75 years of peace

As of last month, Western Europe has been at peace for 75 years. I wrote a piece on my previous blog which looked at a list of wars involving France on my previous blog before I made my switch to WordPress. What this blog fails to analyze is how all of these wars are related, and I can’t find an article which really looks at the truly major wars in Europe.

To make this list, and to truly understand the history of the largest wars in European History, I am going to list only the wars which have involved England (or the UK), France, and at least one predecessor state to Germany. Any war involving these three is clearly one of the most important in the area.

  • World War II (1939-1945) 75 years
  • World War I (1914-1919) 20 years
  • Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) 99 years
  • War of the French Revolution (1793-1802) 1 year
  • American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) 10 years
  • Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) 12 years
  • War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) 8 years
  • War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718-1720) 20 years
  • War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) 4 years
  • Nine Years’ War (1688-1697) 4 years
  • Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667) 30 years
  • Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)
  • Eighty Years’ War (1566-1648) 19 years
  • Italian War (1551-1559) 7 years
  • Italian War (1542-1546) 5 years
  • War of the League of Cognac (1528-1529) 13 years
  • Italian War (1521-1526) 2 years
  • War of the League of Cambrai (1508-1516) 5 years
  • First Italian War (1494-1498) 10 years
  • Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) 45 years
  • Anglo-French War (1213-1214) 123 years

The Anglo-French War was the first war which directly involved the English, French, and at least one state of the Holy Roman Empire.

Before these wars was obviously the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066. The Vikings were raiding across all of Europe and as far as North America. This era started on 8 June 793 AD when Charlemagne was still alive. The century before Charlemagne had a series of wars where the Franks became the dominant force in modern-day France, Germany, and Benelux.

The 5th and 6th centuries were of course the era where Germanic tribes (such as the Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, etc.) were raiding across Western Europe during the fall of the Western Roman Empire after the empire was divided in 395 AD.

There were no conflicts between 395 AD and 1213 AD which involved the Germans, French, and English all at once. There were obviously many wars in this era, but they were primarily local.

Before 130 BC France was dominated by Celtic tribes known as the Gauls, and there were no empires or states as we would recognize today with a strong central state in this area.

France was the first of today’s nation states to fully form under the leadership which would rule them until the 1790s. The Middle Ages can be described with the Roman Empire holding relatively strong in modern day Greece and Turkey, the French where they are today, fighting with England who was ruled by Viking and French monarchs, Germany and most of Italy were a loose collection of city states known as the Holy Roman Empire, and until the 1200s Spain was dominated by Islam.

Through all of this time there was the idea of the restoration of the Roman Empire. France saw itself as the legal successor state to Charlemagne for fairly obvious reasons. The Holy Roman Empire also saw itself as a successor because the first Holy Roman Emperor was Charlemagne, crowned by the Pope himself on Christmas day 800. The English crown held territory on mainland Europe for most of the time from 1066 until 1837 with the Kingdom of Hanover. England continues to hold the islands of Guernsey, Jersey, and Sark as a symbol of their former continental holdings to this day. With all three having in essence claims over the entire former Roman Empire this was obviously a recipe for war.

Germans have a historic practice of dividing lands among the King’s sons when the King dies. This was one of several factors which led to a significant fracturing and rapid increase in the number of states which made up the Holy Roman Empire. It wasn’t until the Napoleonic wars that the number of microstates significantly shrank to a point that it started to look like today. With so many different states fighting with each other, particularly Brandenburg, Austria, Saxony, and Bavaria near the end of the Holy Roman Empire, war was practically inevitable.

Everything changed with Napoleon. The number of microstates significantly shrunk following the exile of Napoleon in 1815. There were only several large German speaking states in what is now modern Germany, along with the largest of them all being Austria. Prussia had significantly grown to include many lands which had formerly been part of Poland-Lithuania, outside of the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. The German Confederation existed during an era of immense social upheaval, with a balance of power between the states. It ended with a dispute between the two great houses of Hohenzollern and Hapsburg fighting a war about whose right was to rule and in 1866 the short lived German Confederation was formed. Only 5 years later they united with Baden and Bavaria to form the German Empire which lasted until World War I. The monarchs of many of the former members of the Holy Roman Empire maintained their titles and some power under the German Empire until it was disbanded at the end of World War I.

This is why if you really want to define history, Europe is in a completely different political era before and after World War I. World War II was without a doubt a direct response to World War I, and after World War II the Allies were divided between capitalist and communist. Despite animosity and proxy wars around the world (Vietnam and Korea being the most notable) Europe stayed out of international conflict on the peninsula up to the present date. The European Coal and Steel Community was formed on 23 July 1952, bringing West Germany, France, Italy, and Benelux into an economic organization. The European Economic Community was formed in 1958 which brought in Spain, Greece, Ireland, and the United Kingdom over the next 20 years. This increase in trade is a real life implementation of Complex Interdependence, which is the theory that countries which trade with one another are less likely to go to war. With the economic benefits of trading with one another, the costs of going to war is greater than any potential benefit. From this, countries are more likely to seek out diplomatic solutions to disagreements, which is what we are seeing in Europe. The European Community was formed on 1 January 1993 and the European Union was formed on 1 November 1993. It has now grown to include 27 member states, and is a major power in the world.

There are many debates which can be made about the European Union. The response to the depression was the biggest test of the European Central Bank, and there are challenges which come as a consequence of all of the most developed countries in that part of the world being members. European laws impact every part of life, including massive benefits such as the free movement of people. As a government, the powers it holds are vast, and can be used for either good or evil, like any democracy in the world. In terms of its success, it has managed to keep a strong economy in the face of turmoil, with the standard cyclical depressions like almost any advanced economy in the world (looking at you Australia). But the biggest success of the European Union has to be the lack of international wars on the peninsula for the last 75 years. This is without a doubt the longest period without war in the region in recorded history.

Even in the darkness we are in now, with protesters being shot at by police as an epidemic rages across the United States and the world, we have hit an anniversary of incredible importance. The 75th anniversary of the end of World War II is a reminder in this time of darkness that evil will always lose. Things will get better, as long as we work towards justice. This progress can be permanent, and in the long run, peace and justice can indeed win. This is worth defending and commemorating and fully understanding the full importance of this great peace.

How to not create a democracy

Three things connect the Reign of Terror, Third Reich, Great Purge, and Great Leap Forward:
1. The people in power claimed they were helping the working class by targeting the “bourgeois”.
2. Their claim of who they were targeting was absolutely bullshit. Most of the people killed in these 4 events were impoverished.
3. Not one of them led to democracy. All four led to forced labor. All were unnecessary and completely avoidable acts of pure evil.
In memory of our loved ones.
In memory of our ancestors.
Lest we forget.

Tara Reade case

Here are some notes about the Tara Reade case which I have pulled together.

I studied game theory in college, so I am extensively using it in this article.

I went back and forth on whether I should publish it, but I believe this is important to give a game theory analysis based on the facts at hand. Game theory can help us know the truth of what really happened.

  • Many progressive leaders do not believe her. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ro Khanna, Pramlia Jayapal, and more have continued to endorse or have since endorsed Biden despite these allegations. They depend on the feminist vote in order to keep their seats and with practically every single progressive politician willing to put their entire careers on the line when they depend on the feminist vote. Every single one of them understands that if proof of Tara Reade’s accusations comes out, their political careers are over. If the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus believed that she was telling the truth, or even the possibility of it, they would know they would personally lose their next elections if they were to continue to support Biden. If there was any sliver of a doubt in their minds Tara Reade is telling the truth than they would revoke their endorsement. These are politicians who can butt heads with Biden on many issues, and often criticize him for not going as far as they like. They must be extremely confident on this one.
  • Tara Reade claimed there was a Senate report. Biden looked for the report and couldn’t find a copy, and the Secretary of the Senate (who was appointed by the Republicans, which is important) refused to look for him. There are three variables at play, here, whether Tara Reade is telling the truth, whether the report exists (which if she was telling the truth, according to her it does), and whether the Secretary of the Senate will do his job. Also, if the report exists, Tara Reade definitely has a copy, and she could choose to release it. Here is a decision tree of what we are looking at. I’m using the tools I learned when I studied game theory in college. The numbers at the end are scores
    • Tara Reade is telling the truth
      • Report exists
        • Secretary looks for it or Tara Reade releases it. This proves Tara Reade is telling the truth, and Joe Biden will have to drop out. Tara Reade 1, Joe Biden -1
        • Secretary does not look for it and Tara Reade chooses not to release it. This would mean that the Republicans are helping to cover up for Joe Biden. Also, what benefit does Tara Reade have in witholding evidence to convince people of her credibility? This is extremely unlikely. Tara Reade 0, Joe Biden 0
      • Report does not exist
        • Impossible combination, because that would mean Tara Reade was lying when she said the report exists. Tara Reade NA, Joe Biden NA
    • Joe Biden is telling the truth
      • Report exists
        • Impossible combination, because if the report exists, Tara Reade is telling the truth and Joe Biden is lying. Tara Reade NA, Joe Biden NA
      • Report does not exist
        • Secretary looks for it. This will prove Tara Reade was lying about the existence of the report and help Biden win. This is also the scenario if Tara Reade confesses she doesn’t have the report. Tara Reade -1, Joe Biden 1
        • Secretary does not look for it. The secretary refuses to confirm or deny the existence of report, and closure to the case. Tara Reade refuses to confess that she doesn’t have the report. The case will linger. It will continue to impact the Presidential election. Tara Reade 1, Joe Biden -1
  • Where the event supposedly took place was in a busy hallway with no alcoves near the offices of some of the most powerful people on the planet.
  • If Tara Reade made a report she should personally have a copy of it, which she should be able to make a scan of and send to the media. She claims it exists. Where is it? Why is she leaving us hanging assuming she is telling the truth? What does she have to gain? This makes no logical sense.
  • The early nineties was not an era free of sexual assault cases in the national news. Anita Hill spoke out against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. There is no doubt that she was telling the truth in any reasonable person’s mind. She was consistent, there were numerous other people who worked for Clarence Thomas when he was a judge of the DC Circuit who confirmed her claims.
  • No one else who worked for Joe Biden has come forward. Most sexual predators will have multiple people come forward. This does not disprove her, but it is highly unlikely that he would have made only one in his life.
  • The Senate Office claims that any release of material would violate The Government Employee Rights Act of 1991. There is no such section in that law.
  • When she got an interview in 2019 she said she didn’t consider the acts toward her sexualization. Why would she downright deny what she is now claiming a year before now?
  • If her allegation is true, she is potentially looking at a multi-million dollar settlement. It doesn’t make sense that she would have trouble finding a lawyer. A sexual assault lawyer who is known to donate to Trump’s campaign is bizarre.
  • High-profile sexual assault instances generally come with other reports soon after. It’s been a month and no one else has accused Biden of sexual assault. This is unusual.
  • Other former Biden staffers have trouble believing Tara Reade when interviewed.

This article from Vox details how one female reporter struggled with this story.

But also, what is this?

This behavior is at best fishy. This was just one day after Super Tuesday. If she had come out two days earlier, it could have decimated Joe Biden’s numbers and significantly changed the primary.

This response is was powerful.

If she came out in early March, or even late January with her story, she could have almost completely handed the nomination to Bernie Sanders. But NO, she is tweeting this type of bologna after Bernie Sanders had no chance of winning enough votes. If she truly supported Bernie, why wait until March 25th when he was too far behind in delegates?

This doesn’t make any sense if she is telling the truth.

Or perhaps it is all just coincidence.

Tara Reade telling the truth, report does exist Joe Biden telling the truth, report does not exist
Tara Reade confirms report’s existence R: 1

B: -1

 R: -1

B: 1
Tara Reade does not confirm the report’s existence R: 0

B: 0

 R: 1

B: -1

Why We Aren’t Getting Any Stimulus

  1. America’s retirement system is woefully inadequate for the majority of Americans. After paying 12.4% of their income into Social Security, the average American doesn’t have any money left over to save in an index fund. This means the majority of Americans both struggle in retirement and have no rainy day fund for if they lose their job before they retire.
  2. Amway and other Multi-Level Marketing scams donate billions to the Republican Party.
  3. Betsy DeVos becomes the Secretary of Education to undermine our education system. The DeVos family made their billions from Amway. By having fewer college graduates, Amway has more people they can prey upon. It also gives this predatory industry a voice at the table of every cabinet meeting.
  4. America hits a recession and the Federal Government provides only a one time payment to average Americans. The $4 trillion stimulus package ($6000 per capita) mostly goes to large companies.
  5. Small businesses have to lay off their employees, and many shut down permanently.
  6. Millions of Americans are out of work and without any money saved due to our inadequate retirement system, regressive tax code, and lack of aid to average Americans. Because of this, millions of Americans are looking for anything to pay their bills.
  7. Multi-Level Marketing companies target the millions of Americans who are unemployed and unable to pay their bills, knowing full and well that they will make BILLIONS off of people struggling, and that it is going to be a long time until our economy restructures due to a lack of a functioning government.
  8. Wages are driven down and for a time the largest companies who got bailed out are able to pay lower labor costs.
  9. Banks don’t have money to lend out to new businesses, slowing the growth of our economy, keeping the competition for labor at a minimum, which drives wages down.
  10. Small companies are going to have a hard time finding customers without any stimulus boosting our demand curve, making starting a business a daunting task. Getting investment without customers is impossible.
I despise every company whose business model is built on harming people.
Thank God we avoided Hillary Clinton’s emails.
In November we will choose whether we will elect a man who is downplaying the extent of the damage of this epidemic, and using this opportunity to eliminate the competition for the businesses he and his cabinet own.
Our alternative is to vote for the man who was Vice President when health care was expanded to include disabled Americans.
Remember to vote for Joe Biden in November.

Why we aren’t getting any stimulus

  1. America’s retirement system is woefully inadequate for the majority of Americans. After paying 13.4% of their income into Social Security, the average American doesn’t have any money left over to save in an index fund. This means the majority of Americans both struggle in retirement and have no rainy day fund for if they lose their job before they retire.
  2. Amway and other Multi-Level Marketing scams donate billions to the Republican Party.
  3. Betsy DeVos becomes the Secretary of Education to undermine our education system. The DeVos family made their billions from Amway. By having fewer college graduates, Amway has more people they can prey upon. It also gives this predatory industry a voice at the table of every cabinet meeting.
  4. America hits a recession and the Federal Government provides only a one time payment to average Americans. The $4 trillion stimulus package ($6000 per capita) mostly goes to large companies.
  5. Small businesses have to lay off their employees, and many shut down permanently.
  6. Millions of Americans are out of work and without any money saved due to our inadequate retirement system, regressive tax code, and lack of aid to average Americans. Because of this, millions of Americans are looking for anything to pay their bills.
  7. Multi-Level Marketing companies target the millions of Americans who are unemployed and unable to pay their bills, knowing full and well that they will make BILLIONS off of people struggling, and that it is going to be a long time until our economy restructures due to a lack of a functioning government.
  8. Wages are driven down and for a time the largest companies who got bailed out are able to pay lower labor costs.
  9. Banks don’t have money to lend out to new businesses, slowing the growth of our economy, keeping the competition for labor at a minimum, which drives wages down.
  10. Small companies are going to have a hard time finding customers without any stimulus boosting our demand curve, making starting a business a daunting task. Getting investment without customers is impossible.
I despise every company whose business model is built on harming people.
Thank God we avoided Hillary Clinton’s emails.
In November we will choose whether we will elect a man who is downplaying the extent of the damage of this epidemic, and using this opportunity to eliminate the competition for the businesses he and his cabinet own.
Our alternative is to vote for the man who was Vice President when health care was expanded to include disabled Americans.
Remember to vote for Joe Biden in November.

General Lee was no hero

Ike was wrong about General Lee. Lee was a slaveholder and had no loyalty to these United States. As soon as Virginia seceded from the Union, Lee saw nothing wrong with being the leading general in the war which killed more American soldiers than any other war.
He was a veteran of the Mexian American War, but in my opinion when he decided to lay arms against his country because of his conflict of interest as a slaveholder, he lost all honor.
If I had an array of men responsible for killing more American soldiers than any other, General Lee would have to be on that list.
Ike having a picture of General Lee in the White House is a slap in the face to every family like mine who lost loved ones defending the United States in the Civil War.
Respect the troops.

https://youtu.be/mOrtOlU8f9Y

Jen Perelman for Congress

On January 20, 2005 George W. Bush was sworn in for a second term. He had successfully eroded our civil liberties with the PATRIOT ACT, gotten us into an oil war with Iraq, and was already starting to rattle sabres with Iran. Virginian Terry McAuliffe was the chair of the DNC during this election. The Republican party gained another 4 seats in the Senate for  a total of 55 seats and another 5 seats in the House for a total of 232 seats. Terry McAuliffe was then replaced as the chair of the DNC by Vermonter Howard Dean. In 2006 we got the House, along with 6 governorships, and in 2008 we got the first Democratic trifecta since 2 January 1995. The future looked very bright. We had a young and popular President who supports universal health care, free community college, and expanding AMTRAK. If this wasn’t good enough, he also was the first person of color in the office. He preserved more land than any other President in history, and he wouldn’t have been able to do any of that if it wasn’t for Chair Howard Dean’s leadership. We had a majority of State Legislatures, briefly had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and over 300 seats in the House. Howard Dean had done a phenomenal job of historic proportions.

In a fairly unorthodox move, he stepped down after providing the biggest victory for progressive politicians in American history and he was replaced by Virginian Tim Kaine. A few things went very wrong at that point. Democratic politicians who did not cooperate on major issues, including health care, education, and transportation, were not held accountable for their votes by the party. As a consequence there was no party unity on major issues and the Republicans got a majority of governorships in a census year as well as a majority in the House. By doing this, they were able to gerrymander many different states, guaranteeing continued Republican dominance of the House for the next 8 years.

Kaine rightfully stepped down after that defeat which he had engineered. He engineered it by continuing to support Democrats who stepped away from the party line, which made a lot of voters feel like there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. By giving them that much leeway, he significantly weakened President Obama and many voters, myself included, feel betrayed to this day. Tim Kaine significantly contributed to the animosity of the Democratic National Committee by Progressives by allowing too much leeway for members of Congress. We live in a country which uses first past the post, and because of this we have a two party system. We don’t have a third party to hold conservative Democrats accountable. If he had held Democrats accountable by guaranteeing that they will be primaried if they do not support the President, they would have towed the line and we could have gotten a majority in 2010 by expanding our turnout.

He was replaced with Floridian Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She followed Tim Kaine’s strategy which follows four major tenants:

  1. Do not support state legislative races. They need to raise money first on their own in order to get any support. This is what I heard from my party leaders in my local legislative district.
  2. Members of Congress have almost complete leeway in how they vote. If a Democrat votes against the party line, oh well.
  3. Do not rile Republicans. This means if they decide to gerrymander states and erode federal laws regarding voting rights and other critical laws, that is their right in our Jacksonian democracy. Do not exercise our power to bring rogue states in line with Federal law using the courts.
  4. We must appeal to the median voter.

In 2014 we lost the Senate as a result of these policies, and as a direct consequence of Wasserman Schultz’s utter incompetence and fear of doing something meaningful, combined with having Tim Kaine as Vice President, whose biggest legacy is the Speakership of both John Boehner and Paul Ryan, Hillary Clinton lost the Presidency in 2016. As a consequence of the actions of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are probably both going to be on the Supreme Court until around 2050.

After working in politics for 5 years, my conclusion from talking to thousands of voters is that median voter theorem is complete bullshit.

Also, a consequence of having some political experience under my belt is I believe very strongly that every inaction when you are in a position of power is itself an action.

She is still in the House today after engineering the election of Donald Trump through her cowardice. I do not believe she is qualified to be a canvasser for the Democrats or any left of fascist initiative after her gross incompetence and negligence put us in this situation.

Fortunately, for the people in her home district, there is a fantastic opportunity to end the career of the person who put Donald Trump in power through her actions. Over the last week on her twitter account, Jen Perelman has endorsed paid family leave, has spoken out about moderates trying to rehabilitate the image of the war criminal George W. Bush, she is the co-chair of her local League of Women Voters, and an attorney.

But most importantly, she did not engineer the election of Donald Trump.

If you are able, please donate to her campaign today https://secure.actblue.com/donate/jen2020.

If you are able to donate or not, please follow her on her Twitter @JENFL23.

These are the 10 things people don’t realize about elections

George Washington

1. First Past the Post comes with several major flaws. It creates the spoiler effect which means that with more than two candidates no candidate can win a majority, and this can lead to politicians getting elected who most of the voters oppose.

2. The only system that is worse for people than First Past the Post is a delegate system. This is what we use for the Electoral College and Presidential Primaries. Delegates are worse because they make the minority vote in states have no say in the general election outside of Nebraska and Maine. Even within Nebraska, if you are in the minority in your congressional district, your vote has no impact on the national result. This is contrary to the idea of one person one vote, which is the fundamental principal our democracy is based on.

3. There have been 4 times in American history where the next President lost the popular vote. The first time was with John Quincy Adams versus the genocidal maniac who had an unhealthy addiction to duels, Andrew Jackson. The second time was Rutherford B. Hayes being defeated by Samuel J. Tilden in 1876. The third time was when Al Gore beat George W. Bush. The 4th time was when Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the popular vote, in 2016. To date, no woman who has been nominated to their party has lost the popular vote for President

4. The Electoral College was formed to defend slavery. If slaves had not been counted as 3/5 of a person, than abolitionist President John Adams would have been elected over known rapist slaveholder Thomas Jefferson in 1800. The Electoral College defended slavery again in 1824, and millions of people were held in bondage for 60 more years because of that most peculiar of American Institutions.

5. The American Primary System was completely reformed in 1972. Before then, most States didn’t have a popular vote for the Presidency at all, and the Presidential candidates were selected by party insiders. In 1972 that changed and soon everyone had the opportunity to vote for the Presidential Primary.

6. The Presidential Primary drives down turnout. The Presidential Primary is detrimental to American democracy in several ways. Combined with the peculiar institution of the Electoral College it fully shuts out third party voices and gives significant power to those who are already well connected. It starts in two of the whitest states in the United States, and by the time most people have voted, many candidates have already dropped out. It makes America’s election season last over a year, unlike any other country. This draws on the American psyche, distracting from what our government is currently doing, distracts from local races, and is bad for Democracy.

7. America’s original system was more similar to the Parliamentary systems of Europe. The first thing that people forget is that Electors weren’t originally locked into the votes of the People. Similar to a Parliamentary system where the ordinary person has almost no say at all on who their head of government will be. Whereas in the UK the Prime Minister is elected by Parliament, our Electoral College is equal in size to Congress (until the 23rd amendment which granted the District of Columbia 3 electoral college votes) and the electors were decided on a state by state basis. The Marshall Court in the early years of the United States significantly moved us towards a more centralized government, particularly with multiple decisions that moved power from the States to the Federal government.

John Marshall

8. America didn’t vote for our Senators until 1913. Until then they were elected by our State Legislatures. In the early days you had to own land to vote at all in most states. Suffrage in the United States has been constantly expanding ever since independence, and the movement now for universal absentee voting and ranked voting, is just continuing that American tradition of constantly expanding freedom further. Being the first modern democracy with the oldest extant Constitution in the world gives us a unique standing among the world’s democracies in terms of what has been tested and tried here first, or has been adopted from abroad.

9. In 2004 Howard Dean broke against tradition by focusing on small donors and extending his social media as a major campaigning tool. Until this time, Democrats had focused substantially on bigger donors. Howard Dean soon became the Chair of the DNC after his failed Presidential bid. As chair his leadership gave Democrats the Senate, then the house, and then Barack Obama used the same strategy to win the primary and then win the general election in a historic landslide, becoming only one of two men since 1960 to win a majority of the popular vote twice. Politics has taken a long time to adopt content marketing. Politics has taken a long time to adopt content marketing. There is a huge opening to become a dominant player in this subsection of the market this November with legislative and congressional races happening across the United States, and also in other democracies. This could be the year that this changes. Since Howard Dean focused on smaller donors in 2004, this led to Barack Obama leading a successful grassroots campaign in 2008 which led him to win the Presidency. Content marketing could be the next major political innovation in politics which determines who wins and loses campaigns. HieroFlux is ready to be the company which leads the way in this sector. Focus on legislative and local races has significantly increased over the last 10 years, and out of 7,383 state legislators in the country, there is a lot of room for an increase in marketing in this area which will determine winners and losers in the election this November.

10. America is right now going through a significant shift in our election system. For the first time in history, multiple states used ranked voting in the Democratic Primary and 2020 will be the first Presidential election in history where one state will use ranked voting. Ranked voting ensures that every vote counts as long as the voter fills out their ballot properly. Many other states have growing FairVote movements today to continue to improve our elections, so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from this Earth.

Published using Hieroflux

2020-2022 election analysis

So, there is a Wikipedia list which shows you the current political party strength in every state in these United States. I downloaded this into a Jupyter notebook today and did some Python magic on it this morning to start to understand what is really going on with the partisan spread in the United States.

First, for historical background it is really new that no matter which state you live in, the parties will be very aligned.

OK, to prevent this from being a giant historical essay, let’s start by doing some real analysis into the current patterns in the United States.

This map shows the current state level Trifectas in the United States. As you can see from the map above, most trifectas are currently held by Republicans. This is a very different story from before the 2010 census.

But what this simply colored map doesn’t show are HOW these Trifectas are formed. Breaking this down further, if we show only states which have total alignment (a trifecta and voted for the President of the same party in 2016) the map looks like this:

20 states do not have a split government representation when you take into account the partisan balance of both state legislatures, their governor, their Senators, their US Representatives, and how they voted for the President in the last election. There is one caveat to this, Nebraska has a technically non-partisan state legislature, so they should technically be colored red.

Every state in grey is a target for each party to expand their power.

Republicans are one step away from taking over the following states in grey:

  • Alabama (US Senate)
  • Alaska (State House)
  • Iowa (2 seats in the US House)
  • Kansas (Governor)
  • Kentucky (Governor)
  • Louisiana (Governor)
  • North Carolina (Governor)
  • Ohio (US Senate)
  • West Virginia (US Senate)

Democrats are one step away from taking over the following states in grey:

  • Colorado (US Senate)
  • Maine (US Senate, although Angus King is technically Independent, he caucuses with the Democrats)
  • Maryland (Governor)
  • Massachusetts (Governor)
  • Minnesota (2 seats in the State Senate)
  • New Hampshire (Governor)
  • Vermont (Governor, although Bernie Sanders is technically Independent, he caucuses with the Democrats)

If all of these changes occur, our map will look like this:

The remaining 5 states are the ones which are by this count the most swingy of them all.

Arizona and Pennsylvania have the closest margins in their state legislatures which makes them relatively easy for the Democrats to gain control over redistricting. All that needs to happen than in Arizona is to win the Gubernatorial election in 2022 and the Democrats will have a trifecta there. In Pennsylvania we need to pick up 4 seats in the Senate and 9 seats in the House (out of a very large State House), so these are very likely to be added to the list of Democratic trifectas in the next two and a half years if people turn out.

Michigan has a wider margin, particularly in the State Senate, but it is theoretically possible for the Democrats to win back the State House where they only need 4 more seats, and with Gretchen Whitmer as governor it is very likely that the map will be at least balanced in 2022 which means that a Democratic trifecta in Michigan in 2023 is very likely.

In Montana the Republicans are two steps away from total domination, but they have a popular moderate Democratic senator, so it is very likely that Montana will continue to not be dominated for a while.

In Wisconsin it is a similar story to Michigan. We need to pick up one of the Senate seats, and 2 more House seats to dominate their congressional representation. With a Democratic governor the map in 2022 will be at least balanced, which means the Democrats have a high probability of getting complete control in Wisconsin over the next 2 years.

Now, it is totally possible that voters will continue their divided governments in these states as well, these are just how it looks for now.

There are very few states in the US right now with close state legislatures. If we look at the Presidential margins as well we see that the only three states which do not have divided government which saw no candidate take an outright majority in the 2016 Presidential election were North Carolina and Florida.

North Carolina will have a tight US Senate election this year, the polls put both Thom Tills and Cal Cunningham in a dead heat. PaddyPower betting doesn’t favor either party in winning the Presidential election either. Roy Cooper is expected to win his election this year, which will mean that North Carolina will likely have a more balanced state legislature and US House map this time around. Assuming these voters vote down ballot as well, it might be possible to pick up a few more seats in the State legislature where we need 4 in the Senate and 5 in the House to have a tie. There were 9 different races which Republicans won by less than 10% in 2016, and with the right candidates this time around, combined with the president being unpopular, it is definitely possible that Democrats could take one or both houses, forcing the Republicans to have a less gerrymandered map. This will have massive implications nationally because North Carolina has 13 seats in the House, so getting a fair map in North Carolina is important in maintaining control of the US House of Representatives.

Florida’s size makes it necessary to discuss. Democrats need 4 seats to take over the State Senate (out of 40 seats), and significantly more in the States House. It is the same story for Florida as with North Carolina, but even more so because it has as many house seats as New York. Given that Trump failed to get a majority, it is very much in play. The gubernatorial election in 2022 will be very important to watch since Ron DeSantis won by only 33,000 votes, or .4% of the people who voted. But, since Democrats lost in 2018 I fully expect that the State legislature and US House districts will be fully gerrymandered after this year’s census. The 2030 Gubernatorial election is going to be very important.

At first glance, Iowa is very strongly Republican right now, but this wasn’t the case 10 years ago. Kim Reynolds won the election by 50.3% of the vote in 2018 and followed up by passing one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the United States. Given that the Iowa PVI is only R+3 I believe it is possible to run the right candidate against her to at least take back the Governorship in 2022. Ohio is a similar story, given that Mike DeWine won with only 50.4% of the vote. If the Democrats are able to take back the governorship hopefully we can bring the state to court to get a more fair legislative boundary map some time around 2025.

Georgia is the final state I am going to look at in this list. Stacey Abrams almost won in 2018, and if enough people turn out to vote in 2022 it is possible that Georgia could have a Democratic governor in 2023. There needs to be better oversight of our elections because of what happened in 2018 with the Governors race, ideally foreign observers. Georgia allows anyone to register to vote absentee for any reason, and the ticket to winning the Governors race in 2022 is to get as many people registered to vote absentee as fast as possible. This gets around the voter ID laws which are probably unconstitutional, and ensures everyone can have their voice count.

Based on all of this, my final prediction for what state level government trifectas will look like in 2023 as a best case scenario for Democrats is as follows:

This is assuming Democrats only see gains, and we pick up the governorships which Republicans won by under 5 points:

  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • New Hampshire
  • Iowa
  • South Dakota
  • Ohio

 We pick up Senate seats in states which voted for Clinton and have a Republican Senator:

  •  Colorado
  • Maine

We pick up State Senates where the margin is under 5%:

  • Minnesota

We pick up State Houses where the margin is under 5%:

  • Arizona
  • Iowa
  • Michigan
  • Pennsylvania
  • North Carolina

We also win every state in the Presidential election which Clinton lost by under 5%:

  • Florida
  • Pennsylvania
  • Michigan
  • North Carolina
  • Arizona
  • Wisconsin
  • Nebraska, 2nd district

This will create the following most probable best case scenario for the Democrats:

If everything possible goes right for the Republicans, the best case scenario for 2023 they can reasonably hope for using  he same criteria will be:

They can pick up the following governorships:

  • North Carolina
  • Wisconsin
  • Connecticut
  • Montana
  • Nevada

They pick up Senate seats in states which voted for Trump and have a Democratic Senator:

  • Alabama
  • Arizona
  • Montana
  • Ohio
  • Pennsylvania
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin

They pick up State Senates where the margin is less than 5%:

  • Colorado
  • Virginia

There are no Democratically controlled State Houses where the margin is less than 5%.

They pick up states where Clinton won with a margin of victory under 5%.:

  • Colorado
  • Nevada
  • Minnesota
  • New Hampshire

This will create the most probable best case scenario for the Republican Party:

Now there are many reasons why this unlikely. Trump is polling below 50%, most betting pools are betting that Joe Biden will win, COVID-19 is showing the quality of Republican leadership and if Republicans are disproportionately affected due to the patterns of which states are opening up early, than this will definitely reduce the number of people voting for Republicans in November.

This bring us to one final map, which is where these two maps agree:

This map makes it pretty clear that most Americans live in a State which has at least one major partisan control (legislature, governor, senators, or Presidential votes) at risk in this current election cycle based on previous election trends.

The truth in a few years will likely be somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, but the takeaway from this I have is that nothing is written in stone, and history is what we make it. Every single person needs to vote. The majority of Americans are liberal according to issue based opinion polls, and we deserve to have a government which reflects these values. Almost everyone lives somewhere where either their governor, representative (which I did not examine in this post), state legislature, senator, or their votes for the Electoral College are truly up for grabs.

This map also makes one error, which I am aware of. It makes Washington (my home) look like a safe state. This appears to be true, but in my data if you take an average of the partisan split in each house Washington is next to Montana in terms of how closely divided our legislature is. In fact, we are one of only 11 states where both houses have a margin of under 10% of the seats. In fact, 21 states in total have at least one chamber with a 10% majority or less. If we remove these states from our “safe state” map to get only the ultra safe states the map looks like this:

These are the only states where the following criteria are true:

  • The margin of victory for President was over 5%
  • The party in power of both state legislature chambers has a margin of over 10% of the seats
  • The governor won their last race by at least a 5% margin
  • Both Senate seats are held by the same party
  • Only one party dominated both houses of the Legislature, controls the governorship, and has both seats in the Senate

This is the reality of American politics today. Very few states are completely safe in every possible way. Everyone needs to vote, and you need to vote for every race on your ballot. Even if you live in a state legislative district considered safe, you should still vote, because it can still make a difference. Michigan voted for the Democrats every Presidential election from 1988-2012, but voted for Trump in 2016. The Washington State Legislature was divided for most of the 2010s, but a surge in turnout in 2018 gave the Democrats a large majority which has allowed them to pass legislation on a wide variety of issues.

Getting great people into state legislatures allows them to pass great bills which can solve real problems which effect your community. With a great slate of state legislators, it becomes much easier to win races for Congress and to have fantastic governors. We can have excellent mayors who can fight homelessness and expand transit. With these great leaders at all levels of our democracy we can then get phenomenal Presidents who can expand access to health care, increase the number of Americans who can go to college, and solve our looming retirement crisis which will only grow as long as we don’t implement solutions.

But this will only happen if you vote for your state legislator. Great state legislators will only get elected if you volunteer to phone bank in your legislative district to get great leaders into positions of power where they can make our world a better place. That is the only way that we can get great Senators and Governors, which is the only way we will elect great Presidents. It will only happen if you get involved in the politics of your legislative district today.