Stidmatt

I don’t think Harris is likely to win the 2028 election if she runs.

2024 was the second time a failed presidential candidate won the election after losing the popular vote in a preceding election in history. But many have tried.

Grover Cleveland lost the Electoral College while winning the popular vote in the 1888 election, but won again in 1892.

Thomas Dewey lost in 1944 and 1948.

Adlai Stevenson tried the same in 1956 after losing in 1952.

Richard Nixon successfully ran in 1968 after losing in 1960, but he only won 43% of the vote the second time. 1968 was a very screwy election.

Donald Trump did win in 2024 after losing in 2020, but this was after serving as president from 2017 to 2021.

Kamala Harris is a former Vice President who has a failed presidential bid. It’s very unlikely that she would win the primary election after failing in 2024.

The 1972 Democratic primary was the first Democratic primary with elections in every state. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey ran and won only 25% of the popular vote. That is likely to happen to Harris if she runs in 2028.

Based on history, I do not think Harris will run again. I think the 2028 primary will have mostly governors and senators, and AOC.

But here’s the thing… we will probably win in 2028 no matter who we nominate, given that Trump is doing a phenomenally terrible job. So the primary does not matter for whether we win in 2028. We could win with AOC, Harris, Buttigieg, Newsom, or Crockett.

What the 2028 primary election will determine is whether we will win the 2032 election.

Will we have a president who will lead us while upholding both the economy and foreign policy? Will we have a president who, once again, will appoint sophomores to high cabinet positions who will lead us down the road to needless war? Will we have a president who will recognize that foreign policy impacts the economy, or live in a fantasy that America is an island? Will we have a president who will uphold human rights and the Constitution, or a candidate who sees such things as ivory tower ideas disconnected from reality? Will we have a president who is capable of pushing for necessary policy changes through Congress to improve life for Americans, or someone who will prioritize bipartisanship? Will we have a president who will automatically rescind all of Trump’s illegal executive orders, or someone who believes the Bill of Rights is too woke to put at the top of the agenda?

None of these questions matter for the 2028 election, but they will determine who will win the 2032 election.

I believe we need the following:

• Ukrainian NATO accession is a priority.
• Human rights must be required to receive military aid.
• Repeal all of Trump’s unconstitutional Executive Orders on day one.
• Repair our foreign relations unapologetically.
• Reinstate US AID on day one, as required by law.
• Unapologetic support for human rights for everyone.

We need a president who will act decisively within the bounds of the law. We cannot compromise. We need a president who will protect and uphold our Constitution.

That will determine who wins the 2032 presidential election.

Going in order:

Andrew Jackson was definitely the worst Democratic president of all time. His economic policy was horrible, and his human rights policy was horrific.

Martin Van Buren was a continuation of Andrew Jackson.

James K. Polk went to war with Mexico to expand slavery, but he also lowered tariffs.

Franklin Pierce attempted to lead the country through compromise to avoid a Civil War. Compromise is the hallmark of great leaders, so I’m sure that worked out well.

James Buchanan continued Pierce’s statesmanship by attempting to avoid inflaming tensions with the South. I’m sure that worked out; compromise is the hallmark of great leaders after all. Just work with the slave owning fascists, I’m sure they will compromise.

Grover Cleveland was our first good Democratic President. He regulated the railroads, was an anti-imperialist, but was a fiscal conservative.

Woodrow Wilson was a southerner from Virginia, so he was racist. But he was also a major voice in the formation of the League of Nations, which is foundational in the rise of international organizations as forces in their own right to maintain peace between nations. This idea led to the formation of the United Nations and the European Union. That is his legacy.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents. He fought Nazis and rescued the country from the Great Depression. The internment camps for Japanese Americans were his one black mark.

John F. Kennedy was working towards the Civil Rights Acts when he was president and defending our allies against further Soviet aggression.

Lyndon Baines Johnson fulfilled Kennedy’s legacy by passing three major Civil Rights Acts, making him the greatest president in American history, while at the same time defending American allies against Soviet aggression.

Jimmy Carter had a below-average presidency, with few accomplishments. His post-presidency, however, was the most accomplished of any president.

Bill Clinton deregulated the railroads, but also saw the formation of more free trade agreements and the expansion of NATO into former Warsaw Pact colonies. He sold off Conrail. He signed the Budapest Memorandum with Ukraine. He was an average president, to be charitable.

Barack Obama expanded health care to millions of Americans, pulled out of Iraq, which was an unwinnable war, continued to defend Afghanistan against Saudi aggression, but was not strong enough against Russia.

Joe Biden has no major legislative accomplishments. His foreign policy was comprised of three historic failures in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Israel/Palestine.

So here is my ranking of  every Democrat since Andrew Jackson:

• Lyndon Baines Johnson
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Barack Hussein Obama
• John Fitzgerald Kennedy
• Grover Cleveland
• Jimmy Carter
• Bill Clinton
• Woodrow Wilson
• Joe Biden
• James K. Polk
• Franklin Pierce
• James Buchanan
• Martin Van Buren
• Andrew Jackson

There are two eras of Democratic presidents: your antebellum and post-Civil War presidents. Democrats before the Civil War were awful, with the exception of James K. Polk, who was mediocre. Since Grover Cleveland, the Democratic Party has become the party more defensive of freedom, our international relations, and good economic policy. Before the Civil War, they were the opposite.

Compared to every other Democrat in the last 150 years, Joe Biden was the worst Democrat we have had. He doesn’t even have a legacy like Woodrow Wilson, which led to liberal constitutionalism. Joe Biden has the mindset of a mid-19th-century Democrat in the 21st century. There is a reason why there was a quarter-century gap where Democrats could not win the presidency after that mindset was last popular. He wants to return to the politics of Pierce and Buchanan, where they attempted to secure stability through compromise.

It did not work then, and it does not work now.

Joe Biden was the worst Democratic President since the end of the Civil War for that reason alone.

Grover Cleveland’s foreign policy of non-interventionism was in an era before Russia’s colonial ambitions extended across the world. America was not the world’s penultimate superpower in the 1890s, so the US president could focus on domestic issues. We have not had that luxury since the First World War. The United States is the most powerful country in the world, and we have successfully roped our allies into being dependent on our military-industrial complex for their militaries. We have the power to shut off our allies’ militaries today thanks to decades of cooperation, which in theory is meant to keep Europe at peace. But this comes with immense responsibility as the arsenal of democracy, where we need to defend any democratic nation that is attacked.

Joe Biden failed to do this in Afghanistan and Ukraine, which has led to the most severe leadership crisis the world has seen in a century. We were moving in this direction with Clinton and Obama, given their policy towards Ukraine. But Joe Biden finalized it by refusing to send Ukraine aid, which Congress had already allocated, on time, and the aid that was sent on time was given absurd restrictions on its use, which has prolonged the war. 30 years of abysmal advice regarding Eastern Europe for the last three Democratic Presidents has led us to this point. But the advice Joe Biden received was far worse than the poor advice Clinton and Obama received. This has caused the suffering of 40 million people, the slaughter of a hundred thousand Ukrainians, and nightly campaigns of terror by the Russian Horde against the Republic of Ukraine. There is no excuse for such a lack of leadership.

Europe needs to step up and supply Ukraine itself. But given decades of reliance on the American military-industrial complex, they don’t have the capacity to do so quickly. They are now increasing their domestic military production, which has already reduced American military power compared to where it was 5 years ago. This is 100% the fault of Joe Biden. Europe needs to sideline Trump and send Ukraine everything it can to end the war.

That by itself makes Joe Biden the worst Democrat since the Civil War.

Purpose

Why am I writing this?

Because we need a change. We need the next Democratic President to realize that you cannot win the domestic battle in a world going up in flames. We need a president who will be more like LBJ, be strong, and support our allies. Do it because it is the right thing to do, but also because these problems will come home to roost if not dealt with efficiently. If Vietnam is why Nixon squeaked out a win, and I do not believe that is the case, then we will find future Democrats have the same fate as Humphrey in 1968. But at least we wouldn’t be seeing an allied country like South Vietnam collapse under the weight of totalitarianism while a Democrat is in the White House, which would be a guaranteed foreign policy failure. In the worst case scenario, a Democratic President is in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. In the best case scenario, it keeps the foreign policy Keys to the White House true, giving the Democrat a second term. There is no case where allowing a country we have a defense obligation to, such as South Korea, South Vietnam, or Ukraine, being invaded is the winning scenario for a Democratic President. If you get crushed by propaganda leading to social unrest, you have the fate of Humphrey. If you allow a country we have a defense obligation to be invaded and you do not sufficiently defend them, like we have done in Ukraine, you are damned morally, history will judge you harshly forever, and your party will likely lose the next election.

Defending democracy is always the winning move.

We cannot afford another president like Donald Trump, and the Democratic Party needs to significantly adjust its foreign policy. We need to be staunchly in favor of NATO membership for Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Moldova (GUAM). We need to be clear that we are still part of the Rio Pact and fix our immigration policy. We need to depart from the failed Trump/Biden manifesto of foreign policy and adopt a perspective more in line with Europe.

While President Wilson was the first politician to adopt the idea of institutions as major forces in politics, Europe has moved far beyond us in the evolution of that idea. We need to join the rest of the free world and work towards building a more open world where we can freely trade and travel between democracies. We need to open free trade agreements, not to force our policies on others, which has been the main goal of the attempted free trade agreements with the European Union, but as an end in themselves as equal partners.

This is how future American presidents can fix the mistakes made in the last decade. This is how we can fully depart from the plague of Trumpism, which is tearing this country apart. We cannot solve the problem of Trumpism by compromising. We can only solve the problem by proposing a bold vision aligned with our values and our allies. This vision of international cooperation, friendship, alliance, free trade, and free travel is the path forward.

The candidate who is most likely to do this based on her votes and speeches is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is an outspoken proponent of supporting Ukraine, a staunch defender of NATO, and she needs to be president.

I wrote an article last year looking at the cost of tax deductions and seeing how we can close the budget deficit but my source annoyingly reported the numbers as over ten years, so I need to do the work again.

The deficit this year is $1.7 trillion.

• Health care premium deduction: $300 billion
• Capital gains reduced rate: $140 billion
• Home mortgage interest deduction: $80 billion

So we can reduce our deficit by $500 billion by eliminating these three tax deductions which I cannot justify. We would then be down to $1.2 trillion.

Old Age and Survivor’s Insurance is running a $300 billion deficit. Allow people the option to use superannuation instead in order to save the government money in the long run while provide better returns. With the savings we can then provide a better safety net for the few retirees whose retirement funds were poorly managed. Based on Singapore and Australia this will improve the lives of seniors and save the government money which can be better spent elsewhere.

Properly invest the Social Security Trust Fund to bring in a 6% return from municipal bonds. This will bring in $150 billion per year, bringing our deficit down to around $1 trillion.

Implement universal health care, costing $7000 per capita or $2.1 trillion.

Remove Medicare and Social Security expenditure, cutting $1.4 trillion of federal spending.

Budget deficit is now $800 billion.

Through just cutting three wasteful tax deductions, implementing Medicare for all, and investing the Social Security Trust fund I have now cut the budget deficit in half.

We can cover the rest of it by restoring Clinton-era tax rates on high income earners.

We should audit the Department of Defense and reduce military expenditure by making a meaner, leaner, and more effective military.

Use these savings to invest in universal child care and debt-free college.

This is the ideal world where the federal government is not going to be blown up by Republicans, because of that we should implement these programs on the state level now which will be more robust than doing it at the federal level.

References:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/budget_fy2025.pdf

https://advisor.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-biggest-u-s-tax-expenditures/

Here is a map of current United States governors. No governorships changed parties last year.

There is a lot of noise going around in centrist circles right now that Trump did not win the election because of Elon Musk last year. Elon Musk claims he hacked the election. Republicans also claimed that they would not cut Medicaid nor raise the deficit. Rule number 1: Republicans lie.

But that’s immaterial. Yes, if we assume a 50/50 chance Trump would win each of the 7 swing states with large majorities, without looking at any other factors, the odds are pretty low. But the problem is that every potential solution is technically a low probability. That doesn’t mean anything.

There’s another factor to the election. In order for Trump to have cheated his way to victory he would have had to successfully flip states under 5 Democratic governors last year. 5 democratic governors who did not investigate the election, and did not have sufficient evidence for fraud to start an investigation. 5 states where they have functional democratic parties, given how they won the governorships, and none of those 5 state level democratic parties found sufficient evidence to go to court or even start a recount.

Not only that, but on the same ballot as Harris, democrats actively won senate elections in Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So if they did rig the election they rigged for the presidency but not the senate… how odd…

Plus, the governorships are held by Republicans in Virginia, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Why would the Republicans let Democrats win the election in these states if they were rigging nationwide? Why not deliver Virginia to Trump as well?

Because the truth is Harris lost. She was not a good candidate, and Biden made some obvious mistakes. He presided over a K-shaped recovery after the first Trump recession in 2020, meaning millions of Americans did not feel the economy recover. He had major foreign policy blunders in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Israel/Palestine. He failed to pass any significant legislation. Harris is uncharismatic, but Trump is charismatic for the voters he need to win. Harris had neither the incumbency advantage nor a trifecta advantage. She had only four keys to the presidency… no primary contest, no third party, no social unrest, and no scandal. With 9/13 keys Trump easily won the election.

The problem was the election was miscoded in Lichtman’s analysis.

Biden could have governed in a way which would have worked. He could have abolished the filibuster and passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act as soon as he became president. That would have been a major policy change. 5 true keys.

He could have chosen to send the Trump/Taliban paper to congress before enacting it where it obviously would have failed. He could have defended Ukraine, and demanded Israel sign a proper mutual protection pact before sending them military aid. These decisions would have ensured he had no major military failure and given him a major military success by defeating Putin once and for all. 7 true keys.

Protecting Ukraine would have helped the economy, ensuring the economy keys would have been flipped true. 9 true keys.

A strong defense of Ukraine in 2022 would likely have ensured Biden would have kept congress. 10 true keys.

There was a clear path to victory in the 2024 election, and Biden decided that compromising with Republicans is more important than winning elections.

So it makes sense why Harris lost using robust political science metrics, once things are properly coded.

This is why I have written already why we need a fighter as president who will not just win the next election, which will be easy, but even more importantly we need a fighter who will keep her keys true in order to win reelection in 2032.

That is why I think AOC is the obvious choice to be the next president of these United States.

Harris lost because she was uncharismatic and Biden made a lot of mistakes.

The next election is going to be a doozy.

• Party mandate: Probably False, decided next year
• No primary contest: Probably False
• Incumbent seeking re-election: False, Trump cannot run again
• No third party: Probably False
• Strong short-term economy: Probably False
• Strong long-term economy: Probably False
• Major policy change: True, BBB counts
• No social unrest: Probably False
• No scandal: False, largest airstrike on Europe since WWII
• No foreign or military failure: False, largest airstrike on Europe since WWII
• Major foreign or military success: Probably False, Trump is hurting Ukraine and is unlikely to strike a good treaty with Israel/Palestine
• Charismatic incumbent: TBD
• Uncharismatic challenger: False

The next Republican candidate will likely have at most two True keys. There hasn’t been an election which is this much in favor of one party since Ronald Reagan in 1984. We have never seen an incumbent with 11 false keys in American history. The next election will be a landslide.

This is why we need to focus on someone who will govern in a way which will keep as many keys true as possible. Moderates had their chance with Joe Biden and he failed miserably. We need a president who will have better advisors on foreign policy, and I believe AOC is the candidate who will fulfill this requirement.

Trump won the election because Biden was a mediocre president. He fumbled foreign policy leading to a K-shaped recession. This gave Trump the victory.

This here explains why Republicans gleefully falsely claim they hacked the election. They are terrified of another president like Obama. They know that if Democrats nominate a charismatic leader with good policy chops they won’t just lose 2028, but they will also lose 2032. So they need Democrats not to analyze the mistakes of the Biden administration or Harris campaign, in order to nominate someone who will continue Trump’s foreign policy again. By getting New Democrats to obsess over how they claim they hacked the election under the noses of 4 democratic governors, those democrats are not looking at the very real flaws of the Biden administration. They get blinded and don’t stop to think about why all of these democratic administrations, county level democratic parties, state level democratic parties, and the national democratic party did not demand any recounts in the election. It postpones democrats asking the important questions of where Biden’s policy went wrong. This increases the chances that the next Democratic president will be someone like Biden, who will make the same mistakes again, increasing the chances the Republicans will win in 2032.

Republicans lying about hacking the election, as they lie about everything else, is part of their strategy to keep Americans under their spell.

We cannot afford to make this mistake again.

We need to nominate AOC for president in 2028.

Quick comparison of tax benefits of US retirement programs

• Roth IRA/401k
  • Maximum contribution: $23,500 for 401k, $7,000 for IRA
  • Tax benefit on withdrawal, tax free interest
• Traditional IRA/401k
  • Maximum contribution: $23,500 for 401k, $7,000 for IRA
  • Tax benefit on contribution, taxable interest
• Health Savings Account
  • Maximum contribution: $4,300
  • Tax benefit on contribution and withdrawal, tax free interest
• Old Age and Survivor’s Insurance
  • Maximum contribution: Maximum income $168,600, 12.4% tax, so $20,906.40 limit
  • No tax benefit
  • No balance
  • No guarantee

So let’s do the math for three individuals who make $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000 per year.

Income	$25,000.00	$50,000.00	$100,000.00
401k contribution	$1,000.00	$7,000.00	$23,500.00
IRA contribution	$1,000.00	$7,000.00	$7,000.00
Traditional tax benefit	$100.00	$841.00	$5,060.00
401k balance in 30 years	$10,062.66	$70,438.60	$236,472.44
IRA balance in 30 years	$10,062.66	$70,438.60	$70,438.60
Estimated Roth 401k tax savings	$2,515.66	$17,609.65	$59,118.11
Estimated Roth IRA tax savings	$2,515.66	$17,609.65	$17,609.65
HSA contribution	$4,300.00	$4,300.00	$4,300.00
HSA balance in 30 years	$43,269.42	$43,269.42	$43,269.42
HSA savings now	$430.00	$516.00	$946.00
HSA savings in 30 years	$10,817.36	$10,817.36	$10,817.36
Estimated HSA tax savings	$11,247.36	$11,333.36	$11,763.36
Max HSA + Roth 401k tax savings	$13,763.02	$28,943.01	$70,881.47
Max HSA + Roth 401k balance	$53,332.08	$113,708.02	$279,741.86
OASI tax	$3,100.00	$6,200.00	$12,400.00
OASI benefit	$11,664.00	$16,200.00	$25,248.00
OASI benefit taxes	$2,916.00	$4,050.00	$6,312.00
Real OASI benefit	$8,748.00	$12,150.00	$18,936.00
benefit if OASI tax put in Roth 401k over 30 years	$31,194.24	$62,388.47	$124,776.95
Max HSA + Roth 401k + OASI balance	$62,080.08	$125,858.02	$298,677.86
Max HSA + Roth 401k + OASI in 401k balance	$84,526.32	$176,096.50	$404,518.81
Potential savings if OASI tax credible	$775.00	$1,550.00	$3,100.00

The Roth 401k looks pretty good! But look at the HSA benefit for the average household! If you are able to combine the two you can save a lot of taxes, and have a lot of money in retirement for comfort.

Then there is OASI… yeah. Putting a tax credit on OASI benefits is a good idea, which is probably why Trump campaigned on it and then chose not to implement it through his Big Beautiful Bill.

The one good thing he campaigned on and he won’t even make it law.

I’m assuming benefits are taxed at 25% in all of these scenarios, and am calculating taxes using https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes

OASI taxes are based on the full 12.4% tax because this idea that the employer and employee split the burden in half is hogwash because of tax wedges. OASI estimates are from https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/benefit6.cgi

Long story short, contribute to an HSA and a Roth 401k.

Use this form to email your state legislators in order to protect your community from Medicaid Cuts.

Dear Senator ____,

I am very concerned about the impacts the “Big Beautiful Bill” will have on our community.

There is good reason to believe that the Big Beautiful Bill is going to increase poverty by stripping away health care from millions of Americans, including people here in ____. This increase in inequality is likely going to lead to an increase in homicide, based on research done by anthropologists. People are going to be killed through a lack of health care and increased violence fueled by increased inequality.

While there is little we can do at the federal level, we live in a state with a Democratic trifecta, and if we have the will, there is no reason why ______ cannot raise funds to cover the gap in Medicaid that this bill will cause. We spend too much on police as we underfund our health care services. It is time to reverse this trend and work with cities to fund services that save American lives.

I want you to propose a bill in the _____ State Senate to raise the necessary money to plug the hole in the Medicaid budget, this bill will cause to save the lives of our neighbors.

Sincerely,

_______

References:

The combination of poverty and inequality predict homicide rates in the United States

The DSA has a better statement on Israel and Palestine compared to the policy of the United States, but when you combine this with their policy on Ukraine, it becomes clear they do not care about civil rights.

DSA also opposes open borders.

So you here have an organization which simply opposes all American foreign policy, even the good parts.

What explains this? The answer is simple. They are a right-wing Russian psyop. While some good people get endorsed by them, they unendorsed AOC, the most successful politician who started as a member of their camp. She agrees with their domestic issues, but as she has been in government she has diverged from their foreign policy. I think it is clear why. As AOC has gained experience in congress she has learned that the role of the United States in foreign affairs is not as simple as always good or always bad. There are some policies we have done which have been complete successes, like NATO, the Berlin Airlift, and the immense amount of foreign aid we donate to the rest of the world. Foreign aid is incredibly important for America’s image, counter terrorism, and economic justice. There are some policies which are a mixed bag, our withholding of aid to Ukraine, and our decision to abandon Afghanistan. There are also some policies which are clearly total failures and put Americans in danger, such as our entire policy in the Middle East.

The foreign policy of the DSA is not meaningfully better or worse than the foreign policy of Biden or other moderate democrats, they just have failures in other areas. Neither is good overall.

As AOC becomes more knowledgeable I think she will eventually make the argument for why the United States should work towards loosening immigration laws with other democracies. She will start here, and then make a clear and coherent argument for why the United States and Canada should have an open border, followed up by the expansion of Schengen to the United States and Canada. This is far more left wing than the DSA, which is a Russian psyop.

That’s the obvious explanation of who they are as an organization. America needs a real left-wing movement.

Right wing politicans want the following:

• Tight immigration in or out
• Low prices
• Low wages
• High profits

Here is why this is an impossible combination of policies.

If you pursue low immigration policies, that will reduce supply of labor, increasing wages.

If you pursue a policy of a tight monetary supply in order to reduce wages and other prices, this will cause a recession, hurting profits.

If you pursue increased productivity to increase profits this can lead to more competition for workers in the market, leading to higher wages.

The only way to make this work to have high profits and low wages is to greatly restrict the market so it is more difficult for new businesses to be created. The problem is this leads to lower economic growth for the economy as a whole.

The other issue is that if you are pursuing low emigration for your workers, and you pursue low wages you are trapping them in the country fomenting distrust of your government and feeding your opposition.

Italy has a really bad case of this. Italy is the most unequal country in the European Union when measured by Gini coefficient, and young workers struggle to get by. Since they have options they leave the country, and many never return. The Italian government wants to fix this and stop having their young people leave, but any policy fix they could implement to fix this problem would certainly anger part of their governing coalition, or cause economic destruction.

• Leave the European Union, would slow the emigration of young Italians, but kill the tourism industry.
• Clamp down on wage theft, would slow the emigration of young Italians, but anger businesses.
• Immigration from the Middle East, would fix the worker shortages, but anger social conservatives.

These are the three most obvious fixes to Italy’s economic woes. There are many other potential solutions. But the issue here is that basically any solution to Italy’s woes coming from their right wing government will hurt them politically, so they are stuck in a doom loop.

You find the same problem in the United States. If Donald Trump chooses to deport all of the illegal immigrants the way he has promised, he will basically kill the agricultural industry. Given how angry people were when eggs became more expensive because of a bird flu pandemic, imagine how angry people will be if everything on the shelves becomes more expensive!

We find the same problem with Trump’s desire for domestic manufacturing, economic growth, no foreign workers, and low inflation. If he wants to bring manufacturing home quickly using tariffs, this will be by making things more expensive. The jobs that he wants to create offer lower wages than the wages a lot of Americans already have. On-shoring manufacturing will almost certainly lead to higher prices, breaking his inflation promise. With unemployment at 4% (it was under 4% when he became president) where are the workers going to come from? We are not in the middle of an unemployment crisis right now. We haven’t been since the last time he was president. He can’t expect to tell early retirees to stop enjoying the beach life and go work at a factory in Saginaw? That’s crazy. Like Meloni’s problems and potential solutions, Trump’s plans to on-shore manufacturing without breaking one of his other promises is impossible.

We also have the standard tax cuts for everybody, lower debt, but keeping existing social programs as we see in Donald Trump’s platform. This is a basic math problem. You want to cut revenues, keep expenditure, but not borrow more money? How’s that supposed to work?

It doesn’t matter what right-wing platform you look at, you will always end up with impossible combinations of policies.

The truth is that no matter where you look, right wing politicians are grifters. There is no real similarity between right wing and left wing politicians. While right wing politicians go back and forth between policies which are of dubious value and undoubtable contradictions, left-wing and centrist politicians generally have pretty good consistency. There are still a few issues left-wing politicians marry themselves to which appear to me as being problematic, specifically the obsession with maximum benefit pensions which hardly ever produce the value they claim they will receive, but when it comes to being dedicated to quality health care, education, and good infrastructure we end up with a platform which can actually work.

The key to building an economy which actually works really does come down to building productivity. That means we need to pay for investments, like health care, infrastructure, and education. We need to consider that when building a project that the benefits outweigh the costs in the long-term. Strong Towns has an important point when saying infrastructure should pay for itself. It is right to call for the defunding of police and other wasteful programs, because their benefits do not outweigh the costs. Cities often spend the largest portion of their budget on policing in the United States, and have few results to demonstrate that money actually works to make us safer.

Centrist and left-wing politicians across the world work towards building better trade routes and expanding the ability for their citizens to travel, while also encouraging tourism in their own countries by reducing barriers for citizens from safe countries. They push for open border treaties which allows for open labor markets while also pursuing policies which improve their productivity, raising the quality of life for all. Investing in infrastructure is not just done during recessions, though it will likely be increased in counter-cylical policies, but maintaining infrastructure is simply part of the cost of having a society, as long as that infrastructure provides more benefits than its costs.

This is a system that works and is mostly internally consistent. Real left-wing politicians focus on growing productivity while ensuring the rich pay their fair share, and everyone has the opportunity to get ahead in life if they are willing to do the work. Protecting the environment is necessary for many reasons, and this is the type of government we should elect.

Vote for AOC in 2028.

The timing of Israel’s attack on Iran last night came just days before Iranian nuclear deal talks resumed.

The Hamas attack on Israel happened as Netanyahu was undergoing impeachment trials. They also occurred when congress was debating a massive military aid package for Ukraine.

The attack on Syria targeted libraries and where the records of the Assad regime were being stored.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003’s relationship with US-Israeli relations is outlined by the New Statesman. It had an awfully suspicious timing with the 2003 legislative election in Israel.

Alone, none of these seems to be that major.

But when you piece them all together, the timing of new wars and Israeli domestic politics becomes a theme.

The deeper problem is that Iran and Pakistan are allies and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. If Pakistan decides to defend Iran in face of Israeli aggression, nuclear weapons will immediately be on the table. The attack on Iran yesterday is extremely dangerous. The situation needs to deescalate immediately.

There needs to be a serious peace talk between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with the European Union acting as the intermediary to solve the problem of Palestinian statelessness once and for all.

There needs to be the recognition of basic human rights to everyone in the region.

But this will spell the end of Netanyahu’s political career, his trials will resume, and he will be thrown into prison.

Similar to Vladimir Putin, if either Putin or Netanyahu end the wars they have started they will face the full wrath of the law. They would rather watch the world burn rather than face the consequences for their actions.

At first I thought the Israeli strikes against Iran’s military might be a positive, reduce support for Russia, helping Ukraine win. But I was wrong. The truth is the opposite of my instincts. Attacking Iran right now is actually good for Russia because it will drive up the price of oil. Russia will then be able to sell their oil for a higher price to China and other allies of Russia. This will increase their production of military equipment, increasing the slaughter of Ukrainian civilians. The increasing conflict in the Middle East is convincing the United States to move aid which was already allocated to defend Ukraine to go to Israel to help them in their attack on Iran. Civilians will needlessly die because of this development in Israel/Palestine, Iran, and Ukraine.

It also came two days before a proposed discussion with Iran regarding their nuclear program, an undeniably good thing for peace and stability in the Middle East. Now civilians are being killed in Kyiv in retaliation for Israel’s strikes in Iran.

There is no positive to this. We need a ceasefire between Israel, Iran, and Palestine. We need Ukraine to regain all of its territory and join NATO. We need a diplomatic and democratic framework for Palestine. Then there is a chance for peace and to actually reduce instances of terrorism across the Middle East.

Yes, these charts look crazy, but the situation is crazy.

Alliances:

• European Union – Israel – United States: US has NATO with most of the European Union, both have deep relations with Israel.
• Iran – Russia: Support each other in every possible way.
• Iran – Hamas: Historically provided a significant amount of support.
• Palestine – European Union: Most of the European Union supports Palestinian statehood.
• Russia – Israel: Israel has not sanctioned Russia, nor supplied Ukraine with any assistance.

Complicated:

• Russia – Hamas: Read the Wikipedia article
• Israel – Hamas: Go between supporting them in order to undermine Palestine to total war.
• United States – Russia: Sanctions are slow and restrictions on Ukraine to strike Russia.
• European Union – Russia: Sanctions are slow and restrictions on Ukraine to strike Russia.

Every other relationship is pure hatred.

I need to state why I believe Russia is hostile to Palestine. Russia used to support Palestine in the Cold War, but Lavrov has compared Israel’s campaign in Gaza with Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, and I hate to say it, but I have to agree with Lavrov here. The goal is the same, just he wasn’t exactly honest about what their goal is. I hate saying it, but the worst person in the world told the truth for once.

The rest of the hostilities are obvious.

The only word in my vocabulary to describe the situation in the Middle East is that it is a complete and total clusterfuck.

It will remain a clusterfuck until diplomacy resumes.

 

Will Israel’s destruction of Iran’s military be beneficial in the long run? Probably not. Russia will still support the Ayatollah as long as possible, so Israel’s strikes on Iran will have no impact on the regime. Russia produces Shahed drones domestically, so striking Iran does not help Ukraine. It could even hurt Ukraine since pushing up oil prices in response to this war will improve Russia’s war chest, making it easier for them to purchase the necessary factor inputs needed to run their wartime economy. This is all according to the Kyiv Independent. There is no upside to this new conflict, only downsides.

There is no military solution to the war in the Middle East.

The Israeli strike on Iran ironically helps Russia. It will not topple the Ayatollah. As long as Putin survives the intense propaganda supporting fascists across NATO will continue. As long as Putin is alive, Ukraine and Georgia will be in danger. As long as Putin is alive he will continue to back the Ayatollah. As long as Netanyahu is in power, Israel will continue to be the preferred laundromat for Russian money.

The only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian war is diplomacy and the granting of Israeli citizenship to every Palestinian, as I have already outlined in this post.

The only solution to the Ukrainian war is complete victory with Ukraine regaining all of their territory as defined by 1991 borders. Then they must join NATO, and Putin will fall.

Once Ukraine has won the war, Georgian Dream will lose its support from Russia and Georgians will take back their country.

Once Ukraine has won the war, Iran will lose its support from Moscow, triggering a revolution.

With the lack of constant propaganda coming out of Russia the support for right-wing politicians across the democratic world will end, and we can go back to sanity.

Once Israel stops its war, Netanyahu will go to trial and certainly be arrested. If Israel signs a treaty with Palestine ending the statelessness of Palestinians, then and only then, will there be a chance for peace.

But this attack on Iran is not going to help the democratic world, as the experts at Kyiv Independent make as clear as day.