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Well, the answer to that is yes, it can but will it do so is a very different proposition. It has been about 30 years, three decades, since a Democrat has won a statewide office in the nation’s second-largest state. Texas is about as ‘red’ as you can get in terms of how friendly the political ground is for the Republican party, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible for this year’s election to erupt with a surprise in November.

The most compatible comparison might be the 2018 Senate race between Beto O’Rourke and incumbent Senator Ted Cruz. It was an off-year cycle election with Trump in the White House and a presidential approval of less than 50 percent. While O’Rourke failed to dislodge the disliked senator from his seat, his failure was closer than one might expect in the Lone Star State, falling about two and a half points behind when the votes were tallied. It was not a terribly surprising result as at no point during the election cycle did O’Rourke lead Cruz in the polling.

2026 is not the same as 2018.

Trump’s approval numbers are in the low 30s with some polls dropping him into the 20s. In 2018 the economy was humming along with very low interest rates without any serious inflation concerns. 2026 on the other hand is seeing serious inflation, with gas and food prices rising rapidly in the shadow of an unpopular war without an apparent end in sight. This is the situation at the start of the summer with a long hot travel season ahead. Add to this that while O’Rourke sought to unseat an incumbent, Talarico isn’t facing the same challenge.  While Cruz was personally unlikeable to many, he presented and coded as a bog-standard Republican politician. The same cannot be said of Paxton, whose scandal sheet trails him like toilet paper stuck to his heel. Also, unlike O’Rourke, Talarico has already led his opponent in several polls.

Does this mean that Talarico will win?

No.

I would still call Paxton the favorite but not a prohibitive one. This cycle is trending closer to a toss-up than any Texas Senate race in memory. I think this race will be close enough that the national party will be forced to expend resources on a race that in any other year they could have safely ignored. November, no matter how it turns out, should provide some excitement.

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Today the state of Virginia votes to gerrymander the hell out of its Congressional districts, taking the current map of 11 districts from a 6 for the Democratic party and 5 for the Republican party to a 10 for the Democrats leaving just a single district that favors the GOP.  It is the latest front on the mid-cycle redistricting war that has raged across the nation since the GOP operating under their total fealty to Trump began redrawing districts in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, and potentially Florida, hoping to staunch the bleeding to come with this fall’s general election. Unwilling to simply lie back and take it, the Democratic party across the United States has redrawn maps where they possessed the power to do so, in California going to the voters with a special election as is the case in Virginia today.

Gerrymandering is a perversion of the basic principles of democracy. Instead of the voters choosing and electing their representatives the representative, sitting on a treasure trove of data, draw their electoral maps, choosing the voters that will most likely elect them to their seats. In the age of networked computers and artificial intelligence growing quickly in capabilities, the drawing of election maps that can accurately and reliably produce desired outcomes transforms from an arcane art into a sinister science.

With the Supreme Court of the United States having declared that gerrymandering for blatantly political purposes as ‘non-justiciable’, that is beyond the scope of any court, the floodgates were not thrown open on the process; the entire dam was demolished.

I have, for decades, been an opponent of the gerrymander. The process deeply offends my sense of what is right and what is wrong, but with that said I am also a realist. The Republicans, have fewer spines that an amoeba, supplicating themselves to a conman, a criminal, and sexual abuser giving away any remaining elements of honor and moved the conflict from a knife to a gunfight requiring the Democrats to drop their knife and match the warfare that is actually being waged.

I want Virginia to pass its constitutional amendment and fight fire with fire and then maybe in 2029 if we are fortunate enough to have a Democratic trifecta nationally pass legislation to end political gerrymandering once and for all.

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The Constitution of the United States of America clearly and deliberately gives the power to declare war to Congress and not to the executive. The modern age and a parade of presidents has eroded the distinction between military action and war. Since the Second World War Congress has acquiesced to the White House more and more latitude in conducting offensive military action but still recognizing their role in the process with legislation such as an Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Trump launched his sudden and extensive bombing campaign against Iran without any form of Congressional approval. This is not one fast mission with a clearly defined goal, this is a prolonged campaign with ill-defined, if defined at all, objectives. Destroying that nation’s nuclear ambitions, that had been ‘obliterated’ nine months prior, preventing a retaliatory strike following an attack by one of our allies, collapsing Iran’s government, have all been both expressed and denied as goals of the bombing war. It is clearly the purview of Congress to debate and either approve or forbid this action. Yet legislation to do precisely that has been killed by the Republican leadership of both houses.  Politicians who have repeatedly and loudly accused nearly every executive action by Democratic presidents of being a step towards serfdom and an illegal usurpation of the Constitution cower from the cult that surrounds this president, breaking their oaths of office and proving to anyone with unbiased eyes that they are from a political party unfit for power.

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Late Friday evening, early Saturday morning, President Trump, in coordination with the nation of Israel, initiated ongoing military actions which were the equivalent of war, against Iran without bothering to obtain, even consult with, the Congress of the United States of America, the sole body given by our constitution with the authority to declare war.

Do not misconstrue, by deliberate intent and misrepresentation or by casual, clumsy reading, that my opinions here in any manner or way voice support for that theocratic despotic regime of that nation. The Islamic revolution brought no freedom to the Iranian people but moved them from a secular despot to a theocratic one. My concerns at the moment though are for the American people and the rot that is corrupting our national system.

Trump did not ‘sell’ the American people on this war. He did not spend days or weeks laying the evidence and case that this action was essential to our security and safety as a people or as a nation. He did not go to congress, one that is entirely controlled by his own political party and has shown repeatedly that there is no debasement that they will not endure to place his will into action, to gain their consent and authorization for the military misadventure. Trump did not rally our allies, he did not build a coalition to generate international support for this attack. He, along with the Prime Minister of Israel, two charter members of the ‘Board of Peace’ of which Trump is Chairman for life, charged ahead with their plots and plans to decapitate the Iranian leadership sans any congressional authorization or approval — blatantly unconstitutional.

Trump’s supporters will inhabit the spectrum from full-throated support to shamed silence and deceptive ‘what-aboutisms’ to deflect from this authoritarian action. People who are quick to push their pocket constitutions into your face, screaming ‘Unconstitutional!’ at even the mildest firearm regulation will suddenly fall quiet about this abuse of executive power and privilege. If they speak at all it will be to declare criticisms of Trump to be ‘unpatriotic’ and the product of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

How long will this war last? I don’t know, no one knows. Once begun such things have a life of their own. Iran is striking back, after all they were attacked without warning or declaration of war, making the Trump administration more like the Harkonnens of Dune than the founding fathers. It is very hard to win a war purely from the air and I doubt that this administration possesses neither the spine nor the stomach for ground action. We have started a war on a footing that seems highly unlikely to produce a clean definitive resolution.

The Islamic Republic of Iran may fall internally, creating a power vacuum that apparently Trump and his allies hope will be filled by kinder, gentler people. Though if history is any guide the kind and the gentle generally do not outcompete the cruel and vicious in filling power vacuums. Rebellions may be built on hope, national strategies should not be.

The Islamic Republic may withstand these blows, in which case the hope is that the new leaders are cowed and subservient to America and Israel’s wishes. That too strikes me as an unrealistic outcome. Any new leadership must not only manage external forces, such as the implacably hostile American and Israeli positions but internal stresses which range from insurrectionist forces and the desire of current forces, such as The Islamic Revolutionary Guard, unwilling to surrender their own power. Pride and ego will be powerful determining forces in the post-conflict environment and people who have been humiliated are disinclined to be submissive. People die for pride.

I have no hope that the Republicans in charge of the House or the Senate will find the backbone to live up to their oaths and so it will fall onto the American people to replace them this fall with men and women who will.

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The Science Fiction writer William Gibson is attributed with saying “The future is here now — it’s just not evenly distributed,” referring to the fact that on this planet exist fantastic technologies nearly beyond belief and people who scrape by burning wood as their only fuel source, existing in abject poverty. Well, the same is very true for the United States of America and fascism, the fascism is here it is simply not evenly distributed.

If you are not dark-skinned with an accent, not politically active in a manner disapproved of by the regime, not currently living in a locality flooded with masked armed agents of the state, then you do not feel the presence of the fascism. It is, at best, theoretical to you and at worst invisible. The fascism poisoning our government was not theoretical to Renee Good, it was not invisible to Alex Pretti, it was not something happening elsewhere to the more than 30 persons who have died in ICE custody since this Administration took power. That is compared to the 24 persons who died in similar custody during the previous administration’s entire 4-year term of office.

In addition to these deaths, some of which in my opinion are murders, plain and simple, people have been assaulted for exercising their First Amendment rights, legal residents have been snatched off the street by masked goons with neither uniform nor identification, homes have been violently entered without judicial warrant and some of the highest officials answered these violations of people’s rights with the mocking assertion that Federal Officers engaged in their duties have ‘Absolute Immunity.’

And what of the Gadsden Flag Waving, 2nd Amendment worshiping, radical Constitutionalist who insisted electing Trump was vital to protecting our God-given rights, particularly our 1st Amendment right to free speech?

Well, they’re busy mouthing the regime’s lies, slanders, and character-assassination of the victims, or they have slithered into silence, finding other ‘outrages’ to occupy their keyboard warrior ethos. It turns out they were quite literal with the Gadsden worship, they do not want to be trod upon but ‘go ahead and stomp on those people over there, we never liked ’em.’

Repressive violent suppression of the regime’s enemies spurs no cries of ‘dictatorship!’ in the same manner as expanding healthcare. It exposes a very simple truth.

Not for all of them but for far too many racism trumps the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendments.

A friend messaged me the other day asking my opinion on California’s ballot initiative Proposition 50, which temporarily suspends the independent commission responsible for drawing the state’s Congressional districts in order to allow a directed gerrymander before next year’s off-cycle elections.

I favored and voted for the measure, though I did deem it something I wished I had the opportunity and freedom to oppose. I despise gerrymandering. It is the process where politicians choose their voters rather than the voters choosing their representative. Under normal circumstances, voting against Prop 50 would have been nearly automatic for me.

These are not normal circumstances.

Even before last week’s elections blew fear into the hearts of Republicans, they sensed the anger in the electorate and, given the history of off-cycle elections, knew that their position of power had become precarious. Rather than adjust their policies in hopes of persuading voters to trust them, Trump demanded that Texas redistrict to carve out five new seats deemed “safe” for the GOP, a bid to keep their grip on government.

It is unwise to go into a duel where your opponent has brought a pistol when you had agreed to swords and not change your choice of weapons. California’s abandonment of its commission was tossing aside the sword to pick up a pistol.

However necessary, it is still gerrymandering—manipulating the maps to dramatically influence the outcome of an election, a concept that is at its heart anti-democratic. I would prefer that the nation find a way to kill the process of gerrymandering in all states, but one cannot fight by “gentlemen’s rules” when the other side insists on being small-handed barbarians.

I would also consider it terribly important that the size of the House be expanded. Here is a graph showing that while US population has swelled, the House has been fixed for over a century, compounding our troubles.

us_congress_population_graph