tl;dr: Getting Trump removed from office is not high-leverage and can be actively dangerous, since that only means JD Vance becomes President, and he and the Republicans will be politically obligated to dig in their heels and implement a Trump agenda.
Instead, I think somehow getting millions of Americans to recognize Trump’s gameplan (which I’ve summarized below), and getting them to panic-vote Democrats in the 2026 midterms is the highest leverage thing you can do.
Here’s my $0.02, even though I don’t know how to achieve a Dem victory.
I think Trump is doing all of this with an eye on the 2026 midterms. I’ll try to publish a more detailed write-up later if I’m able to, but all these arguably inane policy decisions that even well connected Trump supporters were blindsided by- are all things that the Trump administration is hoping will play well with the voters in the mid-term elections. Then more Trumpists get elected into the House, then that empowers Trump even more, considering he’s already installed his vassal Mike Johnson as the leader of the House of Representatives.
I think that’s the overall game plan. That’s why he’s had no compunction in walking decisions back as soon as they’ve generated news headlines.
As plans go, it certainly is a cogent plan. It looks and feels like the Southern Strategy 2.0. Frankly I was expecting this sort of populist grandstanding from Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the Democratic Socialists; and not this generation of Republicans.
It looks like Trump saw Bernie Sanders attempting Ralph Nader’s political strategy and thought, “Huh. I could do that!” and so here we are today. That’s why I personally dislike politicians who are not centrists. But I think there’s a flaw in Trump’s plan.
I’m not an American, but I’m guessing the reason previous presidents haven’t done this kind of populism is because American voters (a) aren’t that stupid, like, most American citizens have at least a high-school level education; and (b) more than education, most Americans, even rural, redneck bible-thumping MAGA voters are intimately connected to the global economy. That’s the whole reason the US is the richest country in the world, to begin with.
So, yeah- IMHO the highest leverage option in this situation is just plain-old fashioned vote-out-the-policy-you-think-sucks way of doing things. Hopefully that will, in turn, bring centrists back on both sides of the aisle and that will in turn open up opportunities for higher leverage (i.e; lobbying) options.
Will that actually work, though? I have no idea. Trump won and lost the presidential elections on a wafer-thin margin, like less than 100,000 voters. That’s what makes Trump’s actions risky electorally for the Republicans.
Quite frankly, Trump’s actual policy decisions are not nearly as damaging as the Trumpist goal of turning America into a Russia-style statist country.
If Trump’s winning margin improves considerably in the mid-terms, then America will become a heavily statist country. Statism sucks donkey bollocks in all kinds of ways -for ordinary citizens, that is. For politicians and political insiders on both sides of the aisle, Statism probably feels awesome. (source: am an Indian citizen). So, politically speaking, the mid-terms are kind of an existential moment for citizens (to put it very mildly).
Because once a country embraces Statism, it usually begins an irreversible process of turning into a “shithole country”, as Trump himself eloquently put it. Somehow getting this into the hearts and minds of voters and getting them to vote blue in 2026, is existentially important for Americans.
“Because once a country embraces Statism, it usually begins an irreversible process of turning into a “shithole country”, as Trump himself eloquently put it. “
Ignoring tiny islands (some of them with dubious levels of independence from the US), the 10 nations with the largest %s of GDP as government revenue include Finland, France, Belgium and Austria, although, also, yes, Libya and Lesotho. In general, the top of the list for government revenue as % of GDP seems to be a mixture of small islands, petro states, and European welfare state democracies, not places that are particularly impoverished or authoritarian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP#List_of_countries_(2024)
Meanwhile the countries with the low levels of government revenue as a % of GDP that aren’t currently having some kind of civil war are places like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran and (weirdly) Venezuela.
This isn’t a perfect proxy for “statism” obviously, but I think it shows that things are more complicated than simplistic libertarian analysis would suggest. Big states (in purely monetary) seem to often be a consequence of success. Maybe they also hold back further success of course, but countries don’t seem to actively degenerate once they arrive (i.e. growth might slow, but they are not in permanent recession.)
You make good points. Obviously, every country is either definitionally or practically a nation-state. But IMHO the only conditions under which individual freedoms and economic freedoms for individuals survive in a country, are when Statism is not embraced but is instead held at arm’s length and treated with caution and hesitation.
My argument for voting against Trump and Trumpists in the 2026 midterms, for a republican-leaning American citizen is this:
The current situation is directly a result of both Republican and Democrat politicians explicitly trying to increase and abuse state power for their definition of “the greater good”, which the other side disagrees with.
Up to an arbitrary point, this can be considered the ordinary functioning of democratic nation-states. Beyond the arbitrary point, the presence or absence of democracy is irrelevant, and the very nature of the social contract changes.
The fact that the arbitrary point is unknown or unpredictable is precisely the reason that Statism should not embraced but instead be held at arm’s length and treated with caution and hesitation!
Every dollar the government takes out of you pocket or restricts you from earning, every sector or part of the economy or society the government feels the need to “direct” or “reshape” for the greater good, the less freedom there is for the individual, and private citizens as a whole.
If the Republican voters abdicate too much sovereignty to support Trumpist pet projects, even if the Dems ultimately defeat Trumpists, or even if Vance turns out to be a much better president, the social contract may or may not revert back to what it used to be. Which could really suck.
tl;dr: Getting Trump removed from office is not high-leverage and can be actively dangerous, since that only means JD Vance becomes President, and he and the Republicans will be politically obligated to dig in their heels and implement a Trump agenda.
Instead, I think somehow getting millions of Americans to recognize Trump’s gameplan (which I’ve summarized below), and getting them to panic-vote Democrats in the 2026 midterms is the highest leverage thing you can do.
Here’s my $0.02, even though I don’t know how to achieve a Dem victory.
I think Trump is doing all of this with an eye on the 2026 midterms. I’ll try to publish a more detailed write-up later if I’m able to, but all these arguably inane policy decisions that even well connected Trump supporters were blindsided by- are all things that the Trump administration is hoping will play well with the voters in the mid-term elections. Then more Trumpists get elected into the House, then that empowers Trump even more, considering he’s already installed his vassal Mike Johnson as the leader of the House of Representatives.
I think that’s the overall game plan. That’s why he’s had no compunction in walking decisions back as soon as they’ve generated news headlines.
As plans go, it certainly is a cogent plan. It looks and feels like the Southern Strategy 2.0. Frankly I was expecting this sort of populist grandstanding from Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the Democratic Socialists; and not this generation of Republicans.
It looks like Trump saw Bernie Sanders attempting Ralph Nader’s political strategy and thought, “Huh. I could do that!” and so here we are today. That’s why I personally dislike politicians who are not centrists. But I think there’s a flaw in Trump’s plan.
I’m not an American, but I’m guessing the reason previous presidents haven’t done this kind of populism is because American voters (a) aren’t that stupid, like, most American citizens have at least a high-school level education; and (b) more than education, most Americans, even rural, redneck bible-thumping MAGA voters are intimately connected to the global economy. That’s the whole reason the US is the richest country in the world, to begin with.
So, yeah- IMHO the highest leverage option in this situation is just plain-old fashioned vote-out-the-policy-you-think-sucks way of doing things. Hopefully that will, in turn, bring centrists back on both sides of the aisle and that will in turn open up opportunities for higher leverage (i.e; lobbying) options.
Will that actually work, though? I have no idea. Trump won and lost the presidential elections on a wafer-thin margin, like less than 100,000 voters. That’s what makes Trump’s actions risky electorally for the Republicans.
Quite frankly, Trump’s actual policy decisions are not nearly as damaging as the Trumpist goal of turning America into a Russia-style statist country.
If Trump’s winning margin improves considerably in the mid-terms, then America will become a heavily statist country. Statism sucks donkey bollocks in all kinds of ways -for ordinary citizens, that is. For politicians and political insiders on both sides of the aisle, Statism probably feels awesome. (source: am an Indian citizen). So, politically speaking, the mid-terms are kind of an existential moment for citizens (to put it very mildly).
Because once a country embraces Statism, it usually begins an irreversible process of turning into a “shithole country”, as Trump himself eloquently put it. Somehow getting this into the hearts and minds of voters and getting them to vote blue in 2026, is existentially important for Americans.
“Because once a country embraces Statism, it usually begins an irreversible process of turning into a “shithole country”, as Trump himself eloquently put it. “
Ignoring tiny islands (some of them with dubious levels of independence from the US), the 10 nations with the largest %s of GDP as government revenue include Finland, France, Belgium and Austria, although, also, yes, Libya and Lesotho. In general, the top of the list for government revenue as % of GDP seems to be a mixture of small islands, petro states, and European welfare state democracies, not places that are particularly impoverished or authoritarian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP#List_of_countries_(2024)
Meanwhile the countries with the low levels of government revenue as a % of GDP that aren’t currently having some kind of civil war are places like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran and (weirdly) Venezuela.
This isn’t a perfect proxy for “statism” obviously, but I think it shows that things are more complicated than simplistic libertarian analysis would suggest. Big states (in purely monetary) seem to often be a consequence of success. Maybe they also hold back further success of course, but countries don’t seem to actively degenerate once they arrive (i.e. growth might slow, but they are not in permanent recession.)
You make good points. Obviously, every country is either definitionally or practically a nation-state. But IMHO the only conditions under which individual freedoms and economic freedoms for individuals survive in a country, are when Statism is not embraced but is instead held at arm’s length and treated with caution and hesitation.
My argument for voting against Trump and Trumpists in the 2026 midterms, for a republican-leaning American citizen is this:
The current situation is directly a result of both Republican and Democrat politicians explicitly trying to increase and abuse state power for their definition of “the greater good”, which the other side disagrees with.
Up to an arbitrary point, this can be considered the ordinary functioning of democratic nation-states. Beyond the arbitrary point, the presence or absence of democracy is irrelevant, and the very nature of the social contract changes.
The fact that the arbitrary point is unknown or unpredictable is precisely the reason that Statism should not embraced but instead be held at arm’s length and treated with caution and hesitation!
Every dollar the government takes out of you pocket or restricts you from earning, every sector or part of the economy or society the government feels the need to “direct” or “reshape” for the greater good, the less freedom there is for the individual, and private citizens as a whole.
If the Republican voters abdicate too much sovereignty to support Trumpist pet projects, even if the Dems ultimately defeat Trumpists, or even if Vance turns out to be a much better president, the social contract may or may not revert back to what it used to be. Which could really suck.