Stidmatt

Read the text here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text/ih78

Every system that determines citizenship is based on a chain of trust. Once a citizen has proven they are a citizen once to get a document, that document should be proof of citizenship. However, the law is no longer written to recognize this.

For starters, it is already a felony for people to register to vote. If you look at the registration form for basically every state, the voter registration form requires proof of citizenship already. This is usually provided by a driver’s license or a social security number. https://www.sos.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/VRF_English.pdf

A driver’s license usually includes a mark in the database on whether someone is a citizen. When applying for a driver’s license they determine if you are a citizen at that step. This allows the state government to know then if you are eligible to vote, and if you are you can then register right then and there because of the Motor Voter Act.

Non-citizens who get driver’s licenses cannot register to vote already.

So this brings up the question, if someone has already established they are a citizen once, and they keep that document, why require people to keep proving they are citizens with extra documentation again and again and again? They already have a document that proves they are a citizen! Let them use the proof of citizenship they have!

The Republican Party already made this more difficult with the Real ID Act. The main issue with the Real ID Act is it requires two proof of residency to get your document. Notice how this doesn’t do anything to enhance the citizenship status of someone’s document, that was never in question. It is designed to just make it more difficult to get the documents we need in order to get business done.

That is the entire point of the SAVE ACT. Non-citizen voting is a non-issue and already a felony. It doesn’t require more legislation, our laws on this are decent as is. The Real ID Act does nothing to fix this either, because it did not need to be fixed. The National Voter Registration Form is a simple document, with your name and address, and after the form it includes a list of the requirements to register to vote for every state. Every state requires some form of identification, usually a driver’s license or Social Security Number. Every state gives people the ability to prove their citizenship when they get their driver’s license, at which point you also are able to register to vote. Some states even let you pre-register if you get your driver’s license before your 18th birthday which is great because it reduces paperwork and ensures that 18 year olds have one less thing to worry about on top of finishing high school, applying to college, part-time jobs, and social life. There is no reason for 16 year olds getting their license to not be able to prove they are a citizen then and be able to vote automatically once they turn 18. It’s just common sense. It works fine and there is no reason to make it harder.

The Republican Party has been trying to make it harder to vote for over 20 years now. This needs to end. If someone is a citizen, they need to be able to vote. Registration makes sense since it is so easy, but once you are in the system as a citizen, you need to not have extra regulatory hurdles which serve no useful purpose.

The most absurd thing which somehow still counts is that in Texas you can vote with a handgun license, but not with a college ID. https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/id-faqs.htm

Compare this to Illinois where a student ID is acceptable, but they don’t count gun licenses. https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_ID_in_Illinois

While a passport or a driver’s license is always valid to prove who you are, the other requirements vary state by state. So its still easiest to just get a passport card for $30, and that lasts for a decade. There is no good reason not to have one. Or just do mail-in voting which every state allows, and signature verification works very well. Regardless, there are many other valid reasons to have multiple forms of valid ID and scan them into a secure digital location, in case one gets lost or stolen.

But ultimately the rules we have work fine, non-citizen voting is exceedingly rare, and are written by populist who don’t understand the issue.

The SAVE Act should not be passed. It doesn’t solve any problem and just adds an additional step for people who register via a voter registration form. It will essentially shut down voter registration at college campuses by forcing students to still have to go to an office to register to vote. This is an unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle. The student submitted their proof of citizenship when they got their drivers license. There is no reason to add an additional hurdle, they have already proven their citizenship.

The United States is the most defended country in the world, and not just because our military is the largest, but through our network of alliances we are protected by the militaries of all of our allies combined. We have mutual protection pacts with countries on every continent except Africa, and our alliances have overall only grown since the end of World War II.

This begs the question if we wanted to expand our alliances further, which countries are the top candidates?

I’m using GDP per capita, homicide rate, gay rights status, The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders, and Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International to determine which countries are the best candidates for future mutual protection pacts with the United States.

When we filter out all of the countries in the world that have data, the only countries that exceed the worst score in the Schengen Area for these six factors are Israel and Mauritius.

Israel already received a gigantic amount of support from the United States, so the only real advantage to a formal mutual protection pact is that the President could then send them aid without going through Congress every time. The caveat is mutual protection pacts naturally come with restrictions on how the weapons can be used, so the conduct in Gaza of blowing up schools and hospitals would certainly get aid to Israel stopped by the courts in accordance with any mutual protection pact we might sign with them. It would certainly require a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So I do not expect anything to change regarding their status.

Mauritius is isolated in the Indian Ocean with very little land and population. They are very unlikely to be invaded and already have excellent relations with the United States. It would likely go through Congress quickly if they choose to pursue a mutual protection pact with us.

That’s it, every other country that meets or exceeds these six factors compared to the Schengen Area already is a member of the Schengen Area, European Union, or has a mutual protection pact with us.

If we decide that null values for these six parameters are also qualifying, because those countries tend to be very small, we find that Andorra and Nauru become potential Schengen members. Andorra is of course an enclave of the Schengen Area and lacks flights outside of the region, so there is no way to get to Andorra without going through the Schengen Area. Nauru is like Mauritius but even smaller and even less significant on the global stage. They maintain close relations with Australia and are unlikely to ever be invaded.

The Schengen Area is however a very elite group of countries. If we expand our net of potential allies to instead be focused on NATO three more countries become likely candidates. Those three countries are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Fiji.

Fiji is similar to Mauritius but even less likely. Fiji has suffered 3 coups since independence. There have been multiple times in the last 30 years where their relations with Australia and New Zealand have become incredibly strained and Fijian ambassadors have been expelled from the country. This is certainly why Fiji does not have a mutual protection pact with any country today. Relations are better now and if Fiji can continue to have a democratic government, they will likely join a mutual protection pact. However, they have the same advantage as Mauritius of being fairly small and very isolated, so an invasion is unlikely.

Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia were the sites of NATO interventions during the genocides of the 1990s. NATO is very unpopular in these countries as a result, but they are both candidates to join the European Union, and once they finish the accession they will be covered by the European Union mutual protection pact Article 42.7.

Finally, there is a litany of countries that do better than the worst performing metrics for the Rio Pact as well, leading to a fairly long list of countries that could potentially join the United States in a mutual protection pact.

So our map looks like the following:

Many countries could probably succeed in joining a mutual protection pact with the United States. Mexico, Ecuador, and Bolivia used to be members of the Rio Pact, so their rejoining would be quickly accepted by the rest of the hemisphere. Ukraine and Georgia are applicants to NATO. Mongolia would benefit since they are a small country bordering Russia.

I think expanding the countries we are allied with is good for American national security. It will show we cannot be bullied anymore. It will isolate tyrants and lift up democracies, leading to a more peaceful world.

Let’s think about the total impact on gas prices over the budget of the average household.

You have an average income of around $55,000, so let’s be pessimistic and say you make $50,000 per year because the math is easier.

You drive a car that gets around 30 miles per gallon, you live 10 miles away from where you work, and you drive into the office five days a week. You commute 200 miles per month to get to and from work and consume just under 7 gallons of gasoline for your commute. Your car has a 10-gallon tank and you fill your tank once per month.

At $2 per gallon which is where gas prices were in 2020, you are then spending around $14 per month on gasoline or as much as $28 per month on gasoline in 2024.

In a total year, gasoline will cost you around $350. It doesn’t even take 1% of your income.

For comparison nowadays, if you want to rent a one-bedroom apartment in most of the country you will be spending close to $1000 per month, or $12,000 per year. This is over 20% of your income. Most people spend closer to 30% of their income on housing.

The real reason behind inflation over the last few years is due primarily to housing prices.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1DKjO

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST

We have failed to build enough housing units to satisfy demand, which has led to inflation. You cannot fight supply-pull inflation by increasing interest rates. Increasing interest rates makes it more expensive to build housing units, reducing supply, and increasing the price. That is why the current policy of increasing interest rates to fight inflation is misguided.

Maps are taken from https://www.oldmapsonline.org

The Principality of Moldavia was the westernmost part of the Mongol Empire from 1241 to 1346. Events before then are not important for understanding how Moldova became an independent republic from Romania. Before then the region was occupied by Turkic peoples.

After independence, the Principality of Moldavia was formed in 1346, ruling the land between the Danube Delta, the Carpathian mountains, and the Dniester River. In 1812 the Treaty of Bucharest was signed, granting what is now the Republic of Moldova to the Russian Empire. This was the first time Russia controlled any part of the historic Principality of Moldavia.

The Principality of Moldavia merged with Wallachia in 1859, renaming themselves as Romania in 1862.

Moldova was briefly reunited with the Kingdom of Romania after World War I, and during the Second World War, the Soviet Union retook Moldova in 1940.

In 1991 Moldova declared independence during the ongoing Transnistria War. Ukrainians formed a plurality of the population of Transnistria during the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union dissolved Transnistria had a Romanian/Moldovan plurality. The Transnistria war saw Moldova fighting against Russian-backed rebels, leading to a stalemate. After the war, Transnistria has remained a pluralistic society split evenly between Russians, Moldovans, and Ukrainians.

Transnistria today has major restrictions on freedom of the press, and violations of civil liberties are reported by groups like Freedom House. Polling data is sparse on all issues. The last presidential election has no polling data available on its Wikipedia page. The latest parliamentary election was uncontested in a majority of districts. Even Russian papers declared Transnistrian elections as undemocratic. It is ranked as not free by Freedom in the World.

That is the status of Transnistria.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Transnistria

So I have a spreadsheet where I have recorded the partisan alignment of the federal government and how Americans have voted for the President, House, and Senate. This data is from Wikipedia.

If you navigate to the Organized table this is as easy to understand as I’ve figured out how to make it so far. From this, I have found some interesting findings.

• There have only been three times in American history where the president, house, and senate have flipped from one party to the other. These were in 1800, 1840, and 1952.
• The House usually flips before the Senate. The only exceptions since the 17th amendment were in 1946, 1952, and 1980.
• Democrats have won the popular vote for the President in every election since 1990 except 2004 and 2024.
• When we add up the vote totals for three Senate elections in a row to get an overview of how the entire country feels, with a rolling sum (so the count for 2024 is in the 2020, 2022, and 2024 elections), the Republicans have not received a majority of the popular vote for the Senate since 1998.

Here is a list of presidential elections where the popular vote matched the results for the President, House, and Senate, for an election leading to a trifecta, with a three-election rolling sum for the Senate:

• 1936: All Democratic
• 1940: All Democratic
• 1944: All Democratic
• 1948: All Democratic
• 1960: All Democratic
• 1964: All Democratic
• 1976: All Democratic
• 1992: All Democratic
• 2008: All Democratic
• 2020: All Democratic

The Republicans have not won a trifecta while also winning the popular vote among all three branches since Wikipedia records the sum of votes for the Senate.

The Democrats have not won a trifecta without also winning the popular vote for all three branches since the popular vote for the Senate began.

This leads me to the conclusion that the Republicans have not had broad-based appeal since at least the 1920s.

So why do Republicans keep winning the presidency if they have not done well across the board since the 1920s for any six years?

Let’s look back at the Keys to the White House, the best prediction system for Presidential elections developed so far.

But first I need to make some corrections.

Lichtman predicted Harris would have won and if the perception of the economy was accurate among most Americans then his prediction would likely have been accurate. However, there was a divergence between the perception of the economy and the actual economic performance. Also, I disagree that there was a major military success under Biden’s term. The war in Ukraine is still ongoing. I also don’t see anything Biden did as being a major policy change, the BBB act turned into a major slush fund for overpriced infrastructure projects. This adds 4 false keys to the four he gave Harris, giving her 8 false keys and the win to Trump.

With this modification we realize his model correctly predicts the winner of the popular vote or the electoral college in every year since 1876, so it’s worth using.

Now let’s delve into the elections where Republicans won a trifecta without winning a popular vote trifecta.

The first obvious case is 2024. The Democrats continue their 22-year-long streak in the Senate by popular vote. It becomes clear to me that Americans were not so much enamored by Trump but repulsed by Biden’s foreign policy, the only issue where he is behind in the polls.

2016 saw a narrow win for Republicans in the House since Hillary Clinton’s coattails end at her shoulders. Neither Trump nor Clinton have long coattails because they are extremely unpopular candidates. Biden has never been that popular either, since before Warren dropped out he had a minority of the popular vote in the primary. The message is clear. We need different candidates.

2004 is an interesting case because even though Bush won the popular vote and the House popular vote, Democrats won a majority of the vote for the Senate. Bush was never very popular.

2002 is tricky because even though Jim Jeffords was a Republican before 2001, he switched to being an Independent and caucused with the Democrats. Once adjusting for this switch the Democrats had a majority of the popular vote in 2002.

In 2000 Bush was unable to carry a solid majority in the Senate and lost the popular vote. He was unpopular.

Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan never had coattails long enough for the Republican Party to win the majority of the vote in the House. Either they were unpopular or the Republican Party was disorganized. It also was an era where the Republicans still had a lot of support in the North and Democrats carried the Solid South, so it was a different party system.

We only saw the final crystallization of policies between candidates and parties at a nationwide level in 1994 with Gingrich’s Contract for America. Before then the party alignment mattered less than the region the politician was from.

Another factor is that California has grown to be such a massive state while still carrying only two Senators. Even though the small states are pretty evenly divided between liberal northeastern states and conservative middle-American states, California has over 10 million more people than Texas in the last census and over 10% of America’s population. This has led to the Senate being very disproportionate for the last 50 years. But this is not a new problem either. Virginia had 18.9% of the population in 1790, in a way America is less disproportionate now than it was when it was founded! The country became slightly disproportionate from 1880 to 1920 and 1950 to 1960 when New York had just under 10% of the national population (woo! Relative proportionality!) but the meteoric growth of Silicon Valley and Hollywood in the latter half of the twentieth century to today led to California becoming the largest state by far.

If Texas continues to add half a million people per year they will finally surpass California in around 2040.

The Senate has always been disproportionate. The skew between the Senate popular vote and the majority in the Senate since the 1980s is due to California’s explosive growth.

Ideal candidates

To finish this up, who would be the ideal candidate for each party who would be able to capture the imagination of the American people and have long coattails leading to a strong trifecta?

Let’s start with the Republican Party. The candidate should be a veteran. He should be level-headed and appoint a very experienced Republican politician who already has a high profile to be his vice president, fixing John McCain’s mistake. Socially conservative, but not giving Nazi salutes. Fiscally the Republican wants to move to a superannuation system instead of OASI. He wants to end red tape. He is not going to attack Medicare, because that hurts seniors. Strongly anti-communist and in favor of America’s alliances like Eisenhower was. Appear levelheaded and calm to voters. Key issues:

• Military strength
• Fiscal responsibility
• End red tape
• Anti-abortion

Every Republican candidate since Eisenhower has violated one of these principles. Even Eisenhower made some very poor choices with his cabinet, particularly with picking Vice President Nixon. Every Republican President since Eisenhower has been very corrupt and has had a certain level of disdain for our allies, which is why none of them have had significant coattails. I think a Republican candidate like this would be the first Republican since Eisenhower who I would not absolutely detest, while also carrying some of the values of the Republican Party which are fairly agreeable, aside from the anti-abortion stance which is shrouded in ignorance.

The ideal Democratic candidate however will support expanding Medicare and Medicaid, with a focus on ensuring every American always has health insurance. They might support Medicare for all. Very socially liberal, supporting Black Lives Matter and trans rights. Supports auditing the Department of Defense and alternatives to policing. Like the Republicans the Democrat supports strengthening American alliances, but with conditions regarding the treatment of prisoners and how war is conducted. They will support a peaceful solution in Israel and Palestine without blank checks. They support Ukrainian accession to NATO. They support visa-free travel and reforming our immigration system for migrant workers to give them a pathway to work in this country legally. They strongly support the rights of refugees. They work closely with our allies, building bridges. They support building out passenger rail and likely support buying out private railroad tracks. Aside from that, the Democrat is an ardent capitalist, supporting regulation to protect consumers while also opposing red tape which serves no useful purpose.

Key issues:

• Socially liberal
• Internationalist, strong Atlanticist foreign policy. Embraces allies.
• An economically moderate capitalist in favor of railroad nationalization and Medicare for all.
• End unnecessary red tape.

This Democrat will be very similar to Obama in terms of social and economic policy but with a major upgrade to our foreign policy. Building up alliances in Asia is a good thing, but not at the expense of NATO.

This will help us move away from the current state of American politics and towards a bright future where we have never been before.

On top of this, we need to ensure that the party machinery is well-oiled beyond the president, supporting excellent candidates for every office from your local school board to the presidency and everywhere in between.

This is how Democrats won in 2008, and this is how Democrats will win in 2028.

Most cities in the world have areas which are more expensive and least expensive. Very few cities will be only for the rich (where do the restaurant employees live), and few big cities will have no rich people. There are of course small towns which have only poverty or only extremely rich people, but those are the exception.

So when a city looks at their underserved areas they will often want to provide the same quality of service to the underserved areas as they do to the wealthier areas. People ask why the poor areas cannot have access to parks, transit, walking paths, and other valuable services. This is a good question to ask.

The issue then becomes that by building these amenities the desirability of the lower-income neighborhood will increase and more people will want to move there. Increase demand, increase price.

So then a city might say that they want to improve everywhere a little bit all at the same time, which is an admirable goal, but in reality, the world can’t work that way. Cities have limited resources in terms of labor, construction machinery, and the like. I’m not even worrying about money yet. So some areas will necessarily get the amenity before others. If a city does this long enough to build a well-connected transit system, expansive trails, good quality parks, and other amenities that people enjoy, then the city will become a more valuable place to live compared to other cities in the same country.

For cities in the United States, the cities that have built the most transit and walkability are now the most expensive. Cities which have not invested in these amenities are less expensive. City-states can choose to limit who can and cannot live in their city through a visa policy, but the only city that is like this is Singapore. Monaco, Malta, and Vatican City are all part of the Schengen area. Singapore is also the third most expensive country in the world to live in, behind only the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. This does not adjust for wages. So even by controlling immigration you still have the reality that if you are a low-corruption city with great job opportunities and great urbanism people will want to move there.

The only way I know of that would make it so average people could live in great urbanist cities is if everywhere started building in this way all at the same time. This is impossible. So the best we can do is improve our places or relocate.

World military expenditure is increasing along with global deaths due to armed conflict reaching its highest level since 1995 in 2022.

This is due primarily to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine the deadliest armed conflict in the world. Interestingly, deaths due to armed conflict follow the rank-size rule, as we observe in cities. The Russian Invasion was unprovoked, unlawful, and has killed countless civilians. It’s a very simple conflict. The only solution to the war that will end is for Russia to leave Ukraine. We have tried every other option. List of ongoing armed conflicts

The Arab-Israeli war will continue until Palestinians have citizenship in a UN member state. Over the last few years here on my blog, I have written about my research on the history and politics of the conflict. It is caused by one thing, which is that Palestinians are denied citizenship in a UN member state. The easiest way to describe it is in this decision tree: This shows why a one-state solution is probably the most viable path to peace. The far-right parties in Israel and Palestine will be at each other’s throats for mutual benefit in order to scare their population to vote for them. It’s revolting. This is why Hamas is still in control of Gaza and will remain in control of Gaza for the foreseeable future.

The only way a war is possible in a one-state solution is for Hamas and Likud to form a coalition.

The remaining wars are in countries in the high inequality-high corruption-high poverty trap. Solve that trap for those countries and the fighting will cease.

On top of this, there are only a few countries in the world that are really able to project violence at the scale we have seen from Russia. If we filter even further to be a large authoritarian regime bordering a democracy or hybrid regime country where the authoritarian regime has more than twice the GDP per capita and a larger military expenditure than their democratic neighbor there are only three targets, Mongolia, Georgia, and Ukraine. These countries are threatened by Russia and Mongolia by China.

Only two authoritarian regimes today have over 100 million people, Russia and China.

China is (was?) substantially constrained by trade. Invading Taiwan would destroy their economy, bringing in a people’s revolution to overthrow their communist regime.

If we reduce our threshold to countries with over 10 million people and over $10k GDP per capita, we only have Saudi Arabia and Venezuela as potential candidates. As predicted, Saudi Arabia is waging a proxy war in Yemen against Iran while Venezuela is threatening to take 3/4 of Guyana’s land. The rest of the world’s authoritarian regimes are too small or too poor to successfully wage war.

The rest of the Gulf States are slightly less likely to wage war based on their democracy index, but they do sponsor terrorist groups outside their borders to project their ideology even if they don’t have the population to wage war as Russia does.

We need to continue to constrain China with trade to guarantee economic destruction if they invade Taiwan. It has worked so far. We need to further increase sanctions on Russia and increase military aid to Ukraine so Ukraine will be able to fully win the war, and then bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO as soon as possible. That’s how we guarantee peace in the world.

We can bring peace to the world through a combination of trade through complex interdependence theory, backed up by mutual protection pacts so if any democracy is attacked there will be swift action to counteract the attack.

This is already the case as seen in this map which shows which countries currently have military alliances with the United States. If any of these countries were attacked, the United States would immediately be at war. Israel is the only country with a democracy score over 7, a population over 1 million people, and a GDP per capita over $10,000 that does not have a mutual protection pact with the United States or is a member of the European Union or Schengen Area.

However, Israel has a lower Corruption Perceptions Score than most US allies. At a corruption perceptions score around 60 and below it is less likely the United States will form a mutual protection pact with a country. Israel is right at that cusp. Taiwan has a great democracy score and a good enough corruption perceptions index score but lacks recognition from the United States, so they don’t have a mutual protection pact with us.

Singapore’s democracy index score is around 6 which is the point where the probability of a country having a protection pact with the United States is a tossup.

When it comes to Ukraine and Georgia the people have made it clear what they want. The best thing to do is to let them into NATO and assist them as much as they want with implementing anti-corruption efforts to align with the European Union acquis. It’s the same with every other country which chooses this path. Bosnia, Moldova, Kosovo, and Serbia are in a similar situation. Every other European country except Andorra is a member state of the European Union, Schengen Area, or NATO. Andorra is a very special case.

The rest of the world

Enough about Europe, what about other regions?

When it comes to the Americas, Latin America is mostly middle-income and very isolated from any potential threats. Most countries in Latin America are still part of the Rio Pact. The Caribbean islands are too small to make invasions worthwhile. They are safe.

African countries uniformly score poorly on corruption, with Botswana and Mauritius leading the pack with average scores of around 50. No country in Africa has a nominal GDP per capita above $10k. South Africa is the largest country with a democracy score above 5, and they are so far from everywhere outside of Africa that they would be the last place to be invaded. It’s unlikely there will be invasions in any democracy in Africa. There are far better targets elsewhere.

In Asia, India is so populous that invading them would be suicide. Indonesia is only made of islands, so it would be practically impossible to successfully invade. Malaysia is the tip of a long peninsula and you would have to get through Thailand first, which has a mutual protection pact with the United States. Singapore is small and you would have already invaded Malaysia and Indonesia so an invasion of Singapore is basically impossible. All of these countries are members of ASEAN who would almost certainly come to each other’s defense. Mongolia is the only democracy in Asia at risk of invasion.

The only country in Oceania without a US protection pact and a population of over a million is Papua New Guinea. They have a very low corruption score leading to a very poor economy. Australia and New Zealand are protected by ANZUS. Every small island country maintains a very strong relationship with one of the three ANZUS nations. There are no good targets in Oceania.

So, for a country to be a good target for an attack, they need to be:

1. Large enough to be worthwhile. No one is going to spend the resources to invade Liechtenstein. It’s not worth it. So you need over a million people.
2. No protection pact with the United States. No membership in any other mutual protection pact like the European Union or ASEAN. No membership in Schengen.
3. Countries that have low democracy scores are likely to self-implode before they are invaded. They tend to be so poor that they are not worth invading. So to be a target you have to be democratic enough that there is something worth taking.

Ukraine hits all of these targets. Its economy was growing rapidly before the invasion. It is democratic. It borders Russia. It has no mutual protection pact. Georgia and Mongolia are the only other countries that face the same level of danger due to their politics. Taiwan faces a threat from the People’s Republic of China due to its claim, but the Communists are constrained by trade with the United States.

It all comes down to this conclusion.

If you want world peace, defeat Russia.

Sure, Elon Musk is raiding the treasury and halting payments to contractors he doesn’t like, Trump has done more horrible things in the last few weeks for me to even process, but we have unity in a solid government trifecta.

I do believe the issues that turned the election against Harris were based on foreign policy. The withdrawal from Afghanistan is the largest military defeat of the United States since 1975 if not forever. It is only the second time in history an American ally has fallen to a hostile enemy power. The first time was Vietnam.

But hey, now they are at peace with a democratic score that makes North Korea look good!

Sure, the Biden Administration valued unity over the lives of Ukrainian people, but getting along with others is the paramount value of society, according to Joe Biden. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed, kidnapped, raped, and have lost their homes, but hey, we got unity out of it. We listened to Putin’s red lines, aside from all the ones we violated. But their lives were expendable to the Biden administration in his lifelong quest for political unity.

Israel fought a war to “eradicate Hamas” from the Gaza Strip, claiming it was to protect Jews around the world and Hamas is still in control of Gaza. The approval for the war in Gaza was always very low among independents and Democrats, but hey, we sure got some bipartisan legislation out of it! We got unity, never mind the people who died to give us political unity, harmony is the only thing that mattered to the Biden administration.

As a result, Trump and Elon Musk are now raiding the treasury, government websites are down, tariffs are being threatened against our closest allies, and the Republicans have a trifecta.

But hey, at least we finally have unity before everything goes to hell.

Mission accomplished, right Joe?