Enjoy:

RIP Bonnie Tyler.

Speaking of kinky male heroes, it reminds me of the dilemma facing the Democrat Party, one that Graham Platner’s candidacy spotlighted. Some people wonder why Platner was chosen in the first place to run for office, and pushed by certain factions who thought he’d be a good candidate. I think the answer isn’t obscure: he was their designated working-class hero. At least, he could be presented that way. Because it’s all about casting. And sometimes an actor has to be replaced while the play is still in production.

Democrats have lost many members of a demographic that used to be a goodly portion of their base: white, male, working class. They don’t need those votes in deep blue states or cities, and are free to run rich Communists with a foreign background such as Mamdani. But in purple ones and in nationwide elections it’s a riskier proposition, although it can still happen (see Michigan and El-Sayed; but Michigan has a particularly large Muslim voting bloc). But Democratss would very much like to have those white working-class men voting for them everywhere.

Thus, you had the nomination of the abominable Tim Walz as Harris’s VP. It was an effort that failed because Walz was a leftist’s idea of a masculine guy, but he fell very short of that and just came across as weird (a descriptor he used for J. D. Vance but that fit Walz far better).

Vance, by the way, really did start out as a white working-class guy – or even more poor than that – but rose higher by dint of brains and hard work.

Initially Platner must have seemed like a good solution to the problem. Male, “oyster farmer,” young, tattooed, veteran, Maine native, possessed of a rugged quality. A leftist who didn’t look like a leftist. For a while he polled quite well against Susan Collins, who is old and female and has been in office for a gazillion years. But Platner had a past, and the past wasn’t all that long ago.

Who chose Platner? Like most of these working-class heroes and foreign academic Communists, he was chosen by people whose specialty it is to find them and back them:

Welp… pic.twitter.com/e3TgHWaf9T

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 10, 2026

It’s about one of these “finders,” Daniel Moraff. The Times article said, “He looks for a particular type: military veterans with blue-collar jobs and no electoral experience but an interest in politics and (typically) labor unions.”

Next in line in Maine for the role seems to be Troy Jackson. The difference is that he really is from a working-class background and really was a logger, although he lacks a history of military service. He also has been a Maine politician for about twenty-five years and was the president of the Maine Senate. However, he’s got the usual political baggage, in his case that he was originally an abortion-opposing and same-sex-marriage-opposing Republican and switched both his party and his positions. There’s also this:

Jackson initially maintained a close political alliance with Platner, with the two frequently appearing at campaign rallies together and running in a ranked-choice voting alliance during the 2026 primary cycle. However, after multiple scandals involving Platner, including allegations that he raped a former girlfriend, Jackson has distanced himself from Platner.

On Israel, Jackson adheres to the requisite Democrat Party line:

“Anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza. It has to end, and we as Americans have the power to end it.” Jackson added that he will “never vote in favor of US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel” as a senator.

The article says that’s the first time he’s spoken much publicly about Israel, and it happened yesterday. Funny thing, that – he’s hopping on the bandwagon in an attempt to replace Platner. Jackson is also backed by Hasan Piker and Bernie Sanders. The same article helpfully lists the other contenders for the nomination as well, and mentions their attitudes on the Israel question. They exhibit different degrees of anti-Israel sentiment. But only one candidate seems to be supportive of the country, and that’s Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state of Maine.

One more thing about Troy Jackson – this allegation has emerged:

A progressive advocacy group on Tuesday accused former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson of striking a female colleague with a bottle he threw during a state Senate caucus dispute years ago, complicating his emergence as the leading Democrat contender to replace Graham Platner on the November ballot against Republican Sen. Susan Collins. …

In a post on X, the group said Jackson, “in a heated disagreement, struck a female colleague with a bottle he threw at her” during a caucus meeting when he served as Senate president, and it described the episode as “a widespread open secret” in Maine politics that was “not an isolated incident.”

The group conceded that people close to Jackson were denying the account.

The Democrats have until July 27 to make a decision. It will be the Party regulars of Maine who will choose Platner’s successor. They have an interesting task ahead – how to thread the needle.

[NOTE: If anyone’s interested in how it is that Platner can be on total disability from the service, here’s an article about that.]

The post The Democrats are holding out for a hero in Maine appeared first on The New Neo.

Micky Kaus pointed out that Platner “has the leverage. All he has to do to screw the Dem party is… nothing.” And my RedState colleague Bonchie described the Left’s “nuclear levels of cope” over their rapey Nazi: “He’s a mentally disturbed do-nothing who works for his mom. He doesn’t care about the party. Why would he? And there is no mechanism to forcibly remove him.”

You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Platner seems like the kind of guy who likes to throw his weight around, and not just with women. Right now he’s the nominee, although the Democrats would like to forget that inconvenient truth.

From Devon Murphy-Anderson, the Executive Director of the Maine Democratic Party:

“We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, nor in determining what this process looks like,” she noted. “We have also reiterated that Graham Platner must drop out of this race so that Democrats in Maine can focus on defeating Susan Collins this November.”

No, neither Platner nor his “team” has a role in determining the next Democratic nominee from Maine for the US Senate. But he certainly as a role – a big one – in determining who is the present Democratic nominee from Maine for the US Senate, because at present he is that nominee and he can’t be forced out. Murphy-Anderson speaks of the “process” but acts as thought that process is that she will tell Platner what to do. But he’s not a party animal – that is, he’s not a Party animal. So he doesn’t need to do it – unless they make him an offer he doesn’t wish to refuse, whether it be money or status.

As I wrote yesterday:

… I think there’s at least a decent possibility that he’s such a narcissist, so tremendously full of himself and arrogant, that he might even refuse to drop out at all.

However, Platner doesn’t actually hold all the cards here. The Democrats have one huge card – at least, as far as I can tell – which is the threat of prosecution for rape. I looked up the statute of limitations in Maine for the crime, and although the law is fairly complex in that it depends on certain elements of the crime, it’s pretty clear that – since the incident is alleged to have occurred in 2021 – there is plenty of time to prosecute.

However, because this case rests almost entirely on the testimony of the alleged victim, she would have to agree to testify. That could be a stumbling block.

The post Will Platner stay or will he go? appeared first on The New Neo.

That would be quite something to see. After all, if you promote a scumbag, you have to deal with a scumbag.

So now I see this NY Post article. An excerpt:

Maine Democratic candidate Graham Platner appears to be holding the Democratic Party hostage — refusing to drop out after he was accused of rape unless he gets to approve his successor to run for the Senate, The Post has learned.

A source familiar with the campaign discussions said Platner, his campaign and political strategist Morris Katz are deliberating about the Maine Democrat dropping out but only if his replacement shares his left-wing values.

So the report is that he’s making demands and threatening not to drop out if they’re not met. Nice.

It certainly makes sense that the powers-that-be would like someone more moderate, in order to appeal to the somewhat purple state of Maine. Then again, Collins is pretty moderate herself. But my point is that Platner knows he has some power here and is loathe to give it up.

Needless to say, there’s been a ton of coverage of Platner in the last 24 hours, much of it about how the Democrats supported him till the current revelations about rape. Not date-rape, but what Whoopi Goldberg might or might not refer to as “rape-rape.”

Ace has a good summary of how the NY Times did a limited modified hang-out a while back by trying to get ahead of the rape and assault allegations without actually covering them truthfully. Rather, they mostly covered them up. It’s a long and involved post, but here’s some of it to give you the flavor:

The New York Times Knew All About Graham Platner’s Rape Allegation But Deliberately Buried It …

They also buried the allegations of non-rape abuse by Lyndsey Fifield — and she says she gave them the names of five friends who would corroborate the story (at least as far as her telling the same story contemporaneously).

Two of those friends, she told them, didn’t know about the abuse, but could corroborate the dates of their relationship. The other three could corroborate the abuse.

The New York Times chose to only contact the two friends Fifield expressly told them could not corroborate the abuse. They didn’t contact the three who could corroborate the abuse, deliberately.

Then the Times wrote that they contacted two friends “who could not corroborate” Fifield’s claims of abuse.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the people who write at the Times are stupid. They may be both knaves and fools in the classic sense, but they are not stupid and they know how to write exactly what they want to write.

There’s also a good piece in National Review in terms of a summary of what went wrong with Platner. But it has a flaw that I’ve noticed is present in just about every article I’ve read from the right about Platner, an omission that puzzles me.

For example, here’s a quote from that link:

If Platner fooled you [he’s addressing reporters on the left], maybe you should find something to do with your life besides writing columns about politics. Because the U.S. political landscape is full of creeps, cretins, con artists, crooks, and cads of every kind, and it always will be. If the media has any useful role to play in our system, it is to look beyond the spin and the campaign-crafted image and to tell the world who these candidates really are, warts and all, so the electorate can make an informed choice.

Talk about an idealistic vision! The point is that Platner did not fool them, not for a single moment. Nor will they ever “look beyond the spin.” They proudly create the spin. There is no devotion to the principle of truth. It’s about winning, period.

What’s more, this story did not come out now in the interests of truth. It came out now because Democrats and the MSM (redundancy, I know) realized Platner almost certainly would lose. So they had to torpedo him. They had held back the rape story not only to protect him till now, but to use in case they needed it in the future. Now they need it, so it’s printed. I think it’s just as simple as that.

And so you have a flood of people (take a look here) suddenly saying he has to go, people who defended him mightily till now. I repeat: it’s not the result of the story itself. The story being revealed is the result of the polls. The outrage at Platner’s behavior is the result of the polls. That’s all it is. Now, maybe they were outraged and worried even earlier, but they had to keep their mouths shut and pretend to defend him, all in the interests of winning. Once he no longer was a winner, they’re free to suddenly virtue-signal about him.

[ADDENDUM: The allegations have gotten worse.

How could that be, you ask? Here’s how:

One of Graham Platner’s ex-girlfriends alleged Tuesday that the embattled Maine Democrat repeatedly removed his condom during sex without asking permission.

“He would pull condoms off,” Lyndsey Fifield said in an interview with the Washington Post. “He would do it in a sneaky way. He wouldn’t tell me.”

“I confronted him both during and after [sex] because he knew that I was not on birth control and how dangerous that was,” Fifield added. “He would act like cute about it, like ‘Oh sneaky me.’”

Actually, I’m not sure that’s worse than breaking and entering and rape. Then again, it’s pretty bad.

However, a caveat the left will no doubt point out is that this allegation is by the Republican ex-girlfriend, not the “progressive” one. So it’s more suspect, as far as they’re concerned.

My own question is why, after he did this, would anyone continue to see him or sleep with him? She said it happened six times. And he’s not so compelling a specimen; he’s a pretty repellent guy even without this kind of sleazy conduct, as far as I can see.

Then again, Sylvia Plath may have had it right – at least, about some women but certainly not all:

… I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.]

The post The Platner rape story: all in the timing appeared first on The New Neo.

Last Tuesday was not the first time socialists have won elections in the US, but until recently most of those elections occurred close to a hundred years ago (see this). And for the most part the candidates ran as Socialists, not Democrats, and fit the mold of more conventional socialism as well.

More recently, Bernie Sanders ran as an Independent, beginning in the 1970s (first for mayor of Burlington, then for US Congress, than as US senator from Vermont), even though he is “self-described democratic socialist.”

The most recent pattern goes even further, because as far as I can tell all the DSA candidates who won last Tuesday (and Mamdani before them), and those of a few years ago (such as AOC), ran not as Socialists or Independents but as Democrats. They are also even more radical than the ones who came before. The approach is to choose a low-turnout primary election in a deep blue city and field an extremely radical candidate who will run as a Democrat and who is often chosen for physical attractiveness and youth. Often, although not always, the candidates themselves and/or their parents have apparent 3-world immigrant roots. The idea is to challenge the old guard and win, often with a tiny percentage of the voters, the win being possible because the turnout is so low.

I watched a video after the New York primaries the other day, and although I no longer can find that video it featured interviews with people in the districts where the DSA radicals won. They were flabbergasted and distressed, but all but one of them said they hadn’t voted. Unfortunately, the interviewer didn’t ask them why they had failed to vote, and so we can only speculate. But it was clear that they hadn’t quite realized what was going on until it was too late. They were all Democrats, by the way, and even moderately leftist. But they did not like these candidates.

Another thing that wasn’t asked of them was whether they would be willing to vote for these candidates’ Republican opponents in the general election. But I bet their answer would be “no” if they were to be honest.

As best I can recall, this sort of approach to fielding very radical candidates began with the Soros-backed DAs in blue areas. They slipped in somewhat under the radar in a similar way. Soros (and others; I doubt he was alone in this) had the rather brilliant idea of targeting low-turnout primaries for DA in places where the Democrat nominee invariably wins, and so the key to a victory was gaming the primary vote. As best I can tell, this tactic began in 2015 (the linked article was written in August 2016):

While America’s political kingmakers inject their millions into high-profile presidential and congressional contests, Democratic mega-donor George Soros has directed his wealth into an under-the-radar 2016 campaign to advance one of the progressive movement’s core goals — reshaping the American justice system.

The billionaire financier has channeled more than $3 million into seven local district-attorney campaigns in six states over the past year — a sum that exceeds the total spent on the 2016 presidential campaign by all but a handful of rival super-donors.

His money has supported African-American and Hispanic candidates for these powerful local roles, all of whom ran on platforms sharing major goals of Soros’, like reducing racial disparities in sentencing and directing some drug offenders to diversion programs instead of to trial. It is by far the most tangible action in a progressive push to find, prepare and finance criminal justice reform-oriented candidates for jobs that have been held by longtime incumbents and serve as pipelines to the federal courts — and it has inspired fury among opponents angry about the outside influence in local elections.

Prior to that, as far as I know, most DA candidates were at least somewhat tough on crime, or campaigned that way. It was part of the concept of a DA: these were head prosecutors, after all. Voters weren’t especially energized and probably had no idea that this time was very very different. In fact, one difference was that – according to the article – prior to the 2015 push, 85% of DA candidates ran unopposed. Some of these Soros prosecutors ended being booted and some are still in place, but I wager that all of them have harmed their communities.

This Soros push was very well-researched and well-orchestrated. The people running the show are not at all dumb:

Prosecutorial discretion gives district attorneys a huge say in the charges and sentences that defendants face. But reform efforts have not traditionally focused on harnessing that power.

“They are often a very invisible part of the criminal justice system and the political system,” said Brenda Carter, director of the Reflective Democracy Campaign, an arm of the progressive Women Donors Network. “Many people can’t name their district attorney. It’s not an office people think about a lot.

Ripe for the picking, obviously.

More:

… “I think people are waking up to the untapped potential for intervention in these seats to really change the day-to-day realities of criminal justice,” Carter said. “It’s been really gratifying for us to see the research taken up and run with by different groups around the country.”

Armed with that knowledge, progressive groups including Color of Change began researching potentially interesting district attorney races around the country, multiple sources said. (The organization declined to comment.)

“It’s hard to find this information!” exclaimed Steele, the Emerge America president. “You can’t just Google ‘hot DA races.’ So part of the issue is identifying what potential races there are.”

They certainly succeeded in doing so.

That same approach was used in 2018 for one of the very first carefully-chosen DSA candidates for a federal position: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Young (29 at the time), energetic, and telegenic, she managed a primary victory in New York’s 14th Congressional district that was shocking, defeating Joe Crowley, a powerful (10-term) US House member who was the Democratic Caucus chair. This set the template for subsequent victories over Democratic establishment figures, one that expanded and which we see occurring today, especially in New York.

AOC was not alone, either. She was part of the “Squad,” who all entered Congress that year, the others being Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. All women, all relatively young and energetic as well. The group has since expanded. Not all were or had been DSA-sponsored (Omar and Pressley were not), but they almost undoubtedly are supporters of the same or similar principles, and:

At least three Squad members provided fundraising and volunteer assistance during the other members’ campaigns.

It was AOC who gave the group the moniker “the Squad,” which has stuck.

I believe that it was with AOC that I first became aware of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) designation and realized that it had become a force with which Democrats would need to contend. It’s no accident some of this is happening in New York, either – as have the recent DSA victories of even more radical candidates. New York is the DSA’s headquarters.

And the earlier history of the DSA is the subject of a planned Part II.

The post Recent socialist wins in US elections – how it began: Part I appeared first on The New Neo.

That’s the beauty of a deep blue district. Win the primary and you’re in. And what you might imagine of Mamdani’s picks is true: they are fellow “progressive” leftist Democratic Socialists, and are supported by the same voters that liked Mamdani. That group is highly motivated and fed up with incumbents for the most part – a phenomenon similar to the one that propelled AOC into her seat in the beginning of her career:

When campaigning Tuesday, Mamdani said it was not a question of electing more Democrats, it was a question of electing “better Democrats.”

CBS News New York political reporter Marcia Kramer says that in effect, he was tapping into recent a poll finding that New York voters were fed up with politics as usual and were ready to clean house.

The winners will be going to the US House. Then again, even if more moderate Democrats had won the primaries (although “moderate” is a relative word these days), they probably would be voting exactly the same as these far leftists. However, this seems to be the direction of the Democratic Party in safe blue enclaves: to nominate the most radical candidate possible.

In the 13th District, nominee Chevalier “won’t say murderers should go to prison, won’t support deporting illegal immigrant convicted rapists, and won’t condemn Hamas or 10/7.” What’s more, it seems to have been white voters who supported her and black and Hispanic voters who supported her opponent:

Espaillat led w/ older, lower income, Black, & Hispanic voters. “Socialist” Chevalier led w/ younger, college-educ., higher income, i.e. gentrifiers.

In the 10th District, the main difference between the winner and the 2nd-place loser was that the latter was the incumbent, Dan Goldman. Oh, and the winner is anti-Israel:

Lander’s knock-out of two-term Rep. Goldman delivers one of the night’s biggest intraparty upsets. Lander, who enjoyed the backing of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), defeated Goldman in a race that became a proxy battle between the party’s progressive wing and its more establishment faction.

Both candidates are Jewish, so that was not the issue. But Lander said he wanted to join “that fight to end occupation, and apartheid and genocide.”

This is definitely the wave of the future for Democrats. Although they will run less obviously leftist candidates in more purple areas, if such candidates win they will vote with the others.

And what is the plan of the Democratic Socialists? They’ve got one, and it’s nothing less than revolutionary. The left might not be able to win a presidency, but they would like to fix it so that they don’t need to:

Earlier this month, the Democratic Socialists of America’s top leadership met for an in-person meeting of their National Political Committee (NPC), the DSA’s governing authority. The result of the meeting was “Workers Deserve More!”, a rebooted platform for the organization featuring a host of radical proposals. The document commits DSA to scrapping the U.S. Senate, “abolishing the carceral forces of the capitalist state,” defunding the Department of War, amnesty for all immigrants, and “replac[ing] the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”

As more and more members seek election to local and national positions, the platform represents a clear statement of the DSA’s views. Its radicalism, therefore, gives a glimpse into how the equivalent of the DSA’s board of directors—some of whom have appeared to moderate—actually think about politics.

It’s “our democracy” all right; the sort of thing the Founding Fathers worked so hard to avoid. It is also the fruit of the long Gramscian march through our institutions, especially that of higher education. I suggest you read the whole thing; I may write more about it in a future post.

The post Mamdani’s picks win their primaries in New York appeared first on The New Neo.

Starmer showed more emotion in his leavetaking than I’m aware of him showing before in public life. But I think he may be the only one crying:

Sir Keir Starmer choked up as he announced his resignation as UK prime minister Monday — less than two years after the Labour Party stormed to a landslide general election win.

Starmer, 63, set out a timetable to stand down after coming under mounting pressure following last month’s local elections, in which the governing Labour Party lost over 1,000 seats.

The prime minister announced his intention to step down after admitting the Labour Party was questioning whether he could lead it into the next general election, which must be held before July 2029 …

This represents a change of personnel rather than anything else:

Andy Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor, is the overwhelming favorite to succeed Starmer.

He defeated Reform UK by almost 20 percentage points in last week’s by-election in the pro-Brexit northwest England constituency of Makerfield. …

Starmer’s popularity has plunged after repeated missteps and U-turns on policies such as welfare reform, as well as his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

The Labour government has also failed to deliver promised economic growth and ease a longstanding cost-of-living crisis.

And yet, Labour will remain in charge. And who is Andy Burnham?:

Until last week, Burnham had been the Mayor of Manchester, Britain’s fifth largest city, for about a decade. He stepped down from that role to stand in a local by-election last week, easily clinching the seat in Makerfield, Greater Manchester, to become the local Member of Parliament in the House of Commons.

This was almost certainly no coincidence; Burnham stepped down and ran for the seat in order to pave the way for replacing Starmer. The seat he won makes it interesting:

Burnham’s recent victory in the Makerfield by-election was significant not only as it cleared his potential path to the premiership, however, but because he won decisively in exactly the type of constituency Labour has struggled to hold onto in recent years.

The seat is predominantly white British, traditionally working-class, post-industrial and voted heavily to leave the European Union in the 2016 “Brexit” referendum. Communities like Makerfield across the U.K. were considered Labour heartlands for decades, but they have become increasingly contested as many voters drift toward right-wing, populist parties such as Reform UK.

Burnham has spent years positioning himself as a viable alternative to Starmer, criticizing Labour’s leadership at moments of weakness while carefully cultivating his own national profile.

How Burnham would differ from Starmer as a national — and international leader — isn’t exactly clear.

Indeed. My guess is that it’s mostly a stylistic difference:

[Supporters] portray him as an authentic voice for post-industrial Britain — a man who understands communities that feel neglected by London. His “everyman” presentation and his easy communication style, they argue, contrasts with the rigidness and technocratic approach to politics that former government lawyer Starmer never managed to shed.

Critics argue, however, that Burnham has failed to make clear his views on some of the most defining issues of the day.

And that is no accident.

The post Say buh-bye to Starmer appeared first on The New Neo.

In reality, I don’t think it’s either. Trump is as much a reflection and result of opinions on the right as he is a shaper of those opinions. For example, I’ve been seeing significant complaints about Cornyn for quite a while online, Trump tapped into that and also probably escalated it, but it already existed.

Ken Paxton's victory in Texas has, I think, interesting implications for the national political scene.

Coming on top of a string of similar events, this is very bad news for anybody who wants to think MAGA is declining in influence or Trump is a spent force.

I'm not MAGA – I'm…

— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) May 27, 2026

Longer excerpt from the tweet:

Coming on top of a string of similar events, [Paxton’s win] is very bad news for anybody who wants to think MAGA is declining in influence or Trump is a spent force. …

There have been a lot of very determined attempts to fragment the MAGA base and attempt to drive a wedge between them and the Trumpster. I see this on X and other social media – lots of indignant blithering about Israel and the Iran war that seems very light on substance and very heavy on attempting to fracture the Republican coalition.

I don’t think it’s working. [Last night] is evidence that Trump’s endorsement matters, and the base is not kindly disposed towards any Republican pol who’s perceived as not being on his team.

Again, I think the emphasis is wrong there. Yes, there are people who don’t like GOP office-holders who are disloyal to Trump himself, and who consider Team Trump the important thing. But I think the majority of voters support Trump because of what he has done and what he plans to do – that is, his policies – rather than thinking his policies are good because they’re his. Of course,Trump’s personality isn’t separate from his actions, but it’s the latter that most MAGA people emphasize and if he started doing things that were perceived as out of line with those policies he’d be losing their support.

And yes, there are people who want to take over the MAGA movement for various nefarious reasons, including Israel-hatred and Jew-hatred. But there are others who are turning on Trump merely because they are isolationists who perceived him as promising no more wars forever, not just “no forever wars.” But I think that most people on the right understood Trump to be a Jacksonian rather than an isolationist, and see the Iran war as a Jacksonian conflict that is not only necessary but long overdue. In line with that, though, if he ends the Iran war with a bad deal, one perceived as giving away too much to Iran, many of those who have stuck with him so far may become at least somewhat disillusioned.

Also – contrary to the scare propaganda of the left – Trump isn’t going to be running for a third term. If his health holds up, which I sincerely hope it does, he’ll be in office for a little over two and a half more years. Trump’s 80th birthday is only a couple of weeks away, and if all goes well he’ll be 82 and a half on leaving the presidency. At that point, Trump will have a successor or successors. But Trump is sui generis, and there won’t be anyone quite like him again, for good or ill.

The post The Trumpian primaries and Trump’s influence appeared first on The New Neo.

I wonder what the Democrat voters of Maine will decide to do. So far, Democrats are defending him with the argument that he’s changed since he wrote charming things like this:

Among the newly unearthed posts from Platner’s now-deleted “P-Hustle” Reddit account, one from March 2017 in the r/Military forum addressed what he considers a favorite pastime in the portapotty:

“I still have to jerk off every time I sit in a porta-s***ter… that blue water smell conditioned me.”

And then there was this:

… using the same “P-Hustle” account, [Platner] mocked U.S. Army Pfc. Ted Daniels who was seen in a video being shot by the Taliban.

“This video never gets old. Dumb motherf***er didn’t deserve to live,” he allegedly wrote of Daniels, a father of two and Purple Heart recipient who had deliberately drawn enemy fire to protect his squad.

“At least his stupidity and fat a** wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt,” he continued. “Poor marksmanship on the Taliban’s part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home, he managed to make every possible s*** decision possible when it comes to small unit combat.”

More at the link, including:

He’s engaged in victim-blaming of sexual assault survivors. Posted homophobic jokes. Called rural white Americans racist and stupid. Oh, and referred to himself as a card-carrying Communist.

That’s in addition to the Nazi tattoo. And yet the Democrats are faced with defending him and needing to vote for him to defeat the evil Republicans.

I am left wondering whether most Maine Democrats will hold their noses and vote for him, and what Independents will do. If polls are any indication, Platner could end up gracing the US Senate; however, there haven’t been any polls taken since late March, according to RealClearPolling. All the polls on their list show Platner ahead of Collins, but none show him cracking 50%.

Then again, look at this from Collins’ last Senate run, which took place in 2020 [emphasis mine]:

The race became the most expensive in Maine history, with Collins spending $23 million and [her opponent] Gideon nearly $48 million. It also had national implications, as defeating Collins was a key part of the Democrats’ strategy to achieve a Senate majority. Gideon led Collins in nearly every public poll of the race. Nevertheless, Collins defeated Gideon, 50.98%-42.39%, on election day. Collins outperformed Republican President Donald Trump, who lost the state to Democratic nominee Joe Biden by more than nine percent. Maine was the only state to elect a senator of a different party than the winner of its presidential contest in the November 3 election.

Maine used a ranked choice voting system in the 2020 U.S. Senate election, as established by a 2016 referendum. Because Collins won a majority of the first-place votes cast, no additional vote tabulation rounds were needed.

That was six years ago, and a lot can change in six years. Also, Gideon – a woman – was a more conventional politician than Platner (not a difficult bar to clear). However, note that the 2020 polls were consistently wrong, and that the final result wasn’t even close, despite the fact that – just as today – the race was seen as key to the Democrats’ hopes of a Senate majority. Note also that Collins’ victory was achieved despite Biden winning the state by nine percent, and that she got more than 50% and therefore avoided a runoff.

The fact that Platner is highly likely to be the Democrats’ nominee in a state such as Maine – which, though quite blue, is not entirely so – would be shocking if I still had the capacity to be shocked by something like that. His election would be even more shocking, although I believe it is definitely possible. The Overton Window has moved that far, and what was inconceivable just a short while ago is no longer beyond belief, although it remains both mind-boggling and depressing.

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But it’s not just about policy, and in fact policy may be way way down on the list. To say it’s about power doesn’t really say much either, although power is a big draw for some people of a certain personality type. But power is also about money. With revelations such as this about the vast sums given to NGOs, for example, or Medicaid fraud (and kickbacks and/or payment in votes from the grateful fraudster community), not to mention speaking fees and insider trading and the like, there’s a lot of money to be had.

Trump in particular is a threat – not because he’s a “Nazi” – they clearly don’t mind Nazis if they’re Democrat Nazis – or an “authoritarian” (likewise; authoritarians are great if on the left). It’s because he’s actually serious about “draining the swamp,” which not only has the potential of cutting off the power they wield even when Republicans are in charge, but cutting off the money spigot or at least reducing it.

There’s still another reason, which is the things they’ve done in the past: leaks of classified information, planting false conspiracy theories such as Russiagate, lawfare for political reasons, and now gerrymandering (which both parties have always done but which the left had especially mastered). They may not go to prison for things like the classified leaks, but when their machinations are revealed they do lose face with at least some voters.

Plus, during the Biden administration they were so very close to so many of their goals. They almost were able to pass their transformative legislative package. The only thing that stopped them was the fact that Manchin and Sinema wouldn’t vote for the nuclear option. Manchin and Sinema are gone now – funny thing, that – and the only possible stopper if the Democrats get power again (accent on the “possible” because I’m not sure how he’d really vote) would be Fetterman.

Put it all together and the GOP must be fought with every tool possible, some of them quite creative. With the help of leftist judges, it might be possible to do a lot of shady things now but especially in the future, if the Democrats can win control. That’s why the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision blocking their redistricting efforts for this year was such a shock and such a blow to the left. That’s why, if they come to power again and gain a majority in Congress plus the presidency, they will pack the US Supreme Court to make sure it always rules for their side.

That’s why Hakeem Jeffries said this recently:

Just days before an apparent assassination attempt on President Donald Trump’s life, one of the Democratic Party’s leaders called for “maximum warfare” against Republicans.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., made the inflammatory remark while warning Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., against redrawing the state’s congressional map ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Jeffries said that if DeSantis attempted to counter Democratic gains in Virginia following the state’s aggressive gerrymander, Democrats would continue to ratchet up pressure on Republicans nationwide.

“We are in an era of maximum warfare. Everywhere, all the time,” Jeffries said Wednesday at a news conference.

Note the subject matter was redistricting, and Jeffries was basically saying to Republicans, “We can do it but you aren’t allowed to do it.”

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Not me, not yet, although I find the ads incredibly annoying.

For some reason, for about a year I’ve been getting an ad for some sort of face makeup (I turn it off after the usual five seconds, so I don’t even know what it’s advertising, even after all this time), featuring a woman with the most droning grating annoying voice ever. But those ads are nowhere near as infuriating as what I’ve come to call the counter-message ads. At present, they seem to solely involve Israel and Jews – or rather, with countering the message of videos made by pro-Israel or pro-Jewish sources.

For example, if I happen to watch a video by some Jewish or Israeli organization which offers news of the Gaza War or the Iran War from Israel’s point of view, the ads invariably are pro-Gaza and pro-Hamas. If I happen to watch a video that has to do with Jewish thought or religion, invariably it is accompanied by ad after ad from proselytizing Christian organizations explicitly dedicated to converting Jews to Christianity.

These counter-ads are presently solely on Israeli or Jewish videos, but it hasn’t always been that way. I distinctly recall, during the 2024 election campaign, that nearly every pro-Trump video or podcast I would watch (or really anything on the right) would be paired with an ad for Kamala Harris. The opposite may have been true (pro-Kamala podcasts paired with Trump ads), but I wasn’t watching a whole lot of podcasts on the left, so I don’t know.

So, who makes these ad-placement decisions? It certainly doesn’t seem to be the people making the videos. Is it YouTube? Is it the advertisers? Do advertisers pay extra for counter-placement of their ads?

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