#Midterm Elections (2022)

[dyketennant]

in more positive news, over in arizona, kari lake is absolutely getting her ass beat by over 100k votes

[aquitainequeen]

Happy Wednesday all. The Vice President joins CNN for a townhall tonight at 9pm. All of us should watch. Will be a big night for the campaign, and as she has been bringing it these last few weeks, am sure it will be a good one.

[justahumblememefarmer]

Putting some positivity out there about the election

Harris has raised a record amount of money from small donors after Biden dropped out, in addition to being able to access all the funds from their campaign they already had

Trump is deeply unpopular and people have already seen the chaos that 4 years of his presidency would bring. A lot of people have been energized to vote against him, even if they're not fond of Dems

Polling showed a red wave for Republicans in the 2022 midterms, and yet they only barely had control of the House, and couldn't even agree on a Speaker for a historic amount of time. Dems also increased their lead in the Senate. Historically, midterms favor the opposition party and have lower turnout, so this is a good sign for the House in 2024

Dems are fighting back in swing states. PA and GA both put in Democratic senators in the midterms

In my home state of PA, I am from Bucks County, which is a swing county for the state. Moms for Libery took over the school board and used it to attack queer students, enact book bans, and funnel money to themselves and the superintendent. At the most recent election, Dems turned out and took back every single open seat, ousting the board and superintendent. Worry about similar takeovers in surrounding school boards also increased turnout

Abortion rights are on the ballot in many states, which has been a winning issue for Dems and increased turnout

Republicans were prepared to attack a feeble old Biden who isn't the strongest speaker. I don't think they expected him to actually drop out, and they now have to put an 78 year old convicted felon up against a prosecutor

Awareness of Project 2025 and it's contents has entered the public sphere and is being much more openly discussed on the news. While Trump has insisted he has nothing to do with it, most of the authors worked in his administration and Trump has worked closely with the Heritage foundation

Feel free to add more things on this thread, but the most important thing is to get out there and VOTE

Vote for President

Vote for Senators

Vote for Congresspeople

Vote in your local elections

Vote Blue down ballot

[love-3-crimes]

checked to see if my voting ballot was counted and it "can't be found"

[sanitymakesposts]

There’s not too much point in talking about the election anymore, but I think some people are misconstruing the results. 21% of the American population voted for trump. He won the popular vote with polls only recording a 43.7% approval rating, and he has never held an approval rating over 50%, something that Biden and (arguably) Harris have. He lost millions of votes from 2020 to 2024, it’s just that Harris lost millions more.

All this is to say that there is not some ‘silent majority’ of trump supporters in America. While some people will definitely be emboldened in their rhetoric and action by the results of the election, Trump was a deeply unpopular president, and is shaping up to be one again. He will enact unpopular policies that are against the will of the average American, but that doesn’t mean every American is out to get you. Engage with your local community, check in on loved ones, and maybe even take a look at local political offices in the coming few years. If you dislike the two party system, volunteer or donate to a third party. It’s altogether likely we see another 2022 situation, resentment grows further against the Republican Party, and the midterms offer a lot of opportunity to alternatives, at every level of government.

It may all feel like the end, but it’s not. We’ve been through it before, and no matter what we do, hate and ignorance will bleed through the cracks in society again in the future. It’s going to get better, but that’s easier to say if we make it better.

[absmarchive]

Opinion: Gov. Abbott, put the issue of abortion to Texas voters

[cleoselene]

Did you know?

Democrats have won the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections going back to 1992? The only time the GOP has won the popular vote in the last 36 years in a presidential election was in 2004, and it was a pretty narrow margin. This was a wartime election and the first election post-9/11. The Democratic candidate was the unfortunately uninspiring John Kerry, who had been lied about. You know how in politics we say someone has been "swiftboated" when a successful lie is told about them? That term originates with the 2004 election because a bunch of people concocted an elaborate lie about John Kerry's military service. He wasn't super inspiring as a candidate, but that was the worst thing he did. He wasn't a bad guy. He was just running in a very gross, jingoistic time after the worst terror attack in American history, and had a bunch of successful lies told about him to the point where a whole word about a specific kind of lie was invented about it. THIS is the only time since 1988 that the Republican party has won the popular vote. George W. Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000. The Supreme Court ordered that votes stop being counted in Florida and handed the victory to Bush.

Donald Trump has never ever won the popular vote. The electoral college handed him the victory in 2016, less than 15,000 votes across three states decided the election. Hillary Clinton in total won about 3.7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Trump HATES hearing this number. He hates even more that Joe Biden got about 7 million more votes. He hates even more that you bring up the fact that he lost his midterm elections for his party in 2018, badly. And that the "Red Wave" in 2022 did not happen because of backlash at his Supreme Court. Or that in 2023 voters continued to reject his Supreme Court at the polls.

He knows, the Republicans know, that if more people vote, they lose. They don't want small d democracy. They want authoritarianism. They want to suppress it.

So when you get cute about not wanting to vote, you're not doing activism. You're surrendering.

[potofsoup]

i love your fourth of july comics every year but this years feels extremely optimistic about biden’s abilities in the face of him letting roe get overturned and funding a gen*cide at worst or letting it happen at best by taking the bare minimum of regulatory action… i mean can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands? and how do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?

Hihi! Thank you for reading and enjoying my July 4th comics every year! I am in a non-US airport en route to a month-long trip in a place with sketchy internet, so sorry in advance for sloppiness in my response (and potentially going radio silent).

But:

I don't think he "let" Roe get overturned, since that was the Supreme Court's overwhelming conservative majority, which really started with Mitch McConnell refusing to approve Obama's appointee and forcing it into a 2016 election issue. The fact that Trump got to appoint 3 Supreme Court Justices is what got us here.

Re: Biden and the Israel/Hamas war ... on the one hand, there's definitely more that he could have done, but on the other hand, they are a whole other country over there. It's Hamas that initiated the Oct 7 attacks and took the hostages. It's Netanyahu and his right-wing government who decided to retaliate to such extreme extent. Biden can talk about how he would really like Netanyahu to stop fighting and step down, but at the end of the day that's not his call, any more than he can stop the Sudan fighting that is near-genocidal either.

So, to come to your question #1: "Can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands"?

For me, it's a resounding YES. Guyz, he has passed so much good domestic policies. My spouse works in green energy and the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act halved his anxiety and gave him legitimate hope. The tumblr post I linked to in my comic has links to many of the other great things that Biden has done. Tbh I voted for him in 2020 because "a moldy onion is still better than Trump", and I've been pleasantly surprised. Like how he tried to cancel student loans, the Supreme Court overturned it, and then he came back 6 months later with a different way to do it that didn't lead to a court challenge.

Is he perfect? Hell no. There's tons of stuff that I wish he did more about, or he went further on, but also he's just one guy heading one branch of government who is heading into an election year. (Just like FDR promising not joining WWII, while behind the scenes doing all the Lend-Lease Act stuff). And "the people" have lots of demands, many of them conflicting.

I'd also like to push at the unspoken part of your question... "Can he really be trusted to do the right thing..." compared to whom? Because right now the answer is "compared to Trump." And compared to Trump... I don't even trust Trump to respect the results of a legitimate election. Heck, he might just take his favorite state secrets, sell them to the highest bidder (or just show them off to someone for funzies), and then claim Presidential immunity. A decent Democrat who got stuff done vs someone who probably wants to pardon himself and all his friends and do Project 2025 stuff is not even on the same level. (Do I wish that there was a viable Democratic alternative to Biden? Sure! But who?) Heck, at this point -- imagine if it's Kamala Harris vs. Trump. Who would you vote for?

As for your question #2: "How do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?"

We don't. But also what can we do besides showing up to vote?

Actually, I need bullet points for this:

The 2022 midterm elections brought in fewer-than-expected election-deniers into crucial electoral offices at the state level, which means that hopefully most state electoral boards will continue to have integrity

Yes, voting is harder but at least we can still vote. So it's about getting out there and getting your vote counted. For some states, it involves waiting in 8 hour lines. For some states, it involves bringing 2 forms of ID. Document. Track. Make sure it's dropped off in a real ballot box and not a fake one. Don't believe messaging that the voting is happening on a different day or location, etc.

A 50.1% majority is easily challenged. A 55% majority, less so. Which means getting people out to vote.

The more people know about and think about the reality of a second Trump term (versus being disappointed by a Biden term), the more they will be motivated to vote against Trump.

Finally, let's be real here: I'm braced for a 2nd Trump term. That said:

I'm still going to go and vote for Biden, because the only way to prevent a 2nd Trump term is to vote.

A Trump term where either the House or Senate is controlled by the Democrats will be *very* different from a clean Republican sweep.

Even with a clean Republican sweep on the federal level, States have so much more power now, and voting the state level stuff will help shore up Democratic goals for the future. States get to draw voting districts however they want. States get to decide on abortion policies. If you live in a deep Red state, there still might be things to vote for that make it easier to live in now, and turn it purple a few elections down the line.

So at the end of the day, it's "Vote AND". Vote and keep living your best life. Vote and tell others about Project 2025. Vote and have hope. Even if Trump wins, at least you'll have voted against him. Vote and stay to build up a progressive wave for the next election.

[batboyblog]

I've seen this meme and the pop wisdom idea behind it a lot, that if Democrats just manned up like the South Koreans they could stop Trump. SO! its now my job to explain BASIC FUCKING facts to people because they're talking nonsense about easily googlable information.

This is South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of the center-right, conservative, People Power Party. He was elected President in 2022. Like in the United States, South Korea has mid-term elections, where South Korea's Congress, the National Assembly is up for elections while the President isn't. Unlike America South Korea's National Assembly has only one House. Any ways they had their midterm in 2024:

The opposition center-left, liberal Democratic Party won, overwhelmingly. The election was April 10th, they took office May 30th. Soon the opposition was doing what an opposition given power does, it was fighting President Yoon about his disastrous budget plans and trying to hold the First Lady Kim Keon-hee to account for alleged corruption. If this all sounds a bit like Trump, good job Yoon has been called "South Korea's Trump".

any ways 6 months into having an opposition run National Assembly Yoon declared martial law and sent soldiers to try to shut down the National Assembly. Everyone watched Democratic Assembly Members bravely climb fences and barricade the chamber doors to vote to end martial law. Here's what you have to understand about that vote

190 National Assembly members voted, 172 of them? We're Democrats and their allies. The President's People Power Party mostly stood by him. They keep standing by him in the days that followed. Four Days after President Yoon tried to use the Military to throw out the elected National Assembly and make himself dictator, the first try to impeach him, failed

105 out of the 108 the President's PPP party in the Assembly stood by him, after he tried to coup the country. Only 7 days later after overwhelming public pressure and the arrest of many key Presidential aids did an impeachment vote pass (he still hasn't been convicted)

only 12 PPP members broke with their Party and its President, 12 was enough, but the overwhelming majority? voted to protect the President who just tried to overthrow the country.

SO! Much like Donald Trump President Yoon didn't need to overthrow the country for the first 2 years of his term because he had a puppet Congress willing to go along with his corruption. With-in 6 months of dealing with a National Assembly that stood up to him the wheels came off and he imploded. But even after the most spectacular implosion on the International stage I've ever seen his party stood by him. If the Democratic Party didn't have a majority? and most important a BIG majority, a majority where even a small number of PPP defections was enough to get the 2/3rds they needed Yoon would still be President right now, if Democrats had a 2-3 seat majority in the National Assembly? they would have never gotten the votes to impeach.

We can see overlap in the American experience. In Trump's first term his own party in Congress never challenged him and largely stayed united behind him. In 2018 he lost the midterm elections which meant he was held to account and in fairly short order impeached, it took 8 months from Democrats taking office to an impeachment inquire to get underway. Like President Yoon Trump was not able to function under any kind of pushback. But unlike the South Korean Democrats the American Democrats didn't have an overwhelming majority in the Senate (Koreans don't even have a Senate) so Trump was not convicted. And the second time he was impeached after like Yoon trying to overthrow the Congress and become dictator, there were like in South Korea a handful of defectors from his own party, but unlike Korea The Democratic majority in the 2021 Senate wasn't large enough to have those Republican votes matter

So brave displays are good and important, but they don't mean much without the power, the votes to back it up. Elect Democrats in 2026 and they will, in less than a year of taking office, impeach Trump. Trump can't function with an opposition, he can't do it, he'll do something and they will HAVE TO vote to remove him. But the key is they need to votes to do it, because most Republicans? will go down with the ship, there's no red lines for them, if Democrats don't have big majorities, Trump hanging onto 90% of his party in the Senate will save his ass, again.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş for Politico Magazine:

American democracy is about to undergo a serious stress test. I know how it feels, in part because I lived through the slow and steady march of state capture as a journalist working in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey. Over a decade as a high-profile journalist, I covered Turkey’s descent into illiberalism, having to engage in the daily push and pull with the government. I know how self-censorship starts in small ways but then creeps into operations on a daily basis. I am familiar with the rhythms of the battle to reshape the media, state institutions and the judiciary. Having lived through it, and having gathered some lessons in hindsight, I believe that there are strategies that can help Democrats and Trump critics not only survive the coming four years, but come out stronger. Here are six of them.

1. Don’t Panic — Autocracy Takes Time

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power is unnerving but, as I have argued previously, America will not turn into a dictatorship overnight — or in four years. Even the most determined strongmen face internal hurdles, from the bureaucracy to the media and the courts. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions.

I am not suggesting that the United States is immune to these patterns, but it’s important to remember that its decentralized system of governance — the network of state and local governments — offers enormous resilience. Federal judges serve lifetime appointments, states and governors have specific powers separate from those granted federally, there are local legislatures, and the media has the First Amendment as a shield, reinforced by over a century of legal precedents. Sure, there are dangers, including by a Supreme Court that might grant great deference to the president. But in the end, Donald Trump really only has two years to try to execute state capture. Legal battles, congressional pushback, market forces, midterm elections in 2026 and internal Republican dissent will slow him down and restrain him. The bottom line is that the U.S. is too decentralized in its governance system for a complete takeover. The Orbánization of America is not an imminent threat.

2. Don’t Disengage — Stay Connected

[...]

Nothing is more meaningful than being part of a struggle for democracy. That’s why millions of Turks turned out to the polls and gave the opposition a historic victory in local governments across Turkey earlier this year. That’s how the Poles organized a winning coalition to vote out the conservative Law and Justice Party last year. It can happen here, too. The answer to political defeat is not to disconnect, but to organize. You can take a couple of days or weeks off, commiserate with friends and mute Elon Musk on X — or erase the app altogether. But in the end, the best way to develop emotional resilience is greater engagement.

[...]

4. Charismatic Leadership Is a Non-Negotiable

One lesson from Turkey and Hungary is clear: You will lose if you don’t find a captivating leader, as was the case in 2023 general elections in Turkey and in 2022 in Hungary. Coalition-building or economic messaging is necessary and good. But it is not enough. You need charisma to mobilize social dissent. [...]

Last year’s elections in Poland and Turkey showcased how populist incumbents can be defeated (or not defeated, as in general elections in Turkey in 2023) depending on the opposition’s ability to unite around compelling candidates who resonate with voters. Voters seek authenticity and a connection — give it to them.

5. Skip the Protests and Identity Politics

Soon, Trump opponents will shake off the doldrums and start organizing an opposition campaign. But how they do it matters. For the longest time in Turkey, the opposition made the mistake of relying too much on holding street demonstrations and promoting secularism, Turkey’s version of identity politics, which speaks to the urban professional and middle class but not beyond. [...]

6. Have Hope

Nothing lasts forever and the U.S. is not the only part of the world that faces threats to democracy — and Americans are no different than the French, the Turks or Hungarians when it comes to the appeal of the far right. But in a country with a strong, decentralized system of government and with a long-standing tradition of free speech, the rule of law should be far more resilient than anywhere in the world. Trump’s return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, who had first-hand experience with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarianism in her native Turkey as a journalist, wrote in Politico Magazine on how to effectively fight Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses.

[thebreakfastgenie]

I fully believe "Dobbs happened on Biden's watch" is a Republican psyop btw because cui bono? The consequences of Dobbs have hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterms and every special election since it happened. Getting the blame off them and onto Democrats, depressing support for Democrats in the process, literally only Republicans benefit from this.

[tomorrowusa]

Special legislative elections were held in Minnesota and Iowa on Tuesday to fill vacancies.

In Minnesota, Democrat (DFL) Doron Clark won election in MN Senate District 60. He received 90.9% of the vote in the deep blue district. He replaces the late Kari Dziedzic. The Minnesota Senate had been evenly split 33-33. Clark's victory breaks the tie. Clark outperformed Harris-Walz who got 83% of the vote in that district in November.

While the outcome in MN SD-60 was largely expected, what happened across the border in Iowa Senate District 35 was a shocker. In a district carried by Trump with a 21% margin in November, a Democrat pulled a major upset.

Democrats on Tuesday flipped an Iowa state Senate seat in a district Donald Trump carried by 21 percentage points just a few months earlier, an incredible special election result that may serve as an early warning signal for Republicans about the 2026 midterms. Democrat Mike Zimmer defeated Republican Kate Whittington, 52% to 48%, in a special election for Senate District 35—a rural seat located on the state’s eastern side.  In November 2022, Republican Chris Cournoyer defeated her Democratic opponent, 61% to 39%, in this same seat—making Zimmer's win a massive shift toward Democrats. (Cournoyer resigned the seat to become Iowa’s lieutenant governor, creating the vacancy.) Zimmer’s win should give Republicans a case of heartburn since special election results often correlate with the outcome in the next midterm election. 

In Washington, Capitol Hill Republicans are pooping in their pants worrying about the threat of getting primaried by MAGA opponents if they dare to vote against any of Trump's profoundly incompetent nominees or oppose his autocratic dictates. But they should instead be worried about the 2026 general election where association with Trump is likely to be a liability. They need only look back to the 2018 midterm Blue Wave 🌊.

Iowa Republican US Sen. Joni Ernst was elected in 2020 with just 51.7% of the vote. If she keeps rubber stamping the anti-American Trump agenda, she should not assume that her re-election in 2026 will be a sure thing.

State government matters. Find out who represents you in your state's legislature. If they are Democrats, support them. If they are MAGA Republicans, work to defeat them.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Working class Dems who campaign on economics beat Trumpists in elections

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me FRIDAY NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The Democratic Party Pizzaburger Theory of Electioneering is: half the electorate wants a pizza, the other half wants a burger, so we'll give them all a pizzaburger and make them all equally dissatisfied, thus winning the election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

But no one wants a pizzaburger. The Biden administration's approach of letting the Warren/Sanders wing pick the antitrust enforcers while keeping judicial appointments in the Manchin-Synematic universe is a catastrophe in which progressive Dem regulators (who serve one term) are thwarted by corporatist Dem judges (who serve for life):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

The Democrats – like all parties in two-party systems – are a coalition; in this case, a "progressive" liberal-left coalition with liberals serving as senior partners, steering the party and setting its policies. These corporate dems like to color themselves as "neutral" technocrats with "realistic, apolitical" policies that represent what's best for the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

This sets up the left wing of the party as the starry-eyed, unrealistic radicals whose policies are unpopular and will lose elections. But for a decade, grassroots-funded primary challenges have made it possible to test this theory, by putting leftist politicians on the ballot in front of voters, especially in tight races with far-right Republicans (that is, exactly the kinds of races that the corporate wing of the party says we can't afford to take chances on).

The 2022 midterms included enough races to start testing these theories – and, unlike traditional midterms, these races enjoyed high voter turnout, thanks to the unpopularity of GOP positions like abortion bans, book bans and anti-trans laws. Jacobin teamed up with the Center for Working-Class Politics, Yougov and the Center for Work and Democracy at ASU and analyzed those races:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11134429/CWCP-Report-2024.pdf

Their conclusion: candidates from working-class backgrounds who campaigned on economic policies like high-quality jobs, higher minimum wages, a jobs guarantee, ending offshoring and outsourcing, building infrastructure and bringing manufacturing back to the US won with a 50% share of the vote in rural and working-class districts. Dems who didn't lost with a 35% share of the vote:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-03-18-how-actually-existing-democrats-run-for-office/

In other words, in the kinds of districts where Trumpist politicians are beating Democrats, running on "left populist" policies beats Trumpist politicians.

That's the good news: if Dems recruit leftist, working class politicians and put them up for office on policies that address the material reality of voters' lives, they can beat fascist GOP candidates.

Now for the bad news: the Democratic establishment has no interest in getting these candidates onto the ballot. Working-class candidates, by definition, lack the networks of deep-pocketed cronies who can fund their primary campaigns. Only 2.3% of Dem candidates come from blue-collar backgrounds (if you include "pink-collar" professions like nursing and teaching, the number goes up to 5.9%):

https://jacobin.com/2024/03/left-populists-working-class-voters

All of this confirms the findings of Trump's Kryoptonite, an earlier Jacobin/CWCP research project that polled working-class voters on preferences for hypothetical candidates, finding that working-class candidates with economically progressive policies handily beat out Republicans, including MAGA Republicans:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/08125102/TrumpsKryptonite_Final_June2023.pdf

Since the Clinton-Blair years, "progressives" have abandoned economic populism ("It's not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money" -T. Blair) and pursued a "third way" that seeks to replace half the world's of supply white, male oligarchs with diverse oligarchs from a variety of backgrounds and genders. We were told that this was done in the name of winning elections with "modern" policies that replaced old-fashioned ideas about decent pay, decent jobs, and worker power.

These policies have delivered a genocide-riven world on the brink of several kinds of existential catastrophe. They're a failure. The pizzaburger party didn't deliver safety, nor prosperity – and it also can't deliver elections.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/20/actual-material-conditions/#bread-and-butter

[southeastasianists]

The ex-president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, could soon become the first Asian former head of state to be tried at The Hague.

The populist politician was arrested on Mar. 11, 2025, after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant relating to his “war on drugs.”

Some 6,000-plus people were killed during the crackdown. But despite the controversy surrounding his policies and the end of his presidency in 2022, Duterte remains an influential figure.

The Conversation U.S. turned to Lisandro Claudio, an expert on Philippine politics and history at the University of California, Berkeley, to explain how the arrest could impact domestic politics and whether this could mean the end of Duterte’s sway.

What do we know about the arrest and charges?

The arrest warrant issued by the ICC states that Duterte is charged with crimes against humanity relating to events that happened between Nov. 1, 2011, to Mar. 16, 2019. This is important as it covers a period not just when Duterte was president but also when he was mayor of Davao City – the richest city in the island of Mindanao.

Duterte went on to serve as president from 2016 to 2022, but he pulled the country out of the Rome Statute, the treaty that set up the ICC, in 2019. Nonetheless, the ICC says the alleged crimes fall within their jurisdiction as they were carried out before the Philippines ended its relationship with the ICC.

Duterte is alleged to have overseen the systemic use of murder, torture and rape against civilians.

He is accused of acting as the de facto leader of the Davao Death Squad, a group that was responsible for summary executions and the murder or disappearance of more than 1,000 people in and around the city. But importantly, the prosecution is also of Duterte’s nationalization of the strategy of death squads. On coming to power, he incorporated the “war on drugs” into the policy of the national police.

Based on the way the ICC warrant was written and reporting in the Philippines, it appears that former members of the Davao Death Squad and police officers may be testifying for the prosecution, including, it is thought, hit man-turned-whistleblower Edgar Matobato and ex-Davao City police officer Arturo Lascañas.

What role did the government play in the arrest?

Duterte’s arrest and rendition, for want of a better word, to the Netherlands appears to have taken place with the cooperation of the Philippine government.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the man who succeeded Duterte, held a press conference following the arrest in which he explained that despite no longer being part of the Rome Treaty, the Philippines is committed to supporting the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol. And it was Interpol that asked Manila to enforce the warrant after receiving it from the ICC.

The indication from Marcos was that the Philippine government had no choice but to comply with Interpol for two reasons. First, it is the expected behavior of a democratic nation to comply with international norms, and second, Interpol has helped the Philippines arrest fugitives in the past – including former mayor and suspected Chinese spy Alice Guo.

In short, Marcos is saying it is in the national interest to comply with the ICC arrest warrant.

Is it in President Marcos’ political interests, too?

The Philippines can’t dictate to the ICC when to issue a warrant, or to whom.

And it appears ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested the warrant on Feb. 10, so the timing wasn’t determined by Marcos.

But that isn’t to say that it isn’t fortunate timing.

There is an important midterm election in May, and Marcos is keen to use it to consolidate his power amid an ongoing feud with Vice President Sara Duterte – the daughter of the now-arrested former president.

In 2022, Sara Duterte and Marcos ran on the same ticket for vice president and president. But this coalition between two family dynasties – Bongbong Marcos is the son of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and still powerful matriach of the family, Imelda – broke down rather quickly.

Fighting between Sara Duterte and Martin Romualdez, the speaker of the House of Representatives and a cousin of President Marcos, strained the relationship.

But beyond the personality issues, there has been a divergence in policy between the Dutertes and Marcoses. Notably, under Marcos Jr., the Philippines has pivoted back to the U.S. by allowing American troops back into the country and taking a more aggressive stance in regards to China in the South China Sea.

This approach has been challenged by the Duterte family, which has been closer to China. In the first year of the Marcos administration, Rodrigo Duterte served as a sort of envoy to Beijing, although it became increasingly clear that this was more of an independent relationship between the former president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

So could this be the end of Duterte’s influence?

That is certainly what President Marcos may be banking on.

The ICC prosecution of the father paired with a forthcoming impeachment of the daughter will neuter the Duterte clan’s power.

The reason this is so important for Marcos is that Sara Duterte has made it clear she wants to be the next president, and given the ill feeling between the two, there is a widespread assumption that if in power she will go after various members of the Marcos family.

With Duterte busy defending his case in The Hague, he will be unable to focus his efforts on helping his senator choices get elected in the midterms. It will also, presumably, end his bid to return as mayor of Davao City – a position that would give him a powerful bully pulpit.

No one should underestimate the charisma of Rodrigo Duterte; he is like a Donald Trump figure in that way. Many critics don’t fully understand the power of his charisma, his humor and the warmth that he displays to supporters – but it propelled him to high levels of popularity while in power.

And the public doesn’t see that charisma in his three children, including current Vice President Sara Duterte. Part of this is due to sexism – there is a lot of sexism in Filipino politics, so people are more likely to support a brash-talking man like Rodrigo Duterte, compared with his daughter. And Sara Duterte has problems of her own – notably the impeachment charges relating to alleged corruption while she was secretary of education.

Could this lead to a more polarized politics?

Your guess is as good as mine here. In the short run, the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is clearly very good for President Marcos. And the small scale of the pro-Duterte protests suggest no great uprising against the arrest.

But what happens next – and how it is reported – is crucial. Filipinos love a political martyr. We saw this when former President Joseph Estrada was arrested and prosecuted over stealing public money in 2001 – his mughshot was adopted by supporters around the country. The same could happen to Duterte – it could go both ways.

[theaudenator]

I know this probably won't have much of an influence since I don't have a big audience but I might as well give it a shot.

As a Canadian, the security of our, as well as countless other countries, rely on the U.S. continuing to be an active member of NATO. So if you are an American and of voting age, I beg of you to register, get out, and go vote blue this November. It's not even about political party or particular beliefs anymore, it's about democracy and world security. About freedom and justice. Our world will not survive another term of Trump's presidency. That man is a tyrant who wants to destroy the Constitution and become a dictator. He looks up to Putin and Kim Jung Un, for fucks sake.

Please America, do the right thing and vote blue. For your own country, and for all the other countries who can't vote in this election, but would if we could because we need you to not crash and burn.

Oh, and if that wasn't enough you can also get paid to apologize for not voting in 2020 and/or not voting in 2022 midterms by going to the site linked below. I'd also reccomend scrolling through the FAQ and finding the part about forcing Elon Musk to contribute $47, cuz that's pretty cool too.

https://www.apologize.lol

( If you don't want to do that tho that's fine, at the very least please just vote!! )

[dhaaruni]

do you think Kamala Harris ran a good campaign or do you agree with most leftists that she fumbled the election?

I think Harris did the best she could given the circumstances she was in and progressives who are blaming her for losing because she was too moderate are clearly wrong given that every single poll indicated that voters thought she was too liberal.

If Biden had declined to run for re-election after the 2022 midterms, I genuinely think Harris could have won, but since the midterms went pretty well for Democrats, he thought he could pull it off and I genuinely think he was in denial about just how much he'd declined until the debate with Trump in June.