Sometimes you feel like a nut…

It’s your standard superweapon problem. Why put all the money and resources into a single massive weapon that can be destroyed when you could instead make a lot of smaller, more practical stuff for the same price? We don’t make battleship sized tanks, and not just because of the physics problems they’d have trying to move on land. Hell, we don’t make giant battleships for the sea any more either, and that’s the one place where there isn’t a physics problem.

What advantage is there to using a giant robot? What does it do that’s more effective than existing vehicles, drones, weapon platforms etc? Sure, it can walk over terrain that might be hard for some ground vehicles, but we already have shit that can fly. It could have multiple weapons to choose between if it uses them by hand, but we are still paying for those and could instead mount them on cheaper platforms and use them all at once. Other than style points, the only thing I can think of is the utility that comes from having giant hands to pick stuff up. Being a heavily armed combat crane is probably not worth the investment.

Setting the agenda: Trump can veto any legislation they pass, but that will almost certainly backfire on Republicans if the Democrats pass bills that will be popular with the people. With enough pressure, Trump may let some things through or some Republicans may join Democrats to overturn a veto. A recent example would be the Epstein Files Transparency Act which managed to get through because the political cost of opposing it became clear to Republicans. Plus, the government needs funding so if Trump vetoes the funding the government shuts down, which will definitely hurt Republicans.

Investigations: This is the thing most people are talking about and it is a very big deal. They can issue subpoenas, compel testimony, and drag all the shady shit into the light of day. And even if Trump pardons people the evidence uncovered by these investigations can be used in state court and civil suits.

Blocking nominations: Senate approval is required for most presidential nominations and many of the clowns we are stuck with only barely made it through under Republicans. Judges, US attorney’s, Supreme Court justices, and anyone filling a vacant cabinet position would need a majority vote. Even military promotions could be affected, though that’s only likely to come up in extreme cases.

Impeachment: A simple majority in the House can start an impeachment, but it takes 2/3 of the Senate to remove someone from office. That means Republican votes would be needed, which means that the only people we would be likely to see removed from office are the ones that would probably resign or be fired before getting to that point.

Don’t overlook the state elections: All the attention goes to the House and Senate, but governors, legislatures and attorneys general at the state level are also hugely important. A lot of Republican power has come from their ability to use their power in state governments to tip the balance of elections. The long term consequences here can be huge. In less than a decade Wisconsin has gone from Republicans having supermajorities in the legislature as well as the governor and the state supreme court to having Democrats in control of all three branches, and you can trace it all back to Democrats winning a gubernatorial election and a supreme court election.

The machinery of politics: The fallout here will reshape both parties. Democrats had lost a lot of ground after writing off huge swaths of the country and the victories they just saw will only reinforce the need to compete in every state, something that the new leadership in the DNC finally made a priority. The conversation about who can get elected and where just got a lot more complicated, but the obvious takeaway is that candidate quality matters.

For Republicans, there will likely be a tremendous amount of finger pointing. Trump has hollowed out their party leadership and personally chose many of their losing candidates. That they lost races in deep red territory, even with unprecedented campaign spending, should lead to an absolute bloodbath, but after purging anyone that would even mildly oppose Trump, it’s hard to imagine them doing a 180 and cleaning house. But if they can’t separate themselves from Trump and get some competent leadership, there’s a very real chance that they could pay dearly for it in 2028.