Stidmatt

First of all, nobody except the Russian government wants Ukraine to be at war. However, we must carefully consider how to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine.

The most crucial aspect is Ukraine’s need for security guarantees from NATO and the European Union. This is non-negotiable.

Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be respected. Crimea, Donbass, Luhansk, these are Ukrainian territories, and the government of Ukraine would need a constitutional amendment to give them to Russia. That amendment would certainly fail. There is no realistic legal pathway to territorial concessions.

The last and most important piece is that Ukraine currently has the upper hand. Russia’s economy is on the verge of collapse. Russia’s air defense is truly pathetic. Ukraine is continuously striking Russian military targets in Russia with very cheap drones. These strikes are catastrophic to Russia’s war machine. As Ukraine has been saying for three years now, if they have enough drones with enough firepower, they will win the war. They can collapse Russia’s supply lines, causing the frontline to surrender, and quickly take back all of their territory.

I want there to be a lasting peace in Ukraine, which is why I believe Angela Merkel was the worst leader of Germany since 1945. But I also want to be realistic. Ukraine has the upper hand now. To end the war today without retaking Ukrainian territory, without Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped by Russians being returned to their families, or Ukrainian foster families if their families have been genocided, is premature.

I made the chart at the top over a year ago as Ukraine was still spinning up its military defense. At the time, my chart was correct. But I’m not convinced that is true anymore. Ukraine is now producing over $35 billion of weapons per year, a 35x increase from 2022. Total annual military aid to Ukraine is around $20 billion per quarter, or $80 billion per year. Ukraine can now almost completely replace American weapons with its domestic production. This is why Trump’s (possibly illegal) elimination of aid to Ukraine is not a death blow to Ukraine. If Ukraine doubles its production even further, and it continues to focus on the right weapons for a defensive war, it will become impossible for Russia to defeat them.

When I originally made the flowchart above, it was correct, but the growth of Ukraine into a major global military-industrial player has significantly changed the situation. Even if Europe were to cut all of its aid to Ukraine, I believe we are at the point in time now where it is impossible for Russia to defeat Ukraine. It’s also extremely unlikely that every country in Europe will cut off aid to Ukraine. That is a Russophobic fantasy. Ukraine will have support for as long as it takes from multiple European countries. Ukraine has already won the war; now is not the time to give Putin a stalemate he does not deserve.

If we do not see Ukraine win the war today, I can already see Fico, Orban, and Trump argue that Ukraine needs to formally renounce their claims to Donbass, Luhansk, and Crimea, otherwise not be given membership in NATO. They know renunciation cannot be legally done. It will simply be to preserve Putin’s regime, and this will teach a clear lesson that the United States and Europe will not honor the UN charter. The loss of international respect for international borders and stating that actions like the Anschluss and annexation of the Sudetenland will now be tolerated will be severely destabilizing for the future of the world.

In the scenario of a ceasefire, Ukraine will neither be able to renounce their territory, nor be given necessary security guarantees. Sanctions on Russia will drop, and they will invade Ukraine in the future. This is merely a repeat of the 2014 ceasefire, not a recipe for long-term peace.

Every time Ukraine has an opportunity they have elected left-wing presidents like Yuschenko and Zelensky who have been fighting corruption, and focused on aligning their country with EU acquis and joining NATO to preserve their independence. There was no legitimate reason to refuse the accession of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO in 2008. The argument that Merkel was right to refuse the accession of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO because of corruption is nothing more than a Russian talking point.

A stalemate in Ukraine guarantees future wars, definitely in Ukraine, but possibly in other countries.

They only bring up peace talks when Ukraine is winning. These moderate and conservative politicians around the world are leading us to the precipice of disaster. It’s past time for pragmatic progressives like President Macron to take the lead.

Give Ukraine what it needs, allow it to use the drones effectively, and help it with military intelligence.

That is the only realistic path to peace in Ukraine.

After Ukraine defeats Russia, which seems imminent at this point…

I’m getting ahead of myself here. Ukraine has been doing multiple targeted strikes every day on critical military and infrastructure targets inside Russia for months now. Like we saw in Syria, this will eventually reach a tipping point where the Russian supply line collapses, and then the front line of Russians in Ukraine will collapse. This is happening now. This is why Putin is meeting with Trump in a pointless meeting in Alaska today. Just give it a few months.

Once Ukraine wins, the question becomes, which countries are left that could be the target of an invasion in the future? I’m narrowing this down to where:

• One must be a democracy; one must not be. To be a democracy, you need an overall democracy score from the Economist Intelligence Unit of 5 or more.
• You must physically border an authoritarian regime whose democracy score is under 5 and more than 2 points less than yours.
• The authoritarian regime must have a GDP at least 10 times that of the democracy. Russia’s economy is over 10 times the size of Ukraine’s, and it is a stalemate. If they were even, the democracy would easily win.
• The authoritarian regime must have at least twice the population of the democracy. Do you really think that Zimbabwe would win a war against South Africa? Be realistic.
• The democracy cannot have a mutual protection pact.

This leaves us only a few conflicts that have the possibility of turning into massive international conflicts between bordering states.

• Chinese invasion of Mongolia, except for the fact that China and Mongolia have strong relations, according to the Wikipedia article.
• Russian invasion of Georgia, as we saw in 2008.
• Russian invasion of Mongolia, except for Mongolia’s strong relationship with China.
• Russian invasion of Ukraine, as we see right now.
• Iranian invasion of Armenia, which is not out of the question if Azerbaijan and Iran wanted to work together on such a mission.

So an invasion of Mongolia is out of the question because of their relationship with China. China does not want to waste its investments from the Belt and Road Initiative. Plus, it would have major diplomatic repercussions for China. It’s not likely. Chinese political culture has been focused on strength through cooperation since the Vietnam War, and it has worked well for them. They are not going to throw that away.

China might defend Mongolia if Russia invaded, plus Russia’s resources are not well-positioned to attack Mongolia. There are only a few chokepoints for moving people and goods east to west in Siberia, and if those connections were destroyed, Russia would be unable to reach Mongolia with most of what is left of its military. Russia can barely operate across a vast fertile plain, let alone the mountains and deserts of its border region with Mongolia. They are unlikely to even attempt such a suicide mission.

I do not believe an invasion between an authoritarian regime and a far-flung democracy is very likely. Could Russia successfully invade Mauritius? Not really. Any realistic war is going to be between bordering states.

So the obvious path forward is for Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia to join NATO, and that pretty much eliminates every likely large-scale war involving democracies.

The remaining ongoing armed conflicts in the world are located in countries with extremely poor economies and large issues with corruption. The factors behind these conflicts are internal, primarily corruption, which is the solution to these conflicts. The people of those countries need to fix their governments; foreign nations will be limited in their effectiveness without buy-in from the people. Look at Iraq.

Simply eliminating the possibility of large-scale international conflict being inflicted upon democracies with clean governments would be a massive victory, and the only thing we have to do to secure that future is to let Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia into NATO.

A lot of people are telling me democracy is over, and we won’t have elections next year.

Here are historical examples of wealthy democracies that became undemocratic through elections since 1945. I’m not including leaders who initially came to power through coups. I’m not including failed attempts. The leader must have come to power in a contested election because I’m not looking for continuations of autocracy; I’m looking for established democracies that became autocracies where the leader had majority support from the beginning.

Seizing of power in a low-income democratic country

The most recent case is in Venezuela. Chavez was popular in the beginning and likely did win the first few elections. The 2018 election, however, was marred by irregularities, and it is clear that Guaido won. Maduro has not relinquished power, and the United States and the rest of the Rio Pact have not acted to remove Maduro from power as allies of Venezuela.

Daniel Ortega has been in power since 2007 in Nicaragua, leading to a severe decline in human rights in the country. The 2011 election is particularly egregious, despite getting between 36% and 46% of the vote in polls before the election, Ortega supposedly won 62% of the vote. There is no doubt that elections in Nicaragua have been fraudulent ever since. Ortega has continued to clamp down on civil liberties.

The Georgian election last October was marred by fraud. Their current government is illegitimate.

Seizures through an election in a country with no history of democracy

Russia is the obvious example, if you count the 2000 presidential election as fair. But Putin is fundamentally different from Trump in how he has been consistently popular in Russia, in contrast to Trump consistently doing poorly in the polls.

Lukashenko in Belarus is another example of a leader who was likely elected in a fair election and has taken control of the entire country to the present date.

Belarus and Russia saw their presidents come to power through elections while maintaining high levels of popularity, but they have no history of democracy, making them different from the United States. Both have remained autocracies to the present date.

Indonesia is a similar situation where they had “elections” which were not free or fair before 1998. But Indonesia had no history of democracy before then. Suharto resigned after the 1997 financial crisis. Indonesia has since transitioned to an illiberal democracy.

The obvious examples

Nazi Germany is the obvious example of a fairly mature democracy falling to authoritarianism. But there are some major differences:

1. Hitler never won more than 40% of the vote; he was very unpopular.
2. Within 6 months, democracy was dead. Federalism was destroyed.
3. The Nazis won power through a coalition with the centrists.
4. The rise of the Nazis occurred as a consequence of the Treaty of Versailles, following World War I.

So I don’t think Nazi Germany is similar to the situation the United States is in right now. But Nazi Germany was not wealthy by the standards of the day.

Mussolini won through a coup, so it is not like our situation in the slightest.

China under Chiang Kai-Shek was a military dictatorship with no history of democracy. It does not count under my criteria.

Prayut Chan-o-cha in Thailand came to power through a coup, so he is not relevant to the situation with Trump.

No real examples

There is no real example of a state like the United States, a wealthy liberal democracy, falling to fascism through elections. There is no example in history where a wealthy liberal democracy stopped having elections simply because the president said so.

No countries in Africa have been wealthy enough in the last 500 years to compare to the GDP per capita of the United States at the same point in time. So I didn’t even look there for examples.

If Trump cancels elections next year, we are in uncharted waters. There is no case where the head of state of a wealthy democratic country has voluntarily chosen to cancel elections or nullify results. This does not mean he won’t, but it does mean that, for some reason, no country in our situation has led to a lack of elections.

Perhaps this is because of the international web of alliances across the democratic world. The United States restored democracy in some American allies in the 20th century who suffered from coup d’états. Not to say all of our wars in the 20th century were like this, but it’s hard to argue that Noriega should have stayed in power in Panama. The same is true regarding the deposition of the military dictatorship of Hudson Austin in Grenada. Should those countries have remained under military dictatorships as opposed to democracy, just so the United States doesn’t get involved in wars? That is too hard a line for me.

For this reason, I think that would-be dictators in democracies realize that their usurpation of democracy will be toppled by a US intervention, leading them to think twice about such an action. This network of alliances stabilizes the world by creating real consequences against would-be bad actors.

For this reason, I believe that if Trump attempts to stop the midterms or the 2028 presidential election, he would likely face a coup, most national guards would work together to oust him, and there is a high probability that our allies would step in to restore American democracy. If the majority of Americans are opposed to Trump, he will likely lose the majority of his support from the military. If the generals in the branches of the military do not support a coup or the cancellation of elections, they might oust him and Vance by themselves, leading to the Speaker of the House becoming president. The Speaker would know that if he also chose to disrespect the constitution that the generals might remove him as well. All of this assumes that Congress does not simply impeach and remove Trump on the spot.

The only way Trump could successfully topple American democracy is if all of these protections fail. Congress must not remove him from office. Federalism must fail. The military must put Trump ahead of the Constitution. A majority of states with a majority of the people would need to support the usurpation of the Constitution. Our allies would need to not step in to help us topple a dictator, the way America has done for allies multiple times. All of these protections of American democracy would have to have a colossal failure at the same time for Trump to topple the Constitution.

I don’t see that happening.

The most likely future

We are definitely an illiberal democracy at the moment. The police crackdowns in Los Angeles two months ago, looking for “illegal immigrants,” and the national guard cracking down on Washington, D.C., today are horrendous. There is a long history of the criminalization of homelessness in the United States, where local police arrest and move homeless people outside of the city where they are living. This is obviously horrible, and any decent human being opposes such actions. What Trump is doing is taking this long-standing policy and moving it up to the federal level in Washington, D.C.

The ICE raids in Los Angeles go back a long way. ICE has been raiding workplaces for years. Deportations of undocumented people stretch back decades. I do not support such actions, and it is not surprising that Trump is continuing these long-standing problems. We need immigration reform to end the long-standing policy of deportations so people can live and work here legally instead of living in the shadows.

The deportations and arrests of homeless people are a continuation of long-standing policies, which Trump is deliberately bringing into the news cycle in order to enrage liberals. They will continue after they are out of the news cycle, and he will keep them in the news cycle as long as he needs to for his own political goals.

This has become a theme on my blog when analyzing Trump and Netanyahu. Both of these people do horrendous actions in order to distract from the bigger picture. The distractions themselves are awful, as they have to be in order to work. The War in Gaza distracts from the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the impeachment of Benjamin Netanyahu. The DC and LA crackdowns distract from the Epstein List. It keeps our attention focused on the latest atrocity so they retain power.

So it is essential that, as they continue to hurt people with their antics that we keep the conversation focused on the bigger issue they are trying to distract us from.

That is what the crackdowns in DC and LA are about. They are designed to punish cities that voted against Trump and distract from the Epstein List.

I believe America is becoming an illiberal democracy under Donald Trump; that much is obvious. The visa restrictions, police crackdowns, and tariffs are hallmarks of illiberal democracy. The question is whether we will continue elections on schedule, but I’m inclined to say that we will continue for all of the reasons I outlined above. There are too many factors that would have to fail in order for elections to end.

The big question is whether we will be able to return to a liberal democracy status after Trump is out of office. That is up to the American people and who we elect into office, not just for the presidency, but for Congress, governors, state legislatures, and local school boards.

As I’ve been doing a lot of reading, thinking, and studying about democratic backsliding and democratization, I have come to the conclusion that democratization can only happen if the people want it. You don’t have to be wealthy; your country can suffer from some corruption and still be a democracy. You don’t even have to be the best-educated country in the world. Democracy cannot be forced on another country without the people having buy-in. Democratization can only start at home. The most critical factor in whether a country will become or remain a democracy is whether the people desire it.

Do Americans want to live in a liberal democracy?

I’m going to analyze states that have split state governments and explore why they are split.

Alaska

Alaska is listed as a trifecta, but Republicans have a majority in both houses of the state legislature. It is not technically a trifecta because of the status of the coalition.

Arizona

Arizona‘s state legislature has been held by Republicans since 2003, and it has been consistently Republican since 1994. But things might be changing as their governor is a Democrat, both US Senators are Democrats, and they voted for Biden in 2020. Arizona is in the process of a large and historic flip from being solidly Republican to being a swing state.

Kansas

Kansas had an incredibly unpopular governor in the 2010s who led his state into a recession, giving the governorship to Democrat Laura Kelly. The state is, however, heavily Republican.

Kentucky

While Kentucky has been heavily Republican for federal elections since 2000, its state government executive offices have remained competitive, even if the General Assembly has been controlled by Republicans since 2016.

Michigan

Michigan has been fairly consistently Democratic at the federal level since the 1950s. The last year when both US Senate seats were held by Republicans was 1954. They consistently voted for Democrats in every election since 1992 except 2016 and 2024. Their executive offices have been competitive since the early 1990s. Republicans eked out a small majority in the State House last year, but there was a Democratic trifecta from 2022-2023, the first Democratic trifecta since 1983. Michigan remains a competitive state. Their State Senate was consistently held by Republicans from 1983-2023, while the House has been Republican for most of the time since 2010. When your legislature is consistently one way but state executive offices vote another way… I smell gerrymandering.

Minnesota

Minnesota has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1976. Since 1932, it has only voted Republican in 1952, 1956, and 1972. Its governors were competitive, but in the last gubernatorial election, Governor Tim Walz won with a 10-point margin. Despite this, the legislature has been competitive since 2000. Never underestimate the ability of Democrats to throw away an easy trifecta in the spirit of fairness. Democrats act as if they have a humiliation kink sometimes…

Nevada

Nevada is a fascinating state politically. Their state legislature has remained fairly consistently Democratic since the 1930s. The only Republican trifecta since 1933 was in 2015. They have been a bellwether state for the presidency, voting for the winner in every election since 1904 except for 1908, 1976, and 2016. There has been at least one Democratic US Senator from Nevada since 1987. That being said, state executive offices had a spell from 1983 to the present where they swung pretty randomly between Democrats and Republicans.

North Carolina

North Carolina used to be heavily Democratic until 2010. 2011 was the first year in which both houses of the legislature were held by Republicans since 1871. The state legislature swung heavily Republican starting in 2011, and it has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968, with the exceptions of 1976 and 2008. State executive offices, however, have remained mostly Democratic to the present date, which has been true since Reconstruction. This used to be true across the South, and North Carolina and Kentucky are the only states in the region for which this has remained true.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is similar to Michigan. Its state legislature has stayed consistently Republican since the Civil War, with only a few times when the State Senate has been held by Democrats since then, in 1937, 1961, 1971-1980, and 1993. At the same time, they voted Democratic in every election from 1992-2012, and their state executive offices have mostly been held by Democrats. Their US House flipped from 12D-7R in 2008 to 12R-7D in 2010. It reeks of gerrymandering, which has prevented the Democrats from gaining a trifecta in Pennsylvania since 1993. Given how they had a Democratic governor in 2010, this fits into my humiliation kink theory.

Vermont

While being extremely democratic in every other way since the 1990s, Vermont consistently elects Republican governors. There hasn’t been a point where all executive offices were held by one party since 1983, and there hasn’t been a time when every executive office, the state legislature, and both senators were held by one party since 1972. They like their moderate Republican Governors and their leftist U.S. Senator. Vermont is (in?) a weird state.

Virginia

Virginia was heavily Democratic until the 1970s as part of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Since the 1990s, their legislature has been mostly Republican, except right now, where both chambers are controlled by Democrats; however, their governor right now is Glenn Youngkin, who beat out former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe in 2021. McAuliffe was the DNC chair in 2002, the first election where Republicans won a Federal trifecta since 1952. Similar to their US Senator Tim Kaine, who was DNC chair in 2010 when Democratic turnout fell off a cliff. Virginia Democrats like to nominate their former failed DNC chairs. At least there haven’t been any failed DNC chairs from Virginia since Tim Kaine blew it in 2010… so I think I dare to be hopeful about the future of Virginia politics. Virginia Democrats have a large humiliation kink. I will not be taking questions.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is like Michigan and Pennsylvania, forming our trifecta of the 2016 victory of Donald Trump. It voted Democratic in every presidential election from 1988-2012 until swinging slightly Republican in 2016. Their legislature has been heavily Republican since 2010 as part of a brutal gerrymander which was somehow done by a Democratic trifecta. Yet more evidence of a widespread humiliation kink among multiple State Democratic Parties. Never underestimate the ability of Democrats to shoot themselves in the foot. They haven’t had two Republican senators since 1956. It has been consistently competitive since the Great Depression.

Conclusion

There are several main factors behind divided state governments as I have explored in this piece:

• Idiotic Republican governors: Kansas
• New England being weird: Vermont
• Gerrymandered state legislatures in competitive states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin
• Southern split: Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia
• Democrats shooting themselves in the foot: Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin
• A major state swing in the process: Arizona
• Bellwether: Nevada

So there are many reasons why a state could be split between parties, not just one unifying factor.

Electoral strategy remains essential for capturing and retaining power.

Most importantly, Democrats need to fight their humiliation kink and replace it with a victory kink.

There is a clear correlation between these four factors, but I want to tear apart the issues.

When dividing countries up into true or false based on World Governance Indicators, we find that the largest group of countries are corrupt, undemocratic, poor, have a restrictive visa policy (fewer than 100 nationalities can arrive fully visa-free), have a weak passport (can travel to fewer than 100 countries without any form of visa), and are poorly educated (the average citizen has gone to school for less than 9 years).

There are 30 countries in the next largest group which are the opposite. Clean democracies with strong economies, open visa policies, strong passports, and are well educated.

So the question becomes, which is doing most of the work? Democracy or corruption?

When it comes to wealth, the main factor is corruption. 8 countries are corrupt democracies. They have restrictive visa policies and weak passports, and they are poor. They are also poorly educated.

Remove visa policies

cc     va     GDP per capita  Mean Years of Schooling
False  False  False           False                      60
True   True   True            True                       39
False  False  False           True                       21
       True   False           False                      17
True   True   False           False                      12
False  True   False           True                       10
True   True   False           True                       10
              True            False                       9
       False  True            True                        6
False  True   True            True                        4
       False  True            False                       2
True   False  True            False                       2
False  False  True            True                        1
True   False  False           False                       1
                              True                        1

While corruption and democracy are clearly very correlated, corruption appears to be a larger factor than democracy or education levels for economic well-being.

Major factor for visa policy

So this might sound like an excuse that human rights and democracy do not matter, but not so fast. Democracy is still important! Democracies tend to be less corrupt which drives economic growth. By being more democratic leading to a better educated population, most wealthy countries are democracies, but not all, which is how we know the reduction in corruption as observed in most democracies are intertwined.

While democracy is clearly tied to cleanliness, it is not a prerequisite for lower corruption.

But what about when it comes to your passport’s strength? Is it more important to be democratic, low corruption, or wealthy? (see the appendix if you are confused about the table) I have cut the table only to rows with at least 5 relevant countries. The rest is not important.

cc     va     GDP per capita  Visa free for passport  Visa free to enter  Mean Years of Schooling
False  False  False           False                   False               False                      49
True   True   True            True                    True                True                       30
False  False  False           False                   False               True                       15
       True   False           False                   False               False                      10
True   True   True            True                    False               True                        9
                                                      True                False                       7
False  False  False           False                   True                False                       6
True   True   False           True                    True                True                        6
                              False                   False               False                       5

From what we can see from this data it appears that we still have a trend that clean wealthy democracies have open visa policies and strong passports. We also find that corrupt poor autocracies have restrictive visa policies and weak passports.

Corrupt democracies tend to be poor, but they also tend to have restrictive visa policies and weak passports.

Being well educated alone doesn’t make a major difference on economic growth or passport strength. The better educated people need to clean up their government in order to see improvements.

We also find in this table that being well educated is more important for passport strength as opposed to having an open visa policy.

There are a few clean well-educated wealthy democracies with strong passports, strong economies, and restrictive visa policies. These countries are former British colonies.

Simply opening up your borders with a less restrictive visa policy without cleaning up your government will not lead to a strong passport.

Clean autocracies are rare, but they tend to be rich, have a restrictive visa policy, and have weak passports.

Proposed mechanism

Let’s say you are starting out at the bottom of the heap, your country is corrupt, undemocratic, poor, poorly educated, you have a weak passport, and a restrictive visa policy.

Where do you begin?

Start with your government. Remove the autocrat and transition your government to democracy first.

Once your government is democratic, elect leaders who will focus on cleaning up your government while investing in education to keep people in school as long as possible.

As your democratic government is cleaning up your economy, loosen visa requirements.

As your government is cleaned up and corruption is lowered, your economy will grow.

This has been the strategy used in Latin America and former Russian colonies in Eastern Europe. It works. Even though most of Latin America has problems with lower education levels and their economies are in the middle of the global spectrum, they still have powerful passports. Europe democratized, voted in reformers to clean up corruption, they had no issue with their education levels, and their economies have grown. Both regions have seen their travel freedom increase quickly, and Latin America and Eastern European passports can generally travel to between 100-150 countries without any visa. This proves that democracy is more important than corruption or economic growth. Every Middle Eastern country except Israel and the United Arab Emirates are visa-exempt to fewer than 100 countries, despite having a large GDP per capita. Democracy is more important than economics or corruption when it comes to global passport strength.

In terms of strengthening your passport, we can see that reducing corruption, having an open visa policy, and being democratic is more important than income in terms of strengthening your passport. So if your goal is having a strong passport, focus on democracy, corruption, visa-free policies, and education. The money will come.

If you start with cleaning up your government, but you do not make it a democracy, some people will likely become very rich, and education will be well-funded, but the wealth will only cement the autocrat into power further, harming civil liberties. This will mean your passport will not strengthen, and your visa policy will be restrictive, harming your tourism industry. We see that the Gulf States worked on corruption first, without democratization. While they became rich, they did not see their travel freedom grow as fast as in Eastern Europe.

For this reason, start with democracy, and vote in people who will clean up the government. That is the best method for economic development and improving your passport’s power.

Appendix: Data notes

• cc and va are from the World Governance Indicators. False means the value is less than 0, True means the value is greater than 0. Larger is better. cc is for corruption, va is voice and accountability.
• GDP per capita is from the World Bank. True means the country’s GDP per capita is over $10,000.
• Visa free to enter counts how many nationalities can travel to that country. True means at least 100 nationalities have full visa-free access to that country.
• Visa free for passport means that nationality can travel to at least 100 other countries without any form of visa.
• Mean Years of Schooling. True means that the average person has at least a 9th grade education.

The table counts how many countries have the attributes in each row. I am assuming that if more countries have an attribute, than it is more likely to occur, and is not random.

A lot of people have written about this, but I want to do a summary of how all of the largest conflicts in the world today have been supplied by Russia in order to destabilize the world.

We all know about Russia’s digital warfare against NATO and non-NATO democracies. This has been designed to increase support for politicians like Donald Trump and increase support for policies like Brexit. Russia has dreamed of conquering all of Europe for centuries, as we can most clearly see in its invasions in Europe from 1945 to 1949. This is a theme of my blog, and is very well documented.

Russia’s very obviously the aggressor in their invasion of Ukraine. Anyone with any knowledge of the conflict knows this.

What I’m interested in today is how Russia is involved in various wars around the world by fomenting instability and undermining fragile states for its ends.

There are 6 wars in the world today, with over 10,000 fatalities per year in either of the last two years:

• Russian Invasion of Ukraine
• Israel-Palestinian conflict
• Islamist insurgency in the Maghreb/Sahel
• Sudanese civil war
• Burma Civil Waar
• Ethiopian civil war

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine is the most black and white. Russia is obviously the aggressor.

Their relationship with Israel is odd, to say the least. Israel refuses to sanction Russia, while Russia and Iran have a close alliance that has supported both Hamas and Hezbollah. The relationship between Hamas and Israel is complicated, to say the least. Not outright hostile since they will occasionally enter discussions for mutual political benefit, but also go to war for mutual political benefit when the time is right. I’ve written about this before. Russia has deep relationships with all sides of this conflict, which takes a lot of time to unravel. It is very complicated.

As a cursory overview of the Islamist insurgency in the Maghreb and the Sahel, you will not find Russia listed as an aggressor state or with clear sides taken. But as you read through the article, you will find that Russia appears throughout the article. Russia has actively sought to undermine governments in Africa through its proxy, the Wagner Group (before its dissolution), and more directly since the dissolution of the Wagner Group. Getting clear data on exactly how Russia is involved in this conflict, which sides they take, and other factors takes a lot of time, and I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but the article makes it clear they are involved. The M62 movement in Niger is the most obvious proxy of Russia in the region, but it started only in 2022, and I know Russia has been involved in the region longer than that. There have been allegations of Russia backing al Qaeda for decades by people at different institutions. There are a lot of accusations from reputable sources about Russia supporting terrorism, so it is reasonable to assume that Russia supports terrorism in Mali and Niger due to their relationship with France.

The Wagner Group backs the Government of Peace and Unity in the Sudanese Civil War. We have a weird situation here where Iran and Ukraine are supporting the Sudanese government against Russian-backed rebels. That is the reality of all of Russia’s “alliances”.

Russia and China are the major arms suppliers to the military junta in Burma.

Russia is an arms supplier to Ethiopia, backing the government, which consistently ranks as one of the most corrupt and despotic on Earth.

Russia actively funded the Taliban during the time of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021.

Russia has its fingers in every major conflict in the world. The weakening of Russia due to its losing the War in Ukraine has already led to a collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. As Russia continues to weaken, its ability to sponsor international terrorism and authoritarian governments in all of these other countries will be reduced, making the world a more peaceful place.

Even if you do not care about Ukraine, even though I believe you should. Even if you are anti-NATO and hate the European Union. If you care about Africa, you should oppose Russia. If you care about peace and stability in the Middle East, you should oppose Russia. If you care about Southeast Asia, you should oppose Russia.

Russia is at fault in every major conflict in the world today. It is a major sponsor of terrorism around the world. Russia is nothing more than a mafia state, fomenting distrust and authoritarian mindsets in democracies around the world through its powerful PR machine. Russia’s PR machine is all over social media, and their international broadcaster is RT.

I am suspicious that the discussion about pivoting to Asia is part of Russia’s strategy as well, to weaken China so they can keep hold of Vladivostok, their only significant port east of Sochi. Russia has a major reason to distract China from their territorial claims from the land Russia stole and convince China to sabre rattle with their trading partners around the world.

The fall of the Russian government will be good for the entire world. This is why every democracy should fund Ukraine as much as possible to take out the most dangerous country in the world.

Canada announced it will recognize Palestine yesterday, a day after France did the same.

Israel will continue to be recognized, but the combination of factors over the last few months is starting to seriously backfire on the worst people in the world.

• Trump’s economic and immigration policy will drain our country of the necessary manual labor we need, causing stagflation.
• Trump’s alienation of our allies through tariffs has significantly reduced our influence abroad.
• Trump’s elimination of foreign aid has significantly reduced America’s soft power.
• More and more people are claiming Trump is in the Epstein Files, because, of course, he is.
• Putin’s continued invasion of Ukraine continues to fail, and with the incredible reduction in American power over the last seven months, we are seeing Ukraine strike Russia directly, which will end the war.
• Netanyahu has caused a severe famine in Gaza, which has significantly alienated his country.
• Russia’s increased dependence on Communist China has the potential to sever ties between China and Russia.
• Israel is the only wealthy country with over a million people with good corruption, government efficiency, and voice and accountability scores from the World Governance Indicators, which has not sanctioned Russia.
• China’s continued friendship with Russia has the potential to drive a wedge in Sino-Indian relations.
• Mercosur is negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Union, a major blow to China and Russia, bringing them rightfully into orbit with the rest of the free world.

There are some horrible things happening right now, but if our leaders leverage the situation appropriately, it could massively backfire on Communist China, Russia, Trump, and Netanyahu.

Ukraine’s impressive progress in taking out the Russian military will significantly weaken the state and lead to Putin’s downfall. This will cause chaos in Russia, reducing their ability to manipulate elections in democracies like the United States, Slovakia, and Georgia. This must be our top priority.

With the downfall of Russia, their trade with their trade partners China, Iran, Israel, and North Korea will collapse. It is hard to know exactly how much the loss of trade with Russia will impact these countries because getting clear information on the extent of their interdependence is difficult. The fall of Russia will certainly have a negative impact on the economies of these countries to various extents.

How will the timeline go?

1. More countries will continue to recognize Palestine in response to the famine in Gaza.
2. Ukraine will continue to hammer Russian military bases until the front line collapses and they win the war.
3. The American economy will have major negative impacts from Trump’s insane policies.
4. Canada will deepen ties to Europe by moving defense ties to the European Defense framework instead of NATO.
5. In light of many major foreign policy failures, a struggling domestic economy, and the Epstein scandal, Trump’s impeachment becomes more likely. There will be impeachment trials. I do not know if they will successfully remove him.
6. Democrats sweep the midterms.

The one remaining variable is what will happen in Israel? Israelis have never removed a corrupt prime minister by protest. They voted in Ariel Sharon after the anti-Semitic assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. I do not believe Israelis will remove Netanyahu from power; he has been in power for most of the last 30 years. Nothing will fundamentally change.

But as a result of this, Israel will see its isolation increase and its dependence on the United States as well. Countries might start revoking free trade agreements with Israel in response. I do not see any silver lining to Israel right now. Likud still leads the polls. Israelis are choosing diplomatic isolation. So be it. They have the right as citizens of a democracy to make decisions that isolate their country diplomatically. There is no centrist or left-wing movement in Israel with any chance of having power today. That is their right as a democracy.

Other democracies also have the right to choose not to do business with pariah states that elect far-right leaders.

If there is an opposition win in Israel, their opposition is not what you think. Bennett supports the total blockade of Gaza, which is isolating his country diplomatically. He is no better than Netanyahu. Nothing will fundamentally change in internal domestic Israeli politics.

But they will be increasingly internationally isolated, and potentially lose free trade deals, given the crisis in Gaza, which would be devastating to their economy. This is 100% because of Netnayahu’s decisions.

If the United States elects a president like AOC, this could lead to a reduction or elimination of military aid to Israel. This would force Israel to source its own military and focus on diplomacy and peace efforts instead of constantly relying on handouts from the American government. This will be a direct consequence of Netanyahu’s decisions.

While the United States will be able to rebuild its alliances and free trade deals after Trump, there is no voice in Israeli politics today who will make the necessary political decisions to finally come to a peaceful solution to their 80-year-old war with Palestine. We will recover, and Israel will not. The reason is simply because of the politicians they elect into office. They will not have Russia to lean back on because of the failed Invasion of Ukraine. Europe will distance itself from Israel, and Ukraine will want nothing to do with them since Israel has refused to sanction Russia. These are not due to underlying anti-Semitism from Zelensky (which is absurd), it comes down to the fact that no one wants to trade with a country that continued to invest in your invader as your people were being slaughtered like animals.

This could happen very soon, and that’s why I believe Netanyahu has overplayed his hand. No politician wants to be seen as enabling a famine. Given the choice between protecting a foreign head of government or protecting their own hide, most reasonable politicians will protect themselves.

Israelis need to change their politics, and then they will be welcomed back into the international community.

I’m summarizing these articles because getting a good overview of this relationship is impossible to find. So, I’m going to bring the pieces together here.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Russia_relations
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-Ukraine_relations
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon-Russia_relations

In short, based on the information in just these articles:

• Israel refuses to impose sanctions on Russia.
• Israel refuses to send weapons to Ukraine. Their relationship is chilly, certainly not friendly, but not outright hostile.
• Israel and Russia were working on building an encrypted communication line in 2019. If it were finished, it would be a secret. They have a special relationship.
• Russia and Iran have a deep and comprehensive economic and military alliance, cooperating on almost everything.
• The United States sends weapons to Ukraine.
• The United States sends weapons to Israel.
• The rest of NATO sends weapons to Ukraine, but not Israel.
• Israel is bombing Lebanon.
• Iran supports Hezbollah, which is at war with Lebanon.
• Russia and Lebanon have cold relations.
• Russia supports Hezbollah.

All of this can be found in those three Wikipedia articles, which contain primary sources on the relationships between these countries.

This clusterfuck of a situation can be seen in this graph:

How to untangle this mess?

It would be ideal if Israel and Russia distanced themselves, but that is also wishful thinking. If it were going to happen, Israel would have cut trade already. It will only happen if there is a revolution in Russia.

If Russia and Iran distanced themselves, Iran would be isolated. It will only happen if there is a revolution in Iran or Russia.

Hezbollah would collapse without Iranian and Russian support. That will only happen if there are revolutions in both Iran and Russia.

If Israel bombs Lebanon like they have Gaza, that will isolate Israel and strengthen Hezbollah, as has been seen in support for Hamas in Gaza. This benefits Russia and Iran. Ending the bombing of Lebanon is a winning strategy for the Israeli people. It also would likely end Netanyahu’s political career by resuming impeachment proceedings. So, a rapid ending to the bombing of Lebanon is wishful thinking.

If Iran stops supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia falls, the Iranian regime is doomed. It would isolate Iran by weakening its military aid from Russia, leading to a domestic revolution. They must ensure Russia wins in Ukraine or be replaced through revolution.

Suppose the United States stopped sending military aid to Israel and instead brokered a peace agreement that included humanitarian aid to de-escalate the situation. In that case, that is the only realistic first step toward peace in the Middle East. It will end Netanyahu’s political career since resuming impeachment proceedings in such a scenario is inevitable.

This is why the Israeli government cannot achieve a purely military victory. It undermines support for Ukraine, which is implicit support for Russia. There is also no path where Netanyahu ends his career as a free man. All he can do is delay the inevitable.

The War in Gaza and Lebanon must end. This graph proves there is no way the war can be won through violence.

As a sequel to the post Great Presidents I made in March, I was thinking how I like the logic I made to determine the effectiveness of a president, but I realize I left out the factor of whether the president was succeeded by a president from their same party after they left office.

So if I readjust this, without rewriting the whole article, we need to adjust the top of the top of the ranking.

Half a point for winning a majority of the popular vote, and half a point for winning the election, as I did originally.

Presidents who gain a full point:

• Andrew Jackson
• Franklin Pierce
• Chester Alan Arthur
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Calvin Coolidge
• Ronald Reagan

Presidents who gain half a point:

• Ulysses S. Grant
• Bill Clinton
• Barack Obama

By this metric, we then can look at our rankings again:

President	#	Term begin	Term end	Number of terms	Won popular election? (1)	Won popular election? (2)	Won popular election? (3)	Won popular election? (4)	Election score	Trifectas	Score	Rank	Trifecta percentage	Same party successor	Old Score
George Washington	1	1789	1797	2	Appointed	No popular	didn’t run			1	3	26	0.25		3
John Adams	2	1797	1801	1	No popular	No popular				2	3	32	1		3
Thomas Jefferson	3	1801	1809	2	No popular	No popular				4	6	6	1		6
James Madison	4	1809	1817	2	No popular	No popular				4	6	6	1		7
James Monroe	5	1817	1825	2	No popular	No popular				4	6	6	1		6
John Quincy Adams	6	1825	1829	1	No	No			0	0	1	34	0		1
Andrew Jackson	7	1829	1837	2	Yes	Yes	Yes		3	3	8	3	0.75	TRUE	7
Martin Van Buren	8	1837	1841	1	Yes	No			1	2	4	21	1		4
William Henry Harrison	9	1841	1841	1	Yes	Dead			1	1	3	27	0.5		3
John Tyler	10	1841	1845	1	Vice President	No			0.5	1	2.5	40	0.5		2.5
James Knox Polk	11	1845	1849	1	Yes, minority	No			0.5	1	2.5	33	0.5		5
Zachary Taylor	12	1849	1850	1	Yes, minority	Dead			0.5	0	1.5	37	0		1.5
Millard Fillmore	13	1850	1853	1	Vice President, minority	No			0.25	0	1.25	42	0		1.25
Franklin Pierce	14	1853	1857	1	Yes	Yes, minority			1.5	1	3.5	27	0.5	TRUE	2.5
James Buchanan	15	1857	1861	1	Yes, minority	No			0.5	0	1.5	37	0		1.5
Abraham Lincoln	16	1861	1865	2	Yes, minority	Yes	Dead		1.5	2	5.5	9	0.5		4.5
Andrew Johnson	17	1865	1869	1	Vice President	No			0.5	0	1.5	40	0		1.5
Ulysses Simpson Grant	18	1869	1877	2	Yes	Yes	No		2.5	3	7.5	4	0.75	No popular	7
Rutherford Birchard Hayes	19	1877	1881	1	No	didn’t run	No		0	0	1	44	0		1
James Abram Garfield	20	1881	1881	1	Yes, minority	Dead			0.5	0	1.5	37	0		1.5
Chester Alan Arthur	21	1881	1885	1	Vice President, minority	didn’t run, Yes, Minority			0.25	0	1.25	42	0	TRUE	0.25
Grover Cleveland	22	1885	1889	2	Yes, minority	Yes, minority	Yes	No	1	1	4	20	0.25		4
Benjamin Harrison	23	1889	1893	1	No	No	No		0	1	2	34	0.5		2
William McKinley	25	1897	1901	2	Yes	Yes	Dead		2	3	3	3	1		3
Theodore Roosevelt	26	1901	1909	2	Vice President	Yes	Yes		2.5	4	8.5	2	1	TRUE	7.5
William Howard Taft	27	1909	1913	1	Yes	No			1	1	3	27	0.5		3
Woodrow Wilson	28	1913	1921	2	Yes, minority	Yes, minority	No		1	2	5	14	0.5		5
Warren Gamaliel Harding	29	1921	1923	1	Yes	Dead			1	2	4	21	1		4
Calvin Coolidge	30	1923	1929	1	Vice President	Yes	Yes, didn’t run		3	2	6	18	1	TRUE	5
Herbert Hoover	31	1929	1933	1	Yes	No	No		1	1	3	27	0.5		3
Franklin Delano Roosevelt	32	1933	1945	4	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	4	7	15	1	1		15
Harry S. Truman	33	1945	1953	2	Vice President	Yes	No		1.5	2	5.5	10	0.75		5.5
Dwight David Eisenhower	34	1953	1961	2	Yes	Yes	No		2	1	5	12	0.25		5
John Fitzgerald Kennedy	35	1961	1963	1	Yes, minority	Dead			0.5	2	3.5	25	1		3.5
Lyndon Baines Johnson	36	1963	1969	2	Vice President, minority	Yes	No		1.25	2	5.25	11	1		5.25
Richard Milhous Nixon	37	1969	1974	2	Yes, minority	Yes			1.5	0	3.5	24	0		3.5
Gerald Ford	38	1974	1977	1	Never on ballot	No			0	0	1	44	0		1
James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Junior	39	1977	1981	1	Yes	No			1	2	4	21	1		4
Ronald Wilson Reagan	40	1981	1989	2	Yes	Yes	Yes		3	0	5	19	0	TRUE	4
George Herbert Walker Bush	41	1989	1993	1	Yes	No	No		1	0	2	36	0		2
William Jefferson Blythe “Bill” Clinton	42	1993	2001	2	Yes, minority	Yes	Popular vote		2	1	5	17	0.25	popular	#VALUE!
George Walker Bush	43	2001	2009	2	No	Yes	No		1	2	5	14	0.5		5
Barack Hussein Obama	44	2009	2017	2	Yes	Yes	Popular vote		2.5	1	5.5	12	0.25	popular	#VALUE!
Donald Trump	45	2017	2021	2	No	No	Yes, minority		0.5	2	4.5	16	0.5		4.5
Joseph Robinette Biden	46	2021	2025	1	Yes	No			1	1	3	27	0.5		3

So from this data, we can use this to analyze presidents who really commanded power. We want a recency bias, and determine who is the most powerful recent president from each party.

With this ranking, Presidents Obama and Truman are tied with the highest number of points since President Roosevelt.

This is really the takeaway when determining what type of president we need to succeed Trump, not just to win in 2028 but also in 2032. Not just to keep the presidency in our control but also to have a trifecta in congress and see Democrats consistently win elections up and down the ballot from local school boards all the way to the presidency.

We cannot afford a politician who shies away from the Democratic party. We cannot afford a president who doesn’t proudly advocate in favor of democracy.

Obama was such an effective politician because he delivered results. He was able to bring people together, not by vacuous calls for unity, but by proposing a vision that people bought into. He made speeches and signed treaties with our allies to bring us closer. We had a deep breath from the constant sabre-rattling of Republicans against our allies. He defended Afghanistan while pulling us out of the pointless war in Iraq. He passed meaningful legislation, and had the very successful Secretary of State of Hillary Clinton in his first term.

We need to learn from and expand on his successes to see a very successful administration in 2029, as I have been making a theme about in my blog. The key points are UN membership for GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Moldova), a reduction in all barriers to trade and travel between us and the European Union, while strengthening our relations with our allies in Latin America.

In the domestic front we need to fix our immigration system which is broken while passing legislation to expand health care access.

In terms of executive actions, the president needs to aggressively undo all the damage Trump has done through executive orders early in her presidency.

If we can do all of this, the DNC stays functional, and the president maintains a steady hand, there is no reason we cannot win midterms, the 2032 election, and the 2036 election.

It all depends on how the President uses her power after we win in 2028.

We need to repeat Obama’s success with his campaigning strategy in 2008. We need the DNC to replicate this strategy and empower candidates up and down the ballot. The President takes the lead, we flip senate and house seats giving the president as strong of a trifecta as possible in order to deliver results for the American people.

Then we can loosen visa restrictions towards democracies, strengthen our passport, build strong trading relationships abroad, and make a fair immigration system.

Let’s make it happen.

The headlines are abuzz. People are protesting in the streets, Macron is proposing ways to increase French revenue. The debt is out of control, and grandmere is to blame.

Let’s back this up with data.

Starting with GDP per capita… France has the 25th highest GDP per capita in the world, tied with Canada. They have a higher GDP per capita than the United Kingdom. So France is not poor, and is actually wealthier than the austere United Kingdom.

But what about their debt, which sounds like its reaching Greek levels? France has a debt per GDP ratio of around 111% right now… 10 points below that of the United States. That’s certainly high… but it shouldn’t lead to a debt crisis.

France currently has a government deficit of -2.55%, so lower than that of the United Kingdom and the United States.

So why do we keep hearing about France being in economic crisis and not the United Kingdom, which is doing worse than France on almost every measure, with a lower GDP per capita and a higher debt per GDP ratio?

France has had left-wing presidents since 2012, and yes, Macron is left-wing. Their presidents have been consistently Europhilic, and none of them have been supporting Russia. They all support anti-money laundering legislation, and support Ukraine. France has remained in the Schengen Area and the European Union. France has had relatively stable government. Macron has started to talk about needing to reduce spending, by giving into the right-wing media, and this is a major mistake which could collapse his government.

The United Kingdom has had right-wing prime ministers since 2010, and yes, Keir Starmer is right-wing. All of them are transphobic, Euroskeptic, and in favor of austerity. So given that they have towed the line to the right-wing, the United Kingdom is not going to be criticized even as their GDP per capita has remained below that of France for over a decade.

France can reduce its government deficit though. By looking at France’s budget, we can see that the largest expense is in tax refunds, which primarily go to wealthy people, and then pensions. By readjusting the tax code, increasing taxes on wealthy people by reducing tax credits, and increasing the corporate income tax while increasing tax credits for investments in capital (capital is any item which is used to increase production), France could close its budget deficit without harming important investments in education.

Another proposal being floated is to eliminate holidays in order to increase GDP. So with a $65,000 GDP per capita, the average person in France makes approximately $30 per hour (rough estimate, to illustrate a point). If France were to reduce 2 holidays and French people were to work 16 more hours, their GDP per capita would increase by a whopping $480 or 0.7%. That’s pretty underwhelming actually.

A better way to increase GDP per capita would be to make French workers more efficient by investing in more capital. In other words, increase productivity. If France were to increase productivity by only 1% in a year, that would increase GDP per capita by about $650. That’s a far more effective strategy compared to axing holidays, which is just populist posturing. Improve technology, increase productivity, and France’s GDP will grow. If they increased hourly earnings by just $1 they would increase their GDP per capita by around $2000.

As real economists say, productivity is the key to economic growth. Not this nonsense about axing holidays which is said by pundits who know nothing about economics.

France could lower its burden of pensions by moving more towards a Superannuation system like in Singapore and Australia. Give people the option to continue with the maximum benefit system they have or use superannuation. This would reduce government liabilities in the long-run as France continues to be an older society.

But in reality, even as the media keeps harping on how France needs to cut its budget by slashing payments to pensioners, I do not believe this is right way to do it. France should absolutely move to a system to provide more benefits to seniors while reducing the cost to the state, and superannuation has successfully done this in Singapore and Australia.

But in this case, I think the media has taken a minor issue and blown it way out of proportion.

Which is a problem because Brexit on the other hand is a major problem which the data keeps bearing out, and a lot of the media doesn’t fully cover what an absolute economic disaster Brexit has been, instead going into purity politics about how France is such a pariah state for their welfare system. I believe that is the real scandal here.