Over the past 36 hours or so I’ve seen references to the Ukrainian military preparing to counterattack from Lysachank back across the river to try to retake Sievierodonetsk. The first of these was a fuzzy screengrab of a Facebook post by one of President Zelenskyy’s senior staff that had been retweeted with a snippet of translation that the Ukrainians had laid a trap for the Russians and were about to spring it. Then I started to see some of the pseudonymous “OSINT” accounts quote tweet video from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Radio Svoboda with interviews with a handful of members of the International Legion. These quote tweets claimed that the International Legion had entered Sievierodonetsk as part of the counterattack. And they were the usual hyperbolic claims. Given that there was no way to tell from the video snippet just where these guys were in Ukraine, I made note and waited until a more reliable source provided information on what was going on. Earlier today, I saw this information posted by a former member of NAVDEVGRU:
SEVERODONETSK / 1630 UTC 04 JUN/ Having determined to take the city, RU inadvisedly committed to a costly urban fight. Choosing to make a defensive stand in highly favorable urban terrain, UKR appears now to have lured RU forces into a fruitless diversion of men and materiel. pic.twitter.com/wMlbZBfyUZ
— Chuck Pfarrer (@ChuckPfarrer) June 4, 2022
Pfarrer is a known quantity – as in I know who he is, can verify his credentials with people who I know, his expertise, etc – so I’m comfortable sharing his analysis and his mapping of the situation.
About three hours later The Kyiv Independent reported the Ukrainian counterattack is, indeed, underway:
Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the region, said on June 3 that previously Russian troops had controlled 70% of the city. Gaidai added that the Ukrainian army had counterattacked, and the Russian-controlled area had shrunk to about 50%.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 4, 2022
The Kyiv Independent is also reporting that four members of the International Legion have been killed in action. There is no specificity to where in Ukraine they were killed.
If Ukraine can push Russia out of Sievierodonetsk it will reverse much of the limited gains that Russia has made in the Donbas campaign. I would not expect it to cause Putin to reconsider what he’s doing, but it will be a huge morale booster to the Ukrainians and, one would expect, equally demoralizing to the Russian forces in Ukraine. At least the ones that will know about it. It also demonstrates the reality of the Donbas campaign we’ve been watching for the past several weeks: the gains on both sides are limited and often transitory. The lines are, for the most part, static as the Russians pound away at whatever they can reach in Ukraine, not just in Donbas. And as Ukraine brings the new weapons systems they’re receiving online and work to push the Russians back.
Here’s President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier this evening. Video below, English transcript after the jump. No mention of the counterattack.
Ukrainians!
All our defenders!
On this day, the 101st day of the full-scale war, the Skete of All Saints burned down in the Svyatohirsk Lavra in the Donetsk region. It caught fire as a result of Russian artillery shelling.
Not the first shelling of the Lavra. Three Lavra monks were killed by the Russian shelling on Wednesday. Worship services are forced to be held in the basement. The roar of artillery and the “arrivals” of Russian shells are constant in the Lavra.
And this is one of the three Lavras of Ukraine. This is the Lavra of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is still considered in Moscow to be connected with the Russian Orthodox Church. Even this does not stop the Russian army.
They are ready to burn everything: Orthodox churches just like anything else in Ukraine. During the full-scale war, 113 churches have already been destroyed or damaged by Russian shelling. Among them are the ancient ones – those that withstood World War II, but did not withstand the Russian occupation. There are also those that were built after 1991. Reconstruction of the Skete of All Saints of the Svyatohirsk Lavra began in 2001. June 10 would be another anniversary of the beginning of construction.
I was interested in what Russian propagandists would say about the destruction of the skete. But, in fact, nothing interesting. They are very predictable. Ukrainians are accused of arson. Although the monks and laity in Svyatohirya saw perfectly that it was Russian artillery.
I believe that this lie of the propagandists, this shelling, and the support of the Orthodox hierarchs in Russia for the aggression against Ukraine – all this should motivate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to draw conclusions. More decisive conclusions and a clear condemnation of each of those who condone aggression.
Ukrainian diplomats will do everything to make everyone in the world aware of this another crime of the occupiers. Russia is deliberately and systematically destroying Ukraine’s cultural and historical heritage, as well as social infrastructure, housing, and everything necessary for normal life.
A state that does this cannot be a member of UNESCO and cannot remain at the UN as if nothing had happened. The UN Charter does not provide any rights for terrorists, and UNESCO is not a place for barbarians.
Russian troops again fired at the border areas of the Sumy region, Mykolaiv, cities and communities of the Zaporizhzhia region, Kharkiv region.
The situation in Severodonetsk, where street fighting continues, remains extremely difficult. It is also difficult in Lysychansk, Marinka, Kurakhove, other cities and communities of Donbas. Constant air strikes, artillery and missile fire. As of this morning, the total number of various Russian missiles used against Ukraine is already 2,503.
Our heroes hold their positions and do everything to inflict maximum losses on the enemy. I am grateful to each of our defenders who are approaching the day when Russia will have to leave Donbas alone.
Today in our country the memory of children who died from Russian aggression was honored. Over the past day, the worst figure – the number of children killed – has not changed. 261 children. That’s how many Ukrainian children lost their lives because of Russia. But this is the official number. The more we learn about those who were buried in the occupied territories, the greater, unfortunately, may be the number of names on this list.
It’s scary to read. Year of birth, place of residence, circumstances of death… All of them would be alive now if only one person in Moscow had not caused this catastrophe.
This can no longer be fixed. Because this war is already going on. But the terrible consequences of this war can be stopped at any moment.
The Russian army can stop burning churches. The Russian army can stop destroying cities. The Russian army can stop killing children. If the same person in Moscow just gives such an order. And the fact that there is still no such order is an obvious humiliation for the whole world.
Eternal memory to all who died from the Russian invasion!
Eternal glory to everyone who defends Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
This thread by Politico’s Christopher Miller has both pictures of the All Saints Cathedral that was attacked and video of it after the attack.
Here’s today’s operational update from Ukraine’s MOD (emphasis mine). You’ll notice there is an exceedingly discreet reference to the reported counterattack in Sievierodonetsk.
The operational update regarding the russian invasion on 18.00 on June 4, 2022
The one hundred and first (101) day of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people to a russian military invasion continues.
russian occupiers continue to launch missile and air strikes on military and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
The situation in the Volyn and Polissya areas remained unchanged.
In the northern direction, the enemy did not take active action, no signs of the formation of strike groups were found. Enemy artillery shelling was recorded in the settlements of Starikove and Katerynivka, Sumy Oblast, and Kamyanska Sloboda, Chernihiv Oblast.
In the Slobozhansky direction, the enemy continues to concentrate reserves for attempts to continue offensive operations in the directions of the settlements of Izyum, Barvinkove and Slovyansk.
In the Kharkiv direction, the enemy is trying to keep the occupied borders and prevent the advance of units of the Defense Forces. Systematic fire continues on the positions of our troops.
In the Donetsk direction, the occupiers are trying to restrain the defenders of Ukraine by violating the logistics system. Fighting continues for the establishment of full control over the city of Siverodonetsk.
The enemy fired four missiles from the Tochka-U tactical missile system in the areas of Bakhmut, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka and Lysychansk. In addition, russian invaders launched airstrikes on the cities of Slavyansk and Soledar.
In the Lyman direction, the enemy used artillery near Svyatogorsk, Starodubivka and Mykolayivka.
In the Siverodonetsk direction, the enemy fired from artillery and rocket-propelled grenade launchers at the settlements of Siverodonetsk, Lysychansk, Ustynivka, and Toshkivka. It struck airstrikes with Ka-52 helicopters near Girske, Yakovlivka and Myrna Dolyna, and Su-25 planes near the town of Ustynivka.
In the Bakhmut direction, the enemy used mortars, artillery and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in the areas of Toretsk, New York, Vrubivka, and Pokrovske. It struck airstrikes with Ka-52 helicopters near Berestov and Klinov.
In the area of the city of Donetsk the enemy fired at the settlements of Mykilske, Krasnohorivka, Vesele and Novoselivka. He used weapons of Su-25 planes in the areas of Novomykhailivka and Marinka. Rocket and air strikes were inflicted on the village of Kurakhove.
In the Novopavlisk and Zaporizhzhia directions, the enemy used rocket-propelled grenade systems in the areas of Hulyaipole Orikhiv, and Zalizny Hai. An air strike by Su-25 aircraft was inflicted on the village of Kamyanske.
The situation in the South Buh area has not changed.
The enemy continues to block civilian shipping in the northwestern Black Sea.
Ukrainian defenders inflict losses on the russian occupiers in all areas where active hostilities continue.
In order to justify the destruction of civilian objects on the territory of Ukraine, the russian occupiers continue to spread information about the location of military units in schools, hospitals and churches.
We urge you to trust information only from verified sources and not to spread Russian fakes and misinformation.
We believe in the Armed Forces of Ukraine! Together to victory!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here is today’s assessment from Britain’s MOD:
There is no updated British map today. Nor was there a DOD backgrounder.
Last night in the comments, Medicine Man asked me:
What do you rate the odds that we (the West) buckles in the face of “hardship”, Adam?
I think Putin is counting on the GOP at least retaking the House. Which will both end any funding for Ukraine after January 2023 and completely tie up the Biden administration with frivolous “oversight” investigations that are actually political witch hunts.
He’s also counting on a refugee crisis in Europe that can be used to by his extremist catspaws in the various EU member states to weaken the EU and NATO.
After I’d racked out, Andrya then asked me the following follow up:
Adam, thanks so much for your posts but: your comments touched on something that absolutely terrifies me. It seems likely that the Republicans will take the House in the midterms: and the Republican media have been paving the way to a pivot towards pro-Russia. I don’t see how Ukraine wraps this up prior to Jan 2023. Can Ukraine keep going on EU aid alone? Will the EU even keep committed if the US bails? If Ukraine falls because the US bails it would absolutely break my heart.
I want to answer both her question and expand on my reply to Medicine Man. We’ll start with Andrya’s question.
I want to preface this a bit. I have been loathe for several months to write anything here about domestic politics in the US. Not because I don’t have something to say, but because, quite frankly, it’s simply not worth the pain that it causes you or that I receive in response. And that pain, which comes in the comments and replies, is a result of everyone here being rightfully concerned, but also because I think everyone is so fatigued from that rightful concern that a bias to normalization because of exhaustion has set in. And because if what I am writing is correct, we are most likely path dependent locked into a bad outcome and nothing that anyone could do, in terms of normal political activity and mobilization and efforts, will make a difference. Which is itself further enervating. So I’ve largely stayed silent.
To Andrya’s question, with the caveat that a lot can happen between now and November including things we may not be able to anticipate, I think things are going to go very badly. I think that just based on the extreme gerrymandering in Florida and Ohio that the Republicans will retake the House. I wouldn’t be surprised if they establish a sizeable majority. As I and others have indicated, you can’t out organize an extreme gerrymander. Democrats would have to have outperform the Republicans by a significant margin – I’ve seem estimates between at least 10 and up to 20 percent nationwide – to be able to narrowly hold the House based on the gerrymandering that has been put into place this cycle. That’s an enormously heavy lift. And because these new Republicans are going to be far more like Taylor Greene, Gosar, Boebert, Gaetz, etc, the House will be far, far, far more dysfunctional than it was between 2011 and 2018. And that dysfunction is going to come from the revanchist, reactionary, nationalist, isolationist, and xenophobic portions of the GOP House caucus. This 50 or so Republicans that voted against Ukraine aid two weeks ago will both expand in number and have incredibly power to influence if not set the GOP’s agenda in the House.
I also think that the Democrats will be lucky to hold the Senate. This is the last good Senate cycle map for the Democrats. EVER!!!!! From 2024 on there will be more Democrats up for reelection than Republicans. By 2030, 70% of US senators will represent no more than 30% of Americans. And the vast, vast, vast majority of that 70% of US senators will be Republican. As in like all of them but Jon Tester. The senatorial electoral information that has come out of New Hampshire and Nevada, indicates that the Democratic incumbents in those states are in jeopardy. As much as I like Senator Warnock, think he’s doing a great job, and want him to be reelected, the simple reality is that despite Hershel Walker being the poster person for untreated CTE and TBI, by nominating him the Republicans have provided a whole lot of white swing voters in Georgia an excuse to go back to voting for the Republican candidate. They can vote for Walker and honestly claim they voted for the Black guy and, as a result, they’re not prejudiced. I’m on the fence as to whether the demoralization that Sinema has created among Arizona Democrats will have an effect on Senator Kelly’s attempt at reelection to a full term, but I expect it will be a problem.
Currently the GOP controls 26 states completely. Meaning governorship, both chambers of the legislature, and in most cases control over the state appellate courts and state supreme court. This is called a trifecta – for the governorship and both chambers of the legislature (it ignores the courts) – and the projections right now is they will expand on them. Potentially up to 30 states. We already know what the Republicans are doing in these states they have complete control over: legalizing voter suppression, going after major (and minor) private companies and business that won’t toe the GOP’s line, legalizing censorship and the creation of a factually inaccurate history, civics, and science curriculum, and legalizing new bigotry against LGBTQ citizens, especially children. This past week the GOP trifecta in OH legalized private citizen challenges to the sex/gender of student athletes including mandatory physical investigation of student athlete’s genitalia. Yesterday, DeSantis through executive action via the state Board of Health, implemented his own version of Abbott’s ban on medical services for trans youth. He took it a step farther by also ordering that Medicaid could not pay for anything having to do with trans specific healthcare.
Additionally, the GOP is organizing to create chaos during elections by creating a nationwide cadre of poll watchers and workers. It is also organizing to try to peel off a few percent of minority constituencies critical to Democratic success in elections through the creation of community outreach centers across the country. These seem very similar to the outreach that then governor and now Senator Rick Scott did with the Puerto Rican community in Florida. Especially those that had relocated because of Hurricane Maria. Just a few percent of defections in key constituencies or their suppression would have major electoral effects in November.
When you combine all of this information together – how big a nationwide majority the Democrats will need to overcome the extreme Republican gerrymanders in regard to the House and state legislatures, the inherent institutional gerrymander that is the US Senate, the legalization of voter suppression by GOP controlled states, and other GOP efforts, it indicates that it will be very hard for the Democrats to hold the House, let alone both chambers of Congress.
And I haven’t even gotten into, and I’m really not going to, the demoralization caused by how the US political news media frames their coverage and reports on what is going on. The boundaries on that reporting are set by The NY Times for the mainstream news media regardless of whether it is print or TV/Cable TV and Fox for the right.
I also haven’t gotten into what is clearly a coordinated effort by MBS to damage President Biden and the Democrats because, unlike Trump and Jared Kushner, they won’t let him do whatever he wants. President Biden’s trip to Saudi this month is now not happening, which tells me that the announced deal between the US and OPEC (read Saudi) for OPEC to pump more oil to help bring down the price of gasoline is most likely not happening. Nor have I gotten into the fact that the oil companies and the Republicans in Congress want the price of gasoline to stay high both to increase profits, but also to bring the GOP back into power at the Federal level as quickly as possible so that the industry can be further deregulated.
I also haven’t accounted for the fact that we’re now once again in extremely high COVID spread in the vast majority of the US, the GOP has blocked any further funding for any public health measures regarding COVID including prepurchasing boosters designed to deal with the Omicron subvariants. Nor have I covered that CDC Director Walensky doesn’t seem to have a plan.
Whatever it is that AG Garland is or is not doing, it is further demoralizing Democrats as evidenced by the response to the leak that the DOJ will not be indicting Mark Meadows or Dan Scavino for contempt of Congress.
Nor have I talked about the reality that the Republicans as a revolutionary movement, albeit one with reactionary and revanchist goals, not just wants, but needs the violence we’re seeing. From that which is clearly domestic terrorism to hate crimes to that which is just called mass shootings. The more violence, the more fear, anger, and anxiety. The more fear, anger, and anxiety the greater the chance that Americans will willingly support an authoritarian who will make it all stop. Remember, as I’ve written here before, Revolutionary Warfare = Guerilla Warfare + Political Action. The Republicans and the conservative movement that it services are all in on American politics as Revolutionary Warfare. The violence – domestic white, christian nationalist extremism; hate crimes; mass shootings – is the Guerilla Warfare. The blocking legislation and nominees in the Senate, the bizarre political actions by GOP members of the House and Senate, the actions taken by GOP majority and supermajority legislatures in both states where the GOP has full control and the handful of states where they have the legislature but not the governorship are the Political Action. As are the reactionary and revanchist Supreme Court opinions and those of some of the packed appellate courts like the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
I’m not trying to run down the Democrats. The Biden administration has done some amazing things over the past 17 months both with and in some cases despite their slim majority in the House and their majority that isn’t really a majority in the Senate. But the news media decided very quickly that there was and would be no honeymoon for the Biden administration, that he had no mandate to govern, and the editorial decisions about how to frame the political coverage has had a significant effect on his popularity, as well as the popularity of the Democratic Party and politicians.
As a result of all of this, I expect that things are going to go badly to very badly this November. If I was advising the Ukrainians, I would suggest they ask for everything they think they might even remotely need from the US – in funding, in equipment and material – immediately. And the request should be made in light of the reality that after December 2022, they won’t be able to get anything else from the US. This way if the worst does happen, then they will have insulated themselves as much as possible from the domestic American political fallout for at least the the following two years.
Now that everyone is ready to commit various acts of self harm, let’s talk a bit about the attempt by Putin to use the second order effects of his re-invasion of Ukraine to crack the European Union.
What Putin is trying to do is achieve subordinate goals that will then function as ways to achieve his primary strategic objectives and ends. If Putin can create a large enough food crisis in parts of the Middle East and Africa, then he believes he can kick off another refugee crisis just like he did between 2014 and 2016 from his actions in support of Assad in the Syrian civil war. It is important to remember that the Levant is still suffering from over a decade of drought, which has hit Iraq particularly hard. Moreover, mercenaries, commonly referred to as the Wagner Group, working for Progozhin’s subsidiary mineral extraction companies are currently operating across and through the Sahel. They are creating significant problems in the Central African Republic, parts of Sudan, and Mali. They’re also a major problem in Libya. So they have the ability to create population outflows through violence as well as famine. We already know that India isn’t going to make its stockpile of grain available for export. Modi has decided to sit on it. If Putin’s theft of Ukrainian grain or interdiction of it preventing it from being brought to market is successful, he believes he can create a food scarcity crisis that will overwhelm the EU states. At the same time, if his theft and/or interdiction of Ukrainian grain also creates a food scarcity crisis in Ukraine, then he can increase the outflow of Ukrainians into the EU as refugees as well. This refugee crisis of Ukrainians, as well as people from parts the Middle East and parts of Africa is intended to provide an opening for the extremist nationalist and fascist movements and parties he supports in the EU states to make electoral, other political, and societal gains. He also intends for the refugee crisis to create an informational and ideational space for the blame to be placed on the Ukrainians, especially the Ukrainian refugees. The Russian information warfare around the grain and refugee issues is already setting the conditions for this.
I think this strategy could be partially successful. Right now the soft to almost indifferent parts of the EU regarding Ukraine and her defense against Putin’s re-invasion are Germany, France, Italy, and Hungary. Hungary for obvious reasons resulting from who Orban is, his own history, and his alliance with Putin against the rest of the EU. Italy, especially its news media, has been particularly susceptible to Russia’s information warfare campaign against Ukraine. We’ve covered what is going on with Germany a number of times. Though this new Der Spiegel reporting is interesting. As for France, Macron seems to have completely lost the plot based on today’s reporting.
What I think could happen is not that the EU or NATO will split, but they’ll simply become irrelevant to the process. You’d see the Baltic states, Poland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the US – provided what I’m worried about doesn’t happen in November – continue to support Ukraine while Germany, France, Italy, Hungary either wind up somewhere between ineffectually useless (Germay, France, Italy) or outright hostile (Hungary). The other EU and NATO members will chip in when and where they feel they can and it is in their interests.
This is now already far, far more than I wanted to write this evening, but I felt that Andrya and Medicine Man deserved proper answers. Even if they are unpleasant. So I’m not going to get into why I wouldn’t count on the sanctions and economic measures regime actually causing any change in Putin’s behavior. Other than to say that there are far, far, far more states in the global south that are not participating in them than are. And all of those states can be exploited by Putin to serve as third party proxy buyers for the tech and material that Putin needs to keep his economy in general and his war machine in specific chugging along. More on this concern on another night.
Let’s leave it there.
Your daily Patron. I apologize in advance, but this video is not available with subtitles. However, what it is is Patron teaching Ukrainian children how to be safe amid the reality of all the mines and other IEDs and explosive booby traps the Russians have left behind.
Open thread!
Saturday Evening C.R.E.A.M. Open Thread: The Biter Bit
Carlo Graziani
I don’t think the idea is to “push Russia out of Sieverodonetsk”. I think the Ukrainians want to cause as many Russian casualties as they possibly can. That is the only sensible interpretation of this trap. And it’s brilliant. It precisely picks the fight on the one ground where the UA totally overmatches the Russians — manpower. I never saw it coming, but it’s exactly the kind of fight I’ve been wishing they could find.
LNNVA
This is all terribly depressing, but I fear that you may be right about the U.S.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I don’t get this. Supporting Ukraine is bipartisan for the most part. Hell, the Ukrainian diaspora is so great in Ohio that DeWine felt compelled to create a state office for information on the Ukraine War
N M
Thanks as always for the clear eyed analysis Adam! Both of UKR and the political situation on these shores.
Adam L. Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Right now you have 50 Republicans in the House and about five or so in the Senate who will vote against anything for Ukraine. If the GOP takes the majority in just the House, those 50 Republicans have the ability to block the GOP from doing anything. Just like the 40 or so Freedom Caucus chuckleheads did to both Boehner and Ryan during their speakerships.
The GOP functions on the Hastert rule when in the majority. This is that unless a majority of the GOP caucus supports something, it doesn’t get brought up for a vote. Those 50 Republicans that oppose everything having to do with Ukraine will be enough to block anything the majority would want to do, which gives them, just as the Freedom Caucus had under Boehner and Ryan, outsize influence.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Isn’t this doom-posting, Adam? Nobody knows the future.
One thing I’ve learned from investing is:
1. Nobody knows nothing
2. As Warren Buffett says, “Never bet against America”.
Chetan Murthy
[deleted b/c superfluous]
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
Well then I guess we’re doomed and should give up, then. Right?
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Adam made it clear that he was reluctant to discuss this, bc of the angst/agita it would cause, but that he felt compelled to honestly and fully answer Andrya and Medicine Man. I’d say “don’t blame Adam for being responsive”.
You don’t have to agree with Adam. [I do, 100%]
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): No, it means that you plan for worse-case outcomes.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L. Silverman:
Then we’ll just have to put pressure on them like we did with the ACA and use Indivisible tactics
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
That planning means preparing for widespread bloodshed. That’s a world I would rather not live in. I don’t have the luxury of having valuable skills that any country would take me in. I’m not rich. I’m trapped in this shithole. What it fundamentally comes down to, is I don’t think I have what it takes to survive this. Nor would I want to.
And I’m afraid
Cameron
Thank you, Adam. I’m sure this was no more enjoyable for you to write than it is for us to read. I think America is hosed, and what’s truly awful is that we’re doing it to ourselves. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I probably won’t be here in 10-15 years. I wish I were smart enough to figure out a way forward for the country, or find somebody who has that way and join them. Still dream about going back to the Old Country but that ain’t going to happen.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’ve offered advice before, and gotten angry replies for it, so I won’t do so now. All I’ll say is: assuming that it’ll all turn out well is not something we immigrants do. My mother told me when I was little, that the reason Indian wedding presents often involve gold and jewelry, is that jewelry is expensive and compact. Easy-to-hide, easy-to-carry when you’re fleeing. Needless to say, I’ve never seem my family’s jewelry: it’s always been in bank safety deposit boxes.
There are other things you can do, than gear up for war, or emigrate. When my sister and I came to the US in 1969, we lived (2 adults, 2 kids) in a one-bedroom apartment. Lots of immigrants live impoverished lives in order to afford to live in high-priced areas.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
That’s not how I envisioned my life going. I want the stable, relatively safe, prosperous society that’s been here for the last 70 years
Grumpy Old Railroader
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You can always do what so many others have done in Central America . . . head north and run for the border
Counterfactual
I am prone to Panglossian optimism when stressed, so just ignore me if I anger you.
People are assuming that the static war of attrition will continue forever. But no one does major maneuvers in the Ukrainian flood plains till the second week of June. The Russians will be exhausted just as the Ukrainian reserves finish training the next few weeks.
The situation in Severodonetsk seems to be a weeks-long strategic operation to fix the majority of the Russians’ effective force then lure it into a killing zone. Mostly reliable social media says that all the city is back in Ukrainian hands and more excitable social media says that the Russian fighting force in Ukraine has literally been decimated (say 200000 men in Ukraine, 1/10 of which are on the front line, reports of 1 to 2 thousand Russian casualties) .
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
And live as an undocumented immigrant? I would just be deported anyway, back to this hell nation
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
As a certain philosopher once said, “You can’t always get what you want.” [sorry, cribbing from a House, MD episode] I came to America age 4, with literally one conscious memory of India. My grandmother washing me in a bathtub. America is all I’ve ever known. I’m the kind of American who hasn’t left the country since …. 2007. My entire life is invested in America. My entire family is here. I have a cousin in Wales, a cousin in India, and that’s it. The rest of my near family is all in America. So I feel you, and am in the same camp.
But Fate doesn’t care what we want, does it?
And something else: there’s a difference between diagnosis and treatment. Lots of cancer patients refuse to believe they’ve got cancer, or that it’s bad, b/c they don’t want to accept the prognosis, or the awful treatment. They want to be told that it isn’t so bad, that the treatment will be something less awful. it’s the root of all these quack cures. But (BUT, BUT) the key to actual progress, is to be able to separate diagnosis from treatment, and to be cold-eyed when diagnosing.
And then, once you are convinced of the diagnosis, be cold-eyed about the treatment.
And I will say again: I have in the past suggested ways to avoid having to flee the country or train for armed combat. They were not taken kindly.
2liberal
how many blue states can we make out of breaking up california? it might be the next necessary step to save this nation. and it would require the Dems holding both house and senate this cycle.
Chetan Murthy
@2liberal: Do you think Cinemansion would allow it? So you’re assuming a significant increase in Dems in the Senate, right? And that they won’t be Blue Dogs ? Also, i don’t even know if it’s possible to do what you suggest — what’s the mechanism for it ?
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Are you sure? Young people get lots of points. You were once in nursing school, right? Have you checked — maybe you could study nursing in Canada and be able to stay there b/c of that ?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
I realized a few months ago that nursing wasn’t for me. I never really enjoyed it. Too stressful. I deluded myself for a long while. And it’s not as if I’m 18 or something. I’m only a few years away from being 30
Medicine Man
Thanks for the direct response, Adam. I wish I could say I disagree with your take on the near-future of US politics. I’m mostly hoping at this point that enough of Europe will wake up to how imperative it is that they take charge of their own strategic defence.
Ohio Mom
@Chetan Murthy: The sense that all could go to hell and you had better prepare to move on is also profoundly Jewish. And it goes back forever, the Holocaust was just the most recent cause for fleeing.
America has generally been very good to us. I have sometimes joked that the special sauce is that there are so many groups to be hated in America, we Jews are on the back of the line. Blacks, anyone from a Spanish-speaking heritage, Gays, Asians, now there is a new group to be hated, Trans people, all ahead of us in line. I repeat, this is me trying to joke.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Your youth is your blessing and your curse. It’s a curse because you are still looking for your niche in life and you don’t have the confidence that living through one thing after another brings.
I don’t like paying $5 a gallon but I am old enough to remember the double-digit inflation of the 1970s. I remember the gas shortage and only being able to buy gas on certain days and waiting behind a long line of other cars to get to the pump. So I have some confidence I can weather this, too.
And why is being young a blessing? Health and energy! You got that, we oldsters have much less of both.
2liberal
it’s a majority decision in house and senate to add a state, also has to be signed by POTUS if i understand correctly. It has to be allowed by the state in question also. So my understanding is sort of a general impression rather than a specific blueprint.
Mallard Filmore
@Counterfactual:
YouTube title: “Update from Ukraine | We took Severodonetsk Back! Glory to Ukraine!”
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bf1ApN6fYA
here are the military maps that he uses:
https://militaryland.net/
https://deepstatemap.live/
Chetan Murthy
@Ohio Mom:
Yes, the friend who understands how I feel best, is my [ex-Army Ranger] Jewish friend who, when I asked him about this (immigrants, and fleeing) said something like “in shul we’re all taught that we were refugees in Egypt, and it could happen to us any day including today”. He’s also the one who told me that there was an extensive literature written by German Jewish people trying to make sense of “we did everything we were asked, became the best Germans we could be, and they still hated us, wanted to murder us”.
Eolirin
There is no universe in which the Republicans have 69 Senators.
Alison Rose
@2liberal: You would also get new red states. California is not entirely blue; basically only the western half of the state is, plus maybe the area around Tahoe. If we split it down the middle north to south and tried to make three or four states out of the blue portions, they would do the same with the rest. Now, the population in that portion is way less, but I could see a lot of RWNJs who live closer to the coast hightailing it over to Riverside or Modoc counties.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
At age 29.66, I had blown up my academic research career and crash-landed at my mother’s house with a bit of savings from my *four* postdoc years, and no job prospects. I’d spent my entire twenties trying to make an academic career, only to flame out. So I picked myself up and remade myself as an industrial programmer. It was unpleasant and hard, hard work. I spent the better part of twenty years *hating* my job, hating the work, hating it all. Hating the customers I worked for, the bosses I worked for. Hating them all, hating it all.
We do lots of things because we must, because we want or need the stability that money in the bank and marketable skills can buy.
Grumpy Old Railroader
Great post. Yeah the 50’s and 60’s were not that great. Asbestos and Lead in everything from paint to plumbing to gas and insulation. The book Silent Spring didn’t come out until 1964. Nobody heard of “organic” or “free range” or BPA free. First the oil companies charged us to ADD lead into our gas then when lead was bad the oil companies charged us to REMOVE the lead. Which was it? Adding or removing? Doesn’t matter, pay me.
Goku needs to step away from the internet and take a few more nature walks and perhaps take up bird watching (I first heard and then observed a small flock of Bush Tits today. Amazing little birds.)
Adam L. Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I am honestly very sorry I have frightened you. I can either give you my best assessment based on the data and information I have or I can lie to you. The former, at the worst, gives you the worst case scenario of what might happen. The latter may make you feel good in the moment, but it leaves you completely unprepared.
As I wrote in the post, a lot can happen between now and November. And what I’ve provided here is basically the worst case scenario, which is why I wrote that if I was advising the Ukrainians I’d tell them to ask for everything they think they’ll need immediately and to have it delivered and/or transferred by December of this year. If I’m wrong, it just means they got some stuff and some funds early. If I’m right, then they’ve made sure they looked after themselves.
As to what to do, all I can tell you is to do the things you can do. Register to vote, check to make sure your registration is in effect, and vote. And get everyone else you know to do the same and to then get everyone they know to do the same.
Unfortunately, best or worst case scenario, a lot of this is stuff that can not be changed by individuals. We’re approaching a crisis point where the sclerotic, inflexible, almost impossible to change and almost equally impossible to actually use political structures and institutions combined with Republicans and conservatives never satiable lust for power and control and domination are overlapping. I’m not sure anyone can completely predict the outcome. We’re at the point where elected and appointed officials have to do the hard work necessary to protect state and society. The Republicans are not interested in doing so. I’m not sure the Democrats that are in leadership know how.
I can honestly say that I think the forthcoming decision on Roe, provided the leak of the leaked draft doesn’t cause a shift in what the Supreme Court’s majority does, could produce such significant backlash that it obviates everything I wrote. I could also see the backlash that it should produce cause a counter-mobilization to protect the ruling that all but ensures what I wrote happening.
The same thing with what has happened over the past several weeks with gun violence, especially in Uvalde. And even more so with the forthcoming 2nd amendment ruling from the Supreme Court.
Maybe the Democrats, with the help of Cheney and Kinzinger, are actually able to effectively stage these hearings where they make a major impact. But given what we know about how the Democrats do these things, versus how the GOP does, I wouldn’t bet on it.
And maybe everyone claiming that Garland is running silent and deep because that’s what the DOJ is supposed to do, as opposed to what Comey did or what Sessions and Barr did, are right. But given that’s what a lot of people, including me, said about Mueller and we were 100% wrong, I wouldn’t bet on DOJ doing anything to move the needle either. Garland, like Mueller, is interested in protecting the institution because they’re both institutionalists. Which would be fine if everything was normal. But things are definitely far from that.
There are still a lot of what ifs out there. And just one of them could lead to very different outcomes. Including some that we’ll never hear of. Not because no one will think of them, but because that person or person will be ignored or dismissed or just won’t have a way to get the message out.
Regardless, you now know what is pretty much the worse case scenario outcome and how that scenario outcome was reached. I’ve shown my work. You’re forewarned, which is the only real gift I can give you right now. And if we’re all really lucky, come November I’ll be wrong.
Grumpy Old Railroader
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Advice from me to my 30 year old self = Carpe Diem. Stay in the present moment. Look around. Do not beat yourself up for what you did or didn’t do or where you are at or could have been. Look for joy. Really. It is all around you.
2liberal
Adam, in the past you’ve given some warnings which turned out to be excessive and I hope democrats can outdo your predictions next fall. that said you’ve got some unique perspectives and i always value reading your opinion.
Ivan X
Jesus.
Adam L. Silverman
@Eolirin: Every political scientist accepts that come sometime no earlier than 2030 and no later than 2040, unless the Senate is radically reformed in terms of its structure, 30% of Americans will elect 70% of the senators. Maybe you know something that we all don’t? If so, please enlighten us and show your work.
From 2017:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/28/by-2040-two-thirds-of-americans-will-be-represented-by-30-percent-of-the-senate/
From 2021:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/12/us-senate-system-white-conservative-minority
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/09/1002593823/how-democratic-is-american-democracy-key-pillars-face-stress-tests
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/the-real-threat-to-american-democracy-is-the-right.html
From that last link:
I know Norm Ornstein. He has forgotten more about Congress and how it works than 99% of everyone else in the US ever knew about Congress. If you won’t listen to me, listen to him.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
OK, I’m just going to come right out with it. You said you’re scared. If that’s real, then you can do something about it. How long will it take to finish your nursing degree? Finish it, maybe even try to finish it in a Blue state instead of Ohio. And then get a job in that Blue state. Or move to one.
Yes, you’ll be poorer. So what? You said you’re literally afraid for what may come — doesn’t that trump money?
Or don’t do the above, b/c you aren’t actually that worried. But c’mon: you have options — just not pleasant options. But nobody except the rich gets pleasant options.
ETA: And nursing is a very transportable job, easy to carry to other Western countries.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
I was hoping to use index funds to get rich
And I’ve already said I don’t want to do nursing. I’d be terrible at it and miserable
Ivan X
@Ohio Mom: love this comment.
Adam L. Silverman
@Ivan X: Gesundheit.
Grumpy Old Railroader
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
There is a whole spectrum of opportunities in Nursing. Not everyone is cut out to be a Nurse in an E.R. trauma unit. Nursing is nurturing.
Seek the niche that scratches that itch
Adam L. Silverman
I have an early start tomorrow. So I’m going to get ready to rack out.
Try to have as good a night as possible given the subject matter of tonight’s post.
Jesse
Just finished Pfarrer’s Warrior Soul book a couple weeks ago. Good to see he’s still kicking.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
It’s been over two years since I left nursing school. I barely graduated. I was never licensed because I never took the NCLEX, which is incredibly difficult to pass. It’s too late. I’ve already forgotten so much, that I’d have to go back and retake it all over again more than likely. I have to figure something else out
Cameron
@Adam L. Silverman: Damn. Couldn’t you be dishonest for a change?
Gravenstone
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You give people fucking whiplash with your endless doom posting, punctuated only by chiding others for doing the same. And a lucid assessment of our current and potential future political situation is not doom posting.
Rocks
Your gloomy prognostications for November do not take into account two factors: 1) The seismic shift due to the Trump Supreme Court about to make abortions illegal, and 2) The really good Democratic candidates in a number of places (Georgia, Texas) and the execrable Republican performance and candidates in several states (both of those plus Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc). Keep in mind, the Electoral College has inflicted two incompetents on us in the last 22 years. At some point, the big population states are not going to put up with being ruled by Kentucky and Idaho any more.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I know someone who graduated from college in the late 80s, got a job as a paper-pushing drone at an insurance company, and after a few years, quit to move to SF and become a temp worker for a telco. After a few years, the recession hit, and she lost her job. Really hard times. Really hard times. Eventually, she started interviewing for sales jobs at companies in Silicon Valley. After literally (literally) hundreds of interviews, she got a job, and worked like hell to make her way there. She did well, eventually. But it wasn’t fun, and (as she told me) there were many days, coming back from those interviews, when she was literally in tears.
i don’t know what else to say, other than: you’re not alone in feeling like you’ve backed yourself into a corner, and have to figure a way out. It’s never easy, never pleasant, and always involves sacrificing bits of yourself that you feel you really can’t afford to give up. I don’t mean to make light of it: if I don’t talk about my own sacrifices, it’s because to do so would be maudlin — and what’s the point of that, when those life possibilities are already burnt like so much tinder, just ashes floating in the wind?
I don’t know what your thoughts are on the calculus of skills vs. compensation vs. can-I-stand-it vs. how-hard-is-the-work. But we all have to make such calculations, so you’re not alone.
One thing to keep in mind, though: you’re not unique, and lots of others have made mistakes in their careers, too — bigger than yours, too.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gravenstone:
I suppose I do do that, don’t I? I guess at the end of the day, I just want everything to work out, to have my worst fears proven wrong, and to not have everything I’ve ever earned or worked for or could have, my hopes and dreams, be destroyed
I genuinely apologize
Andrya
Adam- thanks for your honest answers. I am totally sick at heart. Lesson learned- we must do anything possible- work, money, whatever- to hold the House and the Senate.
Eolirin
@Adam L. Silverman: Yes, but it’s entirely incorrect to then extrapolate that out to mean the Senate is a 70/30 split.
Which states that are small that currently vote Democrats into the senate are going to stop doing so? Vermont is going to be part of that 30%. So are NH and Delaware and RI. Are those seats all going red? Why do you think they are? I’m not going to argue that it doesn’t put significant pressure on the Democrats to maintain a majority, because it does. But getting to 69 seats is an entirely different thing.
That 70/30 thing is about how small D undemocratic the Senate is becoming. It’s not a full assessment of the partisan swing of that lack of representation.
James E Powell
Since it appears that Democrats will not run a national campaign vilifying Republicans, somebody needs to do what Lincoln Project did, i.e., put together video ads that can go viral on social media. I’d prefer TV & radio, but that stuff costs too much and we have seen that TV campaigns have limits.
We need to say that Putin wants Republicans to win because they will cut aid to Ukraine and he can murder them more easily. I’d suggest photos of the worst. Show the Rs votes.
We need to hammer Rs for the opposition to programs that helped people. As Adam points out, the media decided from day one that the story would be “Biden fails . . .” not “Republicans prevent . . .” We need to pound the latter. We have videos.
We need to go after Republicans for the damage they have done and will do – e.g., Rick Scott’s plans – and not the stuff that pisses us off. Because the majority of white Americans either do not care about those things enough to change their votes (abortion rights, guns) or they support the Republicans (voter suppression, anti-immigrant, CRT).
Carlo Graziani
I guess the subject of tonight’s seminar isn’t really the war in Ukraine at all, or at least regards the war only indirectly.
OK. The purely mechanistic doom scenarios run through the Ornstein demographics. Very true. Norman Ornstein has been writing insightfully about Amrican political mechanics for a couple of decades, and he is a force to be reckoned with.
On my bookshelf I have a book by the title “We The People: Foundations”, by Bruce Ackerman, published in 1991, which makes the case that the United States has in fact lived under three separate, totally distinct “constitutions”, united only in the appearance of the basic foundational document, but partitioned by utterly different relations between parts of government, and between Federal government and States. The crises of the Civil War and of the Great Depression/New Deal are the punctuations that separate these constitutional eras.
Prior to the Civil War, the Federal Government was relatively weak compared to the States, and intentionally so — the writers of the Constitution never envisioned or desired the Federal dominance over the States that exists today. That dominance was created as a consequence of the Civil War. Similarly, the Great Depression and the New Deal are the triggers recognized by constitutional scholars as having upset the balance of power between Congress and the Executive in favor of the latter. All of this without the least reference to Article V amendment processes.
The point I’m getting at is, sometimes crises, seen from a higher vantage point are also opportunities. It is necessary to take a long-term view, and a somewhat optimistic one. But do keep in mind that naive extrapolation of mechanical politics would have given absolutely wrong results in 1860 and in 1929. I hope that we are not looking at another event in that category. But if emerging from the dilemma that Norm Ornstein is pointing to requires us to go through another such trauma, so be it. After all, we do have a history of surviving them, and emerging from them as a stronger nation.
So, stout hearts.
livewyre
Maybe some lessons learned from the blog-away-from-blog and its lack of filter, but this feels different. There was a time when I would dismiss this kind of post as spiteful venting and/or manipulation; as unnecessary injury for dubious ends. The “various acts of self-harm” bit was a choice stinger. But…
It could be a different context, a shift in the wind. Something about the moment has changed. I’m not saying it wasn’t retraumatizing to witness, but now it feels like, even though sensitivity may not be among our writer’s surfeit of credentials, it’s not out of hate that this is done. We have a vision of a future that we don’t want to happen, with considerable thought put into it, and we have the opportunity to work against that. Even though countless lives will be missing from the planet by the time it even comes about, even some of whom we may have known, it’s still on us to pull away from the darkness. And while we breathe and speak and type there remains that possibility and that necessity. I’m convinced of this.
Eolirin
@Eolirin: Since I’m out of the edit window: Also Norm Ornstein is not making the statement you just made. His statement is far less extreme, if not still troubling. He isn’t claiming the Republicans will get a veto proof supermajority in perpetuity. He doesn’t say the break down of voting patterns from that 30% will be exclusively in favor of Republicans, just that it’ll tilt toward them. That will make it really easy for them to hold a majority with a minority, but it’s not the same as 69 R senators. There’s a huge tipping point at 60 and then 66 and that distinction matters.
They’d need both senators from 35 states (minus Tester) to get to that. I don’t see evidence to suggest there are 35 states that’ll do that.
Carlo Graziani
On Garland and DoJ, the one tea leaf that I think is kind of interesting is the fact that none of the redactions of the Mueller Report have been unredacted. The reason that is interesting is that the original purpose of those redactions was to prevent interference with ongoing investigations. Those investigations were assumed to be Flynn and Manafort. And yet, long after those guys were convicted, and there is no apparent institutional motive to preserve those redactions (and considerable DoJ motivation to clear the air by releasing the unexpurgated report) there is no release of the redacted sections. That’s weird. Unless there is another investigation…
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: *cough* statute of limitations *cough* It’s increasingly difficult to believe that anything from the Mueller investigation could be chargeable, given that so much time has passed. Isn’t the Federal s.o.l 5yr ?
Redshift
New York?
oldster
Shifting focus for a bit back Ukraine:
The counter-attack is brilliant news, and I’m delighted that Ukraine is doing it.
But will the gains be stable? As I understand it, Ukraine is opting for a close-in urban battle because this nullifies the normal Russian strategy of standing off at a distance and leveling the opposition with artillery. It’s smart to give the bear a bear-hug. But if Ukraine succeeds in driving Russia from the city, then I assume Russia just goes back to stand-off bombardment?
So we get a situation in which Russia can’t take it, but Ukraine can’t hold it. After which, the strategic question is which side is losing more men, materiel, morale, and initiative with each ebb and flow. I hope it’s the Russians.
And I hope the HIMARS get there soon! That could shift the dynamic altogether.
And I hope that, somehow, the German and French leaders overcome their folly. Popular sentiment in Germany is far more pro-Ukraine than Scholz’s actions have been. Let’s hope he feels the popular pressure.
That’s a lotta “hopes”, but however bad things get, we can’t afford to lose hope.
ColoradoGuy
Hi there, Goku! I’m forty-plus years older than you, so my options are more limited than yours, but you bring up good points.
From my perspective, your career is barely started. Without a doubt, you have skills that are undiscovered, untapped, and potentially quite valuable. The only way to find them is to stumble, fall down, and pick yourself up again. And again. And again. It usually takes three, four, or five tries to discover useful skill sets.
Next, get the fuck out of Red states. Just go. These are bad places to live. Don’t look back. As long as internal borders are open, take advantage of the unlimited freedom to travel in the USA. For that matter, keep your US passport current. If you sincerely believe a civil war is imminent, a Red state is the last place you want to be.
Here in Colorado, we are not only a Blue state, but have a tremendous shortage of labor … and immense stretches of empty, buildable land (unlike the West or East Coast, which are built up).
There are good places to live in the USA, and this country is decentralized enough that the Blue states will not passively accept dictatorship from the likes of poverty-ridden Kentucky and Oklahoma. We are not the UK or France, where all power comes from London or Paris. The regions look out for themselves.
AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team
@Adam L. Silverman: thank you Adam. I much prefer your analysis, which I find well informed and well reasoned, to a vague sense that things will take care of themselves.
I appreciate your writing it all out.
oldster
@ColoradoGuy:
Co-sign all of this.
Our country contains a lot of good along with the bad; move to where the good is.
And lives can contain a lot of good even after rocky starts.
Everyone on this blog who’s over the age of 50 can tell you tales about their set-backs, failures, and fallow periods. But life has a lot of good in it. A lot of bitter, but a lot of sweet.
Gin & Tonic
@Redshift: Yes, there is a town in the region named New York.
Geminid
@Eolirin: If you look at the inordinate Senate representation of small-population states in the abstract it seems like a terrible problem. If you start filling in the blanks of the actual small population states the problem is less dire. West Virginia, South and North Dakota are complemented by Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in New England. Wyoming is complemented by Delaware. Kansas and Nebraska have two Senators, but so do Hawaii and New Mexico. That leaves the small-population states of Montana, Utah, Arkansas, and Idaho giving an imbalance to the Senate, but not as great a one as the abstract argument suggests. Then there is Maine, a small population purple state that is trending blue.
Looking at Senate composition from the other end, California is obviously underepresented in the Senate. New York and Illinois are underrepresented, but so are Texas and Florida. The last two are not sure things for Republicans anymore when it comes to statewide races. Florida has been close for two decades, while in Texas Democrats are closing the gap.
Short term, the rightward lurch of the Republican party has produced low quality Senate candidates in red Ohio, purple Pennsylvania and purple Georgia. Fetterman is very likely to beat Oz in Pennsylvania, and Tim Ryan is running close to Vance in Ohio. While Ohio voted for trump by 8 point margins in 2016 and 2020, in between those years Sherrod Brown won reelection by 300,000 votes. If Brown could win by 300,000, Ryan can win by 30,000 against the fraudulent Vance, although that won’t be easy. As for Georgia, Herschel Walker seems on paper to be a formidable candidate, but polling that shows him lagging far behind Brian Kemp indicates that Walker is a weak candidate.
A lot rides on Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia. They have gone from red to purple this last decade. That trend may or may not continue, but demographic change supports it.
So, I am not so pessimistic about structural imbalances favoring Republicans. Republican voter suppression and election subversion are another matter; they are a very real danger. And the reason Republicans are leaning so heavily into anti-democratic measures is that they understand that these are the only ways they can avoid an enduring minority status.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I am commenting so late that you won’t see it. At your age I had just spent my entire inheritance from my grandparents on law school. Good that I had no student debt. But bad because I had thought I wanted to be a lawyer since I was twelve and I was wrong. I absolutely hated lawyering. My personality was not suited to it. I threw up every day before I went to work because I hated it so much. For four years.
So I took some accounting courses at the local community college and redirected my career. I learned a lot in the law career that was very useful in my accounting career, and often set me above my fellow accountants who knew numbers but not the law .
We sent my stepson to machining and welding trade school in his twenties. He liked some of it but didn’t like the jobs in his future. So he lost himself in drugs for a decade. His recovery was not easy on him or on us. But ten years later he has a machining job he loves.
My niece by marriage spent ten years getting a biology ph.d in medical research and then had to bail because she had become so allergic to the mice she worked with that she goes into anaphalactic shock every time she meets a rodent. She had to rehome the pet hamsters she loved.
Your twenties aren’t easy. Everyone thinks they will just get a skill they like and a job they want right off the bat. Rarely happens.
Your nursing education gave you some skills that others don’t have. Maybe in nursing. My step-kid’s welding and machining led to machining, and maybe not (my law degree applied to tax accounting.) Also too customer skills you have learned at Giant Eagle.
You have acquired a bunch of skill sets. You just need to find a slot for them.
sab
@sab:
Timed out responding to Goku at #45
My sister’s sister-in-law came from China with a hard won BA in music (voice and piano.) She got this after working her way back from the countryside in the Cultural Revolution.
She came to America and got a Masters in voice at a well-regarded American conservatory. Which she found was not marketable. So using her music math skills she went back to community college and then state college and got a degree in civil engineering and has spent thirty years supervising building stuff.
Not the music career she planned, but a useful career. Also her child went to law schol and used what she learned from Mom to be a construction support lawyer.
debbie
I think Adam’s right about a backlash. Those overreaching assholes will never know what hit them.
debbie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’ve read enough of these discussions to know you’d rather stew in your misery than figure out your plan. You’ve received so much good advice and then you’ve ignored all of it. What a gift you’ve wasted!
Not everyone is lucky enough to find what they really want to do in life, or if they do, they only have it for a short time. That shouldn’t stop you from even trying. The whole point is to find something that will pay you so you can live your actual life and do the things you actually want to do. If it doesn’t work out, you start looking again.
I hated my last job (12 years), but I found things that made it tolerable (friends, customers, etc.). It wasn’t what I’d done before and had hoped I’d do forever (thanks, Wall Street), but along the way, I saved a bunch of money. Works for me.
Life has always been scary. If it’s not snakes under the veranda or the next dust storm, it’s the friggin’ atomic bomb. There’s always going to be something. Push through it and live your life.
Stop looking for someone to tell you what to do and do it yourself.
Ohio Mom
@sab:
@debbie:
Are you okay with me asking Anne Laurie for your email addresses so we can start planning an all-Ohio meet-up in Columbus?
Like everyone else, I keep hoping we will hit a Covid sweet spot but that might have been last month. Still, summer means we can meet outside and the longer hours of daylight means people driving distances can do most of their driving before it’s gets dark — I’m thinking of a lunchtime meet-up.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
Sure.
zhena gogolia
I’m taking my cue from the Ukrainians. When we win.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I would think the mere fact that during Jan 6th none of these clowns had a plan for what happened Jan 7th would be the clue the Far Right doesn’t have a cunning master plan but basically into gestures and theatrics .
burnspbesq
ICYMI, the Ukraine men’s soccer team plays Wales for a place in the World Cup at 11:30 a.m. Eastern on Sunday. Match will be televised on ESPN2.
Mousebumples
Thanks, as always, Adam. I don’t “like” your dire predictions – but they are obviously plausible, so I’m going to do what I can to try to keep them from coming true. I appreciate your forthrightness, even if it’s not good news.
Jackie
Another turned into woe is Goki thread.
FluxAmbassador
@Chetan Murthy:
I’ve enjoyed and respected reading your comments over at LGM (where I do most of my commenting), and reading your comments in this thread it’s weird how alike we are. I’m not an immigrant, but in my late 20s I ditched a career to move back in with my mom and got a degree in a totally unrelated field. Now I’m 10 years into what I really wanted to be a 30 year career as a government employed civil engineer, a wife working towards her LCSW, a toddler and an infant.
And she and I are both scared shitless and for the first time in our lives considering leaving. My language acquisition skills are shit and always have been so that leaves mostly the Anglophone nations. We don’t want to leave, but we’re also not idiots – they came for Roe and they’ll roll up Loving and Brown before too long.
Which is all just a long way of saying I’d really like to read your thoughts on what else to do.
MagdaInBlack
@Jackie:
Carlo Graziani
@Chetan Murthy: It doesn’t have to be an offense committed during that time that is being protected, necessarily. It could be an ongoing investigation of something else. I really don’t know, and don’t care to speculate. I’m just pointing to the fact that there is no reason for those redactions to remain in place. Yet, there they are. Why?
In the larger picture, much as I fondly look forward to a day when that orange-skinned shouty goon is measured by a tailor for an orange jumpsuit (perhaps by the Georgia Department of Corrections) I don’t really think that solves anything. In a sense, I think the MAGA crowd has moved beyond him. To the extent that that’s true it’s good, because I rather doubt that they will succeed in unifying around another figure like him — in my personal opinion, his advantage over the other Republican presidential candidates was years as a relatively familiar and non-toxic TV celebrity on Apprentice, and I don’t think that even that gilded turd Carlson can match that appeal.
On the other hand we still have that structural problem.
On the third, er, limb, eventually demographics and probably climate change are going to force some serious and difficult-to-predict changes on the system, heralded by major political crises. The Fox News-watching generation, currently the anxiously gullible target of the “culture wars” pseudonarrative is shuffling off the mortal coil even now, while more and more voters are entering the rolls who cannot understand why it was “natural” for them to grow up with Active Shooter drills, and who the fuck put all that greenhouse gas into the atmosphere in the first place anyway?
So, color me short-term pessimist, long-term optimist, lots of work to do, keep your eye on the right ball and not on the idiot-targeted special effects on the chyrons.
Chief Oshkosh
removed as being superfluous…
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Fascinating stories from your family!
Carlo Graziani
This New Yorker interview with Andrei Soldatov brings together many of the key threads of the war, including the Russians’ catastrophic strategy that has wound up putting them on the losing side of a war of attrition that they thought they had designed their forces to win. Also the casting about and political tensions over a new strategic objective for the war, now acknowledged a “big war”, and likelihood of sanctions biting down this summer. All in all a great political read of the situation from possibly the best-informed journalist reporting on the Russian Natsec establishment.
debbie
RaflW
@2liberal: My impossible idea is to split CA into two halves, north and south, and merging N&S Dakota into one.
Andrya
Adam, I am speechless. I had no idea of getting such a masterful, complete answer. Thanks…
Chetan Murthy
@FluxAmbassador:
OK, it’s actually really simple: move to a Blue area of a Blue state. Preferably a majority-minority area of a majority-minority state. Why? B/c when and if the time comes, there’ll be a ton of people all around you, the bastards need to kill first, before they get to you. And by the same token, if there is any sort of organized resistance, it will start there, not in … fucking *Fort Worth, Texas*. [I grew up just west of there.]
The problem is that for a lot of people, that involves a drastic decrease in standard-of-living. And I don’t have any answers to that, other than: if the bad times come, nobody will be able to rescue you, we’ll all be fighting to save our own lives and our own communities. Better to jump, than be pushed.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
I’m just over a month from 73 yrs old. I just retired less than a year ago. I’ve had 3 careers, owned 2 different types of businesses, lost both of them from events totally out of my control, a major earthquake and a major recession, and yet I’m still here. I’ve survived OK so far. Nothing like I expected, the life career that I wanted I went to school for and actually worked within for a bit, but life put me back where I started, last job, same field as the first. My life has been nothing like I thought I wanted when I was actually young, but damn if I’m not still here. Family is all gone, many of my friends are gone, I’ve been hit head on by a 4 wheeled motor vehicle and walked away. The thing that I understand is that we humans have this ability to adapt, if we let ourselves. Skills that can support us, the ability to make friends, and the ability to imagine the future. Now 99% of the time we are wrong about it but still, we can imagine it. When we get older we find that our lives were never that thing we imagined but can be even better. After 7 decades I’ve figured out that the best part of life is getting up every day and still having hope that we can do it one more day. Everything else is the journey. And everything else is the fun and sometimes the horror of living. Hopefully more of the first and a hell of a lot less of the second. Living is making the best of what’s right in front of you. You have little control, can’t tell the future, likely can’t remember the past as well as you think you can, but if you can still type this, you are still breathing and still putting one foot ahead of the other. Life is what you make of it. If it terrifies you, and it sometimes likely will, it will also sometimes make you happy beyond belief. Life is what you make of it as it comes at you. It’s going to come at you, and you have, realistically, little control. That’s a hard thing to learn at a young age, and some never do. Embrace the experience of living, have despair that it isn’t going as you planned or that you are doing something far different than you wanted/planned/desired. But don’t let that despair run/ruin your life, because everyone has that, everyone gets to a place that feels like you have no direction, no point. The point is breathing, living, one foot after the other. We all have to find a way, but you can’t find that without looking, and often trying new things and sometimes failing. That’s life.
FluxAmbassador
@Chetan Murthy:
Oh cool, I’ve already done that! There was no way my wife was going to agree to leave Harlem if we didn’t move to a majority Black city.
J R in WV
@Chetan Murthy:
Yes. But ongoing conspiracies are continuing crimes, and the 5 year S.O L. doesn’t stop while the conspiracy continues. As in the whole Trump administration, and still going on. Every lie about the 2020 election continues the conspiracy, just ask me!
oldster
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
“…during Jan 6th none of these clowns had a plan for what happened Jan 7th…”
The plan was, “we’ll be greeted as liberators! They’ll name a new holiday after us! We’re the heroest American heroes that ever Americaned! Or heroed! We’ll have a parade!”
We’re dealing with very deluded, but also very immature, people. I.e. right-wingers.
Chetan Murthy
@J R in WV:
Sure, it’s always Muellermas. Sure. I also want to believe that the Feds are gonna charge him, or roll up his criminal sycophants. But (1) the Mueller investigation was about crimes committed before the 2016 election, and directly related to Comey’s firing, right? (2) All that is unrelated to TFG’s 2020 election crimes. So again: statute of limitations. And sure, we all wanna believe Merrick Garland isn’t curled in a fetal ball under his desk. We all wanna believe it.
SC54HI
Thank you, Adam. I hope that your predictions are wrong but better to be aware of the real possibilities.
Thanks also to all of the olds like me who’ve weighed in. Life now in my late 60s is not what I thought it would be when I was 20, but I am grateful to be alive, to have my family and friends, and to be (reasonably) healthy to enjoy them all. Looking back, the only real regrets I have are not taking all the opportunities I could to be with loved ones who are now gone.