@davidfaris
Prof. of Politics, writer at @slate.bsky.social, @newsweek.com and @thenation. Author, IT’S TIME TO FIGHT DIRTY. Chicago, in the Medium Bucket. Dad, husband. The alarmists were right. Views are mine alone. https://blogs.roosevelt.edu/dfaris
Hilariously daft. But I wonder if it's dawning on anyone in the Trump admin that there will be no way to reliably guarantee safe transit through the Strait in the short or medium term as long the Iranian regime remains in place and no negotiated settlement to the conflict is reached.
That friggin guy
This is a sharp interview. Read the whole thing.
Trump probably could have forced Iran into a near-total capitulation in the nuclear negotiations he cut short to start his idiotic war. Now the US position seems to deteriorate by the hour. No planning, no exit ramp, no expertise, no clue. What's the next move, dipshits?
Iran War's 'Short-Term Pain for Long-Term Gain'? What Long Term-Gain?!: Today's #BradCast
Guest: Political scientist @davidfaris.bsky.social of Roosevelt Univ.; Also: More Special Election wins for Dems in deep 'red' MAGA territory; Voting probs in TX...
FULL STORY, LISTEN: bradblog.com?p=15663
Happy to take the “AOC for President” side of this debate. She’s a generational talent and it is long past time for the highly risk-averse Dem primary electorate to make a bold choice.
The moment I knew the culture had truly left me behind is when they felt the need to have cold opens for movie previews followed by “The Wuthering Heights trailer starts NOW!”
All eyes are on Iran and rightly so, but Illinois is holding a critical US Senate primary in one week. For @thenation.com, I argue that if we want a progressive rather than a moderate in Dick Durbin's seat, we need to avoid a strategic voting trap and back Juliana Stratton instead of Robin Kelly.
Mmm hmm right right right
Changing the clocks turns me, and virtually everyone with little kids that I know, into a ranting lunatic. Just pointlessly messing with everyone's sanity twice a year and no one can even consistently or credibly explain the purpose.
Last fall I explained the plot of House of Dynamite to a foreign policy class and said it’s mostly plausible and they looked completely shell shocked. Mostly they have no idea.
Tehran is a thousand kilometers from Kuwait. Sorry but where is a ground invasion getting staged from and how do they plan to get there? Has someone even told him there are mountains or are we just in magical thinking territory here? Does he know how long a troop buildup like that takes?
Worth repeating that the current American government is not just a policy disaster but an actual moral abomination, a collection of absolutely soulless, violence-worshipping sociopaths who really don’t think anyone but white Christians are real people with rights and interiority.
This is one of those things that is less sexy to talk about but is unequivocally a war crime
Exactly yes
TX is obviously a more expensive place to play ball, but if Ds could sink their money into registration and turnout rather than PAC-driven TV ads, I don't think there's any particular reason to think that the state in inherently less winnable, and some pretty good ones to conclude the opposite. 5/
TX is the 2nd youngest state, with the 3rd-highest proportion of Latinos. In 2024 Trump won TX by a margin (13.7) virtually identical to AK (13.1) and IA (13.2) and just 2 points more than OH (11.2). TX was closer than any of the other three in 2020, which might be a better baseline. 4/
Iowans are older than the median American and tied with AK with a population that is just 6.8% Latino. A big shift for young voters could be significant in Alaska, but otherwise these three states are not the places where you would expect to see the biggest payout from the shifts we are seeing. 3/
According to polls, the two sharpest shifts against Trump nationally have been Latino voters and under-30s. Well, Alaska has the third-lowest median age in the country but has just the 34th highest percentage of Latino residents. Ohio is both relatively old and has the 42nd highest Latino pop. 2/
Feels like the conventional wisdom for Dems is that esp if Cornyn wins the primary, TX is a much less likely get than AK, OH or even IA. Dems will likely need two of those four states, along with NC and ME (and to hold all of their vulnerable seats) to win the Senate.
Not sure the CW is right. 1/
Everything is going exactly as planned with this extremely well-thought-out war.
Truly awe-inspiring for someone to spend virtually their entire career as a columnist at the same newspaper, writing over and over about the same issues, and to have learned literally not one goddamned thing whatsoever.
Fun to think that if there’s a major, blowback-driven terrorist attack on the U.S. any time in the coming years the exact same people responsible for all of this wanton, taxpayer funded killing will be like “Oh Em Gee why do they hate us???”
Love to live in history's most powerful country, where teachers are constantly forced to beg parents to buy them basic school supplies.
Literally “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
Worth noting that while "what's the endgame?" critiques are correct, that Trump and his friends would give zero fucks if Iran descends into violent, endless civil war. It should go without saying that he doesn't care about Iranian lives. He would brag about toppling the Islamic Republic.
Forget the blatant illegality and the damage done to future US negotiators for one second. The basic logic of what Trump is asking of Iranians -- shelter in place while we bomb the shit out of you and then come out and overthrow the government when we're done -- just makes zero sense.
Every day it becomes clearer that the most important task of the next freely-elected, democratic government in the United States will be to figure out how to put real, permanent and enforceable constraints on the presidency.
"Elderly, incoherent pedophile clad in a cheap baseball hat announces unauthorized war" really captures this moment in history.
things every single republican president of your lifetime has done
- started a war in the middle east
- completely destroyed the economy