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What Dems Can Learn From the Virginia Redistricting Win
There is an important lesson to be learned here and that is that there is no advantage for Democrats in not being fully anti-Trump.
Apr 22, 2026
By roughly three percentage points, voters in Virginia voted for a redistricting plan that will heavily tilt the congressional playing field toward the Democrats. With some votes still to be counted, yes took 51.5% of the vote to 48.5% for the no campaign. The new map will give the Democrats a good chance at winning 10 out of 11 Virginia congressional districts—a big shift from the current 6 Democrats, 5 Republicans in the delegation. The measure still faces legal challenges before it can go into effect.
Turnout for the referendum was roughly 89% of those who voted in the 2025 gubernatorial election. So, the overall turnout rate for the referendum was around 49%. While this is disappointing in that less than half of eligible voters went to the polls, it is a high turnout rate for a special election.
Unfortunately, there are no exit polls for the Virginia referendum, so the best we can do is look at the voting data and see what conclusions we can draw. Among the very Hispanic-Asian election districts in Northern Virginia (Fairfax, Loudoun, and Manassas Park) the pro-referendum forces did about 16 percentage points better than Kamala Harris in 2024. A strong performance among Black voters in Richmond and Hampton Roads helped put the referendum over the top. According to The Washington Post, counties that were at least 25% Black supported the measure by a 14-point margin, after backing Gov. Abigail Spanberger last November by 24 points.
The pro-referendum forces also fared well in high-income parts of the commonwealth. Opposition to the referendum was concentrated in southwestern Virginia. In many of these counties, the no campaign was able to improve on President Donald Trump’s 2024 performance.
Tuesday’s vote in Virginia will mean more Democratic representatives in Congress.
Are there lessons that the Democrats can take away from the Virginia redistricting campaign? First of all, it is important to note that a win is a win. However, there is an important lesson to be learned here and that is that there is no advantage for Democrats in not being fully anti-Trump.
When the referendum campaign began, the yes forces were portraying the vote as part of a broad effort to level the congressional playing field. The New York Times reports that:
In the first six weeks of the campaign, the “Yes” side spent $13.5 million on advertising compared with the “No” campaign’s $640,000, according to data from AdImpact, a media tracking firm. But over that time period, “Yes” did not gain ground in private polling, according to multiple people briefed on the data.
Based on the media that I saw, in the closing days of the campaign, the yes forces retooled their messaging and presented the campaign as a way to stop Trump and the MAGA forces.
Why did the pro-redistricting forces not immediately embrace a full-on anti-Trump message? We can only make educated guesses. The first is newly elected Spanberger, who had run as a middle-of-the-road Democratic centrist. Her role in the redistricting is ambiguous. Unlike Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, Spanberger did not get out in front of the campaign. This is understandable. After all, Virginia, unlike California, is a purple state. Spanberger also needs to get her legislative agenda through in Richmond.
The best symbol of Spanberger’s attitude toward the referendum is the fact that she made an ad in support of a yes vote but the ad never showed. In her statements about the referendum, the governor was uncomfortable.
Democrats also seemed to have been unprepared for the no forces’ very clever use of statements by President Barack Obama opposing gerrymandering, which created confusion in the electorate. In response, the Democrats responded with ads featuring President Obama. In an interesting twist, Obama not Trump was the president most featured in the media outreach on the referendum.
So, in the end the redistricting referendum passed by less than Spanberger won last November. While the Republicans may be able to claim some sort of a moral victory, a win is still a win. Tuesday’s vote in Virginia will mean more Democratic representatives in Congress.
Democrats have reasons to celebrate. However, they should learn the lesson from the referendum: There is nothing to gain politically by soft-pedaling their opposition to Trump.
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Is Rural America Finally Realizing Trump Is an Elite in Populist Clothing?
The administration’s domestic policies, coupled with aggressive foreign postures, are accelerating disillusionment among Trump’s core supporters.
Jan 29, 2026
As President Donald Trump’s second term unfolds, the contradictions at the heart of his “America First” agenda are increasingly apparent. What began as a populist revolt against elite globalism appears to have morphed into policies that alienate the very rural and small-town constituencies that backed him in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
These rust-belt and rural counties were drawn to his promises of economic revival, border security, and non-interventionism. Yet, emerging signs of fracture in this MAGA base suggest a potential backlash in the upcoming midterms.
The administration’s domestic policies, coupled with aggressive foreign postures, are accelerating disillusionment among Trump’s core supporters.
Domestically, Trump’s intensified immigration enforcement has backfired. Ramped-up Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids were sold as fulfilling pledges of mass deportations targeting “criminals”. But these operations have swept up undocumented workers essential to rural economies. Small family farms and businesses in states including California, Idaho, and Pennsylvania are reliant on immigrant labor for harvesting crops, dairy operations, and meatpacking. They now face acute shortages.
Trump, meanwhile, is perceived as profiting personally. His properties and branding deals benefit from economic nationalism, even as family farms teeter on the verge of bankruptcy.
Agricultural employment dropped by 155,000 workers between March and July 2025, reversing prior growth trends. Farmers in Ventura County, California, for example, denounced raids that targeted routes frequented by agricultural workers. Fields lie unharvested signalling financial ruin for some operations. Family-run farms struggle to find replacements. Low wages and grueling conditions simply fail to attract American-born laborers.
This labor crisis exacerbates a broader sense of betrayal. Rural voters supported Trump for his anti-elite rhetoric, expecting protection for their livelihoods. Instead, the administration’s actions have hollowed out local workforces without viable alternatives.
The H-2A visa program, meant to provide temporary foreign workers, has been streamlined—but remains insufficient amid ongoing raids, which deter even legal migrants. These disruptions ripple through small-town economies, where agriculture underpins community stability. Democrats, sensing opportunity, are investing in rural outreach, emphasizing economic populism to woo disillusioned voters who feel abandoned by Trump’s enforcement zeal.
Compounding these woes are the ongoing tariff disruptions. Trump touts his tariffs as tools to “make America great,” but in fact they have driven up costs for the same rural groups. Between January and September 2025, tariffs on imports from China, Canada, Mexico, and others have surged, collecting US$125 billion. However, the figure may be even higher according to experts.
But while the administration claims these taxes punish foreign adversaries, the burden falls squarely on American importers and consumers. Small businesses, which account for around 30% of imports, faced an average of US$151,000 in extra costs from April to September 2025, translating to $25,000 monthly hikes. Farmers, already squeezed by low grain prices, pay more for necessities, such as fertilizers (hit by 44% effective tariffs on Indian imports) and machinery parts.
Midwest producers of soybeans, corn, and pork—key US exports—suffer doubly from retaliatory tariffs abroad, which reduce demand and depress revenues. In Tennessee and Pennsylvania, builders report 2.5% rises in material costs, while food prices climb due to duties on beef, tomatoes, and coffee.
Trump, meanwhile, is perceived as profiting personally. His properties and branding deals benefit from economic nationalism, even as family farms teeter on the verge of bankruptcy. This disparity fuels resentment. Polls show Trump’s approval slipping in swing counties, with economic anxiety eroding the loyalty that once overlooked his character flaws.
Foreign Policy Compounds Domestic Fractures
These domestic fractures are mirrored in foreign policy, where Trump’s interventionism starkly contradicts his campaign pledge of “America First” restraint. Having promised no new wars, he has instead pursued aggressive postures that many Republicans view as unnecessary. The most emblematic is his renewed bid to acquire Greenland, apparently by negotiation or force, which has swiftly followed the US raid on Venezuela in the first week of January, accompanied by threats against other Latin American countries including Cuba and Colombia.
The US president has justified demands for control over the Arctic island—citing threats from Russia and China—as a strategic necessity. But NATO allies such as Denmark—of which Greenland is a constituent part—have rebuked it as an potentially alliance-shattering move. Congressional Republicans, including Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), have broken ranks, warning that force would obliterate NATO and tarnish US influence.
Such dissent highlights broader paradoxes. Trump’s populist realism prioritizes tough rhetoric for domestic consumption but yields aggressive, even reckless actions abroad. His administration is effectively dismantling post-1945 institutions while embracing 19th-century spheres-of-influence and outright colonialist thinking, including invoking an updated version of the 1823 Monroe doctrine.
The fractures signal that Trump’s “America First” policies may ultimately leave its rural and rust belt champions behind.
Rural voters, weary of endless wars, supported his non-interventionist promises. Now they see echoes of past entanglements in Trump’s suggestion that the US could intervene in Iran. This cognitive dissonance is accelerating disillusionment with his presidency.
These self-inflicted but inherent contradictions are hastening a pivotal reckoning for Trumpism. In many counties that have thrice backed him—and especially in swing counties—economic hardship and policy betrayals erode the cultural ties binding rural America to the Republican party. Democrats, through programs such as the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, are betting on this “betrayal” narrative, spotlighting farmers’ plights to flip seats in November 2026.
Polls show Latinos and independents souring on Trump, with the US president’s base turnout potentially waning as the midterm elections approach in November. If Republicans suffer larger-than-expected losses in those elections, it could mark the decline of Trumpism’s grip by exposing its elite-serving underbelly beneath populist veneer.
Yet, without a compelling alternative vision, Democrats risk squandering this opening. For now, the fractures signal that Trump’s “America First” policies may ultimately leave its rural and rust belt champions behind. Whether Trumpism proves resilient or begins a long decline may well be decided not in Washington and Mar-a-Lago, but in the county seats and small towns that once formed its unbreakable base.
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Real Horror Could Lurk Beneath Trump’s Social Security Zombies Lie
Elon Musk and Donald Trump may want to foster the belief that there are large numbers of dead people getting Social Security benefit so that they can justify a purge of the rolls.
Feb 22, 2025
Good followers of U.S. President Donald Trump have to believe an increasingly large collection of ridiculous lies. First and foremost, they have to believe that the 2020 election was stolen. Then they have the corollary, that January 6 was an inside job pulled off for some reason by the FBI. Of course, they have to believe global warming isn’t happening and apparently now that that Ukraine started its war with Russia.
However, this week Elon Musk and Donald Trump added another big lie to the list: There are tens of millions of dead people getting Social Security. As with all Trump lies it is hard to know what the guy really believes and what is being thrown out to advance a larger goal, but this lie definitely ranks alongside the others for both its craziness and potential importance.
It seems the origins of the Social Security zombie story is Elon Musk’s misunderstanding of a Social Security file on the ages of people getting Social Security. He immediately began tweeting to his hundreds of millions of followers that tens of millions of dead people are getting Social Security. This line was quickly picked up by various right-wing influencers as yet another example of government incompetence and corruption.
It might have been helpful to Elon Musk’s “super-high IQ” DOGE boys if they had taken a few minutes to review some of these audits to understand how Social Security works and the problems it faces.
Then Donald Trump made the claim about millions of dead people getting Social Security himself. And under MAGA rules, once the “king” makes a pronouncement, everyone has to say it’s true no matter how utterly absurd it might be. This means all good Republicans have to insist that tens of millions of dead people are getting Social Security, or at least millions.
This claim is absurd on its face. Social Security actually keeps very good track of who is getting benefits, as numerous audits over the years have found. Yes, Social Security is in fact regularly audited by its inspector general and also the Government Accountability Office. It might have been helpful to Elon Musk’s “super-high IQ” DOGE boys if they had taken a few minutes to review some of these audits to understand how Social Security works and the problems it faces.
And the system does have problems, most of which are widely known to those familiar with the program. The two most obvious ones are the country’s method of tracking deaths and the age of the Social Security computer system.
The first problem is that there is no national death registry. We could compile this nationally, but this has been a big states’ rights issue, with many people, mostly Republicans, complaining that a national system of registering deaths would be a dangerous step toward totalitarianism. Therefore, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has to rely on getting data on deaths from states.
The other problem is that SSA is relying on an antiquated computer system that is using a computer language from the sixties. Musk and the DOGE boys may well want to ridicule SSA for using a computer system that is 50 or even 60 years old, but an analysis of the problem would again require looking in the mirror.
It would cost billions of dollars to put in place a new system, while maintaining the operation of the current system and ensuring that the privacy of workers’ earnings and benefit records are not compromised. Cost-conscious Republicans in Congress, along with many Democrats, have not wanted to fork over the money. If Elon Musk and the DOGE boys can arrange for the funding for modernizing the system, they would be widely applauded by supporters of Social Security, but that doesn’t seem the direction they are taking.
In fact, SSA has been pretty ingenuous in working around these obstacles to ensure that the overwhelming majority of its payments are accurate. And when overpayments are made, such as when benefits go to a dead person for a couple of months after death, they often are able to get the money back.
Mr. Arithmetic Exposes the Lie
Anyhow, when it comes to the claim that the zombie hordes are getting Social Security, a quick visit with Mr. Arithmetic should put this nonsense to rest. Social Security gives us very good data (it’s even available to Elon Musk and the DOGE boys) on payments to beneficiaries by age.
We can add this up and calculate the total amount of payments that SSA can identify. That came to $1,227 billion at the end of 2024. We can also go to the Social Security Trustees Report and find out the total amount the program paid out in retiree benefits last year. Interestingly, that also came out to $1,227 billion. So where is the money that is going to the millions of Musk-Trump Social Security beneficiary zombies?
Okay, but maybe these are fake numbers that the geniuses at SSA have put together to trick real tax-paying Americans. But which numbers would be fake?
It could be paranoid to imagine that Trump will take away the Social Security benefits that people worked for over many decades, but those who think the worst about Donald Trump are rarely wrong.
We know the total amount Social Security pays out in benefits each year. There are dozens of records kept on this that are regularly published. Even Elon Musk and the “super-high IQ” DOGE boys can find this out.
Furthermore, if we want to venture into the Twilight Zone and imagine that there are actually hundreds of billions of dollars secretly being paid out to the Musk-Trump zombies every year, we wouldn’t have to worry about this money contributing to the deficit. If the zombie payments are never recorded anywhere, they can’t be a factor in the official deficit that we all know and love.
Maybe the SSA tricksters did it on the other side. They are hugely exaggerating what we are paying as benefits to real working people. All those numbers on people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s are hugely inflated so that they have extra money to pay to the Musk-Trump zombies.
While that would be a very clever trick by the SSA fraudsters, it would also be pretty hard to pull off. We do have very good data on births. We know how many people were born in 1940, 1950, 1960, and every other year. We also know roughly how many of these people are dying. Anyone interested could examine whether, for example, the number of 90-year-olds SSA says are getting benefits makes sense.
The same applies on the benefit side. Social Security has a very well-defined benefit formula, which is readily available to anyone who wants to look. We have good data from a wide variety of sources on the wages people earned during their working years, so we can know roughly what they should be getting in Social Security benefits. We also have data from both public and private sources on what Social Security beneficiaries are actually getting from the program.
If the SSA bureaucrats are able to find ways to exaggerate their proper payments to living people, to hide hundreds of billions of dollars being paid out to dead people each year, they are way more clever than anyone gives them credit for. I’m not sure that fits the story that Elon Musk and the DOGE boys want to tell.
Is There Method to the Madness?
It is always dangerous to try to get into the head of someone who is not making any sense, but it is worth asking if there can be any purpose served by Musk-Trump spewing nonsense about tens of millions of dead people getting Social Security benefits. This could just be another absurd Trump power play where he forces his MAGA followers to accept an absurd lie just to show he can. He did this when he released a huge volume of water in California, ostensibly to help contain the Los Angeles fires, even though the areas getting the water were nowhere near LA.
There is another more pernicious possibility. Musk-Trump may want to foster the belief that there are large numbers of dead people getting Social Security benefit so that they can justify a purge of the rolls. The purge will not be directed at the dead people who are not there, but at their political opponents. This is obviously completely illegal, but if Trump gets decide the law, as he insists, it’s all fine.
It could be paranoid to imagine that Trump will take away the Social Security benefits that people worked for over many decades, but those who think the worst about Donald Trump are rarely wrong. I guess we will eventually find out his intentions with this idiocy. We have to hope that it’s just Trump’s dementia.
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