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Put up or shut up

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That is probably the golden rule of politics.

I am not worried about Donald Trump being re-elected with his anti-Democratic tendencies. He’s a politician and he either will deliver results to his constituencies or quickly become irrelevant.

Part of the reason why Donald Trump is doing so well politically currently is his first term was quite successful in the eyes of conservatives. Behind all the noise, he succeeded in delivering tax relief, and a Supreme Court that is reworking America in a more conservative image especially on social issues like guns and abortion. The conservative rights revolution seems to be well underway.

A self pardon of Donald Trump is likely to be wildly unpopular. Likewise using the government’s prosecuting powers under law to go after political enemies is likely to lead to significant drop in the president’s support. But on the other hand, bringing the justice department to heel and focusing them on conservative priorities is likely to score him points both with the Republican base and his fellow conservative legislators. Using unconventional methods may be unpopular with Democrats but in recent years executive power has been expanding as politics has become more contentious. But the moment that Trump stops delivering for the nation and particular his base, he’s likely to fall out of power.

Using the levers of power isn’t anti-democratic. It is effective. Levers of power aren’t limited to only one party or ideology. If Trump discovers a new lever of power, then the next Democratic candidate to be elected into the White House is also likely to use it too. Or it’s possible that if the public, especially those in the opposing party will find the power grab to be so morally repugnant that they remove that power from the executive by passing new laws reining in the President.

Don’t like Trump? I don’t like him much either. So don’t vote for him. And know he will be gone in four years, and you’ll have yet another candidate better to your liking in the White House. Or Congress in two years.

2023 Representation in NY

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I had never seen this before, contrasting the different layers of government and which party the elected officials are in, so I thought I would make this map up.

2023 Representation in NY

California may require homeowners to replace broken A/C units with heat pumps starting in 2026

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California may require homeowners to replace broken A/C units with heat pumps starting in 2026

California may require homeowners to replace their broken air conditioning units with heat pumps or more efficient HVAC systems beginning in 2026, draft rules released last month by state energy regulators show. Encouraging the adoption of heat pumps, which both cool and heat homes using electricity, is key to the state’s carbon neutrality goals. The California Energy Commission aims to quadruple the number of homes with heat pumps to 6 million by 2030. If the 600-page draft code is approved next year, California would be the first state to require broken A/C units be replaced with heat pumps or more efficient systems. Environmental groups are encouraged, saying the regulation would cut emissions and save homeowners money.

Percent of Bernie Sanders Vote, 2022 Assembly Districts

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I have been experimenting with using R to calculate ADP and socialist votes for various political districts. After doing some reading up, it turns out the fastest and easier way to calculate such things is to use VTD centroids and spatially join them against the new districts.

With R, it turns out that can be done with like 10 lines of code to make some pretty nice maps and data, although I did the final map layout in QGIS. Overall, with the enacted Assembly districts, 1/3rd of them voted for Bernie Sanders, mostly upstate. This code took less then 10 seconds to run on my old laptop.

library(tidyverse)
library(tigris)
library(sf)

vt20 <- read_csv('2020vote_vtd.csv')
vt20$GEOID <- as.character(vt20$GEOID)

vtd <- voting_districts('ny', cb=T) %>%
inner_join(vt20, by=c('GEOID20'='GEOID')) %>%
st_transform('epsg:3857')

a22 <- read_sf('/home/andy/Documents/GIS.Data/2022 Districts/NY Assembly 2022.gpkg') %>% st_transform('epsg:3857')

join <- vtd %>% st_centroid() %>%
st_join(a22)

join %>% st_drop_geometry() %>%
group_by(DISTRICT) %>%
summarise(socialist = (sum(SANDERS)/sum(SANDERS,CLINTON))*100) %>%
inner_join(a22, by=c('DISTRICT')) %>%
write_sf('/tmp/socialassm.gpkg')

2022 AD Sanders Vote
1 42.8
2 47.1
3 50.4
4 47.5
5 53.1
6 37.6
7 50.2
8 46.2
9 48.6
10 37.5
11 39.2
12 44.7
13 37.6
14 42.1
15 38.4
16 32.0
17 45.7
18 28.6
19 44.9
20 39.0
21 38.3
22 35.4
23 41.9
24 35.2
25 41.8
26 40.6
27 41.0
28 43.5
29 25.9
30 47.1
31 27.6
32 25.7
33 28.7
34 47.1
35 32.3
36 49.5
37 50.1
38 45.3
39 41.3
40 38.6
41 37.3
42 35.6
43 35.6
44 45.9
45 47.6
46 48.0
47 51.9
48 40.7
49 51.9
50 57.1
51 48.5
52 37.7
53 50.3
54 37.3
55 30.4
56 42.4
57 44.5
58 22.3
59 32.9
60 27.0
61 39.2
62 53.6
63 46.0
64 52.4
65 40.9
66 35.7
67 27.1
68 35.9
69 33.6
70 38.4
71 39.4
72 35.7
73 23.4
74 37.6
75 31.9
76 28.8
77 26.7
78 32.3
79 28.6
80 35.4
81 37.0
82 34.0
83 23.0
84 30.5
85 27.8
86 26.8
87 31.3
88 28.9
89 30.0
90 36.5
91 31.0
92 33.2
93 32.2
94 45.7
95 40.6
96 40.7
97 36.0
98 47.1
99 49.6
100 49.3
101 56.0
102 60.2
103 62.3
104 47.9
105 50.3
106 52.8
107 55.5
108 55.9
109 52.6
110 49.1
111 55.2
112 54.0
113 57.9
114 64.0
115 71.4
116 54.2
117 58.4
118 58.1
119 51.9
120 55.7
121 58.2
122 56.9
123 57.3
124 53.8
125 61.8
126 48.9
127 46.6
128 42.5
129 50.8
130 52.9
131 52.5
132 57.2
133 57.4
134 50.1
135 46.0
136 47.9
137 40.2
138 53.8
139 55.2
140 53.6
141 33.6
142 54.7
143 50.4
144 55.1
145 51.3
146 46.5
147 58.3
148 58.2
149 54.2
150 53.5

Percent of Bernie Sanders Vote, 2022 Assembly Districts