Michael and Sarah Walker

By now, it is clear that the 2026 midterms are unlike any we have seen in recent memory. The scale of spending, the intensity of coordination, and the precision of messaging all suggest a high-stakes contest—but the full story goes deeper than individual candidates or party control.

Voters see the headlines—mega-donors, super PACs, and campaign cash—but few grasp the mechanics behind it, or the strategic intent that guides these flows. In essence, visibility does not equal understanding.

Midterm elections are supposed to be smaller, quieter affairs compared to presidential contests. Yet, heading into 2026, the sums being poured into these races are unprecedented, rivaling what we normally see only in general elections. The early flood of resources, even when fully disclosed, is a stark reminder that what the public sees is rarely the full story.

There's still a scorecard, though. We've lost lives — lives that didn't need to be thrown away. Your friends. Your family. And what has your hero and savior lost? Well, his sons have made hundreds of millions of dollars off military contracts.

So what has Trump actually accomplished in his second term, grand old 47? He's out to dominate the world, not king, but world emperor, and what he's getting back is a redesigned world that feels increasingly comfortable telling him to bugger off. From a global point of view, good going, Donald. Maybe we should keep you in office a bit longer.

On top of that, this stand-up comedian was then elected President of the United States. Can you believe that? Laughter from the audience is acceptable. It was a good delivery. But maybe a little too close to home for some in the crowd. Well, I can't get paid as a political commentator, and it doesn't look like I'll make it as a comedian either. So what do I do instead?

Surprise. That hottie is a bot. Running from a server in Pakistan, Asia, Africa, or Eastern Europe. The praise is robot code. The followers are purchased fiction. And every fake account is making Elon a fortune while making Trump look beloved. That's how well the slogan is actually working.

This is a post that's going to take on many forms in the months ahead. All I really want to accomplish today is getting you to start asking the same question I'm asking, what do you think we actually need, and to stop listening to the BS in the meantime. Okay by you?

I've done it many times. It's uncomfortable. It's also the only thing that actually works. The lies only work when we stop asking questions. Repetition turns lies into perceived truth, but only if nobody pushes back. Push back.

Don't look surprised when the voting booth that was on Main Street last Tuesday got quietly moved overnight to a new, undisclosed location, with an ICE barricade out front checking tattoos. And no. You are definitely not invited to the Ballroom Gala.

The government taking equity stakes in strategic industries is no longer a radical proposal. It happened with Intel. It happened with rare earth mining. It happened with U.S. Steel. The only question is whether those stakes benefit the American people or simply give politicians another lever to pull.

That's right, freedom — we fought for freedom. But somewhere in there should be a guarantee of protection. And I don't see anyone way up the ladder caring about protecting anyone anymore, except themselves. Have you seen that bulletproof barrier they use now? I'd have loved that contract. Bet it didn't go to in-house cronies — not if he wanted it done right.

So: to impeach, or not to impeach. Maybe that's the question we put to Congress before they decide it on their own. After all, they work for us.

We are a wealthy country. We are — when we choose to be — a compassionate one. We should never fail to provide basic services to the people who need them. Not because it is politically convenient. Because it is who we said we were when we put that torch in Lady Liberty's hand.

That's the Vance problem. Not that he's Trump's successor. That he's Trump with the volume turned down and have the power already installed.

Not a perfect environmental policy. Not a zero extraction economy. Just the honest acknowledgment that exploitation without limit is not capitalism. It is not freedom. It is not progress. It is greed. And more greed.

You can post a photo to your profile on those sites. And I keep finding more and more second and third cousins with really, really dark tans. Maybe that should be a requirement for the whole family reunion. Thanks, Dad, for the heads-up, all those years ago in Inglewood. He or she just may be distant family. And that stone, the one my grandfather threw, the one I nearly kept carrying, really belongs on the ground.

I was chasing. And it was predictable. I was getting to where I could do half a dozen cartoons a week before the events even happened, because I had figured out the pattern. Which led me to a certain conclusion about myself. I was a GOD. Well. Maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe it was just that he’s so damn predictable. Or Caffine?

The river doesn't have to change course overnight. You move the banks incrementally and the water follows. It has been done before in pieces — Medicare negotiating drug prices, the ACA expanding Medicaid eligibility, surprise billing protections that took decades of advocacy to produce.

So here's my real question, the one I don't have an answer to yet. With Trump gone and MAGA weakened, two groups of people have to make a move, and I genuinely don't know which way either one goes.

Meanwhile the home-born, the ones handed this country at birth, the ones who never had to sit for a test or prove they earned it — half of them can't tell you what happened 250 years ago, let alone what's happening right now. We just handed them a democracy nobody bothered to study for.

That truth is this. The closest thing to actual power most of us will ever hold is a vote and a voice. That's it. That's the whole arsenal. It isn't much, until enough people pick it up at the same time. But neither of those things work if we stop using them. And they stop working in a different way when we use them without thinking. When we vote the way we're told to vote, believe what we're told to believe, and accept what we're told to accept.

Maybe the French will show up, polish their statue and demonstrate how they solved their problem by slicing a good loaf of French Bread with their one slice at a time slicer. Now that would make the 4th Great Again.

What is missing is a federal civilian pathway to trade certification that carries the same social contract as the degree programs. We fund your training as an electrician, a welder, a medical technician, a licensed tradesperson of any kind. You serve your community with that skill for a defined period at a wage that reflects the investment.

The fight will be against Citizens United, the Federalist Society, the Superpacs, Acs American Constitution Society, Leonard Leo, Arabella Advisors and the list goes on. It’s the dark money, they want to control and control is easier when there are fewer choices.

It was so much easier when it was just the evil left against the evil right. Now it's the evil left against the evil right against the other evil right against the original evil right.

We are currently in a period of deliberate deregulation. Sold as freedom for business to grow. What it actually produces — when the major players are left to their own devices — is consolidation until competition disappears and the consumer pays whatever the monopoly decides they pay.

So there we are, folks. Three Horsemen accounted for. What??? There are FOUR Horsemen? You're right. There are four. So who are we missing? Who are we waiting for?

If the tools exist, and they clearly do — why aren't they being used here? And if it turns out the forgiveness itself was secured by deceiving a federal court — what happens then?

I can remember when the news was presented as news. Facts. This is what is happening. If an outlet wanted to offer opinion it was called an editorial and labeled as such. The separation was clear and it was honored because the public expected it and the license required it. That line has been erased. Rebuilding it requires more than nostalgia. It requires structural protection with enforceable consequences.

The Electoral College asks how states should be represented. Ranked-choice voting asks how voters should be represented. Maybe before we decide which system is best, we should decide whose voice we are trying to hear more clearly.

The Supreme Court needs its own enforcement mechanism. A Marshal's service with the specific authority to detain anyone — anyone — that the court by majority vote determines is willfully operating outside their constitutional limits and has become a national threat. No exceptions. No immunity. No rank that places a person beyond the reach of a court order.

But enough of beer bars and bedrooms. Off to where the real back-stabbing and dirty stuff happens — politics and government.

We didn't just lose the newspaper. We lost the commons it created. Oh, I would love a basket of Ol' English Fish and Chips with a bottle of malt vinegar right now.

Document and report any suspicious activity, like voter purges or intimidation, to the FBI or state attorneys general. Ultimately, the strongest defense is high participation and collective action—history shows that when voters mobilize, attempts to restrict access often fail. If things escalate, resources like the DOJ's Civil Rights Division can provide enforcement.

The obvious goal with this set of foundation blocks isn't to fix the broken system. It's to provide a structure with enough strength that it cannot be so easily broken and manipulated again. The strength comes from simplicity. Not complexity.

There would still be infighting. There will always be infighting. Human nature doesn't get reformed by better institutional design. But more handshakes and less backstabbing is not a naive hope. It is what happens when you change the incentive structure. Right now the incentive is loyalty to one person. Change the incentive to competence in service of a shared agenda and the culture follows the incentive.

Not reform it. Not balance it. Remove the institutional infrastructure that makes it the only viable option. No party designations on ballots. No party primaries with public funding. No party based committee assignments in Congress. Watch what happens to the PACs when there are no teams to back. Watch what happens to the dark money when the jersey colors disappear. Citizens United becomes considerably less useful when there is no party machinery to funnel the money into.

He will call it insurrection. We will call it Tuesday.

That's it. That's the foundation. Everything else — healthcare, infrastructure, justice, national security, the institutions we depend on daily without noticing — sits on top of that one simple principle. Remove it and nothing else holds. The walls crack. The roof comes down. The building that took two hundred and fifty years to construct becomes a very expensive pile of rubble with gold curtains.

That reality does not erase legitimate differences between left and right. It simply raises a different question: who benefits when citizens become so consumed by fighting one another that they stop paying attention to the people holding the matches?

Sorry Charlie, but you works for us, not the other way around.

Elect moderates. I don't care if they carry a D or an R. Get away from the extremes. Flush MAGA down the toilet. Dump the wokes in a landfill. Look for people who want a functional government — leaders who understand that America is a member of the world community, not its boss. We are powerful enough to guarantee mutual destruction. Why are we too weak to simply get along?

The only way independents and moderates get a checkbox is if we force it into existence. Not by waiting for permission. Not by hoping one of the two parties decides to represent us. By showing up, making noise, and refusing to be invisible any longer.

The President of the United States works for us. He has no reason to fear us — unless we are not on his agenda. Unless what he has been doing was never in the best interest of the Americans he swore to serve. Maybe some reporter should just ask him directly. Why are you so afraid of us? What did you do that makes you need four inches of glass and snipers on the roof between yourself and the people you work for?

"This legislation would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by A.I. are used to improve the lives of all of us — not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer."

If the rule of law applies to ordinary citizens it applies to everyone. Or it applies to no one. Pick one.

The collar changes the problem. A dog that spent its life running wherever it wanted is not suddenly going to become obedient because it found itself at the end of a rope. It's going to pull. Snarl. Snap. Tear up everything within reach. Not because it has changed, but because it hasn't.

When all is said and done the only person who will actually believe his version of history is Trump himself. That's part of the illness.