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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

In Jon Per’s “GOP a threat to U.S. economy, say economists” at Daily Kos, he writes, “While all eyes have been focused on the worldwide stock market plunge, a recent survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal identified a different threat to the vitality of the U.S. economy. But it’s not the instability of Chinese stock prices, the devaluation of our currency, the Eurozone’s Greek tragedy, or even a premature Fed interest rate hike that has WSJ’s economists so concerned. Instead, the fear is that the GOP-controlled Congress will once again precipitate a fiscal crisis this fall.”
It doesn’t sound like the Vice President and his family are ready for yet another run for the White House. A remarkably candid admission from Vice President Biden about his “emotional fuel” deficit will leave many lamenting that such honesty, sanity and soul are exactly what is missing — and needed — in American politics.
Jeb Bush is giving Trump a run for the GOP’s gaffer-in-chief.
After giving Jesse Jackson due credit for his energetic and inspiring leadership, this post seems overstated and somewhat backwards in that Rev. Jackson’s influence was more a product of demographic transformations than a self-contained game-changer.
Ashley Lopez explains why “Why Republicans Might Not Get A Voter Turnout Surge in Kentucky Next Year.”
At Slate.com Jamelle Bouie argues that Trump is tapping into a vast undercurrent of public animosity toward wealthy donors, lobbyists and special interests corrupting American politics. “In an analysis for the Democratic Strategist and the Washington Monthly published earlier this year, pollster Stan Greenberg drew a connection between the high-dollar fundraising of modern political campaigns and the deep government distrust from working-class whites, working-class white men in particular…For Greenberg, it’s this–more than anything else in politics–that fuels anti-government cynicism. …There’s almost no chance that Trump or his team has read Greenberg. But if Greenberg is right–and millions of Americans are open to an explicit message against the wealthy donors and fundraisers that dominate American politics–then Trump’s message of financial independence could be his key to a broader constituency.”
At The Guardian Daniel Pena explains why “It’s not just Trump: Latinos should boycott the Republican party en masse” and notes, “”Illegal” and “Mexican” have come to be used interchangeably by both Republican supporters and the candidates themselves. This should set off alarm bells in the minds of Latino voters and Americans everywhere. The Republican Party is not designed to include people like us. And it’s quickly becoming a promoter of and platform for white supremacist, hate group rhetoric.”
Meanwhile, Washington Post editorial writer Harold Meyerson has a primer for the media who will be conducting “the next GOP debate” and notes “the insularity of the discourse in conservative media is such that economic issues on which substantial numbers and, on occasion, majorities of Republicans agree with their Democratic and independent compatriots are rarely brought up for fear they’ll run afoul of GOP political correctness. It’s all the more incumbent for the moderators in the upcoming Republican debates to pose such questions.”
At Moyers & Company Richard Schiffman’s interview with Norwegian psychologist and economist Per Espen Stoknes probes a question of increasing importance to progressives, “How Do We Get People to Care About Climate Change?” Says Stoknes, “There are five main psychological barriers: distance, doom, dissonance, denial, and identity…And the reason climate science communication is so difficult is that it triggers these barriers one after the other.”

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