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After the Dem Glorious Victory, Why Change the Rules?
For some years, our Democratic friends have been pushing a National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The idea is that each state will agree to instruct the state electors elected to the Electoral College to vote for the presidential candidate with the highest popular vote nationwide.
Right now, the small states are favored in the Electoral College because a state’s vote equals its number of Senators plus representatives. The big states with lots of voters (and especially those big states that vote overwhelmingly Democratic) feel like they are short changed.
Of course, the whole point of the Electoral College was partly to encourage the small states to vote for the Constitution in 1787 and partly to make them feel that they wouldn’t be buried by the big states in the future.
Obviously, if you are a Democrat, this is unjust. But I’ll bet that Democrats had no problem with the Electoral College back in the day when Democrats dominated the small states in the South.
Then, the DSA kiddies want to abolish the Senate and add additional states like DC and Puerto Rico and abolish the Senate. Of course they do, because until the day before yesterday the Republicans were a majority in the Senate and by adding DC and Puerto Rico the Dems would have more votes in the House of Representatives.
Yes, but suppose in the next few years, say because of AI, the small states all switch to Democratic and the big states all become Republican.
Be careful what you wish for.
But people in politics tend not to think beyond the next election or changing the rules so that they can win next week. Fact is, nobody knows what the map will look like 50 years from now.
Right now, our politics seems to feature right-wing populists, people of the ordinary middle class, rising to power in the Republican Party, and left-wing populists, young DSA kiddies in the educated class, rising to power in the Democratic Party. Both sets of populists are feeling that “they was robbed.” And of course they are. That’s what politics does, kiddies. It creates injustice for the losers: the more politics, the more injustice. But 50 years from now, who will be the winners, and who will be the losers?
Of course, the whole point of complicated political institutions is to slow down the enthusiasts who think that if they can only get political power then they can end injustice and create a just society with that political power.
Of course, when revolutionaries seize power they often stay in power for decades. Like the Bolsheviks, the Maoists, the Castros, the Iranian mullahs. Great fun, if you are the ruler.
Not so much for everyone else.
| Fri, 06 Nov 2026 22:33:24 GMT |
And Voters are the Affordability Problem
Everyone has every kind of reason why the Republicans lost in a midterm in the second term of a president: Iran, MAGA, affordability.
I wrote yesterday that “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” And later that day I got an email from Ted Cruz listing what was on voters’ mind, in order.
[C]ost of living, energy, and groceries… 30.6 percent of voters.
Corruption. Number two, 18.5%.
The cost of the Iran war, 10.1%.
The candidates are terrible, 7.9%.
Etc.
Oh dear. So why is cost of living — as in “affordability” — such a problem?
The proximate cause, of course, is COVID, during which the Federal Reserve increased the M2 money supply by 40% in two years.
Then there is government spending, at 40.25 percent of GDP for 2025. That is money out of the pocket of every worker and citizen and billionaire. Here are the main culprits:
1840s: Horace Mann pushes government schools for children.
1935: Social Security introduced to tax workers to pay for oldsters’ retirement. FDR was reelected in 1936.
1938: Federal National Mortgage Association founded. This subsidy for home mortgages makes housing prices higher, and caused major credit crisis in 2008.
1965: Medicare / Medicaid. Government healthcare for the old and the poor. Having government run healthcare. Science says it does not work.
Regulation of housing construction, especially after the rise of the environmental movement in the 1970s. Makes housing more expensive.
Regulation of automobiles, especially after the rise of the environmental movement. Makes cars more expensive.
Regulation of energy production, especially with the war on nuclear and the promotion of intermittent wind and solar, dur to environmental and climate movements. Makes energy less reliable and more expensive.
Here is a chart from USGovernmentSpending.com that shows the major categories of overall government spending in the last 25 years.
Currently, in 2025, the chart shows:
Gov. Health Care (incl. Medicaid): 8.25% of GDP.
Gov. Pensions: 6.81% of GDP.
Gov. Defense: 4.65% of GDP.
Gov. Education: 5.33% of GDP.
Gov. Welfare: 2.38% of GDP.
All other spending: 8.25% of GDP.
Total Government Spending: 40.25% of GDP.
Can you spell affordability?
You want a life that’s affordable? Then dump the government pension and save your own money. Dump the government healthcare that’s choked up with rules and regulation. Dump the education system that never had a clue.
This is not that hard. There’s science about this.
1920: Socialism can’t work because it can’t compute prices.
1944: Administrative government can’t run the economy because it can’t know enough to make sensible decisions.
1971: Economic regulation cannot work because of “regulatory capture” of the regulators by the regulated.
All this can’t be that hard.
Let’s take an example. Artificial Intelligence.
If the Democrats decide to nationalize SpaceX, that would violate Rule 1 and Rule 2. If the Democrats decide to regulate AI that would violate Rule 3.
And then there’s the electricity needed to power the AI data centers, when climate changers are making it impossible to build base-load electric generation.
See, this is not that hard.
Mind you, AI is going to rock the economy like you’ve never seen it.
| Thu, 05 Nov 2026 22:11:06 GMT |
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Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
Government is force plus loot and plunder.
Four Laws: Socialism cannot work because it cannot compute prices (Mises). The administrative state cannot work because the Man in Washington does not have the bandwidth to run the economy (Hayek). Regulation does not work because “regulatory capture” (Stigler). Government programs cannot work because you can never reform them (Chantrill). Plus, Activism cannot work because shouting slogans cannot solve anything. Plus, Administrative hierarchy never works because it can’t admit mistakes. Plus, No administrative plan survives first contact with the market.
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
Today’s topic: Government is Protection Against Enemies
