The single biggest question in American law today is: Are lies a get-out-of-laws-free card? Can the government simply lie to grant itself new powers? And is everyone else under an obligation to act as if obvious lies are true, or at minimum, that they might have merit and deserve respect?

Another federal judge—in this case, district court judge Sara Ellis—rules against the Trump admin based on facts. Basically: Of course law enforcement can act to counter violent crime, but ICE objectively isn’t doing that. And of course it’s illegal to assault officers, but that didn’t happen here.

That the executive can't spend money, and thus do stuff, without the regular and periodic approval of a representative legislature isn't some incidental hiccup. It is the core premise of the power of the purse, the most bedrock foundation of Anglo-American constitutionalism from time immemorial.

The East Wing demolition and bribe-funded ballroom construction provide a lesson everyone should’ve learned a while ago: adjudicating the merits of lies is a waste of time. Just call bullshit. “Don’t need permission, it’s only demolition”? BS. Illegal, corrupt and symbolic destruction. Always was.

lol

The Supreme Court has to understand that the president is breaking the law in ways I like. Or at least in ways that I'm unwilling to challenge even though they're objectively not achieving their supposedly national interest goals and also breaking the law. So the Court must defer to that.

Still drives me fucking bonkers how much of a thing this became

The thing that so many pundits miss bc they are so busy talking instead of listening, is that most people just do not want to be bothered and do not want to have to think about politics, especially culture war nonsense. It’s really not that deep.

The far right, which has disproportionate influence today, thinks a lot of problems stem from the fact that women have the right to vote, and that the world would be better if women knew their place. . No, seriously. As @aselrod.bsky.social details here, they go on and on about it. A lot.

Yes!!! So many eulogies for the Dem party written BY DEMS were depressing. Not one of Tuesday's winners comprised. 🌊💙

compare to this to their very upbeat reaction to the 2021 elections

Trump officials keep acting like conditions worsening and Americans suffering on their watch reflects badly on the opposition, and the public will get mad at people without power, because those are the people who care about Americans and want things to run well. I don’t think that’s how it works.

Running against a bad, unpopular president doing bad, unpopular things works. Thinking a bad, unpopular president is not worth talking about—one narrow election is forever, he’s magic, no one cares—is ridiculous. Shouldn’t need saying, but here we are, so it’s good @gregsargent.bsky.social does.

It’s not that 2025 voters demanded wokeness, it’s that making politics all about wokeness is absurd. The winners ran on affordability and freedom. Candidates that ran on bigotry (Cuomo, Earle-Sears) got wrecked. If we must put it in these terms, the public is anti-anti-woke. State repression bad.

Well done study, but we didn’t need one to know Elon Musk and the X algorithm heavily favor the far right and push extremist content. Immediately obvious and open. The question is what the UK will do about a foreign propagandist stoking radicalism, unrest, violence, even civil war in their country.

Cool. What would you call the other wing then? www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/u...

"The results wreck the argument from some prominent centrist commentators that Demts should react to 2024 by accepting that they lost the culture and need to compromise on core values to win again." Good @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social on the overreading of 2024: www.arcdigital.media/p/democrats-...

Tariffs are the tool Trump (illegally) uses to try (and largely fail) to bully other countries, undermine relations with allies, put himself at the center of economic policy and related stories, and solicit bribes. “Bend other nations to his political will” is awfully generous given the record.

There was never a “vibe shift.” There was a big change in who has governmental power and how they use it. Stop thinking like a culture warrior, drop the idea that “politics is downstream of culture,” and recognize that politics and culture are intertwined. Codeterminarive. Then it makes more sense.

'Few voters who prioritize bigotry want the diet version, and trying to appease them alienates parts of the Democratic coalition. Yesterday’s vote shows that the path to defeating Trumpism is not accommodating it, but opposing it with the values of freedom, equality, and affordability.'

Of course the president can’t subvert the Constitution by lying that there’s an emergency. If lying that there’s an emergency is a magic loophole granting the executive branch the powers of Congress, there’s no point to Article I. The fact that this is even a question is a sign of degradation.

Makes no sense for small wins to be sweeping national mandates you must respect and larger wins to be minor outcomes you shouldn’t overrate. That is silly. No one should go along with it.

Key takeaway:

“Yesterday’s vote shows that the path to defeating Trumpism is not accommodating it, but opposing it with the values of freedom, equality, and affordability.”

Trump and the Republicans will likely dial harder into authoritarianism, seeking ways to retain power in the face of a popular backlash. But as the 2025 elections showed, that backlash is large and formidable. It’s enough people power to, in time, pull America back from the brink.

Since 2015, Trump has never been able to turn out his low-political engagement voters (who are very hard to reach in polls) in elections when his name is not on the ballot. The pattern continues.

the "public as a thermostat" model is not just that there's a backlash to the party in power when they move policy too far from the median voter—it's also that the backlash is proportional to the amount policy is moved. last night's election results fit in that model, and suggest a swing in 2026 too

wonderful!

Nicholas dropping some 🔥 here.

Democrats Sweep 2025 Elections, 2024 Narratives Crumble "Be more anti-immigrant, be more anti-trans, be more positive towards anti-democracy bigots like Charlie Kirk. Not as much as Republicans, but move in that direction, since that’s supposedly where the American people are. Nope." My latest:

This was horrific to watch. Agents entering a daycare, wrestling with and abducting a teacher in front of small screaming children. I just… what the fuck are we doing here.

We forgot the lessons of the Great Depression, undid regulations that prevented another, and got hit with the Global Financial Crisis. But we responded to the 21st century version much better, limiting the damage. Maybe something similar will happen with this century's echo of 20th century fascism.

A coalition that ranges from democratic socialists to neoconservatives, including a lot of energized liberals in between, is large and formidable. A big pro-democracy tent. A united front. Any internal disagreements can be hashed out once the authoritarian emergency is over. This really can work.

The 2024 election was not a binding referendum on American culture that everyone must accept and accommodate. Never was.

the entire twitter and group chat poisoned elite of American society who decided Trump winning an election by 1.5% heralded a thousand year reich may have miscalculated a bit

interesting how for all the threats and noises, Trump is responding to Republicans losing by angrily and impotently tweeting about how Republicans lost! Almost like elections... aren't.... over???

Farewell sweet Prince

This is going to get spun as a "thermostatic shift" chart, but it should be properly interpreted as a "information environment is broken" chart. In 2024, voters didn't know what Trump would do, and so they shifted towards him based on vibes. Now they are finding out, and they hate it.

gotta give it to the post's cover game, like obviously it's anti but they also know half of brooklyn is getting this framed

i don’t like him, but, man, turning down $10M in favor of haterdom is an all-time, world-class, heavyweight champion hater move

Is Mike Johnson going to say "I don't know" when asked about tonight's election results?

"If Republicans want a return to political influence in America's dynamic economic and cultural powerhouses, they're going to have to learn how to appeal to the complex folkways of urban dwellers"

Every single county in Virginia shifted Blue.

Decision Desk has called the New Jersey governors race for Mikie Sherill. Yet another state where millions of dollars in anti trans ads didn't work.

These big wins will embolden Dems to take on Trump's lawbreaking and show there's a price for GOP enabling of him. Folks hate to hear this, but normal patterns are asserting themselves: Liberalism isn't dead, Rs are likely to lose in 2026, and Trump is really unpopular, not a magical exception.

3 is out, and while there's a lot more to be counted, it's looking more 2 than 1

this is the most successful a CIA officer has been at toppling a government in years.

Earle-Sears ran what felt like 12 billion ads about how much she hated trans kids and I didn’t hear a single pundit say she should stick to real issues that affect real people.

Most important thing about Islamaphobic smears is they’re Islamaphobic smears, and Cuomo and backers push them. But also, like a pebble in my shoe— Al Qaeda and ISIS are fundamentalist Sunni! Mamdani is relatively secular Shia and standing for election in America! Jihadists would readily kill him.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the president can break the law and remove whoever he wants for any reason he feels, except a Fed governor. Which has no basis in law, but would hurt the economy and the Justices’ investment portfolios in the process. “Mad King-Lite” is apparently what they want.