George W Bush was talking about a permanent Republican majority four years later Obama wins the biggest Dem sweep in a generation two years after that, the Tea Party happens there are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic about where we are, but shit can turn very fast in American politics
Fred Trump rioted with the Klan protesting Al Smith, Catholic, on a presidential ticket. Fred grovelled to Democratic politicians for the rest of his life. In fairness, his son managed to degrade the NY Archdiocese repeatedly with their enthusiastic cooperation at the Al Smith Dinner.
Yes they can...until people decide new rules are needed, until they decide the law and constitution is not there to stand above the state, but to legitimise the interest of the state and of course who knows the interest of the state better than the monarch um President L'État, c'est moi.
I am writing about one instant of that and what is really stunning is how transparent and quick things turned, and how very few people even cared.
The institutions that allowed for such turnaround might not exist to the same extent 4 years from now. The way the Republicans in Congress are folding to Trump's will is the scariest thing of all to watch since Congress is supposed to be the gatekeeper of many government institutions.
It all hinges around 1 78-year-old man with accelerating dementia, who treats his body like The trash bin at a McDonald's. And the Public's willingness to put up with him. His hench people are not popular. His backers are not well liked.
We still have 5 days for him to pass in his sleep. 🤞🏻
It's fascinating because I have relatives who worship the ground he walks on but if you put them in an alley with Musk or McConnell, someone wouldn't be walking away.
Dems can have all the legislative victory’s they can for the next 20 years but they’re all kinda negated by the Supreme Court and they currently don’t have the spine to do anything about it
Taking care of the supreme Court has to be job number one for the Democrats and they have to commit to doing that in a way that actually matters for us *right the hell now.* There are criminals on the court there are people who have lied and perjured themselves and they need to be removed.
IIRC the quote about the parable of the Zen Master from Charlie Wilson's War - "We shall see."
Trump would never have had a chance if the Dems gave us someone to vote FOR. Instead they made it easy by only making him compete against the status quo.
All will change even faster if we give it a good, swift kick! #supportdemocracy
The Dems will pick up 3 seats in 2026 and the centrists will be all “We’re back, baby!” Meanwhile, Trump fills two more Supreme Court seats.
All we need is another Great Depression. Very comforting.
When all is said and done, Trump’s coalition is deeply divided and didn’t quite hit 50% of the voters. This is not a strong position to work from!
that all hinged on people not trying to run a third term though... and not having created an SCOTUS that will let them if they want to. that's a big concern with Trump. he doesn't want to have term limits. he wants to be emperor.
To be fair there weren't term limits yet in 2028. Those limits only exist because FDR was the first President to serve more than two.
One of the biggest issues facing progressive politics is that far too much of the electorate only pays attention to politics during an election year, and even then it's rarely more than what they might see in their news feed or on TV. They mostly ignore everything between presidential elections.
It's a common belief that part of why Biden won in 2020 is that they were unhappy with Trump being such a disaster that he kept on piercing their bubble of ignorance with his buffoonery. Of course in 2024 they either forgot about that or thought it wouldn't happen again.
Except when they can Gerrymander and change election laws with the Supreme Court’s blessing.
I see it as a goal - since things can change very fast, it's a reason to not give up and fight as hard as hell. Lotta people organized against Bush and it made a difference even if it couldn't stop the worst of it.
Right now though that organization needs to be to force the Democrats to either become an effective resistance or be replaced. Anyone who kisses the ring needs to be targeted.
I’m not worried about the GOP lasting as a political force, I’m more worried about the Trump party getting replaced by complacent Dems after they’re had their fill of plundering the country and planet for generations
the last 20 years is basically ping-ponging back and forth because the electoral system's been gamed down to razor thin margins and actual swing voters just hate whoever's in power.
Malcom Gladwell is a tool, but I’m a firm believer in tipping points. Things do not change at linear rates and when things change, it can happen fast. I think one of the Dems failings is not being ready to act at those points (failing to capitalize on the immediate post-Jan 6 mood comes to mind)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet...
the floor of our goal here does genuinely need to be to shut them out for at least a generation or until the party has fully fractured and reconstituted, which ever happens second.
Changing parties fast doesn't help if whoever comes in doesn't have a Roosevelt-esque brain trust of academics and intellectuals, well to the left of the current political establishment, ready to reorder the economy and people's relationship with their environment.
Which biden had, and he did an incredible amount of good even with mansion and cinema as the 51st and 52nd Republican senators. The only asset Biden didn't have was communication ability and a fair media ecosystem, and now we are all screwed
Only if Trump doesn't manage to screw with American elections enough to make Democratic victories less and less likely.
If chicken permanently becomes 6x current price because of mishandled birdflu, we will have Jan 6 but this time against trump and it works.
We’re one bad market away from Republicans and neoliberal dems in the wilderness, IMO.
In modern Democratic party Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had been VP candidate aged 38 and became president at 51, would never be allowed to take leadership positions because there was some political mummy waiting for their turn before turning into dust.
American Politics? Do people still believe that even exists? I understand it is pointless to throw up your hands and say "fuck it, nothing I can do", but for gods sake, find your motivation in reality!
it’s the sports game where people die but the top seed players are all mid at best
not a sports person so I had to look that up. very apt
A lot of the worst pessimists also seem to see the Republicans under Trump as a fairly united front, which is...insane. These people are cannibals at heart. The in-fighting is going to be absolutely ridiculous to behold.
The one thing that's permanent in American politics is that trends are definitely not going to keep trending the same way indefinitely. There's comfort there.
Also their argument forgets that the Great Depression happened. Just asserting “blank happened in the past and will again without any of the context for why” is just silly.
I just wish the Democratic Party was an actual leftist party and not the republican lite party
If the things Trump has done, and will do, isn't enough to swing this country the other way... We're toast.
Americans are super vibes based and something tells me that trump 2 is going to have the worst vibes in American history. Like maybe a year of “woo I love trump” before i fighting and tariff inflation nuke him
I think the general trend line to fascism and overall dysfunction has been very clear since the mid 90s however
Tbh I think Nixon getting elected a second time, with people generally knowing the kind of person he was, was the beginning of our current fascist slide. Every Republican president since then has been a criminal.
Yes. Without exception.
It really kinda all comes down to *just* enough Americans being lazy hacks who think they know better than everyone else but also don’t actually believe anything.
Most people's analysis of the future is projecting the last election indefinitely into the future. In 2012 Republicans were saying in their post election autopsy that they needed to support a path to citizenship and then Trump happens.
While you are correct I find that example demoralizing. Sure the Republican majority was busted but what did the left of center get out of it? A better-than-nothing health insurance program, then more war, the continuation of Bush taxes and surveillance policies, and a wall street bail out.
I don't see any reason to be optimistic. There are things you can't come back from without world-shattering events.
I remember a long, long time ago (2022) when the red wave that was supposed to bring a huge Republican majority didn't materialize and people thought it would cost them 2024 as well.
The only certainty is that nobody ever seems to correctly predict anything in our politics. Lovely.
'We are forever damned to a cycle of painstakingly writing the car only to watch some jackals gleefully drive it into the same ditch again and again' is, just maybe, not the encouraging argument you imagine.
I have been watching that swing my entire adult life, and I don't doubt that incumbent democrats are counting on it. I am not playing this time. Every time the pendulum swings against them, the GOP fights for their base and digs in. But when it swings against Dems, they move right. I am done.
Yeah, but a worldwide depression, and a disterous "war on terror" were intervening events- what calamity are we going have to live through?
good argument that the Constitutional winner-takes-everything didn't strike the balance they wanted
Shit can happen
i remember that stuff
folks I am well aware of the dangers we face from Trump and the worries about the continued viability of electoral politics in America, I have written about them a lot but “fuck it we’re doomed forever” has never been true before and I do not think assuming it will be this time is helpful
"Regular politics" is *not* going to save us; given that that's all Dems electeds and non-elected elites seem to have in mind, I'm not optimistic.
I tend to agree but man a few things have changed: -SC allowance of gerrymanders -SC allowance of money flowing into political coffers And we can trace Trumpism pretty closely to both. And the aim of both if power consolidation. That part didn't exist in the same way before.
Trump won’t live forever. There is always an after.
Yeah I remembering how gloomy I was in early 2005. And remember having discussions with friends about how we ever going to get rid of this guy and he's a goddamn criminal and he's surrounded by a bunch of goddamn criminals. I guess one thing about getting old is eventually you've seen it all before
Yeah, the Republican Party is not very popular and their only idea is tax cuts for the rich. If the Democrats truly start with a Social Democratic agenda and begin campaigning year round like the GOP they’ll be fine.
Preemptive despair is never helpful.
I’m more worried about America’s, and liberal democracy’s in general, standing in the world after Trump 2.0 than Republicans seizing power forever. While often problematic, the US led world is worth defending and I think Trump can basically destroy it for awhile if he wants to (and he does)
I’ve have framed in my head as “we’re doomed forever, so I’m going to make it as annoying as possible for the assholes responsible.” Which nicely lets me doom *and* stay involved in a productive manner.
The surest way to be doomed forever is to not push for better
NC and Maine have Senate elections in the midterms and it is not outlandish that Dems could be in play for a slim trifecta again in four years.
If anything, going full-on doomer is exactly what Trump et al want. And why would you want to give them what they want?
Needed to hear that, thank you. I don't live in the US, but when the US sneezes, my country catches a cold 😵💫
bsky.app/profile/rais...
1. I agree with you that "we're doomed forever" is not necessarily true. 2. I am still scared. I'm two years from retiring and I'm afraid we're going to lose everything and I'll have to work until I die.
Assuming it now is just giving up. The GOP trifecta will last at most 2 years, potentially even less.
Maybe not doomed forever, but day to day life for a lot of people will be needlessly harder, more miserable and, if the cringe lords in charge have anything to say about it, SO fucking lame.
As the Assad regime shows, and the Saddam regime, this is true ultimately but the interval between the dictator seizing power and the fall can be generations long and full of suffering, from the people’s point of view and not the Olympian perspective.
Midterms in two years could change things. Dems need to focus on winning back the house
all nuance dies on social media but this topic has been especially bad.
I once heard somebody say that people [my] age saw 3,000 die on TV in grade school, and things only steadily worsened ever since. The pessimism isn't constructive, but it's not hard to see why we can't let go of it.
I’d like to agree… but I also have this conversation with a close friend of mine on a regular basis: Since 2000, have things in this country truly improved? Or have they vacillated violently back and forth?
Not the first time in our countries history, and not the last. The ebb and flow of history and all that. Look into the 1850s, the first 40 of the 20th, and let’s not forget McCarthyism. The real fight is against all the groups trying to make things worse: Tanton, Fellowship, Evangelicals, etc
And TBH, I don’t actually have a clear sense of an answer. I do think we will have another swing forward at some point, but it’s hard to tell which way the overall trend is going.
To a perhaps consequential extent. I am deeply worried that we've missed the boat on explaining that that there's a lot of room between "free and fair election" and "no election"
honestly i don't think that's on social media. i think that's on centrists, wherever you may find them.
*shudders*
It’s okay Joe. They can’t hurt you here. Deep breaths buddy. You’ll be fine.
Centrists? Actual ideological centrists have no representation anymore. We have Republicans who wear blue, and fascists.
i have a feeling that the republican "fuck you, blue states will receive no disaster funding until they come to heel" strategy is going to possibly backfire super fucking hard! along with the rest of their "fuck you you are our property now" agenda!
There is something to the "dog who caught the car" argument. They've spent so much time and effort building their own separate info bubble that they don't realize how unpopular their policies are. And now they're able to implement them and coming face to face with that reality.
the only real rule of thumb in american politics is we hate anyone who gets off on telling us what to do, we're currently watching a bunch of people migrate over to a video app that is entirely in mandarin because of it. republicans have become the party of "telling people what to do"
Yet they are also somehow seen as the party that doesn’t lecture you, which is why all the low info morons vote for them!! It’s wild!
that is a problem yes heres hoping they get high of their own supply enough to break that idk
On the other hand, a lot of voters think it's great when *someone else* gets told what to do. Especially when someone else is ... you know ... them.
i mean sure but if rfk jr is allowed to do ANY of the stuff he says he wants to do with junk food it is fucking game over for the gop
dont underestimate the destructive american need for Treats
Here I am worrying about bodies piled in the streets because he banned vaccines, when maybe I should be worried about him triggering civil unrest by banning Doritos 🫠
i mean ffs theyre gonna destroy online porn as a way to get at lgbtq people, theres so many vectors of ppl theyre determined to piss off
This is one of the most hopeful things I’ve heard, thank you.
This time it’s different. Empirical evidence suggests anything Democrats do is no match for lying and projecting. They are upholding a system which has been used to protect and empower bad faith actors at the highest levels…in plain sight.
Exactly. That’s why we have to stay in the game, always being the opposition.
Both of these examples have something significant in common: historic financial collapses. Republicans lost power in 1932 due to the Great Depression and in 2008 due to the Great Recession. So good news I guess. All we need is the next historic financial collapse to save us!
Or maybe we should have a Democratic Party that doesn't consistently lose elections unless there is a major financial crisis happening?
And this of course is all ignoring the rising authoritarianism of the current Republican Party with full control of all levers of government. The same party that attempted a coup just four years ago to keep Donald Trump in power. This all assumes we still have free and fair elections going forward.
It's not like I think there's really any chance we reach 2028 with Trump (or his successor) still a popular guy who could say... win an election. I'm just not sure that the ability of Republicans to win elections will have any bearing on whether they stay in power.
I feel like it's been getting faster and faster as time goes on. The party affiliation seemed like it was never a certainty decades ago, but since the mid-80s the presidency has been a consistent R-D-R-D-R-D pattern. First two terms, now one term. This probably means nothing, it's just an odd trend
Thanks for reminding us. If I’m still alive in 2028 I expect to see at least some progress from the people who are conscious enough to give a shit. But also shoutout to my unmarked mass grave circa 2033, don’t say I didn’t predict it
america is great at keeping its people miserable *and* keeping them mad at the wrong people about their misery *and* giving them just enough leeway to politically express it so most every election is a referendum on “i’m still unhappy, you fucker—gimme something else”
Accurate
And the "something else" is tiny change on the margins while nothing systemic actually changes so the rich and powerful can remain rich and powerful.
it doesn’t even have to be tiny change. it can be no change in a new meat sack.