Democrats are heading to decisive wins in the November midterm elections, taking the House and possibly the Senate.
That is unacceptable to President Trump, more so than the normal desire to retain control; he knows congressional investigations to hold him and his Administration accountable pose grave dangers. He will do most anything, no matter legalities, to stave off a damaging defeat.
That sets the stage for ferocious political and legal battles in the most critical midterms in more than half a century.
Trump and his team have already telegraphed their plans: suppress the Democrats’ vote, based on fictional claims of voting fraud with hordes of undocumented migrants flocking to the polls. There have been scores of studies suggesting almost non-existent voting fraud, less frequent than getting hit by lightning. And why would an undocumented immigrant risk detection by voting which would be committing a crime ?
The Trump team is trying to curb early voting, get ahold of voter files, require a passport or birth certificates to vote, threatening to send forces into heavily democratic voting venues, challenge ballots, even possibly impounding voting machines.
On our podcast James Carville and I hosted Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School and a leading expert on voting rights. He is worried: “What’s different is the federal government itself and the President are trying to undermine our elections.”
Amid his concerns, he’s encouraged by the growing opposition, less worried that constant warnings about voter suppression might be a self-fulfilling prophecy. “People are so ..... that it’s having a mobilizing effect.”
Waldman believes major rallies like No Kings -- after two last year that attracted millions around the country, the next one is scheduled for March 28 -- are elevating the stakes, enlisting more participants. If Trump steps up voter suppression, he is even open to the notion of a nationwide strike, advanced by Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego.
The economy, specifically affordability, will be the driving issue in the elections, but Waldman encourages candidates to talk about the threats that voter suppression poses for democracy. “Some consultants say don’t talk about democracy, Biden did and he lost,” he notes. “Biden’s problem was the way he talked about it, like mainly just vote for him.”
The legal challenges will be profound, he acknowledges, variations in different states but a common thread. He says there is plenty of legal firepower ready to take on Trump’s actions. The Brennan Center will be involved. Among others, high powered Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell is helping, but don’t expect previous partners like major New York law firm, Paul Weiss, to be involved. That was one of the white shoe firms that capitulated to Trump.
Waldman says these massive legal efforts will need more resources. It’s also unclear if, like the successful Biden post-election legal team that defeated Trump in 60 cases, there will be a lead team.
Elections in America depend on local officials and volunteers and there are fears of intimidation. “There is reason for people to be worried,” Waldman says. He suggests they work in groups and seek the important protection of local law enforcement.
At the very top of Michael Waldman’s list: “Vote, vote early, vote by mail.”
In a legitimate election, Democrats are going to win big. In practically every 2025 election, from statewide contests in New Jersey, Virginia, and Wisconsin to special congressional and state legislative contests in states as diverse as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Louisiana and Iowa, Democrats are winning, by double digits, ahead of previous elections.
Preference polls consistently show Democrats with a four or five point preference for Congress. Yet in these earlier contests, including two Governor’s races -- New Jersey was supposed to be a tossup, yet Mikie Sherrill won the Governor’s race by more than 14 points -- Democrats consistently outperformed the polls. In general, that’s a hallmark of a wave or semi-wave election.
This is the 14th midterm election I’ve covered. Based on those experiences, the 2025 contests and the data, look for Democrats to gain up to a couple dozen House seats. Conventionally, the opposition party focuses on incumbents who won by five percentage points or less. There are fifteen in this category, but another 13 the GOP won by less than 15 points. Many of those seats are in play this fall. (The Republicans essentially hold a 220-215 advantage in the House.)
The big gains Trump expected from Republican redistricting didn’t materialize. Depending on whether Democrats’ gerrymandering wins approval in Virginia, the overall partisan effect will be either a draw or a gain of only a couple seats.
In the Senate, Democrats need to pick up a net of at least four seats. That’s possible especially if the March 3rd Texas Senate primaries are won by right wing, ethically challenged Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic newcomer James Talarico.
The White House spin that an economic surge, spurred by tax cuts, will create a winning political environment, is just that, a spin. The only way Trump and Republicans can turn around the 2026 political outcome is to steal it.
As much as citizen involvement and crucial legal challenges matter, the best way to prevent this is a huge voter turnout.
If there is election interference by the Trump mob having armed security there to prevent it would be the smart thing to do. It would have to be deployed not just people in uniform standing around with automatic rifles. They will need to deploy snipers if his thugs start attacking voters or show up to disrupt the election.
Trump and his mob need to be warned that if they try to interfere they will be shot dead.
HOW WE GOT TRUMP 2.0
CORPORATE COMMUNIST BUSINESS PLAN (It’s not a conspiracy; it is a business plan.)
Russia and China are red states.
Why would anyone feel there is a need for a metaphor about Corporate Communism? The short answer: political marketing.
The fascist Trump MAGA right is using socialist as a bludgeon to attack every bipartisan social progress program of the twentieth century (yes, I mean FDR, Eisenhower, Reagan, Nixon, JFK, LBJ, Obama, Biden, et al). Ninety nine percent of the US population, because of Corporate Communist Fox, has no idea what socialism is other than being the spawn of Satan. It is time to put these liars on their back foot by being forced to defend the lack of free and fair media.
“Corporate Communism” is when oblivious and frequently incompetent corporations own the means of communication which is a very long-winded way of saying propaganda. Propaganda rules the world. All I have to do is to mention any religion and all of you have a visceral reaction no matter what your denomination. Propaganda pervades every aspect of our lives. Show me two religions and I will show you a war, frequently within the same dogma denomination. On the corporate side propaganda is done through the ownership of major corporations that provide us with supposed news. This is a failure on many levels, not only in the slanting and editorializing of the news, but more importantly, the editorial decision of what to cover or what to ignore. Right now, the corporate communist news industry covers only things that support oligarchy. To quote Senator Sanders. “In America today, we have more media concentration than we have ever had. Just six international media corporations control 90% of what American people see here and read. They own the traditional media, newspapers, radio and TV networks and movie studios as well as much of the Internet…three huge Wall Street firms Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street are the major stockholders in 95% of the S&P 500 corporations. And in other words, they have significant influence over many hundreds of companies that employ millions of American workers. And in fact, the entire economy.” This is accomplished by the production of false information via the privatization of Big Brother (Palantir, Google, X aka Gulf of Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, etc.). It is the worst of both utopian fantasies, e.g. altruism is a natural human trait and that the invisible hand is more than a metaphor.
In NYC, a self-described socialist Zohran Mamdani resoundingly won in the race for Mayor. During the campaign an ad by political entertainer and Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa who had less leadership experience than Mamdani attacked the leadership and ethics of Cuomo and Adams while yelling “Socialist” about Mamdani. The conservavictim whiny little bitch corporate communist media is spreading the fear lies that NYC businesses will leave NYC for Texas etc. since they have the same educated employee hiring pool as NYC.
A Note on Conspiracy Theory: A popular belief among life’s victims (conservavictims and libtards) is that they are not to blame for their lack of success because “those forces” such as space aliens, frequently with lasers, immigrants and beings with mystic power, e.g. The Illuminati are aligned against them, and “those people” (usually ethnic and or religious groups) all sticking together to subvert their pure patriotic programs.
Corporate Communism is anti-capitalism (Adam Smith and Ayn Rand). It is anti-communist, (Marx and Stalin). It is anti-competitive in its core. It hates the free market. Loves big government which it owns. Classic Capitalism and Classic Communism are utopian dreams based on the perfectibility of humans. The stunning materialist success of classic Capitalism in remaking the world is that it most closely follows the depraved human (that is us) indifference to consequences. The stunning failure of Russian/Chinese, Stalinist Communism is that it assumed that imperfect dogma dog bureaucrats could manage something other than being dogma dog bureaucrats: Red Guard political officers in every organization.
The Corporate Communist Business Plan Privatizing Big Brother:
• Elect a useful idiot wholly controlled by those with extortion and blackmail skills and evidence. (Trump-Epstein anyone?).
• Neuter Citizen Voting (Citizens United: corporations are people) an armed guard at polling places to demand “your papers please” to prevent non-proven voter fraud.
• Neuter The Free Press Aka the Fourth Estate and free speech while maintaining the fantasy of freedom (Free Speech Absolutist) through bogus litigation, denial of access, and ownership of the means of communication. Consolidation of media.
• A note on Free Speech Absolutism: Free speech is absolutely protected from the government. That’s it, full stop. It does not mean everybody has the right to have their words and speech published, streamed, broadcast, sculpted, painted or sent via smoke signals “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one". A. J. Liebling”..
• Ongoing degradation and subjugation of women via BFFI (BruteForceFuckingIgnorance) and tax-free religion. E.g. Clinton, Harris, Warren, Klobuchar, Ferraro. Compare and contrast with Nixon, Trump, Bush, et al. G$D created man and woman in their own image but no one has ever seen him/her/them yet almost always has a beard. Hell, even Satan has a beard. Why do popular (actually, all) religions get to have their superstitions subsidized by the government as tax free business? Please don’t say they do good work like the Godfather passing out turkeys on Thanksgiving right before DeNiro shoots him. I think it was abortion and Germaine Greer, and Susan Brownmiller via Playboy, (I only read the articles and interviews e.g. Ayn Rand) that I found the additional cracks in my dogma. What, exactly are men so terrified of? Why are G$D’s women frequently covered from head to toe due to the male BFFI (Brute Force and Fucking Ignorance) run societies and religions. Could it be self-awareness by men that they cannot control their most base instincts or perhaps confusing musculature bravado with self-esteem? Currently this is Trumpism writ large. Could not men have come up with a civilization that did not need to stand on the throats of 50% of the world’s population to develop both the A bomb and the Cybertruck? It seems that men have not completely exempted themselves from abusive dogma like mandatory facial hair and celibacy as to women. Good thing we are the top of the food chain.
• Neuter Government Oversight of the economy (Chevron Doctrine), DOGE. and e.g. elimination of the CFPB Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• Cut Education Funding (eliminate critical thinking and awareness of facts about tiny hands).
• The anti-capitalist mentality: Elimination of Classic Capitalism Free Market Competition via Anti-Customer Service (“Your call is very important to us and the robot will be right with you”), tax funded bailouts. Consolidation of industries to eliminate effective competition.
• Denying that personal information: medical, financial e.g. credit scores, accident, dating, social, religious is actually individual private property like homes, stamp collections, cars, shoes, underwear. This theft of private property is frequently self-inflicted via free shipping and rewards by uploading your life to Big Brother social media or most likely in terms of agreement you signed and never read. Let’s not forget DOGE: since there is no controls or oversight, possibly most Musk minions stolen data will wind up as an Xfile without rewards or free shipping.
o This from Consumer Reports: “Imagine being charged more for an airline ticket to a family member’s funeral just because you searched for their obituary online. ..surveillance pricing’ happens because corporations are allowed to secretly use your personal information against you – charging different prices based on how much they think you’re willing to pay, or how badly you need their product or service.”
o
• Indentured Servitude (Employee responsible for their pension and medical insurance).
• Permanent Financial Crisis and business bailouts.
• Tax Free Theocracy. Christo Fascism
• Full Unemployment via “The Singularity aka Homo AI”
• Return of a King (Donnie The Dumb)
Joewightman.substack.com “One Eyed King”
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