According to Julia Manchester, reporting at The Hill, “Virginia emerges as key bellwether ahead of midterms.” As Manchester explains: “Virginia’s off-year elections are being viewed by both parties as a key bellwether heading into next year’s midterms, as well as a potential indicator for how voters view President Trump…Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) will face off to become the first female governor of the state, while Democrats will seek to maintain and grow their majority in the House of Delegates…The nonpartisan Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball each rate the gubernatorial contest as “lean Democratic.” …A Roanoke College survey released in May showed Spanberger with a wide 43 percent to 26 percent lead over Earle-Sears, with 28 percent of voters saying they were undecided. However, another May poll released by the business group Virginia FREE showed Spanberger leading by 4 percentage points…Spanberger, a former intelligence officer, has a history as a formidable candidate, having unseated former Rep. Dave Brat (R) in the state’s highly competitive 7th Congressional District and gone on to win reelection twice. Additionally, she has touted herself as a moderate Democrat, pointing to her work across the aisle while serving in the House…“Virginia is home to more than 320,000 federal employees,” Spanberger said in an interview with The Hill. “I will never miss an opportunity to make sure the president understands that the haphazard DOGE effort has been deeply, deeply detrimental to Virginians, to their families, to our economy, and that the havoc it has wreaked across our commonwealth is so significant.”
At Salon, CK Smith reports “Joe Rogan “betrayed” by Trump on “insane” ICE raids,” and notes, “Podcast host Joe Rogan, who endorsed Donald Trump during the 2024 election, criticized the former president this week for aggressive immigration enforcement tactics, saying Trump has “betrayed” his campaign promises…On a July 2 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan said the administration’s recent immigration raids have swept up nonviolent workers like construction laborers and gardeners rather than focusing on the dangerous criminals as Trump previously vowed…“There’s two things that are insane,” Rogan said. “One is the targeting of migrant workers — just construction workers, just gardeners. Like, really?”…Rogan also pointed to deportations of international students, including one case at Tufts University involving a Turkish student reportedly detained after writing an op-ed critical of Israel. “That’s enough to get you kicked out of the country?” he asked his guest, Replit CEO Amjad Masad, who raised the case…Rogan’s shift comes after he tweeted support for Trump on Election Day in 2024, calling him “the most competent choice.” But in recent months, he has grown more critical — previously calling deportations to El Salvador “horrific” and warning that “innocent people” are being caught in broad enforcement efforts…The remarks reflect growing discomfort with Trump’s immigration crackdown, even among libertarian-leaning supporters. The episode adds to ongoing debate over how far the administration will go in its second term to enforce border and visa policies.”
Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. shares his thoughts in “‘Abundance’ at the fore of Democrats’ new ideas sweepstakes“: “The market for “big ideas” depends far more on demand than supply, and the craving in the Democratic Party for the next new and popular thing is intense. Amid all of the chaos created by President Donald Trump’s antidemocratic power grab, one idea has broken through…“Abundance” is, depending on your point of view, a bold and confident answer to the problems plaguing progressives; a fiendishly clever plot by corporate interests to blunt the power of the populist left; an intellectual craze that will pass; or a sensible but rather modest set of ideas to make building housing, clean energy projects, and mass transit easier and scientific breakthroughs more likely…the passionate response the idea has provoked and its resolute hopefulness about how well-designed government action could make life better and richer for the vast majority of Americans marks it out as the kind of idea Democrats need. It has the potential of dividing the party. In some ways, it already has. But there are also signs that Abundance may answer political needs of the party’s center and left alike…The foundational text of the movement is “Abundance” by Ezra Klein, the New York Times writer and podcaster, and Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic…“This book is dedicated to a simple idea: to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need,” Klein and Thompson write. “That’s it. That’s the thesis.” The book’s very last words describe their ideological aspiration: “a liberalism that builds.”…The core argument is that well-intentioned progressives have created too many choke points that stall or block building things — including public and not just private projects. There are good reasons for environmental reviews, community-participation requirements and other permitting rules. But the authors insist that they shouldn’t be allowed to delay projects for years — or forever…
Dionne continues, “The cause won a major victory on Monday when Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed two bills amending the half-century-old California Environmental Quality Act. The changes, which divided Democrats, will allow many development projects — particularly for housing — to avoid the rigorous reviews that often delayed construction and inflated costs. The measures drew opposition from leaders of environmental and community groups who fear the loosening of the rules went too far…Klein and Thompson lay heavy stress on the need to get projects aimed at battling climate change built quickly. But as the Appelbaum and Kahlenberg books suggest, a major impetus for the Abundancemovement is the failure — particularly in blue states and cities — to build enough affordable housing…For decades, the broad left across the democracies have labored to find the right recipe for what is often called “the mixed economy.” It’s the entirely sensible idea that prosperity depends on both smart, egalitarian action by a not-all-powerful government and a dynamic market operating within sensible limits…It’s one thing for the Abundance crowd to argue when Democrats are in power that environmental and other rules need to be smarter and more flexible. It’s another to do this when Trump is trying to toss them out altogether. In a Washington Monthly essay on Klein and Thompson’s book, Zephyr Teachout, a prominent progressive law professor and a leading advocate of a tough antitrust push, argued that“it would be very easy to take their critique as a muffled call for deregulation writ large.”…Progressive politicians in places becoming a much paler shade of blue know they need to find ways to govern better, build faster and deliver more efficiently…The Abundance idea needs work. But it has taken flight because it speaks to a party that desperately wants to hope again — and is recognizing that defending rights, advancing social justice and protecting the planet all require a liberalism that builds.”
The abundance agenda being pushed by some elites is incoherent, or at the very least incomplete.
There is simply no way to house millions of additional people in current “star” cities without significant changes to the character of either the cores of those cities or at least part of their suburbs.
The unstated assumptions of abundance elites includes support for high levels of illegal immigration and maintaining the current concentration of economic activity in “star” cities. Both these assumptions overlap with the de facto policies of the Trump administration and the plutocratic ideology of the right.
Trump has said he favours a role for illegal immigrants in key economic sectors (agriculture, construction and services -tourism, healthcare, etc-). The right has always had this stance.
Trump led the charge on getting rid of work at home, thereby making sure that jobs continue concentrating in “star” cities with network advantages. It is of course natural for Trump to want to bail out the commercial real estate industry.
And it is natural (although unwise) that Democrats think short term about their own deep blue cities and states, instead of thinking about what is best for the whole country.
Democrats’ theory, which gets ratified by the elite abundance crowd, is that democracy matters, but not enough to make any significant changes in the economy.
Neither social nor geographic redistribution are being pushed for.
No real changes to immigration policy (other than maybe a temporary reduction of the previous very high levels of immigration) are being discussed. The millions of workers in legal limbo would remain there, neither deported nor legalized. Again, the right has always had this stance.
The housing policies of the abundance crowd have the potential for significant backlash if actually implemented.
If implemented in the suburbs of cities they will cause the upper middle class that has become the new core of the Democratic party to revolt.
If implemented in the cores of cities they will cause remaining parts of the multiracial working class to further turn away from the Democratic party.
The abundance elites think of themselves as wonks, but their ideas are half baked and they lack an implementation strategy so they are mostly improvisation.