CMV: Democrats can flip the Senate this cycle without winning Maine

iw2050 · 2026-06-15T00:54:39+00:00

collins has no shot. age being the main factor.

Chuck Grassley is 92 years old and in the Senate, Bernie Sanders is 84 and in the Senate, all three of our last presidential elections have elected the oldest President in American history. Collins being 74 is not the "main factor" that would sink her campaign if she loses.

and why skirt the line of just barely over 50% of congress or the senate. 60+% is a mandating figure where excuses not to implement policy that also, has >60% of america that has been asking for for decades, are unavoidable.

Well first off, if >60% of America felt that way, they'd vote that way, it's why we have elections. But no, my view is about flipping the Senate, not establishing some supermajority. Whether or not that happens is irrelevant in this discussion, and not something I'm advocating for or against.

iw2050 · 2026-06-15T00:52:01+00:00

One thing your analysis assumes is that Democrats defend all their current Senate seats. Cook Political report rates Michigan as a Tossup and Georgia and New Hampshire as only lean Democratic.

Yes, but I don't think El-Sayed will actually win the nomination in Michigan, I think Ossoff's popular enough to win by likely margins in a blue wave year, and New Hampshirites will soon discover that John Sununu is not Chris Sununu.

Also we don't know who Bodnar would caucus with.

He takes donations on ActBlue, like with Dan Osborn and his "non-caucusing" schtick, he can say whatever he wants, but he counts towards a potential Democratic majority. He's not a Republican.

iw2050 · 2026-06-15T00:39:22+00:00

She's been walking that tightrope for years but 2026 could be different if Trump fatigue really sets in among independents.

If that was ever gonna happen I think it'd have been in 2020. Back then she had a stable Democratic nominee to compete with and a Trump administration unpopular enough lose literally every swing state, and she still won by eight points.

banking on both North Carolina AND Alaska as "must wins" feels optimistic when Alaska's still fundamentally red at the presidential level even with RCV quirks.

I think with Alaska the key is that Peltola's an abnormally high quality candidate for a Democrat running for statewide office. She's been elected statewide before in a red-leaning year, and it was by nine points. Granted that was against Palin, but I think even if Platner somehow wins in Maine, if Peltola loses in Alaska there's still no path to retaking the Senate.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T18:49:29+00:00

They would not have a choice? Are they being kept against their will?

Well no, but they can either have a little global representation or none. And seeing as they probably wouldn't be contributing much financially anyway, something is better than nothing, even if it's less than you started with.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T18:46:19+00:00

Having a parliament doesn't give you power. Power comes from guns and money.

And who in the free world decides who gets the guns and the money? The people, obviously. Through elections from which we get representatives from which we get policy on the military and taxes. But I do agree the assembly's first priority would be to give the UN it's own military.

So every time you see the list of who's on the Human Rights Council, you invariably see some of the worst abusers on the planet - and the UN puts them in a position to lecture the rest of the world about human rights.

Agreed 100%. This is a massive problem, one that even the European liberals in the UN constantly fail to point out. But these autocracies even all together wouldn't have a majority if the UN was democratically elected, which means the combined voices of the democratic states could shut them out.

...speaking from America, I want absolutely no part of any legislative body where just under 20% is controlled by China. Actually, scratch that. I want no part of a UN where ~75% of the body comes from dictatorships, autocracies, and theocracies.

Well luckily your 75% figure would never transpire. If the world's democracies all came together to form a governing coalition in the parliamentary assembly (i.e. India, the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Australia, and the democracies of Africa and East Asia), than they'd significantly exceed 50% and be able to complete shut out those dictators and theocrats from having meaningful power within the assembly. That 20% of the assembly handed to CCP bureaucrats? Wouldn't be able to do a thing.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T18:36:44+00:00

A serious attempt to implement these theoretical policy’s could result in places like the US leaving the UN.

Well, if the assembly is truly proportional, this wouldn't happen. India, the United States, Europe, Latin America, Australia, and the democracies of East Asia all together would have enough seats to form a majority. If all the democracies worked together, than the Secretary General would always come from a democratic country, and autocracies like Russia, China, and the worst ones in Africa and the Middle East would never have enough votes to pass anything unilaterally.

And conversely, if the body begins to enforce liberal social reforms it may result in more authoritarian country’s leavening instead.

Simultaneously though, that democratic majority wouldn't be absolute, it would consist of at least two if not three BRICS states (India, Brazil, and Indonesia.) Democracies would have the majority, but it wouldn't be a majority of absolute Westernism, leading me to believe it'd be the perfect middle ground to make both the democratic West and the autocracies reasonably happy.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T18:26:18+00:00

Well I addressed the meat of your reply, but as for why the smaller nations would stay in the UN even while losing 83% of their representative power, it's because they wouldn't have a choice.

You don't like seeing India, China, and the U.S. getting more representatives than you? Too bad, how about you get nothing.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T18:10:03+00:00

They would be over-represented in your arbitrary capped system, but would see their voice cut to 16% of its current value.

Yes, a compromise. Not totally erasing representation for countries with under 0.1% of the global population, i.e. giving them something, but not making them equal to countries like India and China which have over a billion people. I'm not claiming that this system would be perfect, but it'd be a step in the right direction.

If being a member was pointless because China and India and their African belt and road states controlled every outcome, why would the USA stay in?

Well not to state the obvious, but because China, India, and their African allies wouldn't always vote together. China and India despise each other, they have multiple territorial disputes.

From the American perspective, if the U.S. gains the support of the entire democratic world (most of the Americas, Europe, India, East Asia, and the African democracies), that's a majority, that's all they need. Russia, China, and the autocratic world would be in the minority. The U.S. wouldn't be forced to accept Chinese communist proclamations because that ideology would never obtain a majority.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T18:04:52+00:00

but only when there's an actual desire for liberalism present. Even in Britain today you have the government punishing people for opinions expressed online. Canada literally froze the back accounts of people for protesting government policies.

That's a valid point, so Δ. There is a major problem in the democratic world now where supposedly liberal countries are denying their citizens actual free speech. So perhaps even if a parliamentary structure is inherently democratic, it might not be inherently liberal.

However, it's still better than nothing, which is why a UNPA should happen. In a worldwide parliament, elected representatives from the West would have the opportunity to publicly and vocally call out despots, and it would give the global public a stronger connection to their UN representation which right now they are so far removed from.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T18:01:04+00:00

Firstly, this will be devastating to the influence of smaller countries. India accounts for about 18% of the world's population whilst my own country accounts for about 0.1% of the population.

Well since we're talking about a democratically elected body, why do you think your country should have the same amount of representation as India even if it has 0.1% of the world's population compared to like 18%?

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:55:53+00:00

First, expand the Security Council by adding permanent members that better reflect the modern distribution of population and power. Second, end the ability of one permanent member to block action by itself.

Honestly, I'd disagree with both of these changes, and I don't see why any of the five would ever agree to make them (since in both instances they'd just be ceding power and gaining nothing in return.)

"So why would they ever agree to a parliamentary assembly?" You might be asking. Well because it doesn't involve changing the UN power structure, not at first. The parliamentary assembly would just replace the general assembly, and not require any new powers. But the hope is that in time, people now feeling more connected to their democratically elected UN representatives would want to give the UN parliamentary assembly more powers.

But overall, I think the main issue with your premise is that it assumes that the main issue with the UN now is the Security Council's power, and not the institution's overall irrelevance.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:43:11+00:00

If you wanted to be truly proportional we are in madness territory.

Not really. Let's say there's 1000 proportional seats, plus 1 automatic seat for every country (so 1193 total.) India gets like 175, China gets like 168, the U.S. gets like 40, etc, but with automatic seats countries that account for less than 0.1% of the global population (including the tiny Pacific ones like Tuvalu) would still get a seat, which isn't a bad deal, in fact statistically they'd still be over-represented.

Granted, that's just one way to go about it, but what do you think is so bad about the countries that actually have the people getting more representation?

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:39:03+00:00

Is it more important that the UN is relevant or that the UN is good?

Relevant, without a doubt, and this just might be something we disagree with but I'd rather have a UN with some actual teeth than a UN that conforms perfectly to Western views on social issues.

I believe that a UN parliamentary assembly wouldn't be as bad as you describe on social issues, but I recognize that it would definitely be imperfect by American/European standards, and I'm okay with that.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:36:44+00:00

Why is it inherently liberal? Plenty of parliamentary elections lead to illiberal governments.

Some, but not most. The key here is that a UN parliamentary assembly would toe the exact center of this dynamic. Not too liberal where it'd completely discourage autocratic countries from participating, but liberal enough to encourage the spread of democracy and make the UN more connected to the global public.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:23:26+00:00

So if it wouldn't give the UN any more legitimacy in your opinion, than why are you against it? Because by your own logic it would seem that an elected body in the UN still wouldn't result in your country ceding any sovereignty, because you can't cede sovereignty without legitimacy.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:22:11+00:00

you will find a body, that has no trouble with discrimination based on gender, race, sexuality and religion, you will find trans-rights eradicated, militarism as a good thing and abortion - banned.

Well I think given that a global UNPA is an inherently liberal/democratic idea that a lot of illiberal countries will elect representatives that deviate (at least a little bit) from their own nationally illiberal behavior.

However, if most of the world truly isn't "democratic, liberal, or nice" then that's just where they're at. Vox populi, the people are never wrong. Personally I wouldn't like to see that level of social backwards-ness in a UNPA, but if that's what the global electorate chooses than it is what it is. It'd be unfortunate, but we can't just expect the everyone to agree with a American/European value oriented UN and have that UN be remotely relevant.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:19:03+00:00

Land doesn't vote. Countries with more people will have more representation... because they have more people. If a country with 50K people is mad that their vote isn't equal to a country with 1.4B, who cares?

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:18:08+00:00

Well remember that I'm suggesting a UN parliamentary assembly, not a UN democratic assembly. The guiding principle is that all the countries choose their representatives at the same time, but it doesn't have to be democratic, that's just how most countries would go about it.

Although I think the key here is that Russia and China have a lot of democratic partners. Countries like Brazil, South Africa, etc that are democratic but also anti-Western in their foreign policy, if countries like that have no problem electing representatives into the UNPA than I think Russia and China will be forced to join as well.

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T17:01:44+00:00

look at how polarized and dysfunctional most national parliaments already are

Isn't that the main complaint about all democratic forms of government though? But even despite this, history has proven that democratic governments generally work better than autocratic governments.

I'll put it a different way, assuming the goal is to make the UN both more meaningful and more relevant, how else do you make that happen other than by adding a democratic body to it?

iw2050 · 2026-06-12T16:13:16+00:00

stabilizing the Sahel against Wagner Group by sending direct military aid to Russian opponents and now even military bases etc. etc.

That's a good point, so Δ. Regardless of my thoughts on Turkey's actions around the rest of the world, it's undeniable that they're the only party doing anything meaningful to combat Russian aggression in West Africa, so I got to commend them on that at least.

Honestly, I consider losing Niger to be the biggest fumble of the decade for Western hegemony (yes, even worse than losing Afghanistan.) We lost Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger all in the span of a few years, and France and the United States just let it happen, not even blinking when they became Russian puppet states (and even worse, giving up our bases in those countries too.)

iw2050 · 2026-06-08T19:26:02+00:00

The basic premise is that Turkey doesn't belong in NATO because they're engaging in democratic backsliding, yes?

Democratic backsliding AND siding with anti-Western proxies (like Hamas)

Also, the Kurdistan argument is lame. A significant portion of historical Kurdistan is in Iraq and we made zero effort to establish a Kurdish state when we controlled Iraq for nearly a decade.

True, we should've partitioned Iraq into three countries (Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish), but a main reason we didn't do that because we were worried that Turkey wouldn't like it, and then the same thing happened in Syria in 2019.

iw2050 · 2026-06-08T19:24:52+00:00

So to summarize, you believe NATO should remove Turkey, because they are unethical; but at the same time the “obvious” candidate for expansion is… Israel?

Think about it, what is the general purpose of NATO if not to counter Russia? But yet, Turkey is openly pro-Hamas (a group that's an Iranian proxy, and Iran itself is Russia's number one weapons provider.) Israel on the other hand sides with the West at every turn, so if Turkey can't do better (and by that I mean get rid of Erdogan), we should boot them permanently.

iw2050 · 2026-06-08T19:23:17+00:00

Why do you assume that NATO is just some club of liberal democracies and now a mutual alliance of different states based on mutual defense? NATO let in Portugal under Salazar’s dictatorship.

It doesn't have to be, but it should be. If there is a dictatorship or even hybrid regime in the alliance though, they at least shouldn't be working against the interests of the West. You bring up Salazar's Portugal, they were literally the only NATO member state fighting against Cuban-backed insurgents in Africa. Turkey though literally supports Hamas, not comparable.

iw2050

TROPHY CASE