Best Of

I think this is poor extrapolation.

This data implies that MAGA has not weakened very much as a political force, but even if actually true, to then say that MAGA is therefore immortal is not justified by this polling. First of all, as we know, polls are often lagging indicators, but even if they were not, it is quite a stretch to say "MAGA is not dead yet, therefore it will survive indefinitely".

There is increasing evidence that MAGA is becoming profoundly unpopular, even with erstwhile Republicans, and the size of the Republican vote is falling accordingly- vide current Paxton v Talerico where Texas has gone from likely Republican to lean Republican in the course of a week, and that is TEXAS!

So putting money down that MAGA and Tump will retain seats on this basis is a pretty shoogly peg to rest your cash on.

When combined with the Dem lead on polling, my interpretation of the data in the header is that we are seeing the decline of non-MAGA Republicans. If MAGA is around a quarter of the US electorate, then it won't be winning that many seats when it drives out the RINO's.

MAGA may well be here to stay, but the Democrats have done their bit to help. Since 2020 they’ve managed the rare feat of combining an unpopular candidate, poor messaging and policies that many voters simply didn’t want. Parties usually only need one of those to lose an election.

The more interesting question isn’t whether MAGA survives Trump, but whether the Democrats can rediscover the political centre before the Republicans rediscover theirs.

Harris, Biden and Clinton were all pretty centrist, and much more so than Trump. Biden, of course, won. Clinton won the popular vote. Harris was close on the popular vote, but sunk by post-COVID inflation.

The key argument is not that Clinton, Biden or Harris were hard-left. They plainly weren’t. It’s that a significant chunk of the electorate associated the Democratic Party with cultural liberalism, progressive activists and elite institutions. Once that perception takes hold, having a relatively centrist candidate at the top of the ticket doesn’t necessarily solve the problem

And does that perception come from the reality of what most Democratic politicians were proposing, or from Fox News and a right-wing social media bubble? I would suggest the latter.

If so, it's not about the Democrats rediscovering a political centre they never really left. Rather, it's about how do they cut through what Republicans make up about them?

We see this with Talarico in Texas. A white male eighth generation Texan, who is a theology seminarian, loves BBQ and has a hot fiancee. Hard to come up with a more Texan Texan, and it seems his politics are firmly centrist.

Yet this is how Stephen Miller depicts him in MAGA media:

"It's very bold that Democrats would choose Texas to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate who's transitioning into a female. When Talarico goes in for a blood test, blood doesn't come out, instead soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett."

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mmyorhisdo26

These people are not interested in the truth.

MAGA may well be here to stay, but the Democrats have done their bit to help. Since 2020 they’ve managed the rare feat of combining an unpopular candidate, poor messaging and policies that many voters simply didn’t want. Parties usually only need one of those to lose an election.

The more interesting question isn’t whether MAGA survives Trump, but whether the Democrats can rediscover the political centre before the Republicans rediscover theirs.

Harris, Biden and Clinton were all pretty centrist, and much more so than Trump. Biden, of course, won. Clinton won the popular vote. Harris was close on the popular vote, but sunk by post-COVID inflation.

The key argument is not that Clinton, Biden or Harris were hard-left. They plainly weren’t. It’s that a significant chunk of the electorate associated the Democratic Party with cultural liberalism, progressive activists and elite institutions. Once that perception takes hold, having a relatively centrist candidate at the top of the ticket doesn’t necessarily solve the problem

And does that perception come from the reality of what most Democratic politicians were proposing, or from Fox News and a right-wing social media bubble? I would suggest the latter.

If so, it's not about the Democrats rediscovering a political centre they never really left. Rather, it's about how do they cut through what Republicans make up about them?

We see this with Talarico in Texas. A white male eighth generation Texan, who is a theology seminarian, loves BBQ and has a hot fiancee. Hard to come up with a more Texan Texan, and it seems his politics are firmly centrist.

Yet this is how Stephen Miller depicts him in MAGA media:

"It's very bold that Democrats would choose Texas to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate who's transitioning into a female. When Talarico goes in for a blood test, blood doesn't come out, instead soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett."

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mmyorhisdo26

These people are not interested in the truth.

Miller is what a butt-plug comes back as in punishment for being bad in their previous incarnation.

"Ukraine’s ramped-up drone power is transforming its fortunes against Russia"

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2026/05/31/ukraines-ramped-up-drone-power-is-transforming-its-fortunes-against-russia/

This Financial Times article (bought by the Irish Times to republish) is interesting. Suggests there are some in Moscow hoping for an end to the war on the current front lines.

Last year Ukraine would certainly have accepted, but by the time Putin decides to do so, might Ukraine decide they sufficiently have the upper hand that they might be able to push Russia out?

They should demand return to original borders including Crimea. Bomb the crap out of Russia.

How about the original original borders? Ukraine used to reach to the Caspian Sea...

Lightweight Irredentism

The Ukraine/Republic of China border. Can’t miss it, big graveyard there.

Enough people prepared to deal with the Russians that the happy thought seems amiss.

One of the Ukrainian objectives seems to be to cause such severe and extensive damage to Russia's oil infrastructure that there won't be much to be gained from dealing with Russia, and Russia won't have the financial resources to threaten Ukraine again. The Ukrainians are just getting started.

Well good for them. Russia attacked Ukraine for no reason, thought they'd simply eradicate the idea of Ukraine. Nobody should have anything to so with Russians or Russia in my view.

What if we are still all stuck in a Left v Right framework and therefore missing the point of what is actiually happening.

I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said the problem wasn't so much the Communist ideology but ideology itself, the way we can become so committed to an ideal or way of thinking that we become blinkered. We start to suffer from chronic comfirmation bias, believing the things we like and dismissing those we don't.

What if what we are seeing isn't a struggle between Left and Right but rather between Rational and Emotional, between what we can prove is true and what we want to believe .

It doesn't matter if what Reform or the Greens are offering those who want change doesn't work, if people are willing to vote for it because they want to believe it will work.

One thing that draws me to this is the fact that for all the attempts that Harris and the Democrats made to successfully show that much of what Trump proposed from Trade to Investment and Tax cuts was close to Bonkers, people still were willing to vote for it it the hope it wasn't.

If systematically demolishing the other sides economic policies can be overcome by them calling you Radical Marxist Haters and voters believe them how do you fight that?

I watched reform at Holyrood claim they could save £2bn from a £6.5bn budget by cutting many of Scotlands 130+ Qango's and giving power to MSP's and a slimmed down Civil Service. Problem is of the total administrative cost of all of them is estimated at under £700m. Benefits Scotland administers £6.3bn but it's admin cost is only £320m. You can't save three times the admin budget by cutting the admin budget.

It doesn't take much to dismantle this kind of thing and it applies to all parties including the SNP, but the challenges seem to be ineffectual. We seem to be in a kind of doom loop that the bigger the lie ,the more popular it is and the more votes you get, from an electorate that says they don't trust politicians because they all lie.

Peter.

I think this is the right question but you have it back to front.

It is the establishment, for want of a better word, that is wedded to an ideological view of the world and the dissidents of both right and left who are pointing out the many hypocrisies and absurdities of that ideology.

Well the very fact that you used the meaningless term "The Establishment!" shows waht an Ideologue you are. It's like the "Metroploitain Elite"; it's not an accurate discription of anything, it's just a Trump style insult to throw at the other side.

3/10 must try harder.

Peter.

Why is the Duchy exempt from cleaning it up?

Is there an exception in EPA 1990 or something?

This must be seriously obscure.

In general, the monarch isn't subject to the courts. It's where the concept of Crown immunity comes from, and why Civil Servants technically don't have employment rights.

So it's not so much that there is no duty to clean it up, more that the Duchy can't be made to do so.

Despite generally lefty views I'm pretty neutral on the monarchy (they behave much as an elected non-party president would). But the Royal exemption from the law is indefensible and makes republicanism much more desirable.

Only the reigning monarch is immune from prosecution not the other royals but then again so are the Presidents of the US and France immune from prosecution when in office. It is more something given to heads of state than a monarchy v republic issue

Yes, silly argument.

Still, Prince Andrew going to prison (if not for the reasons he probably should) would go some way towards showing some accountability.

Couldn't we compromise by reviving the American monarchy and offering them Andy as King?

He's got to win Makerfield first.

King of the North America.

The experience of a lot of immigrants is that people they know will complain to them about immigrants in general, but then be told, "but not you."

A difficulty is that many of the immigrants these people are opposed to are also being told,"but not you," by other people who do know them. So we have a situation where what people believe about the country as a whole is in conflict with what they know from their personal experience.

But also, why is it that a country like Britain is unable to train enough doctors and nurses for its health service?

Cheaper to recruit abroad? If the NHS paid salaries to encourage people to train for it, we'd need to pay higher taxes to fund it. The trade-off between taxation and immigration is not sufficiently understood.

Right. But then you shouldn't promise the voters to deliver net migration in the tens of thousands, or to "control" immigration, if you're not prepared to implement the policies that will make that possible.

The problem isn’t salaries. It’s university places being rationed, together with rationing of training places.

There is a cap on how many doctors and nurses are *allowed* to train in the U.K.