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Trump administration 2024-2028
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Gordon Dundas/
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The irony of a person imagining what another might be imagining...
There actually is a DSA, and it actually has policy planks.
More broadly, I am confident these are not positions held by the American centre: pack the USSC, abolish the Senate, eliminate the presidency, open the borders, support all things Palestinian, oppose all things Israeli (with strong overtones of plain ordinary anti-Jewish prejudice), allow men and boys to participate in women's and girl's sports, enact universal healthcare that would require the elimination of private employer-provided plans, reduce policing, nationalize a bunch of things.
Ordinarily parties that advance to majority in the House and Senate retain their leaders, but a few are spitballing challenging Jeffries and Schumer. It'll be funny if Schumer's efforts to accommodate people who want to remove him don't save him from being one of those eaten first rather than last.
ArmyRick
Army.ca Fixture
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The republicans lost the house and the senate, very predictable. American political pundits have been saying for months this was going to happen. Surprised?
The so what? How does this REALLY affect us? Anyone thinking the tariffs are going anywhere? Unless Carney follows through with this latest deal and pushes for it to go through. Watch and shoot. I highly suggest you don't celebrate prematurely.
On that note, many of these Yank political pundits said it was cost of living, high gas prices and the Iran war as the leading factors in booting the Republicans.
I remember people I knew who were die hard anti-Trump folks (not on here but other aspects of my life) who thought the end of Trump was when he lost the 2020 election or his criminal trials, they were like "yeah justice". I warned them, Trump has an army of high priced lawyers, he ain't going anywhere. And sure enough, he won the election in the fall of 2024. Second term, so he is done. What does he do on his way out?
No, I have zero liking of Trump.
The so what? How does this REALLY affect us? Anyone thinking the tariffs are going anywhere? Unless Carney follows through with this latest deal and pushes for it to go through. Watch and shoot. I highly suggest you don't celebrate prematurely.
On that note, many of these Yank political pundits said it was cost of living, high gas prices and the Iran war as the leading factors in booting the Republicans.
I remember people I knew who were die hard anti-Trump folks (not on here but other aspects of my life) who thought the end of Trump was when he lost the 2020 election or his criminal trials, they were like "yeah justice". I warned them, Trump has an army of high priced lawyers, he ain't going anywhere. And sure enough, he won the election in the fall of 2024. Second term, so he is done. What does he do on his way out?
No, I have zero liking of Trump.
The House was predicted. The Senate was up in the air til quite close to the election.
Trump retains charge of the executive, and with it things like foreign policy, etc. However, a lot of those senior administration officials require Senate confirmation. With bicameral hearings likely about to come fast and furious, we’ll probably see some senior officials move on for greener pastures. Additionally, for Trump to achieve basically anything he wants to still get done, he’ll need congressional spending authority. He’ll make deals to get some of what he wants.
The tariffs he’s been hitting us with so far have been failing to legal challenge. Tariffs are a tax, and by and large taxation is an authority reserved for Congress. When he had a pliant Republican majority in both houses who were terrified of being primaried by Trump-backed candidates, he could run roughshod over some of these constraints of power. He’ll have a much harder time with that now.
There’s gonna be an absolute ton of political horse trading between the legislature and the executive. Who to fire; who to haul before committee investigations to testify; which curtains to pull back and which to leave be; who to shuffle off into other roles; who to offer executive sinecures to… And, of course, the budget, and spending authorization to keep government going.
Trump will fear looking like a fool. He will embrace some amount of pragmatism, because it will remain the best way to serve his own personal interests and to benefit himself.
Like I said before, this is a shift of historic proportions. I doubt Brad and Rick were predicting almost 260 House seats and over 55 Senate seats a week ago. This tsunami is on the extreme high side (or past) every forecast.
Some core theses of politics failed. There's clips of groypers and proponents like Steve Bannon in disbelief. Their entire thesis has been that if they ramp up the cruelty and culture wars, young white males would deliver power. That failed spectacularly. And now they have no idea what to do. They lost (or came close to losing) nearly every demographic. Young, old, white, non-white, urban, suburban, rural (in some places). Indeed, the biggest Democratic over performance was in Ruby Red states and districts. This is a 100 year flood. And some chuds are pretending it's just a bad leak.
And while I don't think Democrats have won any of these voters permanently by any stretch, no political operative can now take any vote for granted. People who have broken the taboo of voting for the other side may do it again. And that's what all these Republican politicians and strategists are worried about. People who have not had to campaign in Texas and Kansas in decades will now have to do so. This is the equivalent of California and New York becoming competitive for Republicans. Democrats would absolutely be in disarray if that happened.
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This is the optimistic take. And I share your hope. However, I'll note that Trump hasn't shown much of a tendency for compromise and humility. And he seems to relish the fight more than anything else.
Also, his family and his own unprecedented grift is now about to be exposed and possibly prosecuted (at the state level) very publicly. Is he going to be willing to work on legislation when Democrats are referring insider trading charges to state attorneys for his sons and son in law?
Oldgateboatdriver
Army.ca Fixture
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I don't think that's even close to any of his concerns: When you lose as badly has the Republicans have Wednesday, you don't care looking like a fool when your next few interactions with the press consist on a tour of a construction site of a new ballroom or you decree that the gilded Oval office you created will now be a national protected site. Not to mention that in the days leading to the election, you thought it was appropriate to comment on your candidate's asses as a way to garner votes.
No! Looking like a fool has never been a consideration for Trump.
I think it is, but I think he calibrates the word differently from how you or I might.
Up here we’re focused on federal results, but the Democrats made major gains in governors, state legislatures, and attorneys general. That will have a bigger day to day impact on most people in most situations.
This is exactly I find the discussion minimizing this event a bit delusional. There some proverbial dogcatchers in Kansas who just got elected as a Democrat. That doesn't happen exclusively because people are upset about gas prices.
The closest I can think of here is the Orange Crush that happened in Quebec with Jack Layton where a bunch of token NDP candidates got elected because Quebecers decided to reject more traditional mainstream options.
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The fight that Trump is facing might also do in what is left of his health. So that might be a wild card as well.
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An outcome isn't historic because it significantly outperforms polls. An outcome is historic because it significantly outperforms past actual performances. There are some noteworthy, perhaps even "historical" pieces (eg. the Democratic gains during a tough Senate "map" year), but the overall outcome is not materially noteworthy compared to several recent election cycles. The wonder is not that a swing of this size happened, but that a swing of greater magnitude didn't happen in spite of the very long list of egregious actions of the administration. The simple explanation for that is that it wasn't a presidential election year, with a fresh appealing candidate leading the Democrats.
"Bad leak" is the more correct description. To look back at the past couple of decades is to see shifts of similar magnitude, followed by corrections back the other way, often starting in the first election (ie. two years) after the shift. Leaks are quickly plugged.
People are playing the usual game of fitting their personal preferences to the "whys" of the outcome, but the "what" is straightforward. A lot of Republicans voted against Republican candidates, and a lot of propositions were won on the conservative side of the question. The most obvious explanation is that Republicans have rebuked their party, but not abandoned conservative ideas.
But isn't it historic that the polls undershot Democratic results? That depends on the actual explanation. Hypothesis: pollsters have long known that conservatives are more difficult to poll in the US, and that results typically show a D+ bias. All that was necessary for the polls to undershoot was for conservatives intending to vote Democratic to continue - as usual - to be missed (overlooked, refusing to answer) by polls. Then instead of missing conservative voters intending to vote Republican, the polls would miss conservative voters intending to vote Democratic.
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Since I like to ponder contrary takes, here is one.
Immediately, the result is bad for Republicans. Short- (ie. in time for the next election) and long-term, it is invaluable. Republican voters not only abruptly gave Republican politicians permission to abandon most things Trump, the voters demanded it. Republican candidates are freed from the millstone. So the next phase of Republican internal party conflict should see the party re-centering, and probably not with those who abandoned it during the first Trump term being welcomed back in to reassert their control. Good, and good.
The Democratic internal party conflict is still just getting started; it is moving equally slowly. The leftmost faction, disappointed by Sanders's primary loss to Clinton in 2016 (and somewhat outraged by the machinations used), has been growing its influence since 2020. The Democratic party is eating its moderates, which means it is running away from the American median voter. Manchin and Sinema are gone. Fetterman might be next. People have decided they want Stevens's head for the crime of doing what they demanded of Republicans for so very long - endorsing and voting for someone on the other side. I wish them every success in their purges.
Immediately, the result is bad for Republicans. Short- (ie. in time for the next election) and long-term, it is invaluable. Republican voters not only abruptly gave Republican politicians permission to abandon most things Trump, the voters demanded it. Republican candidates are freed from the millstone. So the next phase of Republican internal party conflict should see the party re-centering, and probably not with those who abandoned it during the first Trump term being welcomed back in to reassert their control. Good, and good.
The Democratic internal party conflict is still just getting started; it is moving equally slowly. The leftmost faction, disappointed by Sanders's primary loss to Clinton in 2016 (and somewhat outraged by the machinations used), has been growing its influence since 2020. The Democratic party is eating its moderates, which means it is running away from the American median voter. Manchin and Sinema are gone. Fetterman might be next. People have decided they want Stevens's head for the crime of doing what they demanded of Republicans for so very long - endorsing and voting for someone on the other side. I wish them every success in their purges.
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