I think the Democratic Party HATES ME for being a white rural gun owner who's never committed a crime and who asks for nothing but to be left the hell alone by these lecturing, hectoring, smug, arrogant, self-righteous jokers. The Democrats would LOVE ME if I were a black gang banger, illegal immigrant drug trafficker, transgender antifa rioter -- anything other than a contributing member of society.
The Democrats represent the dregs, the deadweight. To them, I am nothing but a walking wallet to be pickpocketed and harassed. Vote for that? Not only no, but HELL NO. They wonder why they are unpopular, do they? But wait, aren't these the people who have told us for years that they are smarter than mere human beings? Really!
Halpin posits the salient question: What issue have Democrats moderated on? And he offers the correct answer: none.
In fact, Democrats have instead doubled down in their performative political hijinx, moving from potty mouthed rhetoric for the appearance of "masculinity" to either supporting or failing to denounce acts of in-your-face resistance, from property desecration to physical assault.
That is indicative of a party dangerously doctrinaire and deservedly marginalized by a generally more civil public that finds these antics as embarrassing as the are offsetting.
As I said in my post above, the primary system is forcing BOTH parties to abandon the sensible center of politics. Incumbents in safe districts have to kowtow to their respective lunatic fringes in the primaries in order to be able to coast through the general. It's not as though the Republicans are any less deranged than the democrats; their delusion is merely less frightening to the mass of voters.
True, but the number of safe seats keeps increasing. Partisan state electoral boards use computers to draw districts so as to maximize the number of seats for the dominant party. And states themselves are becoming more red or blue as voters move for college or jobs or to escape high taxes or neighbors who disagree with them.
I don't bother to vote in the democratic primary in the red state that I live in; it's a wasted vote. Just try to pick the least batshit Republican, in the hopes that they will go on to make it to, and therefore win, the general.
When reminded of how few promises they have kept, the Democrat tell me the Republicans are worse. When I reject that lame excuse, they call me a racist without explaining what is racist about expecting them to do what they said they would. To hell with them.
I am afraid the various interests and groups have too tight of a grip on the Democratic Party for any real change to take place until they lose a few more elections. 2028 probably will be the key. If they lose that maybe just maybe they might change
Bravo, for saying the quiet part out loud. Dem policies have not changed.
Reps are horrendous at messaging, or they would be constantly and repeatedly informing US voters, the moment Dems return to power 10K unvetted people a day, will again cross the Southern border. Young women will again, be expected to accept trans girls with different private parts in their school bathrooms, locker room showers and athletic fields. Child sex change operations will return. Trillions of tax payer dollars will , again, be flushed on Green fantasies. Public schools will continue their noticeable decline.
The change in the US from 2020 to Jan 2025 was so drastic, it feels as if things will never return to normal. Prices continue to surprise, not because they keep rising, but because it is now clear, they are never returning to affordable levels. Homelessness, once largely confined to CA, NYC and a few other urban areas, is now omnipresent in much of the US. The country appears less prosperous. Public areas are more unkept. Nothing seems to work, as it once did, even in upper middle class enclaves.
It is, as if, the entire nation has morphed into CA, minus the 75 degree temps and ocean vistas.
Want to grab the kids a quick bite on the way to practice? No one in the drive thru will speak English. You will be asked to park, to wait for food that tastes, noticeably worse than 5 years ago. Areas of the US that historically lacked any crime, often now face, regular property crime or worse. The effects of illicit drugs are everywhere. The list goes on and on. For current or past CA residents, the decline seems very familiar, only it is national and occurring more quickly.
Than you are probably the exception. A rural Midwest school teacher friend, at the same school for decades, had 7th graders repeatedly falling sleep in class, in a school district without an underclass or a historical drug problem. After medical tests and checking the class room for low level gas leaks, it turned out the kid was hitting Mom's pot gummy stash with breakfast and sharing with friends. Parts of the Midwest are now drowning in drugs. 100K ODs annually in the US under Biden, did not all occur on the coasts. Nearly anyone with a college kid from 2020-2025 heard campus OD horror stories, and plenty were in the Midwest.
Former CA neighbors, in Denvers' most exclusive and expensive suburb awoke to news of a home invasion a street over, a few years ago. A family with a car stolen out of the driveway of Midwest suburb, where $800K buys a 50 year old 2000 sq foot starter home.
In Ohio, friends with business interests bemoaned the decline. Ditto for much of Texas, where public transportation does not exist outside of cities, and people walking along side a busy road for transportation, is no longer rare. All over Texas crime now occurs, in areas where it was virtually unknown preBiden.
Vacationing in a tony part of the UP Michigan a few years ago, we were surprised when locals mentioned lake houses now require security systems. The often empty and remote homes are now targets of organized theft rings. Ditto for friend with a remote vacation home, an hour outside of Minneapolis. These are overwhelmingly first hand accounts, not newspaper stories. If your community has not experienced some uptick in drugs, crime or financial decline since 2019, it is most likely an outlier.
I'm not saying we have no crime, but not to the extent you're painting it. By the way, what is the Midwest suburb where $800K buys a 50 year old 2000 sq feet starter home?
Outside of Chicago. We are old with friends all over the country, because after 25 years in CA, nearly everyone we knew went somewhere else. Many of them are very liberal, but they all bemoan the same thing , no matter where they relocated, and many went to very upscale areas. Crime drugs and poverty seem to have increased markedly, in a relatively short period of time.
Come on -- so you're friends moved to very upscale areas and then complain about the prices? It's like kids who move to NY and L.A. and complain about high housing costs. Live someplace else.
We live in the countryside in a county with a small population and no town over 3,500. What I am hearing about the schools since covid is scary. Not a big increase in crime, though, because it's a fairly rare household that's not armed. And trust me, the county sheriff and the county prosecutor are very much on our side.
John, You seem to still not be able to HEAR what the voters are saying.. Think about the voters top priorities in the last election: end the flood of anyone/everyone into our country, stop fanning the flames of inflation, and remove criminals from our communities.
The majority of voters seem to have moved on from fresh faces and fancy talk. Democrats need to go back to basics, listen to voters, believe what they say, then say what you will do and do what you say. I know this is very hard and takes a long time.
Sort of amazing how you note specific problems, but manage to talk around, instead of about them; so much rationalization. And where do you get your facts - hard to believe that voters prefer the Dem approach re vaccinations.
I think that there was a very big lag time re voters perception of what has been going on in the democrat party, that and sheer disbelief about want they were seeing and hearing. Then one day a democrat man woke up to the realization that Democrats were seriously OK with an adult male hanging out in his daughter’s public restroom, and then - WTF?
The democrats have been pushing a lot of sick, disgusting policies - and that fact is, only now, sinking in.
And the “fresh new voice” running for NYC mayor . . give me a break. (FYI, Jeet Heer @ The Nation says Mam is “keeping hope alive”.)
The current configuration of your party belongs in the trash bin of history; and the sooner, the better.
The unpalatable ingredient in the Democratic recipe is the current iteration of Progressivism, a toxic stew of identitarianism, loathing of America, racism, antisemitism, and top down collectivism. Nobody will vote for people who despise our country. Nobody will vote for people whose governance causes harm. I am afraid that given the Party's current trajectory it will have to implode before meaningful reform can happen.
It would be challenging us to take this kind of survey.
We are proud members of the Democratic Party. But Progressives have infested our beloved party and have ruined it, and the country sees that.
So if we had two questions to answer we could do it. Question one would be our favorability rating of the Democratic Party until about 10 years ago. And question two would be our favorability rating of the Democratic party now after it has been infested by Progressives.
For years I was a Missouri Republican who voted almost exclusively for Democrats statewide (but not in most Federal elections). The Missouri GOP seemed too radical, the local Democrats were the party of reason. But now I can't imagine voting for a Democrat at any level. Unless they expressly disown the national party's radical positions, I'm stuck with Republicans of whom I don't especially approve but at least of whom I'm not literally afraid.
By the way, I have yet to see ANY Dems, including the excellent and hard-trying authors of the Liberal Patriot, spend any time on federal finances. Now, that's an article I could write because I have the background. The basic problem, politically, is that Democrats act as if money falls from the sky. Are they innumerate? I kinda sorta tend to think they just might be.
Financially speaking, there are major warning signs. And NEITHER PARTY is paying much attention to them. In the end, the following is basic: Debt has its place, but the reality is that debt reduces operational flexibility. Kill me now for that Wharton MBA, but I did very well in economics, finance, and financial accounting. Storm clouds have been gathering for 20 years. The media are too stupid and too degraded to get it, and the politicians haven't been this terrible in a hundred years.
A good example of what you're talking about is Sen. Warren's proposal to solve the housing shortage. She would spend $550 billion to build or rehab 3 million homes. She would pay for this, she says, by returning the lifetime exemption from estate tax back to its level as of 2009 and taxing larger estates more heavily. Yet, the amount she proposes to spend is forty times the estate tax revenue of 2009. She would have to tax far more estates than previously while taxing the larger estates at drastically higher rates. Either that, or print the money.
An apt summary, though I always tend to put the Democrat problems under the "Five Civil Wars" category. Until they can solve even one of those, let alone all five, they are going to have a major likeability problem.
Meanwhile, Cook has the 2026 House at 212 R, 205 D, and 18 toss ups. But that was before this morning when TX put out its new +5 R map. Likely the House by early next year will be 217 safe R. However, OH by its constitution MUST also redistrict, and that will almost certainly add 2 safe R seats and one more tossup. That leaves FL, which may redistrict for a net gain of 3 R seats. Bottom line: the Rs may well ALREADY be a lock for the House, and no matter what will hold the senate, if not expand. And the new people are MAGA, not John Cornholes of Mel Tillises.
Please explain the "Five Civil Wars." I hope you're correct about the House. I think the Democrats are so far gone that they might be hopeless. I was a Dem for 40 years, and sometimes pretty liberal about it, but I want them to lose in '26 and to get a very hard butt kicking in '28. I want the "progressives" humiliated and driven into the tall grass where the rattlesnakes live. I've had it with them. They have turned into a malevolent force. American voters need to teach these people, and I'm afraid the entire Democratic Party, a rough lesson in the true meaning of "FAFO."
I'd say both parties are responding to incentives. They do what is best for them. They want to be re elected and they want lots of donations. connections, and power. I'd say they've both done pretty well too, at getting what they want that is.
I think it was one of those "new conservatives" or whatever they call themselves, Vance or Hawley or somebody, who drew one of those four cornered ideology graphs on a napkin and explained. Liberals are bottom left, Conservatives upper right, moderates up in that left top quadrant, and all of our politicians down in the lower right, where none of us are. Tons of potential if someone wanted to run on economic populism and moderate on social issues.
If Democrats could come up with a real populist we might give the New Conservatives a run for their money, but so far, as you said, we've just been more of the same. No mea culpa.
Great observation, the problem is social issues no longer help Dems, as they have historically.
Abortion is settled. The word is barely uttered anymore, and only in relation to State politics.
Gay marriage is settled. Being gay in the 2025 is no more interesting to most people than being left handed. In any event, no one is attempting to end gay marriage, even if they personally disapprove.
No Americans are attempting to outlaw trans adults. The US is very tolerant. 80% however, do not support trans child social engineering, but no Dem will condemn it.
The other problem is Leftwing populism, cannot exist with open borders. Yet not a single Dem has supported the deportation of anyone but violent criminals. The Dem policy appears to be, any non violent world resident who can reach US soil, can stay permanently, regardless of economic self sufficiency. That policy is diametrically opposed to populism.
George should have left it at "old formulas that seemingly don't work." That's because they don't, and won't; at least not as efficiently nor fairly as free markets and free people.
No, neoliberalism. Neoliberalism believes in minimal government and free markets. It's got its defects, but it gave us a pretty good run from Reagan through Bush II. Obama spurned it, Biden followed the worst excesses of the DEI movement, sponsored by wackdoodle academics, and brought us the horrendous mismanagement of COVID.
The free movement of people, free movement of capital, and free movement of goods. Reagan amnestied 2.7 million leading to our current fiasco, also upped the taxes on Social Security. He was better on tariffs.
One word: progressives. Their deeply idiotic and off putting policies, ideas and statements. Their unamerican, smarmy politicians and their unamerican, self righteous, sanctimonious supporters.
Democrats need a new fresh face to present an agenda that they will stand up for. And they want government to stop prioritizing unlikable social policies like transgenderism. Mamdani in NYC epitomizes the formula; young politician who stands up for what he believes and proposes solutions. If you don’t like his solutions put yours on the table and let’s discuss it. Old formulas that seemingly don’t work aren’t what people want.
I certainly don't agree with all of them but Mmdani does have concrete policy proposals. Rent freeze, free busses, city owned grocery stores, increased 2% tax on over a million income, $30 min by 2030, sector wide unions, and bunches of other stuff with more ambiguous language. Free farrior care for single horned horses maybe.
I see three reasons why he is doing well, politically. Equally important.
1. New York's Democratic establishment, both in the state but especially in the city, is the most pathetic in more than 50 years. Adams and Cuomo? No wonder. The Republicans are even worse. Really, Curtis Sliwa?
2. The first hurdle was a very low-turnout contest, like the average school board race where we live.
3. Mamdani is good looking (a dead ringer for that Iranian "fitness trainer" boy toy -- Sam Asghari -- who was married to that whackjob singer, Britney Spears) and his videos are quite polished. He is made for Tik Tok and every gossip rag.
If he's elected, the political decline of New York will be in neon. The money can't leave right away, but there will be that giant sucking sound. He will be the third crypto-communist mayor of the biggest cities in steep decline, the others being L.A. and Chicago.
And Chicago, once #2 is soon not even going to be in the top 3. Regardless of how it goes, this ought to be a cannon shot across the bow of the Democratic Party, but it won't be. When Wall Street moves to Dallas, it will be too late. Looking for an analog? That would be when Canada's leading corporations left Montreal and went to Toronto. Yes, kids, these things happen.
But he hasn't said specifically how he will do those things. He has no power to proclaim free busses, etc. Anyone can promise free stuff, delivering it is something else.
To a degree a Mamdani victory may ultimately benefit us all as it would provide an unassailable demonstration project for progressive governance just like the Berlin wall. One side impoverished, repressed, and bleak while the other thriving, vital, and hopeful. I know what you're thinking - but that would destroy the reputation of the Democratic party. It's already end stage, so what? But we'd have to sacrifice our most vibrant city to make a point. I'm OK with that.
John, respectfully, TLP is going to have to do more than append its usual talking points to someone else’s work to keep earning the subscriptions of those of us genuinely interested Democratic resurgence. As Al From has argued ad nauseam, political parties do not reform in the abstract but respond to real candidates with real ideas winning real contests. Nobody in Republican leadership seriously contemplated the shift from free trade to protectionism, for example, until Trump started bulldozing primary opponents with it. Mandani is important for the same reason as AOC: beating the snot out of a candidate with whom he had no business sharing a ballot. Meanwhile, TLP makes darlings out of Sherrill, Spanberger, Shapiro, Golden, etc, based on what exactly? I dig that they’ve won tossups and are mouthing the right words to occupy the centrist lane, but sort of like I dig a pleasant nap. Show me PIONEERS busting the sod in deep red America and I’ll wake up. Show me ORIGINAL THINKERS using novel ideas and approaches to dramatically outperform with the electorate and light up the socials, and I’ll take notice. Show me LEADERS capable of yanking the moderate majority out of its torpor while also attracting from the left and center-right, and I’ll snap to attention. These are the liberal patriots we so desperately need.
Cities are on the one hand dynamos of economic growth and mobility, and on the other very, very difficult to govern. City administrations succeed when they focus on the practicalities over which they have a high degree of control. They fail when they self-indulge, as I agree many progressives will.
I consider myself fortunate to have been a career "road warrior" in what will long be viewed at the Golden Age of the American City, a 25-year period that started in the late 1980s and began breaking down in the early 20-teens. The decline was underway by about 2015 or so, and then went radically downhill as "progressives" exploited racial tensions and then covid hit.
I don't think cities are necessarily "very, very difficult to govern." New York, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Portland, Minneapolis, and even Philadelphia were humming. Today, I wouldn't visit any of them unless I had to, and these days I don't have to.
The difference? "Progressives" have ruined them. It's almost as if they somehow LIKE the crime, the racial hatred, and the disorder.
I think the Democratic Party HATES ME for being a white rural gun owner who's never committed a crime and who asks for nothing but to be left the hell alone by these lecturing, hectoring, smug, arrogant, self-righteous jokers. The Democrats would LOVE ME if I were a black gang banger, illegal immigrant drug trafficker, transgender antifa rioter -- anything other than a contributing member of society.
The Democrats represent the dregs, the deadweight. To them, I am nothing but a walking wallet to be pickpocketed and harassed. Vote for that? Not only no, but HELL NO. They wonder why they are unpopular, do they? But wait, aren't these the people who have told us for years that they are smarter than mere human beings? Really!
The dregs but also the oligarchs
Absolutely. If you're very rich or very poor, the Democratic Party is for you.
Halpin posits the salient question: What issue have Democrats moderated on? And he offers the correct answer: none.
In fact, Democrats have instead doubled down in their performative political hijinx, moving from potty mouthed rhetoric for the appearance of "masculinity" to either supporting or failing to denounce acts of in-your-face resistance, from property desecration to physical assault.
That is indicative of a party dangerously doctrinaire and deservedly marginalized by a generally more civil public that finds these antics as embarrassing as the are offsetting.
As I said in my post above, the primary system is forcing BOTH parties to abandon the sensible center of politics. Incumbents in safe districts have to kowtow to their respective lunatic fringes in the primaries in order to be able to coast through the general. It's not as though the Republicans are any less deranged than the democrats; their delusion is merely less frightening to the mass of voters.
Primary elections are hardly new.
True, but the number of safe seats keeps increasing. Partisan state electoral boards use computers to draw districts so as to maximize the number of seats for the dominant party. And states themselves are becoming more red or blue as voters move for college or jobs or to escape high taxes or neighbors who disagree with them.
I don't bother to vote in the democratic primary in the red state that I live in; it's a wasted vote. Just try to pick the least batshit Republican, in the hopes that they will go on to make it to, and therefore win, the general.
When reminded of how few promises they have kept, the Democrat tell me the Republicans are worse. When I reject that lame excuse, they call me a racist without explaining what is racist about expecting them to do what they said they would. To hell with them.
I am afraid the various interests and groups have too tight of a grip on the Democratic Party for any real change to take place until they lose a few more elections. 2028 probably will be the key. If they lose that maybe just maybe they might change
Bravo, for saying the quiet part out loud. Dem policies have not changed.
Reps are horrendous at messaging, or they would be constantly and repeatedly informing US voters, the moment Dems return to power 10K unvetted people a day, will again cross the Southern border. Young women will again, be expected to accept trans girls with different private parts in their school bathrooms, locker room showers and athletic fields. Child sex change operations will return. Trillions of tax payer dollars will , again, be flushed on Green fantasies. Public schools will continue their noticeable decline.
The change in the US from 2020 to Jan 2025 was so drastic, it feels as if things will never return to normal. Prices continue to surprise, not because they keep rising, but because it is now clear, they are never returning to affordable levels. Homelessness, once largely confined to CA, NYC and a few other urban areas, is now omnipresent in much of the US. The country appears less prosperous. Public areas are more unkept. Nothing seems to work, as it once did, even in upper middle class enclaves.
It is, as if, the entire nation has morphed into CA, minus the 75 degree temps and ocean vistas.
Want to grab the kids a quick bite on the way to practice? No one in the drive thru will speak English. You will be asked to park, to wait for food that tastes, noticeably worse than 5 years ago. Areas of the US that historically lacked any crime, often now face, regular property crime or worse. The effects of illicit drugs are everywhere. The list goes on and on. For current or past CA residents, the decline seems very familiar, only it is national and occurring more quickly.
I don't know where you live, but I live in the Midwest and none of that is true for my community (minus the blue cities).
Than you are probably the exception. A rural Midwest school teacher friend, at the same school for decades, had 7th graders repeatedly falling sleep in class, in a school district without an underclass or a historical drug problem. After medical tests and checking the class room for low level gas leaks, it turned out the kid was hitting Mom's pot gummy stash with breakfast and sharing with friends. Parts of the Midwest are now drowning in drugs. 100K ODs annually in the US under Biden, did not all occur on the coasts. Nearly anyone with a college kid from 2020-2025 heard campus OD horror stories, and plenty were in the Midwest.
Former CA neighbors, in Denvers' most exclusive and expensive suburb awoke to news of a home invasion a street over, a few years ago. A family with a car stolen out of the driveway of Midwest suburb, where $800K buys a 50 year old 2000 sq foot starter home.
In Ohio, friends with business interests bemoaned the decline. Ditto for much of Texas, where public transportation does not exist outside of cities, and people walking along side a busy road for transportation, is no longer rare. All over Texas crime now occurs, in areas where it was virtually unknown preBiden.
Vacationing in a tony part of the UP Michigan a few years ago, we were surprised when locals mentioned lake houses now require security systems. The often empty and remote homes are now targets of organized theft rings. Ditto for friend with a remote vacation home, an hour outside of Minneapolis. These are overwhelmingly first hand accounts, not newspaper stories. If your community has not experienced some uptick in drugs, crime or financial decline since 2019, it is most likely an outlier.
I'm not saying we have no crime, but not to the extent you're painting it. By the way, what is the Midwest suburb where $800K buys a 50 year old 2000 sq feet starter home?
Outside of Chicago. We are old with friends all over the country, because after 25 years in CA, nearly everyone we knew went somewhere else. Many of them are very liberal, but they all bemoan the same thing , no matter where they relocated, and many went to very upscale areas. Crime drugs and poverty seem to have increased markedly, in a relatively short period of time.
As to Chicago, all cancers are found around/surrounded by, healthy tissue.
Come on -- so you're friends moved to very upscale areas and then complain about the prices? It's like kids who move to NY and L.A. and complain about high housing costs. Live someplace else.
They are not complaining about prices. They are complaining about crime, that did not previously exist in those areas, preBiden.
We live in the countryside in a county with a small population and no town over 3,500. What I am hearing about the schools since covid is scary. Not a big increase in crime, though, because it's a fairly rare household that's not armed. And trust me, the county sheriff and the county prosecutor are very much on our side.
John, You seem to still not be able to HEAR what the voters are saying.. Think about the voters top priorities in the last election: end the flood of anyone/everyone into our country, stop fanning the flames of inflation, and remove criminals from our communities.
The majority of voters seem to have moved on from fresh faces and fancy talk. Democrats need to go back to basics, listen to voters, believe what they say, then say what you will do and do what you say. I know this is very hard and takes a long time.
Sort of amazing how you note specific problems, but manage to talk around, instead of about them; so much rationalization. And where do you get your facts - hard to believe that voters prefer the Dem approach re vaccinations.
I think that there was a very big lag time re voters perception of what has been going on in the democrat party, that and sheer disbelief about want they were seeing and hearing. Then one day a democrat man woke up to the realization that Democrats were seriously OK with an adult male hanging out in his daughter’s public restroom, and then - WTF?
The democrats have been pushing a lot of sick, disgusting policies - and that fact is, only now, sinking in.
And the “fresh new voice” running for NYC mayor . . give me a break. (FYI, Jeet Heer @ The Nation says Mam is “keeping hope alive”.)
The current configuration of your party belongs in the trash bin of history; and the sooner, the better.
Anti vaxxers are kind of like flat earthers but more dangerous because they can spread measles.
LOL
The unpalatable ingredient in the Democratic recipe is the current iteration of Progressivism, a toxic stew of identitarianism, loathing of America, racism, antisemitism, and top down collectivism. Nobody will vote for people who despise our country. Nobody will vote for people whose governance causes harm. I am afraid that given the Party's current trajectory it will have to implode before meaningful reform can happen.
It would be challenging us to take this kind of survey.
We are proud members of the Democratic Party. But Progressives have infested our beloved party and have ruined it, and the country sees that.
So if we had two questions to answer we could do it. Question one would be our favorability rating of the Democratic Party until about 10 years ago. And question two would be our favorability rating of the Democratic party now after it has been infested by Progressives.
For years I was a Missouri Republican who voted almost exclusively for Democrats statewide (but not in most Federal elections). The Missouri GOP seemed too radical, the local Democrats were the party of reason. But now I can't imagine voting for a Democrat at any level. Unless they expressly disown the national party's radical positions, I'm stuck with Republicans of whom I don't especially approve but at least of whom I'm not literally afraid.
By the way, I have yet to see ANY Dems, including the excellent and hard-trying authors of the Liberal Patriot, spend any time on federal finances. Now, that's an article I could write because I have the background. The basic problem, politically, is that Democrats act as if money falls from the sky. Are they innumerate? I kinda sorta tend to think they just might be.
Financially speaking, there are major warning signs. And NEITHER PARTY is paying much attention to them. In the end, the following is basic: Debt has its place, but the reality is that debt reduces operational flexibility. Kill me now for that Wharton MBA, but I did very well in economics, finance, and financial accounting. Storm clouds have been gathering for 20 years. The media are too stupid and too degraded to get it, and the politicians haven't been this terrible in a hundred years.
A good example of what you're talking about is Sen. Warren's proposal to solve the housing shortage. She would spend $550 billion to build or rehab 3 million homes. She would pay for this, she says, by returning the lifetime exemption from estate tax back to its level as of 2009 and taxing larger estates more heavily. Yet, the amount she proposes to spend is forty times the estate tax revenue of 2009. She would have to tax far more estates than previously while taxing the larger estates at drastically higher rates. Either that, or print the money.
I don't think the Cherokees were great at math, especially the fake ones.
An apt summary, though I always tend to put the Democrat problems under the "Five Civil Wars" category. Until they can solve even one of those, let alone all five, they are going to have a major likeability problem.
Meanwhile, Cook has the 2026 House at 212 R, 205 D, and 18 toss ups. But that was before this morning when TX put out its new +5 R map. Likely the House by early next year will be 217 safe R. However, OH by its constitution MUST also redistrict, and that will almost certainly add 2 safe R seats and one more tossup. That leaves FL, which may redistrict for a net gain of 3 R seats. Bottom line: the Rs may well ALREADY be a lock for the House, and no matter what will hold the senate, if not expand. And the new people are MAGA, not John Cornholes of Mel Tillises.
Please explain the "Five Civil Wars." I hope you're correct about the House. I think the Democrats are so far gone that they might be hopeless. I was a Dem for 40 years, and sometimes pretty liberal about it, but I want them to lose in '26 and to get a very hard butt kicking in '28. I want the "progressives" humiliated and driven into the tall grass where the rattlesnakes live. I've had it with them. They have turned into a malevolent force. American voters need to teach these people, and I'm afraid the entire Democratic Party, a rough lesson in the true meaning of "FAFO."
I've done so in my own substack, but briefly:
1) Jews/pro-Israel v. Pale/Hamas (Muslim support for Trump in MI shot up in 2024)
2) AI techbros v. Geens. You simply cannot do energy "transition" and have AI. Rather you need massive new small nuke reactors, coal, and gas.
3) Illegal criminal alien invaders v inner city (mostly black) residents
4) Biden: "He was incompetent & demented but we didn't know" v. stand by him traditionalists
5) War on men vis a vis 20+ years of bashing men, toxic masculinity and now they are leaving the Ds in droves.
I'd say both parties are responding to incentives. They do what is best for them. They want to be re elected and they want lots of donations. connections, and power. I'd say they've both done pretty well too, at getting what they want that is.
I think it was one of those "new conservatives" or whatever they call themselves, Vance or Hawley or somebody, who drew one of those four cornered ideology graphs on a napkin and explained. Liberals are bottom left, Conservatives upper right, moderates up in that left top quadrant, and all of our politicians down in the lower right, where none of us are. Tons of potential if someone wanted to run on economic populism and moderate on social issues.
If Democrats could come up with a real populist we might give the New Conservatives a run for their money, but so far, as you said, we've just been more of the same. No mea culpa.
Great observation, the problem is social issues no longer help Dems, as they have historically.
Abortion is settled. The word is barely uttered anymore, and only in relation to State politics.
Gay marriage is settled. Being gay in the 2025 is no more interesting to most people than being left handed. In any event, no one is attempting to end gay marriage, even if they personally disapprove.
No Americans are attempting to outlaw trans adults. The US is very tolerant. 80% however, do not support trans child social engineering, but no Dem will condemn it.
The other problem is Leftwing populism, cannot exist with open borders. Yet not a single Dem has supported the deportation of anyone but violent criminals. The Dem policy appears to be, any non violent world resident who can reach US soil, can stay permanently, regardless of economic self sufficiency. That policy is diametrically opposed to populism.
George should have left it at "old formulas that seemingly don't work." That's because they don't, and won't; at least not as efficiently nor fairly as free markets and free people.
Old formulas? I'd characterize that neoliberalism as being an old formula. Open borders and open trade didn't work out so well.
I liked it better than what we've got now.
You liked unlimited immigration (including criminals) and raging inflation?
No, neoliberalism. Neoliberalism believes in minimal government and free markets. It's got its defects, but it gave us a pretty good run from Reagan through Bush II. Obama spurned it, Biden followed the worst excesses of the DEI movement, sponsored by wackdoodle academics, and brought us the horrendous mismanagement of COVID.
The free movement of people, free movement of capital, and free movement of goods. Reagan amnestied 2.7 million leading to our current fiasco, also upped the taxes on Social Security. He was better on tariffs.
One word: progressives. Their deeply idiotic and off putting policies, ideas and statements. Their unamerican, smarmy politicians and their unamerican, self righteous, sanctimonious supporters.
Democrats need a new fresh face to present an agenda that they will stand up for. And they want government to stop prioritizing unlikable social policies like transgenderism. Mamdani in NYC epitomizes the formula; young politician who stands up for what he believes and proposes solutions. If you don’t like his solutions put yours on the table and let’s discuss it. Old formulas that seemingly don’t work aren’t what people want.
Solutions? You have got to be joking, except I know you are serious. You want to turn this country into Cuba or Venezuela.
Well, they've got nice beaches and better fruit.
Mamdani doesn't propose any concrete solutions - just rainbows and unicorns.
I certainly don't agree with all of them but Mmdani does have concrete policy proposals. Rent freeze, free busses, city owned grocery stores, increased 2% tax on over a million income, $30 min by 2030, sector wide unions, and bunches of other stuff with more ambiguous language. Free farrior care for single horned horses maybe.
I see three reasons why he is doing well, politically. Equally important.
1. New York's Democratic establishment, both in the state but especially in the city, is the most pathetic in more than 50 years. Adams and Cuomo? No wonder. The Republicans are even worse. Really, Curtis Sliwa?
2. The first hurdle was a very low-turnout contest, like the average school board race where we live.
3. Mamdani is good looking (a dead ringer for that Iranian "fitness trainer" boy toy -- Sam Asghari -- who was married to that whackjob singer, Britney Spears) and his videos are quite polished. He is made for Tik Tok and every gossip rag.
If he's elected, the political decline of New York will be in neon. The money can't leave right away, but there will be that giant sucking sound. He will be the third crypto-communist mayor of the biggest cities in steep decline, the others being L.A. and Chicago.
And Chicago, once #2 is soon not even going to be in the top 3. Regardless of how it goes, this ought to be a cannon shot across the bow of the Democratic Party, but it won't be. When Wall Street moves to Dallas, it will be too late. Looking for an analog? That would be when Canada's leading corporations left Montreal and went to Toronto. Yes, kids, these things happen.
But he hasn't said specifically how he will do those things. He has no power to proclaim free busses, etc. Anyone can promise free stuff, delivering it is something else.
Those are all terrible ideas
To a degree a Mamdani victory may ultimately benefit us all as it would provide an unassailable demonstration project for progressive governance just like the Berlin wall. One side impoverished, repressed, and bleak while the other thriving, vital, and hopeful. I know what you're thinking - but that would destroy the reputation of the Democratic party. It's already end stage, so what? But we'd have to sacrifice our most vibrant city to make a point. I'm OK with that.
John, respectfully, TLP is going to have to do more than append its usual talking points to someone else’s work to keep earning the subscriptions of those of us genuinely interested Democratic resurgence. As Al From has argued ad nauseam, political parties do not reform in the abstract but respond to real candidates with real ideas winning real contests. Nobody in Republican leadership seriously contemplated the shift from free trade to protectionism, for example, until Trump started bulldozing primary opponents with it. Mandani is important for the same reason as AOC: beating the snot out of a candidate with whom he had no business sharing a ballot. Meanwhile, TLP makes darlings out of Sherrill, Spanberger, Shapiro, Golden, etc, based on what exactly? I dig that they’ve won tossups and are mouthing the right words to occupy the centrist lane, but sort of like I dig a pleasant nap. Show me PIONEERS busting the sod in deep red America and I’ll wake up. Show me ORIGINAL THINKERS using novel ideas and approaches to dramatically outperform with the electorate and light up the socials, and I’ll take notice. Show me LEADERS capable of yanking the moderate majority out of its torpor while also attracting from the left and center-right, and I’ll snap to attention. These are the liberal patriots we so desperately need.
I will be more succinct than that. Show me any state or big city run by "progressives" that isn't a declining, scary mess.
Cities are on the one hand dynamos of economic growth and mobility, and on the other very, very difficult to govern. City administrations succeed when they focus on the practicalities over which they have a high degree of control. They fail when they self-indulge, as I agree many progressives will.
I consider myself fortunate to have been a career "road warrior" in what will long be viewed at the Golden Age of the American City, a 25-year period that started in the late 1980s and began breaking down in the early 20-teens. The decline was underway by about 2015 or so, and then went radically downhill as "progressives" exploited racial tensions and then covid hit.
I don't think cities are necessarily "very, very difficult to govern." New York, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Portland, Minneapolis, and even Philadelphia were humming. Today, I wouldn't visit any of them unless I had to, and these days I don't have to.
The difference? "Progressives" have ruined them. It's almost as if they somehow LIKE the crime, the racial hatred, and the disorder.