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Today in MAGA: Better Dead than Red?

As we have pointed out many times, Donald Trump has made clear that the last time that America was "great," and therefore the time he wants to return to, is the 1950s. This week, in yet another way, he moved the U.S. closer to that "goal," announcing that America would resume nuclear weapons tests for the first time in over 30 years.

Let's start with the actual announcement that Trump made. Like any true statesman, he used his personal, fact-free social media site:

The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

This was posted about an hour before Trump's high-profile photo-op/meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

As we have mentioned once or twice in the past, (Z) does an exercise with students where he asks them to grade several essays. One of them is a real, A-level essay from a student who has agreed to share their work anonymously. A second one is written, by him, to include just about every common essay mistake possible. A third one is written by ChatGPT. If you were trying to create a nuclear policy tweet that was the equivalent of that second essay—just about every mistake possible—this is the tweet you might end up with.

Let us run down some of the errors and problematic ambiguities, roughly in the order they appear:

In short, pretty much the only thing Trump got right was his name. Gold star?

Meanwhile, as with so many Trump "policy" initiatives, pretty much everyone is trying to figure out what put this notion into his head. That includes many of his advisers, who apparently had no idea this was coming down the pike. Here are our best guesses as to what's going on:

Naturally, Republicans in Congress have largely fallen in line behind Trump. Some of them are hawks, and the rest presumably decided that fighting Trump on this is not worth it, since who knows what he really means, and who knows whether he'll follow through, and even if he does, it doesn't actually change things much if the U.S. has enough weapons to wreck Earth 300 times, versus enough weapons to wreck Earth 325 times.

The Democrats, with veteran, astronaut and engineer Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) taking the lead, have pointed out that if the U.S. begins testing warheads again, it will give China and Russia permission to do the same. That is not only dangerous, it also gives them potential opportunities to make up any ground on the U.S., which may not have the largest arsenal, but certainly has the most powerful arsenal. For these reasons, one hopes that the Trump tweet was just hot air (radioactive air?) and that he'll quickly return his focus to his ballroom. (Z)

It's Up to You, New York: Will a Blue State Elect a MAGA Governor?

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is a very ambitious person, so much so that after building a career as a regular Republican, she completely remade herself as a MAGA Republican. This development was very related to her rapid rise in the ranks of the House Republican Conference; she replaced Liz Cheney as the #4 Republican in the House after Cheney was deemed disloyal.

Earlier this year, Stefanik learned what it was like to be on the other side of the shiv. She was nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and was thrilled at the upward mobility that promised (just ask first-Trump-term U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley). So, Stefanik did not run for reelection to her leadership post, and instead prepared to resign, with Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) replacing her as #4. Then, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) persuaded Donald Trump that it was just too risky to leave the seat open, and also to take the chance that it might be lost to the Democrats. Stefanik's district, NY-21 is R+10, and in special elections... well, stranger things have happened. So, Trump decided against the nomination, and Stefanik went from soon-to-be ambassador to backbencher overnight.

If Stefanik is to escape the backbenches once again, she has a few possibilities. She could wait until 2027, and try for a leadership position again. However, if the Republicans lose the House, everyone basically moves one spot down the ladder, and it's easy to be left without a seat in that particular game of musical chairs. Plus, being in the leadership of the minority party is not exactly a high-profile position. Other than Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), can you even name any other members of the Democratic leadership right now?

Alternatively, Stefanik could hope that another opportunity opens up in the Trump administration. However, that couldn't happen until 2027, at the earliest, given the "we can't leave the seat open" problem. Further, Trump is not experiencing anywhere near the level of turnover that he did during his first administration, so openings might be scarce. There's also the small matter that Trump expects many of his underlings to do things that are illegal, and Stefanik is smart enough to know that while he's not likely to pay a price, the underlings might.

That leaves Door #3, which is statewide office in New York. In 2026, only one office of the stature Stefanik feels is worthy of her talents is up, and that's the governorship. Like the 100 members of the Senate, when she looks in the mirror, she sees a president. And she's also clever enough to know that four governors of New York went on to become president (Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland and the Roosevelts), a bunch more went on to be either the VP or the presidential nominee of their party (Horatio Seymour, Samuel J. Tilden, Levi P. Morton, Charles Evans Hughes, Al Smith, Nelson Rockefeller, etc.), and one of them went on to record the funk classic "Atomic Dog" (Note to editor: check to make sure this is the same George Clinton). Plus, if the governor thing doesn't work out in 2026, she can still take a shot at the Senate in 2028, when Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is up.

In short, all signs point to a run for governor. And yesterday, several of Stefanik's senior aides, speaking off-the-record of course, "let slip" that she is going to announce a bid shortly after the New York City mayoral election concludes next week. It might take a while to sort things out, but not THAT long, because NYC doesn't use ranked choice voting for general elections (only primaries and special elections). So, she'll probably announce on Thursday, we would guess.

Stefanik will certainly have a few things going in her favor. She's got $13 million on hand, which is a fortune for a representative. For a gubernatorial candidate in New York, with its population and its expensive media markets, it's not a fortune, but it is a good start. She's also going to have the Trump machine backing her, including several of his key people, like pollster Tony Fabrizio. Assuming Stefanik wins the nomination, she'll likely face Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who is not too popular. Siena College has been regularly running polls where they pit Hochul against "anyone else," and "anyone else" consistently beats Hochul by 15-25 points. That said, Stefanik will not run against Hochul as much as she will run against (probable) Mayor Zohran Mamdani. She will attack him left, right and sideways for being Muslim/antisemitic, for being a communist/socialist/Marxist and for being an immigrant/un-American. It will be ugly.

That said, there are also some pretty big challenges for Stefanik. Again, New York is pretty blue (D+8), and it's elected just one Republican to the governor's mansion in the last 50 years. That was George Pataki, who won three elections in the 1990s and early 2000s. Pataki was a moderate, and certainly not MAGA. Trump took 43% of the vote in the Empire State in 2024, 38% in 2020 and 37% in 2016. If you take the MAGA New Yorkers, and maybe add in some Jewish voters who respond to Stefanik's focus on antisemitism, and some independents who believe that Mamdani is a wild-eyed crazy man, does that make a winning coalition? The numbers are... rough for the soon-to-be-candidate. Especially if the Trump brand and/or the Republican brand are extra-toxic next year, which they might well be.

And that brings us back to polling. Since Stefanik was likely to jump in, the Hochul-Stefanik matchup has already been polled many times. While the Governor does badly against "anyone," she actually does fine against actual candidates (after all, respondents can make "anyone" into their dream candidate; they can't do that with an actual person). There have been three nonpartisan polls of the race, and Hochul led in all of them, by double digits in all cases. There have been four polls by Republican houses, and Hochul also led in three of those, although by single digits.

The most interesting poll is one that Hochul did NOT lead in. It was released this week, and is from the Manhattan Institute. It has Stefanik up by one point, 43% to 42%, which is obviously within the margin of error, but is also considerably worse than Hochul's other polls. Could it be a wonky sample? Or could it be that a Republican house makes Republican assumptions? Or could it be that Hochul really has fallen off? If so, there is one major event that might explain a steep decline over the last 2 weeks: She finally bit the bullet and started campaigning with Mamdani.

Now here is the problem with all of those theories, and the thing that makes the poll interesting. The Manhattan Institute also asked about Mamdani, and his numbers were... much better than they've been in any poll of that race since Eric Adams dropped out. They have Mamdani leading Andrew Cuomo by 15 points (43% to 28%); most other pollsters have the lead around 10 points. It is not too easy to explain why Mamdani's best poll would also be Stefanik's best poll. It's possible that Mamdani and Stefanik both represent insurgency and shaking up the status quo, and that there really are a bunch of Mamdani-Stefanik voters out there. We aren't particularly enamored of that theory, but we also don't have a better one. If it IS true, then the plan to run an anti-Mamdani campaign might not work out too well for Stefanik. In any case, this gubernatorial race is going to get a lot of oxygen, and a lot of attention from pollsters, once the NYC mayoralty has been decided.

Oh, and the leadership of the House Democratic Caucus is House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (MA), Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (CA) and Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (CA). (Z)

Today in Dystopia: Putting the "New" in NewSpeak

There are two sentences from George Orwell's 1984 that are remembered above all others. The first is the opening sentence: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." And the other is this: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

We note Donald Trump's affinity for the 1950s above, and now we must note his and his underlings' apparent desire to also re-create 1984. Not the actual year, of course, but the year as envisioned by the book (which, by the way, was published just before the start of the 1950s, specifically August 1949). The current leadership of the country is certainly known to indulge in frequent gaslighting. But this week, there were three particularly egregious examples, and we thought it was appropriate to pause and note them, as a reminder that this is not normal:

We know, we know, this sort of fantastical stuff is par for the course for MAGA. But these were just so over the top, even for them, that we just had to take note. Meanwhile, if Trump were to start selling a branded watch that included thirteen-o-clock, he might really be on to something. That would be a great stocking stuffer for MAGA and non-MAGA alike. (Z)

There's Something Happening Here: The No Kings Protests, Part IX

We don't want to overdo it with these, which is why we skipped a day yesterday. But we have enough responses that we want to do about three more of them. Maybe four. So, after this, look for a few more next week. And with that said, six more reader reports from the No Kings events last weekend:

L.N in Arden, NC, writes: My husband and I attended the protest in Asheville, NC. Our experience mirrors those in the many posts you've included so far. The energy, the speakers, the diversity of ages, the creative signs and posturing were great to experience and be a part of:

A woman holds a sign that says 'I like my ICE CRUSHED.'

But, like other posters, I did not see the ethnic diversity represented in our community and region. The first sign I saw upon arriving was poking fun at ICE, which humbled me as to the imminent danger to our families, communities and nation caused by Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and ICE in the areas of citizenship, immigration, law enforcement, human decency and respect for every human being. Truly shameful, unconstitutional and illegal. Thank you to B.B. in Newtown and M.G.F. in Minneapolis for recognizing and articulating the lack of diversity in protest attendance. I couldn't have said it better than M.G.F. in postulating why the crowd lacked diversity and encouraging the white folks in America to stand up and speak out in defending and living through the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, rule of law and human decency Thank you, M.G.F. We have work to do!

However, I was surprised that the speakers did not remind attendees that all politics is local and we are given the great honor of the vote. We must educate ourselves on regional issues, investigate candidate platforms and voting records and discern how those candidates will lead us into a better future of America before we go to the polls to VOTE! Oh, and oppose gerrymandering across the board. Trump 2.0 will end, and will we be ready for what comes next?


M.D. in Wakefield, MA, writes: I attended No Kings Day in Wakefield earlier this year as well as No Kings Day II. My favorite sign was one held by two young ladies right across the street from me:

Two women, who are both pushing 100, hold a sign that says 'In our 90+ years, we have not had a king.'


R.E. in Chico, CA, writes: At the No Kings protest in Chico:

An AI-generated picture of Donald Trump in an ICE uniform, with the title 'KIDNAPPER IN CHIEF.'


R.J. in Monroe, NJ, writes: Monroe is home to many 55+ communities. Many retirees and others came out to line the roads near the main shopping area:

A woman holds a sign that shows a Klan hood, a Nazi officer's dress hat, a white supremacist truckers' cap, and a MAGA hat, and that says 'SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT HAT.


A.H. in Columbus, OH, writes: Thank you for running all of the letters from people who participated in the No Kings event on the 18th. It is heartwarming. As for myself... my wife had planned to take part and I hadn't, mostly because I am an executive at a decent-size company and the sole breadwinner supporting the family and my employment agreement has some language that gives the company some levers to pull should my public behavior cause any blowback or negative publicity for the company. I only say this because I know there is risk in protesting and everyone has reasons to avoid that risk. I'm no different.

In the end, I decided the risk was worth it and went with her. I, like others, was surprised by both the large turnout and the age range of protesters. I made a sign with a slogan that called back to the Sons of Liberty and the protest slogans of some of our founding fathers:

The sign has a giant 'NO' and then listed next to that are 'Mobs,' 'Confusions,' 'Tumult,' 'Dictators' and 'Kings.'

I don't have a good picture of my wife's sign but it said, "Staying silent in times of injustice is privilege." We understand that the risk is too great for some to go out and publicly protest, so while we have typically stayed silent ourselves (we're in an R+7 district and most of our friends and neighbors are Trump supporters, although not as obviously as they once were), we can't anymore. My family loves musicals, and The Sound of Music is one of my favorites. Max was wrong when he said, "The thing to do these days is to get along with everybody." The Nazis counted on people acquiescing then and the new Nazis count on it now. But we won't. Thanks again!


G.L. in Deerfield, MA, writes: There has been so much emphasis on the sometimes admittedly clever but always questionably effective signs hoisted in the No Kings rallies.

I think the rallies would be much more effective if everybody forgot about the signs and instead brought American flags. A sea of protesters with signs is impressive, but a sea of protesters with flags would be breathtaking.

Back next week! (Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: What Is Your Condition Right Now?

The first hint we gave last week: "For a hint, we'll say that the idea came while (Z) was preparing for this week's World War II lecture, during which he shows the propaganda cartoon 'Herr Meets Hare.'" The second: "If you're still working on the headline theme, we'll ask: 'Is that you, Yul Brynner? Or you, Sir Patrick Stewart?'"

And now, the solution, courtesy of reader W.M.H.B. in London, England, UK:

Hair today, gone tomorrow? All terms to do with hair, and the hint, "Herr Meets Hare" has two homophones for "hair."

From the headline for this item, you can also condition hair, of course.

Here are the first 50 readers to get it right:

  1. M.W. in Altea, Spain
  2. G.W. in Avon, CT
  3. J.F. in Fayetteville, NC
  4. K.F. in Berea, KY
  5. M.K. in Seattle, WA
  6. M.M. in Dunellen, NJ
  7. C.F. in Miami, FL
  8. P.H. in Ft. Lauderdale, FL
  9. M.B. in Menlo Park, CA
  10. W.M.H.B. in London
  11. M.S. in Canton, NY
  12. S.K. in Ardmore, PA
  13. E.S. in Providence, RI
  14. Z.K. in Albany, NY
  15. D.S. in Layton, UT
  16. G.M. in Arlington, VA
  17. S.M. in Warren, MI
  18. T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts
  19. G.H. in Acton, ME
  20. J.N. in Zionsville, IN
  21. R.S. in Landing, NJ
  22. K.H. in New Haven, CT
  23. K.L. in Sterling, VA
  24. T.T. in Conway, AR
  25. K.L. in Sterling, VA
  1. M.V. in Oak Park, IL
  2. A.S. in Fairfax, VA
  3. M.J. in Oakdale, MN
  4. E.W. in Skaneateles, NY
  5. S.T. in Federal Way, WA
  6. M.B. in Albany, NY
  7. D.D. in Bucks County, PA
  8. T.K. in Kirkwood, MO
  9. M.T. in Simpsonville, SC
  10. M.K. in Long Branch, NJ
  11. J.M. in Eagle Mills, NY
  12. K.J. in Paw Paw, MI
  13. I.H. in Occupied D.C.
  14. J.S. in Dayton, NJ
  15. J.S. in Huntington Station, NY
  16. G.M.K. in Mishawaka, IN
  17. E.B. in Bloomington, IL
  18. M.Z. in Sharon, MA
  19. W.M. in Livonia, MI
  20. D.D. in Highland Park, IL
  21. P.A. in Redwood City, CA
  22. M.T. in Wheat Ridge, CO
  23. S.R. in Robbinsville, NJ
  24. B.R. in Arlington, MA
  25. L.D. in Bedford, MA

The 50th correct response was received at 6:30 a.m. PT on Friday.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word per headline, and it's in the category Language. For a hint, we'll tell you that British readers, people who are familiar with the Harry Potter books and, especially, British readers who are familiar with the Harry Potter books have a big advantage.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line October 31 Headlines. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Southern (Dakota) Man, Better Keep Your Head

These two features are going to be a little on the short side today. Sometimes, short and sweet is just the ticket.

And speaking of tickets, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) is not in Washington, DC, this weekend. Among the half-dozen people who have the most power to maybe bring the shutdown to a resolution, he's gotta be in the top three, right? Him, Donald Trump, and Mike Johnson? This being the case, there is a pretty good argument that he oughta be burning the midnight oil, and working through the weekend, in the (small) hope that, for example, hungry people don't have to go without food. Thune pooh-poohed this when reporters asked, however, and said it would be "a waste of time." Not endowed with an overabundance of sensitivity, this one.

Instead, after the Senate held its last vote of the week, a little after 1:30 yesterday, Thune hightailed it out of the Senate chamber, and caught a cab over to Ronald Reagan National Airport, so that he would be sure to catch his flight back home to South Dakota. As it turns out, he could have proceeded at a much more leisurely pace, as he made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

Why was he able to do that? Well, because his flight was delayed. Why was it delayed? Because the airport grounded all flights for 90 minutes, due to not having enough air traffic controllers. And why weren't there enough air traffic controllers? Say it with us: because of the shutdown. If that is not poetic justice, we don't know what is. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: That's the (Holy) Spirit

Remarkably, this item is going to be a little briefer than the last one. We present you with this tweet, sent in by reader B.J.L. from Ann Arbor, MI:

Pope Leo holds a Cubs jersey with his name on it, standing next to a man who is clearly a high-ranking member of a non-Catholic church, and is wearing lush black and red robes and a big cross. Leo is grimacing/smiling, the other man is smiling, and the text of the tweet says 'The head of the Assyrian Church of the East 'accidentally' gave Pope Leo XIV a Cubs jersey, and he doesn't look happy about it.

For those who don't know (though pretty much everyone is aware by now), Leo is a longtime fan of the Chicago White Sox. So, Catholicos-Patriarch Awa III is having a little fun with his Roman Catholic counterpart, and Leo is half-grimacing (because he's a White Sox fan) but half-smiling (because he knows it's all in gentle good fun).

These two church leaders obviously don't agree on some of the finer points of doctrine. And there have been many times in the past where disagreement on those very same finer points of doctrine helped foment long and violent and destructive wars. But not today. Leo and Awa both understand that they are both on Team Jesus, and they are both trying to make the world a better and more humane place, as best they understand how. And that extends not only to working together as ambassadors for their faiths, but also having a friendship with room to make the occasional joke at the other's expense.

Kudos to these two men for appreciating that you can disagree on things without being disagreeable, and that there's still room to work together on areas of common concern. Would 'twere that some other major world leaders felt that way.

Have a great weekend, all! (Z)


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