prosecute its own and eliminate cesspools of graft and stupidity.
Oh, and despite polls showing Rs losing some ground---which I don't believe at all given the actual real evidence of voter registration---take this poll for what it's worth, but just yesterday Democrat approval sank far lower than Rs, to a third-party level 18%.
That's approval of congressional Dems. The same survey put the congressional Rs in the low 30s.
Correct, a 12 point R advantage. Parties can recover from 30s, not the 18s.
Not exactly cause for cheering for anyone but a rabid partisan.
Not exactly. As I've argued for months, the next election will be
Rs: "We may be lazy, corrupt, and inept, but at least we don't want to kill you."
Ds: "Hold muh beer."
They're actually making a good third party candidate a realistic option for once.
At least we can credit them for that.
Ross Perot, a bit of an unstable character himself, got 19% and cost GHW Bush the election against Clinton.
I don't think there'll be a third party, but I could imagine the Dems collapsing and being replaced, a la the Republicans and the Whigs in the 1850s.
Spot on Ruy. Unfortunately, Dems already seem to have settled on an immigration policy. They have turned the US into a giant home base, where any non violent world resident can stay forever, if they can reach US soil. No accurate background check, valid asylum claim or economic self sufficiency required, nor any House and Senate vote.
Dems have simply deemed all interior enforcement of non violent criminal migrants, racist. If possession is 9/10ths of the law. location is 9/10ths of US Immigration law. Once here, chances of removal, even under Trump, are very slim. Migrants and Dems both know that.
Perhaps people outside of Texas, do no understand what transpired at Biden's border. Migrants presented themselves, often with no ID whatsoever. Hundreds of thousands of IDs from around the world, were purposefully dropped on the Mexican side of the border or floated down the Rio Grande. Migrants gave a name and country of origin, on the honor system.
No passport, no ID, no birth certificate, no proof whatsoever of their actual name or country of origin was required. Then they said the word "asylum", were finger printed and handed one of the most generous taxpayer funded Welcome Wagon baskets in the history of the earth. All before anyone checked any backgrounds or fingerprints.
The notion that all migrants standing in front of Home Depot or "grabbed off the streets" are all law abiding is comical. Much of the time, we have no way of knowing if they are or are not, because accurate background checks, outside the US, were never made. We have no way of knowing if even the names and nations of origin were accurate. In much if not most of the 3rd world, records and fingerprinting, barely exist. Now toss in a fake, generic name and possibly the wrong nation of origin, and we are not looking for a needle in a haystack, we are looking for a needle in millions of haystacks, of needles.
That is how a serial killer, accused of 2 dozen South American murders could walk across the border and reside in the Midwest for years, before being found. And his fingerprints were widely distributed due to the nature and number of his crimes. Now imagine a single murder or child rape committed a decade ago in a Latin American village with no electricity, and only paper records. If that criminal walks into the US, claiming a different name and nation of origin, they will likely never be discovered, unless they kill or rape again.
The situation is not remotely tenable, just for crime, before we get to driving records. Migrant drivers now regularly take US life in auto accidents, on a near weekly basis. Add in welfare, healthcare and education costs, along with a housing shortage and the negative effects on US wages.
Dems have been greatly aided by Trump's horrendous deportation optics and lousy messaging. Eventually Reps are likely to realize, they need an Immigration Information Czar, that does nothing but explain the actual Immigration situation and laws, in an easy to understand fashion. When that happens, many Dems will keep screaming at ICE agents, but many Independent voters are going to question the "Let Them All Stay Forever" de facto Dem policy.
Ruy, as usual you hit the nail on the head.
An unintended consequence of people entering our country illegally is not only their entry broke the law, but also how they may learn how to best maneuver around their new home.
A longtime former Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) employee told lawmakers and media at the State House on Wednesday during a meeting of the Government Oversight Committee about a scam to get a drivers license.
“The scheme is simple: a non-English-speaking resident who wants a driver’s license hires a translator who supplies them with the answers, not just translation assistance. English speaking test takers have a 70% pass rate, non-English speakers have an 100% pass rate,” according to the whistle blower.
Unfortunately, several people have died at the hands of drivers who don’t know what they are doing.
If the Democrat party wants to transition to effective governance, they need a commitment to end such practices and then officials committed to operating within the law. That means, making enemies of everyone who is benefiting from the status quo, as well as building a voter and donor base of supporters committed to effective governance. Who are the turn around leaders in the Democrat party?
Piracy in the western hemisphere. NATO? The Council of the Americas? The Pan American Union? These were not unpatriotic. The US severed ties for want of what the earth yields. Measley borders do not stop greed.
Is there a point buried in there?
Jimmie Higgins says, Where do I sign up?