Old Freak Nasty

If there's a free and fair election in 28, just run Beshear, full populist mode. I would prefer Moore, but I'm hitting a 7 iron off the tee, no driver.

We should all take the time we need to process this result. But it should be measured in months and not years. We have to stay informed and engaged. I haven't been on socials in many many years and all of my interactions have been with Trump voting people in person (and some phone banking in the last several months) or reading political news. And even still I'm going to unplug at least until a few months into the next administration. But I will be back, no matter where I physically am. I'm not giving up on America.

I think the Democratic nominee will need to show some aggression and anger next time. They will need to show, in simple, simple words, that policies to help the working class have been championed by the Democrats but cannot be implemented because of GQP grandstanding and THAT is who to blame for it. The GQP has become experts at stonewalling everything Democrats want to do and then hanging the noose around us and getting the masses to believe it's the Democrats fault. Fuck it, we need a communicator that will come out swinging and bludgeon these fuckers over and over and over and over again with that message. Tap into the same rage space that's allowed this dipshit to come to office twice. There's still room to be optimistic and hopeful around it but rage is a core way to connect with the voters you need to persuade. It's a big ask, but ask for the voters to deliver the presidency, senate, and house so we can actually do something and not just talk the talk. Normally I don't think that would be possible, but we are all going to be worse off, and the Trump voters especially worse off, after 4 years. There will be a receptive audience for it in 2028.

Maybe I'm also cynical in the aftermath, but I'm thinking that the campaign doesn't even matter anymore. Just pick the right candidate in the primary for general election purposes. Resume and credentials don't matter, male-ness, heartland or heartland adjacent, and white-ness, white-ness flexible in case of a powerful brilliant communicator, i.e. Wes Moore.

In post-mortem I agree to that. Beforehand, I was of the opinion that Beshear was woefully unqualified as a Democratic red state governor because he really is only that because of his dad and name recognition. But I think I know now that the resume doesn't really matter to the decisive slice of the electorate. Beshear probably would have beat Trump. Agree 100% with your position.

I don't really get this take. If you look at who delivered the fatal blow to Harris in the decisive states, it was people who were NEVER going to vote for her no matter how she campaigned. Her goose was cooked by her gender as unfair as it is. Unless you think doing so would have juiced turnout for her, but how much juice was left to squeeze there? If there are free and fair presidential elections in 28 I'm pretty sure Trump will do a fine enough hatchet job on the economy to hand the presidency to the democratic nominee, if it's a white male from the heartland. We will have to endure a lot of pain in the interim.

For me, Trump doing a "good" job would mean doing absolutely nothing. He's going to fuck the judiciary beyond belief with appointments and stop arming Ukraine and look the other way at Israel, but after that nothing. No federal abortion ban, no deportations, no new or increased tariffs, no dilution of NATO. I'd consider that good. He can build some stupid wall as a vanity project, rip off the federal government to Trump Co's benefit and do some other dumb shit that doesn't matter much, but other than that let the government atrophy for 4 years would be as good as we can get.

There's a small part of me that has hope, likely misguided, that he's now vindicated in his mind about the 2020 election with the size of this victory and potentially the popular vote. And that his grievances of being a victim are satisfied. Then the question becomes what does he want the most? It's always most about money and power and now he has those two in ways even he could have never dreamed of since he's clearly of the mindset to using the office to enrich himself. Then there was going to prison. That problem is solved. Then I think it becomes a personality consideration. He likes to be both the victim and the villain. But what if he's too tired to be the villain now and doesn't have a whole lot of standing to be the victim anymore. Is he docile and just plays golf and counts his money all day? He doesn't care about legislation. Will he rebuff the Millers of the world, telling him there's no reason to make people mad since he's got everything he's ever wanted? I don't really believe anything I've just wrote honestly. But maybe he's too lazy to govern or take any slight bit of backlash anymore. He's transactional. Who's to say he won't tell the Project 2025 guy or Musk to go fuck off. After all, it's more powerful to his ego to tell guys like that to fuck off than deport people or whatever else. But even if that reality comes to pass, it will birth a number of American super-oligarchs by blind eye so it wouldn't be all good. Occam's razor suggests he's going to find something to be the victim of and then again after that. It'll probably be on day 1 at his inauguration size. If he's a good or non-destructive president, then great. I'll take it.

There is a scenario, I'd say even likely, that Ukraine could largely keep a stalemate for the next 2 years. There could even be the possibility of only recoverable territory by election day 2028 depending on how the Russians can recruit and improve the quality of their troops. But it's going to be very very grim.

Agreed on the spineless adjective, but isn't this better than handing off the case documents to Trump's DOJ? Or am I misguided and they'll get their hands on everything either way?

We should stop saying economy really. It's just the price of milk, eggs, cereal, and junk food. A good chunk of his supporters have nothing in the bank account week after week, and a smaller, but still massive number have no retirement savings or securities. The messaging has to start from how Democratic policies can lift people out of living paycheck to paycheck, not some far-flung abstract concept of "retirement". None of these voters could ever dream of a retirement in the conventional manner. Stop talking about retirement and economy. Simplify it to the core.

I hate to say it, but just like it took the repeal of Roe to mobilize women and win elections in places like fucking Kansas, it's going to take some deporting of some (a lot?) American citizens to swing the Latino vote back Democratic. We are strictly in the "no progress without pain" phase of American democracy.

Let's see what the next 2 years brings before we can wrestle some control of the legislative branch back. Most important to avoid a war involving NATO and complete cratering of the economy by tariffs and contraction of available labor. Probably a 50-50 shot at best for either. Sad to say, but we will have to deal with voting rights, women's rights, and climate change maybe afterwards depending on how well democrats do in 2026. Will be interesting to see movement patterns within the US in the next two years.

There is one path left: PA/MI/AZ. That's it. Edit: Curtains in PA. It's over.

We are playing 4D chess. Pete's going to get his conversion therapy now and destroy Trump in 2028.