Ian Welsh

Not surprising:

These results are from about five AM. They will change, but the overall results are firm.

The first thing to watch for, though it’s a way out, will be what the Senate rules are, in particular, the filibuster rules. If the filibuster is kept, Democrats aren’t serious about challenging Trump or changing anything.

---

Folks, it’s my annual fundraiser. This fundraiser keeps the lights on. Everything here is free, there’s no ads, I don’t take sponsored posts and I don’t write pro-Israeli propaganda, even though I’ve been offered money (which I could really use) to sell my soul and betray my readers. If you can give, if it won’t cause you hardship, & you value this site and the writing here, please Subscribe or Donate. So far we’ve raised $9,110 from 71 people, meaning we’re a bit over half way to our goal.

---

The second question is whether “designated villain” where just enough Dems vote with Republicans to stall anything popular but against the elite consensus is used. I’d be very surprised if it isn’t, but I’d be happy to be wrong.

The election result is primarily about cost of living and the Iran war, which are mostly the same thing to Americans. I have a hard time imaging Democrats actually Congressional power over war making or the purse to stop Trump’s war. They certainly won’t do a damn thing about Israel and its genocide.

I don’t actually think this election matters very much. Most of what Trump does that is objectionable is based on Presidential powers, either innate or which were delegated to the Presidency by various Congresses. Again, if Democrats start taking back the powers that were delegated, you’ll know they’re serious, if not, they aren’t. It’s that simple.

I’ve seen some people suggest that if the Dems don’t do anything significant, it might lead to a third party. I doubt it: Americans have been sheep for generations. Again, happy to be wrong, and hope I am.

We can expect a fair bit of screaming at Trump and meaningless votes. He might get impeached in the House, but I doubt the Senate will actually remove him even if so.

America is determined to go down, to lose what remains of its hegemony, except over Latin America (that’ll take another 20 years or so), and to continue impoverishing the mass of citizens so it can mint more billionaires.

Everything else is, sadly, noise, which is why I don’t cover US politics much these days.

Use this thread to talk about the American elections. If you want to talk about other things, use Saturday’s thread instead.

Update 1: massive swing to Democrats.

Update 2: And, despite all the screaming, Jews are still primarily democratic voters:

Update 3: Projections show Susan Collins losing in Maine. (Entirely a matter of Trump’s tariff policies + Iran war. He lost the seat.)

x

I haven’t written a lot about the US elections. The Democrats will win, since Trump has completely trashed the US economy with his policies and caused a cost of living crisis (you ain’t seen nothin’yet), the only question is how large the Democratic wave is.

Democrats controlling Congress is unlikely to make much of a difference. Even if they have enough votes they won’t remove Presidential war powers, even though constitutionally those belong to Congress and were given by Congress to the President. Likewise Trump’s signature policies of erratic tariffs with no plan and violent immigration enforcement will not cease.

It’s hard to predict Trump, but the evidence suggests another attack on Iran immediately after the election. The US has been shifting massive resources to the Middle East in preparation. The Iranians, once again, seem unlikely to attack first even though they can see the buildup, so I guess they’ll tank the first hit again.

There’s some speculation that Trump may use a nuke on the primary nuclear research and development site in Iran. Tucker:

Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike.

Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer. Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war.

It’s hard to overstate how bad this could be. Even a conventional attack appears likely to provoke a massive response from the Iranians, and they’ve been warning that they’ll hit targets they avoided last time, especially if the US hits Iranian oil infrastructure.

---

It’s my annual fundraiser. This allows us to cover the changeover of hegemony from America to China, environmental collapse, internal US fascism, what a better society would look like, Gaza, AI, the coming stock market crash and various other issues. As of this writing we’ve raised about $8,755 out of a $14,500 goal, from 67 people. It’d be great if you can help out (please don’t donate if your financial situation is dire.) You can Subscribe or Donate here or contact me at admin-at-ianwelsh-dot-net if you need another way to donate (mail, usually. A lot of cash apps don’t work in Canada.)

---

If there’s a nuclear attack, all bets are off. The Iranians will retaliate with everything they have, and they’ve said they’ll take out Israel’s nuclear facilities and its desalination plants, plus hit US companies in the Gulf, possibly cut the underwater internet cables, and likely take out as much oil and industrial infrastructure in Gulf countries as possible.

Downstream, once the US uses nukes, everyone else will feel much freer to use them, and everyone will want nukes of their own as protection, since the taboo will have been broken. It’s one of the first steps towards a new war, possibly even a nuclear war.

This is sheerest insanity, and the people pushing for this are absolute scum, and in most cases stupid. (Netanyahu is not stupid, he cares more about himself than Israel or anything else. He’s completely selfish and genocidal.)

If there isn’t an attack my judgment is that Iran will eventually force a peace more on their terms than America’s. The economic pressure is getting severe, and oil and fertilizer stockpiles are dwindling. They’ve been much more aggressively enforcing their blockade and unlike before, they’re actually destroying tankers. Before they usually just disabled them.

If there is an attack, Iran will still “win” but no one, including them, is going to come out of this without catastrophic economic damage.

The world is on the brink. US elections will not change that. Nothing will seriously change until America admits it has lost the war and makes peace on terms that reflect that.

That remains the most likely outcome, but the longer it takes for America to admit it’s loss, the worse the suffering will be. I repeat my advice to stock up on fuel, food, medicine and other goods (motor oil, etc…)

As for America, until there’s an actual opposition party, elections will simply shuffle the chairs on the deck and inexorable American decline will continue.

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – November 01, 2026
by Tony Wikrent

 

He Called for Trump’s Impeachment. Now an Air Force Major Sits in Solitary Confinement.

Jeffrey Sterling, Oct 26, 2026 [laprogressive.com]

Major Jason Watson faces ten military charges after publicly demanding Trump’s removal. His prolonged isolation raises serious questions about constitutional loyalty, selective prosecution, and punishment before trial….

You can also help by sending letters of support to Major Watson while he is being confined to the following address:

Jason P. Watson
Calvert County Detention Center
P.O. Box 9
Barstow, MD 20610

 

 

The easiest way to follow *every* election – A new, free resource for democracy watchers and election nerds

Jordan Zakarin, Oct 24, 2026 [Progress Report]

 

 

Regime Fragility in the United States: What the Comparative Literature Measures and What the Next Two Years Test

Christopher Armitage, Oct 27, 2026 [The Existentialist Republic]

… Milan Svolik, a Yale political scientist whose 2012 book The Politics of Authoritarian Rule built a dataset of every dictatorship from 1946 to 2008, argues that every authoritarian government faces two problems, control of the people it rules and power sharing with the elites it rules with, and that the second one ends more regimes.

His 2009 study in the American Journal of Political Science counted 303 dictators who lost power by nonconstitutional means and found 205 removed by regime insiders and 32 by popular uprising. Two-thirds of the dictators in the dataset fell to the people standing next to them.

The rule for the United States follows directly: the people positioned in the data to end this regime are inside its coalition, the senators, governors, donors, generals and judges whose cooperation the coalition needs, and every indicator worth reading measures their cohesion….

the Egyptian army let Hosni Mubarak fall and the Syrian army fired on Syrians. A professional force promoted by merit and bound by law is the kind that declines to fire, and the last 13 months produced two readings of that variable.

In Nepal, police killed 19 protesters on Sept. 8, 2025, the first day of the youth protests against corruption and a social media ban. The next morning Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli left his residence in an army helicopter and resigned, the army chief, Gen. Ashok Raj Sigdel, went on television that evening to call for talks, and by Sept. 11 the generals were at army headquarters negotiating with the protesters over who would be prime minister; the protesters named a former chief justice, Sushila Karki, and she was sworn in the next day.

In Madagascar, Col. Michael Randrianirina of the CAPSAT unit, the unit that had put President Andry Rajoelina in power in 2009, posted a video on Oct. 11, 2025 telling the security forces to refuse any order to shoot the demonstrators; his soldiers walked the protesters into the capital’s main square the next day, the gendarmerie joined on Oct. 13, Rajoelina left the country, and Randrianirina was sworn in as interim president on Oct. 17.

In the United States, Bellin’s finding comes down to which force gets the order to fire: the military, promoted by merit and sworn to the Constitution, or the second force the regime is building. Congress gave ICE $76.5 billion, nearly 10 times its annual budget, close to $30 billion of it to hire 10,000 officers….

 

Read More

What I Released This Week

• Coffee Break: Elon Musk Has a Hand in Everything from Anthropic to Skydance to Texas Politics — Naked Capitalism, Oct. 28th.
• Coffee Break: Trump’s GOP Flailing as Campaign Nears Close — Naked Capitalism, Oct. 26th.

From me as Nate Wilcox at the Let It Roll Podcast
A lot of blues this week, including a brand-new episode on St. Louis Blues (and Jazz and Ragtime).

• Robert Johnson Revised: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.11 — Let It Roll, Oct. 30th.
• Robert Johnson: Escaping the Delta: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.10 — Let It Roll, Oct. 28th.
• Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues of St. Louis: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.9 — Let It Roll, Oct. 26th.

From me as Nate Wilcox — The MMA Draw & the Mad Squabbles Show

• Did Dana White & the UFC Dump Trump? — The Mad Squabbles Show (YouTube), Oct. 27th.

---

It’s Ian’s annual fundraiser. This allows us to cover the changeover of hegemony from America to China, environmental collapse, internal US fascism, what a better society would look like, Gaza, AI, the coming stock market crash and various other issues. As of this writing we’ve raised about $5,120 out of a $14,500 goal, from 58 people. It’d be great if you can help out (please don’t donate if your financial situation is dire.) You can Subscribe or Donate here or contact Ian at admin-at-ianwelsh-dot-net if you need another way to donate (mail, usually. A lot of cash apps don’t work in Canada.)

---

What I’ve Been Reading and Watching

Iran War

• The Incredible Shrinking Superpower — The Intercept.
• Iran keeps humiliating USrael in the sky and in the sea! — GeoPolitiQ.
• US Army prepares for mass casualties with drill digging graves amid a looming war threat — Daily Mail.

FUTURE IRAN WAR PLAN – IT’s INSANE — Daniel Davis / Deep Dive (YouTube).

Yemen War

Yemeni-built weapons shape Saudi battle, with Jon Elmer — The Electronic Intifada (YouTube).

Israel

• “Sound and fury in Israel.” — The Floutist. “One question in my mind as the Israelis sort out their political future is how the rest of the world will respond once a new government forms and it is bitterly clear that, with Bibi or someone else in power, Israel is either incapable of taking a new course forward or has no interest in finding one. As Alastair Crooke put it the other day, there is no ‘Good Israel’ waiting to come back to life.”
• Massive influence campaign floods France with racist ads, months before 2027 presidential election — Le Monde.
• ‘Abusing and Threatening and Harassing’: Inside the Collapse of Leo Terrell’s DOJ Antisemitism Task Force — The Harvard Crimson.

Ukraine

John Mearsheimer: Russia Will Win The Ukraine War And Take More Territory — Glenn Diesen Clips (YouTube).

Latin America

• Wife of jailed Ecuadorian opposition leader slams Donroe Doctrine dictatorship — The Grayzone.
• Bolivian Attorney General Was Arrested After Investigating Trump-Aligned Operative — Drop Site News.

AI Bubble

• The Bright Side of the Dark Side of AI — God’s Spies. “AI eats what it’s fed, regardless of source. AI is now eating Adobe. And that’s just the start.”

Follow and Support My Work at NatWilsonTurner.com

Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.