Thank you for the thoughtful response and I am frankly a bit star struck my comment was called out, even we have disagreements on the margins. I think you however are mistaken about James Carville, who is pissed at Buttigieg for not calling Biden to drop out earlier. I recall Carville was with Bill Kristol months before the infamous debate and wanted Biden to move aside for a real primary.
Amazing post. Way to lead by example, restating your position with greater nuance. When you say that Trump’s “return” was “inevitable,” do you mean that he was destined to win the election by Biden’s failure? I agree that Biden’s decision was disastrous, but it’s unclear that Kamala was destined to lose. She lost by only 230,000 votes in the Blue Wall.
And many votes, as we find out now, we thrown out by dirty tactics of the Republican party. I think disenfranchised black votes is a concern, robo calls to discourage voters to go out to vote, claims of bad voter registrations, gerrymandering, overall low voter turnout, etc. worked in favor of Trump's reelection. I wouldn't say he won by any means though.
Biden voters did their job, they just didn’t enjoy doing it.
It seems that people are uncomfortable with the truth here: Anti-Israel democrats co-opted a far right conspiracy about Biden’s complicity in genocide and refused to vote for him or any candidate that expressed sympathy for Israel.
If you’re looking for a movement to blame, I’d start with the “Genocide Joe” conspiracy. This conspiracy was birthed in a far-right think tank, and it worked to perfection.
Was Biden forceful enough with his anti-Trump message? No, but it was still the bedrock of his political support. Give these voters time, they’ll come around. I honestly believe they are just mourning the death of Obama/Biden era politics, and working through the denial stage. That’s where I was a few months ago too.
We lost this election in the margins by a few thousand votes in the swing states, so why aren’t we talking about the factors that caused us to lose this election in the margins, in those states.
Let’s talk Michigan. Let’s talk Wisconsin. Rashida Tlaib should have told her base to get behind Kamala. She didn’t, and we barely lost Michigan and Wisconsin. What on earth was Jill Stein thinking?
Why is nobody scrutinizing this? I grew up around these midwestern progressives, they listen to Rashida, Stein, Omar, etc… and they followed their lead in this election. Minnesotans like myself were lucky we had Tim Walz guiding us.
The Trump presidency has snuffed out any prospect of a progressive agenda for the foreseeable future. Progressive goals are now distant pipe dreams because they refused to acknowledge the implications of another Trump presidency.
I’m a young democrat in the Midwest and I saw this first hand with young voters too many times to count. People I knew were completely brainwashed on a level similar to Q-anon. I visited some of my progressive friends in Wisconsin and was blown away at how certain they were. To them, Biden was a genocidal maniac and voting for a pro-Israel candidate was never an option.
Anti-Israel democrats are the Reagan democrats of our time, and there is little overlap here with Biden’s base.
As in Bernie-or-Bust types who don't regret voting Jill Stein one bit? Not surprised, even Bernie & AOC are sell-outs to them. This meme comes to mind:
Yes, those voters, and that meme is accurate, haha.
We are afraid to acknowledge how pervasive this movement was with young democrats. AOC and Bernie were complicit, to your point. They never endorsed Biden, and then only endorsed Harris begrudgingly. Their supporters aren’t dumb, they read between the lines. I’m sure many of them ultimately did the right thing, but I’m also certain that many of them did not.
I know there’s a thousand other variables at play here too, but I personally think that this movement was the death blow to our electoral prospects.
Biden’s decline opened the door to Trump, and the “Genocide Joe” movement swung it wide open.
It’s a catch-22, we need their votes but their price is steep: we must exile the center left. That’s a non-starter. The center-left Biden voter cares about the global defense of democracy. AOC, Bernie and their supporters could not care less.
We continue to ignore this growing schism at our own peril. AOC and Bernie have seized the narrative already while we waffle back and forth on how to proceed.
The fact that Garry is mistakenly needling Biden voters rather than progressive voters proves this.
I agree with you on this one, Gary. We cannot have a political class who lie and gaslight us for months if not years, and then when the entire house of cards falls, they act as though we're being unreasonable for demanding accountability. This is an albatross around the neck of anyone who backed Biden to the hilt until it became unsustainable, and they should really have to work to earn trust again.
I agree with you on this one, Gary. We cannot have a political class who lie and gaslight us for months if not years, and then when the entire house of cards falls, they act as though we're being unreasonable for demanding accountability. This is an albatross around the neck of anyone who backed Biden to the hilt until it became unsustainable, and they should really have to work to earn trust again.
All this is very well, but at his worst, Biden never spit out a word salad in response to any press questions, unlike the orange one who has yet to give any intelligible answer to any question from the media. Biden ran the country well. The Gaza bit was a minor disaster, however.
Republican voters are living their lives in a self-reinforcing echo chamber of Trump-captured elected leaders who appear on Trump-approval seeking infotainment media outlets where their grievances for the disdain hurled their way by liberals and Democrats are constantly stoked.
Spot on. Our current political situation has devolved into the fascists vs. the feeble. Unfortunately, the feeble enable and empower the fascists despite performative acts like 25 hour speeches or “strongly worded letters” because there is no substantive follow-up regarding solutions for people in the real world. Voters respond to the perceived “leadership” of authoritarianism because the Blue MAGA alternatives merely lip service presented by little old people shaking their fists in the air. We need those who speak truth to power, forcefully and with conviction, regardless of party affiliation.
I think you couldn’t be more wrong about things like Cory Booker’s speech.
Some of us actually believe in symbolism, and I found Cory’s speech to be a breath of fresh air. It energized me to be more critical of Trump. No question about it.
Words matter, a lot. We seem to have forgotten that.
We can’t write off a host of well meaning and qualified Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries just because they didn’t speak up soon enough. To do that is to turn the country over to the know nothings who are currently in charge. I refuse to do that.
Unless the Democratic Party learns that they need to adopt a messaging strategy that mirrors that of the GOP they will never gain the upper hand again. Designate many spokespersons who blitz every type of media outlet every damn day. Each one MUST, with one voice, use the exact same talking points and they MUST REPEAT THE SAME MESSAGE OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I mean word for word. Do you remember the “Death Panel” rhetoric spewing from the mouth of every GOP congressperson in every TV appearance, on every podcast, and in every speech? It was effective at limiting the ACA. They nearly killed it with that one outrageous lie. I’m proposing the Dems adopt the same media strategy as the GOP. Except our communication will be the truth where the GOP lies like it breathes. We must counter every lie with the truth EVERY DAMN TIME OVER EVERY DAMN ISSUE and not just on the Sunday shows. To be effective the Dem message must be repeated ad infinitum. (remember Benghazi?) EVERY Democrat MUST talk about what the GOP is doing to the country. Why won’t the Democrats learn from the successful messaging the GOP employs? Do they think they’ll become as tainted as the GOP? Get over it! Dems can speak the truth and use the same repetitive tactics, the exact same verbiage all across the party and get better results because they are being truthful. I am sick at heart that the Dems are proving to be feckless in the fight of our lives. Put away your “broad tent so we couldn’t all possibly speak the same truths in one voice” bullshit. The GOP is deliberately destroying our country and Dems, to preserve proper decorum and some imagined superiority in doing so, in effect are neutering themselves before they can do anything effective to counter what the GOP is accomplishing. The Republican Party has been using this same strategy since Bill Clinton was elected. They have managed to keep the Democrats perpetually in a defensive mode against the GOP lies. We MUST take back the offensive position.
Democrats gave us Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA. The GOP gave us the Great Depression, the Great Recession, the Jan 6 terrorist attack and people needlessly dying by the hundreds of thousands from the pandemic. The lives lost are a direct result of Donald Trump’s lies, and the GOP’s complicity. These are obvious talking points NEVER heard coming out of Democrats mouth.
I am begging any Democrat that will listen to stop the naval gazing, wake up and do the media blitzing necessary to meet this time in history. The internet and social media has opened countless opportunities for communication and Democrats, like petulant children, refuse to see and use its potential. Wake the fuck up! Get younger people elected that can navigate this new landscape effectively PLEASE! Before there’s no possible way to return our country to sanity. Right now Dems are, in fact, choosing ineffective strategies and we’ll all watch the country go down in flames if they refuse to adopt effective messaging strategies. I am almost as pissed at Dems as I am the GOP.
I’d like to see the media report on Trump’s gibberish half as much as Biden’s decline. Trump is unable to maintain any train of thought that isn’t a grievance, revenge plot or idea summed up in two words-“tariffs good” “immigrants bad.”
This post gives me hope. Talk about speaking the truth with grace ...and all the while being so respectful of other people's views by responding to those who commented by name. I have never seen a post like this, and I thank you for it.
Mr. Kasparov, I agree with you that any Democratic Party leader with ambitions to run as President in 2028 must repair the Democratic "brand" that is badly damaged. I believe a significant contributor to that damage was self-inflicted by a collective cover-up of President Joe Biden's age-diminished capacity to serve a second term and beat Donald Trump in 2024. Beginning in 2021 and incessantly after 2022, pollsters asked and a large majority of Democratic and Independent voters consistently indicated that they believed Joe Biden was too old to run/serve again for a second term. This cemented opinion about such a basic human fundamental attribute as Biden's late 70s aging diminishing his capabilities was ignored or discounted by the Democratic Powers That Be. This is a still festering wound that is obvious to me as a conservative, former Republican who worked as a communications aide for three different social-fiscal conservative Members of Congress in Washington, DC. I've been self-exiled from the Republican Party by its takeover by Trump. As an ardent politico, I've been voting for Democratic candidates since 2018 as the only viable alternative to Republicans. Most voters aren't that dedicated to democracy. Why is it SO HARD for Democratic candidates to say that I never or hardly ever saw President Biden in person after the midterm elections in 2022 because his staff kept him insulated from unscripted interactions with [fill in the appropriate blank: [Cabinet members, Exec. Branch political appointees, Governors, donors, Members of Congress, party activists, impromptu media interviews etc...]. I knew from my personal experiences the impact of aging beyond mid-70s by [fill in the appropriate blanks: grandparents, parents, former bosses/mentors, etc...] I should have been suspicious of the diminishing public and unscripted appearances of President Biden after 2022. I publicly ignored or discounted THESE RED FLAGs. I'm SORRY! Why is it so hard to throw Biden's five or six staffers described as the Politburo! who systematically hid him throughout 2023 in the Tapper/Thompson book, Original Sin under the bus? I believe that fessing up to this refusal to listen to the common wisdom of voters is a prerequisite for repairing the electorally crippling bad "brand" image of the Democratic Party. I believe it's a prerequisite for Democratic Congressional and Senatorial candidates to gain votes in 2026 from disaffected Democrats, Independents and disaffected Republicans in swing House districts and in purple states.
Biden's centrism was a gift to corporate America. He hardly moved the needle on extreme poverty. His border policy was a disaster, if you can even call it a policy. His abandonment of Afghanistan and support for genocide in Palestine are moral failures which Democrats just want to gloss over. He broke his promise about serving only one term. Choosing Harris as his VP was a mistake as she was not ready for prime-time and she will make a lousy governor for California. And nothing more need be said about the hubris and gas-lighting of his aborted campaign. The most useful thing Trump has done is to show how flimsy the Democratic brain-trust is and how selective their outrage is. Where is the leadership? Where are the ideas? Where is anything resembling a winning strategy to bloew MAGA out of the water? The world awaits.
Thank you for the thoughtful response and I am frankly a bit star struck my comment was called out, even we have disagreements on the margins. I think you however are mistaken about James Carville, who is pissed at Buttigieg for not calling Biden to drop out earlier. I recall Carville was with Bill Kristol months before the infamous debate and wanted Biden to move aside for a real primary.
You are correct. We have edited the sentence to remove the mention of James Carville.
And apologies to Mr. Carville for the mischaracterization!
Thank you for the quick correction. Carville caught a lot of hate at the time.
Amazing post. Way to lead by example, restating your position with greater nuance. When you say that Trump’s “return” was “inevitable,” do you mean that he was destined to win the election by Biden’s failure? I agree that Biden’s decision was disastrous, but it’s unclear that Kamala was destined to lose. She lost by only 230,000 votes in the Blue Wall.
And many votes, as we find out now, we thrown out by dirty tactics of the Republican party. I think disenfranchised black votes is a concern, robo calls to discourage voters to go out to vote, claims of bad voter registrations, gerrymandering, overall low voter turnout, etc. worked in favor of Trump's reelection. I wouldn't say he won by any means though.
I won’t get behind the “Blue MAGA” label.
MAGA is a far right movement that is fiercely loyal to a far right megalomaniac. Many of us know these people. These people are scary.
Biden loyalists are just center left democrats in denial about their candidate. There’s nothing scary or radical about them.
This isn’t just a stretch, it’s stupid and divisive. They aren’t the problem. They will always vote blue down the ballot. They understand the stakes.
Before I read the article, Blue MAGA normally referred to registered Dems who voted Trump, alluding to the Reagan Democrats of the 1980s.
Biden voters did their job, they just didn’t enjoy doing it.
It seems that people are uncomfortable with the truth here: Anti-Israel democrats co-opted a far right conspiracy about Biden’s complicity in genocide and refused to vote for him or any candidate that expressed sympathy for Israel.
If you’re looking for a movement to blame, I’d start with the “Genocide Joe” conspiracy. This conspiracy was birthed in a far-right think tank, and it worked to perfection.
Was Biden forceful enough with his anti-Trump message? No, but it was still the bedrock of his political support. Give these voters time, they’ll come around. I honestly believe they are just mourning the death of Obama/Biden era politics, and working through the denial stage. That’s where I was a few months ago too.
We lost this election in the margins by a few thousand votes in the swing states, so why aren’t we talking about the factors that caused us to lose this election in the margins, in those states.
Let’s talk Michigan. Let’s talk Wisconsin. Rashida Tlaib should have told her base to get behind Kamala. She didn’t, and we barely lost Michigan and Wisconsin. What on earth was Jill Stein thinking?
Why is nobody scrutinizing this? I grew up around these midwestern progressives, they listen to Rashida, Stein, Omar, etc… and they followed their lead in this election. Minnesotans like myself were lucky we had Tim Walz guiding us.
The Trump presidency has snuffed out any prospect of a progressive agenda for the foreseeable future. Progressive goals are now distant pipe dreams because they refused to acknowledge the implications of another Trump presidency.
I’m a young democrat in the Midwest and I saw this first hand with young voters too many times to count. People I knew were completely brainwashed on a level similar to Q-anon. I visited some of my progressive friends in Wisconsin and was blown away at how certain they were. To them, Biden was a genocidal maniac and voting for a pro-Israel candidate was never an option.
Anti-Israel democrats are the Reagan democrats of our time, and there is little overlap here with Biden’s base.
As in Bernie-or-Bust types who don't regret voting Jill Stein one bit? Not surprised, even Bernie & AOC are sell-outs to them. This meme comes to mind:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialDemocracy/comments/1e2ijpj/based/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Yes, those voters, and that meme is accurate, haha.
We are afraid to acknowledge how pervasive this movement was with young democrats. AOC and Bernie were complicit, to your point. They never endorsed Biden, and then only endorsed Harris begrudgingly. Their supporters aren’t dumb, they read between the lines. I’m sure many of them ultimately did the right thing, but I’m also certain that many of them did not.
I know there’s a thousand other variables at play here too, but I personally think that this movement was the death blow to our electoral prospects.
Biden’s decline opened the door to Trump, and the “Genocide Joe” movement swung it wide open.
It’s a catch-22, we need their votes but their price is steep: we must exile the center left. That’s a non-starter. The center-left Biden voter cares about the global defense of democracy. AOC, Bernie and their supporters could not care less.
We continue to ignore this growing schism at our own peril. AOC and Bernie have seized the narrative already while we waffle back and forth on how to proceed.
The fact that Garry is mistakenly needling Biden voters rather than progressive voters proves this.
I agree with you on this one, Gary. We cannot have a political class who lie and gaslight us for months if not years, and then when the entire house of cards falls, they act as though we're being unreasonable for demanding accountability. This is an albatross around the neck of anyone who backed Biden to the hilt until it became unsustainable, and they should really have to work to earn trust again.
I agree with you on this one, Gary. We cannot have a political class who lie and gaslight us for months if not years, and then when the entire house of cards falls, they act as though we're being unreasonable for demanding accountability. This is an albatross around the neck of anyone who backed Biden to the hilt until it became unsustainable, and they should really have to work to earn trust again.
and yet the political class who lie and gaslight and are Republicans rather than Democrats continue to get a pass... go figure
All this is very well, but at his worst, Biden never spit out a word salad in response to any press questions, unlike the orange one who has yet to give any intelligible answer to any question from the media. Biden ran the country well. The Gaza bit was a minor disaster, however.
Done!
Political analysis is disingenuous and harmful without pointing out first, middle and last: Republicans control the media.
Republicans control the media.
Republicans control the media.
Republicans control the media.
Republicans control the media.
Republican voters are living their lives in a self-reinforcing echo chamber of Trump-captured elected leaders who appear on Trump-approval seeking infotainment media outlets where their grievances for the disdain hurled their way by liberals and Democrats are constantly stoked.
Republicans control the House and Senate!
You’re right. The problem is that if the are two parties who can’t be trusted to tell the truth, who can be trusted to?
Greenfield the two party system and move to multiparty first past the post.
Or better still, proportional or IRV/STV voting.
Spot on. Our current political situation has devolved into the fascists vs. the feeble. Unfortunately, the feeble enable and empower the fascists despite performative acts like 25 hour speeches or “strongly worded letters” because there is no substantive follow-up regarding solutions for people in the real world. Voters respond to the perceived “leadership” of authoritarianism because the Blue MAGA alternatives merely lip service presented by little old people shaking their fists in the air. We need those who speak truth to power, forcefully and with conviction, regardless of party affiliation.
I think you couldn’t be more wrong about things like Cory Booker’s speech.
Some of us actually believe in symbolism, and I found Cory’s speech to be a breath of fresh air. It energized me to be more critical of Trump. No question about it.
Words matter, a lot. We seem to have forgotten that.
We can’t write off a host of well meaning and qualified Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries just because they didn’t speak up soon enough. To do that is to turn the country over to the know nothings who are currently in charge. I refuse to do that.
No, we should write off Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries because they knowingly meet with ICC war criminals like Yoav Gallant. We deserve a politician who isn't complicit in genocide. https://x.com/AndrewSolender/status/1805708821324521763?lang=en
Unless the Democratic Party learns that they need to adopt a messaging strategy that mirrors that of the GOP they will never gain the upper hand again. Designate many spokespersons who blitz every type of media outlet every damn day. Each one MUST, with one voice, use the exact same talking points and they MUST REPEAT THE SAME MESSAGE OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I mean word for word. Do you remember the “Death Panel” rhetoric spewing from the mouth of every GOP congressperson in every TV appearance, on every podcast, and in every speech? It was effective at limiting the ACA. They nearly killed it with that one outrageous lie. I’m proposing the Dems adopt the same media strategy as the GOP. Except our communication will be the truth where the GOP lies like it breathes. We must counter every lie with the truth EVERY DAMN TIME OVER EVERY DAMN ISSUE and not just on the Sunday shows. To be effective the Dem message must be repeated ad infinitum. (remember Benghazi?) EVERY Democrat MUST talk about what the GOP is doing to the country. Why won’t the Democrats learn from the successful messaging the GOP employs? Do they think they’ll become as tainted as the GOP? Get over it! Dems can speak the truth and use the same repetitive tactics, the exact same verbiage all across the party and get better results because they are being truthful. I am sick at heart that the Dems are proving to be feckless in the fight of our lives. Put away your “broad tent so we couldn’t all possibly speak the same truths in one voice” bullshit. The GOP is deliberately destroying our country and Dems, to preserve proper decorum and some imagined superiority in doing so, in effect are neutering themselves before they can do anything effective to counter what the GOP is accomplishing. The Republican Party has been using this same strategy since Bill Clinton was elected. They have managed to keep the Democrats perpetually in a defensive mode against the GOP lies. We MUST take back the offensive position.
Democrats gave us Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA. The GOP gave us the Great Depression, the Great Recession, the Jan 6 terrorist attack and people needlessly dying by the hundreds of thousands from the pandemic. The lives lost are a direct result of Donald Trump’s lies, and the GOP’s complicity. These are obvious talking points NEVER heard coming out of Democrats mouth.
I am begging any Democrat that will listen to stop the naval gazing, wake up and do the media blitzing necessary to meet this time in history. The internet and social media has opened countless opportunities for communication and Democrats, like petulant children, refuse to see and use its potential. Wake the fuck up! Get younger people elected that can navigate this new landscape effectively PLEASE! Before there’s no possible way to return our country to sanity. Right now Dems are, in fact, choosing ineffective strategies and we’ll all watch the country go down in flames if they refuse to adopt effective messaging strategies. I am almost as pissed at Dems as I am the GOP.
I’d like to see the media report on Trump’s gibberish half as much as Biden’s decline. Trump is unable to maintain any train of thought that isn’t a grievance, revenge plot or idea summed up in two words-“tariffs good” “immigrants bad.”
This post gives me hope. Talk about speaking the truth with grace ...and all the while being so respectful of other people's views by responding to those who commented by name. I have never seen a post like this, and I thank you for it.
Mr. Kasparov, Chris Cilizza chronicled in his "So What" Substack the collective effort by the Democratic Powers That Be to destroy the "too old" basis and political viability of Rep. Dean Phillips who was the only conventionally qualified Primary opponent for Joe Biden's renomination for a second term. "Not only does every Democratic elected official owe Dean Phillips an apology, but the fact that he hasn’t gotten many (any?) speaks to the fact that the party still doesn’t get how much damage it did to its brand with the Biden age/health cover-up." https://chriscillizza.substack.com/p/democrats-owe-dean-phillips-a-giant?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1301210&post_id=164575618&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=cqkgb&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Mr. Kasparov, I agree with you that any Democratic Party leader with ambitions to run as President in 2028 must repair the Democratic "brand" that is badly damaged. I believe a significant contributor to that damage was self-inflicted by a collective cover-up of President Joe Biden's age-diminished capacity to serve a second term and beat Donald Trump in 2024. Beginning in 2021 and incessantly after 2022, pollsters asked and a large majority of Democratic and Independent voters consistently indicated that they believed Joe Biden was too old to run/serve again for a second term. This cemented opinion about such a basic human fundamental attribute as Biden's late 70s aging diminishing his capabilities was ignored or discounted by the Democratic Powers That Be. This is a still festering wound that is obvious to me as a conservative, former Republican who worked as a communications aide for three different social-fiscal conservative Members of Congress in Washington, DC. I've been self-exiled from the Republican Party by its takeover by Trump. As an ardent politico, I've been voting for Democratic candidates since 2018 as the only viable alternative to Republicans. Most voters aren't that dedicated to democracy. Why is it SO HARD for Democratic candidates to say that I never or hardly ever saw President Biden in person after the midterm elections in 2022 because his staff kept him insulated from unscripted interactions with [fill in the appropriate blank: [Cabinet members, Exec. Branch political appointees, Governors, donors, Members of Congress, party activists, impromptu media interviews etc...]. I knew from my personal experiences the impact of aging beyond mid-70s by [fill in the appropriate blanks: grandparents, parents, former bosses/mentors, etc...] I should have been suspicious of the diminishing public and unscripted appearances of President Biden after 2022. I publicly ignored or discounted THESE RED FLAGs. I'm SORRY! Why is it so hard to throw Biden's five or six staffers described as the Politburo! who systematically hid him throughout 2023 in the Tapper/Thompson book, Original Sin under the bus? I believe that fessing up to this refusal to listen to the common wisdom of voters is a prerequisite for repairing the electorally crippling bad "brand" image of the Democratic Party. I believe it's a prerequisite for Democratic Congressional and Senatorial candidates to gain votes in 2026 from disaffected Democrats, Independents and disaffected Republicans in swing House districts and in purple states.
Biden's centrism was a gift to corporate America. He hardly moved the needle on extreme poverty. His border policy was a disaster, if you can even call it a policy. His abandonment of Afghanistan and support for genocide in Palestine are moral failures which Democrats just want to gloss over. He broke his promise about serving only one term. Choosing Harris as his VP was a mistake as she was not ready for prime-time and she will make a lousy governor for California. And nothing more need be said about the hubris and gas-lighting of his aborted campaign. The most useful thing Trump has done is to show how flimsy the Democratic brain-trust is and how selective their outrage is. Where is the leadership? Where are the ideas? Where is anything resembling a winning strategy to bloew MAGA out of the water? The world awaits.