US 2026 Midterm Elections Thread
- Thread starter AZ_HighCountry
- Start date
SolarWarden
Trusted Member
People like him would never be able to run for federal elections back in the 80s.
Agnostic Muslim
THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
The negative perceptions around ICE and its operations are of its (Trump Administrations) own making, including the roadblocks put in place to restrict access to the detention facilities and detainees.
We should push for recovering the trillions the DOD can’t account for (or at least stop the hemorrhaging by ending Defence budget increases and then working on cutting all the bloat and size) and use some of it invest in VA facilities, or even better, expand affordable healthcare access for ALL Americans rather than cherry pick a group (veterans for example) for ‘socialized’ benefits like subsidized college education, housing etc etc.
Agnostic Muslim
THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
What exactly do you disagree with in CRT?
I find that as an academic concept, it is applicable beyond the US in multicultural societies as a reflection of human nature and some of our more primal and regressive tribal instincts.
Kamala was the establishment pick, much like Biden.
What you see happening with progressive candidates today, the attacks, smears and attempts to link them to communism, they’ve all been rolled out against people like Bernie Sanders in the past, and the so called ‘left’ MSM was just as guilty as the ‘rightwing’ media, if not more, because of their potential influencing of undecided independent and democratic voters against progressive candidates. Its just a lot worse now because the usual suspects (both sides, seen plenty of ‘liberal’ racists since October 7th) can now also engage in fear-mongering over race and faith.
The DNC needs an internal leadership revolt for the progressive movement to really breakthrough, in terms of more progressives getting elected.
Watandar
Trusted Member
People like Donald Trump could not win if this was the 80s either.
Davey Crockett
Elite Member
On This Day August 10 1984 – Red Dawn Premiered in Theaters
On This Day August 10 1984 – Red Dawn Premiered in Theaters
On this day August 10 1984, Red Dawn premiered in theaters across the United States, delivering a bold and intense portrayal of Cold War conflict brought to American soil. Directed by John Milius, the film followed a group of high school students...
www.welovetheeighties.com
SolarWarden
Trusted Member
Well we had Reagan and today's Trump would be considered a democrat in the 80's.
Watandar
Trusted Member
Trump is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now. Guy is really petrified of the midterms 
apnews.com
Trump signs order calling for spacing out childhood vaccines, against medical groups' guidance
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that calls for spacing out childhood vaccines into separate medical visits and splitting the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three different single-disease shots.
apnews.com
Davey Crockett
Elite Member
AZ_HighCountry
INT'L MOD
- Thread starter
- #237
The remake was horrible. Especially after they reworked it to make North Korea the enemy.On This Day August 10 1984 – Red Dawn Premiered in Theaters
View attachment 210175
On This Day August 10 1984 – Red Dawn Premiered in Theaters
On this day August 10 1984, Red Dawn premiered in theaters across the United States, delivering a bold and intense portrayal of Cold War conflict brought to American soil. Directed by John Milius, the film followed a group of high school students...
View attachment 210176
View attachment 210177
View attachment 210178
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Jennifer Grey was so damn hot in the original.
Watandar
Trusted Member
To turn Donald Trump into Jimmy Carter would be the absolute worst thing Iran could do to MAGA.
President Donald Trump is staring down two stark liabilities that threaten to damage his Republican Party in the midterms and to ruin his second term-legacy.
Somehow he’s maneuvered himself into a more vulnerable spot regarding Iran than any president since Jimmy Carter. As in the 1979-80 hostage crisis, the Islamic Republic is exerting political pressure that it can dial up on the US leader ahead of a national election. A week ago, Trump’s team predicted a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was imminent. But Tehran, now dictating terms to the US global superpower, has imposed tough new conditions.
At the same time, Trump faces a separate but related problem at home. The war’s impact on energy prices is further souring voter perceptions of the economy. He’s entered the doom loop in which presidents and officials scan data for silver linings but voters see only indifference to their plights. Twists like Friday’s bad jobs report are untimely for the GOP with November fast approaching.
As the political environment darkens for Republicans, their leader seems oblivious. Many of Trump’s weekend social media posts might have been scripted by his foes to portray an out-of-touch president. He posted a picture with South African golf legend Gary Player, and another of the sculpting of a new green at one of his courses. He posted about a futuristic drone port on the proposed White House ballroom, the Reflecting Pool renovation, and two statues in Washington newly coated with glistening golden paint. He also claimed to be a slayer of inflation, but he looked more like a president desperately trying to leave a physical legacy rather than one brimming with ideas for national renewal.
The weekend did deliver a victory for Trump: The Senate narrowly confirmed his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche as US attorney general. But this is a win that will appeal more to the president than to voters. And Republicans left town after proving their own warnings that Trump’s top-priority voting restrictions bill can’t pass. And the president’s grim August took another rough turn abroad, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected another supposed triumph — a plan to disarm Hamas in Gaza.
Trump’s thwarting of convention has always been a political strength, and he’s less than two years past the greatest political comeback in US history. But the dynamics of November’s election may not favor him. He’s always been more effective politically as an outsider, as in 2016 and 2024. He is the political establishment now, and previously when he’s been forced to defend his own record, as in the 2018 and 2020 elections, he has foundered.
The president is also in denial about how voters are feeling. “They are not angry at me, but they’re angry at Republicans,” Trump told Punchbowl News last week.
But in recent weeks, Democrats may have given him an opening. Primary wins by progressive and democratic socialists are fueling Trump’s claims that he is resisting a tide of left-wing extremism. In a parallel to the GOP’s tea party insurgency earlier in the century, Democrats may risk winnable seats by nominating candidates who alienate more moderate, suburban voters who tend to decide elections.
Progressives, however, believe that the jumbled political circumstances create the conditions for a breakthrough among voters who aren’t just down on Trump but who also disdain the moderate Democratic establishment — especially after the failed campaigns of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris allowed Trump to regain the White House.
Democratic candidate for US Senate Abdul El-Sayed, center, at a rally alongside Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US Sen. Bernie Sanders, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and US Rep. Rashida Tlaib in Detroit on July 18.
Sarah Rice/Getty Images
Progressive Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday homed in on Trump’s vulnerability on the economy as he pivoted from a bitter primary in a state that could decide who runs the Senate. “Differences that we hashed out are so much smaller than the similarities that we share: a responsibility to stand up to Donald Trump and the ways that he’s used his power for his own gain, for his family’s finances, rather than to improve your family’s finances,” El-Sayed told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
Ironically, Trump has seemed very aware of the way that Iran was able to create political heat on Carter. Many historians believe the hostage crisis was instrumental in the Democratic president’s loss to Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election after one term.
“I didn’t want to be Jimmy Carter, you know, I didn’t feel like being Jimmy Carter,” Trump said on June 4, in explaining why he did not order a special forces operation to seize Iranian nuclear material from its underground sites.
Trump was referring to the disastrous Operation Eagle Claw, a 1980 attempt to free the hostages. The mission was aborted because of bad weather and ended when a helicopter crashed into a C-130 aircraft in the Iranian desert, killing all eight servicemen on board. The hostages remained in Iranian hands until 20 minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in January 1981.
President Jimmy Carter prepares to make a national television address form the White House on the failed mission to rescue the Iran hostages on April 25, 1980.
AP/File
The US economy has shown to be more resilient than it was in 1980. But the war is having an effect.
Average national gasoline prices are back above $4 a gallon, according to AAA. Voters are angry about high prices and are struggling against longer-term affordability trends in housing and healthcare. And oil prices ticked up 0.4% on Monday to $78.49 a barrel as hopes of an imminent deal to open the strait faded.
Trump officials have repeatedly stressed that the burden will quickly ease once the strait opens. But, paradoxically, their comments may only bolster Iran’s negotiating position. Tehran has toughened its demands, including the ending of a US maritime blockade and the departure of American forces from the region; it also wants US compensation for the war and a lifting of sanctions.
This not a deal Trump can accept, so Iran may be overplaying its hand. But if Trump loses patience and relaunches the war, he’ll be doubling down on a deeply unpopular conflict and inviting a worse economic backlash.
The president is trying to recapture the initiative. He told Axios he’s now waiting for the economic impact of the US blockade to kick in. “We are low-keying it,” Trump said Sunday. “We are only semi-negotiating with them.”
In effect, therefore, Trump — after devastating Iran’s military, setting back its nuclear program in last year’s air strikes and hammering its defense industrial base — is betting on the US economy’s greater endurance to get him out of his strategic dead end.
Many analysts believe Iran is more willing to impose suffering on its people as its radical leaders pursue their existential struggle with the US. Maybe the regime will collapse. But it seems unlikely on Trump’s short political timeline.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett participates in a television interview outside the White House on February 25.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
This gap between a White House’s perception of the economy and the experience of regular Americans is a perennial political trap that is often triggered by discordant rhetoric.
“The bottom line is that, if you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming,” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNN’s Tapper. Hassett argued that job losses last month reflected the end of temporary work from the World Cup finals and teachers taking July off. He insisted the economy was creating high-quality jobs and that prices were moderating.
But calibrating an economic message is among the trickiest tasks in politics. It defeated the Republican presidential campaign of John McCain in 2008; Democrats’ midterm campaigns under President Barack Obama in 2010; and the failed campaigns of Biden and Harris in 2024.
And the economy is just one of Trump’s problems.
He told Axios that that the war “will work out. It always works out. It’s like a chess game.” But on Iran and across the broader political spectrum, his endgame is impenetrable.
This article has been updated with new details.
Trump has a Carter-style Iran problem as the economy drags before the midterms
President Donald Trump is staring down two stark liabilities that threaten to damage his Republican Party in the midterms and to ruin his second term-legacy.
Somehow he’s maneuvered himself into a more vulnerable spot regarding Iran than any president since Jimmy Carter. As in the 1979-80 hostage crisis, the Islamic Republic is exerting political pressure that it can dial up on the US leader ahead of a national election. A week ago, Trump’s team predicted a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was imminent. But Tehran, now dictating terms to the US global superpower, has imposed tough new conditions.
At the same time, Trump faces a separate but related problem at home. The war’s impact on energy prices is further souring voter perceptions of the economy. He’s entered the doom loop in which presidents and officials scan data for silver linings but voters see only indifference to their plights. Twists like Friday’s bad jobs report are untimely for the GOP with November fast approaching.
As the political environment darkens for Republicans, their leader seems oblivious. Many of Trump’s weekend social media posts might have been scripted by his foes to portray an out-of-touch president. He posted a picture with South African golf legend Gary Player, and another of the sculpting of a new green at one of his courses. He posted about a futuristic drone port on the proposed White House ballroom, the Reflecting Pool renovation, and two statues in Washington newly coated with glistening golden paint. He also claimed to be a slayer of inflation, but he looked more like a president desperately trying to leave a physical legacy rather than one brimming with ideas for national renewal.
The weekend did deliver a victory for Trump: The Senate narrowly confirmed his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche as US attorney general. But this is a win that will appeal more to the president than to voters. And Republicans left town after proving their own warnings that Trump’s top-priority voting restrictions bill can’t pass. And the president’s grim August took another rough turn abroad, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected another supposed triumph — a plan to disarm Hamas in Gaza.
Are Democrats handing Trump a lifeline?
Such political challenges would typically spell trouble for incumbent presidents in midterm elections. And as CNN’s Aaron Blake pointed out Sunday, multiple polls now show that Trump has squandered the traditional GOP advantage in two areas: national security and the economy.Trump’s thwarting of convention has always been a political strength, and he’s less than two years past the greatest political comeback in US history. But the dynamics of November’s election may not favor him. He’s always been more effective politically as an outsider, as in 2016 and 2024. He is the political establishment now, and previously when he’s been forced to defend his own record, as in the 2018 and 2020 elections, he has foundered.
The president is also in denial about how voters are feeling. “They are not angry at me, but they’re angry at Republicans,” Trump told Punchbowl News last week.
But in recent weeks, Democrats may have given him an opening. Primary wins by progressive and democratic socialists are fueling Trump’s claims that he is resisting a tide of left-wing extremism. In a parallel to the GOP’s tea party insurgency earlier in the century, Democrats may risk winnable seats by nominating candidates who alienate more moderate, suburban voters who tend to decide elections.
Progressives, however, believe that the jumbled political circumstances create the conditions for a breakthrough among voters who aren’t just down on Trump but who also disdain the moderate Democratic establishment — especially after the failed campaigns of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris allowed Trump to regain the White House.
Democratic candidate for US Senate Abdul El-Sayed, center, at a rally alongside Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US Sen. Bernie Sanders, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and US Rep. Rashida Tlaib in Detroit on July 18.
Sarah Rice/Getty Images
Progressive Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday homed in on Trump’s vulnerability on the economy as he pivoted from a bitter primary in a state that could decide who runs the Senate. “Differences that we hashed out are so much smaller than the similarities that we share: a responsibility to stand up to Donald Trump and the ways that he’s used his power for his own gain, for his family’s finances, rather than to improve your family’s finances,” El-Sayed told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
Iran digs in to defy Trump
In 1980, Iran exerted leverage over a US election after holding 52 Americans in Tehran in a standoff that eventually lasted 444 days. Forty-six years later, it’s not people being held hostage — but the Strait of Hormuz oil exporting route. This means the regime has another election-season pressure point as US voters — as they did with Carter — turn on a president over the economy.Ironically, Trump has seemed very aware of the way that Iran was able to create political heat on Carter. Many historians believe the hostage crisis was instrumental in the Democratic president’s loss to Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election after one term.
“I didn’t want to be Jimmy Carter, you know, I didn’t feel like being Jimmy Carter,” Trump said on June 4, in explaining why he did not order a special forces operation to seize Iranian nuclear material from its underground sites.
Trump was referring to the disastrous Operation Eagle Claw, a 1980 attempt to free the hostages. The mission was aborted because of bad weather and ended when a helicopter crashed into a C-130 aircraft in the Iranian desert, killing all eight servicemen on board. The hostages remained in Iranian hands until 20 minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in January 1981.
President Jimmy Carter prepares to make a national television address form the White House on the failed mission to rescue the Iran hostages on April 25, 1980.
AP/File
The US economy has shown to be more resilient than it was in 1980. But the war is having an effect.
Average national gasoline prices are back above $4 a gallon, according to AAA. Voters are angry about high prices and are struggling against longer-term affordability trends in housing and healthcare. And oil prices ticked up 0.4% on Monday to $78.49 a barrel as hopes of an imminent deal to open the strait faded.
Trump officials have repeatedly stressed that the burden will quickly ease once the strait opens. But, paradoxically, their comments may only bolster Iran’s negotiating position. Tehran has toughened its demands, including the ending of a US maritime blockade and the departure of American forces from the region; it also wants US compensation for the war and a lifting of sanctions.
This not a deal Trump can accept, so Iran may be overplaying its hand. But if Trump loses patience and relaunches the war, he’ll be doubling down on a deeply unpopular conflict and inviting a worse economic backlash.
The president is trying to recapture the initiative. He told Axios he’s now waiting for the economic impact of the US blockade to kick in. “We are low-keying it,” Trump said Sunday. “We are only semi-negotiating with them.”
In effect, therefore, Trump — after devastating Iran’s military, setting back its nuclear program in last year’s air strikes and hammering its defense industrial base — is betting on the US economy’s greater endurance to get him out of his strategic dead end.
Many analysts believe Iran is more willing to impose suffering on its people as its radical leaders pursue their existential struggle with the US. Maybe the regime will collapse. But it seems unlikely on Trump’s short political timeline.
White House insists the ‘economy is booming’
Republicans can’t wait for domestic relief from the war. Official data Friday showing the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July was a fresh blow to the White House and Republican reelection campaigns — and to all the Americans out of work. But the administration is not wrong to argue the economy is fundamentally resilient — even as high food and housing prices, and wages that don’t seem to keep up, mean most people don’t recognize Trump’s economic “golden age.”
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett participates in a television interview outside the White House on February 25.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
This gap between a White House’s perception of the economy and the experience of regular Americans is a perennial political trap that is often triggered by discordant rhetoric.
“The bottom line is that, if you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming,” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNN’s Tapper. Hassett argued that job losses last month reflected the end of temporary work from the World Cup finals and teachers taking July off. He insisted the economy was creating high-quality jobs and that prices were moderating.
But calibrating an economic message is among the trickiest tasks in politics. It defeated the Republican presidential campaign of John McCain in 2008; Democrats’ midterm campaigns under President Barack Obama in 2010; and the failed campaigns of Biden and Harris in 2024.
And the economy is just one of Trump’s problems.
He told Axios that that the war “will work out. It always works out. It’s like a chess game.” But on Iran and across the broader political spectrum, his endgame is impenetrable.
This article has been updated with new details.
SolarWarden
Trusted Member
KAL-EL
VIP Member
From what I understand the movies original a 'bad guy' was China, China heard about it and objected it to it fiercely and thus North Korea came into the picture.The remake was horrible. Especially after they reworked it to make North Korea the enemy.
Jennifer Grey was so damn hot in the original.
What were originally Chinese flags were digitally altered
.
As if there was any conceivable Way North Korea could even move an invasion Force thousands of miles let alone invade.
.
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