Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the defenders of Ukraine and all modern civilization!
Today in the issue:
- Real wars and the 47th president
- The latest court decisions related to elections and why not to fall into pessimism
▶ The 47th President of the United States, even before taking office, promised to end the Russian-Ukrainian war within a day, free all Israeli hostages in Gaza, end the war in Gaza, disarm Hamas, and remove it from power in Gaza. A few months later, he began to say (and continues to repeat now) that he “ended eight wars,” only he knows which ones exactly. Although this is not certain, because when he does not look at the list prepared for him, he might say that he ended the wars between Armenia and Cambodia or between Azerbaijan and Albania.
The war in Gaza did indeed pause. The remaining Israeli hostages were released in exchange for the release of a large number of Palestinians from Israeli prisons. But Hamas controls most of Gaza. Its power there has not weakened at all. A fragile and constantly violated ceasefire can turn into a new outburst of full-scale military actions at any moment.
In the summer of 2025, Netanyahu received carte blanche from Trump for a war with Iran, which lasted 12 days and in which the US itself participated on the last day, striking underground Iranian nuclear sites. The war ended because Trump decided so. And Iran agreed to this.
Today, the 47th president is in a different situation. On February 28, he, along with Israel, started a new war with Iran. On April 7, he announced a ceasefire expecting Iran to quickly agree to a deal on his terms. Since then, 32 days have passed. Iran has agreed to nothing, and it’s unclear if they will. The weapons Iran found were very effective. This weapon is a blockade of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, leading to a 40-50% increase in oil prices, a lack of availability of 20% of the world’s oil imports, and 30% of the global imports of mineral fertilizers. This caused sharp increases in fuel, electricity, and fertilizer prices, a spike in global inflation, and unfolding economic crises in all developed countries. To date, no ways to counter Iran’s use of this weapon have been found. The 47th president is trying to persuade Iran to unblock the Strait of Hormuz and conclude a nuclear agreement similar to the JCPOA, concluded in 2015 and terminated by Trump in 2018. Iran remains silent. Tweets with AI-generated images of a drawn great commander in the guise of the 47th president sinking the Iranian fleet and destroying Iranian planes do not solve the problem (except perhaps in the imagined world of the 47th; in any case, he published five such tweets on Saturday). In real life, this changes nothing.
The 47th president tried for a year and three and a half months to pressure Ukraine into accepting Russian terms, that is, to capitulate, portraying a “peace process” and “negotiations.” Naturally, he could not force Ukraine to withdraw from Donbas, i.e., capitulate. Putin no longer wants to participate in his “peace process,” apparently considering that having the situation with Iran as leverage against Trump means he doesn’t need the leverage of simulating “trilateral negotiations.” And the 47th is left with being the guarantor of security for Putin’s so-called military parade, a pathetic and shameful spectacle, which is precisely how sensible Western media and commentators have characterized it.
The reality faced by the 47th president, even if he does not see or want to acknowledge it, is very different from the virtual world he imagined. This is the reality of the unresolved crisis caused by his war with Iran, the shameful absurdity of the “mediation” that the US, under him, is conducting regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war, the reality of Americans’ dissatisfaction with rising prices for gasoline, diesel fuel, electricity, food, and health insurance. Finally, it is the reality of the imminent defeat of the Republican Party in the congressional elections and the transformation of the president into a lame duck finishing his term, desperately fending off parliamentary investigations, unable to pass any legislation through Congress.
▶ Let’s talk about elections. And the two recent court decisions that left some people pessimistic about the Democrats’ chances of winning elections.
Let’s go back to 2018, when there were midterm congressional elections during Trump’s first presidential term. By the time of the elections in November 2018, Republicans held 241 seats in the 115th Congress House of Representatives compared to 194 seats for Democrats—a clear Republican majority. The elections brought a significant victory for the Democrats. As a result, Democrats took 41 seats from the Republicans in the House. In the 116th Congress House of Representatives, Democrats held 235 seats compared to 199 seats for Republicans.
In the currently sitting 119th Congress House of Representatives, Republicans hold 217 seats, Democrats 212. One seat is held by an independent congressman who left the Republican Party. Five seats are vacant (due to resignations or deaths).
To gain control of the House of Representatives, Democrats need to add 6 more seats to their 212.
If the 2026 elections were held without manipulations in redistricting, it could be asserted with absolute certainty today that Democrats would secure a convincing victory, likely taking far more than 41 seats from Republicans as they did in 2018.
What is happening with redistricting? Last summer, Trump demanded that Republicans in “red” states, where they have a majority in local legislatures and their own governors, urgently redraw the boundaries of congressional districts in such a way as to “dilute” districts in large cities, where Democrats win, into rural districts, where Republicans win, and create additional districts in rural areas, where Republicans are almost guaranteed to win, through the disappearance of urban districts. This process began in Texas, where the districts were redrawn so that Republicans can expect to gain five additional seats in the House. In “blue,” Democratic states, redistricting is much more difficult because there are laws that significantly complicate this procedure. Nonetheless, California responded to Texas — at the call of Governor Newsom, a referendum was held there, where voters approved new district boundaries in such a way that Democrats can expect to win in five additional districts.
The further movement in this direction had not brought anything fundamentally new until recently. Republicans created one additional district for themselves in Missouri and are close to creating two additional districts in North Carolina. Democrats responded with a referendum in Virginia, where voters approved new district boundaries that could give Democrats four additional seats. However, Republicans went to court to challenge the legality of the referendum. And the Virginia Supreme Court agreed with them last week by a 4-3 majority. An appeal to this decision has been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision by the US Supreme Court last week carries more serious consequences. On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the historic Voting Rights Act passed by Congress, which was supposed to end the artificial discrimination against African Americans who de facto did not have the opportunity to either elect their representatives in Congress or often even vote. According to this law, states, when determining district boundaries, had to ensure that African Americans had representation, and where they comprised the majority of voters, districts needed to be created so they could reliably elect their representatives to the authorities. Last week, the Republican majority of the Supreme Court responded to a lawsuit by Republicans in the state of Louisiana, who challenged the boundaries of districts for the House of Representatives in their state on the grounds that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act should not be applied automatically but should require proof of intent for racial discrimination. The Republican majority in the Supreme Court, as mentioned, agreed with this argument.
This resulted in a chain reaction in the southern states. In Louisiana, the Republican governor canceled the primaries, where early voting was already underway, and postponed them by two months for an urgent redrawing of districts in favor of Republicans. The Tennessee state legislature immediately redrew districts to “dissolve” the single “blue” district in the state into “red” districts and create an additional Republican district. A similar situation is happening in Alabama and South Carolina. In Florida, Governor DeSantis urgently initiated a redistricting that is expected to give Republicans an additional four seats.
As mentioned above, in “blue,” Democratic states, such redistricting is significantly more difficult. Therefore, it is unlikely that before the elections on November 3, Democrats will be able to respond with similar mass redistricting, for example, in New York and Illinois.
But it is important to note the following two points.
First. Even if Republicans reformat districts in every southern state without exception, ensuring that Democrats from these states are not elected to the House of Representatives at all, this will give Republicans a maximum of 12 additional seats. The comparison with the 2018 elections was brought up intentionally. At that time, Democrats had 47 fewer seats than Republicans. Democrats took 41 seats from Republicans in swing districts, where voters change their moods depending on how the ruling party fulfills its promises. As a result, in the new House, Democrats had 36 more seats than Republicans. Thus, the artificial addition of 12 seats (which still needs to be obtained, which is uncertain, since in all the early elections held over the past year, Republicans receive 12-15% fewer votes than in 2024) will not solve Republicans’ problem with swing districts in different states across the country. There are many such districts — more than forty. These are districts where Republican candidates won in 2024 with a very narrow margin. In fact, in this year’s elections, there may be even more such districts since those where Republican candidates won in 2024 with a margin of even 7-8% of votes cannot be considered reliable for them. This is precisely because in all the elections held over the past year, Republicans have been losing 12-15% of votes. Therefore, pessimism about the possible election outcome favoring the 47th president due to recent court decisions is not justified. This does not mean at all that victory is “in the bag” for the Democrats. It needs to be fought for; a very active election campaign needs to be carried out.
Second point. By calling for redistricting last year, Trump opened Pandora’s box, which will now almost inevitably result in a complete redrawing of electoral district boundaries nationwide by the 2028 elections. In “blue” states, this process requires more time and effort, but the Democrats’ response is inevitable. The result will be that in “blue,” Democratic states, only Democrats will be elected to the House of Representatives, and in “red,” Republican states, only Republicans. Diversity in representation will only exist in swing states, where neither party has a decisive advantage.
Here’s what needs to be added. The redistricting process, initiated by the 47th president and picked up by Republicans hoping to avoid election defeat by this means, further divides an already very divided country. And in this, of course, there is absolutely nothing good.
There are 987 days left until the end of the story called “Fear: Trump in the White House” © (the title of Bob Woodward’s book, published in 2018).
Thank you to everyone who read this. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Take care of each other, help each other. Health to all.
Ultimately, what happens in the world depends on us. Whether we fight evil, do Good, remain mere observers, passively wait, and believe that someone somewhere will decide something for us, or fight evil and do everything possible for Good to prevail.
We must not allow evil to prevail. The victory of evil will mean the end of the world we live in. We cannot allow this. Especially now.
Ukrainian Friends, I hug and love you all. Take care of each other, I ask you very much.
Ukraine is and will always be.
And evil will be defeated and punished. And this is certain.
