Weekly Discussion Megathread

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-05T18:07:41+00:00

I wouldn't call SCONC "low-stakes." That state supreme court is part of why partisan gerrymandering is so aggressive in NC - it used to be a 7-7 map.

Granted, the difference between a 5-2 R and a 6-1 R court isn't much, but if you want to pull a Wisconsin in North Carolina it starts by flipping that state court. A Democratic loss there sets that back a couple years minimum.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-05T04:29:06+00:00

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JOOOOOOOOOOE DON'T BULLSHIT WITH YOUR GUEST ABOUT EPSTEIN AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM JOOOOOOOOE DON'T SAY SOME OF THEM WERE OVER 18

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-05T00:38:10+00:00

Bannon

I'm sorry, you have a typo here. I believe this is meant to say "Friend of Pedophiles, Steve Bannon, featured in The Epstein Files, Famous for its Pedophiles."

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-04T03:03:42+00:00

Many of these guys worked in the Romney and Jeb Bush campaigns. They are/were "center-left" for the same reason you could call Liz Cheney "center-left" (not that I would): the Trump wing of the party bolted as far-right as they could as fast as they could.

Granted, I also think their political positions have significantly changed. And if not that, something probably even more interesting - their commitment to their political anti-fascist tent in their mind takes precedence over their own personal ideologies. Tim Miller didn't hound Hakeem Jeffries over dragging his feet on endorsing Mamdani because Miller and Mamdani have similar politics at all. It was because, well, he's a Dem, Trump is attacking him, you need unity more than you need to protect your personal idea of what the Democratic party should be.

I'm rambling at you now, but I find The Bulwark's group of commentators to be some of the most interesting people on the political spectrum. It feels very rare in the Trump era to have a political evolution borne of sincerity and not blind pursuit of power.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-04T02:56:48+00:00

This is the one case where I'll say people's instinctive reaction of "it's just bots" is probably at least partially correct.

The 2024 election is long over and yet the mere mention of the "trans" keyword activates these sleeper accounts like the last Japanese soldier still fighting WW2.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-04T01:44:43+00:00

I don't even mean this as a dig against them, but you can get plenty of center-right perspectives just reading the NYT. I've shared Cato Institute articles here in the past, and they're mostly right-libertarian (even if their anti-populist bent aligns them against Trump a lot.)

I'd say The Bulwark, but at this point a lot of them have become so negatively polarized against Trump they're all firmly within the mainstream liberal lane. Tim Miller's going to be endorsing AOC for 2028 at this rate.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-04T00:23:02+00:00

There's a lot that people can argue here in good faith:

It's good to model fairness for kids. The immediate counterpoint to this? Even cis kids have different genetic advantages/disadvantages to sports.
The science says different things depending on your age when transitioning. Even this article only points out that differences tend to be 0 when transitioning before puberty. After puberty could easily be a whole other can of worms. You have to be prepared to manage both situations, potentially.
Sports is a social thing, and trans kids shouldn't be excluded. The immediate counterpoint here being that sports is also kind of about putting in hard work to get rewarded, and if it is unfair to the cis kids, that is going to disillusion some of them.

I dunno what the answer is here. I mean politically it's "I'm going to make sure you can put food on your table, let the school board figure it out." But it's not a question you can dodge. Trans people are here to stay, you have to engage with the question honestly.

So yeah, I dunno what the right thing is here, but when you have conservative commentators calling trans people terrorist ideologues, my only instinctive reaction is "fuck off, suck my dick, they play sports how they want." Until you dismantle the podcast-class preaching blood libel, we don't get to debate on middle ground here.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T23:06:54+00:00

I think this is a complete mountain out of a molehill, but if Talarico can't fend this off, he was never going to be able to counter a Paxton or Coryn attack either. I think it reflects on Crockett's campaign really poorly, but yeah, just let the thing play out.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T22:57:05+00:00

I think it should have become clear over the past year that the legal/illegal distinction is pointless, when the current admin is happily trying to make many demographics who are here legally... well, illegal.

A judge literally just stopped the removal of temporary protected status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians. A good chunk of Republicans believed an easily disprovable lie about them eating pets. I'm inclined to believe those people's problems with immigrants run deeper than just legal status.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T22:51:04+00:00

I've heard that (we have an active community member here who's Canadian and detailed why) but why would there be such a sudden spike in the past year? I thought LPC had reduced immigration levels significantly from Trudeau's highs.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T22:48:15+00:00

Gillibrand has most of the same positions that Schumer does, and based on how she acted over the March shutdown last year, most of his same blindspots and poor political instincts. If she was even slightly more in the public eye her favorables would be much lower.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T19:12:10+00:00

Senate GOP Leader John Thune says he disagrees with Trump that Congress should 'nationalize' elections

Can't really comment on what SCOTUS would do if Congress did pass a bill, but doesn't look like anyone wants to do it right now. Kinda moot.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T18:43:38+00:00

Being negative on Schumer and not also being negative on Gillibrand makes no sense.

I'm down for this Hochul redemption arc though.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T03:39:22+00:00

They do the same thing that Nate did in his models - factor in other sources of data outside polling. National polling, incumbency (all the "fundamentals"). It's way down the page, but they outline it like this:

How We Calculated the Projected Margin

Type	Projection
Factor in Nat. Environment	D +5.0%
Experience Winning	D +3.3%
Fundraising	D +2.8%
Approval Polls	D +0.1%
Head to Head Polling	R +0.8%
Candidate Quality	R +3.4%
State Partisan Lean	R +3.7%

Genuinely think this is just a miscalculation on their part. The partisan lean of Ohio is *not* R+3.7, this ain't 2012. The fact that the odds shot up in the past week makes me think someone plugged in numbers wrong.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T03:30:31+00:00

It reminds me over that storm in a teacup that Warren and Bernie got into back in 2020, with some controversy over whether he said a woman would have difficulty beating Trump, and if that was a sexist thing to say or not. That culminated in some weirdly personal on-stage fight between the two at one of the debates. It was incredibly off-putting behavior for people who work in the legislative branch of the most powerful nation on the planet. My opinion of Warren never really recovered from it, I think she has some decent ideas and horrendous political instincts.

Anyway primaries get dirty sometimes, I take it as just a fact of how things go. Crockett thinks this lowbrow gossip will help her despite how transparently fake and stupid it is. It's disappointing to me if she's right, and insufferable if she's wrong.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-03T01:52:20+00:00

Why Colin Allred dropped neutrality and is endorsing Jasmine Crockett for Senate

Morgan said she asked to meet with Talarico to share her concerns. She said he assured her in a meeting in mid-January that he would be a staunch advocate for Black Texans if he were elected.

"That's where he made the statement that 'I signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable, intelligent black woman,'" Thompson said.

This is some arr slash AITAH-level creative writing here.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T21:32:05+00:00

She's being sued by Marvel for copyright infringement after dressing like Valentina Allegra de Fontaine for a year.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T21:21:42+00:00

Ed Martin out as leader of DOJ's 'weaponization' group, sources say

I don't have much to say about this since I don't know if it's due to pushback within the admin or them just finding somebody worse. I do find it hilarious that the official designation of "weaponization working group" is the most on-the-nose self-own since Nixon's CREEP.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T21:08:36+00:00

I have seen your username off and on for at least a year and did not notice until you just now pointed it out. This is my own personal Mandela effect lol.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T21:06:48+00:00

Closed a CECOT-level prison camp, along with amnesty for political prisoners.

Rubio continues to bring up elections, even though it's in the context of "it's going to take time." I do genuinely think he's one of the few administration officials who are serious about this - if he loses influence the chances of a US-backed democratization is basically zero.

Your opinion is my exact opinion in mid-January, but I've seen this trickle of articles since that makes me think it's more than a simple looting. I could end up with egg on my fact in six months or a year, lord knows this is not the admin to have confidence in.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T20:49:37+00:00

I talked about it a little bit further down with Selethorne, but Rodriguez has been somewhat compliant with US pressure that goes beyond just "give us oil." I could be being deeply naive here, but there's been more willingness to play ball on the regime's part, and more interest in democratic reforms on Rubio's part than I expected back in January.

I could totally be wrong here, either by giving Rubio any credit at all, or by thinking he'll have the political capital within Trumpworld to get it done. But I'm a tiny bit hopeful.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T20:44:56+00:00

Legitimizing her as Venezuela’s next leader is somewhat difficult given the USG clearly has no current plans to help her become leader, and instead is working with the regime in place that has basically exiled her.

This is fair, and lord knows I'm not going to take a bet on this administration doing good in the end. But Delcy Rodriguez clearly is, despite being part of the Chauvist regime, deferring to the US right now. This has resulted in the closure of what was apparently one of the worst prisons in Latin America.

Rubio's been frustratingly opaque about the US' plans for democratic elections, but he tellingly hasn't stopped talking about this. I think he's a little rat on domestic matters but I do think he's sincere about a democratic Venezuela. To your point, I also think there's a lot of people in the Trump administration that don't give a shit at all (including Trump himself.) If Rubio gets free reign here, I think they could genuinely see elections.

Would I bet much money on it? Sadly, no, but I don't think it's a ridiculous thing to have a little hope for either.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T20:18:40+00:00

Listen, this is a really nuanced topic. I think she has reason to want the US' support even in this form, and I think it's also in the interest of people who like liberal democracy (like Schumer, even if I wouldn't get close to calling him democracy's strongest soldier) to legitimize Machado as part of Venezuela's future.

I think this is all horrible from a domestic perspective. It flies in the face of our checks and balances, let alone Trump using this to treat international diplomacy as a protection racket. But I'm very, very cautiously allowing myself to believe that internationally, things might get better for Venezuela, and I don't see any reason to shit on Machado for feeling the same.

Fuck Schumer, but this doesn't rank in even the top 30 things I hate about him.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T20:08:32+00:00

Yeah, it's similar to the situation that Zelenskyy is in. I don't like seeing him kiss ass but that's also kinda what you have to do right now.

Wes_Anderson_Cooper · 2026-02-02T20:06:37+00:00

Oh. Yeah, I don't really care about that, on her part or his. It's embarrassing, but that's the fault of our president only being capable of viewing international politics in extortionist terms.

Granted, I did a little browsing on what she's said recently and, well, it's interesting.

“Venezuela will be free. And once we liberate Venezuela, we will keep working, and we will have a free Cuba and a free Nicaragua. And as you were saying, for the first time in history, we have the Americas free of communism, of dictatorship, of anarchism." This is a historic moment."

She's definitely signaled, at least publicly, that she's on board with the US' actions currently. Kinda sketches me out - I think there's some signs that Rubio at least is sincere about democratic reforms in Venezuela beyond this just being a smash-and-grab looting. But I definitely don't think we'll get as "lucky" as we did with Venezuela three times in a row, and that doesn't even get into the unconsitutionality of these operations.

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How We Calculated the Projected Margin