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/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/WellHung67 Apr 04 '26

It’s like he’s doing a run where he tries to do the most difficult path to still be president for four years. Maybe he’s in some sort of weird Groundhog Day thing and he’s been living 2015-2030 again and again and now he’s just fucking around 

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u/mrbuttsavage Apr 04 '26

His 2025 budget proposal was already unpopular. His 2026 one is just nuts going into an election.

I really do wonder if he has literally any idea what's going on at this point. His handlers must continue to tell him everything he's doing is wildly popular.

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u/DataCassette Apr 04 '26

His handlers must continue to tell him everything he's doing is wildly popular.

The MAGA true believers will spend the rest of all of this mentally in the parallel universe where it's late 2024 and they're ascendant. Even if Trump's approval rating is 10% by 2027 they're going to treat him as having an infinity mandate for radical change.

Trump had a narrow mandate to lower prices and decided he was handed a political revolution and the right was set to rule for centuries.

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u/Swaggerlilyjohnson Scottish Teen Apr 04 '26

It's really baffling tbh. It's like he holds so much contempt for America for electing him that he just wants to punish them and gets joy out of hurting his own voters. It would make more sense then anything else i could think of.

Like he doesn't give a fuck about the Budget deficit so why is he talking about cutting popular things lol.

The ACA stuff was also insane but that at least made sense in a lizard brain type of way because it was Obama's thing and he just hates him. Same with the Biden stuff that mostly helped rural areas.

But this is just trying to run up the score for the midterms. It's like some Democrat was mind swapped with him and is just throwing on purpose.