Stidmatt

I just wrote How Democrats and Republicans Win, read that first.

So we have 7 keys to win control of the House of Representatives, along with my projection:

• Strong short-term economy: False
• Strong long-term economy: False
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, alienating NATO and tariff policy
• Major foreign or military success: False, Trump is not going to be responsible for what happens in Ukraine
• Charismatic president: False, Trump is highly unpopular
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: Irrelevant

As long as Democrats campaign everywhere in the Midterms, 2026 is going to be a blood bath for Republicans.

 

Before reading this, read 2024 Was Lost On Turnout if you haven’t already.

The secret to winning elections is turning out your base.

Republicans won in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, and 2014 because of a collapse in turnout for the Democrats. Republicans consistently see more consistent voting in House elections in Presidential election years vs midterms compared to Democrats.

From 2008 to 2016 Democrats saw wild swings of over 20 million votes between presidential and midterm elections. Republicans only saw a swing that large in 2006 and 2016. This is what led to Republicans winning every midterm when Obama was President. During that era the Democrats had stopped using the 50-state strategy, trying to pick races, instead of investing everywhere while Republicans were invested everywhere. The inevitable consequence is the Republicans performed well in districts Democrats did not invest in. Picking districts is like picking stocks. Sometimes you get lucky, most of the time you don’t.

The 2010 “red wave” was not so much of a red wave but a collapse of the Democratic party’s strategy.

In 2022 Democrats lost 25 million votes compared to 2020, their second largest drop in the modern party system, second only to 2010. That is why Republicans won the midterms under Biden. I need to do further investigation into the 2022 exit polls to see exactly which issues voters were unhappy with at the time and disagreed with Biden. That’s another post for the future.

In 2018 for comparison Democrats saw their vote count drop by only a million votes which gave them victory. The challenge for Biden and the DNC was how could they have governed in a way which would have led Americans to continue to keep a consistent vote for the Democrats in the 2022 midterms. That’s what it’s all about. Govern in a way that people want to keep you in office, and then communicate about it.

I define our modern party system as 1994 to present when the Southern Democrats finally defected to the Republican Party, leading to more clear ideological distinctions between parties.

A challenge for Democrats however is due to how the demographics of Democratic voters are concentrated in cities, and given our voting system we need to win by a margin of at least 2% in order to have a chance of winning the most seats in the House. If Democrats win less than 51% of the vote (excluding third parties), Republicans will win the House. This is due primarily to urban districts being heavily democratic which leads to a lot of wasted votes. So overall Democrats need to perform well in suburban swing districts which pushes our vote total over 51% of the vote.

But ultimately, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, they key to winning elections is to stay popular. Democrats have a slight disadvantage in our election system because we have so many voters in large urban areas, but it’s not impossible to overcome. The ingredients are simply a modified Keys to the White House, plus a few more. Let’s call it Keys to the House. Let’s test the following keys:

• Strong short-term economy
• Strong long-term economy
• Major policy change
• No foreign or military failure
• Major foreign or military success
• Charismatic president
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition

All of this is compared to the president’s party.

So we can now use this system to look at recent elections.

2002 Midterms

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: True, PATRIOT Act
• No foreign or military failure, True
• Major foreign or military success, True, we removed Al Qaeda
• Charismatic president: True, Rally around the flag after 9/11
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition

From this the other two keys don’t matter which makes it clear why Bush was able to be the first Republican to win a trifecta in his first midterm since Calvin Coolidge.

The system accurately predicts the 2002 midterms.

2004 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: True, it was a very productive congress
• No foreign or military failure: True
• Major foreign or military success: True, removed Saddam Hussein
• Charismatic president: True, Bush’s approval was still over 50%
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition

Unsurprisingly, Republicans won the 2004 election.

2006 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: True, Real ID, tax cuts
• No foreign or military failure: False, Iraq was collapsing
• Major foreign or military success: False, Neither wars had concluded
• Charismatic president: False, Bush’s popularity had tanked
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False, Howard Dean won this election with the 50 state strategy

The system correctly predicts the 2006 election.

2008 election

• Strong short-term economy: False
• Strong long-term economy: False
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Iraq was seeing increasing terrorism, Invasion of Georgia
• Major foreign or military success: False, Both Iraq and Afghanistan were failing
• Charismatic president: False, Bush was horribly unpopular
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False, Howard Dean was very successful

It is no wonder Obama won a trifecta in 2008.

2010 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: True
• No foreign or military failure: True
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: True
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

This is what this system is hiding. There is only one key which matters in how well you perform in the midterms. Are you campaigning more than your opponent, and does your strategy work. If that key is false, you will lose the election.

That’s not the only thing the election comes down to. There is only one key to the House of Representatives. Do a better job getting more ethical and qualified people nominated, support them to victory, and win.

The Fifty State Strategy is the dominant strategy to win the House of Representatives. If one party uses it, and the other party does not, the Fifty State Strategy will win. If both parties use it, look at the other keys.

2012 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False
• Major foreign or military success: True
• Charismatic president: True
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

The Democrats almost won the 2012 election, but since the Republicans were using the 50 state strategy and Democrats were not, the Republicans won a razor thin majority. But Democrats won more votes, as the system predicts.

2014 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Ukraine war
• Major foreign or military success: True
• Charismatic president:
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

Republicans were using the 50 state strategy but Democrats were not. I suppose Obama was no longer seen as charismatic by enough Americans at this point, making the system accurate to the result. Having to deal with 4 years of a Republican House will do that.

2016 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: True
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

The system accurately predicts the Republicans would win the 2016 election.

2018 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Russian campaigning for Donald Trump was coming to light.
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

Unsurprisingly, Democrats won the 2018 midterm.

2020 election

• Strong short-term economy: False
• Strong long-term economy: False
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, inability to contain coronavirus in China, Taliban “deal”
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False, Trump was extremely unpopular
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False, Democrats were using the 50 state strategy

With 51% of the two-party vote Democrats won a small majority in the House.

2022 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Afghanistan, Ukraine
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: True

Looking at it this way, it is not surprising Republicans won the 2022 midterm. Both parties now use the 50 state strategy, as we can see with record turnout.

2024 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Ukraine, Israel
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False, Biden was unpopular
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: True

Identical to the 2022 election. Biden failed to learn from losing the midterms, failed to correct his mistakes, and kept too many keys False.

Conclusion

Just like how the Keys to the White House is a recipe for winning the Presidency, we can easily take a subset of those keys, and adding in one more regarding internal party functions, we can accurately predict how Americans vote in House of Representatives elections.

Voters are not stupid. In order to keep power you have to govern well, communicate well, and have a functional party policy. This is why in other countries if a party loses the election their leader is immediately booted from office. This is a good custom which the Democratic Party should adopt. You get one shot to win an election, and if you lose, you are replaced. If you win, you may choose to stay on as long as you bring on good results.

As a trained political scientist, this is so obvious to me.

I have recorded historical congressional data beyond what Wikipedia has in this spreadsheet. Enjoy.

Brexit is shrinking crowds at Britain’s biggest art galleries

This paper from iNews in the UK has proved that visitor numbers to UK galleries have collapsed 20-50 percent compared to 2019 while art galleries in the European Union have seen no such decline.

All of this is from Brexit. Brexit has been devastating to the United Kingdom, as I have talked about repeatedly here. But one thing Brexit has not done is implement visas to the UK for EU and US visitors. Democracies did not need an ETA to travel to the United Kingdom until 8 January 2025, up to that date anyone with a democratic non-EU passport could travel to the United Kingdom and just show up. But starting 3 days ago this visa has been extended to European Union nationals.

Not only that, but the UK and EU have scrapped visa-free travel with the implementation of eVisas for most third party nationals. This puts an unnecessary burden on tourists from safe countries, incentivizing them to stay home or travel to other countries over yours.

Just leaving the European Union was enough to see tourism to the UK crash. Now they are going even further and implementing unnecessary paperwork and taxes on tourists. Tourists have already shown that leaving the EU was enough to convince them to not travel to the United Kingdom. Now that they have to pay for a visa their incentive to travel to the UK is going to be even lower, so you should expect even fewer tourists visiting the United Kingdom, draining money from small towns across the country, taking money from mom and pop hotels. There is no reason for this madness.

The proof is becoming clearer everyday. Whether it is Starmer’s rantings about Eurocrats, Biden’s hesitating to help Ukrainians as their children are killed or kidnapped by Russians, Stephen Harper implementing visas on NATO allies, or Trump’s radical spreading of taxes to every country except Belarus, Russia and North Korea, we have been seeing the Anglosphere falling down the wrong path for 25 years now.

When we finally get a president or a prime minister who is actually decent they are overwhelmed by other issues they need to fix before voters focus on the price of eggs, “wokeness” or some other nonsense which means they don’t get down to these tourist taxes being implemented by the far-right.

The European Union is not immune to this either. They are following in George Bush’s footsteps in implementing their own visas this year with ETIAS. But we have already seen through Brexit the impact such a system will have. If Brexit is enough to reduce tourism without implementing any sort of tourist visa, the ETIAS is going to be devastating to the European Union. There is no reason to go through with it. I hope politicians in the European Union will see the evidence soon before they go on this perilous economic death march like the Anglosphere has done.

Do not follow our lead. You will regret it. Resist Trumpism.

The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand need to reverse course and implement visa-free travel. There is no reason to keep our current self-harming tourist tariffs. I don’t care how much it costs, it should not exist. Terrorism between democracies is not a problem. We should spend our resources targeting real threats, not socks and sandals.

The verdict is out, just leaving a free trade bloc is enough to significantly harm tourism, draining revenues from important cultural institutions. Canadians are rightfully refusing to travel to the United States under our current regime. Europeans are avoiding the United Kingdom.

Visas make the situation significantly worse. This must be reversed and in order to protect the freedom and wealth of nations, we need to abolish visas between democracies and re-implement visa-free travel between democracies.

What’s the probability that a candidate will have exactly your tech stack at their previous job for a web developer position?

Assuming an even distribution: (I know, a horrible assumption)

• Let’s say you are looking at only three options: AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. There are more options than this.
• Your web server likely runs either Apache or Nginx.
• The 5 most popular JavaScript frameworks: React, Express, Angular, Vue, and Next.js. There are many more.
• You have multiple choices for your database. Let’s stick with Oracle, Microsoft, MySQL, Postgres, and MongoDB. There are many more.
• Your server is either Windows or Linux.
• Your server has a 50% chance of using Python for automation.

3*2*5*2*2*5=600

Hence, the probability that two companies share identical web infrastructure is less than 0.5%!

So don’t obsess over specifics. Doing so almost guarantees you won’t find your candidate.

Let’s recalculate on popularity, since this assumes an even distribution, which is a terrible assumption.

Calculation 2

Even if you used the most common JavaScript framework, ReactJS is at 35.9%, and numbers vary widely on whether Oracle, MySQL, or PostgreSQL are the most used frameworks. Let’s say whatever the most popular framework is, it also has a 30% market share. 30% squared is 9%, so out of 100 candidates, only 9 will have used your database infrastructure and JavaScript framework at their last position!

Then divide by four, assuming an even distribution of Amazon vs. Microsoft vs. Google vs. other, giving us 2.5%.

Then divide by two on whether they are more experienced with Apache vs. Nginx, meaning only 1.25% of candidates will have your particular stack.

Divide that by 4 for Windows vs. Linux and Python vs. no Python. We are down to 0.3125%.

But this is not realistic. Linux controls 90% of the server market, and since you are not a technical person, you have insisted that your company uses Windows as its server because it’s familiar to you. So 1.25% / 10 = 0.125%. Linux puts you at 1.125%.

If you are running the most popular choice, you will need at least 355 candidates to have a chance to find only one candidate who used an identical tech stack to yours at their last job.

Stack Overflow data

Stack Overflow runs a survey every year asking about the stacks used by each developer. Let’s do one final calculation.

• 64.6% of developers have used JavaScript
• 54.1% of developers have used SQL
• 46.9% of developers have used Python.

Assuming these are independent (I excluded HTML because if you use JavaScript, you will have to use HTML), we are looking at 16% of professional developers who have used all three in the last year.

Of the 54.1% of developers who have used SQL, 48.7% use PostgreSQL, bringing us down to only 8% of developers.

52% of these developers use AWS, bringing us down to 4% of developers.

40% of those developers use Node.js as their JavaScript framework, bringing us down to 1.6% of developers.

53% of those developers use Docker, bringing us down to 0.8% of developers

Only 51% of those developers use Jira, bringing us down to 0.4% of developers.

Only 59% of those developers use Windows on their personal computer, bringing us down to 0.2% of developers.

So, in order to find this web developer who uses JavaScript, PostgreSQL, Python, AWS, Node.js, Docker, Jira, and Windows (because I’ve seen job descriptions, they literally ask if you have experience in Jira and Windows FML), you will need to interview around 500 developers.

Finding a candidate who matched your current tech stack at their last company is unrealistic. Let alone the years of experience requirements for every skill! If you require many years of experience in every tech your company uses, you will never find your candidate.

Focus on transferable skills for success.

A reasonable search

As we have explored, there are many tech stacks, and it’s highly unlikely that any two applicants to your job used exactly the same tech stack at their last company.

Pick no more than 3 technologies as must-haves. You need to have these three skills to be hired. For these three, find the ones that take the most time to learn and have few close alternatives.

So if I were hiring for a web developer position:

• JavaScript (64%)
• Linux (21%)
• SQL (54%)

You need knowledge of these three technologies otherwise, we will not hire you. We are running a web application, we use JavaScript, Linux, and SQL, which is the most common web stack. 7% of developers likely have these three skills according to StackOverflow’s data. 93% of professional developers who responded to Stack Overflow’s survey are out of the scope for our position.

Now for the nice-to-haves. Pick up to three of these.

• AWS (52%)
• Node.js (40%)
• Docker (53%)

So we are already down to only 7% of our applicants from our must-haves. In order to find someone with these three skills as well we are now down to around 0.8% of candidates.

With only 6 skills, we will now likely have to interview over 100 candidates to find our candidate, all of whom will accept the job if offered. Otherwise the number of necessary interviews increases rapidly.

If I had to drop one of these requirements, I would drop AWS. The technical difference between AWS vs. other server positions is far smaller than someone who used a different JavaScript framework, and someone who does not know docker. Now we have a chance of finding a candidate out of fewer than 100 candidates. The learning curve for AWS is shallow compared to the others, and as long as you have experience deploying servers in the past, which you do because you have experience with Linux, AWS is the least important of these three nice-to-haves.

If I had to pick prioritization between Node.js and Docker, I would prioritize Docker and ensure the person has experience using virtualization, either Docker or Kubernetes. So, adding only Docker to our list of three essential skills as our top priority of nice to haves, we now have a chance of finding our candidate out of 30 candidates.

Now we are looking at a realistic job search with 30 interviews, where one of our candidates will likely have experience in JavaScript, Linux, SQL, and virtualization.

Also, this is the tech stack where you will have the most qualified applicants. Any other stack you design will have fewer matches!

We haven’t even gotten into the years of experience requirements.

This is why you will never find your candidate by using typical hiring practices.

This is how tech hiring needs to change.

It’s quite simple… we switched away from tariffs because the tax burden fell mostly on the working-class while the robber barons got away with paying almost nothing.

In a pre-industrial feudal system, this was to be expected for a few main reasons:

1. Life expectancy was very low, around 40 years as of 1900.
2. The average person had only a few years of education.
3. Infant mortality was around 30% before the industrial revolution.

Productivity and income were so low that it’s hard to get data on how much we were actually making, but when you consider that the US GDP per capita was $3000 in 1960 versus over $80,000 now, it is easy to see that productivity and quality of life was much lower before the income tax was implemented.

The reality is that people lived short lives, had very little schooling, a third of children died before they turned 1, and the quality of life was not even that good. By any metric you look at, the quality of life in this “golden age” before the income tax wasn’t that golden.

Income taxes are a better tax system, though if your main goal is to make billions of dollars and not pay anything, you would generally look back at the Gilded Age as a golden era.

But not so much for the rest of us.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-has-touted-gilded-age-tariffs-an-era-which-saw-industrial-growth-together-with-poverty

Reference: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/tsa-precheck

So there are several trusted traveler programs the US government offers, mainly TSA Precheck, Global Entry, Nexus, and SENTRI.

• TSA Precheck is for airport security
• Global Entry is for US customs, and usually includes
• Nexus usually includes Global Entry and TSA Precheck along with expedited travel to Canada, but only includes Precheck if you are a US or Canadian citizen.
• SENTRI is designed for people traveling to and from Mexico.

Notice that issue regarding Nexus that it does not include TSA Precheck if you are not a US or Canadian citizen? This makes it impossible for someone not from the US and Canada to have expedited security and customs in Canada, while also having expedited security in the US.

This is ridiculous.

We have a few options to remedy this issue.

1. Nexus should include TSA Precheck and Global Entry no matter what your nationality is.
2. Make security good, making TSA Precheck worthless.
3. Implement eGates for all nationalities not needing a visa to visit the United States, then abolish ESTA. This would negate all value of Global Entry. EGates would not be mandatory, there would still be the slow line which eGate eligible nationalities could choose to use… but why?
4. Sign an open border treaty with Canada, negating the delays at the Canadian border. Nexus would then become far less important.

Or just do all 4 items so we don’t need to have trusted traveler programs any more. This won’t sacrifice security, but will make our airports a significantly better user experience.

Because the way the system is designed right now is uniquely absurd.

Yesterday Russia attacked a Panamanian flagged ship which was docked in Odessa. During normal times the sinking of a ship flagged with a member of the Rio Pact would be front page news and would make people question whether the United States was about to go to war to protect a country we have mutually sworn to protect. Remember it was the sinking of US merchant ships which brought the United States into the Barbary Wars, War of 1812, and World War I. The precedence for sinking of ships leading to all out war is throughout history.

But instead its being overrun by news that Trump’s cabinet leaked their plans to attack Houthis in Yemen to the editor of the Atlantic.

On top of this, Ukraine clearly demonstrated that given the right materials they have all the strategy needed to win the war and take back their country this year.

If that wasn’t enough, Israel has resumed their bombing of civilians in Gaza.

All of this has happened in the last three days.

This is not new for the Trump administration. Fill the news with one important story after another and it becomes too much for most people to follow, and they disengage. Any one of these deserves to be front page news on every newspaper in the world. By keeping everyone distracted between stories it becomes difficult to see the common thread uniting these stories.

The most obvious thread is the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, which is the main story behind all of these. The first and third stories obviously relate to it.

The second story is related in how it also is about using military force to eliminate threats to global shipping, no different from the Barbary Wars. The Houthis are an ally of Russia, and taking out western ships is part of their war strategy in destabilizing the democratic world. Israel’s place regarding Russian money laundering is complicated, as I have described in previous posts where I’ve gone into depth.

Keeping Netanyahu in power in Israel is critical for Russia’s economy, otherwise they lose the Israeli backdoor for financing. The way this works is by keeping enough Israelis scared of Hamas by continuing the endless war in Gaza to keep Netanyahu in power is paramount to their strategy. Hamas must continue to exist to scare Israelis so they vote for Netanyahu to ensure there can never be a democratic solution to the war. Hamas after all was created as a counterweight to the PLO according to Israeli scholars and advisors.

So the key player in all of these stories is Vladimir Putin. Putin is the reason why the war in Ukraine began in 2014. He has discovered that attacking merchant vessels is now de facto legal. In order to maintain his economy, he needs to keep China from abandoning him, so Trump’s sabre rattling with China is critical for Putin’s existence. He must also maintain his connections to Israel as long as possible to give them a backdoor to Europe and the United States with minimal oversight. For this he must keep Netanyahu in power so Hamas cannot be destroyed, otherwise the whole system falls apart.

Russia must keep pushing for a ceasefire because the Israeli and Chinese back doors are not big enough to keep the Russian economy afloat as they keep losing young men which is devastating to their economy.

All of this however appears as chaos to the untrained eye meaning most people are unable to keep focused on any one thread long enough to see that it all comes back to Putin.

The solution then becomes obvious. Support Ukraine to victory, destroy the Russian government, and the instability around the world created by Russia in Iran, Syria, Yemen, Israel, North Korea, and more countries will cease.

Slava Ukraine for a peaceful world.

People often say anything increasing in price is a bubble, be it housing, education, anything really.

I was just watching a video talking about how so many South Koreans go to university, creating a bubble. South Korea is not even the highest level in the world, even though it is one of the highest, with 45% of their population holding a tertiary degree as of 2014. Only 3% higher than the United States. But we don’t see the reduction in population in other countries which are well educated.

I don’t education can be a bubble, because education generally increases the productivity of workers while also providing societal benefits. The problems in South Korea are due not to the existence of wealth, neither are they due to economic inequality, which ranks as one of the most equal countries in the world on this metric.

One metric where South Korea really struggles in in housing prices where the housing price to income ratio in 2024 was 20.7, ranking South Korea as one of the most expensive countries in the world, among other countries like Iran, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Argentina.

The other issue is that people in South Korea work significantly more hours per year than in other developed countries, over 300 hours more per year than the average American. Despite this, South Korea has a lower GDP per capita than many countries which work significantly fewer hours. Hence, their labor productivity is fairly low for an OECD member country. By dividing GDP per capita by average hours of per labor we get the following hourly productivity metrics:

• United States: $32
• Germany: $31
• Japan: $24
• South Korea: $17

The problem of an extremely high cost of living driven by housing costs being out of reach for most people leading to people delaying marriage and having a family. On top of this, South Koreans work far more hours than people in most other developed countries, so they aren’t seeing the fruits of their labor. Their labor productivity is also significantly lower than their OECD peers, which just goes to show that working more hours is not itself enough to make a better life. Productivity in South Korea is very low, probably as a result of an economy dominated by the Chaebols.

When the cost of housing is high and labor productivity is low, no wonder South Koreans are struggling.

If Palestinians had citizenship in a UN member state, Bobby would never have been assassinated.

If Bobby had lived, he would have won the primary and the presidency.

If Bobby had lived, South Vietnam might have lasted, which would have prevented the Invasion of Afghanistan.

If the Invasion of Afghanistan had not occurred, the Taliban would have never rose to power.

If the Taliban had never rose to power, the World Trade Center would still stand.

If Bobby had lived, George H.W. Bush would have not have become CIA director.

If George H.W. Bush had not become CIA director, he would not have become Vice President.

If George H.W. Bush had not become Vice President, he would have never become President.

If George H.W. Bush had not become President, George W. Bush would not have become the Governor of Texas.

If George W. Bush had not become the Governor of Texas, he would not have become President.

If George W. Bush had not become President, we would still live in a world of visa-free travel, the PATRIOT ACT would never have been passed, and a lot of things would be better.

If George W. Bush had not become President, the Overton Window would not have shifted to the point where the brute Donald Trump could have become President.

If Bobby had lived… the world would be a better place.

Visa reciprocity is practiced by many countries, but is it a desirable policy?

Let’s examine three scenarios:

1. Travel between democracies
2. Travel between a democracy and an authoritarian regime
3. Free trade vs tariffs

Travel between democracies

Here are our rules to generate our table:

• Implementing a visa on another democracy will reduce your utility, but also the utility of the nationality being taxed.
• If a visa is implemented on my nationality, my country is harmed. Lose one point.
• If my country implements a visa on a nationality from another democracy, my country is harmed. Lose one point.

	Open border	Visa-free	eVisa, no appointment	Visa with appointment	Travel ban
Open border	10,10	9,9	8,8	7,7	6,6
Visa-free	9,9	8,8	7,7	6,6	5,5
eVisa, no appointment	8,8	7,7	6,6	5,5	4,4
Visa with appointment	7,7	6,6	5,5	4,4	3,3
Travel ban	6,6	5,5	4,4	3,3	2,2

This table shows that for maximizing quality of government and economic well-being the mutual open border is the ideal situation for two democracies.

We also find that seeking out visa reciprocity by increasing travel restrictions will always harm your country. Visa reciprocity is not a desirable policy.

Our only equilibrium is open borders. So its not a surprise this has become the default.

Diplomacy is an effective tool at maximizing the well-being of your country.

Travel between a democracy and an authoritarian regime

There are two possible scenarios, depending on what the authoritarian regime values. This is going to assume the authoritarian regime wants more travel freedom for their spies in our first scenario.

Rules:

• The authoritarian regime will send spies and terrorists into the democracy. The democracy is harmed if nefarious actors from the authoritarian state travel to the democracy without a visa. Democracy gains one point and authoritarian loses one point with each more restrictive visa short of a travel ban on the authoritarian subjects.
• The authoritarian state benefits from restricting travel freedom on the democracy to prevent the spreading of ideas counter to their ideology. But a full travel ban prevents the flow of money so it is worse than an open border. The authoritarian state gains one point with higher visa restriction on democratic citizens while the democracy loses one point because democracies always benefit from more travel freedom for their citizens.
• Increase visas on democracy
  • Democracy is harmed because it reduces diplomatic influence and harms citizens
  • Authoritarian regime benefits because it reduces the infiltration of liberal ideas to their citizens
• Increase visas on dictatorship
  • Democracy benefits because it slows the flow of spies, terrorists, and assassins
  • Authoritarian regime is harmed because it slows the flows of spies, terrorists, and assassins

	Open border on democracy	Visa-free	eVisa, no appointment	Visa with appointment	Travel ban on democracy
Open border on dictatorship	0,5	-1,6	-2,7	-3,8	-4,0
Visa-free	1,4	0,5	-1,6	-2,7	-3,-1
eVisa, no appointment	2,3	1,4	0,5	-1,6	-2,-2
Visa with appointment	3,2	2,3	1,4	0,5	-1,-3
Travel ban on dictatorship	-1,-1	-2,-3	-3,-4	-4,-5	-5,-6

Democracy (row), authoritarian (column)

The equilibrium is for both countries to impose visas on each other.

In this scenario, visa reciprocity is again not a desirable policy for either party. The democracy wants more restrictions short of a travel ban on the authoritarian regime for safety reasons, while the authoritarian regime wants more restrictions short of a travel ban on the democracy for propaganda reasons. However, these two are at odds with each other. But both are going to move towards the visa policy for the other, leading to the most desirable possible outcome for themselves at the expense of the other.

So if the democracy chose to lighten visas on the authoritarian regime in order to attempt to indoctrinate the subjects of the dictatorship with the false illusion of capitalism (jk) then they are not going to see reciprocity in return. But the threat of spies is so great that the democracy will not do this.

However, what if the authoritarian regime makes a different calculation and wants less travel freedom for themselves in order to prevent their citizens from being indoctrinated with liberalism? This makes a revised rule set:

• Increased restrictions on democratic citizens
  • Democracy loses a point because the citizens are harmed.
  • Authoritarian regime gains a point to prevent infiltration of liberal ideology. They don’t want a full travel ban.
• Increased restrictions on authoritarian subjects
  • Democracy gains a point, but they don’t want a full travel ban.
  • Authoritarian regime gains a point to prevent their subjects from fleeing.

	Open border on democracy	Visa-free	eVisa, no appointment	Visa with appointment	Travel ban on democracy
Open border on dictatorship	0,0	-1,1	-2,2	-3,3	-4,-1
Visa-free	1,1	0,2	-1,3	-2,4	-3,-2
eVisa, no appointment	2,2	1,3	0,4	-1,5	-2,-3
Visa with appointment	3,3	2,4	1,5	0,6	-1,-4
Travel ban on dictatorship	-1,4	-2,5	-3,6	-4,7	-5,-5

Democracy (row), authoritarian (column)

The outcome does not change, the mutual visa is still where we end up, since both countries want to restrict travel from the other country, albeit for different reasons.

This demonstrates that mutual visa policy between a democracy and a dictatorship can occur for two distinct justifications from the perspective of the dictatorship, leading to the same outcome.

Free trade vs Tariffs

Rules:

• I benefit if my exports are tariff free
• I also benefit if my imports are tariff free

	Free trade on row	Tariff on row
Free trade on column	1,1	0,0
Tariff on column	0,0	-1,-1

This is in terms of pure economic maximization. Reciprocity does not make sense. So even if another country starts hitting you with tariffs, do not hit back.

Tariffs should only be used in cases like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Diplomacy is a more effective tool than slamming tariffs on each other.