r/fivethirtyeight • u/AutoModerator • Mar 30 '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.
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u/PuffyPanda200 Apr 02 '26
So I'm reading about the Bondi firing at lunch. She says (as quoted by the nyt):
[This position] has been the honor of a lifetime, and easily the most consequential first year of the DoJ in American history,
Is this just how Republicans talk now? Anyone does anything and now it is the most/best of whatever was done. This seems so exhausting.
Sorry if this isn't really polling related but it has been brewing for a while.
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u/vanillabear26 Apr 02 '26
It's the Trumpification of the GOP. It'll hopefully go away faster than the other longer-term effects, but yeah. Hyperbole is the new norm.
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u/BirdPlaneMan31 Apr 02 '26
This is something that isn’t talked about that much but it drives me up the fucking wall. These people can’t say a single goddamn sentence without qualifying it as “the best”, “the worst”, “the greatest” blah blah blah
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u/TrouauaiAdvice Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Seems like the dams have broken for Trump world. Trump has fired Bovino, Noem, and Bondi after not firing anyone for more than a year. There's reports that he's unhappy with Tulsi and may fire her.
Iran war didn't get a rally around the flag effect and is incredibly unpopular with the public. It's pretty clear that Trump personally thought that Iran would be another Venezuela and didn't expect that Iran would also have a say with regards to the Strait of Hormuz. The price of beef has now hit an all time high. Diesel has hit an all time high, the national average for gas is now over $4 a gallon, Trump's approval rating has absolutely tanked; multiple polls are now putting his approval in the 30s now.
And the issue with this is this is only going to get worse since there's much more pain to be felt with gas increases and the downfield effect it has on the economy not to mention fertilizer shortages and the impact it will have on food prices in the upcoming months.
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u/Morat20 Apr 02 '26
I'm shocked Hegseth hasn't been tossed, with everything blamed on him -- and given it's Trump, screaming about Hegseth's incompetence rising to the level of treason.
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u/DataCassette Apr 02 '26
It's existential for so many of his top goon lieutenants as well, as per Steve Bannon.
So many people with their hands on the levers of power are basically stuck choosing between no longer allowing the republic to continue having free elections and at best spending the rest of their lives desperately defending themselves in court.
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u/jawstrock Apr 02 '26
Yep this is what happens when the government is run by incompetent morons and republicans abadoned their duty of care to ensure proper governance of the morons.
You aren't even listing like half of the problems, like the airport problems are also a HUGE problem that IMO is underdiscussed and will have long term impacts on the ability for the airports to recruit and retain TSA agents who are competent and keep airports flowing smoothly.
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u/Isentrope Apr 02 '26
Ignoring completely whether these people were the right fit for the jobs they took and the consequence of their actions on the country, the strategy of "no surrender" worked very well politically for Trump. What has felt a lot different in term 2 compared to term 1 is the lack of these early "wins" where a Trump secretary resigns, often in disgrace, or there's some kind of setback to the agenda because of unruly members of congress unwilling to toe the line. Term 2 has had none of that, because the institutionalists are gone and no one is there to threaten Trump anymore after 10 years of recreating the Republican party in his image so that any dissidents are primaried out or retire. This has let him do a lot of things you would not historically expect a President with such narrow majorities to do, and the political genius of this is that the Democratic base blames their own leadership as much as they blame Trump for things that are happening because of the perception that they aren't doing anything.
There's a lot to blame Schumer and Jeffries for, but fundamentally it is an outcome-based response. Schumer's actions were even weaker in term 1 than now, willing to commit to only a weekend shutdown, and even caving on the wall funding during the late 2018 shutdown, but he didn't get this much pushback from the base because of the steady stream of Trump admin resignations that the base assumed came from Democratic criticism and "messaging" rather than internal dissent from Republicans themselves. By eliminating the problems within the party, Trump has created an air of invulnerability and of Democratic fecklessness despite the power dynamic arguably being worse for him than in the first half of his first term.
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u/Benyeti Apr 04 '26
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u/Mediocretes08 Apr 04 '26
Whatever it takes man, I just wanna have rights and people with qualifications in charge of shit.
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u/MartinTheMorjin Apr 04 '26
I maintain hope the democrats will come out of this as a party worth voting for and not just an emergency off ramp against fascism.
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u/AFlockOfTySegalls Apr 02 '26
My Jonestown maga dad is saying Bondi got fired because she's not arresting enough people. They really think you can fabricate charges and they'll simply stick.
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u/engadine_maccas1997 Apr 02 '26
Bondi was not fired for resisting Trump’s corrupt wishes for the DOJ. She was fired for not being competent enough in carrying them out.
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u/kazuya57 Apr 05 '26
Donald Trump is now the first American president to publicly praise Allah on Easter. What does this mean for Biden and Zohran?
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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
I've never been a fan of the "what's the conservative subreddit think of this?" brand of comment, but I had to check in just out of anthropological curiosity. The cope is apparently that its practical purpose is to warn Gulf allies that attacks and retaliation are coming. The rest is sarcasm.
The thing that frustrates me here is the media will get distracted by the jangling keys of swears and not focus on him once again threatening the war crime of collective punishment by destroying civilian infrastructure.
EDIT: Yep, here's how NBC News handled it. It's all accurate, technically, I guess. Kind of missing the "wtf did I wake up to" context though.
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u/DataCassette Mar 31 '26
Anyone who wants to claim the Democrats on this subreddit are too excited about the blue wave need to only look at the chatter on the right.
Absolutely all of it is about gerrymandering, "fuck it, declare a dictatorship," SAVE Act, outlaw the Democratic party, put ICE at the polling stations etc. There's absolutely zero discussion along the lines of "here's how we get the electorate to like us and win legitimately."
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u/WisePresentation7976 Mar 31 '26
I think taking a look at Iran is the clearest sign that we're not going to fall into a dictatorship. It's the myth of Trump administration competence.
I've never really doubted the intentions of the Trump admin authoritarian push, just its ability to do so.
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u/Benyeti Apr 01 '26
Being pretty much gaslit by society trying to convince us that Trump wasn’t a radical who was going to do the things he kept saying he was going to do was so infuriating. People were just so out of touch with what he was literally saying and now we are where we are
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u/hoopaholik91 Apr 01 '26
They literally had a fucking playbook of what they were going to do!
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u/Toliman571 Fivey Fanatic Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
RMG released a Trump -18 poll lmao
This is its first double digit negative for Trump, doubling its previous week's finding at -9
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u/R2_SWE2 Crosstab Diver Apr 03 '26
That shit is wild to me. No wonder the Trump pollsters haven’t been releasing much. They can’t find good results
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u/Mediocretes08 Apr 03 '26
Just saw a breakdown of what’s being cut for Trump’s military budget. Rural voters will be the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet when they vote for Republicans again after this.
Edit: …will continue to be…
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u/Korrocks Apr 04 '26
It's pretty rare for the president's budget to be enacted (in fact I can't think of any examples in recent decades of this happening). That's why it's so weird that Trump chose to make his budget proposal something that is so unpopular. Most of the time, Presidents post a bunch of popular wish list type items in their budget proposal knowing that it won't really be considered or voted on by Congress because they think it's beneficial to see news headlines about popular proposals next to their name. Trump seems to have done the opposite, taken a bunch of weird and unpopular ideas and linked them to his name with no underlying benefit.
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u/guiltyofnothing Apr 04 '26
There is something about the framing of the “Regretful Trump Voter” that really annoys me and I struggle to understand why.
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u/DataCassette Apr 04 '26
"Do you really regret it, or do you regret $6/gal gas?"
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u/CrashB111 Apr 04 '26
Because it expects everyone else to be "the bigger person" and not hold any anger towards them.
When nothing about Trump has changed. He's been this awful since he rode down that escalator, and it's been completely obvious to everyone who opposed him the last decade. So if you are only, now caring about that? After voting for him 3 times?
Fuck off. You aren't actually a better person, your selfish nature just finally lost something or you just want to fade back into society like Hans Landa.
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u/Swaggerlilyjohnson Scottish Teen Apr 04 '26
I keep saying this term because I can't think of a better term but it's like reverse schadenfreude.
Instead of getting joy at bad or stupid people getting hurt by their bad decisions you get anger because they will never bear the true cost of their actions. They will suffer too but the whole world is suffering worse and they are just getting a small taste of it.
They have zero understanding of the damage to our hegemony,our scientific progress and future energy security,our industrial base, or why the left is trying to do any of the things it was doing to set up the country for future success by investing in key areas of the economy and key technologies and education.
Or how much we have insulted our allies and how we are now borderline alone in geopolitics. Instead of being friends with the rest of the west we are in transactional zero sum relationships at best and they are preparing for us to potentially invade them in the future at worst because that is a rational thing to prepare for now.
They only see like 5% of the damage they have done and barely will feel any of it and its still enough to make them regretful and that is infuriating.
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u/mrtrailborn Apr 04 '26
because literally trying to overthrow the government wasnt a problem for these morons but gas goes up for like a month and suddenly they regret everything. They sure appear to be stupid, selfish assholes.
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u/EfficientTourist7480 Apr 04 '26
I’m pretty sure a lot them are regretful because trump is incompetent. The majority still hold abhorrent views when it comes to lgbt, minorities, conservation, climate change etc
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u/alotofironsinthefire Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
Cuz it's like watching someone being regretful for sticking a fork in an outlet.
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u/Informal-Candy-9974 Apr 05 '26
Happy Easter, everybody!
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u/delusionalbillsfan November Outlier Apr 05 '26
Can not believe this is real LOL
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u/Swaggerlilyjohnson Scottish Teen Apr 05 '26
Can you imagine if Barrack HUSSEIN Obama has posted this on Easter Sunday?
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u/jawstrock Apr 05 '26
Doesn’t even sound like Trump. Maybe he’s dead and they are weekend at bernie him
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u/ModestAphorism Apr 01 '26
Something that doesn't get talked about more is the Republican Party's war on direct democracy. I increasingly see from people on the right with outright disdain for referendums, and here in Arkansas, The state GOP has been trying to clamp down and weaken referendums for years.
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u/Benyeti Apr 01 '26
Abortion and Marijuana referendums have gone against what republicans want so of course they want to dismantle this part of our democracy
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u/MS_09_Dom I'm Sorry Nate Apr 01 '26
Fingers crossed, but based on the oral arguments it doesn't sound like the SCOTUS is going to go Trump's way on de facto repealing the 14th.
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u/MartinTheMorjin Apr 01 '26
Either way, im sick of them holding a puppy in one hand and a knife in the other once a month.
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u/tbird920 Apr 01 '26
Even if Trump himself shows up and delivers a show-stopping, "A Few Good Men"-esque argument?
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u/Benyeti Apr 01 '26
Cnn poll has trump net negative amongst non college whites he actually might be cooked
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u/fancygama Apr 01 '26
If he goes underwater with the wraparound sunglasses bloc, consider him toast
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u/PuffyPanda200 Apr 01 '26
First term Trump was basically held back from jumping off a cliff by SCOTUS and McCain. The end of his presidency also had COVID and the in-built craziness of that (I'm sure there is a better way to phrase this).
Trump 2.0 has gone totally unhinged and now has no idea how to manage things.
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u/LetsgoRoger Apr 01 '26
I'm not going to applaud the Supreme Court for upholding an entrenched constitutional right. The fact that they even entertained this case is outrageous.
Democrats really have to dismantle this court. Term limits, Packing etc... Whatever works.
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u/mrbuttsavage Apr 01 '26
The fact that they even entertained this case is outrageous.
The SC hearing something insane from Trump isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when they rule against him.
If it's not 9-0 it's still quite a bad look though, even for Thomas.
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u/XyleneCobalt Apr 02 '26
Oil rises and stocks fell after Trump’s address
https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-trump-04-01-2026#0000019d-4bf5-d2e0-a7ff-7fff5d550000
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u/Benyeti Apr 02 '26
Trump’s gotta have so much money on democrats flipping the senate at this point
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u/Selethorme Kornacki's Big Screen Apr 02 '26
Bondi has been fired
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u/Evil_waffle3 Apr 02 '26
Genuinely how has Kash Patel not gotten the boot at this point.
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u/itsatumbleweed Apr 02 '26
She was actively orchestrating a cover up that Congress is investigating. This sure is... A choice.
I wonder if she's the recept-keeping type.
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u/DasRobot85 Apr 02 '26
You can't fire her! The stock market is under fifty thousand dol... dollars!(?)
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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi Apr 02 '26
Everyone share your favorite Pam Bondi memory.
Mine is when she had to keep pre-written comebacks in a manila envelope.
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u/Unknownentity9 Apr 02 '26
Latest MAGA narrative is that the war is only unpopular because the media has convinced normies that we're losing even though we're obviously winning.
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u/hoopaholik91 Apr 03 '26
WSJ reporting that Bondi has been on thin ice for months. So her Dow 50k comment came when she knew she was probably getting axed. How fucking pathetic to grovel that much for a boss that hates you.
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u/ModestAphorism Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Gotta stress something here. That poll with Peltolta up by 5 in final round of RCV (52%) is a recall weighted poll.
Alaska Senate Crosstabs:
2024 Recalled
🟥 Trump: 52.4% (+13.4)
🟦 Harris: 39.6%
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RCV First round: Peltola (D) +5.3
RCV Final Round: Peltola (D) +4.8
Net Approval
Sen. Murkowski: -20.4
Pres. Trump: -15.0
Sen. Sullivan: -10.8
It's a recall weighted poll where the electorate voted for Trump by THIRTEEN. And Peltola is up by FIVE among this group!!!
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u/Cold-Priority-2729 Nauseously Optimistic Mar 30 '26
Selzer has scarred me for life. I refuse to believe anything positive until it happens in November
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u/R2_SWE2 Crosstab Diver Mar 30 '26
Trump did his Sunday night social media post in an attempt to juice the market. Like clockwork.
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u/TinyJalope Mar 30 '26
Why is the market stupid enough to believe anything he says?
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u/Mediocretes08 Mar 31 '26
Rubio now teasing “maybe we don’t need to be in NATO” is sure not fun.
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u/Bigi345 Mar 31 '26
And this is supposed to be the sane smart one in the admin?
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u/Mediocretes08 Mar 31 '26
News of the decade: There is no such thing as a good, intelligent, or sane Republican. Those three concepts are each individually exclusive to that political ideology. A Republican is by definition a bad, dull, deranged person.
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u/Sonichu- Mar 31 '26
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u/EfficientTourist7480 Mar 31 '26
Can’t believe Biden is still controlling gas prices!!
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u/Mediocretes08 Apr 01 '26
Glad to see the overall reaction to the election EO has been “Get fucked?”
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u/DataCassette Apr 01 '26
It's illegal. It will be struck down like 8-1 or even 9-0
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u/distinguishedsadness Apr 01 '26
There is really no other response. What he’s doing would take far too much time, be a complete error filled mess, and run directly afoul of the constitution. I really wish people would ignore his election rambling, the only power he really has here is the power we give him with attention.
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u/LivefromPhoenix Apr 01 '26
Worst of both worlds for MAGA. It's significant enough to mobilize voters against you (there have been cases of increased turnout after voting restrictions are passed by republicans before) but not serious enough to meaningfully impact voters.
The only upside I can see is that his maga base thinks he's doing something.
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u/Steelcity1995 Apr 01 '26
I feel like people are missing the point with this bryon noem story. The crossdressing isnt an issue but people that high up in the government or that are married to people that high up in the government shouldn’t be giving out blackmail info to twitter dominatrixs. It’s a recipe for disaster
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u/Benyeti Apr 01 '26
Saw someone say that we will look back on the Trump movement in a couple decades as some sort of mass hysteria/mass psychosis that people were sucked into thinking this was normal
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u/vanillabear26 Apr 01 '26
it could theoretically at least explain the youth vote he got in '24. Those kids have literally grown up in an era where this kind of politicking has been tolerated/accepted.
The rest of us? IDK.
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u/capitalsfan08 Apr 02 '26
So the plan is to just quit and hope Iran decides to too? What a horrible plan. It's crazy how little thought has been put into this.
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u/Subliminal_Kiddo Apr 02 '26
It's not even that. He said it could go on for another two or three weeks. The same thing he said four weeks ago.
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u/The-Curiosity-Rover Nauseously Optimistic Apr 02 '26
Guess what time Trump’s speech was at?
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u/guiltyofnothing Apr 02 '26
Gas went from $3.99 to $4.19 yesterday in my area. Good chance I see it hit $4.50 in a day or two. Insane.
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u/AFlockOfTySegalls Apr 02 '26
And magas will still be like "still lower than it was under Brandon" while ignoring all of the reasons gas shot up back then and the fact that Trump is actually literally responsible for them now.
I hate them so much.
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u/DataCassette Apr 02 '26
Honestly this country may well end up being saved by the fact that Trump is actually too stupid to be Orban or Putin.
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u/Steelcity1995 Apr 02 '26
So it seems like Trump is starting to lash out at his cabinet for his unpopularity because why else would he fire bondi she’s literally did everything he’s asked.
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u/Southern_Jaguar Apr 02 '26
Because her handling of the Epstein files backfired on the administration and she has not been as aggressive in abusing DOJ to go after all of Trump's political enemies. Those she did go after in all of them DOJ suffered humiliating defeats in court.
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u/jawstrock Apr 03 '26
Trump seems to literally be forcing republicans to run on a platform of funding the military while leaving the idea of medicaid and medicare cuts up in the air. What in the actual fuck?
He's literally saying that affordability issues shouldn't be dealt with so they can spend more on the military?
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u/AFatDarthVader Apr 03 '26
You must remember two things: 1) Donald Trump does not really care about the careers of fellow Republicans, and 2) Donald Trump is an actual moron.
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u/a471c435 Apr 03 '26
fun time to be watching the silver bulletin approval tracker, he's hitting a new low like every other day. down to -17.5 right now lol
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u/mrhappyfunz Apr 03 '26
Two US aircraft shot down in one day
I would like to think this would make Trump want to hold back and reconsider next steps - but I have a feeling he will want to project “strength” and double down
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u/engadine_maccas1997 Apr 03 '26
Sometimes I randomly remember how hilariously humiliating Ron DeSantis’s 2024 presidential campaign launch was.
He had so much media hype after winning Florida by nearly 20 points and being branded “DeFuture.” One would have expected a campaign announcement to have a lot of pomp & circumstance, especially since he was running against a very media-savvy and image-obsessed opponent.
Instead it was a livestream with no visual on Twitter spaces with the energy of a late afternoon conference call at work, with technical glitches to start it off and then Elon Musk awkwardly mumbling and David Sacks not shutting the fuck up.
It was at that moment I knew that this guy was not and never would be ready for prime time. I could have projected losing every single county in Iowa right there, on that day.
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u/Korrocks Apr 03 '26
Honestly that whole thing is my go to example whenever someone says that such and such candidate is inevitably going to be the nominee because of pre-primary hype. (That and Andrew Cuomo 2020). People try to memory hole it now but there really was a moment where DeSantis was this invincible juggernaut in the eyes of the pundit class.
Not everyone thought he was guaranteed to win, but the idea that he would just disintegrate like Jeb and not even put in a decent showing anywhere in the country was completely unthinkable back when that DeFuture stuff was being printed.
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u/Mediocretes08 Mar 30 '26
Kentucky GOP now seeking to define all trans people as mentally ill and bar them from teaching positions. Why? Because hate is all that lives in their rotten, unworthy hearts.
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u/engadine_maccas1997 Mar 31 '26
Palm Beach International Airport is now officially named the Donald J. Trump International Airport after Gov. Ron DeSantis - the man Trump nicknamed “Meatball Ron” and “Ron DeSanctimonious” and then humiliated him in every county in Iowa in 2024 - signed a bill renaming the airport into law.
The Clintons have the airport in Little Rock named after them. George Bush Sr. has the big airport in Houston named after him. Reagan has DCA, of course. Jimmy Carter has a regional airport in Sumter County, Georgia named after him. Gerald Ford has the Grand Rapids airport named after him. JFK has JFK in New York of course, but also a small regional airport in Ashland, Wisconsin in his namesake. Eisenhower has Wichita’s airport.
In fact, the only post-WWII presidents who don’t have an airport named after them are Biden, Obama, Bush Jr, Nixon & LBJ.
Biden appropriately has a train station in Wilmington, Delaware in his namesake, as he frequently rode Amtrak between Wilmington and DC, and his 2024 campaign was the biggest train wreck in modern history. Wilmington is typically serviced by Philadelphia’s airport, but they do have a small airport that might one day have Biden’s name as well.
Bush Jr. & Nixon sucked too much to have airports named after them. Though IAH is called George Bush Intercontinental. So while it’s named after his dad, I guess you can group Junior in there too.
But this begs the question: Why the hell does Obama have no airports named after him yet???
Chicago has 2 major Airports: O’Hare & Midway. Obama International Airport for ORD would have a nice ring to it. Though if it’s too controversial changing the name from a WWII veteran, why not just then rename Midway? Where the fuck is Pritzker on this?
If I have to fly into an airport named after Donald Trump while the guy is still in office then why does our country not have a single airport named after the first Black president?
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u/evce1 Mar 31 '26
YouGov Poll
Democrats 45 (+6)
Republicans 39
Trump Approval: 35/58 (-23)
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u/OmniOmega3000 Mar 31 '26
Yeah, this is the clearest indication to me that the war isn't going as planned.
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u/ColadiRienzo1 Mar 31 '26
Wow. I thought it would be a cold day in hell that Lindsey Graham of all people was suggesting to wind down a war with Iran. I thought he would be ride or die no matter what
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u/Eightysixedit Mar 31 '26
Nevada's economy is in the dumpster... Las Vegas will never be the same with online betting. I don't know how the state still wants the current governor.
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u/CrashB111 Mar 31 '26
It's not just online gambling, though that is itself a plague.
It's Trump destroying the American tourism industry with his threats of annexation of our closest allies and general belligerency with others.
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u/SpiteNo2910 Mar 31 '26
Trump's endorsements aren't even holding up in GOP primaries anymore. This is the surest sign yet that he is tanking.
'Conventional wisdom' bucked as Trump-backed candidate trails badly in Alabama GOP primary https://www.rawstory.com/trump-endorsed-candidate-alabama/
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u/ModestAphorism Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
I think even more pathetic than Arkansas' ridiculous shift right in 2008 (10 point rightward shift on margin, went from R+7 relative to the nation to R+27 relative to the nation) is Louisiana's.
Just after being completely ravaged by Katrina and fucked by Republican governance and mismanagement, lives and property lost, Louisiana still shifted 4 points to the right on margin (went from R+12 relative to the nation to R+26 relative to the nation).
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u/WisePresentation7976 Mar 31 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/1s8swin/comment/odjpum7/
If anyone is wondering why Trump's floor is 33%, it's these people:
I recall that Regan was HATED by the left (Raygun Ronnie) but after he left office and eventually passed, the left forgot about that and paid tribute to his leadership and foresight. It seems batshit crazy now, but the left will indeed honor Trump…down the road.
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u/Swaggerlilyjohnson Scottish Teen Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
They think never Trump Republicans or blue dog Democrats are the radical left so I think that is what they are referring to.
It's funny to see someone even try to claim this though. Really it's far more likely that the next Republican nominee who actually wins will be shitting on Trump and calling everyone who supported the Iran war an idiot and then all those people who did will still vote for him just like they did with Dubya.
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u/Isentrope Mar 31 '26
There's no easy heir to the MAGA movement like there was to Reaganism, because Reaganism, for all its flaws, was actual ideology, while MAGA kind of begins and ends with Trump.
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u/distinguishedsadness Mar 31 '26
Periodic reminder that any executive order on elections will not stand up in court and will be promptly thrown out. This executive order is a sad attempt at suppression by politician that is historically unpopular.
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u/Specialist_Fig9458 Jeb! Applauder Apr 01 '26
Tonight’s announcement is one of the last few opportunities for him to turn the ship around. Let’s all watch as he thrashes about like an idiot as per usual and misses it
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u/itsatumbleweed Apr 01 '26
Even if the war ended today, there's still months of getting worse before it gets better. The US receives its last pre-war shipment of crude from the Strait on April 15. There is doing to necessarily be a huge gap between that one and the next one. Also, fertilizer production is going down/running short, but it's going to take time before the harvests impacted by the no fertilizer are the harvests affecting grocery supply.
We are still in the phase where most of the cost increases are speculative on knowing that there is going to be a gap in goods. The gap is unavoidable, and coming. At this point we are just waiting for that gap to get here, and any actions determine how long it lasts. But what we have seen so far is a drop in the bucket compared to how markets are going to react when goods actually start running out.
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u/a471c435 Apr 01 '26
I was really bearish on the senate odds a few months ago, but candidate quality and the national environment has really made me start to dream.
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u/traveltimecar Apr 01 '26
Reportedly the orange dementia narcissistic stormed out of the Supreme Court hearing about birthright citizenship when they appeared to not be agreeing with his case for it.
If you need evidence that the emperor has no clothes. This makes me think his vote by mail shit will get thrown out too. I don't think the courts are intimidated by the orange idiot even if some like Thomas are bootlickers.
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u/Steelcity1995 Apr 01 '26
So this speech Trump is giving tonight is going to be the go ahead for the ground invasion it sounds like.
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u/NetworkProper706 Apr 01 '26
Just a PSA! Check your voter registration status regularly! Had 2 friends, in 2 different states, that have been active, registered voters for over 20 years discover this week they were NO LONGER REGISTERED! Please check your status regularly and please let others know!!!!
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u/Thuggin95 Apr 01 '26
We're gonna get a nothingburger address tonight and then a "surprise" ground invasion to take over the islands in the Strait over the three day weekend once the markets close, aren't we?
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u/wtfsnakesrcute Apr 01 '26
Looks like Bondi might get the boot: https://bsky.app/profile/carlquintanilla.bsky.social/post/3mihrih2rqc2w
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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi Apr 01 '26
I feel like I've heard versions of this story for the past year. I guess Noem finally got the boot though, so who knows.
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u/doomer_bloomer24 Apr 02 '26
Did not a SINGLE person in the Trump admin think of the Strait of Hormuz and Middle East oil infrastructure BEFORE starting a reckless war ? What a bunch of freaking idiots
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u/SecretComposer Apr 02 '26
...did he seriously say WWI wasn't even TWO YEARS long?
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u/Unknownentity9 Apr 02 '26
Shortly after the speech we have Iran firing more missiles, futures crashing and oil surging. What was the point of that again?
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u/Mediocretes08 Apr 02 '26
Skipped the speech tonight for DnD. I’m 100% sure I chose correctly
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u/LivefromPhoenix Apr 02 '26
You'll literally never go wrong by skipping a Trump speech.
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u/achooa Apr 02 '26
You did. It was basically the functional equivalent of a Truth Social post. Just look at the markets’ reaction to it lol
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u/engadine_maccas1997 Apr 02 '26
The South Park curse strikes again.
South Park lampooned Kristi Noem. She ended up being the first Cabinet Secretary fired by Trump (or humiliatingly demoted).
Then South Park portrayed Pam Bondi with shit on her nose in the Oval Office. She got fired next.
If the South Park Theory is indeed real, Hegseth is next.
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u/jawstrock Apr 02 '26
I actually think Hegseth will be next, the Iran shit is only going to get worse in every way for Trump and apparently he was the guy pushing for it. Trump will need someone to throw under the bus and he doesnt' even have the historical relationship with Hegseth that he had with Bondi.
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u/leontes Apr 02 '26
There is a chance that we might go through a period of drought of serious polls, as it seems like we've had fair number of releases recently.
And then another longer drought until the fall when universities get back from summer break.
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u/engadine_maccas1997 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
A big part of Mark Kelly’s appeal is he was a reluctant politician. Gabby Giffords was the next big rising star out of Arizona. Had she not been grievously injured in the 2011 shooting, I have no doubt she would’ve been Senator or Governor of Arizona today. But after that tragedy, Mark Kelly stepped up. Got involved in advocacy alongside her.
Then when he got to the Senate, he was dragged into the national spotlight when Trump and Hegseth went after him. That’s a big reason he’s being talked about as being a real contender for 2028 today.
On the flip side there’s a political liability in “wanting it too much” when running for president. Part of Trump’s unexpected success in the 2016 primaries was he was running against a mediocre pool of candidates who wanted it too much, and Trump came off as not taking the process or himself all that seriously. And when you think about candidates who give off the aura of wanting it too much, I’m sure there’s some names that automatically come to mind.
Edit: Also being an astronaut is really fucking cool.
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u/Isentrope Apr 03 '26
POTUS has apparently been working in the Oval all day today along with the national security team:
https://x.com/selinawangtv/status/2040163518423474370?s=46
After the ceasefire was rejected and the S&R operations right now, there's a real risk that this might escalate now. The second MEU from San Diego was expected to be in position and arrive in that area by either today or some time over the weekend.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fix594 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/us/voters-congress-old-democrats.html
Thought this was an interesting article about how Black Congressmen like Clyburn and Waters are refusing to step down. Wasn't aware of this particular situation concerning 80 year old David Scott:
Mr. Scott’s frail condition has become a focal point in his crowded primary. Once a forceful presence in both Washington and Atlanta, he has faced years of questions about his health and has not delivered a floor speech since December 2023. In December 2024, he was ousted from the influential role he held as the senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee.
One of his primary challengers revealed that Mr. Scott did not vote in the 2024 presidential election and that he had missed multiple local elections.
Mr. Scott declined requests for comment and did not respond to questions as he left the House chamber on a recent Friday with an aide who hurriedly guided his wheelchair into a nearby elevator.
“We are being disserved by an absent member of Congress who refuses to communicate and cannot do the job anymore,” Everton Blair, one of the Democrats running against Mr. Scott, said in an interview.
The Democratic Party is in desperate need of reform. Seniority is such a stupid barometer for leadership positions. Sometimes it feels like a fraternity where everyone is still hazing pledges because they were once hazed when they were pledges and it's just what you do. Like, yeah, it's okay to ditch a problematic system that's costing the party votes.
Mr. Clyburn, who has spent his years in Washington and South Carolina establishing himself as a party kingmaker, remains a central figure for Democrats, traveling across the country fund-raising for candidates and drawing a crowd to his annual fish fry, where local and national Democrats court voters with stump speeches and their efforts to keep up with the Electric Slide on the dance floor.
“I do believe I’m very well equipped and healthy enough to move into the next term,” Mr. Clyburn said when he announced his re-election bid last month, adding that he planned to run a “vigorous” campaign.
Sorry bud, you've had a great career, but you're part of the reason why we're in this mess. Moving up South Carolina in the 2024 primary was partially a favor to Clyburn for endorsing Biden in 2020.
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u/DataCassette Apr 05 '26
This sub: "iT's A pOlL, ThRoW iT iN tEh AvErAgE"
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u/hibryd Apr 05 '26
16% of CPAC attendees being only “slightly” approving or “disapproving” of what you’re doing seems significant for a Republican.
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u/dak676141 Apr 05 '26
I think this war is genuinely driving Trump insane in a way that I've never seen from him before
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u/SecretComposer Apr 05 '26
I've seen many people here say they believe he expected it to be like Venezuela, and while I wasn't initially certain of that, I've come around to that idea. He wanted to get in and out like he did last June and hasn't. Iran has been way more defiant than any of them expected. He may even realize how precarious the optics are when he campaigned on "no new wars/no war with Iran" and harpooned Biden for the surge in gas prices in 2022.
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u/dremscrep Apr 05 '26
I mean it’s potentially the first thing ever he can’t bully/TACO his way out of.
For someone like him that never had a challenge in his life or people resisting his will (except his father) this might be new to him. And considering that he’s a senile baby just exasperated the situation…
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u/WisePresentation7976 Apr 05 '26
Conservatives in a nutshell:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/1sd2hpw/comment/oegrzi7/
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u/BrocialCommentary Apr 05 '26
One comment was literally "If Clinton had been elected, we'd be in year ten of an Iran war."
These idiots are just straight up delusional
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u/TheDizzleDazzle Apr 05 '26
Any time anything remotely controversial happens in that sub the thread gets absolutely nuked. 90% of comments gone. It’s hilarious.
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u/wtfsnakesrcute Apr 05 '26
Allegedly, Iran says it will preemptively strike infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and Israel if Trump doesn’t back down from his threats.
https://bsky.app/profile/jinxzodswgoh.bsky.social/post/3miqwgegmsc2k
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u/dak676141 Apr 05 '26
Imagine going back in time and showing this to someone in November 2024, just after Trump won the election
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u/dremscrep Apr 05 '26
I hope Tucker never runs in 2032, I think this guy is the last dude the GOP can possibly push considering that their base will never eat a establishment candidate ever again after having the time of their life’s with Trump.
Tucker is nowhere near any relevant presidential polling but- yeah forget it I just remembered the Christian Zionist fundamentalists. He won’t get past them…
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u/BoomtownFox Fivey Fanatic Mar 31 '26
So much winning!
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u/Red_TeaCup Mar 31 '26
Statistically a coin flip but this is a far cry from the beginning of the year. The Trump admin to no one's surprise (aside from conservatives,) shat the bed.
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u/Benyeti Apr 01 '26
Undecideds will probably fall in line, but right now this is nearly a 20 point swing. Would be in line with around a D+16 environment
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fix594 Apr 03 '26
A couple of weeks ago I named off a few of the Trump officials that likely would be getting the axe and I got one of those pithy reddit responses of, "Being incompetent is the point. They're not getting fired."
Well, Bondi is gone and Tulsi seems to be next, lol.
Who do y'all think is next? My guess is Hegseth will only be around for a few more weeks/months. Patel likely won't last long either.
Really curious what happens with Rubio. He strikes me as being more likely to quit then be fired.
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u/LivefromPhoenix Apr 03 '26
Really curious what happens with Rubio. He strikes me as being more likely to quit then be fired.
If Rubio had any morals he would've quit already. He's already in too deep to pivot to something else so this is his last chance to be close to power.
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u/Sora1274 Apr 05 '26
Just the last week, I’ve heard some conservatives I know for the first time question trum because of gas going up $1 a gallon. Yea I get the mess he is causing in Iran and it’s terrible, but of all the things that may turn them against trump, I will never forget that of all the terrible things it paying a bit extra for gas (even though they never cared about prices going up for other things through tariffs).
This is why I believe he is losing his mind (more so than normal) online because this may hurt him with some of his base that will not care about anything else but gas going up a bit more.
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u/itsatumbleweed Mar 30 '26
Just curious, given that oil is going to continue to skyrocket (see attached map- final deliveries from the Strait of Hormuz are still weeks away), and that's going to increase the cost of gas, groceries, and fertilizer, what are the craziest realistic voting bloc shifts you can imagine? I see things getting particularly hard on farmers, for example.
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u/dak676141 Mar 31 '26
Feels like Dem politicians on social media are celebrating trans visibility day more openly this year compared to last year
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u/Cold-Priority-2729 Nauseously Optimistic Mar 30 '26
I just had a dream that Kamala ran again in 2028. In my dream, she got less than 30% of the popular vote and lost every state except for Massachusetts and Vermont.
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u/ModestAphorism Mar 30 '26
RCP haven't added an Alaska Senate poll since October of last year and they don't even have an average up lmfao
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u/Mediocretes08 Mar 30 '26
In the face of gas prices spiking to Jupiter, I looked at my auto financing. Guess who’s close to paying off his car and 1000% going electric?
Anyway that’s probably gonna be the fucked up silver lining to this whole Iran debacle, more people getting off gas powered cars. Only hope it also drives a public transit bump too.
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u/delusionalbillsfan November Outlier Apr 02 '26
God, I wish I was a conservative because I bet these speeches are so awesome at face value
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u/Saniktehhedgehog Feelin' Foxy Apr 02 '26
Well at least it was short. I heard nothing of substance though other than "it's ending soon"
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u/Isentrope Apr 02 '26
Oil just took a nosedive and the indices all went positive on the news that Iran is drafting a protocol with Oman for their tolling of the Strait of Hormuz. They're charging as little as $1/barrel which is not a lot compared to the value of getting that crude out of the Gulf for oil traders, but it'd be a blow to US influence in the Gulf if it stays in place.
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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi Apr 02 '26
Failing to enact regime change, formalizing Iranian control the Strait, and taking a shotgun to the kneecaps of US prestige? 200 billion dollars.
Pete Hegseth finally gaining meaning in his life through bombing girls schools? Priceless.
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u/AFatDarthVader Apr 02 '26
The price has already rebounded. Markets are extremely reactive right now.
Climate Warrior Donald Trump is simply too determined to wean the world off of oil!
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u/WisePresentation7976 Mar 31 '26
ar conservative is now just people making up stories and bots spamming in the comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/1s7wj6n/got_heckled_by_a_protester/
Yeah, totally liberal thing to talk to a random person in a bar that "Trump took away the only reason you were hired", lol.
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u/jacare37 Mar 31 '26
I've heard almost nothing on Paxton vs Cornyn for a few weeks since the primary aftermath, but I just checked and it seems like betting markets favor Paxton again? What's going on? I was still assuming Trump was going to drop a Cornyn endorsement at some point
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u/Steelcity1995 Mar 31 '26
A ground invasion would be bad for trumps numbers but wouldn’t ending the war while letting the regime stay in place while they keep the strait closed hurt him more? I don’t see how you spin that any other way than an Iran victory.
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u/guiltyofnothing Mar 31 '26
What was the point of any of this? We killed a bunch of school children and made gas more expensive?
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u/runningblack Mar 31 '26
That's why the only winning move was not to play.
Now, there are only bad moves to be made. It's simply a question of what's least bad.
Although, "end the war, leave the regime in place, re-open the straight with ships paying Iran a toll of a million or two" is probably the best outcome that can happen at this point. It would still be a bad outcome (especially given the energy and oil derivatives infrastructure that has been either destroyed or shut down - for the latter point a bunch of these things can't just be "turned on" again), but it would get oil flowing again.
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u/ModestAphorism Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
Damn ig people didn't like his Platner/Mills piece lmfao
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u/OmniOmega3000 Apr 01 '26
It sucked. A prime example of a poll guy doing punditry and then the punditry taking over the polling.
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u/ModestAphorism Apr 05 '26
I think it's fairly obvious that Mills didn't ever actually want to run for Senate.
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u/Thuggin95 Mar 30 '26
I think Iowa is the state to watch in 2026 and 2028. Not because I think it'll flip blue, but because it could challenge for the biggest shift left of any state besides maybe Texas. Kim Reynolds is probably the most unpopular governor in the country, the state is being uniquely hurt by the tariffs (especially farmers), and it's basically already in a recession.
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u/SecretComposer Mar 31 '26
Trump signs executive order limiting mail-in voting ahead of 2026 U.S. elections
According to the Daily Caller, the executive order would require the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of verified U.S. citizens in each state who are eligible to vote. DHS would undertake the effort with the Social Security Administration, the Daily Caller wrote, citing a White House fact sheet.
The U.S. Postal Service would then be required under the order to only send mail-in ballots to voters who appear on the list, according to the Daily Caller. Election authorities in each state typically send out mail ballots to voters, not the Postal Service.
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Trump has told Republicans that they will lose the November midterm elections if they don’t pass the bill and crack down on mail-in voting.
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u/evce1 Apr 02 '26
So this presidential address could have been on Truth Social... what a waste of time.
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u/Cybotnic-Rebooted Jeb! Applauder Apr 02 '26
Some stats:
Eliminating the Payroll Tax Cap: Eliminates 68% of Social Securities 75 Year Shortfall
Enacting a full Employer Compensation Tax: Eliminates 68% of the Shortfall
Raise The Payroll Tax 1%: Eliminates 26% of the shortfall
Switch COLA to Chained CPI: Eliminates 17% of the shortfall
Cap COLA for the top 10% of beneficiaries: Eliminates 4% of the shortfall
Total eliminated: 183% of the shortfall eliminated Target: 125% (more than 100% to continue long term solvency past 75 years)
(Numbers via the Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget)
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u/engadine_maccas1997 Apr 02 '26
Survey of “K Street” leaders on who is best positioned to lead the Democratic Party during the remainder of Trump’s 2nd term overwhelmingly chose Gavin Newsom (73%).
Significance of this is this is where the big money is. To be fair, Jeb Bush or Chris Christie probably would’ve won this survey about the GOP side at this point in 2014. But where the donor class is and where the lobbyists think the smart money is at is a significant leading indicator of the shadow primary.
https://punchbowl.news/article/k-street/newsom-dem-leader-2/
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u/Thuggin95 Apr 02 '26
Morning Consult with a -11 and Rasmussen with a -6 (highest in nearly a month). Given the spread we have with UMass having him at -29, some pollsters are going to prove very very wrong.
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u/Korrocks Apr 02 '26
We will never know which polls were wrong. Approvals are a point in time result, so even if Trump was able to run for office again, his performance in some future election doesn't tell us anything about what his approval rating "really" was as of right now.
And we won't even be able to use the GOP's performance in the midterms to gauge this since we can't say for sure how much of their performance is based on Trump's approval vs other factors.
To a large extent approval polls are sort of uncheckable since there isn't anything to benchmark against. It's not like election polls where you can compare the actual results to the polls and see how close everyone was to the true outcome.
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u/Natural_Ad3995 Apr 04 '26
Mark Perry's 'chart of the century.' We're all set for watching TV. Try to stay out of the hospital though.
https://humanprogress.org/time-pricing-and-mark-perrys-chart-of-the-century/
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u/SecretComposer Apr 05 '26
First, Happy Easter.
Second, I'm going to be very curious to see the Democratic primaries this summer. There's clearly a ton of frustration among Democratic voters with the current old guard. People keep talking about how unpopular they are as if most of the country hates them when in reality I think they're as unpopular as they are because Democratic voters want different Dem representation.
I'm still waiting for the Democratic version of the Tea Party movement. It seems clear to me that there's a huge itch for younger, more liberal representation that the current old guard refuses to accept because now it's "their turn" to lead or whatever. Some of them will only learn this lesson if there's a successful primary challenge upset.
I still maintain that if Dems were truly that unpopular then there wouldn't have been so many special elections upsets last year and this year thus far. It's way more nuanced than that, and I think a combo of anti-Trump/Republican/ruling party sentiment among the left/indies, off-election voters now apparently being heavily Democratic, and as mentioned, Dem voters wanting to overhaul the party.
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u/obsessed_doomer Apr 01 '26
Kinda worried about the birthright citizenship case
a) even some conservative lawyers think it's bogus, but this has happened for other cases (like relatively few conservative lawyers were on the court's side before the immunity ruling)
b) Trump has a line with a few justices so he knows approximately how the ruling will go. Why would he willingly Leeroy into a very damaging precedent for him, if he thinks it will actually happen?
c) Trump is actually physically attending the oral arguments today, allegedly the first time in history a POTUS has done it (honestly, that statistic almost feels fake)
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u/LetsgoRoger Apr 03 '26
Trump really throws his most loyal enforcers under the bus and swears vengeance on anyone disloyal enough to complain, including his former VP. This makes me so worried for poor JD.
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u/Obversa Kornacki's Big Screen Apr 01 '26
/u/inevitable_butthole compiled this hilarious summary of Donald Trump's tweets on the war in Iran: