Regression To The Mean: A Joe Walsh Adventure

This week saw former loudmouth Tea Party Republican ... turned shoutycracker MAGA Republican ... turned disgruntled Republican ... turned Independent ... turned Democrat, Joe Walsh bidding farewell to the Democratic Party.  

He did have a few nice things to say about us dirty fucking hippies first:

Over the course of the past year and a half, Democrats increasingly began to finally get it. They began to finally realize the fascist threat that Trump is, the No Kings resistance to Trump grew and grew, and an awesome array of new Democratic candidates for the House and Senate entered the fray and took the fight directly to Trump and Republicans.

In other words, Democrats (the voters, the grassroots, all these new candidates, and plenty of current officeholders, not the party establishment and not party leadership) finally got what we were all up against. They finally rolled up their sleeves and fought, finally met this uniquely horrible moment in our country’s history, and six days ago they/we produced the most sweeping midterm victory in modern American history. It delivered huge Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, as well as governors’ mansions and state legislatures across the country.

Democrats FOUGHT, Trump was repudiated and defeated, and the country turned blue.

A humongous first step in preserving freedom, democracy, the rule of law, the Constitution, pluralism, and basic human decency.

He even had a few harsh words for many of his fellow Never Trumpers: 

I think many former Republicans/NeverTrumpers have gotten presumptuous over these past few years and begun to think that they can tell Democrats what to be. Some tried to run for office as Democrats, and many tell Democrats where they should stand on policy. I just think that’s all wrong. As a NeverTrumper, my only job at this moment in history was to help Democrats win, so that MAGA would be defeated.  

But now Joe Walsh is  ... all together now! .. an Independent!  

And so, as of today, I’m officially leaving the Democratic Party and am back to being an Independent, which is probably what I’ll be for the rest of my days. 

Which is fine.  No problem.  Whatever political pronouns you wanna use in the privacy of your own home is no business of mine.  But then comes this...

In truth, it’s what most Americans are.

And brace yourselves, because you're about to get a whole raft of Both Sides Do It bullshit from a former Tea Party Republican turned MAGA Republican, turned disgruntled Republican, turned Independent, turned Democrat who spent the last couple of years emphatically pounding any podium that would take him, and insisting that Both Sides are not the same.

Ready?

Hopefully Democrats won’t race to their far left. If they do, they’ll blow this opportunity. What I do know is that the vast majority of Americans are neither MAGA nor far left. The vast majority of Americans are decent and tolerant, believe in opportunity and individual freedom, don’t want government running their businesses or their personal lives, and just want to get shit done.

I will continue to speak to this “vast majority of Americans,” now as an Independent. Again. 

See, Walsh is perfectly happy to applaud Democrats for doing the hard work of saving democracy. He just doesn't want us to get any ideas about what to do with the power they won. 

And then there's this:

I’m now an Independent. Once again.

Same voice, same passion, same beliefs. I still believe America needs another political party. I always have. I hope that happens one day.

What I do know is this: there’s a rapidly growing movement of people in this country who are sick and tired of our broken political system. They’re calling out for major political reform. They’ve had it up to here with our way too big/non-responsive government. They’re sick of our two-party duopoly. They want to advance freedom and free markets, they love capitalism, and they believe America must always secure its borders but also must always, with open arms, welcome more and more immigrants. They believe it’s criminal that we’re $41 trillion in debt, and they’re sick and tired of the two sides constantly at each other’s throats, fighting with each other and not working with each other to get shit done.

I intend to continue to be a part of that movement.

I honestly don't care what Joe Walsh calls himself today or tomorrow or next week, but spotlight-hungry critters like him can be valuable coalmine canaries when looked at with the same legitimate skepticism that some us looked at those newly minted Conservative Never Trumpers back in 2016.  And for very much the same reason: Which way will they jump when the prevailing wind shifts? 

Remember Mark Levin? Glenn Beck? Erick Erickson? Fucking JD Vance?

Every one of them a staunch, principled Never Trumper until money and career opportunities on Team Evil go too juicy.  Then, to quote Groucho Marx, “Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." 

Now that Republicans have been shoved back hard everywhere and Trump appears to have been measurably weakened, we're seeing all sorts of cultural and political regressions to their various default settings.  Especially the slow-moving avalanche among various Republicans to rebrand themselves as Independents.  

Which is why, sometime in the next 3 to 6 months, I can confidently predict that an enormous amount of money will once again be poured into various Third Party scams.  And that, since form follows function, they will be using the same "Both Sides Do It / Corrupt Duopoly/ Sensible Centrist" language that every Third Party scam has used for the past 60 years.  

I can also predict with a high level of confidence that in 6 to 12 months, even more money and Conservative media coverage will be spent trying to rebrand the base of the Republican Party.  

Or rather re-re-re-branding them.  

Different name.  

Different hats.  

Same bigots and imbeciles.  

No Half Measures

Professional Left Podcast Episode 1036: What's Next?

"D-Day isn't VE-Day"  -- driftglass

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Professional Left Podcast Episode 1035: Gradually, Then Suddenly

"No war is over until the enemy says it's over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote."  -- General James Mattis.

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A Few Good Memes

   

No Half Measures

Quite a Night

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -- Winston Churchill, November 10, 1942, during a speech at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon at the Mansion House in London.

Burn the Lifeboats

Never Trust a Never Trumper, Part Whatever.

How it started.

How it's going.

“I woke up this morning and I decided to go to church, and I'm here with the person who I am voting for the United States Senate.” Haley Stevens Does Haley always go to a Black church because if not, this was using a Black church as a prop to boost a man who will work against the Black community.

[image or embed]

— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) November 1, 2026 at 1:42 PM

Don't panic, kids, you won't have to hold a bake sale to save The Bulwark from penury, and they won't lose any of their 1.8 million subscribers.  

At this point, they're so deeply wired into legacy media infrastructure that they're basically a division of MSNOW, so no worries.  Although after shitting the bed this hard, it might be time for another visit to the Republican Reputation Laundromat for a touch-up.

Just Another Progressive Baby

100 Years Ago Today

Then came the decade of Halloween seances, which ended on October 31, 1936.

 

From about the ages of 10 to 13, I was a huge Houdini nerd.  All these decades later, I still love well-crafted magic, but with Houdini I was a genuine fanboy.  

I liked the 1953 Tony Curtis/Janet Leigh biopic, Houdini (even though, as I later learned, it took considerable liberties with the facts), but my bible was The Great Houdini: Magician Extraordinary by Beryl Williams and Samuel Epstein.  I practically read the cover off of that thing, which was either ordered by me, probably through the Junior Scholastic program at school, or, since Mom was a teacher and Dad was a principal, it might have come to me as part of the extra books a classroom or a school could score if they ordered more than a certain number of books.  

Yes, I was not above using my educator nepo-baby status to get what I wanted, which was more books!

Sure, the school library had hundreds of books, and the local public library had what seemed like a million books (some of which were kept away from prepubescent prying eyes in the temptingly off-limits "Adult Section").  But those weren't my books.  

My books came a few weeks after I went through the agonizing process of whittling my Junior Scholastic wish list down to the number my parents would permit me to order. Why, Lord!  Why show me all these glorious treasures, then force me to pick out only a few!  And yet, somehow, after much cruel bargaining with myself, I would manage to check the tiny boxes next to my choices on the flimsy, newsprint form, get the appropriate parental signatures, and turn it in.

Then the waiting began.  

For me, time slowed to the point where I felt like I was approaching the speed of light.  And then, one day, after all hope in me had died, the boxes came.  Just like that.  

Then, the teacher opened the boxes. 

I'd like to say we book nerds descended on them like marabunta on a caribou carcass, stripping it to the bone, but it was actually a fairly orderly, jubilant affair. We'd compare our hauls, and there were always a few books that we'd somehow forgotten that we'd ordered (how is that even possible!), but there they were. Like finding a five-dollar bill in the dryer.  Sure, it was yours anyway, but still.  

All these decades later, I still love books, and own more than I will ever be able to read in my "to-be-read" pile.  Every now and then, when putting together boxes to donate to the library, I'll pull one from a back shelf that I'd completely forgotten that I owned.  Isn't that wild?  

There's something a little ironic about that: these days, such rediscoveries happen while I'm boxing up my books for others to enjoy, rather than unboxing them fresh from the Junior Scholastic warehouse, and that such moments bring on memories rather than anticipation.  

I still love books, and there is still something special about my books.  Books I can label as mine, and in which I can make all the marginal notes I want without risking the wrath of the librarian.

But the truth is, nothing will ever match the sheer bibliophilic ardor of opening a box and finding a fresh copy of While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, the latest Encyclopedia Brown, or The Great Houdini: Magician Extraordinary.

“Outside of a Dog, a Book Is Man’s Best Friend. Inside of a Dog, It’s Too Dark to Read.”  -- Groucho Marx

The 2028 Presidential Race Has Already Begun

Never gonna happen, but I would pay real money to watch these two barnstorming the country, answering every question from every pundit -- every Tom, Dick and Peter Baker -- with, "We fucking told you so."

Bumper stickers, posters, tee-shirts, buttons, ringtones, jingles, commercials with adorable pets or a kick-line cast of hundreds, all with the same message in the same five simple words.

I Am The Liberal Media