Stidmatt

What a couple of days it has been… Ukraine has destroyed a substantial portion of Russia’s air force and today they successfully attacked the Kerch Strait Bridge. We are clearly in the last steps of this war, and it will be over by the end of the year with Ukraine regaining all of its territory.

Now we just need the Russian front to collapse from a lack of supplies as Ukraine does more attacks on Russian military targets, destroying the Russian supply lines, causing a collapse of their military.

Once Ukraine has won, Russia’s economy will collapse as it is so dependent on the military right now for economic vitality. Their foreign reserves are collapsing, food prices are skyrocketing. Their economy is on the edge of total collapse, and if history is any predictor, this means the probability Putin will be removed from power this year is increasing rapidly. Just like the Tsar and the Supreme Soviet.

Trump has nothing to do with this.

Even without the sanctions, Russia would still be collapsing because of the lack of manpower due to the ongoing war. The sanctions have had little effect. Russia is still trading openly with China, Central Asia, and India. Their exports of oil have increased to China at the discount which has kept their economy running. Because this is the thing about sanctions and tariffs in a multi-polar world… they don’t tend to work very well. This doesn’t mean we should not use them, but unilateral sanctions are quite weak.

Ukraine has now gotten to the point where they have enough military equipment to not need NATO as much as they did three years ago. They have reached the point where due to the strain on Russia’s economy and Ukraine being able to continue to build their own military industrial complex they will definitely win. NATO should still send weapons though, because that will merely hasten Ukraine’s victory.

Also, Ukraine will be seeking multilateral protection pacts even if they will be unable to join NATO in the near future given right-wing governments in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. By seeking out unilateral protection pacts with both Germany and France, Ukraine will get sufficient security to be able to focus on making the necessary reforms to hasten their EU membership.

I predict all of this will happen by the end of the year.

Regarding Israel… Only the United States and Israel seem to oppose the immediate release of the hostages in Gaza right now, among a handful of other countries less involved in the conflict. 70% of Israeli voters do not trust their government. The probability of Likud losing the next election is almost a guarantee at this point with 70% of Israelis wanting Netanyahu to resign.

Once the war ends, Netanyahu will be dragged back to court, and he will almost certainly be convicted on corruption charges. The end of the War in Gaza will be the end of his government, so he must continue the war as long as possible. He also has an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, something they don’t do lightly.

So will the War in Gaza end this year? I have no idea. I kind of doubt it honestly. Netanyahu has the full backing of the US government and he will be able to return to either the United States or Russia with few questions asked because he can return to either country by right. He is a member of the Russian diaspora, his family lived in New York before emigrating to Israel. I don’t think Netanyahu will ever see consequences for his crimes against humanity. Netanyahu fleeing Israel at the end of this war for asylum in the US or Russia is a guarantee.

If Netanyahu flees Israel, it looks like the opposition will win, but don’t expect much to change. The only centrist, arguably center-left, party which is projected to win more than 10 seats is The Democrats. Every other party supports the construction of more illegal and destabilizing settlements in the West Bank, whether they are part of the government or not. Israeli society has moved very far to the right in the last decade, more than any other democracy. There is effectively no opposition.

Nothing will fundamentally change in Israel. The United States should let them govern themselves and withdraw. Our influence there is not helpful, only destructive. Our influence there is making Israel-Palestinian relations worse. It gives them few consequences for their decisions, and funds an endless war with no end. The best thing to do is pull our military support and then they will have the necessity to work with their neighbors diplomatically. The endless supply of weapons is destabilizing the region, putting Jews and Muslims around the world in danger. The fighting enflames tensions, empowering violent extremists. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be solved by violence alone. There needs to be diplomacy and the establishment of laws for Israeli-Palestinian relations based on shared humanity. This will not happen as long as you have the dangerous combination of a right-wing government and endless weapons. Our policy there is profoundly anti-Semitic, and it needs to change.

My philosophy regarding war has been deeply influenced by the Russian and Israeli wars over the last few years. When there is an obvious case of a sovereign democratic state being invaded by an authoritarian regime, the only option is to support the democracy with weapons, give advice, but let them lead because they are the ones at war. But when it comes to civil wars like in Israel/Palestine, it becomes very complicated. The relations between Hamas and Likud are extremely complex as I have explored before from Israeli sources, and the best thing to do is just not get involved. The two major wars could not possibly be more different.

Regarding the United States, we will have elections next year, Democrats will almost certainly win, and hopefully they will be more forceful than Biden was. We need Democrats who are unwilling to compromise with fascism, because the Republican Party has gone off the cliff. These are not your great-grandparents Republicans of the 1950s. The modern Republican Party is a radical nationalist movement inspired by Putin. They cannot remain a major party in a free and democratic society. Democrats need to win and make a clear argument why they should hold government. We need to push the Overton Window back towards liberalism and make the modern Republican Party unelectable.

There are no clear imminent changes in the rest of the world for this year as far as I can tell. China will be able to fully replace Russia’s support of North Korea, so no change. The loss of Russian political influence in media will allow cooler heads to have more of a voice, and this will take a few years. The loss of Russian support in countries like Burkina Faso could cause some much-needed regime change.

The loss of Russian support in Iran could start to bleed that regime dry and bring back another round of protests, within a few years.

These are my predictions. The main events are of course the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the Gaza War. Other major wars are unlikely to change any time soon.

References:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-food-prices-inflation-interest/33244563.html

https://kyivindependent.com/russias-foreign-currency-reserves-fell-to-lowest-since-2008-amid-mounting-deficits/

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3994135-russia-faces-major-labor-shortage-due-to-war-in-ukraine-foreign-intel.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exports-sanctioned-russian-arctic-oil-china-set-rise-april-sources-say-2025-04-17/

 

 

 

The finale of Doctor Who Season 41 (Series 15) was… odd.

Wish World worked. That was a very solid episode. We had Mel, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, with the Rani and Conrad as the villains. It’s an excellent episode. It ends with the Doctor falling in a very climatic and emotional way.

I’m not a fan of teasing the return of Susan and then not bringing her back properly. What a missed opportunity.

The finale The Reality War is rushed. They tried to stick too much in one episode and the exposition/action didn’t really work in my opinion. It could have been done better. Here’s what I would have done:

Wish World is the first episode of the arc. It’s excellent. No changes.

Second episode should be a throwback exploring the beginning of how this occurred. More exploration of this world would have been helpful, 20 minutes leading into the throwback, 20 minutes in the new world starting their life together. 10 minutes with the aftermath of the Doctor falling from the tower in London. Ends with Belinda remembering who she is at the Time Hotel. Susan joins through the Time Hotel.

Third episode is the first half of The Reality War. A lot of the dialogue needed more editing. Spend a full hour ­exploring the finale of that episode. This delves into the actions into the Rani and Conrad. More time with Unit. Susan is part of the action.

Fourth and final episode ties up the story of the Doctor and Belinda’s relationship. I assume the child of the Doctor and Belinda is from the world being rewritten? It’s ok to leave that part as a mystery. But they deserved a proper sendoff. Susan is in the story as well.

That would have given enough time to explore the main threads of the story:

• The Doctor and Belinda’s relationship
• The Rani
• The Doctor and Belinda’s child

Story list:

1. The Robot Revolution
2. Lux
3. The Well
4. Lucky Day
5. The Story & The Engine
6. Ruby and Belinda travel with the Doctor vs the Daleks
7. Ruby, Anita, and Belinda travel with the Doctor vs the Daleks
8. Ruby, Anita, and Belinda travel with the Doctor story involving Conrad and the Daleks
9. The Interstellar Song Contest
10. Wish World
11. Reality War Part 1: Belinda’s Husband, Susan enters
12. Reality War Part 2: Rani and Conrad, Susan exits
13. Reality War Part 3: The Story of Poppy

I think the last season was a good season overall, but it was too short and often rushed.

This is how you fix Season 41.

The answer is to maintain the keys to power. Most politicians end up getting cocky after being in office for years and make mistakes. But the one exception to this rule is in Singapore.

PAP has remained in power in Singapore since independence. From a fairly lazy point of view one might assume this is because the elections is rigged, but in reality there is no sign the election was rigged. PAP has remained in power for 50 years because they consistently deliver results. Singaporeans have a high quality of life. They have the highest GDP per capita in the world. Things are stable. We find a similar pattern in Luxembourg where CSV has remained in power for 35 of the last 45 years. CSV has also led their country in a way towards prosperity with strong social programs.

One important difference is that Luxembourg consistently has coalition governments like most countries in Europe. Unlike others however rule has stayed pretty consistently in the hands of CSV. It literally took a spy scandal for them to lose power in the 2013 election.

Germany is similar. Merkel stayed in power in Germany until she resigned as party leader. SPD was unable to pull together a strong leader against her during her time in office, and the economy remained strong aside from the global 2008 recession. She also led a coalition in each of her governments, with the SPD three times and FDP once. Her party remained the strongest party in the Bundestag for 16 years.

This is true in every democracy really. Keep the economy strong. Don’t mess up foreign policy. Don’t have a scandal. If you do these three things you will probably stay in power.

For this reason we can explain every time parties lost power in American history. A similar analysis can be done for every democracy.

Why the presidency changed hands

2024 is because of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

2020 is because of the COVID-19 pandemic

2016 is because of the Electoral College. Obama did a good job and Clinton beat Trump by millions of votes.

2008 is because of the 2008 recession.

2000 is because of the Electoral College. Clinton presided over a strong economy with no major foreign policy mistakes, so Gore won the popular vote.

1992 is because of Ross Perot.

1980 is because of the Iran Hostage Crisis

1976 is because of Watergate

1968 is because the Vietnam War was in a stalemate.

1960 is because of Cuba’s fall to communism and an ongoing recession.

1952 is because of crises in Korea and the fall of China.

1932 is because of the Great Depression.

The list continues.

So this means that if presidents were able to avoid making major screw ups, the presidency would change a lot less often.

Abolishing the electoral college would also help based on the result of the 2016 election.

I do not believe stability of one party staying in power is the clear benefit. But keeping extremists like Trump out of office is an obvious benefit to our country. Abolishing the electoral college will help keep extremists out of the presidency.

Adopt a modern election system, keep a strong economy, and don’t screw up foreign policy to keep power.

There are two main issues with supposedly left-wing movements in the Anglosphere. It is understandable and good to want to fight for social justice. It is good to stand against transphobia, racism, sexism, and other evils.

But wen it comes to economic and climate issues the left-wing doesn’t make any sense.

Let’s start with climate, because this is straight forward. The most efficient policy to fight climate change is a carbon tax and dividend system. Canada has done this and it has already had the impact of shutting down 20-23 coal-fired plants for an entire year. The money is then returned the pockets of average Canadians, so most Canadians make more than they spend. It’s reasonable, just, and equitable. Give me another policy which doesn’t exempt big businesses and reduces wealth inequality while reducing emissions for a lower economic impact. I’ll wait.

Their staunch opposition to such schemes doesn’t make any sense.

But don’t worry, they had their opportunity in 2018 to propose how they would actually solve climate change. Cliff Mass analyzed their proposal, I don’t need to repeat his work. TLDR, it was basically greenwashing as if written by the coal industry.

Their economic proposals for inflation are non-nonsensical. In response to spiraling housing costs, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has decided he needs to stick it to landlords by restricting the building of more housing units. This is a common motif on the left in the US and Canada. It doesn’t work. People are moving to tech hubs, and with increased demand and stagnant supply the price must go up. Restricting housing to reduce rents is like going to a brothel to become a virgin again. It doesn’t work that way. It’s stupid.

But perhaps the most braindead demonstration the DSA doesn’t understand what they are talking about is when they say they want to end the independence of the Federal Reserve.

This is idiotic, let me explain why.

The best practice adopted by every strong economy today is to have the central bank be able to adjust interest rates on an as-needed basis to keep the economy moving smoothly. There’s no reason to deviate from this policy. If you have a competent head of government it’s not going to change. But less honorable politicians who get control of monetary policy will generally use the interest rate to their political advantage. This means reducing the interest rate before an election to increase their chances of being elected. This is a problem because it creates an unpredictable market.

Politicians can use the frantic changing of interest rates to manipulate the stock market to their personal benefit while creating general economic disarray.

So its best to keep monetary policy in the hands of an independent central bank, where the central bankers are forbidden from trading stocks for their personal benefit. This is also why members of congress should be forbidden from trading stocks. This is also why the President should not be allowed to unilaterally change tax policy. The conflicts of interest are just too great.

The American left needs to abandon these ideas.

So here’s a new basic platform for a better platform for American politicians:

1. Tax policy is the domain of congress. Any changes in tax policy need to be done by law, not executive order.
2. Preserve and defend the independence of the Federal Reserve.
3. Every American needs health insurance at all times.
4. Every American who wants to go to college needs to be able to do so without taking on debt as long as they stay in good academic standing with their school.
5. Nationalize the railroads.
6. Abolish ESTA. Citizens of democracies need to be able to visit America visa-free. Citizens of democracies should be able to go through customs using eGates.
7. It should be easy for someone who is hired for doing a job in the United States to get a work visa. The exploitation of migrant farm workers needs to end.
8. Defund the police.
9. America has not built enough housing which is why housing prices are increasing rapidly. We need to legalize housing.
10. America should work towards eventually joining the European Economic Area and Schengen Area with Canada.

I feel like this is a much more reasonable policy which will improve the quality of life for all Americans.

Response to this video:

Simon lists a few examples to show the rise of radicals, and I’m going to throw in one more for good measure, in the argument that there is a global populist wave and this is going to be succeeded by a return to normalcy.

Also, is there a reasonable politician or party who has been able to command popular approval without needing their opponents to be compared to Donald Trump?

First, the examples

Country	Year	Radical	% of vote	Note	Still in power
Turkey	2007	Gul/Erodgan	80%	Voted by assembly	yes
Hungary	2010	Orban	53%	Opponent was a hard core Russophile	yes
United Kingdom	2010	Cameron	36%
India	2014	Modi	39%		yes
United States	2016	Trump	46%
Philippines	2016	Duterte	39%
Brazil	2018	Bolsonaro	55%	Worker’s Party was crippled by corruption scandals
South Korea	2022	Yoon	49%
Slovakia	2023	Fico	23%		yes
Argentina	2023	Millei	56%	Second round, predecessor had 100% inflation	yes
United States	2024	Trump	49.8%		yes
Italy	2022	Meloni	43%		yes

As we can clearly see, most of these populists received less than half the votes. The four cases where the populist won over 50% were either not voted for directly, or they were running against a deeply unpopular and corrupt incumbent, giving them a major advantage.

But the more interesting thing is how rare these cases really are… there are 71 countries ranked as a democracy or flawed democracy by the Democracy Index, and there are only a handful of examples of these politicians winning. When we see coalitions forming like in Italy, it is invariably because they received the endorsement of centrist parties like the Five Star Movement.

Let’s investigate these cases in detail:

Netherlands

If we look at other countries which have not seen the rise of radicals, the Netherlands comes to mind. Geert Wilders’ party won the most votes, but he was unable to form a government. The Dutch Prime Minister is now Dick Schoof. The funny thing is that Geert Wilders is the only Dutch politician who gets much coverage in English-language media, but as soon as he is relegated to the back benches I think Dutch politics has disappeared from English language papers. PM Schoof is from the Labour Party which is a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, a mainstream left-of-center party which is pro-EU and public healthcare and education.

We find the same thing in most countries in Europe. They will have a radical Euroskeptic politician like Mateusz Morawiecki in Poland, but when they are then forced to make a coalition government they consistently fail and a standard Europhilic centrist party continues to hold power with a coalition as normal. The Netherlands is pretty normal.

Italy

Put simply, Italy’s election system is best explained as the type of system you would get if you put a heroin addict in charge. It doesn’t make any sense and regularly goes against the wishes of the majority of voters. This is how Giorgia Meloni was able to get a majority of the seats with 43% of the vote. It’s absolutely insane and Italy needs election reform as badly as the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Maybe more, and that’s saying something! Seriously Italy, your election system is insane. Fix it for your own sake.

Hungary

I’ve written about Hungary before.

Slovakia

This brings us to the interesting case of Slovakia. Their president is Peter Pellegrini. He is your standard left of center social democratic European president. He won with 53% of the vote last year. A landslide. His opponent was a member of the center-left Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe/Renew Europe. Renew Europe is portrayed as center-right on Wikipedia, but this is incorrect. They are also center-left. The most popular Radical, Stefan Harabin won only 11% of the vote. He was crushed. The Prime Minister Robert Fico is from the Smer party, which won a landslide of 23% of the vote in the 2023 parliamentary election. Smer is supposedly a center-left to left-wing party but also Euroskeptic. Fico organized a grand coalition with parties from across the political spectrum after the last election. Slovakian politics are a total mess. The fact that the other parties were willing to even discuss growing a coalition with Fico shows that despite over 75% of voters directly voting against his party the parties did not listen to how voters chose to vote for a heavily Europhilic president when they actually were able to directly vote for the direction of their country. This is the inherent weakness of parliamentary democracy. Slovakians want to be part of Europe and support Ukraine, but their parties betrayed them in forming a coalition with Fico. Expect a major realignment in the next Slovakian election.

Slovakia did not fall to radicalism because their previous government did anything severely wrong. They were betrayed by the party leadership. Fico has very little support. The party Hlas/Voice – Social Democracy is a left-wing party which aligned itself with Fico to form the new government. Hlas has seen a 5% drop in the polls since the election, with their former support dividing across parties which chose not to form a government with Fico.

Slovakia teaches us a very important lesson. Ally yourself with radicals and lose support.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom teaches us a different lesson to Slovakia, but with similar threads. It’s also the most complex to come to my conclusion. The 2010 election saw The Tories win 36% of the vote with the best performance of the Liberal Democrats in decades. This was after over a decade of Labour rule. The Liberal Democrats made an alliance with the Tories in response, which shot their party in the foot to the present date. David Cameron is a radical Euroskeptic who is in favor of money laundering. Cameron is ultimately a rather pathetic man who always goes for what he sees as easiest, with no guiding morality to his actions. The most dangerous form of politician. He is a coward who resigned after the Brexit referendum. He is less honorable than Gollum. In response to his radical agenda the Labour Party elected Ed Milliband, who is a very moderate but still Europhilic politician. He failed to provide a vision however to the United Kingdom and was unable to win the 2015 election. 2015 was the first election which saw Nigel Farage grow to prominence under his UKIP branding. David Cameron moved his country to the right which gave room for Nigel Farage given the shifting Overton Window. He is solely responsible for the rise of Farage. David Cameron then endorsed UKIP’s vision after the 2015 election by pushing for the Brexit referendum, similar to how Smeagol surrendered to Gollum in the Two Towers. Jeremy Corbyn is once again another Euroskeptic centrist who failed to provide any alternative to David Cameron’s position.

Centrist? Corbyn however identifies as a socialist. People refer to him as a mainstream Scandinavian social democrat?! How could I identify him as a centrist? For the following policies I argue Corbyn is not a member of the left-wing of the Labour Party but actually a moderate:

• He has always been a Euroskeptic, contrary to the position of basically every left-wing party in Europe.
• He supports Brexit.
• He supports nationalizing British rail, which is a mainstream position in Europe.
• He has no opinion on Scotland independence.
• He opposes the Norway model (so much for being a Scandinavian socialist)
• He supports a customs union with the European Union but not EU membership, so a Turkey like model
• He opposes NATO, which is contrary to basically every left-of-center party in Europe.
• His support for Palestinian liberation is mainstream
• He claims Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “not unprovoked”

On every issue he is either in the European mainstream, no opinion, or simply an isolationist. So yes, I do not believe Corbyn is socialist. He’s mainstream in most of his viewpoints aside from his Euroskepticism. The rest of his viewpoints align almost perfectly with the interests of Vladimir Putin. So given an option with a corrupt Brexit-supporting Tory party, a corrupt Brexit-supporting Labour Party, and a fully discredited Liberal Democratic Party given their coalition agreement, Britain voted to keep the Tories in power. They had no good option. This was true in both 2017 and 2019.

By 2024 Brexit had finally happened and people were exhausted with constant bullshit coming out of the Conservative Party. Britain’s economy has been running on fumes and Labour finally won.

But the reason why Labour finally won in 2024 is not because Keir Starmer is a super popular and charismatic leader. He’s quite the opposite really. They simply won because Reform UK, the rebranded UKIP under the human sack of radioactive waste Nigel Farage got 14% of the vote which in the British first past the post election system stole enough votes from the Tories to give Labour the victory. Reform is now the most popular party in the United Kingdom. Keir Starmer has failed to lead the United Kingdom away from the colossal failure of Brexit and right now looks like he will be the man who leads Britain into the First Farage Cabinet of 2029.

Let’s pray the Liberal Democrats win instead and do not form a coalition with the bloody Tories.

Britain shows over the last 15 years that the term of one radical does not mean they will be succeeded by a moderate. The election of Starmer proves this tenet is false.

Conclusion

So it is tempting to say that the choice between radicals and centrists is clear but on a closer look when we investigate most of these cases the radical government was either formed through a corrupt bargain or through a spoilt election.

Most democracies however do not see the rise of populist politicians like Trump, Fico, Starmer, Cameron, and Orban.

We see the rise of pretty mainstream politicians like Emmanuel Macron in most stable democracies around the world. Macron might be extremely unpopular, but at least he’s not completely crazy or living in a fantasy land like most French politicians regardless of political affiliation.

This is the way it works in most European democracies. Sometimes you get an absolute asswipe Euroskeptic like Karl Nehammer of Austria, but that’s unusual, and they are constrained from pursuing their most radical policies by the threat of human flight. Austrian politics has always been the most insane in Europe.

But aside from the absolute train wreck of Austrian politics post-Charlemagne the rest of Europe is usually relatively sane. Most politicians are somewhere near the middle, they support the European Union, they support NATO, and move their countries towards better policies through sane and balanced policies.

So when we come down to it, the rise of most radical politicians comes from coalition agreements against the will of the people or by having an absolutely disastrous governance under a highly corrupt or moderate politician who was unable to direct the national narrative. Having a weak head of government in a democracy opens up the dialogue in ways which are almost never beneficial to society. We need our prime ministers and presidents to have the ability to propose reasonable policies and have control over the narrative. They need to direct the country in a good direction.

Because if they choose not to there is an endless supply of nefarious actors who will make big promises based in fantasy land.

When you elect a head of government thinking that they will be moving your country one direction, and they instead work on promoting the policies of the party that most people voted against, people lose faith in politicians and go towards radicals.

That is why strong progressive leadership is the best bastion against fascism alongside freedom of movement. The pattern of centrist – radical – centrist – radical observed in the video is real in a lot of countries. But this is unusual. Most stable democracies alternate from one normal party to another normal party, one of which is more left-wing, one is more right-wing, but both parties agree with the post-Holocaust consensus that cooperating with your neighbors and building a strong economy is the best option for the people. Most democracies in reality alternate between two normal parties which champion cooperation between countries giving little room for the rise of extremists like Starmer in their countries.

So the real trick for countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy is to start electing normal somewhat boring politicians who champion cooperation through free trade, visa-free travel, social liberalism, and offer a strong vision for the future, instead of this alternating back and forth between the vapidness of Starmer or the insanity of Cameron. We need to be more like the Netherlands, less like Austria.

Let’s break the doom loop and elect normal people.

At-will employment, which requires employees to go to the office, relocate away from home, and usually to states with limited workers rights is inherently broken. Employers are able to layoff employees at any time for any reason, with a very imbalanced relationship.

Best part is that if the company is big enough and the economy collapses under bad investments made by the same large companies, the government will bail them out. The employee on the other hand has to fight tooth and nail for the unemployment insurance scraps which we pay direct taxes for. The company of course doesn’t have to pay taxes because that will “kill jobs” even though they are the ones doing the layoffs. Voters are then convinced to vote for politicians who will slash unemployment benefits and ramp up more subsidies for the businesses which are laying people off and consolidating industries, reducing employment opportunities, making it so companies which do random layoffs have less competition, driving down wages for even more insecure positions.

It’s infuriating and someday we need to wake up and vote for politicians who will support a competitive capitalist economy, not this rigged system which we have now.

In order to keep this system employers push for political candidates who will manage the economy so it doesn’t get too good. They do this through idiotic policies like tariffs which slow down the economy in a way which hurts people who don’t have millions of dollars in the bank.

When the economy finally collapses under the strain the government ensures the big businesses who are doing the random layoffs will get an enormous amount of government money to keep them afloat to “save jobs” while everyone else gets scraps, if anything at all.

I do not believe that market cycles are natural. I think they are inherently political. The last recession under a democratic president was in 1980 under President Carter. That recession was caused due to monetary tightening by Paul Volcker.

The recession before that under a Democrat was in 1948 under President Truman. Just like in 1980 it was not due to any policy of the president, but due to the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates during an election year. It didn’t work in 1948 however since Truman defeated Dewey.

The 1945 recession was due to an influx of former soldiers coming home after Hitler committed suicide.

The 1937 recession was caused due to an attempt to quickly balance the budget before the economy was ready, and a tight monetary policy.

Are you noticing a trend yet?

The Democratic Party before 1932 was significantly different from how it has been since.

All but one recession under a democratic president is due to an overly zealous Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy during a presidential election year!

Every other recession since has happened under a Republican president. We have had 10 recessions under Republican presidents and 4 recessions under Democratic presidents since 1929.

Republicans engineer recessions to remove competition in the market. This drives wages down and profits up for the largest corporations.

They use Russian propaganda against their democratic opponents to win elections. The use of the internet by Russian bot farms are designed to elect meek and conservative leadership across the democratic world. These leaders are inherently fearful and weak. They hesitate to criticize Russia or send Ukraine enough aid to win. By preventing a Ukrainian victory they maintain their support of the Russian bot farms. They push up extreme politicians which prevents progressives from getting enough support to win.

The politicians who would fight to unrig the system, the heads I win, tails you lose system we have today becomes entrenched. Entrenched businesses make our jobs less secure. Our wages are lower than they would be otherwise. Even union jobs have little protection.

I’ve been looking for work for 3 months now. I’m tired. I’m hungry. The game is rigged. Visa restrictions mean that simply moving to another country for work is not an options. Russian propaganda has propped up right wing governments around the world. The economic impact of the Invasion of Ukraine is everywhere. It makes everything so much more difficult. We have it easy, we are not being killed in our homes by rockets at 2 in the morning.

Our politicians are weak and slow. We have the power to stop this. Our governments are corrupt.

Support Ukraine. Defeat Russia.

The Democratic Party has been split between two major caucuses for the last 55 years, the Progressives, and the New Democrats. New Democrats were founded in the 1970s with the belief that the failure of Democrats to win in 1972 was because they were too liberal under Johnson, so they moved the party in a more conservative direction. They are reactionary conservatives.

Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were undeniably more liberal than most of their succeeding presidents. While some basic democratic ideas stayed with the party, namely the importance of government involvement in health care, you saw a weaker approach towards education spending. But even still, Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama all worked to increase access to health care for everyday Americans.

One important piece of progress the New Democrats brought to the table was bringing in modern economic research for trade to the platform and the signing of free trade deals. But this was already a part of President Johnson’s platform in 1964, so the New Democrats merely continued this to the present day.

The main issues progressive democrats bring to the table are:

• Strong support for trust-busting
• Support for nationalizing natural monopolies
• Universal health care
• Tuition free or debt-free college (varies by progressive)

Many progressive democrats have unfortunately swallowed the fair trade poison like President Biden did. This is clearly a mistake when looking at the impacts of countries which have tried this approach. It makes sense to have basic health and safety standards, but attacking free trade is a mistake. We don’t find this same thread of politics in non-Anglo developed countries to the same extent. Britain has it to the extreme, as we have seen with the consequences of Brexit.

If progressive democrats truly cared about the environment there are better methods than supporting tariffs. We should start with a carbon tax, which will be far more effective.

So, moving down the list from 1972 to present, using Keys to the White House as our guide, let’s see how we can get America on the right track.

1972

In 1972 Democrats put forward George McGovern, an opponent of the Vietnam War. However, Richard Nixon had only 4 negative keys so it would have taken a miracle for a Democrat to win.

1976

Gerald Ford had 8 negative keys, so Democrats would have won with basically anyone and President Carter fit the bill.

1980

President Carter had 8 false keys. In order to win we would have needed:

• No primary contest
• More charisma from Carter
• Deal with the Iran hostage crisis better
• Pass a major law

So there was basically no democrat who would have won the 1980 election.

1984

With only two false keys, Reagan was a shoe in. It didn’t matter who we ran.

1988

With only 3 false keys, George H.W. Bush was all but certain to win reelection.

1992-1996

President Bush had 6 false keys so the election was a toss-up and it turned out to be so in the election. Bush lost because of a spoiler effect from Ross Perot. The same thing happened in 1996 for Bob Dole.

I do not think Clinton would have won either election if Bob Dole had not run. Since Clinton had 5 false keys, a charismatic Republican candidate in 1996 would have won the presidency.

2000

Al Gore ran a good campaign, and he probably won the election based on how the Supreme Court stopped the count before it was finished.

2004

Bush had only 4 false keys, so its not surprising that he beat John Kerry. I argue he actually had only 3 false keys because the PATRIOT ACT was a major policy change. It would have been very difficult to beat him in 2004.

2008-2012

Obama ran a fantastic campaign and Bush was extremely unpopular with 9 false keys. Obama governed extremely well in his first term and had only three false keys (arguably two, I am not convinced he was uncharismatic in 2012) so its not surprising he won in 2012. Obama had the fewest false keys of any Democrat since 1964.

2016

This is where we hit a problem… up until this year the election would have been an extremely uphill battle or Democrats won. But Hillary Clinton was an extremely uncharismatic candidate, with a flawed strategy. With 6 false keys it is not surprising she lost. Arguably she had 7 false keys because of the handling of the initial Invasion of Ukraine.

Perhaps the biggest reason Clinton lost was when she said single-payer health care will never-ever happen. What type of voter does this attract to her who would ever consider voting for her in the first place? She focused on opposing a proposal similar to what she and her husband worked on. This is why she was uncharismatic.

The other problem was the handling of the Invasion of Ukraine. This gave Clinton a false key (arguably bringing her up to 7 false keys) and prevented an easy military success during Obama’s second term. I believe the Russian invasion of Ukraine successfully set the presidency up for Donald Trump to win.

Clinton still won the popular vote despite this however, which shows just how terrible a person Donald Trump is.

2020

Joe Biden was not just running against Donald Trump, he was running against the plague. The lack of CDC monitoring in China helping track COVID was a major foreign policy failure. If the PATRIOT ACT is not a major policy change I do not see how a single tax bill is, bringing Trump up to 9 false keys.

There was no way the Democrats could have lost the 2020 election.

2024

2024 however is where I think there have been some major miscalculations and showed some issues with the system.

Even though the economic fundamentals were strong we had a K-shaped recovery after the First Trump recession. This created the feeling of a weak economy for millions of Americans. This brings Harris up to 6 false keys.

Biden had no military or foreign policy success. 7 false keys.

Biden did not pass any major policy change aside from a one time bailout of suburbia. 8 false keys.

This is why I believe if we had been more proactive in supplying Ukraine with better weapons sooner it would have solved the economic keys and foreign policy keys, giving Harris an easy win.

This is why Harris became only the second Democrat to lose the popular vote in the last 30 years.

Thoughts

Whether our nominee is a progressive or a new democrat only impacts the uncharismatic challenger key. Obama was the only charismatic challenger in the last 30 years according to the system, and he was the most relatively progressive candidate of the Democratic Party in this time period. So the whole argument of “we need a candidate who can defeat ___” is nonsense.

What matters however is how the president will lead, whether the president will have enough keys to be reelected. This is where it is obvious that the caucus membership of the president matters a lot.

So this leads us to what Democrats need to do in order to win and why I believe the following platform will lead Democrats to victory, put in terms of the thirteen keys to the presidency:

• Party Mandate: Have a functional party machine and a president who isn’t doing stupid stuff.
• No primary contest: Likely true if the president is doing a good job
• Incumbent seeking re-election: If the president is in good health and has done a good job, they will likely run again.
• No third party: Likely true if the other keys are true.
• Strong short-term economy: Don’t screw up. Do not implement random tariffs like Trump and lead with a steady hand.
• Strong long-term economy: Don’t screw up.
• Major policy change: Pass health care reform to bring America’s uninsured rate to 0 within 4 years.
• No social unrest: Unlikely if other keys are true.
• No scandal: Keep it in your pants.
• Major foreign or military failure: Condition weapons shipments to Israel like every other country.
• Major foreign or military success: Ukraine must win and gain NATO membership.
• Charismatic incumbent: Have good social skills.
• Uncharismatic challenger: Get lucky.

This is the recipe for a president who will likely win reelection.

A president this successful will have no difficulty getting reelected.

I think a democrat who more firmly supports Medicare for all or just focuses on getting health insurance to every American while controlling health care costs will likely win reelection. Combine this with competent and humane foreign policy and the president will be a slam dunk for reelection.

 Why not a centrist?

If we look at potential 2028 presidential democratic candidates, each self-avowed centrist has at least one major issue which I believe will make it very difficult for them to get reelected.

I do not think anyone from Biden’s cabinet will run given the current scandal that they hid his health from the public. Tim Walz will likely fail because he was Harris’ running mate.

Any candidate who is willing to vote for Trump’s laughable nominees is uncharismatic and will likely be trying similar failed approaches to passing policy as president.

Aside from these basic requirements, it more has to do not with winning but what direction we want the country to go? Do we want to live in a country which stands for democracy around the world, believes LGBT folk deserve basic human rights, and that we should guide our decisions based on science and reason? Do we want to have a country not guided by values but by immediately perceived political expediency, damn the consequences? Do we want to live in a country without birth control, where people are rounded up, a restrictive visa policy, and reactionary conservatism?

Any of these are technically capable of winning reelection given that they don’t screw up the economy, do not fund genocide, and uphold America’s treaties.

If one had to be a progressive in order to win there is no way Bush would have won reelection in 2004. Bush was far from centrist, and he won a majority of the popular vote.

So it’s clear that conservative democrats can theoretically win reelection. It has to do with what type of nation do we want to be?

If you believe its fine when UN buildings are bombed, if its fine when Russians kill civilians in their homes, and its not a problem when women are beaten in the streets for not wearing a Burqa, then I suppose you shouldn’t vote for a progressive democrat.

However, if you see these as major violations of international law and human rights, then we should vote for a president who will stand up to bullies.

That’s what it comes down to. Any type of politician can win. That’s not the question.

The question is who do we want to be?

Almost every President in history has run for a second term. This is common knowledge, but there are a few presidents who have not been their party’s nomination in the general election following their term.

3 President have chosen not to run before the nomination

• James Polk – pledged to not run for reelection in 1848
• James Buchanan – pledged to not run for reelection in 1860
• Rutherford Hayes – pledged to not run for reelection in 1880

4 Presidents attempted to run but lost the convention

• Millard Fillmore – 1852
• Franklin Pierce – 1856
• Andrew Johnson – 1868
• Chester Arthur – 1884

1 President was expelled from his party.

• John Tyler – 1844

1 President dropped out between the primaries and the convention

• Joe Biden – 2024

For comparison, we can break down presidents like so to understand this is not normal.

• 16 Presidents who have won a majority of the vote in their first election
  • 7 Presidents who have won a majority of the vote twice (Jackson, Grant, McKinley, FDR, Eisenhower, Reagan, Obama)
  • 5 Presidents then lost their reelection (Van Buren, Taft, Hoover, Carter, HW Bush)
  • 2 died in office (William Henry Harrison and Harding)
  • Pierce lost his party’s nomination.
  • Joe Biden dropped out after winning his party’s primaries in 2024.
• 11 Presidents won a plurality but not a majority in their first election
  • 2 Presidents won a majority for their reelection (Lincoln, Nixon)
  • 3 Presidents won a plurality but not a majority the second time around (Cleveland, Wilson, Bill Clinton)
  • 2 didn’t run (Polk and Buchanan)
  • 3 died in office (Taylor, Garfield, Kennedy)
  • Grover Cleveland lost in 1888 but won again in 1892.
• 5 Presidents lost the popular vote the first time around.
  • George W Bush then won a majority on his second attempt.
  • 2 Presidents lost reelection (JQ Adams and Benjamin Harrison)
  • Hayes chose not to run again in 1880.
  • Trump then lost his first reelection attempt and won a plurality but not a majority in 2024.
• 5 Presidents did not have a national popular vote (Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison)
• 9 Vice Presidents have become President upon the death or resignation of a president.
  • 3 chose not to run (Tyler, Fillmore, Arthur)
  • 3 then won a majority of the popular vote (T Roosevelt, Coolidge, LBJ)
  • Truman won a plurality but not a majority in 1848.
  • Ford lost in 1976.
  • Andrew Johnson and Chester Arthur lost the nominations for their reelection.

So with that being said, Biden is the only president who dropped out after winning the primary.

He is the oldest president in history. He was having health problems last year, and that’s part of aging. But the problem is that it led the country into an unprecedented situation no matter what he did. Reagan was not feeble when he ran for reelection like Biden was last year. Neither was Trump in 2020. No other president has been president after the age of 71. So there are really no historical examples to go off of for such an elderly man running for reelection.

Did Biden make the right call in running for reelection? I don’t think so given the knowledge which has come out. Democrats have made a horrible mistake by covering up Biden’s health and keeping him out of the spotlight. Journalists are going to figure out who is responsible for this callous mistake.

If Biden had chosen to not run in the primary in light of his health problems he would have been the first President to voluntarily step down after one term since Chester Arthur, who died the following year. Looking back this is now obviously the right choice. But as I wrote in my previous post it is very unlikely that someone from Biden’s caucus would have won the primary. If progressive Democrats had only one major candidate in the primary the progressive would probably have won. AOC is probably the progressive democrat with the most popularity and name recognition to win the primary and the presidency if she had run for the nomination. Biden’s handling of Gaza, Afghanistan, and Ukraine would have been the major issues in the primary if it had occurred, which likely would have sunk the chance of anyone from Biden’s cabinet running again.

The real damage done here by silencing not just Biden’s cabinet but every Democratic politician regarding Biden’s health is that if progressives had been stating their concerns earlier they would have been shut out by the party machine. Accused of being Trumpers, Anti-Semites, you know the drill. But by successfully silencing almost everyone in the party it has made it clear that the Democratic Party’s very core needs to be reformed. This is a major problem with a two-party system. If we had ranked voting instead of an Electoral College and a separate progressive party forming a coalition with the New Democrats we would not have had these problems. We need election reform.

All of this was meant to squeeze out just a little more life from a dying caucus. Harris is favorable now, but she had mostly unfavorable polls through all of Biden’s presidency post-Taliban victory. She would not have won the primary. The next three most popular democrats are Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and AOC.

Tim Walz has seen his popularity and fame increase because he was on a ticket with Harris. Buttigieg and any other member of the cabinet would need to explain his stance about the foreign policy of the Biden administration which would lose all of them votes. Gavin Newsom is too conservative to win the primary or the general election. Cory Booker is too quick to confirm Trump’s nominees. These are serious issues which should sink any campaign.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and while AOC is not a sitting governor or senator, there are very few other politicians under the age of 70 with the fame and popularity she has and lacking the political liabilities of Trump/Biden’s foreign policy. I think she would have won the primary if she had run, and definitely would have won the general election. There isn’t really anyone else to come out of the woodwork and steal the nomination from her.

This is why Biden stayed in the race longer than he should have, which is now obvious. He knew that if he had dropped out it is all but certain that a progressive democrat would have won the nomination last year. Progressives stayed silent fearing retribution from the party machine. New Democrats stayed silent out of loyalty to Biden. The two are not the same.

There is no one else from Biden’s caucus who is going to be able to win a nationwide primary. Before Warren dropped out Biden was polling only around 30-40% of the vote in every state except Alabama and Virginia. Sanders + Warren were beating Biden in every state in the north, and I’m convinced that if it had been a Warren vs Biden primary that Warren would have won the nomination. Biden knew from that that he had no choice but to stay in the race or Harris would lose the nomination to a progressive democrat. She would be forced to defend withholding aid from Ukraine, the situation in Gaza, and the surrender to the Taliban on stage in a debate with a Democrat and Harris would not have won the nomination.

This is why Biden stayed in the race.

As a result, he has completely destroyed all remaining credibility for his caucus.

Monagesque in France

If you are a citizen of Monaco, you have freedom of movement in Metropolitan France, but not the rest of the Schengen Area or EU, where you can travel for 90 days in a 180 day period without a visa. There is basically no way to check that a Monagesque citizen has not violated their visa-free stay in the rest of the Schengen Area because there are of course no border checks between France and any of its Schengen Area member neighbors.

Sammarinese in Italy

Very similar situation to Monaco here. If you are a citizen of San Marino, you have freedom of movement in Italy, but not the rest of the Schengen Area or EU, where you can travel for 90 days in a 180 day period without a visa. There is basically no way to check that a Sammarinese citizen has not violated their visa-free stay in the rest of the Schengen Area because there are of course no border checks between Italy and any of its neighbors.

Vatican City citizen

Vatican City citizens do not have freedom of movement in any other country. So if you are a Vatican citizen you have visa-free access to the Schengen Area, but no freedom of movement. This leads to the kind of insane edge case where if you were a US/Vatican citizen with no EU/EEA nationality (like the Pope for instance) you have the right to freely be in Vatican City for as long as you want, but you can only travel to Italy for 90 days in every 180 day period. So be careful. Vatican City obviously does not have an airport.

Here’s for even more insanity, imagine that a Monagesque citizen worked for the Catholic Church and became a Vatican citizen. Kind of insane visa requirements for that hypothetical individual.

Andorran citizen

Andorra has a unique situation. Like the Vatican, Andorra does not have an airport because it is so mountainous, so to get in and out of Andorra you will need to enter the European Union/Schengen Area. But they are not a member of the European Union or Schengen Area, and do not have freedom of movement outside of their territory. So if you are an Andorran citizen and you were somehow barred from entry from the Schengen Area for whatever reason there would be no way for you to leave your country, making you trapped. Fortunately this rarely happens and Andorra has very good relations with its neighbors.

Now imagine for a second if you were an Andorran/Sammarinese dual citizen. Mwahaha. You have freedom of movement in Italy and San Marino, and in Andorra, but you are limited to 90 days in the rest of the Schengen area. Just… ugh.

Saint Pierre and Miquelon

Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a really weird place. It is a tiny French territory off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is technically possible to take a boat from Saint Pierre et Miquelon in international waters to the rest of France without going through Canadian waters. Most people don’t do this and transfer in Canada if they are going to Saint Pierre. But… if for whatever reason Canada wouldn’t allow a French citizen into Canada in order to fly to Saint Pierre and Miquelon it would be fine because if you transferred through Montreal you would be staying in the international wing of the terminal, so Canada would have basically no say.

Now, if Canada started to do preclearance in Saint Pierre et Miquelon when flying to Canada that would totally screw over any French citizen trying to get back to Metropolitan France without transferring through Canada. I think this is unlikely, but its an amusing legal edge case to think about.

Summary

The only other country in the world (using the UN definition) without an airport is Liechtenstein, but Liechtensteiners have freedom of movement in the Schengen Area/EEA/European Union through treaty. So there’s no way for a Liechtensteiner to be trapped in their country.

Freedom of movement is a great idea between democracies, and I find these edge cases where someone could inadvertently violate their visa very fascinating. In the case of a Monagesque or Sammarinese citizen who was to violate the terms of their time in the Schengen Area, how could the Sammarinese citizen be effectively punished? If you were to deport the Sammarinese citizen back to San Marino, they would still have freedom of movement in Italy. I suppose that the EU would issue a fine to the Monagesque citizen who was in Italy too long? That’s probably what they would do because simply deporting them is not going to prevent them from reentering Italy, given how Italy is only a 30 minute drive from Monaco.

Is this crazy? Probably.

Is this interesting? It is to me.

How do you think these insane situations would work in practice?

Let me tell you about a man who was moderate in his political views, cared about democracy, proposed breaking up old medieval estates so the former peasants could own their land for the first time in history, and believed strongly in compromise.

Read the section on Hindenburg’s second presidency from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg#Second_presidency

Hindenburg was not a bad man. He preached unity. He believed in institutions and in never making anyone angry. He did care about democracy. He just made some horrible mistakes. That is my impression of studying him as a political figure.

But the problem with Hindenburg is that while his intentions were good, he was not forceful enough to defend German democracy, and led his country into fascism, without being a fascist.

The real lesson of studying President Hindenburg is that when your ideology is to be moderate for the sake of being moderate, an undying belief that if you just position yourself at the center that you will be able to reach everyone, you will fail. The political approach of Hindenburg is called middle ground fallacy.

The problem with centrism is that centrism does not espouse any belief. It does not have any ideology about liberty, economics, justice, or anything of the sort. It is mere political expediency for expediency’s sake. It was Hindenburg’s unbreakable dedication to being a moderate that was just the final stroke leading Germany into Hitler’s bloody hands.

Hindenburg teaches us that passivity, moderation, and seeking unity are to fascism as gasoline is to fire.

This comes back to a fundamental core of politics that anyone with experience working on campaigns will learn quickly. Once you get offline and start talking to people they don’t care about how you are going to bring people together. They care about how you will solve problems. They care about what your end goal is.

Now compare Hindenburg to another German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Konrad Adenauer was not a “leftist” or even a social democrat. He was a member of the CDU, Germany’s center-right party. He had been a member of the Centre party before the Third Reich, which is the party which formed a coalition with Hitler after the disastrous election bringing that monster to power. There was a real risk that Adenauer could have been like Hindenburg, always leading trying to find the centre, always trying to make everyone happy, which as we found with Hindenburg makes nobody happy.

But Adenauer chose another path. He watched the Soviet Union conquer 9 democracies through military conquest in the few years before he became chancellor and he swore they would not conquer the rest of Germany. To further this aim of protecting his country he was a strong Atlanticist and a founder of NATO. He led the way, he didn’t follow the crowd. He sent reparation money to deported Jews in Israel against the wishes of the majority of Germans. The interesting thing about Adenauer is that while he stopped the prosecution of people who had jobs in the Nazi regime, instead he favored the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community and then the European Economic Community, the earliest foundations for the European Union.

From here we see a difference in approach between President Truman and Chancellor Adenauer. Truman favored a punitive approach against everyone who worked for the Nazi regime. Adenauer realized this was untenable and would not solve the fundamental problems which led to the rise of Nazism in the first place, so he focused on rebuilding the German welfare state and integrating Germany with the rest of what remained of Democratic Europe to make it impossible for a far-right movement to ever succeed in Germany or any other European democracy ever again.

Adenauer teaches us that in order to effectively snuff out fascism you need ethics, clear rules, passionate argument, strong institutions, and a deep understanding of the paradox of tolerance. Democracy can only work when citizens and our leaders fight for it.

Adenauer was proactive while Truman was reactive.

Adenauer was right, Truman was wrong.

So here we have three distinct approaches to protecting democracy.

• Hindenburg thought that the role of the President is to find the center ground to make every equally (un)happy.
• Truman believed in a reactive approach of prosecuting people after the fact.
• Adenauer believed in a proactive approach by building a system which would make it impossible for a fascist regime to start.

History has now made it very clear that of these three leaders, Adenauer was the greatest of the three.

But here’s the thing… Adenauer was not the greatest German chancellor of the 20th century. Adenauer was after all a member of die Zentrum in the Weimar Republic, the absolutely disgusting party which made a coalition with Hitler in 1933.

Willy Brandt was chancellor in the early 1970s and he was instrumental in forming fully functional health and education systems to ensure the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all German citizens. His Ostpolitik of talking with countries in Eastern Europe increased awareness in Soviet colonies that life was better in the west. He worked on strengthening and deepening the European Economic Community. Willy Brandt is the only German politician to have ever received the Nobel Peace Prize. Most importantly, his policies worked.

Helmut Schmidt was a great chancellor too who continued to build on the foundations of Adenauer and Brandt which led to the formation of the European Union. He was working in the background growing consensus for expansion during his 8 years in office.

This led to Helmut Kohl who signed the Schengen Agreement in 1985, oversaw the reunification of Germany, signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, at which point the European Union was born.

With Wiedervereinigung and the formation of the European Union in 1993 denazification was finally complete.

I’m sure Italy has a similar history.

The history of Germany from the formation of the Third Reich to the formation of the European Union shows us every type of leader. We have the ineffective Hindenburg with his pleas for unity. We have the totalitarian dictator and professional asshole Adolf Hitler committing genocide. But we also have politicians who learned from their history and built a system which prevents fascism from forming. It’s obvious how each of these worked out.

America needs to learn from the history of Germany in the 20th century when picking our leaders. Compromise and seeking out the center of the extremes does not work in maintaining democracy, which is why it is correctly labeled as a fallacy.

Instead of falling for easy to understand fallacies our leaders need to offer clear benchmarks and outline their end goals of their policy. Make it clear where they are heading toward, like Adenauer, Schmidt, Brandt, and Kohl. Build a strong foundation that can be built on in the future. Do not tempt radical extremist forces to lead you towards their fascist end goals. Build a system which is secure which makes it practically impossible for anti-democratic radicals to destroy your country. Make strong arguments in favor of democracy, stand up for your beliefs, and preach to the world that freedom is for everyone, which is the spirit of Ostpolitik.

German history clearly teaches us it is the only way to defeat fascism.