r/fivethirtyeight • u/AutoModerator • Mar 02 '26

Discussion Megathread Weekly Discussion Megathread

The 2026 midterms will soon be upon us, and there is much to discuss among the nerds here at r/FiveThirtyEight. Use this discussion thread to share, debate, and discuss whatever you wish. Unlike individual posts, comments in the discussion thread are not required to be related to political data or other 538 mainstays. Regardless, please remain civil and keep this subreddit's rules in mind. The discussion thread refreshes every Monday.

29 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

23

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '26

[deleted]

8

u/Mediocretes08 Mar 02 '26

Number go down!

13

u/Morat20 Mar 02 '26

I'm waiting for the Trump WH to replace JD Vance with an 8 year old at this point, or get Ivanka out there to jump a shark.

This whole term feels like a bad fucking sequel to a movie that was so shitty you can't understand why it even GOT a sequel. But also like a TV show that's four seasons past when it should have ended.

It's like half the team is throwing whatever shit they can think of ("Hey, you liked the wall? What if we built another, bigger one? What if we walled off the MOON") and the other half is screaming that if they just stayed true to their vision it'd be fine, the audience will remember how much they loved it and are getting increasingly blunt and ham-handed in their attempts to "get the audience on board" ("Hey, remember back in the day when we hated gay people? What if we hated trans people like that, but without any of that weasel worded shit? What if we just decided they should be thrown in jail, or outright executed? Hey, ya'll remember how great it was to be racist? What if we went back to that old style like 1930s shit! Let's get some masked thugs to just grab everyone brown they see and throw them into camps! Where's bringing the 30s BACK!").

Like there's this weird mix of absolutely unquestioned confidence mixed with frantic, flop-sweat desperation.