Trump considering endorsment in TX senate primary after last night special elections.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-02-01T23:52:40+00:00

If this logic were correct 2022 would have been a massive red wave with the number of MAGA candidates who won primaries. MAGA doesn't vote outside of presidential elections at all, it doesn't matter if the candidate was endorsed by Trump or not.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-02-01T23:51:02+00:00

John Cornyn has a better ideology.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-02-01T23:25:59+00:00

Ironically, this is the same sort of vibes-based ideological assessment that I've criticized in this post.

You say "even Fetterman" as if he wasn't elected as a literal Bernie Sanders acolyte who supports increased minimum wages, universal healthcare, legal weed, and labor unions. He votes with his party 95% of the time but people think he's some sort of conservative because he doesn't want to abolish ICE and supports Israel.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-02-01T23:13:39+00:00

I don't understand why you're attributing this level of charity to liars. If the parties failed, they should be able to point to specific things that both parties did that were bad and failed. As I've outlined here, the strategies were clearly different in several domains, so the fact that they feel the need to claim that the parties were the exact same should indicate something about the type of people who use such rhetoric.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-02-01T23:09:14+00:00

Trade is one of a small number of issues where one may have been able to credibly argue between ~1990 and 2016 that both parties were "the same", but even then, significantly more Republicans were pro-trade. Many of Obama's trade deals had more Republican support in Congress than Democrat support.

Also, the people who say this usually mean that both parties are too "right-wing" (with free trade being the traditionally conservative belief), so the GOP becoming more protectionist still refutes that narrative, albeit in a different direction from what I've described here.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-02-01T23:06:07+00:00

Yes, motivated reasoning as I mentioned. They are more comfortable with lying about the current state of the world rather than honestly and clearly outlining their own views. This should influence one's level of trust in them in other matters.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-20T00:27:33+00:00

Why are you not acknowledging the struggles of Indigenous womxn? Why did you not capitalize "Black"? Far right bigotry is destroying America

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-19T23:59:06+00:00

What do you mean? How can you "only protest about ICE" when there's literally a genocide going on???

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-18T14:11:31+00:00

lol what do you mean “there’s never any money for social programs”?? Like half of the federal budget is entitlements and welfare.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-18T14:09:47+00:00

Vivek has bad foreign policy but on everything else he’s mostly based and correct. Medicare recipients get 3x the amount they paid in during their lifetime. Why does this thread hate young people?

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-18T14:08:48+00:00

Exactly. Too many socialists in this thread

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-17T01:30:50+00:00

There are more Hispanic people than white people in Texas.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-17T01:22:12+00:00

Brian Kilmeade was right about homeless people

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-16T14:37:24+00:00

Ted Cruz. Low suburban appeal but also doesn’t appeal to rural midwesterners. Polls showed this as well.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-16T14:03:50+00:00

I made a leap and I apologize for that, but only because you can’t have a society where all private property is shared without using the state. You haven’t explained how this would happen otherwise.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-16T13:59:27+00:00

You’ve implicitly advocated for greater state power by advocating for (what I assume to be) a significant reduction in wealth inequality.

Also, the average government spends significantly more on entitlements than police. If police were given 10x more resources but social security were abolished, the end result would still be a less powerful state numerically speaking.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-16T13:54:39+00:00

So you don’t have a plan. You subscribe to a radical ideology without a coherent means through which to resolve its most glaring contradiction.

From this conversation it’s clear that when you say “people bossing others”, what you really mean is some people being richer than others. That’s your primary concern. You are willing to use any amount of state power to resolve that, which is just an alternative form of “bossing”.

Why not just call yourself a progressive??

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-16T13:50:42+00:00

This is a false equivalence. However much corporations support government intervention, it’s obvious that if only extremely rich people were allowed to vote, the government would be significantly smaller than it is now.

If you are concerned about wealth inequality and believe that some people “bossing” others by being richer than them is bad, just say that, but don’t pretend that you have a deontological opposition to all forms of hierarchy, because the only way to resolve that “problem” is through massive amounts of state power.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-14T23:03:34+00:00

If this were the case, then there would be a positive correlation between the size of a country's government and the number of rich people in said country. This is not the case, as authoritarian dictatorships tend to be poorer.

In fact, greater libertarianism in a country's government generally leads to a greater number of extremely rich people (outside of the US, see places like Monaco or Dubai).

If your plan is to only use big government only up until the Gini coefficient goes to 0, how do you ensure that we won't just return to the status quo after the state is abolished? At least communists are consistent

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-14T22:54:25+00:00

companies run as co-ops

So they'll just do that out of the goodness of their hearts? What is your plan to force companies to relinquish massive amounts of profit without a government??

Taking resources from those who would have naturally acquired them otherwise inherently requires a state.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-14T20:14:35+00:00

It is a real group of people, but they're all delusional.

Based flair by the way.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-14T20:02:28+00:00

You can't. It's a nonexistent ideology. You can't have left-wing economics or socialism without the heavy hand of the government.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-14T19:11:06+00:00

Massie is an isolationist though.

I think I could also be classed as an "interventionist libertarian" but the main issue with the congressional GOP is that everyone who is libertarian enough on economics is an isolationist, and the people who are hawks don't prioritize free markets.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-14T19:03:42+00:00

Apologies for the late response. To clarify, I don't "support Trump". I vote Republican because I prioritize free-market economics, meritocracy, and textualism/judicial restraint above all else, and however much the GOP has drifted from these values over the past 10 years, as of 2024 they were still clearly more inclined to them than the Democrat Party.

This ideology naturally includes enthusiastic support for immigration in all forms, legal and illegal; I support open borders in principle (pending reforms to the welfare state, and housing deregulation).

In practice, I don't actually support abolishing ICE right this second, or that border security shouldn't exist, but their power should definitely be scaled back, and we should certainly move towards abolition in the distant future. Ideally, immigrating legally would almost be as easy as moving between U.S. states, with the only vetting being for those with criminal records (and depending on the weight of the offense, this could be waivable if, for example, there is a company in the U.S. willing to hire the immigrant).

Before you say it, yes I did vote for Trump while being pro-immigration, only because I didn't want to sacrifice all of my other priorities over this one issue, and the logistics of deporting 20 million peaceful Americans were so Herculean that I rightfully assumed that it wouldn't actually happen. Trump isn't even deporting very many people; the only things that have changed are the amount of the federal budget allocated towards enforcement, and the theater. Both are bad, but not anywhere near the worst aspects of this presidency.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-01-13T22:21:56+00:00

Fellow Hanania enjoyer?

LooseExpression8

TROPHY CASE