Greenland Government Formation: On the eve of Vance's visit, Greenland has announced a new unity government that includes all parties except Naleraq. Naleraq is the most aggressively nationalist and most pro-Trump of the political parties. It's not surprising that they weren't willing to play in the sandbox with others. The government will include four parties which are far-left, socialist, classically liberal, and conservative respectively.
I thought there was one more party, the newly established Qulleq, that was even more pro-Trump than Naleraq – but which didn’t win a single seat in Greenland’s recent parliamentary election.
Not in Greenland. The two left-leaning parties collectively lost 11 seats in the 2025 election and now only hold 11 of 31 seats. It's their worst result in the entire history of Greenland's elected parliament, which from its inception in 1979 until now always had a left-wing majority.
Nationalism is complicated in Greenland. Do you mean Danish nationalism or Greenlandic nationalism? The pro-Danish parties did very well in the election, no doubt because the threats from Trump made Greenlandic independence more questionable. But the most stauntly pro-independence party, Naleraq, also did very well. Naleraq officially favours closer ties to the US, but in the context of an independent Greenland. The failure of the left parties may have also been due to socio-economic issues, which were another major topic in the campaign.
The winning party, the Demokraatit, is a traditional liberal party, whose leader will now be the PM. He is the most pro Denmark and anti-Trump of all the leaders in Greenland which is why the party came from almost nowhere to becoming the biggest player. It wasn't left-right; it was anti-Trump.
So the government got shuffled to more pro-status quo because the independence parties couldn't answer what would happen if the US mobilized from Thule to seize Nuuk (with shock and awe with no shots fired) and they didn't have Denmark or NATO to deter such a thing anymore?
Pretty much so. The NATO angle is very convoluted but it pays to stand up to Trump. That should be a lesson to weak-kneed leaders in the US and elsewhere.
Is that what happened in Germany? Weren't the key takeaways that the neo-Nazi AfD had its best ever showing and the classically liberal (=conservative though non-authoritarian) Union toppled the Social Democrats to become the main party in the Bundestag? Yes, Die Linke also gained, but they are pro-Russian far leftists who are successors to the SeD that used to rule East Germany.
Basically, BSW (Wagenknecht's party) did serve as what amounted to the pro-Russia party, though it's officially economically leftist.
That helped Die Linke, as it shed some of the stigma of being the East Germany nostalgist party and gained some more mainstream support from leftists disappointed with the Social Dems/Greens.
Die Linke did well because their pro-Ruasian faction left, allowing them to present a more coherent platform. The pro Russian faction missed the 5% cutoff.
You all are wrong. The major difference between Wagenknecht's party and Die Linke is that Die Linke is the most pro-immigration party in Germany, whereas the Wagenknecht party is demogagically xenophobic. Their pro-Russian policies are identical. Look up their platforms.
Reading into it a little more, I would say that Die Linke has a nuanced (or inconstant) position on Russia, while BSW is unabashedly pro-Ruasian, but you're right that Linke is less anti-Russia than I thought.
Calling for Europe to be in an alliance with Russia and cutting off any support for Ukraine as it fights against a murderous aggressor is pro-Russian. I sincerely hope those are not positions you share, because support for a kleptocracratic imperialist despotism is not at all socialist or genuinely leftist.
It's obviously a great sign that Republicans were worried about such a right leaning district. I wish through they had rolled the dice and left us a shot at it.
Does anyone have thoughts on what any of the current or Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates might offer if being elected Governor?
I'm not taking into account having CA fight back at Trump so much as just running the state, improving its image and making it a more livable and business friendly state. This particularly is important as currently with film production in Hollywood and LA County the costs are too high to allow enough projects.
Kamala Harris I'm seeing as a potential gubernatorial candidate more as a weapon against Trump instead of just being focused like Jerry Brown was as governor pre-Newsom. Katie Porter may pay attention to the income inequality problems facing the state (especially in the big cities and suburbs) and fight against Trump at the same time although I don't know what else.
I honestly was a big Rob Bonta fan until he decided to run for reelection as AG especially because he's the only statewide office holder willing to do more than talk about combating the housing crisis.
The rest of the currently declared field is mediocre from top to bottom. What a shame because we're a state with serious issues that requires an executive in the Jerry Brown mold not whatever Newsom is doing right now.
As Attorney General, Bonta has been vigorously defending housing production laws passed from the legislature and suing recalcitrant local governments like Elk Grove who've done their best to get around state housing laws to deny projects that should be approved under state law.
Cities like Woodside, one of the wealthiest cities in CA, have no excuse in this case. Like they are REALLY going to hurt by building affordable housing that prevent people from being priced out. Kudos for Bonta doing this.
Now if Bonta pushes Democrats to repeal the Costa Hawkins Act and Ellis Act that would really be great.
Rent control doesn't work and never will work. The only solution to the housing crisis is building more housing not disincentivizing landlords. Austin's and Minneapolis's rents didn't fall due to rent control but due to a suburban housing book and urban densification.
It would be cool if Kamala runs on an Abundance agenda platform in California. California is the perfect laboratory for Abundance which will most likely work as it did in Colorado under Polis. Kamala may also be able to overpower the stubborn legislature with her long built political capital, connections and donors (primary NIMBYs like Abbott does to dissidents). If she wants California as a consolation prize then she better stay away. California needs to win the race against Texas imo. Imagine if Hollywood and Silicon Valley had Texas values.
Reporting has it that she is interested in the gubernatorial race and has had "tough" 2028 conversations with her advisors. She will decide by end of summer. Porter has suggested that she will step aside if that happens.
I think the reality is that even if she could win in 2028, it's very likely that a fresh face would perform better than her and be more likely to bring along larger majorities in Congress/majorities at all. California Governor is a top 5 job in American politics, and I think everyone in the party thinks highly enough of her that she could also tack on Secretary of State or Defense or AG afterwards if she wants another spin around the executive branch.
That's what I was thinking as well. I'd rather Kamala Harris be Governor and change the image of California so it's not being looked at as a laughing stock that FL and TX can get benefit from (in an exodus of both businesses and residents). I'd want her to be smarter than what the GOP and Trump think she is and prove them wrong.
You know Florida is not actually even in the top 5 destinations for California emigrants. It's something like Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado and Wash. .
Right although I was just arguing FL and TX figuratively speaking. Anywhere where the cost of living is lower elsewhere by comparison to CA is an incentive to move.
Yes but it’s more than just housing. Cost of doing business factors in as well. Of course, with the LA County fires the State of California is certainly having its hands tied. Costs this, costs that, it all ties up together.
I’d rather Democrats not be singular on this agenda. Let initiatives like AI regulation be done at the federal level while the state level be laser focused on addressing the costs of running a business and housing. Both Main Street businesses and corporations factor in.
California does have to prioritize, but I think that its tradition of being the first to push pro-consumer or environmental regulation is great and a fine thing to maintain.
Business operating expenses are going to have a high correlation with housing expenses. It's not a 100% overlap in the venn diagram but it's rather substantial. The higher housing costs, the higher salaries need to be to attract employees. Higher housing costs also strongly imply that land and construction will be more expensive.
Housing costs are driven up in a good portion because of demand. Then there’s also limited space to build housing as well as other factors such as limitation of single-family housing.
Business operations are completely separate from residential housing. This particularly applies to taxes, some of which btw cities like San Francisco are trying to lower or outright eliminate. If there’s correlation with housing, it’s because of salaries and investment the business owners/CEOs/founders make in the business. Otherwise, no correlation.
Residential businesses on the other hand most certainly have correlation with housing. Naturally, it’s all dependent on the salaries and flexibility residents have in paying for rent.
At this point, I'd prefer Porter just because of how I align with her on the issues. I just wish we had better options in the biggest state in the country but most anyone would be an improvement over Newsom at this point.
Greenland Government Formation: On the eve of Vance's visit, Greenland has announced a new unity government that includes all parties except Naleraq. Naleraq is the most aggressively nationalist and most pro-Trump of the political parties. It's not surprising that they weren't willing to play in the sandbox with others. The government will include four parties which are far-left, socialist, classically liberal, and conservative respectively.
I thought there was one more party, the newly established Qulleq, that was even more pro-Trump than Naleraq – but which didn’t win a single seat in Greenland’s recent parliamentary election.
I was counting parties with representation in parliament. Qulleq received ~1% of the vote.
In Greenland, as in Canada, Germany, and elsewhere, Trump's belligerent imperialism is having the effect of strengthening the left.
Not in Greenland. The two left-leaning parties collectively lost 11 seats in the 2025 election and now only hold 11 of 31 seats. It's their worst result in the entire history of Greenland's elected parliament, which from its inception in 1979 until now always had a left-wing majority.
Does the Greenland coalition at least demonstrate the strengthening of nationalist opposition to Trump's American expansionism?
Nationalism is complicated in Greenland. Do you mean Danish nationalism or Greenlandic nationalism? The pro-Danish parties did very well in the election, no doubt because the threats from Trump made Greenlandic independence more questionable. But the most stauntly pro-independence party, Naleraq, also did very well. Naleraq officially favours closer ties to the US, but in the context of an independent Greenland. The failure of the left parties may have also been due to socio-economic issues, which were another major topic in the campaign.
The winning party, the Demokraatit, is a traditional liberal party, whose leader will now be the PM. He is the most pro Denmark and anti-Trump of all the leaders in Greenland which is why the party came from almost nowhere to becoming the biggest player. It wasn't left-right; it was anti-Trump.
So the government got shuffled to more pro-status quo because the independence parties couldn't answer what would happen if the US mobilized from Thule to seize Nuuk (with shock and awe with no shots fired) and they didn't have Denmark or NATO to deter such a thing anymore?
Pretty much so. The NATO angle is very convoluted but it pays to stand up to Trump. That should be a lesson to weak-kneed leaders in the US and elsewhere.
Is that what happened in Germany? Weren't the key takeaways that the neo-Nazi AfD had its best ever showing and the classically liberal (=conservative though non-authoritarian) Union toppled the Social Democrats to become the main party in the Bundestag? Yes, Die Linke also gained, but they are pro-Russian far leftists who are successors to the SeD that used to rule East Germany.
Is Die Linke still pro-Russia? I thought Sahra Wagenknecht took most of the pro-Russia faction of the party with her when she left?
Yeah, didn't the pro-Russian outcasts form their own party (which narrowly fell short of the threshold)?
Basically, BSW (Wagenknecht's party) did serve as what amounted to the pro-Russia party, though it's officially economically leftist.
That helped Die Linke, as it shed some of the stigma of being the East Germany nostalgist party and gained some more mainstream support from leftists disappointed with the Social Dems/Greens.
Die Linke did well because their pro-Ruasian faction left, allowing them to present a more coherent platform. The pro Russian faction missed the 5% cutoff.
You all are wrong. The major difference between Wagenknecht's party and Die Linke is that Die Linke is the most pro-immigration party in Germany, whereas the Wagenknecht party is demogagically xenophobic. Their pro-Russian policies are identical. Look up their platforms.
Reading into it a little more, I would say that Die Linke has a nuanced (or inconstant) position on Russia, while BSW is unabashedly pro-Ruasian, but you're right that Linke is less anti-Russia than I thought.
Anti-Russia? They want a European alliance that includes Russia! And they would of course cut off support for Ukraine.
BSW also is more conservative on some social issues. Calling for a peaceful resolution with Russia doesn’t necessarily make them “pro-Russian.”
Calling for Europe to be in an alliance with Russia and cutting off any support for Ukraine as it fights against a murderous aggressor is pro-Russian. I sincerely hope those are not positions you share, because support for a kleptocracratic imperialist despotism is not at all socialist or genuinely leftist.
It's obviously a great sign that Republicans were worried about such a right leaning district. I wish through they had rolled the dice and left us a shot at it.
It's actually kind of worth it to me to have the ruthlessly craven Stefanik so publicly humiliated.
^^^This!
Though a nasty three-way special election would have been fun, too. There's precedent for that in this very district! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York%27s_23rd_congressional_district_special_election
Glad Pappas is jumping into the Senate race, I think he'd make a strong candidate and great senator.
CA-GOV:
Does anyone have thoughts on what any of the current or Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates might offer if being elected Governor?
I'm not taking into account having CA fight back at Trump so much as just running the state, improving its image and making it a more livable and business friendly state. This particularly is important as currently with film production in Hollywood and LA County the costs are too high to allow enough projects.
Kamala Harris I'm seeing as a potential gubernatorial candidate more as a weapon against Trump instead of just being focused like Jerry Brown was as governor pre-Newsom. Katie Porter may pay attention to the income inequality problems facing the state (especially in the big cities and suburbs) and fight against Trump at the same time although I don't know what else.
I honestly was a big Rob Bonta fan until he decided to run for reelection as AG especially because he's the only statewide office holder willing to do more than talk about combating the housing crisis.
The rest of the currently declared field is mediocre from top to bottom. What a shame because we're a state with serious issues that requires an executive in the Jerry Brown mold not whatever Newsom is doing right now.
I read this as a sign that Kamala told him she's running.
What in particular makes Rob Bonta stand out on the issue of housing? I'm not familiar with his time at the State Assembly.
As Attorney General, Bonta has been vigorously defending housing production laws passed from the legislature and suing recalcitrant local governments like Elk Grove who've done their best to get around state housing laws to deny projects that should be approved under state law.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/california-housing-rules-17188267.php
Cities like Woodside, one of the wealthiest cities in CA, have no excuse in this case. Like they are REALLY going to hurt by building affordable housing that prevent people from being priced out. Kudos for Bonta doing this.
Now if Bonta pushes Democrats to repeal the Costa Hawkins Act and Ellis Act that would really be great.
Rent control doesn't work and never will work. The only solution to the housing crisis is building more housing not disincentivizing landlords. Austin's and Minneapolis's rents didn't fall due to rent control but due to a suburban housing book and urban densification.
It would be cool if Kamala runs on an Abundance agenda platform in California. California is the perfect laboratory for Abundance which will most likely work as it did in Colorado under Polis. Kamala may also be able to overpower the stubborn legislature with her long built political capital, connections and donors (primary NIMBYs like Abbott does to dissidents). If she wants California as a consolation prize then she better stay away. California needs to win the race against Texas imo. Imagine if Hollywood and Silicon Valley had Texas values.
Is she running? If she plans another presidential campaign I doubt she runs for governor. I'm guessing Katie porter knows it.
Reporting has it that she is interested in the gubernatorial race and has had "tough" 2028 conversations with her advisors. She will decide by end of summer. Porter has suggested that she will step aside if that happens.
I think the reality is that even if she could win in 2028, it's very likely that a fresh face would perform better than her and be more likely to bring along larger majorities in Congress/majorities at all. California Governor is a top 5 job in American politics, and I think everyone in the party thinks highly enough of her that she could also tack on Secretary of State or Defense or AG afterwards if she wants another spin around the executive branch.
hearing from a lot of OC California Dems who voted for KH that most of them would prefer her as Governor and not run for Prez....fwiw.
That's what I was thinking as well. I'd rather Kamala Harris be Governor and change the image of California so it's not being looked at as a laughing stock that FL and TX can get benefit from (in an exodus of both businesses and residents). I'd want her to be smarter than what the GOP and Trump think she is and prove them wrong.
You know Florida is not actually even in the top 5 destinations for California emigrants. It's something like Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado and Wash. .
Right although I was just arguing FL and TX figuratively speaking. Anywhere where the cost of living is lower elsewhere by comparison to CA is an incentive to move.
You hit on the most urgent problem California needs to tackle: the housing crisis. That and the ravages of global warming, especially fires.
Yes but it’s more than just housing. Cost of doing business factors in as well. Of course, with the LA County fires the State of California is certainly having its hands tied. Costs this, costs that, it all ties up together.
I’d rather Democrats not be singular on this agenda. Let initiatives like AI regulation be done at the federal level while the state level be laser focused on addressing the costs of running a business and housing. Both Main Street businesses and corporations factor in.
California does have to prioritize, but I think that its tradition of being the first to push pro-consumer or environmental regulation is great and a fine thing to maintain.
The good regulations need to be kept and the bad need to be repealed.
That's always the case everywhere, right? The debates will be about which regulations are good or bad.
Sure. I agree.
Business operating expenses are going to have a high correlation with housing expenses. It's not a 100% overlap in the venn diagram but it's rather substantial. The higher housing costs, the higher salaries need to be to attract employees. Higher housing costs also strongly imply that land and construction will be more expensive.
It all loops back to housing costs.
It also has a huge effect on rents, which can be a tremendous business expense!
Not always.
Housing costs are driven up in a good portion because of demand. Then there’s also limited space to build housing as well as other factors such as limitation of single-family housing.
Business operations are completely separate from residential housing. This particularly applies to taxes, some of which btw cities like San Francisco are trying to lower or outright eliminate. If there’s correlation with housing, it’s because of salaries and investment the business owners/CEOs/founders make in the business. Otherwise, no correlation.
Residential businesses on the other hand most certainly have correlation with housing. Naturally, it’s all dependent on the salaries and flexibility residents have in paying for rent.
At this point, I'd prefer Porter just because of how I align with her on the issues. I just wish we had better options in the biggest state in the country but most anyone would be an improvement over Newsom at this point.
I agree. Newsom's replacement needs to be a definitive upgrade and that's Porter or Harris for me!! 💙🇺🇲