The buzzword of the 2026 elections: affordability.What does that mean?

Zohran Mamdani's winning election campaign for New York City mayor's contribution to the 2026 elections is the word: affordability. It is one of those words that can be such an umbrella term, it can mean much to so many that even if it could be defined, it falls into a category of "I can't tell you, but when I see or feel it, I know what it is".  It is sort of like the judge trying to define what obscenity means. In 1964 Judge Potter Stewart wrote an opinion in a Supreme Court case that has become famous in defining a vague term like hard-core obscenity: He famously wrote: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."  Affordability is like that: hard to define, but a voter knows when he/she sees it.

There has been some polling to try to understand what a word like affordability means. One was just published, but the final conclusion was what it meant to most polled concerning specific costs that worried them the most.. Per a New  York Times analysis of an indepth poll (Cross-Tabs: January 2026 Times/Siena National Poll  of Registered Voters - The New York Times): "When we asked voters what they were most worried about affording, they usually didn’t mention the costs of goods that surged in the wake of the pandemic, like gas, cars and food. Instead, they mentioned major expenses like housing, retirement and health care."  The Tilt - The New York Times,  in a column written by Nate Cohn and published January 28, 2026.

If the Trump regime tries destroy Colorado's vote integrity in 2026 a buzz saw awaits

Update 1/29/2026: Trump's obsession with the 2020 elections, an attempt to prove it was stolen 6 years later, and his FBI raid on the Fulton County, Georgia, voting records could be attributed to an out-of-control personality quirk of an egomaniac who never admits a loss, or worse. Trump looks like he has an obsession with rewriting history to fit a false narrative and to justify anti democratic power grabs.. In recent history, communists and fascists, from Hitler to Mao, have used this propaganda tactic.

What is most scary about this is that there is a concerted drive to undermine fair and free elections more easily by putting voter records kept separately by 50 states per the Constitutiion into the hands a federal control and to set up the acceptance of a FBI loyal only to the president to undertake such similar actions to do so in the future, including November 2026 and 2028. Political scientist Jason Stanley warned about this in his recent book.Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future: Stanley, Jason: 9781668056912: Amazon.com: Books

FBI searches Atlanta election office, chasing Trump 2020 vote fraud claims | Reuters

Continuing with original post:

The Trump regime is threatening to hurt Colorado voter integrity in November.  The Colorado Secretary of State is ready protect our vote from the Trump attempt to federalize voter counts and elections in direct contradiction to the Constitution. Expect Trump et al will try to keep Colorado's vote from being counted, as well as any blue states,  throwing the results of who gets the majority in Congress into chaos and dispute. They will meet a buzz saw if they try such tricks on Colorado. Colorado has a plan and backup plans. 

Threat of force won’t change Colorado secretary of state’s mind on voter rolls, mail-in ballots 

Trump's false pretense of such dirty tricks is still: the 2020 election was stolen because all of those illegals voted and mail-in votes are all a fraud, their propagandists and a delusional Trump claim.. In over 6 years, such attempts to prove these claims have failed. They think if they can get voters' personal information, they can prove their pretext, the Constitution provisions delegating elections to states be hanged. The DOJ has requested Colorado’s voter rolls, including driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, and is attempting to change the post office delivery terms of mail-in ballots to be counted by local officials.  There may be hope as a federal judge blocked the DOJ request for Oregon 1/27/26. Federal judge blocks Trump DOJ access to Oregon voter rolls

  This Trumpian scheme smells like a pretext to keep the House in GOP hands by throwing the 2026 midterms into chaos.  In the longterm, it is also a way to put the control of elections in the hands of the federal government over vote outcomes, voter participation, and election results.  If Trump and his administration can't win one way (the predictions are he will lose control of the House), they will find another way, and this one is ugly.  It will mean the end of fair and free elections that we can trust.

"Don't believe your eyes ", a pattern of Trump's spin doctors that needs exposing..

We have seen enough of the spins and lies lately to see what Trump's spin doctors are trying to do: to get voters not to believe their very eyes. There is a pattern here. There have been so many events late, it it is  a pattern of behavior, not just a one-off event. If the pattern is revealed as what it is, the result is that the credibility of even future attempts by the Trump administration to spin bad news by pulling their colored glasses over the eyes of voters will be damaged.  The Trump spinners are finding their techniques of "don't believe your eyes" much less effective than in the past, and their opponents have the advantage in this age of everyone having a camera in their cell phones. Videos from multiple angles are readily available. The more the better.

  Here are the danger signs that your mind is being twisted to swallow the spin.  Immediately, within minutes, without any attempt to investigate first, the spin is out: the agent was always acting in self-defense in the shooting, followed by refusing to let independent agencies or multiple agencies do an investigation. The spin doctors depend on the suppression of evidence to the contrary. They are afraid their cover-up would be exposed, and this itself is a suspicion that they are engaged in a cover-up. Next, if the selected video is shown and edited to support their spin, know that given the same opportunity exists for everyone else in the world to see something quite different, and then give the world the opportunity with eye-opening multi-video opportunities in every media opportunity possible. Third, as the event gets less and less coverage, the propagandists will try to revise history by those whose memories have dimmed. Keep the videos to the contrary shown every time the spin is attempted in the future and never let up doing it whenever the opportunity presents itself. The pattern itself is damning.

Some opportunities to show the pattern of behavior of lies and spins using  the "don't believe your very eyes"attempts and put events in context of behavior:

On January 6,the spin: The Trump banner-waving rioters were looky-loos tourists who were not called to be violent that day by the president himself (Jack Smith's detailed findings are to the contrary and demand release of his report. Call it a cover up diverted with personal attacks on Smith). The propagandist response is to bury and rewrite history in words that contradict what we saw with our very eyes or videos of the violence that the stormers of the Capitol committed. In the shooting of Renee Good, show the wheels and back-up lights as she moved away from the threatening ICE agents, and the bullets that riddled her side of the car that killed her is from an agent on the drivers side, not standing in front of it.  An agent claiming that she tried to run him down has a hard time showing why he shot her from the side of the car.. In the case of the killing of  Alex Pretti, focus on the cell phone in his hands, some 9mm pistol. Show he was pinned to the ground on all fours with no gun in his hand. His legally concealed gun was removed from him, but after that, he was shot multiple times by the agent/killer after he was subdued and the weapon was removed..Timeline: How the Shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti Unfolded - The New York Times And do it all over again and again and again as a way to demonstrate a pattern of behavior and destroy the credibility of the Trump spinners.

Sidenote: Some takeaways from the Alex Pretti killing that serve as a warning to protesters: 1) leave your legal conceal and carry weapon at home; you too could be called a domestic terrorist armed and dangerous with an evidenced plan to kill ICE agents 2) wear a covid mask; you are on ICE agents cell phone cameras for future prosecutiion as domestic terrorist. Filming ICE is legal but exposes you to digital tracking – here’s how to minimize the risk 

Gen. Mark Hertling, former commander of US troops in Europe, called out ICE for being an uncontrolled militia. He did this morning, 1/26/2026 on Morning Joe. 'ICE is playing soldier but without the discipline:' Ret. general | Watch

 Hertling and other analysts. In the past heand others have used the term like a "violent militia" or "occupying army". This includes accusations of using excessive force, such as the shooting of a civilian in Minneapolis, which contradicts official reports (per a search on Google AI). 

The profound implications of Davos: a stronger Europe and a weaker US

 An impression of the Davos conclave: a stronger Europe; a weaker US..It was more than just embarrassing as Trump in his usual off-script oratory, went off on his stolen election results in 2020, ended 8 wars, so he deserved the Nobel prize, got Greenland confused with Iceland, and insulted any number of European countries. World leaders at Davos vacillated between treating Trump like a dangerous, deranged egomaniac who declares his thoughts for the day as his policies or they flattered his ego, or began to show a backbone and call his bluff, bunders, and verbal blasts as something to take seriously, or acted like the adults in the room using careful diplomatic speak to mask their own feelings. Post Trump's on-stage act, CNN's interviews with European leaders was telling and a contrast with how real international leaders should speak.. This from the British Mirror is even more telling:Donald Trump's strongman act collapses - but now he's confirmed the world's worst fears     The most indepth and influential analysis came from Der Spiegel in Germany. Donald, that's enough! - DER SPIEGEL - The German View   The Germans have him figured out.  The opening sentence of the Der Spiegel substack reflected the disgust and failure of the European leaders to appease and flatter him: "One of the most reliable constants of Donald Trump's secpnd term is that he responds to weakness with brutality." and the closing paragraph on expecting more threats, though Trump folded in Greenland annexation for now was: "On Wednesday afternoon at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he (Trump) would b very grateful if the Europeans handed over Greenland voluntarily. 'If you say no, we will remember'. That is not how a president speaks. That is how a mafia boss speaks."    

The implications of this are profound for now and the future. Above all, Trump seems to have accomplished two things: get Europe and Canada unified to be independent of US support, and the US has lost control of influencing Europeans to agree to his priorities. He has lost any trust in words or policy pronouncements as his whims soar with his midnight rants on

Truth Social. What's next for U.S.-Canada relations after Mark Carney's pointed speech at Davos? : NPR

So what does it mean for those in the US? It means those whose businesses are dependent on trans atlantic trade are now ugly Americans abroad and are toxic as business partners. How this influences prices of everyday expenses like housing, construction, and groceries, subject to the insane tariff policies, is just being felt. What is noticeable when Trump makes his threats and divorces himself from our allies is that the stock market takes a dive. It may cause the bond market to collapse as foreign investors seek more friendly countries. Even Canada is seeking greater ties with China. It may also affect the oligarchs and uber wealthy bottom lines as the dollar dives. It means if Trump wants help with any of his own treasured delusional policies, Europe is likely to give him a one-finger salute.

There is one upside: Europe has realized it has to take care of itself and not depend on the military umbrella of the US to give it a national defense shelter. Their priorities begin to differ from ours, and NATO is now weak and damaged goods, since mutual defense is now in question.

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One winner from Davos is Putin, who loves to see NATO destroyed and the US not coming to the defense of Ukraine. clearing his way to an invasion of Poland, step two in Putin's goal to return Eastern Europe to the days of the USSR glory. It is like 1939 all over again. ..except now the US is also an aggressor, and our president is still seeing Putin as a desirable anti-democracy peer and colleague.

1 23 2026 From the US: The right-wing press shows that their writers didn't get the story of what was going on in the background at Davos, either, and just repeated old and worn talking points... and instead based their analysis on superficial public pronouncements. There was a profound realization by the European attendees, and they are now more unified than ever in the face of Trump's insults and unprofessional nastiness. In one German's words in its most influential publication, Der Spiegel,, Trump responds with brutality against anyone who tries to appease and flatter him because, in so many words, it shows weakness and vulnerability.

The behind-the-scenes comments were the real story: Yes, Europe gets it. They have to be on their own, can no longer trust the US as a partner and dependable defense umbrella. Where the right wing Washington Examiner misses it, the US also lost the ability to blackmail, bully, and shape Europe's foreign policy to suit Trump's whims. Trump had to back off his threats on Greenland and, boy, did he lose face and have his bluff called. Behind the scenes, some Europeans called his remarks sounding like a mafia boss when he hinted "he will not forget", an implied threat that he would take revenge some day.. The damage to NATO is de facto, if not formal...as the mutual defense treaty is undermined by Trump's instability and TACO comments. Davos shows that Europe still doesn’t get it per the Washington Examiner. The truth is, the Washington Examiner doesn't get it.