Stidmatt

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.

I just got an email about the WA-509 completion project just south of SeaTac airport because I have a Good to Go Pass. The total budget comes out to $2.83 billion for just over 2 miles of freeway, so a cost of a little over $1 billion per mile.

The SR-509 at peak capacity will carry around 1750 passengers per hour.

Sound Transit 3 was a $53.85 billion budget. $31 billion is being spent to expand Link Light Rail by 62 miles, so a cost of around $0.5 billion per mile. Already the Link Light Rail expansion is half the cost of the SR-509 completion project.

Link can carry around 19,o00 passengers per hour.

Project	Cost	Passengers per hour	Miles	Cost per mile	Cost per mile per passengers per hour
SR-509	$      2,830,000,000.00	1750	2	$   1,415,000,000.00	$   808,571.43
Link Light Rail	$   31,000,000,000.00	19000	62	$        500,000,000.00	$      26,315.79
Second Ave Subway	$   10,450,000,000.00	60000	3.3	$        3,166,666,666.67	$      52,777.78

The math for highway expansion is not good!

Even compared to the Second Ave Subway expansion in New York, it comes far closer to the cost of Link Light Rail in the cost per mile per passengers per hour than it does to the little-known SR-509 expansion!

This is a continuation of a theme I wrote about exploring the discussion about a new transit tunnel to New Jersey in 2022.

Even looking at the most expensive transit projects in the country, nothing comes close to the expense per passenger of highway expansion. It is hard to justify such costs of any highway expansion given their low capacity.

It shows we have the money to spend on world-class transit. We just choose not to.

Hypothetical corner

Let’s say that instead of making Link as a light rail system, based on these numbers, they doubled the budget to $62 billion in order to turn Link into a heavy rail system, tripling the capacity of the system.

• Cost: $62 billion
• Passengers per hour: 48,000
• Miles: 62
• Cost per mile: $1,000,000,000
• Cost per mile per passengers per hour: $20,833

Yeah. This is with a conservative number of passengers per hour.

No further comment.

References:

https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search-projects/sr-509-completion-project

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Passenger_Capacity_of_different_Transport_Modes.png

https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/project-documents/st3-system-plan-2016.pdf

When putting GDP per capita on a log, there is a 95% correlation with the mean years of schooling for countries in the dataset I’ve been curating for a long time.

It’s not surprising really. So the policy then becomes very clear that if you want to increase your GDP, make it easier for people to go to school for more time, including college. We do this by subsidizing education at all levels. The data shows that boosts GDP significantly, in fact it is the only way to improve your economy. With a better economy, people live longer lives. You have more money to spend on health care as people are living longer, which I suspect is the mechanism behind it, which explains why the United States has a slightly lower life expectancy (a couple years under the standard deviation) than one would predict from our education and income.

So slashing education funding is a great way to lower the income of your country and live a shorter life.

If we want countries like Afghanistan to develop, than it is a very good investment to stabilize the country and educate children. Other research points that inequality and violence are positively correlated. So increasing education for a country so everyone has the chance to succeed should reduce inequality, lowering violence. Increasing education will increase both life expectancy and income.

Basically, if you want your country to be wealthy, healthy, and live a long life, do the opposite of Trump’s domestic policy.

This document by the United Nations clearly outlines why many people in Greenland want independence.

https://hr.un.org/sites/hr.un.org/files/editors/u439/Greenland%20Aspirations%20for%20Independence%20in%20Times%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf

As part of Denmark, Greenland does not have its own independent visa policy. It also does not grant freedom of movement to European Union citizens. The Nordic Passport Union citizens are not interested in working in Greenlandic mines, and its not simple for Eastern Europeans to move to Greenland for work.

Greenland wants independence so they can import foreign labor from China in order to develop their domestic mines. Chinese corporations want Greenland to be independent so they can exploit the valuable minerals on the island, which almost certainly would mostly employee Chinese nationals, leaving few benefits for Greenlanders.

I’m concerned that the main reason independence is being pushed for now is China and Russia want to remove Greenland from NATO.

So China and especially Russia have a lot of potential benefits if Greenland became independent.

Just yesterday, Putin announced he is ready to go to war regarding the future of the island.

I believe they are the real beneficiaries of Greenlandic independence. As it is today, Russia and China need to work through Denmark and the European Union if they want to trade with Greenland, and some Danish rules still apply. If Greenland was independent, that would no longer be the case. They could pressure the country to push out NATO troops from Thule and other vital military bases, increasing Russia’s relative position in the Arctic. They could then pressure that the Arctic Archipelago in northern Canada should also be independent, and pressure a new independent Nunavut to build deep relations for Russia in order to exploit their natural resources.

They could pressure the governments of these small independent countries to not join NATO or any economic unions through promises of investment. This will be the great game for the Arctic, and if they can convince both Nunavut and Greenland to be independent, potentially taking the Northwest Territories with them, Russia would have a dominant geographic position in the Arctic, almost turning it into a Russian lake. This is why Putin states he is willing to go to war over the region, even when he is losing in Ukraine.

Russia has had very successful tactics to infiltrate democratic countries like Greenland since at least the 1960s by focusing on historic grievances and pushing those into the conscience of the people, regardless of what the current situation is. Portray that it is SEATO which is the imperialist power in Vietnam. NATO is portrayed as colonial in Ukraine, despite it being voluntary like SEATO. Focus on historic grievances which are no longer relevant. Articles talking about slavery and discrimination against Native Americans. Continue to bring up the Holocaust regularly regarding anything in Germany. Continuously bring up British colonization of India. Discuss France’s relationships with their colonies in Africa. Bring up the Belgian Congo in Belgian politics.

All of these were real problems. Most of them are completely historic, and have a diminishing impact on day to day lives of people now. The damage was real, but has been done. Some are not completely over, there is still racial discrimination to deal with, France’s relationships with its colonies in Africa is still problematic. But it has improved. By portraying the issues we have today as being on par with where they were in the past, the goal is to make you despair, disengage, and pressure your leaders to not get involved in Ukraine, Syria, or other countries where Russia is doing their shenanigans.

The difference is the situation in Russia has not substantially improved.

They also do not want you to talk about the Holodomor, and push a narrative that it is a conspiracy tied in with “Russophobia”. The difference between the Holodomor and the Holocaust is simple. Germany hasn’t deliberately targeted Jews for destruction in 80 years. Russia is killing Ukrainians in their homes today. One of these is ongoing, one of these is history. They are not the same.

Russophobia is a myth.

I have a hunch that the same thing is happening in Greenland because it is the same pattern.

Russia has been accused of forging a letter from Greenland’s foreign minister to US Senator John Cotton claiming they wanted to start an independence referendum. They have also floated the idea of splitting Greenland with the United States under Trump.

Given Russia’s successful media operations across the democratic world pushing for Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and certainly more, combined with them forging letters to US Senators pretending to be from the Greenlandic government, it seems absurd that they have not been blasting Greenland with pro-independence messages for at least the last decade, by bringing up historic grievances which from my understanding have already been dealt with by both granting them representation in the Riksdag, and also significant autonomy within the Kingdom of Denmark.

As we have seen many times before, in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Transnistria, and more, the Russian government blasts people constantly with a message that they are a separate people from the country they are in, and they are discriminated against (even if there is no evidence of systemic current discrimination), and the best way for them to solve their problems is through independence. They might also convince you that your membership in the European Union is infringing on your “sovereignty” as they told British voters. They then convince you to become independent, and you do. Russia then moves in to increase their political influence, they effectively annex your “independent” country, and you find yourself far worse off than you did before. You have a weaker passport, you are poorer, you have fewer liberties at home, and the Russian oligarchs ransack your region. You find yourself moving from democracy to military occupation.

If Greenland becomes independent, they need to be very clear about what benefits they feel they will receive by becoming independent.

Everything about this movement smells like Brexit and the “liberation” of Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia to me with this context.

If Greenland becomes independent, they must maintain their membership in NATO while also pursuing membership with the European Economic Area. They did successfully leave the European Economic Area, and I doubt they will join the Nordic Union. Without these memberships Greenland will be isolated diplomatically, without sufficient military protection, and in a far worse position. Iceland was able to successfully gain independence in 1944 during World War II, and joined the Nordic Passport Union in 1952, preserving and extending the rights they enjoyed as part of Denmark.

Greenland could theoretically work with the same type of situation as an independent state. But they must preserve their membership in NATO, Nordic Passport Union, and their rights to live and work in the European Union/Schengen Area/EEA.

Otherwise they could just end up as yet another Russian colony.

Greenland is talking about independence, and they have had pro-independence parties in power for the last 4 years, but there has been no major movement towards independence so far. I already wrote an article about how Greenlandic independence could be worse for Greenlanders if the rights they already enjoy to live and work in the Schengen Area/European Union/EEA are not preserved, despite the opposite not being true, and they also would lose trade privileges with the European Union which definitely boost their impressive economy. Greenland has a GDP per capita of over $68,100, which places them next to Germany. A lot of their government funding comes from Denmark as I described, so Greenlandic independence is complicated in how it relates to their welfare.

I suspect that as their leaders who campaign as being pro-independence have looked into the details of what independence will mean for Greenland they are realizing that it is not the 1950s anymore, and they don’t want to harm the well being of their country. Secession without serious negative impacts would take a long time to properly negotiate and they must ensure the accession to various organizations will be in effect upon independence. As a country with a small population and a lot of land they really cannot afford to be invaded by Russia, which is a possibility if they were to leave Denmark and NATO.

However, there are some independence movements which make a lot of sense.

• There are many separatist movements in Russia, and as Russia becomes more authoritarian and impoverished it makes a lot of sense for non-Russian areas to separate from Russia. These are best represented by the Free Nations League.
• Both East Turkestan and Tibet have governments in exile and independence movements from China.
• Kurdistan is significantly different from the countries they are part of and have desired independence for decades. They lack any formal voice in Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
• Almost every region in Burma desires independence. This makes sense given the instability of the country after decades of authoritarian rule by their military dicatatorship.
• The same can be said about Pakistan, where most regions desire to be separated from Pakistan, and given Pakistan’s insane politics, it makes sense.
• Ambazonia has been fighting for independence from Cameroon since 2017.
• Katanga desires independence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Most regions of Ethiopia want independence.
• Somaliland has been de facto independent from Somalia for over a decade, and they should probably be granted formal recognition.
• Darfur underwent a genocide in the 2000s, and they should have independence from Sudan.

These regions are far more likely to see independence than Greenland in the near future. They do not enjoy fair representation in their governments, there is rampant current ongoing discrimination, their governments fail to provide them proper services to allow them to develop, and there is really no reason not to support their secession.

Greenland is the opposite, as I described in my original article. Greenland has representation, they have significant autonomy, being part of Denmark provides significant rights they enjoy that they will lose upon independence, and through Denmark they are tied in with the European Union’s economy. All of those benefits will be lost upon independence.

The regions mentioned in this article do not have any of those benefits. There is no benefit for any of these regions to stay in their current countries, and many costs to staying. They do not receive money from their government, they are currently discriminated against, they do not have meaningful representation, and being part of their existing government does not give the people in these countries free access to the European Union, or any similar bloc.

When determining whether a region should have independence, what ultimately matters is how independence will impact the people. When being part of a country does not provide a strong passport and the right to live and work in other countries, when the government does not provide basic services to the people of a region, when the existing government is violent towards ethnic minorities, and when there is no democratic framework for the people of a colonized region to voice their grievances, this is when independence offers a real shot to improve the lives of the people of a region.

Greenland does not pass any of these tests. They have the unique advantage of having almost complete control over their own affairs, they enjoy one of the most powerful passports in the world as Danish citizens, they have freedom of movement to the European Union, and half of the government’s budget is provided by the Danish government, not local tax revenue. All of those advantages will be lost upon independence. I cannot find any article by independence supporters clearly laying out which benefit independence will bring which will outweigh the benefits of the status quo.

If I had to pick the one independence movement which is most worthy of succeeding because it will most likely provide the largest potential improvement in the quality of life for the people of the region, Katanga is likely the region that would most likely benefit from independence. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is ruled by an authoritarian dictator. Their economy is extremely poor, the government has far from a monopoly on violence. Homicide is high, their passport is very weak, and there is no reason for Katanga to stay as part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When you have hit rock bottom, the only place to go is up, and that is the situation in Katanga. The DRC is the largest country which scores under -1 for every World Governance Indicator. It’s hard to imagine how life could get worse for Katangans if they managed to fully secede from the DRC. For these reasons, I believe Katanga should be independent and form a democratic system of government to improve the general welfare of Katangans. They underwent a civil war in the 1960s to breakaway, but given the dire situation in the country, and given how bad the situation is in the region, I would be surprised if Katanga does not attempt to gain its independence again.

In the Keys to the White House, two of the keys have to do with charisma, which is defined as a candidate being able to connect with voters. To me this has always seemed like a fuzzy key, and hard to define. But I just figured out how we can measure it.

A charismatic presidential candidate will be actively reaching out to voters in every state in the country. The fifty state strategy! A charismatic presidential candidate will be able to command control over their party, leading to a national strategy to elect that party’s candidates in every district, every county, and every state in the country. The candidate will then be able to easily campaign with local candidates people already know anywhere they go, which increases the number of people who will turn out to rallies, and hear the candidate’s message. By having robust campaign strategies for local and state level races as well as the presidential election, with an aligned policy, this increases the number of times voters are exposed to the candidate’s message, creating an echo chamber effect, convincing more of the party’s members to turn out and vote for the candidate.

Trump was able to successfully do this in both 2016 and 2024. He likely would have succeeded at it in 2020 if not for the pandemic. He was able to quickly move the Republican party in line with his vision, so every Republican candidate has been echoing his main talking points for the last decade.

Barack Obama was able to do this successfully in 2008. Howard Dean was the most successful DNC chair in my lifetime, and that was the presidential election where he was in charge. Obama and Dean successfully reached out to every household in the country, in every state. They pushed not just to win the presidential election, but local races as well at the state level. As a result, Obama won the highest percentage of the popular vote for a Democrat since Johnson’s historic victory in 1964.

Obama was able to connect with voters not just because he is the greatest speaker of his generation, or only because he had a good message, but also because he used his political strategy along with Howard Dean in 2008 to sweep elections at every level of government. That is what charisma looks like in practice.

2012 becomes even more interesting at this point. Tim Kaine became DNC chair in 2009, and he abandoned the 50 state strategy, leading to a significant drop in turnout for Democrats in 2010 compared to 2006. The DNC was no longer working on reaching out to every voter in the country as they did in 2006 and 2008, and we saw a massive reduction in votes for Democrats compared to other midterms as a consequence. When Obama was running in 2012, he didn’t have the same level of support from the DNC as he did in 2012, leading to him winning only 51% of the vote. Now while this does make Obama the only Democratic president to win a majority of the popular vote twice since FDR, and he clearly had some coattails as we saw Democrats pick up seats in the House and the Senate, the lack of support from the DNC meant we made far smaller gains than we should have, because of poor strategy from the DNC.

Now I believe Hillary Clinton won the 2016 primary fair and square. There are a lot of conspiracy theories swirling around about that primary in particular, but I have never seen obvious evidence of clear election hacking. While politicians have the right to state who they support in the primary, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz definitely supported Hillary Clinton, this is not evidence of hacking the election.

Hillary Clinton won more votes than Donald Trump in 2016, but lost overall. She lost because she reduced turnout in states, trying to pick and choose as was the strategy proposed by Kaine and Wasserman Schultz. As a direct consequence of this strategy she came up short in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, three states where Republicans had picked up the governorships in 2014. We can generally make pretty decent predictions on how states are going to vote based on the partisan control of the governorship, state legislature, members of congress, and Senate seats. These states were no longer in Democratic hands as a direct consequence of the strategy used by Kaine and Wasserman Schultz, which directly led to Trump’s victory in 2016. There are however some weird irregularities I wrote about in key counties in those states in 2016 which unfortunately were never properly investigated. The failure of the Democratic Party to go to court when there are election irregularities is a critical factor to determine charisma.

The 2020 election was a victory because of COVID. Even though Biden was running against the literal plague he only won 51% of the vote. As a result of Biden’s utter lack of charisma we saw only a razor thin victory in the House and Senate, which significantly harmed Biden’s ability to pass any important legislation in his presidency.

Then we come to 2024 where we had yet another candidate with a complete lack of charisma. Harris’ lack of charisma can clearly be seen in any interview she made during her brief campaign. It can be seen through her underperforming Democrats in almost every state across the country. She didn’t just have no coattails, she had reverse coattails. She lost multiple states where Democratic governors and senators won reelection on the same night, which really takes some doing. Her inability to propose a clear vision, and inability to connect with voters cost her the election. The lack of time was possibly a factor.

The lack of a primary also hurt Harris. She did run in 2020 where she performed horribly in the primary despite being the Senator from California. She lost her own state! The lack of a primary meant she didn’t have time to craft her narrative for the realities of 2024, neither was she given time to hear enough voices across the party and see the votes in a way which would allow her to craft a message that would appeal to most Democrats. It’s not just timing, Biden was running for president and she picked up his campaign in full when he dropped out. It was the fact that her messaging on foreign policy was not different enough from Donald Trump’s in order to convince Americans to vote for her.  The damage of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on the global economy directly fed to American’s feelings of a struggling economy, flipping both economic keys false, even though people in ivory towers hadn’t realized it yet. The lack of foreign policy and economic keys cost her the White House.

Charisma is a critical component of any campaign. Having an effective campaigning strategy which gets your message out to voters while also being able to listen to what voters value and need is essential to running a successful campaign. Trump, although I hate him, was able to successfully do this and tie in for voters that he was providing solutions to their economic issues. Now, I strongly believe the proposals he was making were ridiculous and are not working right now, but in terms of winning elections, this does not matter! I believe the most successful candidates are like Obama, who propose real solutions to the issues Americans are facing, like Obama did with health care, and then successfully implement policy to fix those problems, which can then feed into future electoral successes, assuming you have a functional party to back y0u up, which Obama did not have in subsequent elections. I believe we would have won congress in 2010 and 2012 if the DNC chair had been competent.

The most charismatic candidates flow out of a functional political party which is able to listen to voters, and then clearly present solutions to every American, no matter what state we live in. Even if we go on to lose the state in the presidential election, we might be able to still pick up county and city council seats, state legislative seats and congressional seats, which is always a win. As we get good people into those offices they can then move up to higher levels of government, building real grassroots leadership, potentially running for governor or US Senator in the future. The most successful campaigns, like Obama in 2008 build up both from the grassroots from excellent local candidates, but also from the top as the party machinery works hard to support all of its candidates, as they work together to present a clear hopeful message to the country. It worked in 1964, it worked in 2008, and it will work in 2028.

We need a presidential candidate with good political experience who is able to reach out to voters, campaign in every state, combined with a political party machine which is able to turn out votes in every precinct in America. That is real charisma.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has demonstrated that she has a vision, a clear message, more charisma than anyone else today, deep patriotism, and the ability to win the presidential election.

This is how we will defeat fascism in 2028.

I don’t think Harris is likely to win the 2028 election if she runs.

2024 was the second time a failed presidential candidate won the election after losing the popular vote in a preceding election in history. But many have tried.

Grover Cleveland lost the Electoral College while winning the popular vote in the 1888 election, but won again in 1892.

Thomas Dewey lost in 1944 and 1948.

Adlai Stevenson tried the same in 1956 after losing in 1952.

Richard Nixon successfully ran in 1968 after losing in 1960, but he only won 43% of the vote the second time. 1968 was a very screwy election.

Donald Trump did win in 2024 after losing in 2020, but this was after serving as president from 2017 to 2021.

Kamala Harris is a former Vice President who has a failed presidential bid. It’s very unlikely that she would win the primary election after failing in 2024.

The 1972 Democratic primary was the first Democratic primary with elections in every state. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey ran and won only 25% of the popular vote. That is likely to happen to Harris if she runs in 2028.

Based on history, I do not think Harris will run again. I think the 2028 primary will have mostly governors and senators, and AOC.

But here’s the thing… we will probably win in 2028 no matter who we nominate, given that Trump is doing a phenomenally terrible job. So the primary does not matter for whether we win in 2028. We could win with AOC, Harris, Buttigieg, Newsom, or Crockett.

What the 2028 primary election will determine is whether we will win the 2032 election.

Will we have a president who will lead us while upholding both the economy and foreign policy? Will we have a president who, once again, will appoint sophomores to high cabinet positions who will lead us down the road to needless war? Will we have a president who will recognize that foreign policy impacts the economy, or live in a fantasy that America is an island? Will we have a president who will uphold human rights and the Constitution, or a candidate who sees such things as ivory tower ideas disconnected from reality? Will we have a president who is capable of pushing for necessary policy changes through Congress to improve life for Americans, or someone who will prioritize bipartisanship? Will we have a president who will automatically rescind all of Trump’s illegal executive orders, or someone who believes the Bill of Rights is too woke to put at the top of the agenda?

None of these questions matter for the 2028 election, but they will determine who will win the 2032 election.

I believe we need the following:

• Ukrainian NATO accession is a priority.
• Human rights must be required to receive military aid.
• Repeal all of Trump’s unconstitutional Executive Orders on day one.
• Repair our foreign relations unapologetically.
• Reinstate US AID on day one, as required by law.
• Unapologetic support for human rights for everyone.

We need a president who will act decisively within the bounds of the law. We cannot compromise. We need a president who will protect and uphold our Constitution.

That will determine who wins the 2032 presidential election.