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The Democrats did even better than expected in the 2025 elections, winning by wider margins, and in more elections than either side predicted. It was a total wipeout for the Republicans. And not just in blue states either. The Democrats took seats and positions in Mississippi and Georgia. Virginia is a purple state, and the Democrats won the governorship and Attorney General's positions there, despite a vicious attack campaign against them by Trump and the Republicans, and took a super-majority in the Virginia Senate, effectively giving them total control of the Virginia government. They took a Supreme Court position in Pennsylvania, and of course the Democrats defeated the Trump endorsed candidate for governor of New Jersey, giving the Democrats control of the New Jersey governorship three elections in a row, for the first time since 1961. And, last but not least, the Democrats elected a socialist Muslim in New York City, to the absolute horror of Donald Trump and his MAGA backers, in what was a clear slap in the face to them.
Why was this, exactly? What do these elections tell us?
Obviously, the American electorate are deeply unhappy with Donald Trump's authoritarian tendencies. Donald Trump thinks he is the anointed King of America, and Americans disagree. The assaults on and kidnappings of productive, hard-working immigrants by racist ICE agents, supported by racist Donald Trump and the racist MAGA movement are driving most Americans to a frenzy of anger against the federal government, and most elements of federal law enforcement. The murders of sailors on the high seas who Trump presumes to be drug traffickers by the US military are an horrific affront to all international law, and a war crime, for which everyone involved must be held accountable. Trump's intentions to take direct military action against Panama, Greenland Venezuela, Columbia, Mexico and Nigeria suggest imperialistic tendencies that we haven't seen since Adolf Hitler quite literally tried to take over the world in 1939. Trump's gleeful use of the military to intimidate and control the populations of any state or city he doesn't like in the US, have antagonized virtually everyone who isn't MAGA, and that's the vast majority of Americans.
His performance on the economy has been mediocre. The economy is being hobbled by Trump's ridiculous obsession with tariffs, and now by his inability to function with the Congress, leading to the longest government shutdown in American history. The economy is starting to collapse even as we speak from Trump's total economic incompetence. The entire US air space of the US is about to become unworkable for lack of qualified air traffic controllers, they can't be paid. The entire US military is about to go without paychecks for the first time since the American Revolutionary War, 250 years ago, before America was even a nation. The full implications of these events is unclear, this has never happened before, but, they are massive. In any case, the massive disparities of wealth are making it impossible for the vast majority of Americans to fully participate in the economy, as the nation is strangled by the super-rich, and their petty whims. Obviously, we need higher taxes on the rich, and Donald Trump will never tolerate this, being one of their members.
In particular, what was notable in the 2025 elections, was that the Democrats, for the first time in a dozen years or more, actually substantially outperformed the polls. This may be because attempts to compensate for errors in the recent past have gone too far, and, now, Democratic support is being substantially underestimated by the pollsters. That would be very, very bad news for the Republicans, suggesting a massive Democratic wave, that could sweep the Democratics to a great victory in the mid-terms next year, and lead to Trump's impeachment, removal, and imprisonment.
The conclusion I drew from the 2020 and 2022 elections is that the shit’s actually rigged. Beyond that, demographic replacement and the rule-by-media nature of democracy basically put the political direction of our country outside of our control.
That may seem like a pessimistic view, but the upshot is you can just relax and focus on things that are within your ability to influence.
I don't know if I'd say they did better than predicted considering polymarket predicted exactly these outcomes from almost the beginning. It knew Mamdani was going to win with 90% odds from the second he announced.
I think one key lesson to learn by both parties is that if you side with Israel while they are committing a genocide you are going to get clean swept. A 10% shift from one side to another can do this. And I'd think there are enough Republicans that are actually America first and anti genocide, hopefully >10% of the party, that siding with a foreign country with more lockstep than any other issue is rightfully political suicide.
Problem is this was a relatively minor election cycle and I don't know if they will learn their lesson. Hopefully they are doing post-election polls to see what happened and they get some answers that they will actually act on.
You're probably right, that the fact that the Democrats want to put a leash on Israel, and Trump doesn't, is a factor here.
I don't know if the Democrats really want to put a leash on Isreal. They mostly ignore the issue but have a few outspoken people. Which makes one wonder why the Republicans didn't just do the same. They could have pretended to be ambivalent while supporting Israel behind closed doors like most Democrats do. They both voted for the same funding for Israel. But the Republicans feel a need to be their fucking lapdog even when its an unnecessary political suicide. Why?
This is the one thing I really don't understand. If you can say and do two different things. Which is something politicians already have built muscle memory for. Why say that you support Israel if it is going to hurt you?
Actually, that's a very interesting question. It may be the religious obsessions of MAGA. There are a lot of very serious Christo-fascists in MAGA, who really do believe that God and Jesus Christ are on their side. And, the Old Testament is a big part of the Christian Bible, and this notion of the "chosen people". So, in order to attract and appease that base, they may feel compelled to give very aggressive lip service to it. In any case, most of politics is far more style than substance, as you well know. Appearance is reality.
There is something that seems very fake about those arguments. I'm not arguing with you that those arguments exist. I'm just saying the people who make those arguments are very interestingly fishy. The problem is how does someone care so much about religion that it dominates their voting. But at the same time cares so little about religion that they can hold a view that makes no theological sense, within even the most basic Sunday school 101 understanding of Christianity?
Basically what you argued, and it's not your argument because you are just mirroring an argument that some people do make, requires the most vapid understanding of Christianity. How would basic Christians not understand that the Old Testament, while large in volume, is basically dead and is basically a history section of the Bible? How would they not understand that Jesus never said to bomb Samaritans to make way for Pharasees?
But I agree there are people who operate on zero processing and zero understanding who are dumb enough to say, "That's a word that exists in the bible. We have to support it!" The irony is that Jesus spoke against these kinds of unthinking, zero pondering, mindless zealots.
What is really sad is that while there are one verse at a time reading Christians that just think the words are pretty, they aren't the real problem. The real sad joke is it would be impossible to study the scriptures enough to preach it and not understand the bullshit of what they are saying. So the people who try to sell this have no shame at all.
I've learned that I can still continue not giving a shit because I do not live in or around a blue shithole. My red shithole is doing fine. Except for all the ethnics.