Accomplished architect and aspiring importer-exporter.
Moscow
Joined January 2021
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"We feel at once that the world desperately needs changing and that we are unequipped to change it. Kierkegaard tells us to begin by changing our own hearts."
Unbelievably foolish move by Heritage to side with Tucker over RR
SCOOP: Heritage has ousted one of its top scholars, Robert Rector, the intellectual architect of welfare reform who had challenged Heritage head Kevin Roberts last yr for his defense of Tucker Carlson. He had been w/ Heritage since 1984. (W/ @joshgerstein) politico.com/news/2026/11/07…
What the...
Trump says he’s offered Dana White the job of White House press secretary. truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT…
Al Vandelay retweeted
I may have accidentally met Russell Brand once or seventeen times where I inadvertently referred to Brand as a political colossus & mankind's preeminent thinker as he guest edited my magazine, but this sycophantic praise was my way of expressing how much I utterly detested him .
Al Vandelay retweeted
Of every 100 Trump voters, ~63 voted GOP, 4 voted Dem and 33 didn't vote or went third party. Of every 100 Harris voters, ~85 voted Dem, ~2 voted GOP and 13.5 didn't vote or went third party.
Of those that turned out 6% of Trump voters backed Dems (exit polls put that at 7%)
Al Vandelay retweeted
If the lesson you try to learn from these midterms is "Foreign policy opinions dominate U.S. elections" then I'm sorry but you are doomed to a forever spiral of political defeat.
Republicans were elected to FIX THE BORDER and FIX INFLATION.
They did fix the border but then destroyed that political capital by having masked guys without badges kidnap your roofer before the roof was fully reshingled.
On inflation, Republicans raised tariffs (higher prices), sided with data centers (higher prices), started the Iran war (higher prices), and deported the cheap workers (higher prices).
You can argue those were good policies, but they were not the policies Americans wanted Republicans to pursue! And, crucially, they were policies that credibly linked the GOP to higher prices.
And if you peruse the last 2 years of my tweets you will find dozens of cases of me tweeting some variety of "If I had just been elected on a wave of anti-inflation sentiment, I would simply not increase prices."
Republicans were warned this would happen. I and many others repeatedly told them that a high-price policy agenda would lead to ruin. But Oren Cass said it would make factories go brrrrrr.
Al Vandelay retweeted
We compiled and indexed about 50 polls and surveys on the midterms, from national polling averages to state-level exit polls. Not one of them showed Iran as voters' number one issue.
It was in the mix for sure. Here's how it stacked up:
Al Vandelay retweeted
2 election cycles ago, Doug Ducey won Arizona by 15 points.
1 election cycle ago, Brian Kemp won Georgia by 9 points and Greg Abbott won Texas by 11 points.
These Ruby Red states are now Blue solely because of Donald Trump and his minions. Trump attacked electable Republicans in those states and replaced them with low IQ charlatans who's only qualifications were loyalty to him.
All is not lost but Republicans will have to rebuild a coalition that doesn't use Trump loyalty purity tests to determine who is best qualified to lead.
Al Vandelay retweeted
This is a total hoot.
About the only thing it gets correct is that 2024 Trump voters were "pissed." As the polls spell out, very clearly, they were angry about tariffs--a word weirdly not found in this post, but which exit polls showed 65% of voters dislike. There's a straight line between those punishing costs and Senate losses in Kansas, Iowa, Ohio (farm areas) and beyond.
Angry the WH instead spent this past year talking about ballrooms and the Kennedy center. Frustrated by the complete absence of a next-two-year agenda (85% are concerned by healthcare costs. Where is the GOP plan?)
They are also unhappy about the war, though the numbers might be different if the president been clear about an exit strategy. And not sure where the "smartest" (and most anonymous) pollster in the world got the Israel argument. Exit polls show that of the 51% of voters who said our support for Israel was "too strong," only 19% of even that subset of respondents were Republican. The vast majority of GOP voters said our support for Israel was "just right" or "not strong enough."
Amusing to claim the problem here was traditional conservatives, as they were sidelined. Tillis was run out of the party, dooming NC. As was Cornyn. The WH had a pure expression of its second-term Trump/Vance agenda and loyalty in its chosen candidate of Ken Paxton. That would be the smoking carcass sitting on a 12-point loss in. . . Texas of all places. Meanwhile, who exactly is even talking about "asylum"? That's just a smear-y effort to preemptively shut down valid criticism.
The GOP strength has always been in its coalition--free-marketers, defense hawks, cultural conservatives. Trump's first-term success came from largely following that Reagan playbook. The second-term leaned into me-too progressive populism--at the veep's urging--and it ain't working.
The weird thing is that the veep remains more obsessed with remaking the party than with winning. Winning will require a lot better understanding of what happened yesterday than what is on offer in this alternate-universe view.
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
Al Vandelay retweeted
Strategic stupidity is my favorite brand of post election analysis.
Famously anti-war Texas, South Carolina, and Mississippi that never supported Republicans during 25 years of foreign adventurism cannot abide a light footprint in the strait of Hormuz.
Al Vandelay retweeted
Knock out the ban on congressional stock trading in the lame duck session. Better to be late in doing the right thing than refuse to do the right thing.
Make sure it applies to the executive branch as well.
Al Vandelay retweeted
Lot of cope on tariffs here this morning. Even if you think it's the right long-term policy, you should see the obvious short-term political costs and understand that this is a real constraint on your ability to stay the course long enough to reap the long-term benefits.
Al Vandelay retweeted
Two (2) of the top four (4) reasons Vance found to blame for the wipeout were related to foreign policy, one of them not even having to do with economic effects but rather diplomatic policy itself.
In exit polls, the parties were nearly split on foreign policy and only 4% said foreign policy was the top issue.
It's delusional.
Al Vandelay retweeted
Republicans got blown out because of the tariffs.
People will make a million other excuses, but it was, in fact, the tariffs.
Al Vandelay retweeted
If the President wants to begin again anew with the voters, he’ll fire Howard Lutnick and Peter Navarro today, end all tariffs except on China, and embrace Canada’s proposal for trade.
Walker Percy would have some words.
