Doom Report (Week 64: Most Vagy Soha! Now or Never!)

Remember in week 58 when I talked about the Gorton and Denton by-election in the UK?  Well, Garys Economics is back from hiatus, with a deeper dive into the impact of this Green Party win.  And he covers why this one little election is both meaningless and explosive, because it’s a thing that, in his words, should have been impossible.  Now, I don’t agree with him entirely—for instance, note that he keeps on insisting that the British system has been designed for 250 years to force elections into the shape of two-horse races, but he never mentions that one of the parties he’s considering to be one of those horses didn’t even exist 10 years ago, which pretty much puts the nail in the coffin of that theory.  Plus, I find his desperate pleas to Labour (who are, in my consistent analogy of US to UK politics, the equivalent of the corporate Democrats) somewhat amusing.  Remember, Gary isn’t really a member of Labour in the same way that BTC or the Pod Save America guys actually are Democrats: he just wants his ideas to win, and he thinks Labour is his best chance of achieving that goal.  But his description of how the Greens were able to capitalize on the failures of Labour are pretty inspirational: if Reform can replace the Conservatives in the same way that MAGA took over the Republican party, then maybe the Greens threatening Labour is a sign that progressive Democrats have a chance of taking over the Democratic party.

Worth considering, in any event.

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Other things you need to know this week:

• If you need to understand why the Supreme Court isn’t being “reasonable” when it seems poised to hand Trump a defeat on birthright citizenship, the ladies of Strict Scrutiny, as always have you covered.  Plus, a lot of glee over Bondi’s firing, which is always fun to listen to.

• Meanwhile, over on Legal Eagle, Chaos Lawyer Liz Dye gives you even more reporting on Bondi’s ouster (shorter, but with just as much glee), while Spencer the Scowl Owl breaks down whether threatening a genocide is legal (spoiler: it is not).

• Adam Kinzinger gives us a really concise breakdown of the stunning corruption of the Trump regime.  You probably know most of this already, but it’s a good refresher.

• Even More News had a pretty great Friday episode, with Dr. Kaveh Hoda (who happens to be of Persian descent) talking about our demented President’s actions in Iran.

• Wondering how California’s proposed “billionaire tax” would work?  Let Robert Reich explain it to you.

• Christopher Titus reports on Bruce Springsteen’s tour and how the Boss may be our greatest American hero right now.

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Often I write these reports on Saturday for posting the next day, so, if good news shows up on Sunday, you’ll never hear it from me: it arrived too late.  But, occasionally, I don’t get around to the writing till Sunday, and, even more occasionally, that happens to align with the arrival of some hope.  Today is one of those rare Sundays.

Today, Viktor Orbán lost re-election in Hungary.  And not by a little: in Hungary’s 199-seat Parliament, Orbán’s party is likely to retain only 55.  This was a blowout.  And maybe that portends something for our own situation.  Because there’s a very good reason that I’ve mentioned Orbán multiple times in these Reports (weeks 5 and 31 in particular): Hungary has been the template for how to do a rightwing takeover of a liberal democracy.  We share some of the same political consultants with them, even.  Hell, JD Vance even visited Budapest to urge Hungarian voters to support the now-defeated would-be dictator.  Could it be that Vance and the rest of the Trump regime are scared of what this defeat might mean for them?  Brian Tyler Cohen and Ben Rhodes (cohost of Pod Save the World) seem to think so.  They posit that Hungary will, perhaps, follow the example of Brazil and start holding some people accountable, and then that will, perhaps, be an inspiration to the Democrats, should they ever get their shit together sufficiently to win another Presidential election.  This may all be wishcasting, of course—and I continue to believe that the Democrats are a poor, poor substitute for the political party that we actually deserve—but it’s a pretty fantasy, and at least the first step in that long road has been taken.  That’s worth celebrating, I’d say.