Big J retweeted
I see many South Africans asking why smart, articulate, educated and capable young people with private-sector or civil-society experience are not going into politics.
The answer is simpler than you think.
1. The moment you take on a real political role, you are designated domestically as a “politically exposed person” under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act.
Schedule 3A covers party leaders, ministers, premiers, executive mayors and a long list of senior positions.
Banks then have to dig into your source of wealth, get senior approval to keep dealing with you and monitor you more closely.
For someone used to working for your money and living a normal financial life, that extra layer of scrutiny is a real deterrent.
Simply put, the system is unintentionally manufacturing the current list of options for voters.
2. Party funding is extremely concentrated. A handful of big donors and public money tied to existing seats dominate the system.
Michiel le Roux’s Fynbos entities have poured hundreds of millions into the DA over the years, sometimes accounting for nearly half of its declared donations in a quarter.
The Oppenheimers have been major funders of several opposition parties.
For its part, the ruling party has relied heavily on party-linked trusts, individuals and investment vehicles. The problems caused by their running out of funds are well known and long-standing.
My point is this: if you're a new or outsider voice, you'll struggle to compete with those longstanding relationships and established political networks.
3. On top of that, the personal trade-offs are steep. Corporate salaries and career mobility usually beat political pay.
4. Party structures reward loyalty over pure competence.
Never mind the risk of being pulled into scandals, the unending and unforgiving public scrutiny, and the limited room to actually change things; it makes politics a bad deal for anybody with real options.
So, capable people aren’t staying out because they don’t care.
Many are staying out because the incentives, rules and structures make it a low-return, high-risk choice compared with the private sector.
Big J retweeted
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
Big J retweeted
MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR
Almost every demo I’ve seen has some amount of mis-touches and slight fumbles because at the end of the day this is still a computer designed to be used with a keyboard and a trackpad/mouse, but… there’s no denying it’s responsive and smooth as hell
Pro tip: the nanotexture version is way softer/smoother to the touch than the glossy, which drags a bit under your finger. Both do a surprisingly good job hiding fingerprints
You know what the most underrated difference to me is? The lighter weight. I swear. The 16-inch weighs almost a pound less than the non-touch version. Very into that
Full video impressions coming soon
