Chuck Grassley should retire now. Iowa just elected a democrat as governor. Grassley is 93, and if he retires now, the current governor, a republican, can name his replacement. If he doesn’t, and the seat opens up before his term ends, the new democratic governor will choose his successor, which could add to the democrats’ new Senate majority. But Grassley says he isn’t going anywhere. As a spokesperson put it, “He remains committed to delivering for the people of Iowa, who overwhelmingly elected him to a six-year term in 2022.” Interesting, because Grassley himself said in September, “I don’t plan on dying in office, but if I did, I don’t want a democrat governor choosing my successor.” So hang in there until 2028, Chuck, and we will see whether Iowans elect another republican. BTW, the senator has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission for the 2028 election – just in case.
What about the Supreme Court? Alito is 76 and Thomas is 78 (Roberts is 71). They will likely hang around while the democrats control the Senate, which they will for at least the next two years. If they retire now, Trump can name their successors while the republicans still hold the Senate majority. If not, Trump will get no nominee through a democratic-controlled Senate, much as Obama could not get his nominee, Merrick Garland, through a republican-controlled Senate. Thomas appears to want to serve until he dies, and Alito has ruled out a lame-duck retirement. However, a justice could make retirement conditional on the confirmation of a successor, as Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen Breyer did.
Threat to democracy or threat to the republic?
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams (1814)
That is why the founding fathers deliberately created a constitutional republic rather than a pure democracy. Fearing the tyranny of the majority, they constructed a system built upon limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty and the protection of the unalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence.
It seems that the objective of the democrats is to tear down the republic and replace it with a democracy that installs the tyranny of the majority, which means the names “democrat” and “republican” are truly appropriate.
“Provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate there were an estimated 69,973 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2025—a decrease of almost 14% from the 81,313 deaths estimated in 2024. Almost all states across the nation saw decreases; Rhode Island, New York, North Carolina, Alabama and Vermont experienced declines of 25% or more. In contrast, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado had increases of 10% or more compared to the same period in 2024. The new data show that overdose deaths involving opioids decreased from an estimated 55,296 in 2024 to 44,564 in 2025. Overdose deaths involving cocaine and psychostimulants (like methamphetamine) decreased as well.”
“I’m cautiously optimistic that this represents really a fundamental change in the arc of the overdose crisis,” says epidemiologist Brandon Marshall. The decline is due to a combination of factors: changes in the illicit drug supply, increased awareness and education about drug risks, and the wider availability of naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses. Additionally, there has been a shift in drug use behaviors among younger generations, contributing to the decline.
Of course, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly attributed the decline to the president’s policies at the southern border, military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Trump’s effort to stop chemicals used to make fentanyl from being imported from China.
In 2024, the Biden administration credited its work to distribute more of the opioid-overdose-reversing drug naloxone, increased access to addiction treatment medications and support for harm reduction programs.
Regardless, kudos to all!
More security for RFK Jr. (Less for minorities?)
Lastly, the cost of enhanced security for RFK Jr. grew from $10 million to $17 million a year and was covered in part by money taken from the Office of Minority Health. In all, HHS cut $12 million from the Office of Minority Health, rather than just the $7 million that represented the increase in security costs. The Office of Minority Health was created under President Ronald Reagan after a landmark report found that Black infants in the U.S. were more likely than white babies to die and that Black life expectancy was shorter, among other disparities. The office for years has funded research and efforts to close those gaps, which have persisted. Its annual budget has been roughly $74 million. The Wall Street Journal reports that HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard said the grant cuts “reflect HHS priorities and programmatic assessments—not the Secretary’s security needs.” The Trump administration in general has sought to pare back grants it views as related to diversity initiatives, and in earlier budget requests has sought to shrink funding for the office by 40%.
“Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.”
― Margaret Thatcher
We know that socialism always fails — except in the liberal arts colleges at our universities. But why? I think that the socialists know their system is a failure, but they don’t care so long as they are the ones in power. Who was it that said that the worst nightmare for a socialist is having other socialists in power who do not like him? Much has been written about the leaders of American socialists who are spoiled rich kids who have never held a job and are criticizing the system that made their parents wealthy enough to pamper them. These folk remind me of all the white kids that used to drive around listening to hardcore rap cursing white privilege. Or Hillary Clinton affecting a black accent. Fakes all.
But today’s socialists are just emulating Karl Marx, who himself came from a well-off family and spent much of his life sponging off Friedrich Engels, who provided him financial support for over 40 years. So all those loud socialist voices are simply following Marx’s lead, coming from backgrounds of real privilege — people who have never had to build anything from nothing, lecturing everyone else about the evils of the very system that gave their own families the comfort to raise them that way.
Socialism fails because it misunderstands or ignores human nature.
It Ignores Incentives
At its core, socialism takes the product of some people’s labor and redistributes it to others. This runs directly against basic incentive structures. When people cannot keep the full rewards of their work, they have less reason to work as hard. And when people receive benefits regardless of their effort, they have less reason to work at all. The result is falling productivity and a shrinking economic pie for everyone. Socialist economies have repeatedly had to reintroduce private incentives just to keep functioning — for example, letting farmers keep and sell what they grow on private plots even within otherwise collectivized systems.
Socialists talk of taking over the means of production and either having the government run businesses or putting businesses under government control. For socialists, profit is a dirty word. Yet it is ignoring profit that dooms all government-run enterprises to inefficiencies and waste. The energy industries in Russia and Venezuela are the poster children here. But the same is true for all government-run enterprises, even those in capitalist countries. That is because in order to maximize profits, businesses are incentivized to minimize losses, and in doing so they must operate as efficiently as possible, which minimizes waste. A business that ignores efficiency is doomed to fail. Not so with a government-run business, which can waste resources forever. That wastefulness means that socialist governments are less productive with lower economic well-being for their citizens.
It Ignores Individual Choice
Central planners inevitably substitute their own preferences for the preferences of millions of individuals. That mismatch is what produces the shortages and surpluses that have characterized planned economies — the empty shelves in some categories and the useless overstock in others. Variety isn’t waste — it’s the visible result of a market responding to what people actually want, rather than what a planner has decided they should want.
As Adam Smith put it, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Freedom of choice and private property are the foundations of capitalism — and they are precisely what socialism sets out to override. Socialists only want the freedom of their choice and the power to impose it on others. That is why socialism always fails: it ignores individual tastes, preferences, and choice.
Misdiagnosing the Cause of Real Problems
Much of today’s frustration with the cost of housing, health care, and education is genuine — but it’s frequently pointed at the wrong target. In many of these sectors, prices are inflated not by free markets but by heavy government regulation and, often, by close partnerships between government and industry. Higher education continues to receive enormous public funding while administrative bureaucracies grow largely unchecked. Pharmaceutical companies benefit from regulatory structures that limit competition. And according to a 2026 National Association of Home Builders study, government regulations add about $132,000 to the price of an average new single-family home. Calling on the same government that created these distortions to now “fix” the affordability crisis asks the arsonist to put out the fire. To make these affordable, one must fight Big Pharma, Big Education, Big Developers and Big Government who say that they are operating to the benefit of the consumer.
The socialists say that big business and the wealthy have rigged the system in their favor. Maybe, but look at the statistics of how well off Americans are. That was brought into sharp relief with the World Cup when our visitors marveled at the abundance that we take for granted. The socialists will never say that what they want is to make us worse off. But that will be the result of their actions. So ask yourself: do you want to be worse off? Do you think that you can become better off by making others worse off? Do you think that taxing the rich will somehow benefit you, or are you advocating that because you are just jealous?
A Question of What Actually Helps
And that, my friends, is why socialism always fails. It goes against human nature. Resources are scarce. People want to profit from their own initiative and hard work. If they choose to share it with others through philanthropy, that’s one thing, and it won’t discourage their work. However, if it is taken from them by the government, they will be incentivized to offer less effort not more. Prosperity does not trickle down from the government. It comes from individuals pursuing freedom of choice and that choice is not from a bunch of “elites” dictating what they think is good for you.
Socialism fails because it is built on a denial of how people actually behave: individuals respond to incentives, and they value the freedom to make their own choices. A system that tries to override both eventually has to fall back on coercion to sustain itself, because voluntary cooperation breaks down once the connection between effort and reward is severed. Real, durable improvements in living standards come from expanding freedom and choice — not from concentrating more decision-making power in the hands of the state. The state is not the solution to the problems caused by the state.
And now some words of wisdom from that former Marxist, Thomas Sowell.
I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.
The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.
No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk but the free market walks the walk.
The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people’s money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.
Almost completely ignored in the North American media is what is happening in the Horn of Africa where conflicts are pulling in conflicting national interests. Countries are picking sides and there is a threat of regional war that may pull in the United States, Russia and China.
Ethiopia is now quarrelling with almost every neighbor that matters. In the space of a few weeks it has cut ties with Eritrea, traded expulsions with Sudan and thrown out an Egyptian diplomat. Each dispute has its own history. Together they point to something worse: a regional war in one of the most strategically important corners of the world.
Start with Sudan. Early this month Ethiopia shut Sudan’s consulate in Assosa, near the border, and gave six Sudanese diplomats 48 hours to leave. Within hours Khartoum’s government closed Ethiopia’s consulate in Gedaref and sent its staff packing. Neither side gave a formal reason. Neither needed to.
Sudan accuses Ethiopia of helping the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group fighting Sudan’s army in a brutal civil war. Days before the expulsions, Sudan’s army-aligned government complained to the UN Security Council and the African Union. It says the RSF has been allowed to fly suicide drones from Ethiopian soil into Sudan to hit civilian infrastructure and claims to have documented some 70 such attacks. Ethiopia, for its part, accuses Sudan of backing the rebels it is fighting in Tigray. Each government, in other words, says the other is arming its enemies. Sudan insists it is doing everything it can to avoid open war with Ethiopia. That it feels the need to say so tells you how close things have come.
The bigger danger lies to the north, between Ethiopia and Eritrea. When Eritrea became independent in 1993, Ethiopia lost its coastline. It has been landlocked ever since. Most of its trade now goes through the port of Djibouti, where it pays more than $1 billion a year in fees. For a country of some 130 million people with large ambitions, that is both expensive and humiliating. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said repeatedly that access to the sea is a vital national interest. His generals have been blunter. They have called control of Assab, Eritrea’s southern port, a survival interest worth any price.
Eritrea hears all this as a threat to its existence, and it is not paranoid to do so. The two countries fought a bloody border war from 1998 to 2000 where over 100,000 were killed. They became allies of convenience during Ethiopia’s last war in Tigray, from 2020 to 2022, when Eritrean troops fought alongside federal forces. That alliance is now dead. Eritrean soldiers stayed in parts of Tigray after the Pretoria peace deal. When fighting flared again in Tigray in September, Ethiopia said Eritrea had sent troops and mechanized units into its territory. In a letter to the Security Council in October, Ethiopia’s foreign minister called it an “all-out invasion” and said his country had no choice but to defend itself. Ethiopia also accuses Asmara of backing the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the rebel group from Tigray. Eritrea denies all of it. It says Ethiopia has been waging an unprovoked war of aggression for years and that Ethiopia’s talk of the sea amounts to a plan to seize Eritrea’s coast. The two have already severed diplomatic ties.
Why should anyone outside the region care? Because of the Red Sea is the shipping lane that links the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean. Something like a tenth of world trade normally passes through it. It has already been disrupted by Houthi attacks from Yemen. A war over Assab, which sits close to the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the sea’s southern mouth, would put a second fire on the same shipping lane.
Then there is Egypt. Ethiopia expelled an Egyptian diplomat last month and Cairo returned the favor. Relations have long been poisoned by Ethiopia’s giant dam on the Blue Nile, which Egypt fears could choke the water supply on which almost its entire population depends. Addis Ababa now accuses Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea together of supporting the Tigrayan rebels. Whether or not that is true, it shows how Ethiopia sees its position: surrounded.
The outside powers make it worse. The Horn of Africa has become a playing field for the rivalries of the Middle East. Eritrea has drawn closer to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Ethiopia leans towards the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. One wonders how the recent alliance between Saudi Arabia and Turkey will be affected. The UAE’s role is especially striking. During the last Tigray war it reportedly offered Ethiopia armed drones, surveillance and training from its own military base in Assab, which it used as a logistics hub for the war in Yemen. In 2021, satellite images and flight data suggested Emirati cargo planes were ferrying weapons to Addis Ababa. The very port Ethiopia now covets was once a foreign base helping it fight its own citizens. America, meanwhile, lifted sanctions on Eritrea in September to advance its own interests on the Red Sea. Everyone, it seems, has a stake, and almost no one is pushing for calm.
This is how regional wars start. Not with one grand decision, but with several conflicts that slowly bleed into each other. Sudan’s civil war is spilling over Ethiopia’s border. Ethiopia’s war in Tigray is drawing in Eritrea. Ethiopia’s hunger for a port threatens Eritrea’s sovereignty. Egypt’s fears over the Nile give it reason to back anyone who keeps Ethiopia busy. And Gulf money and weapons flow into all of it.
Any one of these quarrels could be managed. All of them at once, with diplomats being expelled rather than talking, is far harder. The Horn of Africa is a mess. It is a dangerous mess. And the rest of the world, which depends on the Red Sea more than it likes to admit, should start paying attention before it becomes a war.
I’m puzzled. If the public is furious over the cost of health care, why has Obamacare escaped the public’s ire? It is also puzzling why republicans didn’t make it a campaign issue to answer all the media buzz about health care affordability. George Will once called the republican party the “dumb party.” This adds more evidence to that statement. Healthcare not affordable? IT’S OBAMA’S FAULT! All the democrats and not a single republican voted for it.
Obamacare premiums spike. In September 2009, then-President Barack Obama delivered a major speech to a joint session of Congress touting the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.
“The plan I’m announcing tonight,” he said, “would meet three basic goals. It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance for those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.”
That was 17 years ago. Next year, insurance plans sold through the health care exchanges erected under the law will increase by an average of 13 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s in line with, but a little higher than, the average increase for employer-sponsored plans, which The New York Times reports will rise by about 10 percent.
As Tyler Cowen notes, there is an inherent political/policy instability in Obamacare. Democrats rarely brag about the law: “It is striking to me how infrequently I hear Democrats boasting about Obamacare,” Cowen writes. “They instead prefer to talk as if little or nothing has been done for America’s uninsured.” You hear a lot about Medicare for All these days, especially from left-leaning Democratic politicians like [Michigan Senate candidate Abdul] El-Sayed.
One reason for this year’s big price increase? The unintended consequence of a law touted as saving patients from surprise medical bills. The law included a provision prohibiting out of network doctors from billing a patient directly. Instead, providers have the option to make a case to an arbitrator approved by the government; if the provider wins, the insurer must pay the bill.
As the Times reported earlier this year: “The law is successfully protecting patients against bills from doctors they never chose. But it has also generated an expensive unanticipated consequence: Doctors have flooded the arbitration system with millions of claims. Most are winning, often collecting fees hundreds of times higher than what they could negotiate with insurers directly or what they could have earned from patients before the law passed.”
So: A law designed to protect people from the high cost of medical care has, instead, contributed to sharp jumps in the cost of medical care.
Perhaps this should be a lesson for those who support Medicare for All.
Here is what republicans should have said: “Obamacare is a disaster, and if you think it is bad, wait for Medicare for All, with the government deciding who gets treatment. The only way for the government to control costs is to ration health care. So-called ‘universal health care’ means long waiting periods, an exodus of physicians, and poor outcomes. Are you sure you want to go there?”
Medicare for All is the pet cause of progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. As Merrill Matthews explained in The Hill in August (“‘Medicare for All’ means Medicare for none”), Sanders has long pushed “to end the nation’s current mix of private health insurance (that is, employer-based and individually purchased) and government-provided health insurance (Medicare and Medicaid) and replace it with a new government-run program. Taxpayers would pay higher taxes — though no one would pay premiums — and the government would pay all medical bills.” I am reminded of what one of my outfitters said on a bear hunt in Canada: “Yes, we have lousy health care, but at least we don’t have to pay for it.” You think?
Matthews also reminds readers of Obama’s promise about Obamacare — the mislabeled “Affordable” Care Act: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” That claim earned PolitiFact’s 2013 “Lie of the Year.” Progressives won’t even make that promise about Medicare for All, because no one would keep their current health plan, including people currently on Medicare.
I don’t think the American people will be as sheeplike as those in Canada and Great Britain and accept a starkly inferior system as the solution to health care affordability. Still, look for democrats in Congress to propose such a plan.
Matthews cites an NBC News poll, taken last December, that found 82 percent of Americans are “satisfied with their health care coverage,” and about 90 percent of seniors are satisfied with theirs. What about Britain, whose government-run National Health Service Matthews argues Medicare for All more closely resembles? Only 26 percent of Britons are satisfied with the way the NHS is run. As Matthews puts it, “we’re going to take a system that has 90 percent satisfaction and abolish it in favor of one that has 26 percent satisfaction.”
To be fair, the comparison isn’t perfectly apples to apples: the American numbers measure how people feel about their own coverage, while the British survey asks how the NHS is run overall. Still, the gap is hard to ignore. If democrats implement such a plan, it will be a sure ticket to a defeat that rivals the one republicans just suffered.
As anticipated, the exodus from the administration has begun. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon is resigning as head of the “Justice” Department’s Civil Rights Division, saying she was asked by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to delay her departure until after the election. Ironically, Wiles followed her out the door the next day and is being replaced by Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff. This is an interesting pick by the president, since Miller has been a lightning rod in the administration. He has been at the forefront of the president’s immigration policy and is an uncompromising Trump loyalist. Despite the president’s words that he will work with the democrats now that they control Congress, Miller’s elevation to chief of staff suggests the opposite. Miller has been with the president since 2016 and is considered the architect of the president’s immigration policies, including ICE enforcement, the Muslim-majority country travel bans, a wall on the southern border and deep cuts to refugee admissions. Steve Bannon, one of the architects of MAGA, crowed, “Miller is a hammer – and we need a hammer now.” Mike Lee (R-UT) said Miller had been “a staunch defender of law and order against illegal invasions and leftist lawlessness.” Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said, “Our country is at a pivotal point and Stephen Miller understands exactly what is at stake.”
Naturally, the left is beside itself. Here are some of the nicest quotes. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said, “For Trump to promote this hatemonger shows he has learned nothing.” Chuck Schumer, reading from the same playbook, said Trump “learned nothing from his historic defeat and couldn’t have made a worse choice” in elevating Miller. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Miller is “a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands.” Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) called Trump’s decision “another kick in the teeth to the American people” and “a sign of Trump’s contempt for the voters.” Gavin Newsom, the outgoing California governor, said Miller was “one of the most vile thugs to ever slither into the Oval Office” and called the move “an insult to every American who voted for change.” So buckle up. It’s going to be an interesting two more years – maybe as interesting as the last two.
Breaking news: Trump names UFC’s Dana White press secretary? Dana White? Trump posted: “I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States.” Violent fighter? Boy I bet the press corps will not ask him any tough questions! BTW, has Trump replaced every woman with a man? Just asking.
Teixeira to Congress
Mark Teixeira, a very good baseball player, won a congressional seat in Texas as a republican!Teixeira played college baseball at Georgia Tech, where he was national collegiate player of the year (I’ll forgive him for playing at Tech). He began his major league career with the Texas Rangers and went on to play for the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Angels before ending his career with the New York Yankees. He was one of the best switch hitters in baseball, finishing with 409 home runs. Injuries probably kept him out of Hall of Fame consideration. He is replacing firebrand Chip Roy, who gave up his House seat to run for Texas attorney general and lost the republican runoff. As one of my readers put it: “We need more baseball players in Congress! Hopefully the union and owners will come to an agreement so we don’t miss any baseball next year. I think the owners should push for much more painful luxury taxes instead of an outright cap, and set a salary floor for each team in return for the players. Seems like a good quid pro quo.” I think that is a great suggestion, and I will pass it on to my granddaughter, who works at Major League Baseball in New York. Probably the greatest baseball player to serve in Congress was Jim Bunning, who represented Kentucky in both the House and the Senate and is in the Hall of Fame.
Market whiplash
What’s with the markets? The day after the election, the markets soared, with the Dow gaining nearly 1,600 points while the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 climbed 1.4% and 1.6%, respectively. Investopedia said: “With its strong majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the party is likely to challenge the Trump administration’s tariff policies and take steps to end the Iran war, which could help tame inflation. The Democrats likely will seek to reverse cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, and to slow Trump’s efforts to rescind regulations. The prospect for big policy changes had a widespread and varied impact on U.S. stocks today.” Normally I like Investopedia, but that last sentence is wrong. Do they really expect that the democrats will force policy changes on the president? Well, his naming Miller as chief of staff belies that notion.
Then, two days after the election, the markets crashed. Oops! Analysts tied the selloff to fears that a democratic Congress would slow the AI boom that had been driving the markets. The Dow closed down more than 1,800 points, and the S&P 500 had its worst day in more than 18 months. “This is a true panic,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors, noting the U.S. faces “a potential regime shift” and a “slowdown in the data center build-out.” After the smoke cleared, the rout had erased about $3 trillion from the S&P 500 and handed the Nasdaq 100 its worst day since the 2020 pandemic.
The president, of course, blamed the “Dumocrats” and posted:
I want to know how finance professors are going to lecture students with a straight face on “market efficiency.”
I’m happy that American voters yesterday expressed, in such a fulsome way, their disapproval of the circus act that is the Trump GOP. But I am not happy that the circus act that is today’s Democratic party has won. Just as Trump mistakenly interpreted Americans’ votes against Kamala Harris as votes for him and his economic-nationalist (and otherwise unprincipled) ‘agenda,’ the Democrats will interpret Americans’ votes against Trump and his lackeys as votes for their economically illiterate ideas and policies.
The GOP must be purged of the MAGA curse. Hopefully, the 2026 midterm slaughter of that party will prove to be the bitter medicine that achieves this exorcism. But no friend of liberty – no economically literate person – no one who understands and is committed to the liberal tradition that gave birth to the American nation – is pleased that the crop of illiberal (and indeed, in some cases openly anti-semitic) economic imbeciles who yesterday were voted into office will soon exercise power.
Disgust with Trump is understandable; I share it. But this disgust does not preclude disgust for what the Democrats will soon try to inflict upon us.
Far from saving Americans from socialism and the whackadoodle, economically illiterate left, Trump has fueled their ascent to power – an ascent so quick and full that it was unimaginable just two years ago. Trump achieved this remarkable, horrible outcome not by doggedly promoting free markets and constitutionally limited government but, instead, in part by revealing repeatedly to the American people that he has no use for such principles – or, indeed, for any principles at all.
The other part of Trump’s contribution to America’s jolt toward collectivists-in-power is his obvious immaturity. No ordinary American would welcome such a clown as a neighbor. Every ordinary American cursed to have such an infantile bully for a neighbor would treat that neighbor as a curse, someone to avoid and to hope will soon move to another town – hopefully one far away.
So, yes, in 2024 Trump ‘had the libs.’ But he, in his juvenile brain, didn’t ‘have the libs’ in order to return America to a principled policy of limited government and free markets. He ‘had the libs’ as a sort of reality-show host selfishly interested only in getting a rise out of people with his ridiculous antics and schoolyard ‘humor.’
If America fifty years from now is as economically moribund as is today’s Europe – not an unthinkable prospect – with property rights held in contempt and bureaucrats intruding into every aspect of Americans’ lives and the Constitution a dead letter, a chief spark for this terrible fate will have been Trump. Fortunately for me, I’ll not be around to witness this calamity.
But, hey, despite the collectivism enabled by Trump – and in no small part practiced by him – Americans in 2076 will have a gargantuan arch at which to gaze. So there’s that.
As of this writing, the democrats have flipped seven Senate seats and are leading in the two races not yet decided. Kansas, Texas, North Carolina, Maine, South Carolina, Ohio and Iowa are official, with Alaska and Mississippi yet to be called. Going somewhat under the radar is Mississippi, which is on the verge of electing not only a democrat but a black democrat: Scott Colom, district attorney of Lowndes County. Colom leads incumbent republican Cindy Hyde-Smith by a razor-thin margin, roughly 1,800 votes in the latest count with the polls officially closed. Mail-in ballots that arrive during the grace period and potentially 10,000 to 15,000 provisional ballots have yet to be counted. Mind you, this is Mississippi we are talking about. This is sweet payback for Colom who was nominated by President Biden to a federal judgeship in the northern district of Mississippi only to have it blocked by Hyde-Smith who cited his support for transgender rights and having received a donation from a PAC funded by George Soros. The last time Mississippi elected a democrat to the Senate was John Stennis in 1982. The last time it elected a black senator was during Reconstruction. Blanche K. Bruce, a republican born into slavery in Virginia, was elected in 1874 and served from 1875 until 1881. Before him, Mississippi elected another black senator, Hiram Revels, also a republican, in 1870. Again, this race (no pun intended) has been almost totally ignored. One would have thought the leftist media would have highlighted it.
Also completely under the radar was the Senate race in Louisiana, where republican Rep. Julia Letlow barely squeaked by black farmer Jamie Davis. Letlow beat incumbent Bill Cassidy in the primary after Trump turned on Cassidy for voting to convict him in his second impeachment trial (dumb on Cassidy’s part) and endorsed Letlow. Letlow beat Davis by only 50.9% to 49.1%, a margin of just under 26,000 votes. Davis’s only previous elective experience was a single term on the Tensas Parish Police Jury and a seat on the Louisiana Democratic Party’s state central committee. He farms his family farm of about 3,200 acres of corn, cotton and soybeans in Tensas Parish and neighboring parishes. Davis campaigned on improving affordability for all, from healthcare to housing. I thought Davis had a chance given the anger among Louisiana’s black voters over losing their second majority-minority district. Maybe I was the only one outside of Louisiana who found this race interesting, because it was almost completely ignored.
As expected, former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper defeated republican Michael Whatley. But, dramatically, democrats won 10 of the state’s 14 congressional seats, according to unofficial results (before the election, they held only four of the 14), and flipped the state House. In Maine, Susan Collins lost to Troy Jackson. I suspect that even if Graham Platner had remained in the race, he would have won. In Maine this year, a ham sandwich could have beaten Collins, and in essence it did. Jackson finished third in the democrat primary for governor, so his consolation prize was the U.S. Senate. In Texas, weird James Talarico beat ethically challenged Ken Paxton, and the democrats flipped the state House. In a monumental upset, ousted Greg Abbott from the governorship. Gina Hinojosa will be the new governor. Given the Texas results, I that even if John Cornyn had been the republican candidate, he would have lost. It was pretty stupid of that state’s republicans not to loudly tell Trump to cool it with ICE actions in Texas. Nothing says defeat more than ticking off one of your state’s largest constituencies. In Kansas, incumbent Roger Marshall was beaten by Adam Hamilton, a former megachurch pastor. Also under the radar is that the democrat religious left will have two senators in Talarico and Hamilton. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the Senate. Iowa elected Josh Turek, a state representative, who beat Rep. Ashley Hinson. The incumbent republican, Joni Ernst, did not seek reelection. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown is back! Two years after losing his seat to Bernie Moreno, Brown defeated incumbent Jon Husted, becoming only the seventh former senator since 1946 to lose his seat and then return to the Senate in a later election.
Only two results surprised me. The first is Michigan, where democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated former republican congressman Mike Rogers and will be the first Muslim U.S. senator. I had thought El-Sayed would lose for two reasons. First, black voters had not heretofore supported a socialist candidate and had voted for Haley Stevens in the primary. Second, I thought that, given El-Sayed’s open hostility toward Israel and antisemitism, he would lose the Jewish vote. The other race was in South Carolina, where I thought Darline Graham Nordone would win simply by being a republican. She lost to Annie Andrews, a 45-year-old pediatrician who had expressed emphatic support for transgender people. This is one loss I put squarely on President Trump. Graham Nordone had no business being on the ballot. Trump endorsed her and campaigned in the state for her. Rep. Ralph Norman would have been a far stronger candidate. Graham Nordone had been appointed to replace her brother, Lindsey Graham, after his death in July, and at first was thought to be a placeholder. I guess the brief stay in Washington was intoxicating enough for her to declare for the seat, facing Norman in the primary. Trump’s endorsement got her through that election even though she was embarrassingly bad at addressing the issues.
So the democrats have control of the Senate. What does that mean?
Question: What does the Senate do?
Answer: Together with the House, the Senate passes federal laws, sets federal budgets and declares war. On its own, it approves treaties, confirms presidential appointments such as judges and cabinet members, and conducts impeachment trials of federal officials.
What will this Senate do? Very little aside from rejecting presidential appointees and conducting impeachment trials. Remember, we have been here before. The democrats flipped the House in the 2018 midterms, and all it did was investigate Trump and impeach him – twice. This time it will be more of the same, with the same outcome. The Senate may end up with 56 democrats (counting the independents who caucus with them), but 67 votes are needed to convict in an impeachment trial.
Actually, what I expect is significant legislation to come from the House dealing with healthcare, housing, financial reform and accountability for the Trump administration. And I expect the president to veto all of it.
What would be interesting is to see whether the democrats move to codify Trump’s excursion into his neosocialism. Here we could see more government ownership of companies in the name of national security, or even the nationalization of, say, the rare earth minerals industry. What will be especially interesting is to see what happens to AI, whose data centers were an under-the-radar issue in the election. I suspect that the democrats will try to stop Trump’s actions against the universities, DEI and transgender rights. Also look for laws governing immigration – in particular legal immigration – and the funding of academic research.
It will also be interesting to see if there is a change in Senate leadership. Virtually all of the new democrat senators have called for new leadership. Recall that none of them wanted Chuck Schumer to campaign for them. Send money, yes, but campaign, no. Who is likely to challenge Schumer. Kalsi, the prediction market says Brian Schatz, Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen and Cory Booker are the leading alternatives. Look for Booker because the democrats would love to have a black Senate majority leader as well as a black House speaker.
The democrats winning the House was expected. Even a wide margin was anticipated, but not this wide. In anticipation of the change in the House, Hakeem Jeffries put together five working groups: healthcare, housing, groceries and consumer goods, gas and utilities, and caregiving. I would presume that Medicare for All will be front and center. We will see legislation from each of the working groups that will eventually be sent to the Senate for passage and to the president to be vetoed. Any presidential veto will be used as campaign fodder for the democrats in the presidential election two years hence: “Here is our agenda, and we need a democrat president to implement it.” I think it significant that all of the working groups are on domestic issues rather than foreign policy. Perhaps those are left to the Senate.
Here are the Senate’s most important committees and the likely changes in their chairmanships:
With Ben Cardin (D-MD) retired and ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) leaving the Senate, the Foreign Relations gavel will likely go to one of the committee’s senior democrats, such as Chris Coons (D-DE). Only Whitehouse and Sanders label themselves as “progressive” although all have strong progressive tendences.
So buckle up. These will be interesting times – and remember, the saying “May you live in interesting times” is a curse.
Coda: BTW ICYMI, Across the old Confederate south. South Carolina will have a black senator and a woman senator. Georgia will have a black senator, a Jewish senator and a woman governor. Florida will have a black governor and a woman senator. Alabama has a woman senator and a woman governor. Mississippi has a woman senator and may soon have a black senator. Louisiana will have a woman senator. Texas will have a Latina governor. Tennessee will have a woman governor.
Question: What does the House of Representatives do? Answer: the House introduces and votes on bills, drafts budget and appropriations legislation, conducts investigations, and initiates impeachment proceedings against federal officials.
Question: What will the new House do? Answer: the House will introduce and vote on bills that will not become law, drafts budget and appropriations legislation that will not be adopted, conducts investigations, and initiates impeachment proceedings against federal officials that will fail to get a conviction in the Senate.
Blue wave? Blue tsunami? Just call it a riot. At this writing the democrats have won 228 seats in the House with a net gain of 25 and are leading in 35 more.
All spending bills originate in the House. A democrat victory in the House effectively stalls Trump’s domestic legislative agenda, leaving his administration to rely on executive orders. Hakeem Jeffries, who will become Speaker of the House (I refuse to call him “THE FIRST BLACK SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE”), has pledged to immediately unleash subpoena power to investigate administration corruption, foreign policy decisions in Iran, and the personal financial enrichment of the Trump family. He will also blame Trump for what has happened to diesel fuel prices. This is Trump’s doing (not Zelenskyy’s) and only a fool would think otherwise.
The anger against Trump has been compounded by the taint of corruption and the use of the presidency to enrich himself and his family. His personal fortune, has surged from $2.3 billion in 2024 to $6.5 billion, not to mention the fortunes of his family and cronies like Howard Lutnick.
Jeffries and the democrat House will immediately assert control over the federal purse strings in an attempt to thwart Trump’s remaking of DC. Michael Steele says that “Congress will freeze money on projects like tearing down the East Wing for Trump’s ballroom, and they’ll reassert oversight over the Kennedy (ne: Trump) Center,” adding, “Trump is effectively a lame duck now. The rest of the country knows his time is coming to an end.” But a democrat House without the presidency has zero legislative power. So the democrat agenda will be two fold. The House will go after Trump, his cabinet, and his family. It will be a circus, and one that the public will likely turn against. All the while, the Senate will reject all his nominees (so said Sherrod Brown who will return to the Senate from Ohio).
But what will Trump do? Will he continue to lash out at everyone and everything? Will he become more belligerent and act like a cornered animal, or will he try to act more like a bipartisan leader and less like a lone wolf?
Trump, to put it mildly has blown it. Instead of solidifying the coalition that elected him, he has worked hard to tear it apart. Hispanics supported him in unprecedented numbers, and now they have rejected him because of his ham-fisted approach to immigration. When I was hunting near Eagle Pass, Texas, the Hispanic residents supported his efforts to close Biden’s open borders. Illegals were overrunning their towns and straining their resources. It looked as though the republicans would sweep the five congressional districts in South Texas. But not now.
Economics is the main driving factor in Hispanic support. Trump’s deportation policies have contributed massively to the magnitude of the defections, and they are Trump’s alone. Republicans can regain Hispanic support if they concentrate on economics while keeping the border secure rather than alienating Hispanic voters by raiding homes and deporting those who have settled here and made a life for themselves. Yes, I understand the basic principle that entering illegally is a criminal activity but one must face reality at some time just like Ronald Reagan.
The Democrats are guaranteed to overplay their hand. They will lose the Hispanic vote if they reopen the border and let the hordes back in.
Voters directly attribute their economic misery to this president just like Biden before him. One observer said “There’s a very clear line between his actions and the things people don’t like.” “It’s going to be the tariffs and it’s going to be the war: both self-inflicted wounds. He didn’t have to raise tariffs; that was his theory of the world, which turned out to be wrong. Bombing nuclear sites in Iran was one thing, but going to all-out war turned out to be a mistake.”
What about the House committees? Who will take over as chair of the most important committees?
Jamie Raskin (D-MD) openly despises Trump. Although he is in line to chair the House Oversight Committee, he is expected to chair the Judiciary Committee instead because Jerry Nadler is retiring. Robert Garcia (D-CA) is expected to chair the House Oversight Committee. Garcia just told the republicans to “lawyer up.” So expect a flood of subpoenas and impeachment proceedings. Raskin was the lead impeachment manager for the Democrats in the second impeachment of President Trump over the January 6th events.
Garcia is an outspoken progressive. He supports initiatives aimed at providing healthcare access to all citizens. He champions laws to regulate ammunition sales and address gun violence. Garcia works to expand pathways to citizenship for undocumented residents. As chair of the House Oversight Committee, he will have considerable power. Here is what Wikipedia says about that committee:
“The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee’s broad jurisdiction and legislative authority make it one of the most influential and powerful panels in the House. Its chair is one of only three in the House with the authority to issue subpoenas without a committee vote or consultation with the ranking member.”
Richard Neal (D-MA) is a “moderate” who defeated a progressive challenger from his left in the primary. Neal, 77, has been in Congress for nearly four decades and is the top democrat on the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. His 39-year-old challenger ran on a platform that included Medicare for All, higher taxes on the wealthy, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a pledge to reject campaign contributions from corporate PACs. His opponent cast Neal as a representative of the democrat establishment unwilling to take on wealthy interests and corporate power. The challenger lost.
Adam Smith (D-WA), unlike his namesake, is a card-carrying progressive with policy positions totally in line with those of Bernie Sanders and his ilk. Here are just a few of his positions:
For affordable housing expansion;
For forcing private equity to divest from single-family homes;
For financial transaction taxes; co-sponsors the Wall Street Tax Act to tax high-volume financial transactions;
Against Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs;
For subsidized child care;
For protecting SNAP benefits; opposes GOP efforts to cut SNAP for veterans, seniors, and working families;
For raising the federal minimum wage to $20/hour;
For a minimum tax rate on large corporations and ending corporate stock buybacks;
For paid family leave;
For universal healthcare;
For protecting ACA subsidies and Medicaid;
For drug price controls;
For due process protections for terrorism detainees on U.S. soil;
For protecting vote-by-mail systems;
For immigration enforcement officer identification requirements.
Jim Himes (D-CT) is the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the House Financial Services Committee. Himes was one of ten democrats in Congress who joined all of the Republicans in voting to censure democrat congressman Al Green for interrupting Trump’s State of the Union Address. He was one of 95 democrats in Congress who joined all of their republican colleagues in voting to honor the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk. He voted against the Stupak-Pitts Amendment in the Affordable Health Care for America Act, which would have prevented federal funds from paying for any health care plan with abortion coverage. He opposed the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. But he supported a 2026 renewal of Section 702 of FISA, allowing the government to surveil American citizens and residents while abroad. Importantly, Himes voted in favor of the republican resolution to condemn socialism. In explaining his vote, Himes said that the second Trump administration was “the most socialist administration in two and a half centuries,” citing Trump’s initiatives to take stakes in various private companies. Not surprisingly, Himes was denounced by the Connecticut chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America for this vote.
Frank Pallone (D-NJ) is no progressive. Like Richard Neal, he also survived primary challenges from two progressives. Pallone has been in Congress for 38 years, having first been elected in 1988. Pallone is one of Congress’ most outspoken critics of Trump. Pallone was a leader in the fight to pass the Inflation Reduction Act and instrumental in the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, Pallone played a key role in authoring and passing the Affordable Care Act. He will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee – the oldest continuous standing committee in the House, which has one of the broadest jurisdictions of any congressional committee. The Committee’s jurisdiction includes, but is not limited to, issues pertaining to health care, energy, environment, commerce, food and drug safety, consumer protection, and communications and technology. It will be interesting to see his interaction with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
So look for House democrats to do all they can to un-Trump America. It will be a zoo. Look for many in the administration to head for the exits. It should be entertaining theatre.
Driving down to the farm I listened to Fox News to hear their analysis. Note: I hardly ever listen to the news and listening to Fox reinforced my good judgment. There was a lot of handwringing and virtually no analysis. They acted as though 7 card carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America spelled doom for the country as if they forgot about the other House democrats who are not (overt) socialists. In fact, one silver lining is that the democrat margin in the House is so large that the DSA members have diminished power – much less than in the current Congress. If the margin were thin like now, they would have a greater sway than they will in the new congress.
Fox News proclaimed Byron Donalds THE FIRST BLACK GOVERNOR OF A SOUTHERN STATE. And completely ignored Keisha Lance Bottoms. They did not mention the rejection of the MAHA advocates who were paid campaign visits by Robert Kennedy, Jr. Roger Marshall lost his Senate seat in Kansas. Zach Lahn in Iowa who could barely muster up 45 percent of the vote. All three representatives lost: Tom Barrett. In Michigan, Gabe Evans in Colorado and Derrick Vab Orden in Wisconsin.
Aside from the new socialists in the House, they completely ignored that chamber. Fox failed to mention that the gerrymandering in Texas and Florida flopped with democrats actually gaining a seat in Texas and winning three of the four gerrymandered seats in Florida. On the other hand, California’s was successful with democrats taking all five new districts.
But in the end, this was a decisive repudiation of Trump, his policies – foreign and domestic, his tariffs, his war on Iran and his in your face lining of his own purse. The president said to vote as if he were on the ballot, and the voters did.
Note: At this writing, the election looks like a nationwide repudiation of the president with the democrats winning the House and in somewhat of a surprise the Senate with flips in Texas, Maine and South Carolina. Also Keisha Lance Bottoms is the next governor of Georgia. Full analysis will follow later when all the results are in for the House and the Senate.
But now: Intel
Under President Trump, our neosocialist president, Washington is now a shareholder in roughly 40 companies and counting. You know the drill: it’s all for national security. Chips should be made, and rare earth minerals mined, here, not in Taiwan or China – heaven forbid. The CHIPS Act was the catalyst. On October 22, 2026, the Commerce Department signed letters of intent for up to $389 million in CHIPS Act research awards to four private companies. As a condition of each award, the Commerce Department takes “a minority, non-controlling, non-voting equity stake.” Helion gets up to $175 million, Commonwealth Fusion Systems $85 million, Vertical Semiconductor $73 million, and Sibelco up to $56 million.
The government paid $8.9 billion for a 9.9% stake in Intel that was worth roughly $40.6 billion at Intel’s October 27 closing price. The government also holds a five-year warrant to buy another 5% at $20 a share, but only if Intel’s ownership of its foundry business falls below 51%. The stake was funded with the remaining $5.7 billion in grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, plus $3.2 billion awarded to the company under the Secure Enclave program.
On September 19, 2025, the president posted on Truth Social an AI-generated image of himself trading Intel stock while sitting inside the White House. He probably was not actually trading the stock; more likely, he was trying to encourage investors to buy Intel shares. The image showed him at the Oval Office desk with the text “Bought Intel at $20” and “Intel now at $30.” Was Trump taking credit for Intel’s recent stock surge? When the Trump administration acquired its stake in Intel in August 2025, it agreed to purchase 433.3 million primary shares at $20.47 apiece, a 9.9% stake in the company. That explains the “Bought Intel at $20” in the image.
Furthermore, the stock had surged nearly 23% on Thursday, September 18, to close at $30.57, which explains “Intel now at $30.” That jump, however, was driven by Nvidia’s announcement that day of a $5 billion investment in Intel.
A month earlier, when the deal was announced on August 22, 2025, President Trump had crowed: “The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL.”
He returned to the theme this fall. In early September 2026, with Intel having just closed at $95.80, the president posted a nearly identical AI-generated image of himself at the Resolute Desk, this time reading “BOUGHT: INTEL $20” and “NOW $95,” along with a claim that he had made “Hundreds of Billions of Dollars” for America.
So what does the president say now that Intel has lost nearly 29 percent of its value in a single day? Does he take credit for that? On Friday, October 30, a sell-off in tech stocks wiped out more than $1 trillion in value as investors finally grew nervous about the enormous costs of the AI craze, wondering whether there will be enough profit to justify them.
Alphabet had led the way the day before, shedding about $500 billion in value on Thursday, but Alphabet is a roughly $4 trillion company. In percentage terms, Intel’s plunge was one of the biggest. Intel fell nearly 29 percent even though it reported a stronger quarterly profit than the market had anticipated. A day later it fell another 9 percent. The drop came because its forecast for the final three months of the year fell far short of analysts’ expectations. Intel guided fourth-quarter revenue to $15 billion to $16 billion, against the roughly $17 billion analysts were looking for, and adjusted earnings of 25 cents a share, well below the 43-cent consensus.
So much for forward guidance! Recall that Kevin Warsh, over at the Fed, has forsworn forward guidance. This is precisely why. If you tell the market what to expect, you gain nothing when you hit the target. If you exceed it, the stock price goes up. But if you miss it, you get hammered. Intel got hammered. I wonder what the president has to say now that the plunge has knocked about $12 billion off the value of the taxpayers’ stake. (Even so, at Friday’s close of $65.76 a share, the stake is still worth more than three times the $8.9 billion the government paid.)
The decline in the company’s share value has also sparked discussions, memes, and criticism about the financial risks of government investment. But that is old news, something we all knew already. The government has no business picking winners and losers, but it always does.
The irony is that Intel’s business itself is booming: revenue in Intel’s data center unit grew 78% from a year earlier. It was the weak fourth-quarter outlook that sank the stock, handing Intel its worst day since 1974 and wiping out roughly $140 billion of its market value on Friday.
Drama in Michigan and election news from around the world
Drama in Michigan
Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost to Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic primary for the Senate, has endorsed Republican Mike Rogers. Maybe we saw it coming, as Stevens had only lukewarmly endorsed El-Sayed, and in a backhanded way at that. In the campaign, El-Sayed had linked all of Michigan’s domestic ills to US aid to Israel. Stevens called it antisemitic. El-Sayed accused Stevens of “relitigating a primary that ended three months ago” and ended up telling her to stay away from a “unity” rally. BTW, how can El-Sayed have a “unity” rally without Stevens? Well, Stevens responded: “Our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Abdul, said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away, and he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today.” I am certain that the Michigan democrat leadership, who probably agree with her, will declare her persona non grata and try to force her out of the party. All I can say is that it is refreshing to find a politician who cares more about her state and the country than about her own political future. You go, girl!
Of course, national democrats, who care more about their own power than about the country, continued to show support for El-Sayed. Senate Minority Leader Chuck (where’s Chuck?) Schumer said, “Senate Democrats are united in our support for Abdul El-Sayed, because we know he will fight for the economic interests of working families in Michigan, unlike Mike Rogers, who is a tool of Donald Trump and billionaire donors.” Which, of course, is different from the democrats, who are tools of their own billionaire donors.
Now around the world
Serbia
Maybe the French students are looking with envy at what just happened in Serbia, where a student-led coalition just toppled the government. I am reminded of the dog chasing the car — what would the dog do if it caught it? The Serbian student group called Student List swept the polls with over 50% of the vote. Long-serving President Aleksandar Vučić conceded the historic defeat for his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and will step down. But to whom? Student List is officially leaderless.
The Guardian reports: “This political shift dismantles state capture and centralised control in the largest economy of the Western Balkans. Now that the Student List will occupy the majority of seats in parliament, it will likely be able to rapidly form a government and try to combat the endemic corruption within Serbian state institutions, which drove so many voters to the polls. Geopolitically, the victory could be read as a modest shift away from pro-Kremlin posturing toward European integration, as over 75% of the Student List’s supporters favour aligning with the European Union.”
After 14 years in power, Vučić was defeated at the polls by a movement with “no single leader” and “no charismatic figure,” and with no clear name designated to be elected prime minister. Student List won the elections “purely on the strength of their promise to turn the page” on Vučić, rather than on a coherent platform. In other words, you can actually defeat someone with no one. In the elections, Student List fielded 250 candidates — ironically, none of them students.
Israel
In the Israeli elections, Netanyahu did not win, but he wasn’t defeated either. His bloc won 53 seats, while the opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot won 48. Since neither won a majority, Israel’s Arab-led parties, which won a historic 19 seats, may play a decisive role in forming a new government. “May” because neither of the other two blocs are actually embracing the Arabs. It will be interesting to see which bloc will seek out the Arab parties and whether such a coalition can hold together, regardless of who ultimately puts together a government. For Israel’s Arab citizens, the election provided an opportunity to express their frustration with worsening living conditions, increased racism, and the situations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Any coalition will prove challenging. During the campaign, opposition figures repeatedly insisted that they would not govern with the Arab parties. But now that the results are in Eisenkot has said that any potential coalition with Arab parties would be that they have to recognize that Israel is a Jewish state, accept conscription, and denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization. Islamist Ra’am with its eight seats has indicated that it might join with Eisenkot but never with Netanyahu. However, Joint List with its eleven seats says it has no intention of joining such a government.
But universally, the Arabs want a change at the top. Netanyahu and his allies used racist portrayals to claim that Israeli Arabs supported the October 7 attacks. Does this mean that some will try to form a Zionist-only government, excluding the Arab parties? Netanyahu accused them of attempting to sabotage the state, while he also accused unnamed foreign agents (Qatar) of “stealing” the election. Portraying Israeli Arabs, who are citizens of Israel, as secret agents seeking to destroy their own country certainly isn’t helpful in trying to cobble together a government.
I guess Netanyahu will head a caretaker government, which will leave him in power as the country devolves into an endless stream of elections with similar results.
Venezuela
Likely causing Trump some heartburn is the return of Nobel laureate María Corina Machado to the country. While Trump supports the old Maduro regime he put into place, Machado is back demanding democratic reforms. Trump wants to maintain the status quo while he seeks the country’s oil. But Machado injects grassroots momentum into demands for a clear, binding electoral calendar, judicial reforms, and the release of political prisoners. Will her supporters take to the streets to demand the ouster of Delcy Rodríguez and her allies — who were once all Maduro’s allies? Machado drew massive crowds, as tens of thousands of supporters gathered along the highway to celebrate her return. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has laid out the details of the political transition back to democracy, including a new electoral commission, reform of the Supreme Court, and, eventually, presidential elections. My bet is that Machado (actually, María Corina) would prefer presidential elections to be first on that list rather than last. What will Trump do? Her presence will cause tensions to rise and could lead to disruptive protests and anti-government demonstrations. Ultimately, it might even endanger Trump’s ambitions toward Venezuelan oil.
Brazil
In somewhat of an upset, the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula), pulled out a victory against Trump favorite Flávio Bolsonaro, who immediately fled the country for Miami, fearing imprisonment (like his father). Trump, of course, called the election rigged, while Bolsonaro declared himself the victor and, I guess, will rule from Miami rather than Brasília.
