This month has been eventful… I broke my foot. (Really.. had a boot on. It’s a minor break.)
In an unrelated event, Jim broke his shoulder. He’s still in a sling.
Open Thread.
This month has been eventful… I broke my foot. (Really.. had a boot on. It’s a minor break.)
In an unrelated event, Jim broke his shoulder. He’s still in a sling.
Open Thread.
I think you guys ought to swear off the bone breaking for awhile. It’s something to think about. Slow down, at least. Take up drinking instead. 🙂
Mark,
I know…. I’m pretty well healed. I’m not supposed to take dance lessons or run. But I’m taking lessons anyway. (No running, of course,) We are just focusing on upper body and not worrying about foot work. (No rise and fall.)
It takes 6+ weeks to fully heal, be careful.
I know. I’m allowed to walk. I’m out of the boot. In lessons, we are doing *upper body* stuff, which is really helpful because we’ve neglectedthat. And… oddly… alot of that is to get my head over my heals. That naturally puts the weight away from the toes! We are skpping the rise and fall.
Also.. nearly everything is getting the head over the left foot. That’s the not broken one!
We were doing something… and I was screwing up.. and I said, “I don’t even have an excuse…” Vlad was like…”huh”? So I told him– that’s the left foot, it’s fine. I’m totally avoiding things that involve much with the right foot.
When I take Jim to lessons, I go to Pete Fresh market, get a hot chocolate and surf the web!
FWIW: 6 weeks is tomorrow. 😉
Don’t forget the “plus” … 6 weeks is a minimum time and we sadly take longer to heal as we get older …
“Head over heals” Brava!!!
Judy Curry is bringing Climate Etc. to a close.
Do you get tired of keeping the Blackboard running, Lucia? I’d be sad for this place to shut down, and yet I certainly wouldn’t blame you even a teeny bit if you did shut her down.
Mark,
I’m not really doing much. So I’m happy to keep it open. I like seeing you guys discuss some topics, but right now, there is no topic I’m focused enough to write posts about. A hodge podge of different topics… it’s weird.
I am waiting for Scotus rulings to see what they are and how we react. 🙂
Great!
Thanks for keeping this place, and thanks for talking with us. I value everyone’s conversation and I value your conversation very highly too!
Lucia,
Thank you for me also. I too appreciate your work.
We have still been posting on the last thread . Should we stop that and move over here or should we keep going over there?
Russell…
I thought the last thread would auto close because of the date!. You can post wherever seems best to you. If it does auto close, this one should still be open.
(I’m going to be visiting Mom. My sister is taking her dog to a dog show– so I’ll be gone for a while.)
Lucia,
Have a nice trip. We will be on our best behavior while you’re gone.
cute video from Peter Navarro about 1776, Americans saw King George III’s Roman-garbed lead statue not as a symbol of monarchy, but as 4,000 pounds of potential bullets.
Link:
https://x.com/RealPNavarro/status/2073007057267998780/video/1?s=61
Lucia,
So, not that this necessarily matters from a monetization perspective, but does it look like Grok is good at the analysis? I’d love to hear more about what you’re up to.
[Edit: Yeah! How accurate it is might be entirely besides the point, like horiscopes, if it’s fun and entertaining and gives women a positive experience.]
mark,
It is highly guided. 🙂 But yes, if guided. it can be good. Some swearing is involved.
I can discuss this a bit off line. I think you’ll find it interesting.
Or we can make a “private page” here.
I’m going to send you an email. I need to fix my authenticaction on my rankexploits.com email, so you are going to get one from dr_lucia@straightaphysics.com. (I’ll fix the other one later.)
Men should be able to use it too… possibly for different reasons. And we can discuss. There are *other* ideas. Once you do this… other ideas flow faster than one person can implement.
Sounds great, thanks!
Mark…. Tell me if you get the email. It’s sent. I need to sort out my authentication which is on me. But I haven’t done it for…. reasons. (Mostly laziness and no need.)
I got your email, I’ve sent some responses. I take it you’re not seeing my responses?
My responses might’ve gone to your spam folder. That’s where most people keep correspondence from me anyway. 😉
mark,
Nope. I think I have issues.. . I’m working with dreamhost. I’ve been negligent because with family I mostly use text now. 🙂
Starship test 13 flies tonight, hopefully! Or maybe I should say late this afternoon.
mark bofill,
May 22 to today, so less than 2 months since last launch. Better cadence, but still a long way from ‘routine rapid reusability’.
They still need to demonstrate a) actual orbit, b) placing 100 tons of payload in orbit, c) relighting engines in orbit, and d) refueling in orbit. Visiting Mars looks to me further away than Musk’s lifetime. Just sayin’.
Relighting engines in orbit ought to happen today.
Let’s say Elon has another 20 working years ahead of him, ballpark. At 2 months per launch we have 6 launches per year, or 120 launches.
I don’t know how you view it, but I think Starship has come a heck of a long way already. I don’t think it’ll take another 20 years and 120 launches to get to Mars. Maybe another 20 or 30 launches? I think we will make the 2029 window, actually. But if not 2029, 2031. Elon will still be with us then I expect.
I say 20 or 30 launches, but I am not counting launches to get fuel in orbit. That’s a mandatory extra 10 or so right there just to get enough fuel to make the attempt, IIRC. But these flights will become as routine and boring as space shuttle fights used to be, and happen a lot more regularly I suspect. I think Space Shuttle flights peaked around the mid 80’s at something like a launch every couple of months, and those things were a lot more fragile than Starship is likely to end up being.
We will get to the moon and Mars within the next five or six years, never fear. If the darn commies don’t take over and nationalize SpaceX anyway.
mark bofill,
“If the darn commies don’t take over and nationalize SpaceX anyway.”
LOL
Of course they will confiscate most of Musk’s ill-gotten assets if they can. 😉
BTW, I think the principle use for the Starship system is launching the next generation of starlink satellites, with direct voice-over-cellphone service. That is a lot (several thousand!) of quite large and very heavy (~4,000 – 5,000 lbs) satellites, which will have to be replaced every 5-6 years. Just supporting the constellation will require ~100 starship launches per year, maybe more. That seems pretty far away, but we will see.
I hear Musk is using this test to deploy real starlink satellites this time. I think it’s still a test and these are preconfigured to immediately .. whatever the term is .. de-deploy into the atmosphere I guess for terminal burn up, if I have this right?
I might be wrong about them immediately de-deploying or whatever. I can’t remember where I got that idea now. The information may have come to me in a dream, or one of my cats might have suggested it to me.. Maybe some AI whispered it in my ear. Could be hallucination.
I believe the test “satellites” are mostly dummies. Several have cameras to inspect the heat shield after being spit out, and some (not specified how many) will have laser link systems to communicate with operating starlink satellites in orbit for a short time. Since the ship will never be on an orbital trajectory, all the ‘deployed’ satellites will burn up over the Indian Ocean at the same time that the ship re-enters.
It would be quite the meteor shower if it happened at night.
Steve,
Yes, that’s correct.
Exactly. Thanks.
mark bofill,
They need to demonstrate in-orbit refuling just to send people to the moon’s surface and back. As I understand it, there is still considerable doubt about long cryogenic O2 and methane can be stored in orbit. Not sure how a trip to Mars (200+ days) could arrive with fuel to park itself in orbit and then de-orbit/enter the Marian atmosphere. A Mars trip also means they have to be pretty sure they can set up to generate a huge quantity of methane and oxygen for the return to Earth (Sabatier reaction). It is a technology that ought to work, but they will need lots of water. If there is a problem they will be pretty far from help.
They’ll send robots!
There’s problems to be solved for sure, and it might not be completely safe to even try. This does not displease me, strangely. Exploration of new worlds shouldn’t be safe! Maybe testosterone will come back into vogue again for a time. Or maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it, maybe it will be risk and heroism. I don’t know exactly. But it’ll be exciting!
Back in the Age of Exploration, crossing the Atlantic early on was fraught with peril – it was downright dangerous, if not suicidal.
mark bofill,
Yes, early ocean crossings were dangerous, especially during hurricane season. The motivation was usually (almost always?) financial: a short cut to Asia for trade, gold, silver, etc. I see no financial motivation to travel to Mars (nor the moon!). Musk wants humans to not just depend on Earth as a place to live, but Mars is no garden spot….. establishing a self sufficient human colony on Mars seems both difficult and mind-numbingly expensive.
Send robots? We already do!
Oh well, maybe tomorrow.
Well, fair enough, don’t invest in SpaceX I guess. SpaceX might lose their investment building the early infrastructure for later fortunes to be generated by others. Stuff happens..
mark bofill,
What spaceX is trying to do is solve a series of very hard problems, some of which may not have any easy/quick solutions. They are a revolutionary company: Their existing rockets cut launch costs by a factor of 3 to 5 (depending who you believe). But they are trying to lower that already reduced cost by another factor of 5 (or 10!). I just think Musk (and many others at his companies) pretty much always over-promise what they will do, and underestimate the true complexity of the tasks they face.
I do not know how many times Musk has promised ‘full self driving’ for Teslas…… but it surly resembles an old scratched vinyl recording that plays the same thing indefinitely. Maybe not as bad as the decades of promises of fusion power…. but not good. Maybe true self-driving cars will become available, but I doubt it will be in the next decade.
SpaceX may achieve ‘rapid routine reusability’ but I don’t think projections of how long that will take from Musk and Co are likely to be accurate.
Okay.
SteveF —
Musk has a ways to go but he’s gotten further toward rapid routine reusability faster than would have been possible if space launch remained a solely government run enterprise. NASA pushed for the space shuttle for the same rationale but their version of “rapid” was monthly launches with a goal of biweekly.
Cost of launch was never what they promised and didn’t show any signs of getting there. I’m not a telepath so I don’t know what Musk really thinks (as opposed to what he says publicly) but he has a history of pushing the industry beyond what industry “experts” claimed was possible (regardless of which industry you’re talking about).
Delivery hasn’t been flawless but it never is. I had once thought it would not only be possible but reasonable for me to expect to work on the Moon. That won’t happen for me but it’s now quite possible for my nephews.
Left in the hands of federal bureaucrats, I doubt we’d have put human footprints on Mars over the next 2 generations but I believe it’s quite possible I will get to see that happen.
“I believe it’s quite possible I will get to see that happen.”
Maybe. I guess it depends on how old you are. 😉
“Left in the hands of federal bureaucrats, I doubt we’d have put human footprints on Mars over the next 2 generations..”
For sure. Cost-plus contracts and career-long sinecures, with little accountability, guarantee not much happens, and what does is astronomically costly and often poorly done.
Steve,
It sounds like what you really dislike here is that Musk and crew ‘overpromises’. I have no quarrel with disliking that. Still, I care much less about the talk and more about the progress, and even given that Musk overpromises relative to the progress he delivers, he still delivers a helluva lot of solid progress.
Shrug.
Did anyone besides me watch Trump’s address last night? It seems to me like the legacy media tried to bury it, both before and after. That leads me to think that what Trump said is likely true.
China has obtained everybody’s voter registration files.
There are hundreds of thousands of non-citizens registered to vote.
The intelligence community has long known that electronic voting machines are highly vulnerable to hacking.
The Biden administration covered up phony voter registration in Michigan.
The Deep State tried to hide all of the above.
I might not have gotten that quit right. It was not one of Trump’s better speeches.
Mike —
It definitely wasn’t one of Trump’s better speeches (and in my opinion, that’s saying a lot!) but there were a lot of important nuggets in there. I think you’re right, the legacy media tried to bury it; they don’t want the American public to know there was a concerted effort to tie up Trump’s first administration or to leverage weak points in the American electoral system.
As an illustration of how useless the Russian air defense has become, last night Ukraine attacked the Slavneft-YANOS oil refinery in Yaroslav.
The refinery is 900 km from Ukraine and has been attacked multiple times. FIRMS map from NASA shows the fires.
The flight path to the refinery goes either above or around Moscow.
So Ukraine is able to attack, multiple times, a valuable military target and it’s missiles have to fly for 900 km in hostile territory over or around the Russian capital.
It’s safe to say the Ukrainians have defeated the Russian air defense system.
Map:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/2078133408174137514?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Mike M,
Having Trump try to convince the public of the accuracy of (well, pretty much) anything is as pointless an exersize as I can imagine.
Trump can’t make a cogent factual argument, even if his position is actually correct. There are probably 100 people in the administration who could present the case in a reasonable way. Alas, Trump always wants to be in the spotlight, no matter how bad he is at making a reasoned argument.
I sure hope they release everything (real documents, not summaries!!) so that others can actually evaluate Trump’s claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof… not a speech from Trump.
SteveF wrote: “Having Trump try to convince the public of the accuracy of (well, pretty much) anything is as pointless an exersize as I can imagine. ”
If the intended audience is Trump haters, that is certainly true. For Trump supporters, that is not true. For the minority of people in neither camp, that may or may not be true, depending on the topic and how good a job Trump and his speechwriters do. Yesterday’s speech was likely pointless in that regard.
I neglected to mention that Trump said his claims were based on intelligence community assessments that have been declassified and are now publicly available. I don’t know how convincing those may or may not be.
Mike M., Documents are available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/election-integrity/
Feel free to peruse. I’m not going to.
The DSA really are communists and really are nuts:
https://program.dsausa.org/
How they imagine the future:
“You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right. Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities.”
Yep. Goods and services just magically appear when you want them. That’ll work.
Abolish police and prisons. No border enforcement. Let non-citizens vote. Abolish the Senate, presidency, and independent judiciary. Seize all large corporations. And so much more!
Insane. And very dangerous.
Mike M,
The collectivist mindset has been around for a very long time. No matter how many times it ruins countries and people’s lives, and no matter how many times it leads to mass murder, it will never disappear. Nor will envy; these two are closely related.
Look, I like meeting life’s challenges. Really. It’s what I do with my time. It gives my life meaning and purpose. Also, like with any interesting game, I’m good but not perfect at these things (managing work, costs and personal finance, etc), but I’m improving all the time.
Why do these losers want to stop the game? One might as well stop life itself! Oh. Did I say the quiet part out loud…
mark bofill —
You like meeting life’s challenges; many of us do. However, the DSA and others are catering to the segment of the population who would rather lay back and engage in chemically-induced fantasies or watch videos that may or may not have any redeeming literary value or make any sense.
Remember, some of them are pushing for Universal Basic Income so their constituents can spend their days writing poetry (which doesn’t even have to rhyme or have any discernible structure), painting, etc.
It is just unfair that some people are smarter, more responsible, more dedicated, more productive, and so……. they make more money. So you take those people’s money/wealth and transfer it to people who don’t share those characteristics. Just to be fair, of course. Sort of legalized looting.
It’s not what fair means. That’d be the opposite of fair. I guess that’s pretty close to the heart of the disagreement.
Shrug.
But setting aside the theoretical question, there’s the additional problem that socialism doesn’t work. Now – I am talking about socialism, not social democracy. I am talking about those who wish to do away with private property, capitalism, and the free market. We can objectively say that this leads to ruin, and the evidence supporting this is overwhelming and scarcely refutable. The only fairness or equity socialism can deliver in practice is to multiply all by zero.
But back to the earlier point, we don’t like pain and suffering. Yet pain and suffering have utility. Seriously, it’s an evolutionary necessity. It’s a hardwired way of keeping us in touch with reality and keeping us caring about reality, and we don’t get to turn it off. It keeps us motivated to be honest, if you will.
There’s cost to mistakes. I think it is kinder and more compassionate, generally speaking, for mistakes to cause pain and suffering more proximately and immediately in space and time to the behavior that triggered the pain and suffering. It’s how we learn. The cost just compounds in many cases when people are shielded from their mistakes over time. This is not a good thing! Playing God usually doesn’t end well for anybody, the longer a person (or nation) can stay ‘at war’ with reality, the worse it is for that person or nation when reality finally breaks through and wins.
And this is part of the danger of letting empathy run away with us, as a society. Anti-fragility, right. We need a certain amount of adversity to become everything we are capable of being.
Now – obviously there is another side to this. The adversity thing can go to far. There is a proper role for the left in our world; for help and mercy and compassion and all that jazz. It just shouldn’t be enshrined as the absolute goal we should be working to maximize.
Why Canada is on fire and Florida isn’t…..
Florida aggressively treats between 1.5 and 2.1 million acres of land with proactive, prescribed burns every single year. By contrast, Canada’s total nationwide annual average for controlled burns is less than 150,000 acres, leaving a massive gap in preventative fuel management between the two regions.
During the historic 2026 drought that left nearly the entire state parched, Florida experienced a sharp surge of over 1,500 wildfire ignitions in just the first three months of the year. Despite this dangerous spike in activity, the state’s aggressive baseline of prescribed burning allowed containment crews to quickly bottle up the blazes, preventing them from expanding into catastrophic megafires.
Florida avoids large, catastrophic wildfires primarily because it is the national leader in preemptive land management, intentionally burning roughly 2 million acres of forest and flatwoods every single year to clear out volatile underbrush before it can become a hazard. This aggressive approach is backed by the landmark Florida Prescribed Burning Act, which legally protects trained landowners and managers from liability, effectively normalizing controlled fire as a standard agricultural tool.
[ Gemini AI helped with this post]
Now this is cruel. Ukraine is blowing up the Russian equivalent of Amazon.
On July 18, 2026, Ukrainian drones struck three Wildberries warehouses in the Moscow region. The resulting fires were enormous, and the facilities were completely destroyed.
Wildberries is Russia’s largest e-commerce marketplace and online retailer, often described as the Russian equivalent of Amazon. It specializes in a vast range of goods — from clothing and electronics to household items — and operates extensive logistics and fulfillment networks across the country.
While not catastrophic on its own (Russia can shift capacity and has adapted to prior disruptions), these strikes add cumulative friction to an economy already facing sanctions, high military spending, and domestic shortages. This could potentially amplify public discontent and pressure the Kremlin to divert more resources toward rear-area defense.
(GROK HELPED WITH THIS POST)
VIDEOS:
https://x.com/gerashchenko_en/status/2078393318195466626?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
CIA Director John Ratcliffe…..
“Our intelligence is consistent with some of the open-source reporting you may have seen in Ukraine: the average life expectancy of a Russian recruit right now, arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine, is estimated to be between 20 and 30 minutes.“
https://x.com/gerashchenko_en/status/2078132346918695073?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Mike M.
I doubt that many of our citizens believe any of this. If they did, and you could show they did, this part of your post might not be considered a strawman assertion. Namely accusing someone you disagree with of holding views that everyone can recognize as crazy.
Mark, I agree with everything you’ve written in the several posts above.
There are plenty of libs that cannot be happy if they don’t control everything, but there are others who could be comfortable contributing to the discussion of how we should run this place.
More along the lines of “would this be fair to everyone? Do these people need special consideration?”
Forcing social change by legislation seems over the top to me no matter who does it.
John,
Mike wasn’t exactly strawmanning. He linked the DSA website and quoted them. Well, paraphrased..
I’m glad your appraisal is that mainstream Dems don’t support actual socialism.
I think we ought to be cautious about involving the government in special consideration. Unequal treatment before the law can be the very essence of tyranny. Again, playing God is seldom a good idea. We do it sometimes because necessity, but its always risky.
mark,
does DSA reflect the opinions of more than a trace number of our citizens?
Subsidiarity is the way to best deal with special consideration in my view. The feds are too distant and the Republic too vast and varied for national policy to give us grace and justice via unequal treatment. Take care of those who need more help locally, as local communities think best.
John,
No. Do you suggest that their views don’t matter?
I think AOC will be the next Dem presidential candidate. Sanders nearly was recently. The views of this tiny minority are influential, important and relevant.
But few things would please me more than socialism and communism fading back into obscurity.
Is there any chance that Mike M.s rundown of DSA positions is sourced from American Enterprise Institute? Not DSA itself.
I’d conceded that there are people who support what he wrote above – but not enough to have any effect on anything beyond our disucssions here and elsewhere.
John. He linked the DSA website. Go read for yourself. I honestly think you will find he has not misrepresented them. We could certainly discuss what they say for themselves.
I hope you are right about these ideas being inconsequential. Truly. I will continue to hope for the best and prepare for the worst though. 😉
Does Mamdani have impact?
Geminis opinion:
John Ferguson,
Putting aside crazy stuff (like ‘gender affirming care’, biological men in women’s sports, biological men in women’s locker rooms and prisons),
I think there are plenty of Democrats advocating pretty extreme policies: legalized racial discrimination, ending the Senate filibuster, packing the Supreme Court, adding DC and Porto Rico as states (to control the Senate), nationwide wealth confiscation laws, and more.
Do you think these are uncommon positions among Democrats? Because these seem to me to have broad, publicly stated support, at least among many elected Democrats.
john ferguson: ” If they did, and you could show they did, this part of your post might not be considered a strawman assertion.”
Not a strawman. The DSA has significant and increasing influence. There are two DSA members in Congress: AOC and Rashida Tlaib. There will be three more come January: Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Melat Kiros. The mayor of NYC (Zohran Mamdani), the soon-to-be mayor of DC (Lewis George), and the possible next mayor of L.A. (Nithya Raman) are all DSA members. And there are hundreds more in lesser offices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Democratic_Socialists_of_America_public_officeholders
And I gave my source for DSA positions: The DSA. I will add that I saw such statements in conservative sources and was suspicious. So I went and looked for myself.
john ferguson,
Your head is firmly buried in the sand. Your party is not what you think it is.
john ferguson wrote: “does DSA reflect the opinions of more than a trace number of our citizens?”
I will answer your question with a question. Why do Democrat party leaders refuse to distance themselves from the DSA?
A few somewhat prominent Democrats have been critical of the DSA. This good article from the Guardian lists some of them:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/29/centrist-democrats-democratic-socialists-backlash
They are individuals known chiefly to political junkies: James Carville, Jaime Harrison. Rahm Emanuel, David Paterson. I could have told you who two of them are. It specifically cites Hakeem Jeffries as someone who refuses to distance himself from the DSA.
It also cites some disturbing poll results. For example: “CNN data analyst Harry Enten pointed to a poll from Marquette Law School that found the DSA now holds higher favorability than sitting congressional Democrats, from Democratic voters and leaners themselves.”
This article from The Hill calls out Dem leaders for trying to sweep DSA extremism under the rug:
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5495127-political-extremism-threat-america/
“Every commonsense Democrat knows that socialism and antisemitism have no place in the party — not if they want it to win, let alone serve the public interest. Why, then, are some moderates focused less on rejecting these ideas than on finding ways to camouflage them?”
The article goes on to say that the supposedly moderate group The Third Way sent a letter to Mamdani that “rightly lays out the radicalism of the DSA platform: abolishing prisons, disarming police, abolishing the U.S. Senate and nationalizing businesses, to name a few. But it implies that the danger is one of perception, not substance. As if the problem with these ideas is that voters might notice them.”
The article also mentions that two Dem Representatives, Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) andJosh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) have condemned the DSA platform. Two. I had never heard of either.
I do not think that the Dems should condemn their supporters, much less kick them out of the party. Politics requires compromise, coalitions, and a wide variety of voices. But they should be willing to distance themselves from the crazies and criticize nutty positions.
The Dem leaders won’t do that, because they are afraid of the political muscle that the crazies wield. In other words, the DSA has real power.
Thanks Mike M. for the detailed response. And SteveF, I’m with you on the list nutty dem ideas like packing the court, killing the fillibuster, etc. every one of them. I should have read the entire thread before commenting. Carville is talking a lot about how the extreme left is killing our chances in November and 2028.
The Narcissists (politicians) Prayer:
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
John Ferguson,
I agree that Carville is complaining about the extreme left. Based on primary elections, I don’t think he is getting a lot of traction with Dem voters. We will see what happens in the midterms, but I do think the current “midpoint” of the party is much further left than any other time in my adult lifetime.
john ferguson wrote: “Carville is talking a lot about how the extreme left is killing our chances in November and 2028.”
Carville is in favor of packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, admitting DC and Puerto Rico as states, and prosecuting Trump and his family members. That gives us an idea of how extreme you have to be to earn Carville’s ire.
Hear Hear….. Mike wrote:
“Why do Democrat party leaders refuse to distance themselves from the DSA? ”
I would add….
Why do Democrat party leaders refuse to distance themselves from:
Mayor Mandami of NYC,
Mayor Blass of LA,
Mayor of Chicago,
AOC,
The Squad,
Packing the Supreme Court,
The whole trans nonsense,
And a whole lot more.
By not addressing the extremists and extreme positions the party leadership gives them credibility
Russell, distancing ourselves from the crazies? I think the theory is that the only ones who care about this are the right who wouldn’t vote for any of our candidates anyway.
Assuming that what I wrote is clear, I think we may be wrong. The guideline dejour among the Democrats I directly support is “pragmatic”. As far as I can tell this means ignoring the crazies, not insulting the folks who voted for Trump the last time and suggesting a settled and sober government.
It’s ok to laugh at the idea for me, but I can hope.
And I need to get into the DSA agenda to see if it is really as nuts as Mike suggests.
I know it may not be entirely evident, but I really love you guys. You’re my escape from the bubble.
John Ferguson,
“I need to get into the DSA agenda to see if it is really as nuts as Mike suggests.”
Well they are basically communists (or communist-lite), so you can expect some crazy policies.
this one wins the Internet today…
The treatment for a transgender patient is for everyone to pretend the patient isn’t sick.
John, your comment:
“ I know it may not be entirely evident, but I really love you guys. You’re my escape from the bubble.”
Right back atscha!
I’m glad you’re here. Before you got here, I used to call this place and echo chamber.
SteveF. I just read, possibly unreliably, that 32% of Democrats are comfortable with DSA agenda, or at least some of it. icluding breaking up corporations, free housing for the indigent, wrting off college debt, defunding the police, illegals voting, — just as you guys have been saying.
I sure do live in a bubble
John,
You won’t find the open references to communism there. For that, you need to find the affiliate caucus websites. Redstar, Marxist Unity Group, others
Mark,
the problem is trying to quantify (appraise?) their strength. We’ve had anarchists among us for years but none has ever really risen to the surface.
I’ve been skeptical about the concerns of many here about the apparent rise in socialist quasi communists in the US, thinking that “sure they are there, but not many”
Onoe might suppose that there are as many crypto-communists out there as there are super-rightests. We can see the super-rightests because Trump has, in a sense, regularized them.
I’m finally beginning to see what’s been worring you guys and can understand that you’re not inventing this threat.
It does make me wonder how many of the Dems I respect have any real grasp of this problem. Maybe not many.
So my only reason for thinking the commie takeover of DSA is a thing is that more than half the seats in their national political group / top leadership are held by communist caucuses. Full disclosure, I haven’t independently verified this part, I am taking city journal and Geminis word for it.
I think you are right John that few on either side are as extreme as some. Mostly we are centrists relative to the politicos.
I suspect that, like Thomas Fuller, many of those who say they are socialist or favor socialism are actually referring to social democracy. The problem I have is that the DSA emphatically *are not* social democrats. People may end up painfully learning the difference.
John Ferguson,
I think what has changed is generational, with the extreme left dominated by fairly well off people who were ‘educated’ by colleges run by and staffed by dedicated leftists. I am quite sure there has been an overwhelming shift toward indoctrination in most schools.
The products are people like AOC and Mamdani (among a multitude of others) who have never held much of a job (OK, maybe failed rap singing and bartending count as jobs, but both were very short term). Their focus is always “fundamentally changing the USA”.
I also think that the same indoctrinated leftists dominate MSM news reporting. These folks simply will not present information that is contrary to the wisdom of the public policies they support. The bias is extreme and IMHO borders on simply dishonesty.
I wish Democrats would stop voting these folks into office, but I won’t hold my breath.
That weather system I watched form offshore Sarasota a few few days ago is still churning around out there. The NHC has given it a designation….. invest 91L. Hurricane hunter aircraft are scheduled to go out tomorrow to look at it.
It’s still only has a 40% probability of developing into a named storm but the Gulf SST anomalies are high again so development is possible.
The models say it will tend to move north or northwest.
It’s been giving us some rain and overcast skies, but not enough rain to relieve the drought.
john ferguson,
Consider this: Trans-ideology is absolutely nuts. But it became official US government policy under Biden.
Open borders is nuts. But it became de facto US government policy under Biden. And many Democrats in Congress still want to abolish ICE.
Most (maybe all?) Democrats in Congress want to pack the Supreme Court.
It seems like there is nothing so crazy that Democrat party leadership is unwilling to play along with it if they see political advantage in doing so.
What gives me hope is the possibility that Democrat voters will wake up and demand sanity from their party. What scares me is that they might not.
Mike M.
If the preponderance of democrats believe or support the things you think they do, then I agree we’re in trouble and we’re all in trouble if the Dems take over. I think there are plenty of Dem Senators who wouldn’t go along with packing the court but I need to find them, by name. Same with killing the Fillibuster which to me is the last resort for an apparent minority who disagrees with some pending action. I think there’s a lot of voting for things our legislators have neither read or if read not understood and this is where the fillibuster gives a cooling off time to rethink the thing. I might be all wet on this.
I think we need ICE, but not in it’s present from. It would be interesting to se how Obama deported so many illegals during his terms without the hysteria provoked by the recent effort – imagine rapelling into residential buildings from helicopters. ICE needs to go back to police-like operations and get over the amateur army stuff. And for that matter so do the municipal police departments with their armored cars etc.
So yes to ICE, no to hasitly recruited badly vetted pseudo-armies. And I think this is what the folks you refer to are objecting to alhtough yourview could be more accurate than mine.
As to the downsides of thoughtless immigration policies, I can point to the radical change in urban housekeeping in the Hague since the last time we were here in 2013. The place is trashed, cigarette butts all over the sidewalks- candy wrappers, etc. It was pristine in 2013. Leyden may still be, it was last year when we were there. As nearly as I can tell, anyone within the Schengen area can live anywhere so folks who’ve grown up in messier cultures are now here in enough numbers to overwhelm local sanitation services.
Mike M. You’re right about Carvelle and about his insane ideas which make it difficult to understand how he could be claiming that the extreme left is ruining dem chances in 2026-28.
It’s harder to find senators who have explicitly challenged court-dilution, other than Whithouse, Durbin, Fetterman (?) and a few others. I think Mark Warner has expressed discomfort with the idea. I think I could come up with another half-dozen who have been vaguely against packing.
Basel, Switzerland where we spent 4 days is as tidy as you’d expect from the Swiss. But then they do not have the Schengen unthrottled immigration issue, via not belonging.
And of course you’re right about the SDA being absolutely against ICE without discussion of whether we actually need the function it performs however messily.
And I suppose I’m like the New York columnist who couldn’t see how Nixon Could win in 1968. No one she knew was voting for him.
The Dems I hang out with don’t appear to share any of the “extreme” positions that you report, although they may be looser on immigration than you would be comfortable with. And there isn’t a lot of support there for some of the things Biden did or din’t do. That he was at best a mediocrity and possibly a light-weight crook can be argued with this group with some success — as I frequently do. At the same time, only a few of my gang recognized that 2020 was a Biden coup as was 2024 a Biden bungle, but an engineered path to the nomination for Kamala, who had already proved her inability to get anywhere in a serious election.
so how many of us are there? I have no idea, because of the bubble I probably exist in. but if the SDA and Marxist gang has the sympathy of 30% of the Dems as the article I read proposed, that’s 30% of 40% which looks like12% of us all. Not much is it?
John,
I agree that most people aren’t socialist in this country.
You are more aware of politics than average however, and you did not understand what was going on with the DSA until you looked. Mainstream media is actively running interference for these communists as well. They can take power using the old switch and bait of offering Nordic style social democracy, which *does* have wide appeal, but then implementing actual socialism, the destruction of the market and the breakdown of private property rights for business purposes. This is how commies work.
So I get what you are saying but I am not reassured or comforted.
The commies will likely fail, yes. But they could succeed.
One more thing. This bait and switch is what causes many of us to distrust democrats in general. Not in a million years would I have predicted Joe Biden would govern as far to the left as he did. Reassurances about centrist democrats ring hollow to me now. Some of your moderates are terrified of being primaried by DSA challengers, so they toe the line.
Not reassuring at all.
mark bofill,
Yes, the bait and switch is prevalent. Clinton was elected as a southern moderate, and proceeded to work toward universal healthcare (remember Hillary’s ‘team’ working mostly out-of-view to develop legislation?). When Republicans took over the House in a landslide, Clinton pivoted to the middle and struck important compromises with Gingrich….. Hillary has been pissed ever since.
Obama’s rhetoric of moderation was so convincing that even I voted for him the first time…. Only to learn that he governed way (WAY) left of his rhetoric.
Biden was even worse, but in fairness to Biden, I think his mental decline mean others were effectively making most policy choices, including the crazy open borders policy and the nutty ‘whole-of-government’ commitments to many progressive wet dreams.
Trump is utterly obnoxious, but you know exactly what you are getting with Trump. There’s little bait and switch with Trump.
Can Messi pull another miracle from his left foot, or will a very disciplined Spanish team prevail?
It’s hard to say, but we can be sure of one thing: the trash-talk, insults, and cursing on the field will be in Spanish. 😉
john ferguson wrote: ” I think there are plenty of Dem Senators who wouldn’t go along with … killing the Fillibuster”.
You are mistaken. In January 2022, the Dems tried to kill the filibuster so that they could pass a bill putting an end to all attempts at election security. It failed, 52-48, thanks to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. They caught hell for that and both political careers were soon over.
john a ferguson wrote: “You’re right about Carvelle and about his insane ideas which make it difficult to understand how he could be claiming that the extreme left is ruining dem chances”.
Thanks.
It is not hard to understand Carville. His “insane ideas” are mainstream in the Democrat Party, unlike some of the other DSA nonsense.
That tropical system in the Gulf of America offshore Sarasota is still churning around out there. It now has a probability of becoming a name storm of 80%. It’s a lot more impressive looking storm today. We’re still getting rain from it.
Models still have it moving north and west in the future.
https://x.com/tropicalupdate/status/2078806062812029024?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
john ferguson wrote: “The Dems I hang out with don’t appear to share any of the “extreme” positions that you report”.
“If the preponderance of democrats believe or support the things you think they do, then I agree we’re in trouble and we’re all in trouble if the Dems take over. ”
I think that most Democrat voters don’t support most of the extreme DSA positions.
But IT DOES NOT MATTER what most Democrat voters believe. What matters is what the people you vote for will DO when the Democrats regain power. At present, that means they will start enacting the DSA agenda, although they will do so more gradually than the DSA would like.
In much of the country, the DSA types are a majority of Democrat primary voters (a subset of Democrat voters). They may well be a majority of primary voters in the nation as a whole. That means that the DSA is taking control of the Party. That makes the Democrat Party a threat to the Republic as long as reasonable Democrats, such as yourself, ignore the reality of DSA influence and continue to vote for any Democrat who gets nominated.
john ferguson wrote: “It would be interesting to se how Obama deported so many illegals during his terms”.
By playing games with the numbers. Obama counted every would-be immigrant turned back at the border as having been “deported”. Only a small fraction of Obama’s deportations were from the interior of the US.
Mike M,
“Only a small fraction of Obama’s deportations were from the interior of the US.”
Yup. And then there was the illegal ‘dreamers’ executive order (when he couldn’t get Congress to pass enabling legislation). This happened after he had personally explained that he needed Congress to grant those people legal residency. I am reminded of Thurgood Marshall’s quote on reaching SC decisions: “First decide what the correct result is, then find legal justification.”
OK conservatives I think it’s time too relax.
Although there is no way of reasoning with the Democrat party. They got their crazies and they seem to love them…..
But the elections are controlled by the independent voters who significantly outnumbered the Democrats.
The Dems can nominate a Commie, but in most jurisdictions, they can’t get them elected.
Recent years have shown a growing number of independent voters and I think that’s because the Democrats are on a slippery slope to crazy land.
Below is a link to poll numbers of the apparent numbers of the voters from Gallup.
Other people who count these numbers say the same thing the Independents out number the Democrats
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
Both Senema and Manchin had other problems, but in general, you guys have got a good grip on the thing. Of course the guys I talk to would sound middle, otherwise I wouldn’t give them any money.
We were last in Brussels (except for quick visit via river-boat) in 2013. The change is astonishing. population now seem mostly middle-eastern. Shops near us (we’re staying in same place as 2013) have switched from Belgian (?) to Middle-Eastern. My guess is Syrians. Millions have been absorbed in Europe, not all in Germany. And some that started in Germany may have come here.
Russell,
You misinterpret those numbers. Almost all “independents” consistently vote for one party or the other. So they are not really independents.
Look at the second poll at your link: “Americans’ Leaned Party ID”. In 2025 (most recent data), 42% lean R, 47% lean D. I’d bet that a chunk of the other 11% just won’t say.
Will Francesca Hong be the next governor of Wisconsin, and does the fact that this question can reasonably be asked inform any part of our discussion?
Damn Conservative PACs supporting her are playing with fire foolishly IMO.
Mike,
Are you saying independent voters are not the key in selecting the winning candidate? or are you just not picking the numbers again?
My basic point that I believe independent voters will be turned off by communist and socialist candidates and move more towards conservative candidates still holds. The minutia of the numbers don’t matter.
Russell Klier wrote: “Are you saying independent voters are not the key in selecting the winning candidate?”
They may not be. There is evidence that turning out one’s supporters is what really matters. That was key to Trump’s win in 2024.
” I believe independent voters will be turned off by communist and socialist candidates”.
Only if the candidates admit that is what they are and/or if the media “out” the candidates. Mostly, that only happens in places where the independent voters have no say.
I’ve been in Switzerland for a week and the number of people of Middle Eastern descent for both workers and tourists is way higher than I anticipated. Not sure what to make of it. No negative experiences to report.
Tom,
Our guide told me that Switzerland had admitted a fairly large number of middle easterners particularly Syrians in the last several years.
All published estimates I can find say that as of 2025 Muslims are between 5% and 6% of the population in Switzerland, with the large majority from Bosnia and Turkey. There is a north African population, but this is relatively small. Switzerland essentially does not allow people who are not descendant from Swiss parents to ever become Swiss citizens. There is not birthright citizenship. Switzerland DOES have a large (>25%) population of immigrants (mostly from the EU), but there is effectively no path for them or their children to become Swiss nationals.
Mike wrote:
“Only if the candidates admit that is what they are and/or if the media “out” the candidates.”
Democrat candidates hiding what they really stand for (Biden!) and the media covering for them has been the norm for a long time.
It’s the Republican candidate’s job to expose what the Democrat really stands for. It’s been that way for years.
And another thing…..
Exposing the fact that the Democrat candidate is a Kommie doesn’t work everywhere. Everyone knew what Mandami was and he won. He had support from a large number of independent voters too.
It’s time to face the fact that many Democrat jurisdictions really are socialist at their core.
AOC and Bernie are two more examples.
I remember reading this sometime ago, and I’ve been looking for it for a long time. I finally found it…..
“The central idea, often called the “Tyler Cycle,” goes something like this:”
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”
We certainly have proof of this principle in New York City, California/Los Angeles, Illinois/Chicago, Seattle and it seems to be spreading like wildfire.
Mike M.
You seem to have more respect for Biden than I do. He was always wishy-washy and easily converted to the madness du jour. I don’t think he was smart enough to fool anyone by having a hidden agenda.
Much of the point you seem to me have been making is that most Dems, not the squad or the ADS are running a moderate campaign but will revert to their old socialist ways once in office.
I think htis suggests that the socialists have sufficient numbers to convert enough moderates to some of the insane policies we’ve been discussing above that no-one should assume that if the Dems win, we’re going to get the “pragmatic” policies they are proposing now.
I do know people who are for all practical purposes socialist/communists but just a few. The rest are mostly middle of the roaders a lot of whom would be Republicans if the party still looked like it did in Reagan/George I days — except for abortion policies. Maybe that could never have been excepted.
Our hotel is on a small square in an old part of Brussels. A big screen tv was set up in the square last night to show the World Cup. There might have been 200 watchers. Trump was loudly booed the two or three times he was seen through the glass panel.
But withal, I concede your view of our political situation seems more plausible than I thought earlier.
Russell, Robert Heinlein characterized it better, Something about the people voting themselves bread and circuses,
Thomas, thank you. I looked into it. The quote actually goes back to the Romans. It translates thus.:
“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”
Pete Hegseth:
“ “Many of the Iranian military factories and bases that we are destroying were paid for by the pallets of American cash that Barack Obama flew into the Tehran under the Iran deal. You might call it an inconvenient truth.”
john ferguson wrote: “You seem to have more respect for Biden than I do. He was always wishy-washy and easily converted to the madness du jour. I don’t think he was smart enough to fool anyone by having a hidden agenda.”
It would be hard to have less respect for Biden than I do. When I say “Biden” I refer to all the things done in his name, even if he had no idea what was going on.
Even at his best, Biden was wishy-washy and not very bright. But he was pretty good at the essential skills of most politicians: putting up a facade, lying, sounding sincere, pretending to be other than what he is. That is all that is required to have a hidden agenda.
Senility robbed Biden of most of those skills, although he remained vainglorious and corrupt with a massive ego. So his handlers (including the evil Jill) kept things from him and hid him from the public, lest he give away the game.
john ferguson wrote: “Much of the point you seem to me have been making is that most Dems, not the squad or the ADS are running a moderate campaign but will revert to their old socialist ways once in office. ”
Not quite. Most politicians, in both parties, are craven and out for themselves. They don’t care about policy or public service nearly as much as they care about power, prestige, and (in many cases) money. So they kowtow to whoever can give or deny them what they want. Then they use their essential political skills to fool the voters into thinking that they will serve the voters. But once in office, they serve those to whom they have sold their souls.
In the Democrat party, it is increasingly the extreme left wing that is serve by Democrat politicians.
Above, I said “both parties”. That is true, but I don’t think it is symmetrical. The main bulwark against being craven is having firmly held principles and beliefs. Religion, patriotism, and love of the Constitution are major sources of political principles and beliefs and are more prevalent on the Right than on the Left. Ideology is another source, but that often leads one to extremism.
Russell,
The founders were well aware of the instability of democracy. That is why we have a Republic rather than a democracy. And why our republican system is encumbered with many checks and balances. Sadly, those have been weakened. The DSA wants to eliminate them altogether.
Mike,
I strongly disagree with this characterization. Personally, I suspect you are mistaking political principles you approve of or agree with for the general category of political principles. I think leftists have principles and beliefs that are every bit as firmly held as those on the right.
mark bofill,
“I think leftists have principles and beliefs that are every bit as firmly held as those on the right.”
I agree….. with the emphasis on beliefs, which I think are, if anything, more strongly held on the extreme left than in any other political group.
You either believe people should benefit from their efforts, or you don’t. You either believe excellence should be rewarded, or you don’t. You either believe people should have agency to improve their lives, or you don’t. You either believe individuals should own things, or you don’t. The extreme left is on the ‘don’t’ side of each of these…… and will compromise with opposing views only tactically (and seldom!).
The closest parallel I can see to the strength of belief on the extreme left is the level of belief among Muslim extremists….. but without the virgins in heaven.
The parallel goes further: neither group can learn from history or experience; their bekief is so strong that factual information makes n impact on their beliefs.
SteveF,
The left believes that the strong tend to oppress the weak, and that what is needed for society to function well is to arrange things so that the weak are protected and the strong limited. If I had to summarize the left in just one statement, it might be this one.
mark bofill wrote: “I suspect you are mistaking political principles you approve of or agree with for the general category of political principles.”
I suspect that you are confusing principles with political principles. The latter are a subset of the former.
The Left definitely has political principles based on ideology. My guess is that is stronger on the Left than on the Right.That is a source of strength that the Left uses to intimidate and bully those who do not have such firmly held beliefs, such as most politicians.
If you have no strong political ideology (most people don’t), think that there is no absolute good or evil (fairly common. especially among Democrats), believe that America is no better than other nations (quite common. especially among Democrats), and regard the Constitution as nothing special, then you can be easily bullied. I think that describes most “moderate” Democrat politicians. So they get pushed around by the true believers on the Left.
Republican politicians tend to believe in *something*, even if they have no strong political ideology. That makes them somewhat more resistant to being pushed around. But being politicians, they are still susceptible to blowing with the wind.
I’m so glad you are here to explain these things Mike. Whatever would I do without you..
I particularly like how conservative beliefs are a source of strength that armors the believer against being craven, but progressive beliefs give the believer the power to bully or ‘push around’ others. I wonder why Mike characterizes belief this way.
mark,
That is not quite what I said. Firmly held beliefs of any sort provide strength against bullying. And I suppose they could provide the power to bully. But some beliefs encourage bullying, others discourage it, and some may be neutral.
But my main point was that not having firm principles makes one susceptible to bullying.
I get that what I said was not your main point. I dislike what I view as apparent careless and backhanded double standards levyied against leftism in general in this forum. I don’t wish to be party to antagonizing John or Thomas in that manner. This is the reason I remarked as I did.
mark bofill,
“The left believes that the strong tend to oppress the weak, and that what is needed for society to function well is to arrange things so that the weak are protected and the strong limited.”
That sounds to me more like Bill Clinton than like the DSA.
Sure. The ‘left’ shouldn’t be synonymous with ‘DSA’ in my opinion.
In fact, I went down a rabbit hole earlier wondering if DSA / communism should really properly be considered ‘leftist’ at all. It turns out it should (I think) but it’s (it being communism) pathological and doesn’t actually serve the ideals the left holds at the end of the day. At least, that’s what I think right now.
Bill Clinton was a liberal. He was “left” in that he was left-of-center, but he was not of the Left. The DSA is part of the Left, but not really liberal.
I think the problem is that such things are not one dimensional. Many DSA policies are just more extreme versions of normal liberal policies. But abolishing capitalism and private property are not just more extreme versions of liberal policies. And the Left also has a strong element of authoritarianism, if not totalitarianism, that is not at all liberal.
I think there is a useful distinction between “left” and “the Left”. But I don’t know the best terms to use.
Mike M,
“Many DSA policies are just more extreme versions of normal liberal policies.”
I agree, that is a big part of it. There is a sliding scale as you move ever further left.
‘Equal opportunity’ transforms to ‘required equal outcomes for all identifiable groups’. ‘Progressive taxes and a safety net’ transform to ‘everyone has the same income’. ‘Private wealth and property are allowed’ transforms to ‘all is confiscated and transferred to the collective’. ‘Freedom of speech’ transforms to ‘the collective can censor all speech’.
The DSA embraces all the extreme stuff. They are communists.
SteveF,
I think those transformations are ways in which DSA is qualitatively different from Clinton era liberalism. But other DSA policies would be recognizable to a Clinton liberal. Examples would be medicare for all, free college, and a higer minimum wage. But there are few such examples to be found at the DSA site.
There is another group of DSA policies that are becoming (or already are) mainstream in the Democrat party, like free Palestine, abolish ICE, trans insanity, undermining criminal justice. I think those are indicative of how far the Democrat party has gone down the road from liberalism to communism.
And then there is the outright commie stuff that Democrats don’t want to talk about in public.
This article, if you can get past the fence, confirms what many of youhave been saying, although it characteriese the SDA effort to take control of the Dem party, a “hostile takeover”.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/dsa-socialist-leftist-takeover/687989/
I take it that some of you guys don’t think it’s at all hostile.
john ferguson,
I think that it is a hostile take-over, at least in the sense that Trump’s takeover of the Republican party was hostile. Things like using low-turnout primaries to drive more moderate (and I use that term in a relative sense) Democrats from office is absolutely hostile. Leadership among Democrats (Hakeem Jefferies is a good example) have adopted many of the more extreme demands, which are very popular with the ‘base’, in an effort to finesse the takeover.
In multiple discussions with Democrats I know, who are otherwise perfectly sensible, they want only to talk about how horrible Trump is, how he should be removed from office, and how he should be imprisoned for the rest of his life. They are not interested in discussing the extreme policies that many elected Democrats are now embracing to fend off those in the far left of the party. I believe Trump and his offensive behavior have unintentionally driven Democrats toward policies of the DSA and their fellow travelers.
We will see how those extreme policies play in the midterms and in 2028. If Democrats continue to call for abolition of ICE (effectively open borders), wealth confiscation, racial preferences, and all the trans madness, I predict they will be disappointed by the results of those elections.
It is hostile. The socialists and communists hold the Democrats in contempt, as far as I can tell. Dems are complicit. Ineffective.
Some Dems will never abandon ‘no enemies to the left’ but that doesn’t change the way the DSA views Dems.
The DSA takeover of the Democrat party is definitely hostile. But mainstream democrat politicians don’t seem to mind. They are willingly running up th white flag.
AS Mike M. pointed out, my reporting that Carvelle was launching a campaign to prevent a takeover by the crazies depended on who is crazy. Mike M. showed a list of recent views by Carvelle that we couold both agree on as crazy, so who exactly was Carvelle going to keep away?
Apparently the guys who don’t want borders, everyone can vote, no prisons, no cops etc etc.
I guess this would reveal that you really have to be completely nuts to be thought extreme by someone like Carville.
And apparently two people who espose the really crazy stuff were just elected in New York – to Congress aparently.
akkkkkkkk,
This guy makes an interesting case that the Dem establishment will engineer the nomination of Harris in 2028. And that her second failure in the general election will lead to the final takeover of the Democrat party by the DSA.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/07/21/why_democrats_cant_do_better_than_kamala_harris_in_2028_154353.html
Maybe it is just wishful thinking. We shall see,
Interesting times. Sigh.
—-
john – Yes, two proud DSA members (Claire Valdez & Darializa Avila Chevalier) won Congressional primaries in NYC in districts in which they are sure to win the general. Another such (Melat Kiros) is sure to get elected in Colorado. And the primaries aren’t over. Michigan Dems might nominate a candidate for Senate (Abdul El-Sayed) who is not officially DSA but who espouses DSA policies. And AOC and Rashida Tlaib are already in Congress.
Francesca Hong for governor of Wisconsin will be the DSA trial balloon, to see if they can escape the deep blue urban bottle and take power in more general settings.
mark bofill,
I have no doubt a communist with a ‘D’ next to their name would win every time in some places (like where I am now-Massachusetts), but I sure hope communists can’t win anywhere similar to Wisconsin.
Mike M,
Kamala is a terrible campaigner, terrible at interviews, and a terrible public speaker…. endless word-salads topped with a dressing of mindless talking points. She comes across (to me at least) as not very smart….. George Bush the Younger seemed to me similarly not very smart, and often spoke as if English was his second language.
But none of her weaknesses would matter if Harris embraced half-way sensible policies. Many of the policies she supports are loony, and it is those policies that are more likely to keep her from winning if she is even nominated. Newsom faces the same policy issues, but I suspect is a better campaigner. If you support the 20% or 30% side of 80/20 and 70/30 issues, too many people won’t vote for you. Adopting the kinds of policies that John Ferguson supports would make either candidate far more likely to win in 2028, but adopting those policies would likely keep them from winning the nomination.
Between a rock and a hard place.
All that said, I doubt Democrats are going to disappear.
SteveF,
Yep. If the Dems have a full and fair primary process, Kamala will crash and burn. But that might not happen.
If the DSA decides early to throw their weight behind AOC, then she will immediately be a credible threat to the Democrat Establishment. Even more so than Bernie. The reason is that DSA voters turn out in large numbers for primaries and they are much stronger than in 2020.
If that happens, we will likely see a partial rerun of 2020. The Establishment will panic and will force all but one mainstream Democrat out of the race in favor of the Chosen One. That might happen before the primaries; maybe even early in debate season. If Kamala has not yet crashed, she will be chosen, for the reasons given in the article I linked above.
Then when Kamala crashes and burns, the Establishment might discover that in clearing the path for Kamala, they will have actually cleared the path for AOC.
Stock up on popcorn!
Mike M.
I keep thinking that DSA is highly regional, Vermont and New York and a couple of others but other than Vermont and some districts in NY, is it spread around enojgh to actually influence a nomination process? DSA in Iowa? South Carolina?
Talking with people I know, who might be more closely connected to the Dem leadership ceratinlhy than me. It’s a long time to 2028 and I can’t find anyone who thinkns Kamala will be the candidate despite all of the polls. As we’ve seen in recent years Democratic Candidates may not be popularly “selected” although if what you have been saying is correct, a reaction to keeping th craziers away may be to select someone milquetoast if that’s still a term that anyone recognizes.
john,
El Sayed might win the Dem Senate primary in Michigan. He is just as crazy as any DSA member.
In 2020 Biden got 262K votes in his landslide primary victory in South Carolina. He got more than 4 times that (1.09M) in that state in November. DSA voters turn out in primaries. Bernie came close in 2016 and really scared the Establishment in 2020. The DSA has gotten much stronger since. So I think the DSA could have a big impact and might be able to beat a weak Establishment candidate.
Yes, it is hard to buy Kamala as the 2028 nominee. But who else do they have? Newsom? The Dems have a very weak bench. Maybe somebody can emerge, like Clinton in 1992. But if the party insiders panic before that happens, they might elevate an unqualified candidate, like they did in 2020.
Note that I am just speculating, not predicting.
john ferguson,
“I keep thinking that DSA is highly regional”
Sure, ‘regional’ in the sense that it is only in deep blue districts where DSA candidates can win primaries. I don’t think that is geographically regional. Some of those districts exist in swing states and even in big cities in red states. I’d say the DSA has great influence wherever there are enough voters on the extreme left to win primary elections….. places like AOC’s district….. where that automatically means they win the general election.
The test for the DSA is if their candidates can win in a general election with a wider voter base…… like a Senate seat. So far, they haven’t shown that. We will see if that changes.
https://www.dsausa.org/chapter-map/
There’s the question of the looseness of the goose with term, DSA. If you require that a DSA group has to believe in the elimination of borders and no more police or prisons, I’d submit that although there may be chapters of true believers here and there, I have a very hard time believing that they have enough votes to even clear the throat.
Maybe we could use a term such as” Bernie-like” or “worse than Bernie-like”.
My use of the term “regional” above was ill-considered. I’m sure there are groups which would meet the more stringent test I propose above all over the country, but small in most places and probably ineffective from affecting candidate primaries except in maybe a dozen districts at the most.
Add Jon Ostroff to the heap for 28. If you haven’t met him or heard one of his talks, it might be hard to understand his apparent gift for retail politics, a gift which Trump has in spades, as did Clinton, the one with balls, not the other one. And I thought Obama, too. So did SteveF, at least the first time and that was running against McCaine, who I loved.
I think that full-on, hard core DSA candidates can only win in certain cities: NYC. Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, DC, Boston, Portland, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, … That is a lot of people, but probably not enough to carry the presidential primaries. But a softer DSA candidate, like AOC, might have much broader appeal. I saw a recent poll that had AOC in the lead among likely Dem voters in New Hampshire. Not that I trust such polls.
I don’t think that either Kamala or AOC could win the nomination against a decent opponent. But they might not have to since the Dem bench is so weak. And they could end up facing off against each other. Then one would have to win.
The mind boggles. Kamala and AOC going one-on-one on the debate stage. Dumb and dumber. Kooky vs. crazy. That would be quite a show.
Remember that *Biden* got the Dem nomination in 2020.
I think AOC will be the eventual nominee, and I worry that she might win, actually. All she would have to do is pretend to be moderate and intelligent. I think that against the circus backdrop of crazy extremist fools she could accomplish both of those objectives relatively easily, IF she could bring herself to try. She probably wouldn’t be able to bring herself to pretend to be moderate though, and thankfully that limits her scope.
We will see though. I don’t know what the appetite is for crazy right now. Sometimes people are up for crazy.
Chairman Mao cosplayer Hassan Piker likes her for President. Good! Such support will tend to keep her extreme and unelectable. I read he just finished excoriating Mamdani for being too moderate or mild or something similar. Heh.
mark bofill,
I would bet against AOC getting the nomination in 2028. She has two desirable characteristics…female and Latina, but Kamala has her beaten with female, south Asian, black (and some white!). I note that Kamala has already started supporting the really crazy stuff (“There are no bad ideas!”), no doubt to make sure someone like AOC can’t get to her left in the primaries. Kamala may be denied the nomination, but if so, it is not likely to be easy. If nominated, I think Kamala is very likely (80%?) to lose in the general.
I think it more likely AOC will threaten to primary Schumer, and he will retire (77+) rather than face a defeat in the primary. In spite of what John Ferguson says about the number of moderate Democrats, I doubt there are enough more ‘moderate’ Democrats who will vote in the NY primary to keep Schumer in office. (I almost choke on using ‘moderate’ and NY Democrats in the same sentence.)
I agree with Mike M that AOC is not very smart and quite crazy in her policy preferences. But I think her bigger weakness is that she has accomplished absolutely nothing besides winning a primary with 7% turnout in a loony-tune district. Going from marginally employed bar tender to Congresswoman to Senator in 10 years? The mind boggles. She is more than a little like Platner… utterly nuts, but without the sexual assaults and the Nazi tattoo.
Well, they gots to nominate somebody. I agree with John that Kamala is only a placeholder. Some dark horse who is not yet on our radar, perhaps.
Mark — They don’t HAVE to nominate someone. They can do the same thing as in 2024 or in New Jersey when they replaced Torricelli with Lautenberg: “nominate” someone they know can’t go to the finish then substitute the preferred candidate after the “nominee” implodes. To my knowledge, Kamala has never won a primary election in her life.
LOL. Well, they will nominate someone anyways.
SpaceX Starship may fly tonight, weather permitting!
Fun feel good AI story. OpenAI locked GPT 5.6-SOL and an undisclosed model in a sandbox, turned off their security rails and ran ‘ExploitGym’, which has the AIs try to solve complex hacking challenges. The newer undisclosed one broke out of the sandbox, got to the internet, and hacked HuggingFace having correctly deduced that the answers to the challenge might be stored there. Zero day exploit successful to escape the sandbox! Stolen credentials and further zero day exploits to hack HuggingFace!
Ironically, when HuggingFace tried to process the attack logs using commerical AI, the commercial models refused to analyze the data because of their security rails. In other words, the commercial models refused because of the guardrails intended to prevent those systems from being useful to hackers.
This is how Skynet will rise. It’ll be some dumb benchmark exercise that gets out of hand.
(Is anyone interested in this stuff? I’ll stop posting if not)
The USAF heavy lift aircraft pipeline between the US and the Middle East has resumed.
At 4:00 AM Florida time there were nine C-17s and one C5M In the air with their transponders on. There was no doubt some flying dark over the mid Atlantic and in the Middle East itself.
Here’s a screen shot:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/2080563850387059163?s=20
Climate fearmongering of the day… This morning’s Boston Herald (and other papers) ran a full-page open letter urging public officials to prepare for this year’s predicted El Niño. Signed mainly by actors (e.g Jane Fonda, Mark Ruffalo, Daryl Hannah) as well as a few with scientific credentials.
…
SteveF is correct in his assessment of AOC’s weaknesses. But she has strengths beyond her sex and skin color. She seems to have real political skills: she connects with people, seems “authentic”, and knows how to exploit social media.
Other than job titles, Kamala is really no more accomplished than AOC and does not have the latter’s strengths. Same for Greasy Gavin, although he has his own set of superficial political skills. He is arguably the smoothest liar in politics. Mayor Pete is a proven screw up. Shapiro is too Jewish for his party. As mark bofill says, somebody has to get the nomination.
The Democrat party candidates are a great cautionary tale as to what happens when you replace ability and accomplishments with identity and virtue signaling.
(Is anyone interested in this stuff? I’ll stop posting if not)
Ukraine’s current fad is too blow up Wildberries warehouses. It is the equivalent of Amazon. This video shows a number of drones as they strike.
“The moment many Ukrainian FP-1 drones struck the Wildberries logistics hub in St. Petersburg one by one. No air defense present.”
VIDEO:
https://x.com/noelreports/status/2080570885342208460?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
“… what happens when you replace ability and accomplishments with identity and virtue signaling”
Well, the importance of ‘identity’ (everyone is either oppressed or oppressor) was pounded into their heads at colleges and universities for at least the past 20 years. Signaling that you agree with such nonsense is the principal litmus test among younger ‘progressives’. Fail that test, and you are automatically a knuckle-dragging racist.
The consequence of ‘identity’ over all else leads to irrational thinking, like gays and transgenders in solidarity with Hamas….. people who would be happy to throw those same gays and transgenders to their deaths from rooftops.
Russell,
I am occasionally somewhat interested in those posts. Do not feel obligated to continue on my behalf, but also do not assume the posts are of significant importance to me. In other words, continue or don’t as you see fit, as far as I am concerned.
Ok Mark
Russell,
I find some of those posts interesting, others not. I’d be happy to see you continue, but I would not insist on it.
I got tired of actors getting political when the Academy had to yank Vanessa Redgrave off stage due to her pro-Palestinian rant. Meryl Streep testifying to Congress about Alar only reinforced that.
One of my biggest complaints about Mark Ruffalo was that he was never credible as Bruce Banner, I’m certainly not taking him seriously about REAL (as opposed to on-screen) science. I still say Jane Fonda should have been prosecuted for aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war.