November 7, 2024

Unstolen election mega-thread

Just re-posting two initial comments here for now to get the ball rolling, will add to it in the comments as usual.

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Why didn't Dems steal it this time? Well, Dems were promising to steal it -- the state election boards in battleground states, the media, and Obama himself on the campaign trail.

Why didn't they this time? Perhaps the election steal of 2020 was part of the broader civic breakdown of 2014-2020 -- most of which was marked by political violence, hostile rhetoric, etc. Stealing an election is not physical violence, or even heated rhetoric, but it is hyper-competitive, antagonistic, anti-social, etc.

It was also part of the broader hostile crusade by woketards, like censoring and deplatforming everyone during the 2014-2020 abyss. That's also hostile, anti-social, war-like, etc., but not physically violent.

This is part of the Peter Turchin 50-year cycle in civic breakdown, whose last peak was the late '60s and early '70s, then the late 1910s and early '20s, late 1860s and early '70s, a missing explosion circa the late 1810s and early '20s (which was instead the Era of Good Feelings), and another burst around the Revolutionary War of circa 1770.

It's a kind of energy that builds up, and then dissipates, over a cycle lasting 50 years, or 25 years in either direction.

By 2024, it was already clear that the violent symptoms of this pattern had abated -- BLM and Antifa did not burn down half the country in '24, there were no roving executions of cops caught on camera like in the mid-late 2010s, Democrats didn't roam around assassinating Trump supporters for no reason and getting off with no bail, etc. Although there were 2 assassination attempts on Trump himself -- the violence hasn't gone to 0, but it's only 5% of what it was during the 2014-2020 abyss.

Libtards didn't even hold marches when the Supreme Court over-turned their sacred cow of Roe v. Wade in '22. There will be no pussy hat marches when Trump is re-inaugurated.

Twitter allowed itself to be bought out and taken over by Musk, which would not have been allowed in 2014-2020, and they submitted to the new orders about no more crazy censorship and ban waves.

So, the failure or unwillingness of Dems to carry out the steal this time must be part of that general dissipation of policitized zeal from its 2014-2020 peak (abyss). There will be no Russiagate, #MeToo, Resistance, etc. bullshit like there was during Trump's first term, during the peak of politicized zealotry.

I thought since stealing an election wasn't violent or confrontational, they'd still do it -- especially since that's what they were promising for the past few months, right up through most of election night, with Philadelphia halting their vote count early in the evening, waiting for the rest of the state to return their numbers, anticipating a steal. Who am I to second-guess the same message, from the same top-level figures, that was followed up on by a successful insane steal in the very last election?

The energy level declining across all dimensions -- violence, censorship, stealing elections -- is also bipartisan. There was WAY less zeal on the Trump side this cycle, compared to 2015-'16, and even 2020. No one is sincerely posting God-Emperor memes anymore, no one is champing at the bit to lay the first bricks in that Big Beeyooteeful Wall, which never got built the last time. And there's just been far less trolling and teabagging this time than in 2016, and certainly 2020 when it got stolen, preventing the teabagging.

Politicized zeal overall in American society has fallen off of its 2014-2020 explosive peak, and will reach a minimum circa 2045, which will be as non-partisan as the mid-1990s were 50 years earlier. Then the next explosion will happen in the 2060s and early '70s, and the cycle will keep on repeating...

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Also a quick dunk on tech determinist dum-dums, who blamed / credited the explosive zeitgeist of 2014-2020 on newfangled tech (social media, smartphones, "meme magic," online in general).

Well, Americans are even more online than they were in 2016, yet the zealotry has fallen off a cliff after 2020, and will continue plummeting toward a minimum in 2045 -- all while Americans continue to be as online, or even more online, than they were in the 2014-2020 period.

That's the cross-temporal proof. Then there's the cross-sectional proof -- Japanese people have become more and more online since they first adopted the internet. Yet they have experienced no such explosion of politicized zealotry -- whether leading to violence, censorship, heated rhetoric, stolen elections, or whatever else.

All technologies are mere tools, indifferent to how they're used, and impotent to shape, channel, or nudge human societal systems or individual behavior. Rather, the dynamics of society and individual psychology lead to some people using some tech for some purpose in some state of affairs, and some others to use some other tech (or even the same tech) for some other purpose when they're in some other state of affairs.

Americans didn't need social media or the internet or online anonymity to carry out an equally explosive bout of zealotry in the late 1960s and early '70s, or the late 1910s and early '20s, or the Civil War or the Revolution -- or the civic breakdown of the 60s AD during the Roman Empire, most of whom weren't even literate, let alone employing a communicative medium other than speech sounds coming out of the mouth.

When the cycle enters a crazy zealous phase, they use whatever means / media they have at their disposal, and when the cycle leaves the crazy zealous phase, they either use different media that have no stain of the zealous-associated media, or they use the same ol' media for a different purpose.

Technologies are utterly indifferent to how they're used, and they have no deterministic or even probabilistic influence stemming from inherently from themselves, toward human behavior, at any scale (person, group, society, etc.).

105 comments:

  1. Homework assignment for right-wingers emphasizing the excess of 15-20 million votes that Biden supposedly got in 2020 vs. Harris in 2024, but also vs. the Democrat in 2016 and 2012 and 2008, etc., which was one of the clearest signs of massive fraud in 2020 -- and has now been confirmed by it collapsing back to Democrat vote totals for 2008, '12, and '16, without the society-wide coordinated steal machine of 2020.

    Repeat this very simple intuitive analysis -- at smaller scales. Go state by state, but start with the stolen states of 2020. With 15-20 million fake votes in the nationwide pile for 2020, undoubtedly all states were contaminated by them. But if the purpose was to steal certain battleground states, the fradulent excess should be very apparent in those ones at a minimum.

    Go finer-grained, focusing on the big cities in the stolen states of 2020 (Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta and its suburbs, etc.).

    Perhaps two levels of fine-scale -- counties making up a single metro area and going metro by metro within a single state's boundaries (some metro areas span multiple states), and even finer going single county by county.

    This will look even more stark and revealing, cuz I doubt that the 15-20 million fake votes landed in rural counties, and there are a lot of rural or small-pop counties. The fraud would've been concentrated in the counties that house the dominant city of the state, its broader metro area, and maybe some second-tier cities as well.

    I will get the ball rolling, but will not flesh it out entirely -- that's someone else's job.

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  2. 2020 Democrat vote fraud, as shown in vote totals for Pennsylvania statewide, Philadelphia County, and the Philadelphia metro area (within PA), from 2008 through 2024.

    The vote is still be tallied or tabulated or reported, so it'll increase somewhat, but not drastically. The '24 figures reflect what is reported on electionreturns.pa.gov on the afternoon of 11/7.

    Pennsylvania, D votes (mill)

    2008: 3.28
    2012: 2.99
    2016: 2.97
    2020: 3.46
    2024: 3.3

    Without the gargantuan steal machine in '24, D votes plummeted back to Obama '08 levels, and not too high above '12 and '16 levels. D's lost 160K votes between '20 and '24.

    The surge between '16 and '20 was about a 5% increase in votes -- that may sound small, but 5% annual inflation is big, especially in a large-pop statewide figure that should be fairly stable. And it was not meant to flip PA to being 90% D -- just enough to steal it back across the narrow margin that Trump won it with in '16.

    Philadelphia County, D votes (thou)

    2008: 596
    2012: 589
    2016: 584
    2020: 604
    2024: 553

    Because Philadelphia initiated, then walked back, the steal on election night '24, by halting the vote count or holding back that information, there are still some left to be reported. Nevertheless, so far there are some 50K fewer votes in the county in '24 vs. '20.

    The surge between '16 and '20 was about a 3.5% increase, similar to the statewide pattern.

    For the Philadelphia metro area, aggregate Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties.

    Philadelphia metro, D votes (mill)

    2008: 1.35
    2012: 1.28
    2016: 1.33
    2020: 1.52
    2024: 1.44

    Another plummet in D votes by 80K between '20 and '24, though still notably elevated above even Obama '08 levels, which is prima facie unbelievable.

    The surge between '16 and '20 was a comically ridiculous 14% increase, an order of magnitude above the surges in the state or county scale.

    This super-high excess, and the still very elevated levels vs. Obama '08, says that the steal was concentrated in the entire Philly metro area, not just the city, and that they were absolutely pumping out fake votes like mad in '24.

    However, their pile of fake votes was only half as big as it was in '20, and they were going up against a higher pile of R votes statewide. Trump got 3.38 mill in '20, increasing to 3.45 mill in '24.

    The fake-vote-printer was only working at half-output, and had to tackle a wider gap = D's called off the steal that was already in motion.

    Better luck next time, suckers!

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  3. To cut some slack to the black urban working and lumpen classes in the city of Philadelphia, and to heap more of the blame onto the white fake email job MSNBC junkie psychos in the suburbs, have a look at the vote surge between '16 and '20 by county within the Philly metro.

    D vote increase, 2016-'20 (%)

    Phil: 4
    Buck: 23
    Ches: 29
    Dela: 17
    Mont: 25

    Again, even the Philadelphia County results are sus, but the other 4 suburban counties are outright unbelievable. That's where the lion's share of the fake-vote-printer was operating during the steal of 2020.

    On the other side of the steal, compare the decrease from '20 to '24

    D vote decrease, 2020-'24 (%)

    Phil: 8
    Buck: 5
    Ches: 1
    Dela: 5
    Mont: 3

    Philadelphia actually threw in the towel more than the suburbs did. The stealers remained far more psycho and committed in the affluent suburbs than in the shithole city itself, even if all of them were less psycho than in 2020.

    Just something to remember when writing your fanfic about who will be put into the camps on the Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

    Back on planet Earth, though, Trump won't touch the wealthy white libtard suburbanites who are his most committed enemies, cuz he's a (disjunctive) neolib and prizes yuppies first and foremost, and probably won't bother going after the less-important blacks of the city proper (cuz waycism).

    But just so the historical record is clear, it's the middle-class white professional progs and libs who are the problem, not emotionally exhausted blacks from the city.

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  4. I don't mean wealthy white suburbanites voted more D than urban black workers. That's not what "the enemy" means -- that's just "the other team" or "rival" in a fair-play competition.

    By enemy I mean the cheaters, psychos, breaking or re-writing rules willy-nilly, no concern for long-term stability in pursuit of short-term selfish gain, destroying the entire competition by melting down the norms, just so you can win this one single match.

    The psychos and cheaters are middle-class white Democrats, not urban working / lumpen blacks.

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  5. In fact, given the psycho reactions by middle-class white Democrats to Hispanics, and Arabs for lowering their level of support for the Democrat this time, I wouldn't be surprised if the Philly Dem machine isn't going to launch the most KKK-tier tirade against the blacks of the city itself, in private of course.

    "While all counties had somewhat lower vote totals than in 2020... SOME OF US managed to hold the line better than OTHERS OF US..."

    "[Sucks teeth] Why don'tchu jus' come on out 'n' SAY IT!"

    "If you damn pavement apes had just gotten off your LAZY ASSES and done the work, if we didn't have to BABYSIT YOU so much... maybe we could've pulled it off again! There! Happy?! I hope you are!"

    Imprison white middle-class Democrat voters, for the welfare of all races, sexes, and classes.

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    Replies
    1. It was delightful to see the Arabs of Michigan turn against the Dems en masse wasn't it? Particularly given how many thought in 2016 that Trump would lead a Fourth Reich with Muslims and Mexicans as the equivalent of Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs!

      Then again, pre-9/11 American Muslims were natural allies of the GOP. Pat Buchanan even courted them in his 2000 Reform Party campaign. During the Cold War, conservative Muslims were the allies of Republican administrations against the Commies. It is a little known fact that they even held out on the Chinese mainland until 1958!:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang_Islamic_insurgency

      Now that the commies are kind of back, its nice the see the old trans-Med ethnic group alliances coming back again.

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    2. Some blacks were also psycho against Hispanics and Arab Americans for betraying their side, to the point where they are disavowing the whole "people of color" alliance over on Twitter.

      You talked earlier on the blog on how blacks hate recent immigrants like Hispanics and Arabs and Asians:

      https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2018/01/black-vs-immigrant-tensions-heating-up.html

      It's looking like realignment in 2028 is going to be American nationalism on the Democrat side with anti-immigrant whites and blacks who can trace their ancestry back before the civil war vs imperial multiculturalism on the Republican side with Ellis Islander ethnic whites + Latinos + Asians + other recent immigrants.

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  6. I'm not surprised. This cheating in elections usually happens in a period of huge economic inequality and striving and elite competition and internecine warfare like today and also like the previous Gilded Age in America, where you regularly see people like Boss Tweed steal elections for their own side.

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  7. Fraud was rampant in a small-pop deep-blue state like Vermont in 2020 as well, not just battleground states.

    Vermont, D votes (thou)

    2008: 219
    2012: 199
    2016: 197
    2020: 243
    2024: 215

    The surge between '16 and '20 was a comical 23%, which has since crashed back down below Obama '08 levels, though still a bit higher than '12 and '16. (The '16 figure includes both Clinton and Bernie write-ins.)

    So it looks like the fake-vote-printer was not just trying to flip battleground states, but to run up the nationwide popular vote on top of that, to deliver a SUPER-DUPER stinging rebuke to Trump. Sad and pathetic -- and also totally impotent, since doing so made it unbelievable, and just reminded all sides that the people favored Trump rather than Biden.

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  8. Moving onto bellwether analysis, start at the state level -- Ohio and Florida are long-term historical swing states. Rarely, one of them votes against the eventual occupant of the White House -- but almost never do both of them vote against the eventual occupant.

    In 2020, while others were doing bellwether county analysis, I did that for the state-level, and going back through all of American history, not just the past several cycles. The only elections were both Ohio and Florida voted against the eventual occupant of the White House were 1960 and 2020.

    The 1960 election is admitted to have been stolen, although no one makes a big deal out of it anymore. It was stolen through the city of Chicago, during the Daley Machine's heyday, and since Illinois used to be a swing state in that era (not a long-term swing state), and has a huge population, that was just enough to narrowly steal the nationwide election. It was not a comical steal of a dozen battleground states as in 2020.

    In 2024, both Ohio and Florida voted the same way -- and in favor of the eventual occupant, restoring the system to normal. It's the exact same candidate, too -- Trump -- not just "a Republican" or "the same choice, regardless of party or individual".

    How did both Ohio and Florida vote for that same exact individual in 2020, yet the other party occupied the White House? Cuz the other side stole it, in only the 2nd time in American history (the other being 1960). Ohio and Florida have been states since the 1848 election onwards -- plenty of a track record to judge from.

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  9. See this post from 2020 about how to do bellwether analysis at the county level. It's actually different from what most people mean when they say "bellwether counties", more clear and standardized. It showed that 2020 was not just anomalous in itself, but highly compared to 2016.

    The statistical test for counties is in one of the comments, not the main body of the post, which also focused on state-level (Ohio + Florida) analysis.

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2020/11/judging-soundness-of-elections-from.html

    I'll have to wait until later when all the results are in to see how anomalous 2024 looks -- but from the state-level being normal, I'm guessing the county-level will be normal, too.

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  10. But all of this statistical forensic analysis pales in comparison to the events that everyone remembers from election night 2020 itself -- the Great Ballot Count Stoppage.

    The counting, tabulating, and reporting of votes was shut down on election night, across a dozen battleground states.

    All of these states began dumping pallets of ballots in the wee hours of the morning, day after day, week after week, seemingly month after month.

    These pallets of ballots were not from real live people running over to a polling location with a real ballot in their hands, waving frantically and shouting, "Wait! Wait! I overslept the election by 5 days, lemme hand in my ballot!" They were in suitcases.

    And they did not even remotely match the partisan composition of the place they were from -- 70, 80, 90% Biden. Laughable.

    For days, weeks, and months after the election was already over, they kept adding these pallets of ballots dumped off at 4am by the hundreds-of-thousands and skewing 80% Biden.

    None of these elements had ever happened in American history, let alone at this scale! Results are in on election night, period.

    And that's why the media, Dem officials, etc., all warned the nation in advance of election night 2020 -- "There may appear to be a Trump victory on election night, but WE PROMISE, that will all change in the days, weeks, and months afterward. In fact, EVERY SINGLE ELECTION has gone this way since our inception. You have never experienced an election where the results were in on election night. Now just be patient, and everything will be OK."

    That's also why in 2024 the media and Obama and the battleground election boards were trotting out the same line about how America has never had its results in on election night, that it takes days, weeks, and months to finally discover the outcome, and that the apparent winner on election night will be reversed afterward.

    Total bullshit and lies. We've always had the results on election night, and we've never heard the media, Dem officials, state election boards, etc., issue the warning about "wait until the days, weeks, and months after the election is already over to find out the results". That only began in 2020.

    Nobody stops the ballot-counting process when they're winning -- only when they're losing. And the only reason they do so, is to lie about their true numbers through whatever means they have at their disposal (and are irrelevant).

    I know this is all obvious, and old hat, but I'm writing for future historians from outer space, who didn't live through all of this personally.

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  11. And so, *that* is another major change in '24 -- results in on election night, nationwide.

    The Philly metro initiated their steal, by declaring that their results would not be fully released until later, and they were done for the night.

    Then Michigan's board said their results would be the first to be reported among the battleground states, but that this would only "possibly" be overnight -- possibly even later. If they were going to be first, that meant the others would report later still.

    The ball was rolling.

    But then, for whatever reasons, they walked back their halting of the ballot-counting process. Presumably they crunched the numbers, discovered that their fake-vote printer was only operating at half strength, and that their opponents had an even larger pile of votes than in '20, so the steal would not work. Maybe in one state, but not all of them.

    So they threw in the towel, and all states' results were known on election night. None of the major media outlets said "It's still too early to tell" about the nationwide results, let alone continuing to say that for days, weeks, and months later.

    Democrats will not occupy the White House, after an election whose results were fully reported on election night. They only occupied the White House last time, after an election whose results were shut down on election night, continually added to for days weeks and months later, and final results known well after the election was already over.

    So it's not just the number of votes that surged in '20 and then crashed back to earth in '24 -- it's the processing and reporting of results, which was halted and then added to forever in '20, but was fully carried out on election night in '24.

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  12. I give no credit to the Trump team's army of lawyers and poll watchers, pre-emptive threats by Lara Trump about "no cheating," etc. It's nice they had something put together beforehand this time, vs. jacksquat last time.

    But despite that, the election boards of the battleground states, the media, and Obama himself were still issuing their warnings about the results not being in on election night, it takes days weeks and months to finally discover the results, and "that's normal" (that's never happened outside of 2020).

    And despite that, the Philly metro initiated their steal by shutting down the processing of ballots. And Michigan followed suit.

    They only walked that back after midnight EST on the day after the election (still election night).

    And again, we can see from the Philly metro results that their fake-vote printer was still operating this time, unlike 2008, '12, or '16, but like '20.

    So, they were not deterred at all by the combined Republican / Trump effort to prevent a steal. They ran the exact same playbook as in 2020.

    It's just that, on their own side, they couldn't produce nearly as many fake votes (perhaps reflecting the flagging enthusiasm of their psycho activists, or funding getting cut by their patrons).

    And on the other side, Trump ran up bigger numbers statewide, making the stealers' target harder to hit.

    Those two things are the only reason they reversed the steal, after starting the steal. It was not cuz they were afraid of poll watchers (impotent) or lawyers (toothless, since judges will never overturn a purported electoral result) or a Trump family member keyboard warrior-ing on social media.

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  13. In the future, the single biggest message and threat about accepting election results has to be that they must be fully reported on election night.

    Halting the tallying, tabulation, and reporting of results is in itself grounds to conclude that the purported party lost, and is only resorting to these delaying tactics to reverse their loss. If some entity, from a ward all the way up to a state, insists on delaying, then everyone from the public to the government itself will consider that a forfeit and award the contest to the winner before the halt was implemented.

    When I say "reporting," I mean by the election boards themselves to the general public -- not by the media to the media audiences.

    And emphasize to the general public that it has never been the case that the results were not fully reported on election night -- that that only happened in 2020. It is NOT normal.

    No, 2000 does not count -- the results were fully tallied, tabulated, and reported on election night, but the two parties disputed these results afterwards. That dispute, after the fact of reporting the results, is what dragged on forever after the election -- not the basic reporting of results themselves. That was in on time, on election night.

    In 2020, there was no dispute about the results the day after the election -- cuz the results kept being added to and modified for days weeks and months! You can only dispute the outcome once the outcome is in, and the outcome didn't come out until forever after the election. Totally different case from 2000.

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  14. I don't think there will be any stolen elections in the foreseeable future. Any Democrat activists would have lost the energy and motivation to steal the election by 2028, and if Trump is a disjunctive president then the Democrats are going to win a landslide next election anyways, so there will be no need for stealing elections from the Democrat perspective.

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  15. Dems definitely stole the Michigan and Wisconsin Senate seats; possibly Nevada too. The more they steal, the chance of any re-alignment from them drops below zero.

    With regards to Pennsylvania, Shapiro has presidential ambitions so Harris winning would have pushed him out until 2032.

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  16. Do you think it's more likely that the Democrats become the populist nationalist realigning party in 2028 or that the Democrats implode like the old Whigs and are replaced with another populist nationalist realigning party in 2028?

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  17. Energy level declining - the last outburst was in 2021, since then legal marijuana and push to use psychedelics and become a passive vegetable has increased quite a bit. It's the 1970s 2.0.

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  18. I've always thought (well, since it was possible to think like this, in the late 2010s) that the Dems *are* headed toward the fate of the Whigs. Usually realignment doesn't involve creating a new party, but in their case it did (Whigs collapsed, Republicans took their place as the non-Democrat party).

    Why? Hyper-polarization, lead-up to the literal Civil War. Realignment meant bringing over chunks of the old rival party, in that case defectors from the Democrats. But in hyper-polarized times, it's hard to switch sides like that in large numbers. If there's a new party, it doesn't have the tainted association of the boo-hiss Other Party as the existing other party has.

    1850s Democrats could not bring themselves to switch to being Whigs. Just like today's Republicans can't bring themselves to switch to being Democrats (boo-hiss, puke!).

    But if 1850s Democrats aren't becoming Whigs, but Republicans... well, maybe that's not so bad. And if 2020s Republicans are not becoming Democrats, but Populists (or whatever the post-Democrat party is called), well, maybe that's not so bad.

    And from within the realigning party, the old one is no good. They've enabled the hyper-polarized climate to get so insanely far, they can't be trusted to lead a new way forward. Whigs in the 1850s had let the matter of slavery on the frontier get all the way to Bleeding Kansas, way past the Missouri Compromise of the non-polarized Era of Good Feelings (1820). So whoever is a Whig and wants to put a radical end to all this enabling, cannot remain a Whig -- they have to change into a Republican.

    Look at all the Reaganite garbage the Democrats have supported and enabled since the '90s. NAFTA was a Republican treaty, drawn up by the Bush Sr. admin, under the orders of the Republican sector of manufacturing (to make use of cheap labor in Mexico for their off-shored factories, instead of well-paid American labor). It got huge majority GOP support in both houses of Congress, while being rejected by Dems in both houses (with enough traitors, though, to combine with the huge number of GOP supporters, to make it pass). Clinton signed a treaty that his rival party drew up, supported in huge numbers, and was thoroughly rejected by his own party and support base. Neoliberal scum.

    Reaganite Dems supported every failed war of the past many decades -- no wins, no glory, no spoils, just pure loss and humiliation. Dems have an even worse record on supporting failed wars, though, cuz they used to be the military party during the New Deal and earlier, when they had the Solid South, where the military bases are concentrated. They supported the Korean, Vietnam, anti-Cuban, etc. wars from the '40s through the '70s, lost every one of them, wasted tons of our money, killed huge numbers abroad and of our own, and put L after L on the international scoreboard, humiliating Americans who treat war as a sports contest.

    How can anyone who wants to realign the Democrat party work with that disgraceful track record stretching back decades?

    That's why Bernie's a nominal independent -- the Democrat party stinks too much for would-be realigners internally, and is too noxious to court massive defections from their rivals.

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  19. But I don't think national realignment is even possible going forward. Realignment presumes that the nation is whole, and follows a single over-arching paradigm, with support from both parties and across the nation. One party blazes the trail for it, while the other is a Johnnie-come-lately, but sooner than later they both carry it out.

    E.g., the New Deal being spearheaded by Dems, resisted but then joined by Republicans (Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, etc.). Or Neoliberalism being spearheaded by Republicans under Reagan, resisted but then joined by Democrats (beginning with Clinton).

    The last time we were this hyper-polarized, we had an integrative civil war -- when the empire was still expanding and cohesive. Now the empire is contracting, and people don't view the whole country as "my fellow Americans". So we won't have another integrative civil war -- it will be disintegrative, and probably not a shooting war but just breaking apart, but you never know, some shooting could take place as well.

    So the real realignment coming down the pike is at the state level or regional level, like DeSantis in Florida or Newsom in California. Merely breaking away from the central state is pretty far into realignment territory -- realigning away from the model of a central state, and toward one with multiple rump states to the old empire.

    Then within each state or regional duchy or whatever, there will be trailblazers who pioneer the way forward for their own distinctive rump state. And perhaps none of them will carry on the names or branding of the two major parties from the pre-collapse stage.

    National-level realignment just seems totally out of the question, until we split up into multiple new nations and realign at that smaller-scaled level. A fresh start, no sense of having to hold your nose and defect toward the old rival party. It's not the old party, it's a brand new one, for a brand new nation!

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  20. The Soviets thought they had a realignment under way with Glasnost and Perestroika in the '80s... then the whole empire collapsed, and there was no way to realign the USSR at that scale. They had to split up into multiple rump states to the old Russian Empire, and only within that smaller scale could people realign away from Communism.

    It will be qualitatively no different during the collapse of the American Empire just a few decades later.

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  21. About the Arabs in Dearborn MI breaking their Democrat chains, I had a pretty good hint of that just beforehand, from Rania Khalek's focus group of them. I think only 1 tenous Harris voter, a couple Trump voters, 1 undecided, and the rest were "third party" AKA Jill Stein.

    I knew about the huge "uncommitted" vote they gave during the (non-)primary this year, but still, shocking to see how many just blew off the Democrat party altogether.

    But, not so shocking, considering how the Democrats have treated them -- typical post-Ellis Island treatment, where they give you nothing and expect your loyalty just cuz you're a "person of color", "ethnic minority," "historically disadvantaged population," or whatever other Civil Rights bullshit euphemism.

    STFU and do me favors, or you get no loyalty.

    But it was so much worse this year -- Democrats not only gave them nothing, they sent their leading figures like Bill Clinton to say to their faces on an official campaign visit, "Y'know, if your babies weren't terrorists, then Israel would not have to blow them up."

    They just couldn't help themselves from rubbing their failed Zionist war in their faces. But then I'd be bitter and seething if I were the so-called pre-eminent military in the region and couldn't wipe out Hamas, let alone if I were getting invaded and annexed by Hezbollah and bombed by Iran.

    Anyway, what I found more striking -- and reassuring -- was that none of the people in her focus group were woketards blaming white people. Several spontaneously said, "the same things that are hurting us are hurting white people too, sometimes even more so, like the opioid epidemic".

    Very much an anti-woke left group of people. Not so surprising, considering the ethnic composition of the anti-woke left:

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2019/08/ethnic-composition-of-anti-woke-left.html

    Arabs, including Lebanese Christians, have not been integrated into the Democrat ethnic patronage network system. The Muslim ones are barely integrated at all, which is why Rashida Tlaib is such a novelty rather than a standard type, like the zillions of African-American Congress members.

    Also endearing to hear how many of that focus group had not just assimilated by speaking fluent English, but had clearly grown up with a strong regional Michigan accent. Only the recent immigrants had generic American or slightly ESL accents instead of Michigan accents. But the ones who grew up there sounded like Michael Moore was their next door neighbor.

    And of course pleasant to see how many babes there were -- but they were Levantine, so that's only natural.

    That, and seeing the Green VP candidate come out against men in women's sports (triggering AOC), gave me a last-minute convincing to vote for Stein. Although as it turns out, it doesn't get tallied in Ohio cuz she was late to fill out some paperwork, so her name appeared on the ballot and could be chosen, but it would not be counted in the tallies. Oh well, as long as I never vote Democrat for prez. It was as if I cast no vote for prez.

    Too bad to see Sherrod Brown, one of the remaining Dems worth a shit, get beaten by some generic neocon homosexual Republican, but that was just riding Trump's coat-tails. Last time he won in 2018, when Ohio was fiercely pro-Trump, but it was a mid-term so Trump didn't carry the down-ballot candidates so much.

    Left the US House vote empty, but voted R the rest of the way down -- gotta keep libtards on a tight leash at the state and local level.

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  22. Anna K. was talking a lot about speaking the language of your adoptive country, as a bare minimum for assimilation.

    Obviously she speaks English, no prob there.

    But it's an even stronger signal when you adopt the regional accent of where you grew up. That shows a stronger rooted bond to a wide group of natives of the country -- which you cannot do when you learn it in a classroom in your home country, however well you master it. You still won't get a regional accent.

    I wish Anna would let her Jersey girl accent out more often, for that reason. Very endearing, even if she's not aware of it, or tries to hide it cuz she thinks New Jersey is declasse. It's a stronger testament of your assimilation! ^_^

    One word in particular, she pronounces "forward" in the Mid-Atlantic regional accent, as FOE-word instead of FOR-word as in the standard American dialect. Usually in the phrase "going forward". One example of a non-rhotic pronunciation (half non-rhotic anyway, pretty sure she says the "r" in the 2nd syllable), even though most of her dialect is fairly rhotic and not very old school New Jersey.

    Is "wahmen" the New Jersey way of saying "women"? Everybody always loved it when she said that...

    Then there's the broader Northeast pronunciation of "bury" as BURR-ee instead of BEAR-ee. I forget if she's ever said that one or not.

    I may be able to better overtly articulate these things, but even the listeners who cannot, probably still pick up on them, and appreciate them. They like when a girl from New Jersey sounds like a Jersey girl.

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  23. About the opposition party being too toxic for the defectors from the dominant party, I wonder if the Labour Party in the UK is in that situation. Maybe the realigners in the UK, instead of Labour, will be some successor populist anti-Tory party who takes control after Labour implodes from being too much of a toxic woke Blairite Thatcherite neoliberal party like they are currently under Keir Starmer.

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  24. Outside America, it depends on how polarized the country is, whether they'll realign with an existing party or have to totally start a new one. That's the logic -- only when the climate is hyper-polarized, does the old opposition party have to be eradicated and rebuilt from the ground up, in order to realign.

    Also in Europe and elsewhere they come up with new parties all the time, and that's not a sign of realignment necessarily. Unlike in America where the parties endure for very long periods.

    As one example of realignment already under way from the existing oppo party -- Denmark is being realigned by the Social Democrats, originally founded in 1871, member of the Party of European Socialists, etc. Totally mainstream, longstanding left party. They're ushering in anti-immigration populism, as of 2022.

    The neoliberal era in Denmark was carried out by the right, as in America and Britain, with Poul Schlueter being their Reagan / Thatcher. The right, under him and later under the Venstre Party, has been the dominant party for the neolib era.

    Starting with the Social Democrat PM Frederiksen in '22, they're realigning rather than merely adapting themselves to the neolib status quo.

    But Denmark, as part of Scandinavia, lies outside of the defunct Euro empire zone -- did not have an empire of their own, and were not part of another empire. And even during the neoliberal '90s, Danish people rejected adopting the Euro currency, and that vote was respected by the government.

    So perhaps it's no surprise that their country is an early trend-setter for realignment away from neoliberalism, and toward nationalist populism.

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  25. The big sign to look for, though, is the return of industrial-scale manufacturing to Denmark. Neoliberalism gradually melted down manufacturing plants in well-paid countries and rebuilt them in cheap-labor, shoddy workmanship, poor quality assurance shitholes in the Third World and sometimes Eastern Europe.

    I grew up with, and now have picked up new examples of, Danish furniture that was made in Denmark during the 1990s. But now when you see something branded with the Danish flag, Danish name, etc. -- it's a teak cutting board that's actually made in Thailand, not Denmark. No sale, then!

    Danish Modern architecture and design was the pride of their nation not so long ago -- they will never recover their former glory without it!

    Profit margins must be crushed, in order to restore high-quality at affordable prices and with national prestige. So only the over-turning of the "profits uber alles" industrial policies will reverse de-industrialization, and Make Danish Modern Great Again. ^_^

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  26. I easily found cutting boards that were Made in Italy, brand-new in a discount retail store (TJ Maxx / Home Goods), and they were not more expensive than the made-in-Thailand ones with Danish branding. Or maybe a couple bucks more expensive, IDK -- not a different category of price-point, though. Solid wood, well made, excellent function! By Legnoart, if you're curious.

    That was in the 2010s, don't know if they're still easy to find for good prices in Anywheresville America. But easier to find than made-in-Denmark ones -- which you'd probably have to pay a handsome sum for at an antique / vintage store. I'll totally pick one up for cheap at a thrift store if I come across it, but I'm not paying an insane amount for a cutting board, especially if it's made in a cheap-labor sweatshop colony!

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  27. I've been pointing out for awhile how Gen Z is an echo of Gen X, and it's heartwarming to see them resemble us politically as well -- dropping the excessive played-out libtardism of the generation before us.

    Very clueless social media shysters try to paint Millennials as the based generation, when they are defined by their woketard crusade of the 2010s. Being part of the 5% of your gen who isn't a flaming woketard doesn't excuse the other 95%.

    Gen X has been Republican-leaning since they were teenagers, and have remained so into middle age. Millennials will never "age out" of being Democrats, just as X-ers never aged out of being Republicans. Millennials are pushing 40 and still that way, including those with a marriage, mortgage, and munchkins.

    Good ol' Zoomers, first election when the late teen and 20-something demo is dominated by them instead of Millennials, and it's a bloodbath for woketards and Democrats. Not just among the male half either (same was true for Gen X females being more GOP-leaning than Boomer or Millennial females at the same age).

    Obviously they're not voting for industrial policy, taxes, etc. -- they're enjoying a healthy backlash against the woketard oppression that fucked up their lives during the Biden admin and earlier. And not being raised as woketards, they had no counter-balancing benefits from that system to placate them.

    Not that you would know any of this by being a sad little social media junkie, binging on cherry-picked ragebait clips of broccoli-haired Zoomers from TikTok.

    Just another reminder that all Millennial whining about Zoomers is just confession through projection. All those culture war crusades, cancellations, Antifa / BLM rioting, tearing down statues, etc., was perpetrated by Millennials, not Zoomers, who were only in high school or middle school during the woketard 2010s.

    And now that they can vote, they're coming out guns a-blazin'! OK Boomer, whatever you say, Boomer!

    Luv Zoomers. ^_^

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  28. Raora is a daddy's girl, confirmed! ^_^ Around the 2-hour mark in her drawing stream today, she talks very fondly about her dad, how cute and sweet he is, how he watches her streams, how he likes when her fans (chattini) give her flowers, how her fans might get to meet her dad sometime, and so on... very proud of his talented and popular little girl! Awww...

    Then she says her mom hardly knows who her fandom is, lol.

    Sounds exactly like Irys' family dynamics. I hope they can collab sometime and bond over being daddy's girls, how they have cool interests in order to bond with their dad, etc. It's rare among girls, but very much appreciated by the mostly male fandom!

    Daddy's girls are the cool chicks, hehe.

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  29. In fairness to Millennials, who are forever stuck in the 2000s, you can see how they all became libtards -- in reaction to the state of conservatism / right-wing / GOP during the George W. Bush years.

    It wasn't a fresh revolution like Reagan's initial election in 1980, not exciting or novel or other things that would appeal to a young person (which Reaganism did to Gen X-ers in the '80s).

    Stagnant, boring, stupid (low-IQ), Dunning-Krueger glibness mixed with failure, failed to defend against 9/11 (the whole raison d'etre of a sky-high military budget), humiliating losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, blew up the whole economy in 2008.

    Of course you're going to swing away from that right, if that's what the right is at the time you're becoming conscious or forming your identity.

    And that's why Trump had to shit all over the Bush era, and Bush himself -- pointing angrily at Jeb on the debate stage, and barking "His brother did NOT keep us safe on September 11th!"

    Although a minority of Millennials, right-wingers / Trump supporters cannot possibly join a GOP-led movement if it's still linked with the nemesis of their generation's political consciousness. Same with Millennial indies who are open to either side -- can't be anything Bush-related.

    At least, in branding -- in outcomes, Trump I was just a Jeb Bush presidency with Trump branding.

    But branding has to do with identity and consciousness, not with real-world outcomes. If it's going to be the same ol' tired and failed Bush-ism, in turn the same ol' tired and failed Reaganism, well at least give it a branding that makes it go down without such a bad psychological association.

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    1. Do you really think Millennials would have been different if their childhood/youth was spent under a Gore Presidency?

      Keep in mind the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 was signed by the Clinton Administration and Joe Libermann, Gore's would-be Vice President, campaigned on overthrowing Saddam on practically a regular basis (even before 9/11).

      Delete
  30. Millennials confused by how right-shifting the Zoomers are, just apply your own identity formation in a boo-hiss reaction to 2000s conservatism, to someone coming of age during the insane woketard crusade of the 2010s.

    Denying basic science, while demanding everyone trust the science, flip-flopping during the Covid hysteria, cancellations and witch-hunting, Dunning-Krueger glibness (trust the science, it's called being a decent fucking human being, etc.) combined with ignorance and failure, demonizing white people / men / heterosexuals / Americans, burning the country down to whip votes for some geriatric libtard who tanked the country, sacralizing the previous libtard president just cuz he's half-black, and on and on down the line.

    Of course the next gen is going to swing away from the left, when that's the state of the left as they're coming of politically aware age.

    Millennials should therefore also internalize the fact that their worship of Obama is just as cringe as right-wing worshipers of George W. Bush or that era in general.

    Trump destroyed the sacrosanct aura that Bush and the 2000s had, so whatever realigning Democrats are out there must also destroy the sacrosanct aura around Obama and the 2010s.

    Otherwise they'll be as cluelessly shut-out as the GOP as of 2016, before Trump won the primary -- saying Bush Jr. was a great president, all praising Saint Ronnie on top of it, bla bla bla. Only Trump said, "Y'know Ronald Reagan was a nice guy, nice guy -- but he did the 1986 amnesty of millions of illegal immigrants, signed the most pro-abortion laws as Governor of California, yadda yadda yadda... not the greatest prez we ever had". And just shredded Bush Jr.

    If Democrats, or post-Democrats, want a Trump of their own, they're going to have to disown the whole woketard 2010s, gay marriage, cancel culture, racial demonization, Obama personally, etc. Otherwise no one will take them seriously about having gotten rid of all that toxic waste that they're still currently lugging around with them.

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  31. No, I'm saying Millennials imprinted on 2000s conservatism, and reacted against that. It just so happens that an R was prez for most of that time, but it could've been Gore or Kerry for that time, and 2000s conservatism would've been in the same state -- and would've produced the same backlash among Millennials.

    For example, Zoomers imprinting on 2010s lib-prog-woke-tardism were exposed to that happening under a D prez (Obama, then usurper Biden), but some under an R prez (Trump-era Resistance, #MeToo, the height of BLM and Antifa, etc.).

    Ideologies, or practices, or whatever, are present whether they currently occupy any level of office or not. It's that state of affairs for one side, whether or not it controls the presidency, Senate, House, etc., that impressionable minds are forming a picture of and reacting to.

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  32. The cross-sectional proof is that British Millennials are the same as American Millennials, and yet they were experiencing 2000s conservatism under a Labour government -- in fact, from 1997 to 2010.

    But 2000s conservatism in Britain was mostly the same as in America, and impressionable minds rejected its ridiculousness and became lifelong libtards in reaction.

    This is a closer comparison since the dominant parties in the neolib era are both right-wing in Britain and America (beginning with Reagan and Thatcher). The 2000s in Britain saw a left party in power, and an oppositional left party (unlike in most of Europe, where a left party would've been the dominant party of the neolib era).

    And yet, British Millennials are the same as American ones. There may be subtle degrees of difference, since American Millennials were railing against the incumbent 2000s right-wingers, whereas British ones were railing against the out-of-power 2000s right-wingers, but they're 99% identical AFAICT.

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  33. Not that campaigns matter much (larger sets of forces matter), but the Harris campaign accepting and touting the endorsements of the #2 right-winger under George W. Bush himself, Dick Cheney, and his equally Bush-era neocon daughter, just shows how out-of-touch and doomed the Democrats are to irrelevance.

    They had to disavow those endorsements, and heap scorn on the Bush Jr. admin as a whole for good measure, in order to not alienate the nation as a whole -- but their Boomer and Millennial core demos in particular.

    Millennials imprinted on a world where George W. Bush is Satan -- you can't say you're glad to have Satan's endorsement, his Vice-Satan's endorsement, etc. You have to say that Satan is just trying to sow Satanic trickery and chaos by endorsing us -- he really supports our rival, since they're from the same party, and we disavow Satan and want him banished back to Hell where he came from.

    Trump disavowed Bush Jr., viciously attacked his record on all sorts of topics, including launching the pointless War on Terror and not protecting us from 9/11, probably the major topic for which Millennials concluded Bush Jr. was Satan. Then proceeded to shit on his brother, to his face, and disavowed and waved away the loud chorus of boo's coming from those who were loyal to the Bushes or at least fond of 2000s conservatism.

    Again, this just amounted to branding -- the real-world outcomes were idential to a Jeb Bush or Romney presidency. But still, to even go down without a noxious taste among voters, successful R's like Trump had to shit all over Bush Jr. and everything related to him from the 2000s.

    Realigning D's or post-D's will have to do likewise relating to Obama and his era, in both his neolib and woketard aspects. The 2010s and early '20s really were the worst of both worlds for the left party -- iconoclastic heritage-hating destruction and persecution, and austerity and inequality to boot!

    Zoomers (and Americans as a whole) might have bitten their tongue about the woketard shit if it had been paired with New Deal economics. Instead it was "What if Reagan, but witch-hunting half the population?" Garbage!

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    1. The "War of Terror" is mostly just the persistent Saudi palace struggle exported further abroad as a means of getting rid of their bad apples anyway. I didn't know if you saw this article in a remarkably mainstream magazine on Saudi complicity in 9/11:

      https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/september-11-attacks-saudi-arabia-lawsuit/678430/

      Remember the WikiLeaks release of Crooked Hillary's emails on how ISIL was a means for Saudi Arabia and Qatar to offload their bad apples.

      Delete
    2. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney really looked like Bond villains in the 1970s:

      https://photos.com/featured/donald-rumsfeld-with-richard-b-cheney-bettmann.html

      Gerald Ford apparently once said, "[Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and [Vice President Dick] Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq" not be released until after his death. Funny how he doesn't even mention the president's name and "the president" comes after Rumsfeld and Cheney!

      Milton Friedman himself, who added "neo-liberal" to the English language, wanted Donald Rumsfeld to be Reagan's VP:

      https://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2006/12/25/milton-friedman-ronald-reagan-and-rumsfeld/

      Delete
  34. Do the Democrats steal midterm elections as well, or are they only interested in stealing the presidency from Donald Trump?

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  35. Good analysis, as usual. The one area where we disagree was that it wasn't lack of energy, it actually was the additional election lawyers and watchers, a factor not there in 2020, and lowered willingness of country club Republicans to cooperate (they thought Biden was a "moderate). As you noted, the steal was in progress in 2024 until North Carolina and Georgia were callled. Republican candidates won the other state wide races in Pennsylvania, so they must have been getting some bad numbers for them from that state.

    I posted the following on another site, after checking the totals on Wikipedia:

    Nationwide, Wikipedia now has Harris at 71.6 million votes, and Trump at 75 million votes, with 149.3 million votes total and 20% of the California vote still not counted, so we can expect maybe an additional 4 million votes.


    In 2020, officially 158.4 million votes cast, 84.3 million for Biden and 74.2 million for Trump.


    In 2016, officially 136.7 million votes cast, 65.8 million for Hillary Clinton and 62.9 million for Trump.


    In 2012, officially 129 million votes cast, 65.9 million for Obama and 60.9 million for Romney. The 2012 totals for both parties were down from 2008, so I'll stop there. Normally the total vote will increase somewhat from the previous election due to population growth, the 7.7 million vote increase between 2012 and 2016 being a fairly normal increase.


    So total votes increased by 7.7 million in 2016, 21.7 million and 15.7% in 2020 and there will probably be a drop of about 5 million votes and 4% in 2024 when the results are all in. The drop between 2008 and 2016 was 2 million votes and about 1.5%, for contrast. The 2024 vote total for Harris is right now almost 6 million higher than for Hillary Clinton, and will likely wind up 8 or 9 million higher. The Trump vote total increased by 11.3 million in 2020 and is now up 0.8 million in 2024, will probably wind up a million or so higher when the California results are finally in.


    Note that the 2020 increase of 21.7 million votes and 15.7% was the highest in modern electoral history in terms of numbers of votes, and the third highest percentage increase. There was a percentage increase of 26.9% in 1928 and 26.7% in 1952. But these were off of baseline totals of 29 million in 1924 and 48.8 million in 1948, and the lower the baseline total the easier it is to get a high percentage increase.


    So the Biden vote was pushed up by 18.5 million nationally in 2020, and over half of these votes were still there for Harris in 2024. I think they were on track to do the whole thing until about 2 AM EST on November 6th.


    I think the actual vote totals for both Biden and Harris were really somewhat below the 65.8 million Hillary Clinton got. Clinton came off of the second Obama term, which wasn't that bad, and Trump was an unknown quantity. The first three years of the Trump administration was kind of an improved version of the Bush administration. In 2020 the Democratic governors brought in the COVID lockdowns and masks, which granted Trump and the Republicans mostly supported, but also riots, and then Biden doesn't campaign. Riots always favor the law and order party. I think the riots caused a big increase in the Trump vote. Plus wokeness. Then we get the Biden administration, vaccine mandates, threats of war against Russia and China, wokeness, and inflation. Look, fewer people are voting Democratic in 2020 and 2024 than in 2016, when there was more of an argument for it.

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  36. And those other vote surge years were not like 2020 in several key ways. Most telling, the total vote did not snap back in the next election after the surge. Total votes are down roughly 10 mill (6%), after the surge of 2020.

    But following the surge of 1928, in '32 there was no decline in total votes. In fact, it increased by 3 mill (8%). And following the surge of 1952, in '56 there was no decline. In fact, they slightly increased by ~270K (0.4%).

    And that's just total votes -- the big collapse was lopsidedly on the D side from 2020 to '24. That party saw a huge surge, followed by a huge collapse, which is unique in American history.

    Also, the next year after the surge, does the map snap back to what it looked like just before the surge? In 2024, it did -- it's the 2016 map, plus the little swing-ish pick-up of Nevada (as I predicted for 2020).

    In 1932, the map did not snap back to the '24 map -- it was totally different, being a realignment election (end of Progressive Era, start of New Deal era).

    And in 1956, the map did not snap back to the '48 map.

    Finally, did the party that went on to occupy the White House flip twice during these 3 consecutive elections? From 2016 to '20 to '24 it did -- R, then D, then snapped back to R.

    From '48 to '52 to '56, it was not this pattern. The surge year did flip the party, but this party went on to win the next election as well (i.e., as if our time had gone Trump, Biden, Harris).

    From '24 to '28 to '32, it was not this pattern either. The surge year saw the same party win as in the pre-surge year, and then flipped in the post-surge year (i.e., as if our time had gone Trump, Trump, Harris).

    The 2020 election was unique in American history for seeing not just a surge in votes, but immediately followed by a collapse -- and a HUGE collapse for the party benefitting from the surge. And for the post-surge map immediately snapping back to the pre-surge map. And for the WH-occupying party immediately snapping back to that of the pre-surge election.

    That's cuz D's stole it in 2020, creating this ridiculous discontinuity in multiple aspects, which was instantly restored to normal i.e. the pre-steal year, when they didn't have the steal effort needed for the post-surge election.

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  37. But no, those lawyers and poll-watchers were not the reason, as shown by the successful D steals in the Senate races in the battleground states -- stole AZ, WI, and MI, and tried but failed to steal PA (attempted usurper is still refusing to concede in PA).

    Same signatures -- total votes are massively increased long after the polls closed, the amount of newly discovered votes is huge (over 100K), they skew comically 90% for one candidate, who was the apparent loser on election night, magically flipping it to the usurper.

    Trump ran up such huge vote piles in the battleground states, that the attempted steal didn't work ("too big to rig"). But those Senate candidates are not Trump, even if they're riding his coat-tails, and did not have equally massive piles of votes. So they were within the margin where D's could steal it -- and they did steal it.

    Not a word from Trump, the RNC, any R in the Senate, most R commentators, etc. As in 2020, the entirely GOP apparatus is allowing D's to flagrantly steal high-ranking offices, rendering the whole system an illegitimate joke. Just less glaring of a joke in '24 vs. '20, since D's couldn't pull off the steal for prez as well.

    Until there are uniform standards to enforce legitimate election results in all 50 states and DC, the whole system remains a joke for all to see -- and even more delegitimized by the losers of the steal not even mentioning it, and taking it like a bitch.

    As with gerrymandering, which R's can and have wielded just as skillfully as D's have, to everyone's detriment, D's had better surrender sooner than later on election stealing, or their weapon will be picked up by their rival, and in the 2030s, we'll see rural and suburban R precincts refusing to release their vote totals until the major metro precincts release theirs, then magically discover however-many-hundred-thousand ballots are necessary to close the gap, plus a little just for good measure. And whammo, R's maintain a lock on the WH and supermajority in the Senate and majority in the House -- as elections devolve into fake games of chicken for releasing your side's vote totals.

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  38. Did D's steal the NV Senate race, too, or win legit? I don't recall that one. Probably stole, given the others being stolen, but if there was no signature there (100K+ ballots added to total after polls close, skewing 90% for D, flipping apparent winner from election night), then they won it legit.

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  39. Michael Tracey posted a video of the chair of the Philly Dem Party, Bob Brady, explaining to a journo that the Harris campaign totally blew him off, and blew off his level of the party. Didn't send volunteers, didn't send money, didn't send materials, etc.

    So that's why the collapse was bigger in Philadelphia itself compared to its suburbs -- the Harris campaign could rely on the psychotic zealots in the white middle-class suburbs who binge MSNBC and would give up their own lives in order to stop Trump. But the zealotry of 2014-'20 is still down, so they had less zealous of a steal effort in the 'burbs.

    Whereas in the city, they weren't relying on psychotic zealots, they were relying on pay-to-play palm-greasing. And they didn't grease their palms, so the amoral urbanites -- black working and lumpen classes, whatever white working class is left there -- said, "Ey, go fugyazelv..."

    And that's why the attempted steal for the PA Senate race didn't pan out. Philly is peak amoral patronage -- or rather, their morality *is* patronage, not high-minded MSNBC crusading about fascism, ARE DEMOCRACY, etc. Pay us, or geddafuggouttaheeahhhh....

    Good ol' Philly, keepin' it old school.

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  40. I think the reason why the big city urban cores DGAF if Trump wins or loses, and why their D party bosses insist on extensive palm-greasing or GTFOH, is that they're such an insulated Democrat fiefdom and fortress. Their lives, culture, economy, social relations, etc., will not change one iota if an R or a D is in the White House.

    True, a D in the White House means more funding for D clients nationwide -- but we live in neoliberal Hell, a new Gilded Age, so that funding only goes to the top 20% of clients these days. D's were happy to slash welfare checks going to urban blacks during the '90s when they controlled the White House, and they haven't given them anything back under Obama or Biden. They're even replacing urban blacks with immigrants.

    The top 20% D's by income live mostly outside the urban core -- maybe just outside, but still, outside. Not beholden to the urban party boss, but to a psycho HR bitch boss in the immediate suburbs. And they're more likely to be psycho HR bitches and faggots themselves, living outside the urban core.

    That's where all the Central Bank money-printing went to under Obama ("quantitative easing") -- the tiny handful of D elites who live in cities, but mostly to D strivers who live outside of the urban core.

    So for the typical working-class or lumpen black living in Philly the city, life didn't get better under Clinton or Obama or Biden. So their only chance of getting actual patronage is during the campaigns --

    "Oh, so now you're suddenly desperate for our, uh, get out the vote machine? Sounds like you'd be willing to part with a handsome sum, then. You sure as hell haven't cut us any welfare checks when you were in office."

    Immigrants who literally just got here get better straight-up cash payments (technically, on a card) from D office-holders, than blacks get.

    So why would urban blacks be as psycho and zealous to get a D into the White House, by hook or by crook? Let alone the even more shoved-aside urban white working class. Their only feeding trough opportunity is during the campaign, so it's really pay-to-play time -- and the Harris campaign denied them even that fleeting moment of trough-feeding. So the urban machine told them to go fuck off and rely entirely on those do-it-for-free jannie psycho middle-class whites in the suburbs.

    And it wasn't enough, lol! Not for the prez race, anyway, and in Philly where they keep it old school, not even enough to steal the Senate seat, lmao.

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  41. Most of the day-to-day providing and protecting patronage that urban blacks get is from the city anyway -- not necessarily even the state (if it's a purple or red state), nor the federal government.

    So urban blacks are happy to help get D's elected in the city, and certain D's rather than other D's. That's where changes in the office would affect their lives. Imagine if a white Republican, even a moderate cucky one, gained control over Milwaukee or Detroit or Philly -- suddenly blacks would fear for their lives. And rightly so. They'll do whatever it takes to prevent that.

    But if the White House is occupied by a white Republican, who cares? Their city will remain a D fiefdom and fortress. They'll still get their usual provisions and protections, which are doled out at the city level. Public housing, public schools, public transportation, public employment or connections to private employment, etc. -- all through the city level, not the national level.

    Yeah, these city orgs can get more funding from federal agencies, whose budgets could switch depending on D or R in the White House. But not seismically. Clinton, Obama, and Biden did not boost federal funding to urban public school lunch programs to the extent that those kids were eating steaks instead of pink-slime sloppy joes.

    But clients who rely on federal funding, have much more variance in their outcomes. Federal grants a HUGE, and could boost your income by double-digit percentages, or more, who knows? You could be taking home twice the income you used to be, if the D-controlled Central Bank ramps up the money-printer, or the CDC's budget gets doubled.

    And on the R side, if the DOD's budget gets doubled, if we go to a huge war, bomb Iranian oil fields, etc. -- a huge swing upward in suburban defense contractors' incomes, and professionals in the oil sector.

    Whereas poor rural R's don't experience wild swings one way or another, as they're not potential recipients for big-level patronage. Their variance is also small in scale, as with urban blacks. So they're passionate about keeping their rural county R at that level, but if there's a D in the WH, who cares? It's not going to turn their rural county into a libtard shithole.

    And no, immigration doesn't count there -- both R's and D's have sent boatloads of immigrants to small towns and rural areas during the neolib era, and Reagan and Congressional R's are the ones who implemented the 1986 amnesty.

    So that's why rural & small-town R's wouldn't volunteer if the federal R campaign blew them off and focused on middle-class suburbanites instead. Seems like what happened under McCain and Romney, and ruralites didn't GAF about turning out in droves for the general.

    Whereas Trump courted them heavily, promised them the moon, indulged their culture and tastes -- so they were happy to crusade for him in the general.

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  42. It's precarious, high-variance strivers in the middle or upper-middle class who are the source population for psychotic zealots. "Precarious" not in an absolute sense -- they won't starve if they lose -- but in a relative sense, of high variance, they could win big if they win but remain only mediocre if they lose.

    The super elite also have high variance, their incomes could double if their guy wins. But their baseline, if they lose, is even higher than it is for middle-class strivers. And their population size is even tinier. So they may use their vast wealth to fund the psycho zealotry of the strivers (founding an NGO that the strivers work for), but they're not the crusade's foot soldiers.

    Like I said earlier, imprison middle-class white strivers for the benefit of all. The pool of aspiring elites is way too over-produced, and half or more of the strivers will eventually be shoved back where they belong, where their non-striver ancestors came from and were happy to stay put.

    Might as well make their sinking happen sooner than later, or they'll just wreak more havoc on society at large as they impotently but intensely try to claw their way up.

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  43. Yeah, you could throw in non-white middle-class strivers, too, but they tend to be ensconced within their urban Democrat fiefdoms, and don't really try to fuck up the nation as a whole. At most, they can fuck up their city with their striving.

    They just gave the finger to the Harris campaign, with a semi-black woman who would benefit -- it was the middle-class suburban whites who were the psycho zealots doing it for free, who try to fuck up the entire nation with their striving.

    Just imprisoning the white strivers would make it more palatable with the elites. D elites would like it for being not anti-minority, and R elites would enjoy having fewer wannabes nipping at their heels for wealth and status.

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  44. The Harris campaign went further than denying urban minorities the chance to trough-feed during the campaign -- they outright lectured and hectored and scolded them TO THEIR FACE during campaign speeches by leading Democrats like Obama and Clinton.

    It's bad enough to get no free shit, but getting slapped across the face is just adding insult to injury.

    Sure enough, urban minorities not only refused to enlist in the Second Great Ballot Count Stoppage, they shifted double-digits to the Republican when it came time to vote! xD

    Maybe next time you won't slap them across the face, and won't deny them piles of free shit during the campaign -- since everyone knows you're already not going to pony up any dough if you get into the White House.

    It really reinforces my belief that the Democrat party is simply going to implode like the Whigs, and become a whole new party -- or rather, parties, since we're going in the "post-imperial rump state" stage, not the "integrative civil war" stage.

    They put their thumb on the scale of the 2016 primary, outright terminated and stole the 2020 primary after Bernie swept the bellwether states, then didn't even bother with a primary in '24!

    In fact, didn't even hold the proverbial "smoky backroom deals" kind of convention. In the smoky backroom era, they had delegates from all 50 states, multiple delegates per state, and they had a roster of candidates, they held competitive ballots, round after round, until a consensus was reached. With horse-trading, favor-promising, faction-forming, etc., going on the whole time. Those nominees were not merely appointed by the top 3 nationwide party leaders.

    Each state's interests were represented, choices were available, votes were cast, results were reported. NONE OF THAT took place in '24. It was simply appointing Biden, then couping him and appointing Harris. No choices for the people in an election, and no choice for state delegates in a convention. Completely anti-democratic bullshit that delegitimizes its party more and more with each escalation.

    Who can even predict what depths they'll sink to during the '28 nomination process? xD

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  45. Why would a Trump supporter from 2016 and '20 care so much what happens to the libtard party? Well, like it or not, libtards will always be with us -- just as conservatards will always be with Democrats.

    Swinging from system to system is not stable short-term, it only happens once every several generations, in a medium-term realignment.

    Within each system, there will be a libtard flavor and a conservatard flavor of the same shared system -- otherwise, one side would remain out-of-step with the world and be shut out of power entirely within the medium-term. That creates the opportunity for entrepreneurs to swoop in and fill the void of choices, and so there will always be two competitive coalitions within any system.

    So the goal is not the laughable fanfic about "We're going to put all Democrats in cages!" Without Democrat support, you're not putting anyone in cages -- just like during Trump's first term.

    The goal is to encourage and form alliances with "the left case against open borders" faction of Democrats, which used to include El Bernarino himself during the 2015-'16 season. While interviewed by some neolibtard journo, he flatly declared that open borders is a Koch Brothers conspiracy for cheap labor, so of course he doesn't support it.

    "But Bernie was then mobbed into disavowing that position, and stating open borders libtard positions!" Yes, during the height of 2014-'20 insanity, but that is already dissipating, and future generations of Democrats will swing away from that craziness just as hard as they did from 1968 Democrat craziness by the mid'70s and '80s and '90s.

    Some diehards will remain woketard relics of the 2010s, well into old age -- sad. But entrepreneurial Dems will replace them by offering choices for an anti-woke left, a shrinking-immigration left.

    Bernie had the telltale signs of success on his side -- the hot people vote, as did Trump vs. the other R's. Most visibly with Bernie babe Emily Ratajkowski, who stuck by him in '20 as well as in '16.

    And no amount of hectoring and scolding by wannabe gatekeepers on the right-wing will prevent the eventual, irresistible fusion of Trump chads and Bernie babes. Why delay the inevitable? We won't be able to fight it forever, we might as well just give in and abandon ourselves to fate right now, tonight...

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  46. One more time, for old time's sake -- Bernie's "America" ad from 2016, the best political ad in world history and for all time.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nwRiuh1Cug

    If only society had followed my demand for a Trump-Bernie unity ticket in 2016, we could've had a real country by now...

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  47. The LA Times have fired their entire editorial board. The media sector abandoning the woketardery?

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  48. Second Trump administration is already shaping up to be a disaster for America. Trump's proposed appointees are all neocons and warhawks who want to get the United States involved in a war with Iran and Lebanon which we'll inevitably lose just like how we've lost in Afghanistan and are losing in Ukraine.

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  49. The goddess of the South Seas will have a prominent role in the Trump administration!:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vnx8zn440o

    I must say I suspect I will be disappointed again but so far the cabinet of Trump 2.0 is looking a lot more Trumpian and less Republican than in 2016!

    Also with RFK Jr in the cabinet, it looks a lot like Ross Perot's party in "A Giant Sucking Sound" alternate reality, where just about every wacky or rebel politician joins his party!

    https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/AGiantSuckingSound

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  50. So far only Tulsi is an outsider of sorts (former US Rep, D, but anti-establishment). She's changed since the last time, though, so it remains to be seen what she does as DNI, or how long she'll last if she does go against the system.

    If RFK Jr. gets in, and has actual authority in his role (not just shitposting or writing fanfic), then he'll be one too -- from a dynasty, but he's never held a prominent office like that. Nationwide mandate to not fry anything in seed oils, and price controls to keep greedy Big Ag from raises prices to reflect the switch to tallow, coconut oil, lard, etc. Higher quality, same or lower prices! (Yes, this is mere fanfic, but that's what an outsider would achieve.)

    If Joe Rogan or Alex Jones or Dasha from Red Scare becomes the Press Secretary, that'll be another outsider.

    Trump's 2016 initial cabinet was more full of outsiders -- Rex Tillerson, Wilbur Ross, Steve Bannon, Trump himself (now he's an insider), Steve Mnuchin kind of.

    Most of them didn't last, and even the insider but pro-America First / Populist AG, Jeff Sessions, was unceremoniously shoved out after being relentlessly shit upon by Trump.

    It'll be the same with Trump: the Sequel. The more insider they are, the longer they'll last. And so far, not many outsiders to begin with. That was a common criticism of his first term -- too many outsiders meant they were collectively in over their head, and triggered a greater immune system response from the Blob / Swamp.

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  51. The other key way that Trump: Season 3 will be the same as Trump: Season 1, is that Trump will spend 0 time, money, and effort attacking his enemies -- meaning Democrats. No hearing, no trials, no higher taxes on them, no confiscations, no de-funding, no nothing in his role as prez.

    Maybe some trolling and shitposting and insulting on social media, which anyone can do whether they occupy political office or not. And a few executive orders that will make libtard tears flow, like ending men in women's sports. But "going after his enemies"? Nope, no chance. Look how friendly he was toward the guy who stole the last election from him, all but threw him in jail while challenging him in this election, etc. That's all water under the bridge to Trump.

    He is from a low-trust shithole culture (New York), and is ruling in a low-trust shithole period of our nation, so he is far more obsessed with gathering intel and policing over internal opposition -- disloyal, not sufficiently loyal, trying to build their own base within his tent, etc. He remembers these factional struggles far more intensely, and follows a "never forget, never forgive" policy with them.

    So when he instantly patches things up with the Bidens this week, that's not him being magnanimous -- he's highly petty and vindictive, but it's directed at the factional struggles within his own side, not the larger and more important conflicts with the other side. Typical case of low-trust anarchy and getting devoured by your enemies.

    There is negative cohesion in this country right now, and that applies to all scales of "organization" or rather fragmentation. That included the super-duper Republican fedgov of 2017-'18, when Trump came in on a huge mandate, got to pick his own cabinet, and his party controlled both houses of Congress.

    Then it all melted down and reverted to the default of Reaganism, but with new branding.

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  52. As another example, he'll be feuding with Liz Cheney forever. Admittedly she deserves to get Julian the Apostate'd in the Middle East wars that she champions, just like Trump said.

    However, she's from his own party, is relatively powerless in general or against him in particular, and has not committed any overt acts of great magnitude that directly harm him or his faction. Mostly just shit-talking him, endorsing his rival in the general election, etc.

    She's no George W. Bush, who did all those same things -- but is far more wealthy, powerful, and influential than she'll ever be. It was great when he shit all over George W. Bush. But eventually, once that's done, you gotta move on to the important fights -- with the enemy.

    The Bidens stole the 2020 election from him, prosecuted and jailed his diehard supporters for J6, prosecuted and damn-near jailed him while he was running for prez again, tarnished his reputation far worse than a literal-who like Liz Cheney could ever manage, confiscated huge piles of his private material wealth, made him live in exile in Florida rather than splitting time between his homeland of New York and Florida...

    And yet, after he's declared the winner this time, "Ey, let's let bygones by bygones, eh Biden-meister? C'mere, lemme give you a noogie for stealing that last election from me! Tee hee."

    It's like going ballistic when an unruly toddler flicks a booger at you, but bowing your head and hugging your mugger as he absconds with your stuff, providing he eventually gives it back.

    Trump is more obsessed with discovering and policing traitors from his own side, than with defeating his enemies. Not just keeping his own side in line *in order to* win the battle against his enemies, but making internal discipline the end-goal in itself, to the extent of minimizing and brushing aside the existential battles he faces against his enemies, from the other side.

    Low-trust anarchic shithole times.

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  53. I might write up a new post on parapolitics being like fanfic / fanart later. But for now, that's why I'm using these terms over and over like fanfic, Season 1, etc.

    I saw that the last time, but wasn't exposed to fandom culture back then, so didn't appreciate the parallels. But having gotten into the vtuber scene since then, and seeing their fandoms behave exactly like the Bernie fandom, Trump fandom, etc. from back then, it makes it clear.

    Divorcing themselves from reality, coping with a hopeless environment, and retreating into creating their own narratives, whether verbally or visually (fanfic, fanart). They do so collaboratively, as a fandom, with gatekeepers tard-wrangling the dissenters (antis) -- or really, the insufficiently loyal fans.

    It's not a cult, it doesn't come from on high, whether Trump or anyone like that. It's entirely bottom-up from the hopeless coping masses themselves, engineering their own opiate in real time, iteratively, collaboratively -- and only using IRL figures and events (like "Trump" or "China tariffs") as an inspiration for their narrative constructions.

    If the inspiration is really inspirational, many separate fandoms will emerge and form a super-fandom. Much like how Jesus attracted so many disparate groups of followers, that they all had to have their own distinctive narrative about his life and times -- the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and (much later) John. Different fandoms of Jesus (Gentile converts, former Jews for Jesus, etc.), with overlapping but also unique points-of-view, ensuring multiple narratives make it into the canon.

    If you weren't around for the last time, this is what you're in for now. And on both sides -- Trump's antis will craft their own narratives in the same way as Trump's fans, just with the opposite emotional valence. And since they're inspired by the same IRL figures and events, a decent chunk of the narratives will overlap, against just giving it a pro or anti spin depending on which side's narrative it is.

    I don't expect as huge and laughable of a break with reality, on either side, as we saw during the late 2010s and early 2020s. The zealous energy has peaked, and they're starting to experience exhaustion.

    So there won't be a new QAnon with equal intensity this time, nor will there be an equally intense Trump Derangement Syndrome narrative this time. But both will be largely divorced from reality, using reality as a jumping-off point to riff on, embellish, or utterly fabricate, for their coping purpose of narrative construction.

    Low-energy fanfic -- less entertaining, but also less annoyingly intrusive.

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  54. "Trump is more obsessed with discovering and policing traitors from his own side, than with defeating his enemies. Not just keeping his own side in line *in order to* win the battle against his enemies, but making internal discipline the end-goal in itself, to the extent of minimizing and brushing aside the existential battles he faces against his enemies, from the other side."

    Apparently the policing is so good on that side that it motivates Democrats actually worth a damn on certain issues to cross the aisle and warmongering Republicans not worth a damn to anyone to join the Democrats.

    Police your sides, people! When they sneak in a majority leader you were against during your DC visit (in the middle of holding hearings about aliens for maximum distraction) while saying they'll "appoint anyone you want" (to avoid you just recess-appointing them) make sure you give them Gaetz good and hard!

    But seriously, this sounds like COPE. Even Trump could see how Biden both turned on the party machine in the last months of his campaign and barely represents it-his entire cabinet already declared failure and went home on their increasingly failed investigations.

    As you already detailed yourself, the Democrat vote fraud base is single urban and suburban female administrators of various transient address and name generators for maximum fake and fakeable votes. The minorities stayed home or voted Trump, because dealing with white women is, as they say, SO TIRING.

    Biden himself was always just a figurehead of questionable mental clarity who'd randomly say anything, no point in attacking the shell of a party that's already fracturing when the greatest public referendum on The Steal had already been proclaimed loud and clear from the voting booths, though obviously there are still Senators getting ratfucked for it. But the failure to capitalize and coattail fully on a popular President by aggressively fighting election law violations was always the Republican party's failure, not Trump's.

    But given how spiteful the lawyers and senators are, it's also true that Trump's just being kind for the moment while the decks are cleared. Making grandiose blackpilling assumptions (that dovetail too well with the propaganda of the party that still controls education) is a bit premature.

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  55. One more anomaly from the 2016 -2024 series of presidential elections. This is a big complicated, and looking at the official popular vote percentages, from Wikipedia.

    First, these are the elections, after the Compromise of 1877 that brought in the current party system, where the White House switched parties. First the year, then the party that gained the White House, the percentage of the nationwide popular vote for their presidential candidate, and the nationwide popular vote percentage margin.

    1884 D 49% -

    1888 R 48% -1% note that this was a popular vote/ electoral vote reversal

    1892 D 46% + 3%

    1896 R 51% + 4%

    1912 D 42% + 15% (over T Roosevelt)

    1920 R 60% +26%

    1932 D 57% + 17%

    1952 R 55% + 11%

    1960 D 50% - another reversal

    1968 R 43% + 1%

    1976 D 50% + 2%

    1980 R 51% + 10%

    1992 D 43% + 6%

    2000 R 48% - another reversal

    2008 D 53% + 7%

    2016 R 46% - 2% another reversal

    2020 D 51% + 4%

    2024 R 50% + 2%

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  56. Note that there are only two instances of a the White House flipping three elections in a row, 1884 -1888 -1892 (and again in 1896), and 2016 – 2020 – 2024. In the elections of 1888 and 2016 different parties won the electoral and the official nationwide popular vote, and 2020 was the most fraudlent election since 1876.

    Now look at what happened in the election that came after a party took control of the White House. I will add the increase or decrease in the nationwide popular vote percentage margin, in parenthesis. Focus on what happens with that number. The D or R indicates the administration party.

    1888 D 49% + 1% (+1%) but flip from D to R anyway

    1892 R 43% - 3% (- 2%) flip

    1896 D 47% - 4% (- 6%) flip

    1900 R 52% + 6% (+ 2%)

    1916 D 49% + 3% (- 12%)

    1924 R 54% + 25% (- 1%)

    1936 D 61% + 24% (+ 7%)

    1956 R 57% + 15% (+ 4%)

    1964 D 61% + 23% (+ 23%)

    1972 R 61% + 24% (+ 25%)

    1980 D 41% - 10% (- 12%) flip

    1984 R 59% + 18% (+ 8%)

    1996 D 49% + 8% (+ 2%)

    2004 R 51% + 3% (+ 3%)

    2012 D 51% + 4% (- 3%)

    2020 R 47% - 4% (- 4%) flip

    2024 D 48% - 2% (- 6%) flip

    This is a sample of seventeen elections. Eleven times out of seventeen, the party that gained control of the White House kept it in the next election. That party increased its nationwide popular vote percentage margin half the time, nine times out of seventeen, including 1888 when the White House flipped anyway. So when a party gains control of the White House, it will tend to keep it and increase their support, but not consistently.

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  57. Now look at the second election held after a party gains control of the White House from another party. The parenthesis contains the important figure, the change in nationwide popular vote margin for that party from the previous election (not the one where they took control, from the immediately previously one). The D or R is the party that took control of the White House two elections previously.

    1892 D 46% + 3% (+2%) regained from B Harrison term

    1896 R 51% + 4% (+ 6%) regained from Cleveland term

    1904 R 56% +19% (+ 17%)

    1920 D 34% - 26% (- 29%) flip

    1928 R 58% + 17% (- 8%)

    1940 D 55% + 10% (- 14%)

    1960 R 50% - (- 15%) flip

    1976 R 48% - 2% (- 27%) flip

    1984 D 41% - 18% (- 8%) confirmation of 1980 flip

    1988 R 53% + 8% (- 10%)

    2000 D 48% - (- 8%) flip

    2008 R 46% - 7% (- 10%) flip

    2016 D 48% + 2% (- 2%) flip

    2024 R 50% + 2% (+ 6%) regain from Biden term

    Again, focus on the number in the parenthesis. In all ten elections listed between 1920 and 2016, inclusive, the party that gained control of the White House eight years before saw its margin cut, or the opposing party margin increase. This holds true in 1928, 1940, and 1988, when they held the White House anyway, and in 1984 when they were trying to regain the White House after losing in in 1988. The margins still fell in these cases anyway.

    The big anomaly was the Teddy Roosevelt landslide in 1904. The other are the 1890s elections, but that is explainable by the 1888 anomaly, when Cleveland increased his nationwide popular vote percentage and margin and lost anyway. Voters corrected that, so 1892 became the real Cleveland confirming second election, and 1896 the third one where Democratic support melted away.

    But in 2024, Trump increased his nationwide popular vote percentage and margin not only from 2016, but from 2020. This is a break from the pattern of the previous ten third election, after a party gains control of the White House. Its a sign that voters were correcting from the anomaly of 2020 (note that Trump increased his percentage anyway). Its another sign that 2020 was at least very unusual.

    Trump of course is the second President after Cleveland to lose re-election and then win the subsequent election.

    Also of note that of the Presidents who lost re-election after the Civil War, it was either when their party had held onto the White House for more then eight years (1912, 1932, 1992), or there was a strong third party candidate draining support from the administration party (1892, 1912, 1980, 1992). In which two elections do neither of these factors apply? They turn out to be 1888 and 2020.

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  58. Allowing big pharma to produce ads to show on national TV is another thing that began in the Reaganite neoliberal era. Note that most countries around the world do not allow this kind of behaviour, the United States is very much an outlier. One would hope that any realignment would reverse these changes and ban pharma ads.

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  59. Wannabe show-runner for a fanfic-dom spotted. It took until Trump bombed Syria and put American boots on the ground in Syria (by the thousands), launching a new war in the Middle East against his campaign promise, that this sad pathetic coping began during Trump: Season 1. April of his inaugural year.

    Now it's barely a week after the election, and already the fanfic rather than reality angle has taken over his fanfic-dom. Sad, but predictable.

    You're an obvious noob -- since I was one of the super-duper Trump supporters from 2015-'16, called the primary map, called the general map, was read or even linked to by Trump twitter (including Ricky Vaughn), and was commonly referred to as the whitepill dispenser -- cuz I was focused on the reality of him winning the primary and general, which they were blackpilled about.

    They mistook that as being into whitepill dispensing as the end in itself, as though I'd keep the whitepills flowing no matter what happened once he took office. That was my first run-in with a rabid fanfic-dom, I naively thought most of his supporters were into his campaign for the real tangible results that would be delivered. Not just concocting their own narratives to soothe their broken depressive minds, huffing copium all day long.

    So don't bother trying to tone-police around here, I'm not part of the fanfic-dom and don't care whether or not the fanfickers feel depressed by the reality I report on.

    "Making grandiose blackpilling assumptions (that dovetail too well with the propaganda of the party that still controls education) is a bit premature."

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  60. The reason I use Jesus and his followers as an example of fandoms, fanfic, fanart, etc. is not to suggest that Trump will attain similar status over history.

    Rather, it's to cripple the itchy trigger fingers from the techno-determinist crowd, who attribute fanfic and similar phenomena to newfangled technologies like social media, smartphones, the internet, etc.

    Followers of Jesus had no trouble initiating and maintaining all of these phenomena -- without mass media or even mass literacy, where their communication was still largely face-to-face and IRL.

    The Twilight fandom, Glee fandom, Trump fandom, Gawr Gura fandom, etc., are merely utilizing contempo tech to perform the same functions as their ancient counterparts did, without anything like that tech to mediate their communications.

    Tech is neutral, not determinative, not influential, not nudging. It doesn't care how it's used.

    And so we learn nothing about these fandom phenomena by talking about the medium through which they're carried out -- we learn about them by studying similar phenomena with totally different tech mediating them, or hardly any tech mediation whatsoever.

    They are social-cultural phenomena, not materialist-technological ones.

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  61. "Band of outsiders" already fracturing in Trump-world, also far ahead of the schedule from Trump: Season 1.

    So far, it's between Trump's inner circle and relative outsider to them, and relative late-comer to them, Elon Musk -- the big-picture ideas guy, the intellectual maverick, from the private sector, with a big role in online media.

    Looks like Trump's inner circle thinks Musk is getting too big for his breeches, is insinuating himself too firmly too quickly, putting on airs as the Co-Prez, trying to take more credit for the electoral victory than he's due, and -- here's the most obvious sign the leakers are trying to shove him out, by pushing the most irritable of Trump's buttons -- trying to make Trump feel indebted to him, when of course Trump is indebted to no one but himself. That's really gonna send Trump into a rage.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-trump-donald-mar-a-lago-appointment-position-rcna179826

    Which character from Season 1 does that remind you of? Why, Steve Bannon, the populist-nationalist chief strategist (from Breitbart, and other private sector positions before that).

    Bannon was unceremoniously fired barely half a year into the new administration, after the media, and doubtless some of Trump's inner circle who chafed at his presence, painted Bannon as the puppeteer behind Trump -- and Trump couldn't stand that image.

    Another half-year later Trump heaped paragraphs upon paragraphs of derisive feuding scorn onto him, just like with the would-have-been populist-nationalist AG Jeff Sessions, rather than visiting retribution on his actual enemies (Democrats, globalists, Antifa, Deep State, China, whoever).

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-disavows-steve-bannon-when-he-was-fired-he-not-only-lost-his-job-he-lost-his-mind/

    There's a predictable spate of journotard articles about Trump's enemies fearing for their lives, etc., once he takes office -- but that's just fear-mongering. Trump has always been more obsessed with internal policing and internecine feuding, than with amassing a motley crew coalition to eradicate his enemies on some other team entirely.

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  62. Elon Musk is one of those Democratic elites who defected to Trump as part of the disjunctive Republican phenomenon. I wouldn't be surprised if Elon Musk takes things into his own hands and runs against the Republicans as an actual realigner once Trump fails to realign away from Reaganite neoliberalism. The Democrats should have imploded by then so are irrelevant.

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  63. Come to think of it, this obsession with internal policing, loyalty tests, internecine feuding, etc., was central to The Apprentice.

    The focus was never on how the Trump Org is going to grow, expand, and wipe out the competition, like one army marching on and taking over the turf of another army. And therefore, who would be best qualified to help lead that march to take over some other army's turf.

    It was about who could prove their loyalty to Trump the most, whose side was the aspiring apprentice on in the various internal petty turf wars, would the apprentice try to carve out a fiefdom within Trump-land for himself, etc.

    Sorry, but if you're the general of a huge expanding army, your subordinates are still high-ranking and will be carving out all sorts of fiefdoms for themselves, getting tribute, booty, etc. That's the downside that you accept for the upside of you controlling a huge new swath of conquered territory -- since it's impossible to megalomaniacally control all that territorial conquest by your own individual supreme self.

    Sure, you could call it cringe when all the Deep Staters would loudly proclaim that they were "loyal to the nation, not loyal to the man" or whatever -- but they were in fact members of a *relatively* more cohesive team, called the Blob, and they steamrolled over the personal-loyalty obsessed Trump cadre, who wasted most of their time and effort on feuding with each other.

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  64. So, for those who weren't around in the late 2010s, that's what brought this wannabe show-runner for a Trump fanfic-dom to my comments section -- to attempt to tone-police my writing, as part of their singular focus on internal policing, personal loyalty tests (to Trump himself, to the head gatekeepers of the various online Trumpian fanfic-doms, etc.), and other internecine feuding.

    This internal rather than external focus, and individualist rather than collectivist focus, unraveled their would-be outsider hostile takeover of the American state during Season 1, and they are working to unravel it even sooner during Season 3.

    Sad, but also predictable -- they learned their lessons from Season 1, where they proved hopelessly ineffectual (like other disjunctive administrations), so might as well focus even harder on the domain where they can make a difference -- internal feuding, and year-round Summers of Beef.

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  65. Wannabe show-runner is too elite for this type of person, they're more of a wannabe script supervisor, and just a lowly new intern trying to prove themselves to their superiors (which gatekeeper they're trying to impress, IDK, but that's irrelevant).

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  66. These dynamics seem to be general to imperial collapse, the obsession with personal loyalty and palace intrigue rather than nation vs. nation competition.

    It reminds me of Peter Turchin's concept of "counter-elites" who show up late in the imperial cycle, or maybe also within a disintegrative phase during imperial expansion as well, when the over-production of elites has been churning for awhile.

    Counter-elites come from outside the system, and are going to restore it to former glory, rationalize it, stabilize it, etc., but as outsiders trying a hostile takeover of a domain of society they were not previously involved in, they are just another flavor of over-produced aspiring elites -- so they're not really a solution to the societal problem after all, and they in fact hasten its breakdown.

    Turchin cited Trump himself as a counter-elite, and I haven't followed what he's written in the meantime -- but will do so soon enough -- but I'm sure he'd lump Elon Musk in that category as well, not just for taking over Twitter but now trying to get close to the White House levers of power (which don't work anyway, but to the small extent that there's any power left in them).

    I think he'd put the Severan Dynasty of Rome in that category, or at the latest the Illyrian "barracks emperors", during the stagnation and collapse stages of the Roman Empire. Not just being military generals -- earlier leaders had been had military roles as well -- but also hailing from outside of Italy, which had become bogged down in late-imperial corruption, sloth, decadence, etc.

    Septimius Severus was a Saharo-Arabian, not even an Indo-European, from Northern Africa, and was so relatively UN-assimilated that he spoke Latin with a foreign accent, not as his native tongue. A later emperor of that dynasty, Elagabalus, was a priest to the local sun-god in Syria, also not Indo-European, let alone Italian or from a Roman religious priestly background.

    If the native Romans / Italians couldn't stabilize and rule themselves, why, leave it to us relatively less decadent North Africans and Syrians! But they were ultimately no different in belonging to late-imperial decadence, and were eclipsed by the Illyrian barracks emperors.

    They said the same thing -- if Italians can't govern themselves, leave it to us battle-tested Illyrians out here in the hardass Balkans! But they proved no more cohesive, and assassinated one another in rapid succession, plunging the empire into its anarchic nadir.

    We're in a similar stage of the imperial lifespan, so we're seeing a similar eruption of outsider counter-elites, who ultimately prove no more capable of holding together -- let alone strengthening -- the moribund, fragmenting empire.

    And it's not just that outsiders are just as incapable of reforming the imperial core -- their cohesion levels are just as low as those in the core. They're not a cohesive band of outsiders, who just can't make their reforms happen -- they exhibit the same fragmentation and auto-immune diseases as those in the core.

    They *are* part of the same empire, after all, they're just from some peripheral domain of it, but that doesn't exempt them from the plummeting levels of asabiya once the meta-ethnic nemesis is long in the rear-view mirror.

    In America, it's not so much geographic or ethnic -- not yet anyway, although woketard Democrats tried to make their counter-elites happen on an ethnic outsider angle -- but about inside vs. outside of government. Public sector background vs. private sector background. Etc. But they're still part of our empire, and suffer the same plague of plummeting cohesion and auto-immune diseases, where they're more likely to turn on each other than to unify against an external invader or nemesis.

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  67. To temper some enthusiasm about Tulsi Gabbard's prospects, which character from Season 1 does she remind you of? Semi-outsider whose highest office was under the other party, from a military background, aspiring to a leading intel / security role, at least in the recent past friendly toward detente with Russia and viciously slandered for that position by the media and Deep State...

    That would be Michael Flynn, who lasted all of 22 days as National Security Advisor for the incoming Trump admin, after having been the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama. He was clearly set up and shoved out by the Deep State (for the fake-crime of "mistatements made to the FBI"), fearing that he might pursue detente with Russia. That was before American support for Ukraine warring against Russia was fait accompli, when they thought he might tip things away from the Maidan color revolution of 2014.

    If Tulsi has similar goals, they'll do her in as well. Otherwise, she's made peace with the Deep State behind the scenes, and won't be shoved out immediately, but won't be much of an outsider or anti-establishment type anymore.

    And of course, just being left alone by the Deep State doesn't mean she'll last long -- look at Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions and the others, who Trump fired for reasons of paranoia over insufficient demonstrations of personal loyalty and fealty (not carving out a fief for themselves).

    Not to ruin the copium circle-jerking among the depressive fan-fickers out there, but we've all seen these character arcs in the first season...

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  68. From the archives, "I Put a Ban on Their Visas", to the tune of "I Took a Pill in Ibiza", my bittersweet failed realignment song for Steve Bannon on the anniversary of his firing, from 2018. I think it holds up pretty well, a little clunkier than I could've made it with more time, but not bad and not dated either -- as the audience for Trump: Season 3 are going to become aware of, all over again.

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2018/08/bannons-firing-one-year-on-i-put-ban-on.html

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  69. Why did the Italians put their capital in Rome instead of along the meta-ethnic frontier in Milan or Turin or so on?

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  70. Take the hint, wannabe script supervisors. No one trekking out into the blogosphere is interested in your fanfic spin on uncontroversial stories, like the internecine feuding and resulting internal collapse of the would-be outsider admin in Trump: Season 1, Trump launching a new war in the Middle East (which remains through today), and so on.

    Enough of the fanfickers...

    Total ficker death.

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  71. Rome being the capital of the new Italian state was a compromise between the Northerners and Southerners, the same reason why they modeled the new standard Italian dialect on Tuscany, which is in the center rather than close to Turin where the unifiers originated from.

    Also Rome having been one of the few places in Italy that was not under foreign control, as head of the Papal States, unlike most of the North and South. More symbolic for Italian national independence.

    It was not a strong expanding state, a la the Roman Empire or even a great power like the Venetian Republic. It was just national unification -- so it didn't result in one region leading all the others. They had to compromise, unlike the Romans who fought and defeated and annexed the other Italic tribes outside of Latium who resisted Roman dominance.

    And Italy remains fairly weak as a nation to this day -- regional identity and cohesion is far greater than national identity and cohesion. In this relatively weak position, compromise works, where dominance is impossible.

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  72. I guess the Pentagon didn't take the hint about the Houthis suddenly having advanced Russian weapons to police the Red Sea.

    Maybe now that the moribund Biden admin has allowed the Ukraine to use advanced NATO missiles inside Russia, next month's headlines will be about Hezbollah magically setting up the S-400 system on Israel's border.

    Note that unlike social media fanfic, this potential headline is already grounded in reality cuz of what weapons the Houthis have already been given and used for their control over the Red Sea.

    Russian imperial collapse in the 1990s has been overcome, and they have stabilized into a rump state of the former Russian Empire / Soviet Union, with advanced weapons and more importantly the social / institutional cohesion to think them up, fund them w/o bankruping the state, and deploy them for their national interests (not for their private gamer enjoyment in "making RTS simulators real").

    The Ukraine is getting annexed back by Russia, and Westerners are still wishcasting, fanficking, meme-magicking, cosplaying, and LARP-ing.

    Institutions 1 - fandoms 0

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  73. Right-wingers permit themselves to laugh at the "Ukraine Extended Cinematic Universe" among libtards, with those ridiculous blue-and-yellow flags etc.

    But conservatards have their own Israel Extended Cinematic Universe, or in short, their own Israel fandom, which includes other related fandoms -- like the Maronite militia fandom, despite them getting thoroughly defeated by the more cohesive Shia Southerners during the civil war many decades ago, and remaining powerless in the national picture ever since.

    And of course, being an Israel fanficker means being an Iran anti (and Hezbollah or Lebanon generally anti, Houthi / Yemeni anti, etc.).

    Those groups call themselves the Axis of Resistance, opposed to the Great Satan -- it's really the Axis of Reality vs. the Potemkin Empire.

    Houthis control the Red Sea, Hezbollah has gone beyond bitchslapping Israel out of Lebanon to invading and annexing parts of Northern Israel, Iran takes as big of a missile dump on Israel as it wants, and Russia is invited into Syria to bitchslap the Western and Salafist proxies out of their key turf.

    Just cuz the upcoming White House transition will demote the narrative arcs that are fanservice to the Ukraine fandom, doesn't mean the fanservice to the Israel fandom will go any better on the ground -- not that fanfickers care about realities, but after awhile, some intrusions from reality are too seismic for them to continue the emotional button-pushing over their fanservice, and like today's sullen Ukraine fanfickers, tomorrow's Israel fanfickers will sulk away grumbling about how foreign narrative interference totally ruined what promised to be the best season of the series yet!

    Later, LARP-ers.

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  74. Meanwhile in reality, Mitch McConnell has just signaled that he will block Trump's proposed appointments, so we might not even get Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr.

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  75. Trump surrenders to media, vows *no* retribution, revenge, etc., contra the fanfic of his media-hating fandom.

    He even says how completely insane and unfair his treatment has been by them -- but he'll put that aside anyway. Horrible sign of weakness to harp on petty feuds (like he does with fellow Republicans) while surrendering with a smile after full-scale assaults.

    Laughably, he says he'll extend the media not just a 2nd chance, but a 3rd chance too! -- but not a 4th chance, I mean it! Right back to the "cucking to enemies, followed by empty threats" stage of Season 1...

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-media-vital-making-america-great-again-vows-work-free-fair-open-press

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  76. Indies and converted leftists were hoping that Trump would have brought about a break-up of the media monopoly, or at least bust up one or two of the mega-corps.

    Maybe the motive would've been petty and personal, rather than populist and anti-monopolist -- but who cares what the motive is! A Bernie outcome, from Trump motives!

    Sadly, these Ralph Nader and David Barsamian types will not get that enjoyment either. Just another Reagan / Bush / Romney outcome with Trump branding, to make it go down better.

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  77. Elon Musk, Speaker Johnson, and of course Trump himself ("staple a green card to every college diploma") have been promising sky-high immigration once they take over -- but it'll be "legal" instead of "illegal".

    Just what the popular mandate wanted -- genetic and cultural replacement, as long as it's done legally! Crushed wages and benefits and working conditions, as long as it's done legally! Soaring housing costs, and inflation generally from boosting demand, as long as it's done legally!

    Same ol' BS as last time. Trump didn't cut legal immigration, nor did he even put a dent in illegal immigration -- except for the first 3 months, when nobody was sure if he was really going to Build the Wall etc. After that brief respite, it soared off the charts compared to Obama, and was only slowed down during 2020 due to the Covid hysteria when every country shut their borders, whether lib or con.

    This anti-fanservice will piss off the fandom the most, but that's okay, they'll still keep hyping that garbage.

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  78. Obama also deported more than Trump did, during a 4-year period. No, not just the "turned back just after crossing the border" type, but the meaningful type, deportation "from within the interior of the country" i.e. once they were already free-and-clear of hopping the border.

    I wanted to say, "Obama FAMOUSLY deported more than Trump," but neither side will admit this simple numerical fact -- cuz it damages the narrative for both sides, who equally need to believe that the opposite happened, i.e. that Obama was weak on deporting illegals while Mr. Build the Wall ruthlessly hunted illegals down and put them on prison buses back over the Rio Grande.

    I also wanted to say, "Trump's military FAMOUSLY refused to help out with deporting illegals," but same story with that. Both fandoms, the lib / prog / woke Democrat fandom and the Trump fandom, need to believe that Trump pushed a button, military teams showed up in jeeps, tanks, and jets, and before the illegals could even ask for an immigration lawyer, they were rounded up at gunpoint and vehicularly returned to their countries of origin.

    Nice fanfic (or anti-fic, for the libtards), but the opposite of reality.

    Trump's military also sat on their asses while BLM and Antifa riots burned down half the country in 2020.

    Anyone writing about how "the military will / must" do X or Y within America itself, is just writing fanfic (if conservatard) or anti-fic (if libtard). The military is too busy hoovering up more money to lose wars on the other side of the world, to do anything back home.

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  79. MAGA went from verbal slogans to visual images. There were tons of iconic images from this electoral cycle, Trump: Season 2 -- Trump's mugshot, Trump triumphantly raising a fist after getting shot and narrowly escaping assassination, Trump driving the truck, Trump working the drive-thru window at McDonald's.... on and on and on.

    There were also quite a few of these iconic images during Season 1 -- the room full of McDonald's food awaiting the NFL guests at the WH, Trump staring up at the solar eclipse with no glasses, Trump stepping onto North Korean territory, and so on.

    But during his 2015-'16 campaign, most of his memes were verbal -- memorable phrases, promises, slogans, calls to action, etc. It really was not that visual or image-based, other than the red MAGA hats. Just think of how many slogans, platform items, promises, etc. there were back then --

    The American dream is dead!

    We don't win anymore.

    We're gonna win so much, you're gonna get tired of winning!

    We're gonna build a wall, and Mexico is gonna pay for it!

    They have to go back.

    I'm calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering this country, until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

    They're rapists, they're murderers... and some, I assume, are good people.

    Only Rosie O'Donnell!

    She was bleeding out of her eye, she was bleeding out of her... wherever.

    I wanna get along with Russia. I wanna get along with Putin.

    NATO is obsolete.

    Assad's a bad guy, but who cares?

    It's called, Made in the USA. We're bringing your factories back.

    We're gonna terminate NAFTA (just re-branded it instead).

    Bernie's voters are gonna LOVE me on trade!

    You see what they did to Bernie -- it's a RIGGED SYSTEM. The system is rigged!

    Crooked Hillary, Lyin' Ted (he comes in with the Bible high, he puts it down, and then he lies), Lil' Marco (didn't give a pejorative epithet to Bernie Sanders).

    Lock her up! / Cuz you'd be in jail...

    The early campaign anthem being "We're Not Gonna Take It"

    And so on and so forth. The clear reason why these slogans were replaced by images is that images don't promise anything, and have no substance about what he's going to do for his voters or the nation. They look cool, resonate emotionally, get you pumped up -- but for what?

    They aren't images of him laying a brick or two in the "big beautiful wall", or of him throwing the lever on the electric chair while a BLM / Antifa rioter gets smoked live in the Oval Office, or anything else that a political cartoonist or meme warrior would dream up for their fanart.

    All those punchy slogans were promises that he could be held to deliver on -- and since basically none of them were, and in fact mostly we got the total opposite of the slogan, why bother making more catchy but undeliverable promises?

    Even during his first term, they went to the background, with only a few turns of phrase becoming famous -- "fire and fury," "covfefe," and maybe another one or two. Nothing like the campaign trail slogans, though, and way more attention to razzle-dazzle images instead.

    Sad!

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    1. No pejorative epithet against Bernie? Uh oh, Agnostic slipping. Doesn't remember "Crazy Bernie"...

      https://youtu.be/5r92qx9p9wM?t=77

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  80. And to deflate the techno-determinist view once again, no, social media and online tech did not change between his 2015-'16 campaign and his first term, and has not changed during Season 2, and will not change during Season 3.

    Tech changes don't explain any of this shift from words to images. It's a simple case of substance and promises vs. no-commitment vibes.

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  81. Oh yeah -- We're gonna repeal and replace Obamacare!

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  82. The War in Iraq was a big, fat mistake!

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  83. Michael Tracey had a nice clip of Rex Tillerson, Trump's first Sec of State, refusing to call Putin a war criminal at neocon Rubio's prodding.

    For those who forgot, Tillerson was one of the business whiz outsiders who was going to storm the swamp and drain the swamp -- he was CEO of a little company called ExxonMobil for the previous 10 or so years.

    And like Flynn, he was chosen cuz he had made friendly deals with Russia, and Putin-era Russia specifically, relating to energy. The perfect outsider CEO who could shake up and rationalize the sclerotic insane bureaucracy in DC, to finally admit that the Cold War was over.

    Then he got dumped in short order by Trump, and was replaced by neocon Pompeo, who went whole-hog on failing in Ukraine to Russia. Not just military losing to Russia, but orchestrating the schism between the new breakaway Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church that was always the mother church in the Ukraine.

    In case anyone had memory-holed that whole arc of Season 1, in their deluded hopes for something superior in Season 3...

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  84. Last remark for now, but this all portends the unraveling of the MAGA admin in Season 3, the revolt against the Speaker or Senate Majority Leader, even against Trump himself (a la the part of the fandom who called him "Blomf" in Season 1, incensed over failed delivery on promises, empty threats, we're monitoring the situation, we're considering / mulling / looking into things that never happen).

    Fans who were hyping up Elon, only to see him say we need to speed up legal immigration, will soon be hurling charges of being a "Musktard" at their fellow fanfickers who try to rationalize this as not a big deal.

    Bannontard is already a term of MAGA-on-MAGA derision. So is Fuentard, BAP-tard, collapse-tard, libertardian... soon enough it will include Musktard, Vancetard, whoever-tard.

    Or -cel, -kek, -cuck, etc.

    The right-wing coalition is so weakly held together, it has already turned into a circular firing squad, after an upset victory!

    Democrats do not consider each other their main enemy -- that would be the right-wingers. Dems don't call each other -tard, -cel, -kek, -cuck, or shit-, etc. Occasionally, shitlib, but rarely with a cursing pejorative prefix or suffix, like right-wingers do to each other.

    They don't say Bernie-tard, commie-tard, neolibtard, journotard, chapo-tard, woketard, etc.

    So when Dems get into power, they can get more of their agenda done, whereas when Republicans "control" the whole government, it's paralyzed other than tax cuts for corporations and losing more wars at greater expense.

    This did not get started until well after the inauguration in Season 1. The fact that it's been brewing since the end of Season 1, dormant and semi-active during Season 2, and now coming to a head *before* inauguration in Season 3, means it's speedrunning the unravel process this time.

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    1. Don't forget about all the right wingers still shitting on "Desantoids" after Desantis has become irrelevant to national politics.

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  85. I thought instability of the cabinet might reflect the disjunctive phase of the party alignment cycle -- Trump: Season 1 had insane turnover in the cabinet, while usurper Biden's cabinet has been remarkably stable, and so was Obama's 1st term, and W. Bush's 1st term.

    And the last disjunctive prez, Jimmy Carter, had insane turnover in his cabinet as well.

    But Clinton had a fair amount of turnover in his 1st term, and so did H.W. Bush, so it's not a telltale sign after all.

    However, anyone who thinks there won't be decent turnover this time, again, wasn't paying attention last time.

    Even if you think someone is good for the inaugural cabinet, don't bet on them lasting all 4 years, let alone being replaced by someone better! If you didn't like populist-nationalist AG Sessions, wait till you get a literal H.W. Bush leftover, AG Barr!

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  86. For the noobs and memory-holers, John Kelly was hyped up even more than this Homan guy, as the head of Homeland Security in the supposed "they have to go back" administration.

    Finally, a MILITARY GENERAL -- and from the hardass Marines, no less, not one of them panty-waists from the Coast Guard. Someone who "looked the part, straight out of central casting," as Trump values above most else. And who oversaw SOCOM, i.e. Latin America -- BOOM, who better to shut the door on illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande, or to round them up in America and send them back to Latin America?

    All this pre-inaugural fanfic slammed into the wall of reality when illegal immigration soared off the charts once Trump took office, and that continued even when Kelly resigned from Homeland Security and left his assistant, Nielsen, to fill his shoes there, while he moved over to become Chief of Staff in the WH.

    (Both those roles saw 3 people fill them during the 4 years.)

    Yeah, I know, open-borders Noem is the new nominee for Homeland Security, while Homan is a border czar -- but I'm talking about the head guy in charge of the border, for either Trump admin (Kelly and Homan).

    As with the DOGE, the border czar seems to be another fanservice role, which doesn't have much real authority.

    So while Homan is hamming it up for the audience, Noem will be opening the borders just as much as Kelly, Nielsen, and Wolf did during Season 1.

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  87. Now the only question is, will Ann Coulter keep a daily commentary on Twitter, about "Days since Trump's inauguration -- X, miles of The Wall built -- 0" like she did in Season 1. It was funny!

    That did trigger, and will trigger again, insane MAGA-on-MAGA violence, with half the right-wingers loudly agreeing with Ann, and the other half calling her a hater / anti / blackpiller / etc.

    She was one of the few reality check voices back then. Tucker also challenged Trump to his face in an interview, about "You said NATO was obsolete, and yet it has only grown under your administration -- why the hell is a tiny shithole in Eastern Europe like Montenegro joining NATO?" Trump agreed and grumbled about "I know, I know... but..." meaning it was out of his hands.

    Anna and Dasha also challenged Steve Bannon during a face-to-face interview in 2020 about "Can you be a populist and not support Medicare for All / single-payer healthcare?" No way they'd dare ask him, or Trump, that in Season 3.

    I think the fanfic levels have died down somewhat, but so too have the reality check levels. Everyone knows what to expect, there's no uncharted-waters hope of what might be, unburdened by what has been, like there was in 2017.

    It's a Romney admin with Trumpian branding, whaddaya whaddaya whaddaya...

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  88. As for what the new admin might actually accomplish? Nothing against the globalists / imperialists, nothing populist / anti-elitist. We saw that go down in flames last time.

    But during Season 1, the insane woketard crusade of the 2010s was only just hitting mainstream visibility. It was still inchoate and shape-shifting -- hard to have planned for, or come up with a bunch of white papers for responding to it.

    So his entire admin mostly ignored it, except for closeted homo Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch who sided with the tranny-stanny lobby by adding tranny-ism to the list of things covered by civil rights / non-discrimination law.

    And during the campaign, Trump released a video short about "Why are they remaking Ghostbusters???!!!" Same trap that Angry Nintendo Nerd walked into, totally unaware of the woketard crusade under way.

    Largely, though, the subject of wokeness didn't really come up in his admin -- it was entirely among the talking heads of cable news and the reacting avis of social media.

    Now that the woketard crusade has hit mainstream awareness, provoked such an intense backlash against it, and has since peaked in its intensity (after the insane year of 2020), it's possible to attack it and undo some of its damage, during Season 3.

    They're not going to attack the aspects of wokeness that would threaten globalism or elitism, but things like men in women's bathrooms or in women's sports -- those are no-brainers. And one is already be challenged by a sitting Congresswoman, against a new Congressman who wears a dress and wants to use the women's bathroom in the Capitol Building.

    Any of this woketard bullshit that wasn't even present during Obama's first term, let alone during George W. Bush's terms, can be undone entirely without threatening globalism and elitism.

    Gayness was legal back then, so Trump: Season 3 will not be recriminalizing sodomy or raiding bathhouses or telling fags they're on their own when it comes to treating AIDS so don't take loads up the butt if you don't wanna get it, or whatever else the fanfickers may have in mind.

    But gay marriage? That's from 2015, and routinely voted down during the 2000s and opposed by Obama when he ran for his first term (and obviously by all Republicans). That could easily be taken back -- Roe v. Wade was recently overturned, which was an even bigger and longer-lasting sacred cow for libs. Something of even less material relevance, of far more recent origin, and having far less support throughout society, would be even easier to remove.

    Most of the tranny stuff is the same way, other than sex-change surgeries being legal as opposed to illegal.

    AOC removed the pronouns from her Twitter bio in 2023, and has not returned them. Talk about a recent insane change -- that's the easiest to undo. Unlike Social Security or Medicare.

    Ending 2010s DEI divisions, but not probably not the Civil Rights Act or Affirmative Action -- though perhaps Griggs v. Duke Power and disparate impact.

    IDK exactly what can happen, but if it's part of the woketard 2010s and does not threaten globalism and elitism per se, then it can go. Will it go? That remains to be seen. But unlike the military deporting 10+ million illegals or building a wall (are they even promising that anymore?), these anti-woke things could actually happen.

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  89. Then there's all the RFK Jr. stuff, which is not about wokeness one way or the other, and is usually not the topic for a presidential administration.

    I see almost zero chance of any of that stuff happening, much as I'd like to be eating tallow fries if I dropped by McDonald's again after years of not eating there. And crucially, for those tallow fries to cost what they did back in 1988 or whenever they last made them that way.

    Most of what RFK Jr. is taking aim at is pretty high up in the elitist hierarchy of the STEM sectors -- vaccines, food additives, seed oils, Covid hysteria, etc.

    There's no multi-billion-dollar profits being brought in by the tranny lobby, so closing them down will not threaten anyone's profits.

    But saying kids don't need 137 vaccines, food coloring should be from natural sources, seed oils must go, etc. -- that's a LOT of lost easy money for the makers of those things.

    Agriculture is a key Republican sector -- they use a GOP admin to BOOST their profits, not shrink them. So none of that food-related agenda is going anywhere in reality, although he can use his bully pulpit to raise some awareness among the general population for how they should be eating.

    Manufacturing is also Republican -- just as they won't be on-shoring any factories, they won't be making things with less plastic and more natural materials.

    Pharma and hospitals are Democrat sectors, and both heavily linked with the college sector. They can expect to get beat up a little bit by a GOP admin, and they can't respond with, "Hey, don't do this to us, we own your party!"

    So his agenda relating to medicine and Covid hysteria specifically, could actually go somewhere. Again, our central state is historically weak, our empire is disintegrating, so don't expect much central authority over wealthy and powerful sectors like them, but it won't be totally fruitless, like a GOP admin trying to lower the profit margins of Big Ag by telling them to provide higher quality food at the same or lower prices as the junk they were selling before.

    At least he'd have the bully pulpit, and raise awareness about how flu shots don't work, the Covid vaccine didn't work, masks don't stop airborne pathogens, etc.

    Maybe that could tie into a central theme for Season 3 -- reckoning with and undoing the insane woketard crusades of the 2010s and very early 2020s (as long as it doesn't threaten globalism or elitism, since this is still a neolib admin committed to propping up a crumbling empire).

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  90. Also LOL if you think your grocery bill is going to shrink under a GOP admin. It was bad enough under Biden, and now that the Ag party is coming into power, you think they're going to use that power to reduce prices and voluntarily shrink their own profit margins? Jesus...

    As for one non-systemic threat, though, I'd like to see the Ag / Commerce / Whoever secretary target the egg cartel.

    Eggs are one of the most palpable symbols of insane inflation under Biden. They used to be $1 a dozen (nominally $1.25 with the sale price of $1 in effect for 11 months out of 12), now they're $3, occasionally $2.50.

    Eggs never go on a real sale, let alone clearance -- even though they are perishable and in large supply.

    Raw meat goes on sale and clearance all the time, when it's close to its best-by date. Why not eggs? Obviously they're conspiring against it. So is the dairy cartel, for that matter, although not as badly as in Canada where they delight in humiliating their Leaf customers by forcing them to buy it in plastic bags instead of sturdy plastic jugs or carboard cartons or glass containers.

    There should be laws on reducing prices as perishable food gets close to the best-by date. Not up to the supplier, not up to the retailer -- the law!

    Some people, when pinched by inflation and stagnant or declining real wages, would prefer to fight inflation by paying lower-than-the-inflated prices in exchange for getting food that's closer to the best-by date -- and then either eating a bunch of that for a few days, or freezing it, or whatever.

    But they can't do that for a large swath of perishable foods.

    Do the retailers just throw that unsold, not-marked-down, near it's best-by date food down the drain? It's such a waste, and a scam.

    So the price of eggs can come down by enforcing this "must go on clearance" policy, or trading favors among the larger Ag cartel -- the egg cartel lowers the price of eggs, and some other cartel with higher margins (like the yuppie-oriented suppliers) passes them enough to cover the difference, from their own high-margin products.

    Something like that. Inflation's only going to get worse, but it can be checked or reversed for a few key things at least.

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  91. Another very fake & gay arc to the fanfic will be the return of tariffs and so-called protectionist trade policies. As in Season 1, they will be completely fake and ineffective at on-shoring / re-industrializing our hollowed-out shithole of a fake economy that only nominally survived 2008 thanks to $9 trillion printed up by the Central Bank and flooded into the economy.

    Speaking of, Trump: Season 1 failed to erase even $1 trillion of that Fed balance sheet, starting around 4.5 and at the low-point hitting 3.8 or so -- before printing another $2 trillion during 2020, raising it to all-time highs.

    Usurper Biden sent it even higher, to around $9 trillion by mid-2022, but has since pared it back down to about $7 trillion now. So whereas Trump added $2 trillion on net, usurper Biden will have only added about $1 trillion on net. They added more, but they also withdrew more, of the fake money.

    Trump: Season 3 will be a repeat of Season 1 in kind, though who knows to what degree. He will demand slashing Fed interest rates and pumping trillions more fake dollars into the system, to save face and claim a rising stock market and GDP -- the only thing he obsessed over during Season 1.

    Our economy and standard-of-living, especially for the working and middle classes, can only be salvaged by withdrawing the trillions of fake dollars that were flooded into the system, but only delivered to the top 10% maybe 20% of society, allowing them to outrageously outbid normal people for everything that costs money -- housing, healthcare, education, food, gas, used cars, vintage video games, retail consumer goods, whatever.

    Trump carries on the neoliberal yuppie torch of his party's '80s Reaganite founder, and will do everything to shore up the over-produced incomes of the top 10-20% of society, even if that means spiking inflation through the roof.

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  92. Anyway, back to tariffs. These only on-shore production if they target the good, service, or entire sector that is meant to be on-shored. E.g., if you want more steel made in USA, you slap a tariff on the good, steel -- NO MATTER WHERE IT'S FROM. This leaves no recourse for the users of the good -- they have to buy it from American producers, since all outside suppliers of that good are getting slammed with heavy tariffs.

    Trump's fake tariffs only targeted the source country, not the good. E.g., putting a tariff on steel from Mexico -- but not steel from other major producers of steel. And even then, these only lasted about a year, lol (mid-2018 to mid-2019).

    Such tariffs that only target the country, merely re-locate the off-shored country from the targeted one to some other shithole. E.g., from tariff-targeted China to un-tariffed Vietnam -- NOT back to America, where wages are still far higher than in Vietnam, and would threaten greedy corporations using Vietnam as a sweatshop labor colony rather than paying Americans decent wages.

    It's clear from their threats on the campaign trail that the incoming admin will be mostly throwing tariffs on various things from China -- which means whichever manufacturing corp in America that was using China as their sweatshop labor colony, will merely re-locate those sweatshops to somewhere outside of China, but still outside of a high-standard-of-living country like America or Japan or France. They'll re-locate to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, Nigeria, or wherever else -- but NOT America.

    This is just doing TPP by another means. That was the Trans-Pacific Partnership from the Obama era, which both Bernie and Trump slammed. It was trying to gang up on an ascendant China by everyone in the Pacific region, including us. The idea was to re-locate manufacturing from China, which was becoming less of a shithole thanks to all their manufacturing, and therefore offering not-so-cheap labor anymore, to places that were still cheap-labor shitholes in the Pacific, mainly in Southeast Asia -- not Japan, not America.

    Throwing heavy tariffs on all things from China is doing the same thing, without trying to negotiate a multi-party trade deal like TPP. It's a unilateral brute force means of achieving the same goal -- helping greedy manufacturers in America exploit the still-shithole countries in Southeast Asia (or wherever else), and break off-shored production away from China, since they're becoming 2nd or 1st world by living standards, and no longer offer sweatshop labor prices. It's not designed to, nor will it achieve, the return of manufacturing from China to America (or Japan or France).

    Totally fake, not protectionist, not on-shoring, not re-industrializing -- just helping greedy manufacturing elites squeeze more cheap-labor blood out of the stone of the shithole country workforces.

    That's why we saw no returned factories during / just after Season 1, and why we won't see any such thing during / after Season 3 either.

    But Southeast Asians will become relatively more wealthy, as they soak up the production formerly done in China but now re-located to SEA. Americans will still be left out in the cold.

    And when Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia and even the lowly Philippines become too relatively wealthy over the next 10-20 years, the greeding manufacturing elites will pull the same move -- re-locate to sub-Saharan Africa, where there's still a large pool of cheap labor. And so on and so forth -- but by that point, the whole thing will likely have collapsed in on itself.

    At any rate, the near-term is all about fake tariffs that target countries rather than goods regardless of origin, continuing widening of the trade deficit (as happened all years during Season 1, and will do so again in Season 3 -- the only twist being the trade deficit with China may shrink, while it grows by equal amount with Vietnam and SEA).

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  93. As a case study, on the campaign trail in 2016, Trump got wind of a plan by Ford to move auto production to Mexico, to benefit from their cheap labor. He threatened them with a 35% tariff on any cars or auto parts that came into America from those Mexican plants.

    But rather than send production back to America, this only made the greedy scum managers at Ford re-locate this production to China instead of Mexico:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/trump-s-tariffs-have-already-cost-ford-1b-now-it-n917756

    By not targeting the good -- cars, auto parts, etc. -- the tariff just shifted the production from one sweatshop colony to another, not return it to the wealthy nation.

    This is blindingly obvious, not a deep theoretical insight -- so that was no accident. Maybe Trump didn't anticipate it would be re-located to China, maybe he thought it would go to Vietnam or Canada or who knows? But everyone knew it wouldn't be returned to America, if it didn't target the good regardless of where it was coming from.

    Season 3 is repeating this, where Trump got wind of a plan by John Deere to move more production to their Mexican plants, and threatened them with a 200% tariff if they did. Ignore the retarded spin by the John Deere PR team, who say it's not really "moving production" if their Mexican plants already exist and start producing shitloads more stuff, while that stuff is no longer produced in American plants.

    https://www.thegazette.com/business/john-deere-we-are-not-moving-production-to-mexico/

    When the incoming Trump admin refuses to target agricultural vehicles and equipment as an entire class of goods -- and instead only targets such goods if they were made in Mexico, then the greedy scum in John Deere's executive suites who are destroying the flyover-state workforce in America, will merely re-locate production from Mexico to some other shithole, not return it to Iowa, who voted off-the-charts for Trump in 2016, '20, and '24.

    Just totally fake, and an enraging display of betrayal to his "Bill Clinton + Obama -> Trump" voting base that delivered him his against-all-odds victories.

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  94. Almost as enraging as that PR-slop, "leveraging our global footprint" in production, not moving production or off-shoring or other accurate term.

    Ummm, ACKSHUALLY, Mexico is not separated by a sea from America, so it's not sending production overseas. And although the Rio Grande is pretty wide, it's still not a sea or ocean, so it's not off-shoring production there either. Checkmate!

    STFU, you Reddit-tier PR-slop-serving faggots.

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  95. I was referring to the 2015-'16 campaign in those examples. "Crazy Bernie" didn't happen until late 2019 and '20, during that primary. Another sign of how far he'd veered from his 2015-'16 self. Sad.

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  96. Also I don't think Crazy Bernie was that pejorative -- it was an affectionate double-entendre, like he had wacko unrealistic goals, but then so did 2016 Trump. But also like the TV commercial salesman

    "Hey hey heyyyy, it's cuh-raaaazzzzyyy Berniiiiie here, folks, and boy do I have a deal for you! You thought Medicare coverage was only for old geezers like me? Hu-well guuuessss again! I'm proposing Medicare to cover ALL people, that's right, even if you don't vote for me. I'm cuh-raaaaazzzzy Bernie!"

    Trump saw that type of street-corner ware-hawker growing up in Noo Yawk before yuppie gentrification, he had that affectionate old school New Deal type in mind -- and again, who was Trump to talk down to someone else about having unrealistic big dream ideas?! Heheh, anti-establishment peas in a pod... for a time, anyway.

    Why isn't Bernie the next Secretary of Labor or Commerce? They've already got Tulsi and RFK Jr. Yeah yeah, cuz he didn't campaign and pledge personal loyalty to Trump -- still, he's the right man for the job. But he'd be unceremoniously fired before the midterms if he did, and lose his valuable Senate seat, so he wouldn't accept it anyway.

    They should've acted back when I said to -- in summer of 2016, after Bernie lost the DNC nom, he and Trump should've formed a unity ticket for the general!

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  97. For the noobs and memory-holers, Bernie dismissing open borders as "a Koch Brothers proposal" and "a right-wing proposal" to a neolib journo, way back in summer of 2015, right as Trump was coming down the escalator...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0

    He defended a nation-state, which open borders would obliterate, and for the goal of helping the poor in this country.

    If you want to be a bleeding-heart do-gooder for the global poor, you have to keep them in their home countries and help them at home, he said, otherwise their migration to wealthy countries will wipe out the already devastated working and middle classes there.

    An econ populist argument for strong national borders, not cultural let alone genetic nationalism. But that all fell by the woketard wayside, poor Bernarino...

    And I believe that take on "Crazy Bernie" being an affectionate epithet was also Matt Christman from Chapo's view at the time. It was clearly not snide or derisive.

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  98. In other words, crazy as in "it's just crazy enough to work!" Seemingly pie-in-the-sky, doomed, but somehow some way it'll take place and run circles around the ordinary thing that occurred to blinkered minds.

    Like spinning straw into gold... Bernie-stiltskin! No wait, Trumpelstiltskin! It rhymes better!

    After Season 3 erases all of the insane woketard bullshit of the past 10 years, maybe the parties can hit reset and do it like they should have in 2016 -- Trump's heir and Bernie's heir hold hands in a national unity ticket for 2028.

    Yeah, the country will be even more fucked and crumbling by then, but as long as fanfic is the only viable form of parapolitics, make it something captivating! No one cares about substance-free photo ops and Romney outcomes with Trump branding.

    Trump chads and Bernie babes joining their separate forces to populate a populist legacy for our once-great nation's last-ditch shot at a future!

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