Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the defenders of Ukraine and all of modern civilization!
Today in the issue:
- Briefly about some recent news or personality cult American-style
- Election scenarios
▶ From the latest news, very characteristic of today’s America.
● The board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, appointed by Trump, voted on Thursday to rename the center to “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, renovated and reconstructed by Donald Trump,” and also to name the place where the center is located “Donald Trump Square.”
Trump himself, who appointed himself to the board of trustees, also voted for this decision.
You might say this is absurd?
It is impossible to disagree with you.
I think it will seem even more absurd to you if we recall the following. As soon as he became president for the second time, Trump changed the board of trustees of the center, dismissing everyone appointed by previous presidents and replacing them with his appointees and himself. The new board voted to rename the center to “Donald Trump Center for the Performing Arts named John F. Kennedy.”
A lawsuit was filed against this renaming. About two months ago, a court ruled that the renaming was illegal because the center was given the name John F. Kennedy by a special law passed by Congress, and only Congress has the right to make a decision to change the center’s name. The court ordered Trump’s name to be removed from the center’s name. The court’s decision was carried out, but since then, the main part of the center’s facade has been covered with tarpaulin so that no one could see that Trump’s name is no longer mentioned in its name.
The 47th president, however, could not tolerate this. He demanded to have his name returned to the center’s name. It can be assumed that another lawsuit will be filed against another renaming, and the decision is unlikely to differ from the previous one.
The board also ruled that the center will be closed for reconstruction in the next two years. The board had made a similar decision before, and the court ruled this decision illegal.
The Kennedy Center is Washington’s main stage. Musicians of all genres from around the world have always considered it an honor to perform there. The National Symphony Orchestra of the USA and the Washington National Opera have performed there. All of them have announced a boycott of the center after its unlawful renaming to Trump. Apparently, the boycott will continue until Trump leaves the White House, unless Trump destroys the center as he has destroyed a third of the White House, demolishing its east wing.
● The second news concerns this matter. The DC Court of Appeals, following the district court, ruled that the construction of Trump’s “ballroom,” conducted on the site of the demolished east wing of the White House, must be stopped, as it is illegal. The court stated that the White House is not the property of the president but of the American people. Presidents are merely temporary residents, provided with the White House as a residence by the people. According to the court’s decision, any decisions regarding the reconstruction of public property can only be made by representatives of the people on behalf of the people. The representative of the people is the legislative power — Congress, consisting of elected representatives who must represent the interests of the people who elected them.
The Department of Justice filed an appeal on behalf of Trump against this appellate court decision in the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.
▶ It’s time to talk about the elections. In just over two and a half months, on November 3, elections to Congress, or midterm elections as they are called in the USA, will be held. The entire House of Representatives, elected for two years, will be re-elected.
35 senators out of 100 will be re-elected. Senators are elected for six years. Regular elections are held for 33 senate seats. In the states of Ohio and Florida, special elections are being held for the Senate seats vacated after Vance was elected vice president and Rubio was appointed secretary of state. Currently, their senate seats are occupied by senators appointed by the governors of these states for the period until special elections are held.
On one hand, elections are what they should be in a democracy — a crucial part of the political process. On the other hand, in modern USA, election campaigns have turned into a very long and very costly show, with candidates spending tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. This covers the cost of TV advertising, social media advertising, including YouTube, rental of premises, and payment of campaign staff. Candidates who faced opponents in party primaries spend much more on the campaign than those who did not. Intraparliamentary competition in the primaries is no different from competition in general elections. Similarly, it’s necessary to fill local television and social media with their advertising and counter-advertising of opponents.
Therefore, the election campaign in most districts for the House of Representatives and in most states where senators are being re-elected began at the very start of this year, almost a year before the actual elections.
During this time, many events have taken place that affect the lives of Americans, and accordingly, candidates for Congress adjust the content of their advertisements and speeches to voters. The main event is the war with Iran, which has led to rising prices for gasoline, other fuels, electricity, food, and many other goods.
The primaries are almost complete—nearly all states have finished them. The election campaign has entered the decisive phase, where candidates from the two major American parties directly oppose each other.
The results of the primaries show even greater polarization of American society. Republicans are moving further to the right—the party is completely dominated by Trump. He is expelling anyone from Republican politics who disagrees with him on anything or seems insufficiently loyal. Exceptions to this rule are rare and apply only to those truly rare cases where a member of Congress is more popular among Republican voters in their state (district) than Trump himself. In the next Congress, for example, Republican Senators Cassidy and Cornyn, Congressman Massie, against whom Trump fielded his candidates in the primaries, will not be present. Senator Tillis, fearing loss to a Trump candidate in the primaries, decided not to run for re-election.
The sharp rightward shift of Republicans and the presence of a far-right president in the White House inevitably caused a shift of the Democratic Party to the left. Candidates identifying as democratic socialists or progressives won most of the intra-party primaries they participated in. Such candidates, on one hand, are not too numerous, but it is noteworthy that in most cases where they participated in the party primaries, they won. As a result, for example, we will not see Congressman Dan Goldman from New York in the next House of Representatives. The classic liberal-centrist lost his primaries to a representative of the party’s left wing.
The apex of this process was the victory in the Senate primaries in Michigan of a democratic socialist (as he calls himself) Abdul El-Sayed. Democratic Senator from Michigan Peters decided not to run for re-election. As a result, there was a contest to take his place. El-Sayed (an American of Egyptian descent, born in the USA) narrowly defeated Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who was supported by the Democratic Party establishment and outgoing Senator Peters.
As of today, Michigan Democrats have made it very challenging for their party to gain a majority in the Senate. Michigan is not New York, California, Massachusetts, or Illinois, where in the current divided conditions of the country, any Democrat would beat any Republican in Senate elections. Michigan is a swing state with many voters who change their preferences from election to election. In the past twenty years, the winner of any election in this state typically leads by a very small margin, and literally every vote can be decisive. According to the latest poll (conducted by Fox News), the results of which were published on Thursday, Republican candidate Mike Rogers is leading Abdul El-Sayed by 4% (51%-47%). That’s significant.
In the current Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats, and Democrats have 47. To gain a majority in the Senate, Democrats need to take 4 seats from Republicans without losing any. Previously, Georgia seemed problematic for Democrats, but the incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff is running an active campaign and leads in all polls. Therefore, the unexpectedly problematic state has become Michigan, where losing a Senate seat could cost Democrats dearly.
In other states to watch when assessing whether Democrats can win Senate elections, here’s the situation.
Ohio. Former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown confidently leads over Republican Senator Husted, appointed by the governor to replace Vance, in all recent polls. According to a Fox News poll on August 13, the gap is 8% (52%-45%).
North Carolina. Former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper is moving towards victory in the elections. According to the latest polls conducted by various polling services, his lead over the Republican Trump-endorsed candidate Whatley is 11-13%, which is very significant for a swing state.
Texas. Here, the 35-year-old Democrat candidate James Talarico has a very real chance to break the Republican dominance in the state for the first time since 1988. According to most recent polls, Talarico leads Trump-endorsed Texas Attorney General Paxton by 2-4%. The electoral battle in Texas will be very intense and costly.
Maine. After the very unsuccessful nomination of the left-wing populist Platner (who withdrew from the campaign due to accusations by several women of rape), orchestrated by party strategists, the Democrats recently nominated another candidate — former state Senate President Troy Jackson. Maine is the only “blue”, Democratic state represented in the Senate by Republican Senator Susan Collins (she has been elected to the Senate five times and is now running for her sixth term). According to the latest polls, Jackson leads Collins by 2-3%. This is within the margin of error.
Alaska. Former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola, according to the latest polls, leads incumbent Republican Senator Sullivan by 2%. This is also within the margin of error.
The given data shows that Democrats have very good chances to take Senate seats from Republicans in Ohio and North Carolina. In Texas, Maine, and Alaska, there will be a fierce battle for voters’ support until the very last day. However, the Democrats have real chances to win the Senate elections in these states.
According to the latest polls, 48-49% of Americans plan to vote for Democratic candidates in the House of Representatives elections, while 41-42% of voters plan to vote for Republicans. This 7% gap is very large for a politically extremely divided country. And although the House elections are conducted by a majority system, it is hard to imagine that with such a gap, Republicans could win in more districts than Democrats. Therefore, the Democrats have a very high chance of winning the House elections, and the question is rather how many more seats they will have in the 120th Congress House of Representatives than whether they will win the elections at all. As the elections approach, more polls will be conducted in the roughly 20 districts considered swing districts, and these poll results will provide more realistic forecasts.
The main campaign slogans of candidates from both parties have also been determined. Trump, Vance, Speaker Johnson, and other Republicans after them are calling Democrats communists and Marxists. Republican candidates support Trump and his policies, assuring voters, following the president, that America is thriving and will continue to thrive even more.
The labels “communists” and “Marxists” in today’s America are likely to have no influence at all on swing voters.
Voters are generally divided into two categories: politicized, with an ideological platform, and non-politicized, without an ideological platform. Voters in the first category vote for their parties regardless of anything. But these voters do not form the majority. There are more voters from the second category. They determine the outcome of all elections. And they vote based on their perception of their own economic situation and their expectations, which again relate directly to their quality of life.
It is to these voters that Democrats appeal, explaining that the policies of Trump and the Republicans have led to more than a million people losing their health insurance, increased insurance costs for everyone else, rising inflation—leading to higher prices for literally all food, goods, and services, rising housing costs, and inaccessibility of quality housing due to high prices. At the same time, they promise to solve all these problems for those same voters.
If this were a regular election campaign, this initial review could end here. But the campaign is unusual. Understanding that defeat in the elections, at least in the House of Representatives, is almost inevitable, and therefore continuous investigations into violations by the president and his administration are also practically inevitable, Trump will do everything possible to consistently: hinder voting; disrupt the approval of election results in a sufficient number of districts and in states where Republicans lose Senate elections; disrupt the start of the 120th Congress on January 3, 2027. Just a few days ago, Trump appealed to the Supreme Court with an urgent appeal – he demands the cancellation of lower court decisions that blocked, as unconstitutional, his decree effectively banning mail voting.
And there will be many more such news. This is the reality of today’s America.
The elections on November 3rd, their conduct, the approval of their results, and the start of the new Congress will determine whether the United States remains a democracy. This is the real price of these elections. And this price is very high.
The end of the story called “Fear: Trump in the White House” © (the title of Bob Woodward’s book published in 2018) is 889 days away.
Thank you to everyone who read this. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Take care of each other, help one another. Health to all.
Ultimately, what happens in the world depends on us. On whether we fight evil, do Good, remain mere observers, wait passively 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 win. The victory of evil would mean the end of the world we live in. We cannot allow this. Especially now.
Ukrainian Friends, I hug and love you all. Please take care of each other, I urge you.
Ukraine is and will always be.
And evil will be defeated and punished. And this is certain.
