1. That's bc that "debate" performance from Trump was literally the worst thing ever seen in American politics- & that's after 5 yrs of seeing Donald Trump do his thing.
He was advised against the "strategy" & spent the whole next day convinced he'd killed it 🙄
2. I didn't do what so many others did in their books and suddenly apply magic filters to the two 2016 campaigns. In my chapter, A Tale of Two Campaigns, in the '16 cycle as in now, I recounted how shitty Trump's 2016 campaign was, from beginning to end and on every single metric
3. Especially contrasted w HRC's campaign. It wasn't until Trump's freak accident win that all the Clinton hit books had to be quickly revised to recount what a shitty campaign she ran- they were all set to be print about how much better the Clinton campaign was than the Trump
4. campaign- it wasn't even close. Indeed, as bad as this year's iteration is, the 2016 version was 1000% worse so keep that in mind every time one of these people who just knew the Clinton team was running a shitty campaign comes on the TV... I think I might be one of the few
5. people that criticized their strategy in real-time- and that was in relation to the decision to go all-in on the conversion of Rs and even I was wooed by the rise of Never Trump somewhat. Donald Trump is the shittiest candidate in the history of presidential politics and his
6. instincts are shit- but he had two things work out well for him- timing, running into a complacent left-side of the spectrum- and the RNC's turnout operation bc they're the ones that ran the real campaign for him. He has that now too, and a cult-like following in terms of
7. what right-wing media has done to the GOP electorate so he is still competitive to win if Ds don't match the turnout (they will) and get the votes counted (this is the real fight).
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🧵Living History: Don’t Give Up the Ship with Representative Jason Crow
We are living through a moment future historians will struggle to explain without disbelief. A sitting president has publicly called for the execution of members of Congress. The U.S. military has carried out strikes of dubious legality outside a declared war. Senior commanders have resigned. Others have testified behind closed doors that no one stopped them.
And when six members of Congress who are military vets reminded U.S. service members of a principle settled since Nuremberg not to follow illegal orders, the White House responded not with denial or evidence, but with rage.
That was the context for my conversation with Representative Jason Crow of Colorado’s 6th District, one of the six lawmakers featured in the Don’t Give Up the Ship video that ignited Donald Trump’s backlash.
🧵The Whole World is Getting Dumber
(And the Smartphone Did It)
How’s this for a gut punch?
The entire developed world is getting dumber.
Don’t believe me? Check out this graph that shows a world wide “dumbing” across three core cognitive domains—math, reading, and science-that occurs right after the introduction of the smart phone.
And no, it’s not “woke teachers,” or “lazy kids,” or the Department of Education.
This isn’t even a uniquely American story.
The trends are global. OECD-wide.
Finland to France. Japan to Germany. Australia to the U.S.
Good systems and bad.
Everyone is slipping.
And the timing lines up perfectly with the most consequential technological shift of our lifetime:
the smartphone + social media + high-speed mobile internet.
That’s the trilogy that broke attention spans, rewired cognition, and kneecapped learning.
🚨🧵Here's part 2 of my Terrible Truths I've Learned About Humanity series, plz RT
They Not Like Us:
When Cruelty Becomes Contagious
Permission to Be Cruel
There’s a comforting myth that runs deep in American culture, especially among moderates and people who pride themselves on being reasonable.
It’s the belief that most people are naturally kind, that cruelty is fringe, and that if we just had better manners and calmer politics, things would sort themselves out. It’s a lovely idea. It’s also wrong.
The truth is that cruelty has a constituency. Not a majority, not even close, but a solid, persistent minority — roughly 10 to 20 percent — who exhibit stable personality traits that are callous, aggressive, or outright sadistic.
That sounds harsh, but the research is clear. Psychologists have spent years studying what they call the Dark Tetrad: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism. Put these together and you get the personality profiles most strongly associated with enjoying the suffering of others.
🧵STATS You Should Know:
The Midterm Effect is Coming
Folks, if you’ve been wondering whether the “midterm effect” is actually lining up behind all the blue wins we just had, the answer from the data is: yes.
Three fresh national polls — Marist (for NPR/PBS), AP-NORC, and Reuters/Ipsos — are all telling the same basic story:
The environment is turning hostile for Trump and the GOP.
The public is screaming “prices, prices, prices” as the top issue.
Trump’s grip on Republicans is still strong but no longer ironclad.
And yet, voters still don’t trust the parties or institutions, and they’re perfectly willing to blame Democrats for pain they experience, even in a Trump-engineered crisis.
Let’s walk through what these polls collectively tell us.
The Generic Ballot: This Is 2018-Level Energy, But Earlier
Start with the headline: in the new NPR/PBS/Marist poll, Democrats lead the 2026 generic House ballot 55/41 among registered voters — a D+14 advantage. That’s the biggest Marist has shown for Democrats since 2017 and a massive swing from a 48–48 tie in November 2024.
🧵Reality Bites:
Trump’s Voters Have Just Found Out They’re on the Menu
When the government reopened, cable pundits called it a cave. Twitter called it surrender. I called it a win—because from where I sit, Democrats didn’t lose the shutdown fight, they won the long game and gave the ACA its only chance of survival.
The point was never to “hold out” for an Affordable Care Act subsidy extension that Republicans were never going to give in the shutdown. The point was to force them to take ownership of killing it. That’s exactly what just happened.
Now, as December premiums land in mailboxes across America, voters will have one party to blame for the sticker shock. One man, really—Donald J. Trump—and the Republican Party that spent fifteen years promising to repeal and replace the ACA without ever producing a plan that wasn’t a dumpster fire. They voted to gut it once to end the shutdown, and they’ll have to do it again in the glare of public outrage. That’s not losing; that’s setting a trap.