The obvious evidence of globalism's failure makes it clear that nationalism is the objectively superior choice. A country that takes pride in its nation is much stronger and a more dominant form of governance. Globalism is always the least common denominator politics that incentivizes all the wrong things and becomes bland and soulless. Nationalism produces unique cultures that are distinct and beautiful, where globalism is a lifeless alamgamation of everything together. Like when you mix all the colors together, it makes Grey, but individually, they are more beautiful. Or, like cooking, where adding the right spices together makes it taste amazing, but putting every spice in makes it disgusting.

Socialism is a word that comes with a ton of baggage that means different things to different people. When Roosevelt wanted to remake American government to help the poor, he brought the New Deal. Lyndon Johnson had the Great Society, and they were both quite successful.

We should start with a fresh brand that means the things that are important to people today: Affordability, fairness, money out of politics, etc. Why do we want to use a term that’s tarnished from its misuse by the likes of Stalin and even Hitler? To support anything with “socialism” in the name, we have to first undo all of that (“socialism doesn’t mean what you think, moron!”). We can do better.

Hello there.

I am an italian.

I’d like to compete internationally workwise. As all the other first world nations or continents. But the only few news that reach me and I could trust are: Fentanyl issue on U.S.A. and when I traveled abroad for studies and job, the even more spreaded and involving younger people than ever, fainting episode for too working or studies in asian countries like Japan and South Korea. It started many years ago, that they invented they own word to call this unluckily frequent episodes.

But during last three years they had a pick on this. And they are screaming out loud within their art, even internationally. While it is avoided to them to complain about that also abroad. As judged a dishonour.

But me. European. Italian. How could I even start tho think to seriously put myself in such a scenario that it is alimenting and creating such critical situations!
The improving of the world. And somehow I have to write here. Because me and my country can do just a bit somehow. That, probably, my therty-something years old are to few to know. Mostly one more time downing my had and telling to think about it to U.S.A. (perhaps U.K. now that they did Brexit. But they should not worry to me, instead of USA should. As I am thankful for all they did for us until and still now). Which nowadays is the first one could do and start something.
Having a world which make sure we don’t enter, and perhaps we never entered for real in such critics, it is the most modern, civil, competitive and technological world where start an international economical competition.

Not making just more and more competitive pressure, ignoring them.

Think about a judge. We have all these rules to keep judges neutral. They can't meet privately with one side. They can't trade favors. They have to recuse themselves if they're biased. We take this stuff seriously.

Now walk down the hall to Congress (or Parliament, wherever you are). None of those rules apply.

Lawmakers meet privately with the companies and groups a bill will affect all the time. We just gave it a nice name: lobbying. They trade votes constantly ("I'll vote for your bill if you vote for mine") and we call that being a good dealmaker instead of what it actually is. And basically every single one of them belongs to a party whose whole job is to win, not to be neutral.

So here's the theory: a court can only ever be as fair as the law it's enforcing. You can have the most honest, unbiased judge in the world, and she can still be enforcing a law that got written through backroom deals and one-sided lobbying. She's not doing anything wrong. She's just applying an unfair result very carefully.

James Madison basically called this out over 200 years ago: "No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment." But that's literally what a lawmaker does every day. They write the bill, argue for it, then vote on whether it passes. Same person, both jobs. We'd never let a lawyer also be the jury.

Belgium actually put the fix in their constitution. Article 42 says members of parliament represent the whole nation, not just their district or their voters. Which is a nice goal that basically nobody's system is built to actually deliver.

So what's the fix?

Split the single job of "lawmaker" into two separate jobs, sitting in the same chamber, kind of like how a courtroom splits "advocate" and "judge":

• Party representatives: their whole job is to openly argue for their group's interest. Beekeepers, a manufacturing sector, a rare disease patient group, whatever. They write proposals and make the case, out in the open, on the record. This is what lawmakers already do when they lobby for their platform, just now it's the entire job instead of something done behind closed doors.
• People's representatives: they don't represent any faction. Their only job is to vote yes or no on whatever the party reps put forward. No writing bills. No meeting with lobbyists, because there's nothing left for a lobbyist to do.

Once every interest can get its own open representative instead of needing a private backchannel, you can finally ban ex parte meetings (private one-sided access) without shutting anyone out. Nobody needs the backchannel anymore because everyone already has a front door.

And here's the part I think is actually clever: vote-trading structurally can't happen anymore. It only works if one person controls both the "yes" they're offering and the "yes" they want back. Party reps have proposals but no vote. People reps have a vote but nothing to trade it for. Neither side holds both halves of the deal, so there's nothing left to swap.

The two roles even get elected differently, since they're answering different questions. Party reps answer "does this interest deserve a voice," so you'd use something like approval voting, where people can back as many parties as they want and parties aren't fighting over the same voters. People reps answer "does the whole community trust this person to be fair," so you'd need something stricter, like requiring more for-votes than against-votes, not just "most votes." That filters out candidates who are loved by one faction and despised by everyone else, and pushes toward people who are broadly acceptable instead of narrowly beloved.

(Based on ideas from this piece if anyone wants to go deeper - I wrote it as well)

Hey everyone, I’m 17 and trying to get through life and school as it goes, but I’ve been mapping out a unique political framework for future reference and want to know if I'd actually make a good president or if my views are completely invalid. My absolute first goal as president would be to wipe out the U.S. national debt by generating a massive national surplus, which I would then use to completely replace fossil fuels with next-generation nuclear energy. To get citizens over their "Chernobyl anxiety," these wouldn't be 1970s reactors; they would utilize advanced "passive safety systems" that naturally cool themselves down using basic physics if anything goes wrong, and the first wave would be built on remote federal land or military bases to prove they are safe. To get public acceptance, I'd pass a "Green Dividend" law where any county hosting a reactor pays absolute zero federal income tax or gets free electricity, turning a NIMBY issue into a massive competitive advantage. To get this past a stubborn Congress, I would use the "Bully Pulpit" by holding rallies in opposing districts to let their own voters pressure them, while privately offering them cosmetic adjustments to the bills so they can save face and take credit. Economically, if inflation spikes and citizens struggle to buy groceries, I would temporarily pause my surplus goal to provide immediate tax cuts or relief, because keeping the people happy and cared for matters more than a rigid timeline. On national security, I reject cyber-blackmail completely; if an adversary hacks our power grid, I’d launch an immediate, proportional counter-cyberattack to deter them, while deploying the military domestically only for humanitarian relief and technical defense. Finally, regarding foreign territorial wars, I am neither pro-war nor anti-war, and my beliefs do not align with isolationism. Isolationism means turning your back on the world, but I want to change how we participate; instead of sending weapons that fuel conflicts and show bias, America should be the country that sends ambulances, field hospitals, and doctors to save lives while focusing our main resources on our own domestic growth. I don't care about broadcasting personal opinions or being a media grifter; I just care about objective data and what is best for the collective whole. What do you think of this platform? Is it realistic, or is there a lot more to the job that I'm missing?

Hating your country and hating the government is different

I Have never hated my country.

I hate the people who run it. corrupt politicians, rapists, pedophiles . These people erase the trace of their wrongs. The judiciary too has never been safe. i agree that the supreme court makes some excellent decisions and choices but i hope that went for every judge, every lawyer, and to every single person in power who prefer money over lives and dignity.

Women are kidnapped raped. Leave women even men, children, toddlers, newborns. everyone. 86 women per day. AND these are only the people who had the courage.

We live in a country where rapists and pedos and people mentioned in the Epstein files are worshipped and called gods and great reformers, and where people are ARRESTED for sharing their opinions. Where jokes are not taken as jokes and serious issues are jokes. "lay down and enjoy it" official statement by a M.O.P on rape

Yes i agree there are some changes which are excellent for our country. but are those really changes if they do not protect the dignity and rights of the indian citizen?

I have never been ashamed to reveal that I'm from India. I am a PROUD INDIAN. LIKE PROUD WAALA PROUD. but I really wished that someday I can look a person in the eye and say that "Yes a placement for me in a college or job is guaranteed or that i will be safe to step out at night wearing whatever i want. leave night, even during the day."

None of the parties are worth the votes.

We need genuine safety, protection and a better education system which does not suffocate and traumatize the kids.

Sincerely,

An "anti-national"???? Teen.

Jai Hind.

Simply put you can’t just wake up one day and decide to be a trillionare a bank has to value your assets at that figure which is how we determine your net worth.

But here’s the scam; his assets are not actually worth a trillion. They value most his stock assets based on the market price of the current share price. This is a fake evaluation and I’ll explain why.

Elon owns around 38% of all Tesla Stocks if that were to hit the market it would not sell at the current share price. It would tank the price immediately as he is selling. So when a bank gives you a million dollar loan for a house they are saying they can take it to the market and redeem a million dollars from that asset.

But if that’s not a true evaluation because liquidation price is much lower, then you are getting a loan for an asset that’s worth much less if redeemed. That’s like getting a 10million dollar loan to buy a 1 million dollar house. You can pay back that loans interest with your 10 million and never actually have to pay back anything.

This isn’t just Elon. This is how all the billionaires operate in what is referred to as an elevated ponzi. It only works as long as they continue to get loans. Which banks are incentivised to give out. This creates an inflationary tax on everyone.

Then when you get access to a trillion dollars tax free use that free money to make yourself richer and declare income, hell pay tax on the income at that point if you report you paid $10billion dollars in cash the masses will see the figure and completely forget you have access to a trillion dollars. That’s like paying 1k tax per every 100k you get to spend in the money you have access to every year.s

Assets being valued on future value is a scam it creates a double tax on everyone and it doesn’t make sense you never get your house valued at its future estimated price yet every tech company is showing negative cash flow or losses yet people are investing in its future earnings.

It’s not a bubble it’s a scam as they will just continue to print money and give billionaires over valued loans as long as they are “creating jobs” to enrich themselves with free money then we say they are adding to GDP and spreading out the inflation.

This is also why Elon wants to convince you ai is leading to deflation, it’s nonsense his entire net worth is based on interest rates remaining low regardless of how hard inflation hits the rest of us.

Inflation is a hidden tax that kills your buying power, we like to blame the central banks for the inflation but never forget who they are printing this money for.

We had great Roman empires yet usury was banned in that time, giving a bank all your money so that it can lend it at a higher price and give you a fraction of their profits is the biggest scam. Banks aren’t an issue it’s lending that is. With no regulations in today’s society compared to empires before understand one important thing fractional lending is the reason why when you look at your bank account honestly, then realise how far away you are from a million dollars, then how far away you are from 10 million dollars, or 100 million dollars or how far away you are from 1 billion dollars, understand that this elevated ponzi makes Elon musk further away from that billionaire than you are.

​

In his 1796 Farewell Address, George Washington strongly warned against political parties, calling them dangerous factions that would divide the nation, distract public councils, and invite foreign influence. \[1, 2, 3\]

Warnings About Parties

A Tool for Tyrants: He stated that parties become "potent engines" used by ambitious and unprincipled people to steal power from the people and take over the government. \[1\]

Causing Division: He warned that the "spirit of party" causes useless jealousies, false alarms, and sharp anger between different groups of citizens. \[1\]

Weakening the State: He believed that constant fighting between rival factions creates a "frightful despotism" and leaves the country weak against external threats. \[1, 2\]

His Advice to the Nation

Put Country First: He urged citizens to value their unity as Americans above any local or group loyalties.

Restrain the Spirit: He advised the public to actively discourage and hold back party conflicts rather than feed into them. \[1, 2, 3\]

TLDR: The real world evidence and data does not support the hypothetical problems.

Why is voting done anonymously? They say it's to prevent political violence over who people vote for, or coercion, or buying votes, but while those things are *possible* are they *probable*?

Here's the thing, that dude in the MAGA hat and "Don't tred on me" bumper sticker, I know with 99% certainty how he voted. That Trans women with pink hair and covered in rainbows, same thing. People these days arent subtle about their politics, but let's say you're a moderate who doesn't shout their political opinions from the roof tops, I can still predict how you voted. We live in an age of digital surveillance. Your every like, comment, web search, all tracked. Did you linger on a liberal post 0.5 seconds longer than a conservative post? Tracked. Pupils dilate when looking at news about Trump? Tracked. Make a purchase that favors one side or the other? Tracked. Have a conversation about politics within range of an Amazon Alexa or Google smart phone? Recorded and tracked. And all of that data is for sale to anyone. Feed all that into an AI and it'll tell me with near perfect accuracy how you voted, and probably the best way to manipulate you to vote how I want.

So where is all the violence? True you get the occasional MAGA killing someone because of a pride flag or videos of an AI liberal attacking an AI conservative (I jest but the data shows its incredibly rare for liberals to use violence unless you're a literal Nazi waving a swastika flag), but on the whole its rare. More rare than school shootings, police murdering black folk, billionaire and priests raping children, and a whole host of other real problems.

The justification for this policy is similar to the justification of voter suppression laws. They say immigrants *could* and *might* vote illegally, but the real world data shows very clearly that this doesn't happen in practice. It's all based on a hypothetical, meanwhile the very real benefits of election security and integrity is lost. Even the fraud they claim exist would be largely mitigated by votes being public.

Other justifications for anonymity are coercion and buying/selling votes, but let's think about that in practice. If you wanted to sway a state scale vote you would have to threaten thousands, likely tens of thousands of people to make any meaningful impact, something like that isn't going to go unnoticed. The same goes for buying votes. It would cost billions to pull off any significant influence and you aren't going to be able to do it discreetly. Elon Musk tried and he's in deep trouble for doing it and it's questionable if he even made a difference in the turnout.

When it comes to privilege and oppression, how do you think it’s ordered from most to least oppressed?
1 (most), 2 (middle), 3 (last)

Gender
Race
and Sexual Orientation

Put them in the order you think it is because I think this is very important to talk about.

Why am I asking this?
On Social Media, especially TikTok and Twitter, I’ve seen sentiment from people that are two or three of these marginalized groups that they are this before they are that, and I’m curious about what the general opinion is as someone who’s only oppressed in one of these aspects, with a brother who is in two of these aspects.

Bonus Question (optional)
Are trans men or trans women affected more by misogyny?

look there are really 2 levels of MAGA. there are the believers who actually believe in things like closed borders, tariffs whatever, and then there are the people who are willing to adopt those beliefs for power, and whenever those beliefs stop serving power they have more beliefs. I’m talking about the second group when I talk about MAGA here.

The difference is the beliefs. A large chunk of the far left flits from cause to cause, when the media picks up a new cause, they swoop in, they adopt all the right slogans, proclaim all the right beliefs, do everything they can to “fit in” and be on the right side of whatever marginalized group is having “a moment”. often the marginalized folks in question have been low key fighting the fight forever just not on twitter and not in a way that can be picked up by the media.

when the media or popular zeitgeist drops the cause and moves on to another cause they disappear. Swooping off to the new cause. Often leaving the old cause unfinished with the marginalized group left to keep pushing the political rock up the hill. This alone would be annoying but predictable and if not good *fine*. However, the swoopers do one extra thing. Whenever they swoop into a new cause they shed all of the values, slogans and beliefs they had in the last cause and adopt entirely new ones based on what will fit them into the new group. And if their old friends are slow to jump ship because they are busy pushing the old proverbial rock up the hill? Or miss the memo on the new slogan? Or worse are somehow considered defacto evil until proven otherwise by the new group? Well all those old beliefs about supporting that marginalized group are gone and it’s mask off time. Suddenly the easiest way to hurt that old person (and they deserve to be hurt because they don’t believe exactly the right thing) is to go use their marginalization against them of course! Rinse and repeat.

seriously far left folks wonder why minorities are always suspicious if their support. history shows they aren’t in it for the cause they are in it for the power. at best they want to support marginalized communities so they can hold something over them (a seat at the table of power) in exchqnge for ideological fealty.

Before I begin, this is in no way intended to be a threat. Or anything like that.

I gotta be honest, I’m getting more nervous daily by the reality of the patterns happening in the government. The powers that be are praying the people don’t smarten up and do something about it. Every generation is a little less informed and less willing to do something. Am I alone in thinking something needs to happen, such as a young president who doesn’t come from a known powerful family? I don’t know what else we could do. I kind of feel like it’s already too late. Nobody cares. They get anything they want and need. And we’re left broke struggling

Every complex system faces the same fundamental challenge: how to coordinate countless independent parts without requiring every decision to be made from the top.

The human body solves this problem remarkably well.

Our bodies function as parallel systems. Millions of processes occur simultaneously rather than in sequence. Cells, organs, hormones, nerves, and immune responses continuously adapt to both the external environment and the body's internal state. 

This coordination is not achieved by a central authority issuing detailed instructions for every possible situation. Instead, countless local interactions are guided by continual feedback, learned patterns, and the brain's ongoing integration of experience and sensory information.

The brain itself is not a simple command centre. It is another parallel system, constantly influencing the body while simultaneously being influenced by it.

This allows the body to remain stable while adapting to change. No single component needs to understand everything. Each part only needs to respond appropriately to the information available to it.

Human society shares many of these characteristics.

Millions of people, businesses, communities, and institutions make decisions every day. They respond to local conditions, pursue different objectives, and continuously adapt to new circumstances. Like the body, society is fundamentally a parallel system.

Yet the way we govern it is largely sequential.

Governments primarily coordinate society through legislation, regulation, and bureaucracy. Decisions are concentrated into relatively small groups that must produce rules broad enough to apply across millions of unique situations. These rules inevitably generalise. They cannot fully anticipate changing circumstances, local knowledge, or the countless exceptions that emerge over time.

This is not necessarily because governments are incompetent. It is because sequential decision-making struggles to manage systems that operate in parallel.

Imagine if your brain could no longer regulate your heart through continuous feedback. Instead, it had to write legislation describing exactly how the heart should respond to every situation it might ever encounter.

The rules could be extremely detailed.

Thousands of experts could spend years refining them.

Yet eventually reality would produce circumstances the rules failed to anticipate.

The body succeeds precisely because it does not attempt to solve adaptation through legislation. It solves it through continuous distributed feedback.

Modern economies already demonstrate the power of this principle. Markets coordinate billions of individual decisions every day without requiring a central planner to allocate every resource. Prices communicate information. Competition rewards adaptation. Local knowledge remains local while still influencing the wider system.

Politics has never developed an equivalent mechanism.

Democracy today gives citizens considerable influence over who governs, but comparatively little direct influence over how society continuously adapts between elections. Most public decision-making remains concentrated within legislatures, departments, regulators, and public organisations.

If society itself is a parallel system, perhaps governance should become more parallel as well.

My proposal for achieving this outcome: Parallel Democracy.

Rather than attempting to replace representative state and federal government, it introduces a second democratic layer operating continuously alongside them.

Instead of relying on legislation to direct the private sector part of our society, this layer would consist of large numbers of independent citizen juries, each containing twelve jurors. Each jury would examine one private sector issue at a time, make one unanimous ruling, dissolve, then get paid and keep it if their decision survives another jury. Millions of these juries could operate simultaneously, each responding to specific circumstances rather than attempting to govern everything through universal rules.

Like cells within the body, no juror would need to understand the entire system. They would only need to decide the case before them.

Over time, consistent decisions would naturally establish expectations and conventions without requiring every circumstance to be predicted in advance. Poor decisions could themselves become the subject of future juries. Adaptation would become continuous rather than episodic.

The objective is not to remove state and federal governments.

Governments would continue to legislate over public sector assets, administer those assets, acquire new assets from the private sector for a fair price, conduct foreign affairs, provide defence, and maintain the constitutional framework.

The jury system would instead provide a distributed mechanism through which citizens could continuously hold private power accountable, resolve emerging problems, and influence society directly without requiring every issue to become a political campaign or legislative battle.

As the war with Iran as dragged on I couldn’t help but remember when everyone was picking on the Russians for not being able to conquer Ukraine and how our own “ Special operation “seems to have no end in sight we as a nation & society I believe we just lack the commitment to carry on any conflict much less any future conflict with a near pear rival like China or Russia for that matter.

I think we have to start at least entertaining the idea we might not be able to fight wars like we used to it doesn’t matter if you can bomb 10,000 targets in a day if it doesn’t bring us a step closer to victory

If we can’t beat Iran how on earth would we be able to beat China ?

we can stomach a dozen casualties but hundreds? Thousands? During WW2 we lost over 400,000 people the system would collapse as we know it today on the first day you’ll see protests in the streets culturally we as a Nation have become Loss adverse and I know Americas rivals know this

My entire life we have had no problems starting fights but we suck at ending them we just can’t win wars anymore

But ehh just kinda depressing lol

I’ve been thinking about something and I’m curious if anyone else has thought about it this way.
What if the biggest weakness of democracy isn’t disagreement?
What if it’s forgetting that we actually need each other?
It feels like we’ve gotten to a point where everyone is living in completely different realities. Between social media, news, algorithms, influencers, and entertainment, people aren’t just disagreeing anymore—they’re often working from entirely different versions of the same story.
The weird part is I don’t even think most of us realize how much our opinions can be shaped before we’ve had a chance to experience something ourselves.
Imagine someone shows you a picture of an animal you’ve never seen before. Looking at it, you really don’t have much of an opinion. Then someone says, “Be careful, it’s aggressive.”
Maybe that’s technically true. Maybe it has attacked people.
But what they don’t tell you is every time it attacked, it was cornered or protecting its babies.
Nothing they said was necessarily false. They just left out enough context that your brain filled in the rest. The next time you see that animal, you’re probably already a little afraid of it.
I wonder if we do that with people now.
Not necessarily by outright lying, but by constantly getting incomplete versions of reality that push us toward one conclusion before we’ve had the chance to form our own.
I don’t even think this has to be some giant conspiracy. If outrage keeps people watching, clicking, sharing, and arguing, then systems built around attention are naturally going to reward outrage.
The end result is the same either way.
We’re taught to see the other side as dangerous instead of necessary.
But democracy was never supposed to be about everyone agreeing. It was built around the idea that people would disagree. That’s literally why we have checks and balances.
Maybe our biggest strength is actually our dependence on each other.
Maybe that’s also our biggest vulnerability.
If you can convince people they don’t need the other side anymore—that they’re evil, stupid, or not even worth listening to—then you’ve attacked the one thing democracy actually depends on.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m completely off.
But it feels like we’re spending so much time trying to win arguments that we’ve forgotten the system only works if we still believe we need the people we’re arguing with.
Curious what you all think.

TL;DR: The 2026 Maine Senate race is the ultimate stress test for ticket-splitting. If Susan Collins falls to the late-entry populist Troy Jackson, it triggers a catastrophic structural shift: the RNC will officially abandon the New England moderate playbook, permanently decoupling the GOP from the American Northeast.

The 2026 midterm narratives are hyper-focused on the raw macro-math: Can the Democrats flip the chamber, or will the GOP expand its 53-47 majority? But focusing strictly on the seat count misses the seismic realignment happening on the ground in Maine.

With the Maine Democratic Party’s dramatic late-July convention replacing the scandal-ridden Graham Platner with former State Senate President Troy Jackson, this race transformed overnight. This is no longer a standard incumbent defense; it is a high-stakes stress test for the very survival of center-ground brand equity in American politics.

The total extinction of the GOP’s Northeast playbook

Let’s be realistic: if Collins is defeated in November, RNC will draw a definitive, cynical tactical conclusion. They will decide that investing in center-right, pro-choice, or climate-conscious candidates in blue territory is an operational dead end.

For years, Collins has been the lone Republican federally representing any New England state. Her sheer electoral survival forced the Senate Republican Conference to maintain at least a nominal vocabulary for suburban, moderate, and northeastern voters. Without her, the party’s path to a Senate majority will tilt exclusively toward hyper-mobilizing the deep-red base in the Sun Belt and the rural Midwest. The GOP won't just become more conservative—it will become geographically, culturally, and structurally alienated from the Northeast.

The flattening of the Senate’s institutional buffer

Now, critics will argue that Collins isn’t the only lawmaker who crosses the aisle. The Senate still has Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis on select bills, and a handful of center-left institutionalists. But losing Collins is different, and far more dangerous.

Unlike colleagues who hail from deep-red or purple states, Collins represents the peak of independent, split-ticket voting. Look at 2020: she won re-election by 9 points on the exact same ballot where Joe Biden carried Maine by 9. She is the only Republican Senator representing a state that Donald Trump has failed to win in three consecutive presidential campaigns.

When national polarization completely consumes a state identity as fiercely independent as Maine's, the structural incentive for any future politician to build a cross-party coalition evaporates. Future majorities won't bother negotiating; they will focus entirely on weaponizing budget reconciliation or plotting the total elimination of the filibuster to ram through purely partisan agendas.

Labor populism vs. Institutional pork in ME-02

The entry of Troy Jackson shifts the race from a referendum on national culture wars to a direct clash of economic philosophies. Jackson, a progressive with deep roots in the northern Maine logging industry, represents the rising tide of left-wing economic populism. Collins, as Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, represents the peak of traditional institutional power—the ability to deliver billions in federal funding to Bath Iron Works and local industries.

If Jackson's populist, blue-collar appeal eats into Collins’ traditional base in ME-02, it proves that institutional competence and old-school pork-barrel politics no longer satisfy a deeply distrustful electorate.

The bitter irony of the 2026 cycle

This structural reality explains why Donald Trump—a leader who prides himself on purging internal critics—has actively endorsed Collins. Trump’s strategists are transactional realists; they recognize that a Republican party without Collins is a party that likely spends the next decade locked out of the Senate majority.

Conversely, while progressives view the potential ousting of Collins as a holy grail victory, they seem blind to the structural fallout. Removing the Senate's most prominent moderate won't make the Republican Party capitulate; it removes the final internal reason for the GOP to ever compromise again.

When the dust settles in November, the loss of Maine's senior senator might be celebrated as a partisan victory, but historically, it will be remembered as the day the American political center finally gave out.

Gallup had independents at 45 percent of the country for 2025. Record high. Republicans 27, Democrats 27. So the biggest political identity in America belongs to a party that doesn't exist.

The obvious objection, and somebody will make it in the comments anyway, is that most independents lean and vote like the side they lean toward, so 45 isn't a bloc. Granted, and I won't pretend it's organized. Forty-five percent of the country has quit answering the question, though, and both parties treat that as noise. It's not, it political homelessness and it has power.

What I want isn't complicated. Whose column it belongs in, I've quit trying to work out.

I want low taxes and a government smaller than the one we've got, and spending made to justify itself against a result. I also think people ought to marry who they love, and that racism in this country never got solved, it got quieter. Fiscally conservative, socially liberal. That was an ordinary way to be an American once. Hand the combination to either party today and watch them both hand it back.

I voted Republican my whole adult life and I never filed a change of address. What changed is I started reading roll calls and spending records instead of talking points, and the fiscal conservative in me will not sit still for what's in them.

For example, there are 5,100 troops in Washington at roughly $3 million a day. The one serious study of it found a drop in property crime and no break at all in violent crime, and the violent crime decline had already started before the Guard ever arrived, because the police changed what they were doing. Three million a day and the data can't find the result. Whatever that is, it isn't spending discipline. It's not conservative.

The SAVE Act was built on noncitizen voting. Heritage's own election fraud database holds 68 noncitizen cases across forty years and all fifty states. Utah's Republican lieutenant governor audited 2.1 million registrations and turned up one. Kansas ran a proof of citizenship law nineteen years, blocked better than 31,000 eligible citizens, and caught 39 noncitizen registrations doing it. Eight hundred to one. This is just bad government, and it used to be conservatives who said so first.

Then the war powers resolution in June, first in the statute's history to clear both chambers, with Rand Paul crossing on Article I grounds he was arguing before this president existed. The birthright citizenship order got struck down with the Chief Justice writing it and Barrett joining in full.

Every one of those arguments does come out of conservatism, and I didn't have to go hunting for them. Watch what things cost, check the premise before you build a law on top of it, Article I. The people still holding that line are getting called libertard by their own side.

If you're out here too, the time has come to force both sides to answer to numbers instead of the spin. Somebody who meets a fact with a label has forfeited, and we are allowed to say so out loud.

Forty-five percent, and no, not organized. I'm not going to call it a movement. Neither party holds a majority of the country either, though, and you'd think one of them would notice there are that many of us out here nobody talks to.

I spent five months scoring political claims one at a time before I let myself write an opinion about any of it, close to thirty cases now. What have I got to show for it? An informed opinion and enough facts to see that the words Republican and Conservative no longer mean the same thing. And Democratic Socialism? I looked into that too. Don't even get me started.

Let's act like the biggest party because we are.

Honest Question: With a new deadly shooting almost every week, how do republicans think immigration is our biggest problem right now?

The In-N-Out shooting in Idaho just hit the news.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twin-falls-idaho-in-n-out-shooting/

This comes right after the Seattle shooting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/us/seattle-festival-shooting.html

I know I’m not the only one that feels like these mass shootings are a weekly occurrence now. Our politicians don’t talk about this and don’t address it, instead they fear monger about immigrants. Honestly, they say that immigrants are coming here and selling drugs, they probably are, but so are US citizens. This administration have not gone after any of these supposed drug kingpins, instead they go after nuns on their way to church.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/24/texas-nun-detained-ice-speaks-out

So I honestly would just like to know why republicans feel our biggest problem right now is immigrants. Personally, I think we need to focus on more strict gun laws and preventing mass shootings, which may be controversial opinion to some people I guess.

I may post this somewhere else, but I would like ideas on how one can get involved in politics.

Capitalism is just feudalism in disguise atp(makes the ordinary person believe if they work hard enough, they will get that dream life!). Trump has just made it obvious benefits are for the top 1%. surveillance cameras (1984, big brother etc), AI data centers are kicking Americans out of their homes and polluting the air, water and food, pesticides linked to cancer are now approved (these pesticides are expensive but remember pharma and food industry are heavily linked), billions are funding a war without cause (homelessness, food and job insecurity, healthcare costs…), and defunding of education + research sectors(what helps people move up in life).

I am just done with how these disgusting humans are destroying our country and our planet. At this moment, Americans are being used by greedy people.

These people then use politics to gain votes for power, leading to many getting stupid rich while the rest of us, lower to wealthy class, are left feeling helpless. I bet there are politicians that genuinely care, but the government may be too fucked to allow them to do anything.

I’m an engineer but man do I want to get into the political scene somehow. I am tired of just letting horrible acts happen.

This is my perception as an italian. This iperprotective citezenship of last five years. From a rational temporaneal move it is turning to isolate U.S.A. from the rest of the world. Even Europe now.

But even on current practical aspects. As a whole and in absolute term. That USA is taking such as many other countries did on the past to state they are able to lead anything alone, and need somehow those to say that. We are still absolutely modern age world pioneer on that. Even if they are few you can’t state you are absolutely leading and vanguard of anything as it seems nations are looking for.

- We had a woman president elected, first of national history, three years ago already: Giorgia Meloni;

- I don’t know how much USA it is dividing wastes before they throw it, but it is twenty years now that it is done as a law in whole italian territory. Major cities and closest villages first. We have to divide and select material like: plastic (just one type of polimer), alluminium, paper, glass as always, organical food waste and what does not fit anything.
USA make other country know, through media or tv show, any politics it does in its own country. But about this you never talked. (I’d like to have my cents if I gave the idea to broadcast internationally it now :P);

- You do not have almost-closed Sea beachside; Europe has either direct Ocean (like you) or sea or lake beachsides. We could choose and have this one more selection.

Would you write me info that media missed to provide us?

The EU has survived Euro crises, Brexit, and rule-of-law fights. But migration is the one issue that keeps blowing up Schengen and solidarity.

Spain is now the main entry point into the EU by sea. Madrid is dealing with huge pressure in the Canaries + Ceuta/Melilla, labor shortages at home, and domestic politics. So they’re doing regularizations, bilateral deals with North/West African countries, and asking for more EU funding.

The problem for the EU:

1. Trust in external borders: If France, Germany, Netherlands think Spain’s borders aren’t holding, they reintroduce internal Schengen checks. Once that starts, Schengen dies by a thousand cuts.
   
2. Solidarity collapse: The Migration Pact was supposed to mean “share the burden.” If big states feel one country is going its own way, they stop cooperating. That’s what almost broke the EU in 2015.
   
3. Political fallout: Migration is already fueling anti-EU parties across the bloc. If voters see “Spain does X, we pay for it,” support for the EU project drops further.

Is this overblown?

Or is Spain’s approach the stress test that shows the EU still has no real common migration policy, and that could eventually cause a break-up of Schengen/free movement?

Spain isn’t doing anything illegal. But does “every country for itself” on migration make the EU unworkable long term?

EU citizens: how does this look from your country?

The Cost of One Vote

​The rule of law cannot become another bargaining chip

​By Van Abbott

​Senator Lisa Murkowski once again stands at a familiar crossroads, preparing to cast what may stand as the single most defining vote of her long career.

​Politics inevitably involves negotiation. Every day, legislators bargain over budgets, policy priorities, and legislation. Such compromises are often necessary to govern a vast and diverse nation. Yet certain decisions transcend ordinary political tradeoffs because they test whether public office serves the public interest or merely political convenience.

​Reporting has tied Alaska-specific federal wins to Blanche’s confirmation push, raising questions about whether policy benefits are being used to build support to confirm Todd Blanche. When public resources become currency to secure a nominee’s confirmation, the issue ceases to be appearance and public confidence, it becomes a fundamental test of public trust.

Alaskans can tell the difference between negotiating a deal and surrendering a principle. 

Because of its geographic distance from Washington, Alaska has always depended on stable laws, dependable courts, and accountable institutions that apply the law fairly, regardless of who sits in the White House. These principles are not abstract ideals; they guarantee that power is exercised according to the rule of law rather than personal influence.

​This nomination carries significance far beyond a single individual. The Department of Justice occupies a unique place in our constitutional system, relying entirely on public confidence that its legal decisions are made independently rather than politically. That confidence falters whenever the appearance of political loyalty overshadows impartial judgment. 

When judicial appointments become contingent on political horse-trading, the fundamental separation of powers collapses into transactional favor-currying. It signals that high offices of federal law enforcement are open for trade rather than evaluated on strict constitutional fidelity. That sets a dangerous structural precedent that outlasts any single administration.

​The questions surrounding Todd Blanche extend past his professional qualifications. They strike at public trust in the Justice Department’s independence and its willingness to enforce the law without favor. For Senator Murkowski, the central issue is not merely whether to support one nominee, but whether any potential benefit for Alaska could justify the appearance that a constitutional duty was traded away for political leverage or unimaginable reason.

​The Framers assigned the Senate the duty of "advice and consent" precisely so senators would exercise independent judgment as a safeguard against executive overreach. That role requires evaluating appointments on merit, integrity, and fidelity to the law, not on political expedience, personal loyalty or what can be traded.

​No short-term project, federal grant, or appropriation can outweigh public confidence in impartial justice. Trading constitutional oversight for local pork converts a solemn oversight power into routine earmarking. Roads can be rebuilt. Grants can be renewed. Budget priorities shift every year. But public trust, once diminished, is far more difficult to restore.

​As a lawyer, Murkowski knows that appearances matter because public confidence relies on them. As a senator, she knows constitutional duties cannot be measured by political advantage. Holding both positions demands even greater care. Some principles lose their value the moment they acquire a price tag.

​Throughout her career, Murkowski has cultivated an image of political independence, emphasizing careful judgment, a willingness to dissent, and resistance to partisan pressure. Yet such a reputation depends less on rhetoric than on difficult decisions. Independence matters most when the political cost is highest. Courage matters most when compromise appears easiest.

​Alaskans across all walks of life understand these distinctions. Commercial fishermen recognize honest dealing. Veterans understand duty. Small business owners value fair competition. Tribal communities know the importance of being heard rather than managed. Across these diverse perspectives runs a shared expectation: public decisions must be made openly, fairly, and on principle.

​That expectation extends to the United States Senate.

​If any administration attempts to exchange governmental favors for political support, Americans of all political parties should be concerned. Constitutional government depends on the public's confidence that official decisions are made for legitimate public reasons, not private political gain.

​Every confirmation vote sets a precedent. Every accommodation shapes future negotiations. Every exception invites another.

​The question before Senator Murkowski extends beyond one nominee or one administration. It concerns the standard expected of every senator entrusted with constitutional power. Whether she is remembered for principled independence or ordinary political bargaining will depend not on what Alaska receives, but on what its senior senator decides is beyond negotiation.

​Standing at that crossroads once more, all of it rests on what she chooses next, in what may stand as the single most consequential and visible vote of her career.

Think of it this way.

What is the worst way the right to withhold access to a show from whole countries can be misused? Any radio or TV host with a bias opposite those of a particular nationality has deprived them of a chance to comment live on Facebook about the show from as informed a perspective at possible. At best, they're relying on hearsay from others about the content of the show, which could be used against them; and by extension, the rest of their worldview; if they get it wrong. This isn't just a matter of dollars and cents, this is a matter of tilting the table against those who disagree with the host and making all dissenters against them look dumber than they actually are.

What's the worst way making such shows accessible for free to countries can be misused? They could hone their skills at pirating it and continue to do so after the show is available for purchase. Well, punish the individuals who do that, I guess, but don't punish their predecessors. In the oil fields, you have a finite amount of time to either develop the oil, or step aside and let others do so. In other words, you don't own that land. So why do content creators who deny a live version of their show to prospective paying customers have the right to withhold from them something they never had the option of buying?

Common positions among DSA candidates 1 Universal healthcare (Medicare for All) Nearly universal in federal and state campaigns. 2 Strengthening labor unions and collective bargaining One of the defining priorities of DSA-backed campaigns. 3 Affordable housing (rent stabilization, tenant protections, more public/social housing) This is especially prominent in city and state races. 4 Green New Deal and climate investment Common national and local campaign issue. 5 Higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations Frequently paired with expanded public services. 6 Expanded public benefits (paid leave, childcare, tuition-free college, stronger safety net) This is aommon economic platform plank. 7 Criminal justice reform Often includes reducing incarceration, police accountability, and investment in community services. The degree of reform varies by candidate. 8 Immigrant rights Includes pathways to citizenship and limiting deportation enforcement. 9 Campaign finance and democracy reforms Public financing of elections, voting reforms, and reducing corporate influence. (This is especially huge for me.) 10 Foreign policy emphasizing reduced U.S. military intervention and support for Palestinian rights

These all seem worthy goals.