Al Hunt probes the political ramifications of the increasing percentage of “nonreligious” Americans, who are now about 23 percent of the electorate.
In yet another post-mortem/where-do-we-go-from-here take on the UK elections, Will Straw, a losing Labour candidate for Parliament in Rossendale and Darwen, suggests “Four ways for Labour to win back working-class voters.” Writing in The Guardian, Straw observes: “If we want a majority again, we will need to think hard about how to win back the working-class voters, many of whom are highly aspirational, that we have lost in post-industrial areas…It was complacent to assume that the Ukip [right-wing Independence Party] surge would be to Labour’s benefit…Labour’s national message that Ukip were “more Tory than the Tories” failed to resonate with many working-class voters who had decided a decade ago that Labour was no different to the Tories.”
At Politico TDS founding editor Stan Greenberg writes on the UK elections: “The Conservative Party upended the pollsters with the success of their late-breaking nationalist campaign, and they are still celebrating. Had the Labour Party addressed earlier voter doubts on public finances and immigration and made a broader economic offer, it would have been less vulnerable to these tactics, but that came late.”
National Journal’s Sarah Mimms explores “How much of a factor will Hillary Clinton’s gender be in the 2016 presidential race?”
Paul Krugman hails the opening of a much-needed and long-postponed debate about the Iraq disaster, made inevitable by Bush 3.0.
E. J. Dionne, Jr. notes in his latest Washington Post column that “other hawks would rather see the was-the-Iraq-War-right question magically disappear because they know it’s a no-win for them. Most Americans now think the war was ill-advised. Why remind them that most of the same people who are super hawks now brought them an adventure they deeply regret? Thus did the Wall Street Journal editorial page on Friday come out firmly and unequivocally in favor of — evasion. “The right answer to the question is that it’s not a useful or instructive one to answer, because statesmanship, like life, is not conducted in hindsight.” On the GOP side it may be that Jeb’s blundering is very bad news for Lindsey Graham and other Iraq war supporterts and equivocators, but good news for Rand Paul.
And from Michael Tomasky’s Daily Beast column, “How Dubya is Winning 2016 for Hillary“: “…In a general-election context, the GOP nominee will probably have to tack back pretty quickly toward the anti-war position. This will give Hillary Clinton a great opportunity. For one thing, it’ll weaken the salience of the whole “she can’t defend the country cuz she’s a girl” line of attack, which will come, however subtly. It will allow Clinton to define the terms of what constitutes a sensible foreign policy, and the Republican man will likely have to agree with her…Poor Republicans! Crime is down; they can’t scream law and order. And now war is unpopular, so they can’t say the Democrats are soft on whomever. Their economic theories are increasingly discredited. I guess that leaves the old standby: race-baiting. But we may have reached a point where that doesn’t work anymore either…”
At MSNBC.com Suzanne Gamboa has a warning for Democrats: “If the turnout rate of the projected 40 million Latinos matches those of whites and blacks in 2008, 66 percent and 65 percent respectively, the number of Latinos who voted in 2012 – 24 percent – could double, Pew calculated…There are some very promising organizations doing incredible work in the community and are trusted: Mi Familia Vota, Voto Latino, NCLR (National Council of La Raza). But those are the same groups that have to fight over scraps because major investors don’t appreciate (the value) of investing in the community,” said Cristobal Alex, who leads the Latino Victory Project.”
The Nation’s Leslie Savan addresses a concern I’ve been wondering about: What are the political consequences of ALEC-supporting Verizon acquiring HuffPo?

In his Wall St. Journal column TDS founding editor William Galston reports on “The Democratic Party’s Economic Divide: Hillary Clinton will have to navigate the center-left split on growth and the role of government.” Galston summarizes the views of Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, who seeks consensus between the party’s centrists and left flank: “Although the private sector must take the lead in promoting economic growth, there is a role for government–creating a nurturing environment for investment and entrepreneurship, improving education, promoting trade, helping families save for college, bringing down health-care costs, strengthening retirement security, and yes, increasing the minimum wage.”
At In These Times Jacob Swenson-Lengyel explains “Why Radicals Like Bernie Sanders Should Run As Democrats, Not Independents.” The author provides several perceptive observations, including “The two major political parties, we are told, have been and will be the parties of capital. For this reason, we are counseled to avoid defilement at the hands of the Democrats and to take on other uncorrupted pursuits. But it is vain to fetishize purity at the cost of power. Better to step onto the field of struggle and risk defilement than relegate oneself to the sidelines.”
The Amtrak tragedy provides yet another indication that America’s decaying transportation infrastructure is becoming a major public safety issue. But the tragedy also should encourage public support for infrastructure upgrades that can create needed jobs across America, As The Nation’s John Nichols puts it, “Safety concerns can and should motivate investment. But so, too, should concerns for job creation and economic development.
Good to see that HuffPo has joined the Transparency Initiative of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) which requires participants to disclose the methodological details associated with reports on their opinion surveys. Among commercial media, only HuffPo and WaPo have made the commitment thus far.
HuffPollsters Ariel Edwards-Levy, Mark Blumenthal and Janie Valencia have a thorough post-mortem on the UK election polling failures.
A Princeton Survey Research Associates poll for Vanderbilt University shows overwhelming support (64 percent of TN RVs surveyed) for “Insure Tennessee,” a plan “which uses federal money made available through the Affordable Care Act to help pay for insurance for low-income Tennesseans,” reports Dave Boucher of The Tennessean.
In the latest Reuters Poll, “President Barack Obama’s signature policy, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, was opposed by 53 percent of almost 21,000 Americans surveyed, and favored by 47 percent…But 60 percent of the roughly 1,800 survey respondents who have coverage through Obamacare favored the law. Within that group, almost two-thirds were satisfied with the healthcare they were getting, including 73 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Republicans,” write Steve Holland and Susan Cornwell.
David A. Graham comments at The Atlantic on the impact of African American mortality on U.S. elections, specifically a new study which indicates that, if African Americans had the same mortality rates as whites, the electorate would include about one million more African American voters. At Vox, Andrew Prokop notes that, without the mortality discrepancy, Al Gore would have likely won Florida’s electoral votes in 2000 — and the presidency.
Ohio Republicans try to bring back the poll tax — in drag.

Sheerine Alemzadeh has a HuffPo article, “A Message to Clinton: Time to Lean In for Working Class Women,” which should be of interest to all Democratic campaigns, as well as to Hillary Clinton. Alemzadeh’s post illuminates inroads to winning this large constituency and “positions gender equality in a larger framework of intersecting class, race and social inequalities.”
Citing “millions of American women who desperately need a higher minimum wage, who work in exploitative and dangerous workplaces and who will never enjoy the basic economic security required to contemplate the possibility of having more than just enough to survive,” Alemzadeh adds,

…It’s time to elevate the voices of working class women who have bravely taken their employers, industries and elected representatives to task for maintaining a status quo that is not just unfair, but responsible for a labor standards floor so low that Americans’ collective understanding of decent employment has become woefully stunted.
This election cycle, candidates have an unprecedented opportunity address women’s economic justice as a live campaign issue. Living wages, equal pay for equal work, paid time off, subsidized childcare and employment accommodations for pregnant and nursing women are no longer politically untenable talking points. Candidates need to be ready for them. Not only have these questions made it into the public discourse, but they have actually made it to the offices of legislators, and in rare cases, onto the floor of Congress. Many states have passed bills to address federal stagnation around women’s economic justice issues. The cries for equality have become too loud to ignore…The meat of these issues, the very essence of them, is buried miles deeper in the underground economy. In ignoring how class and race inequalities intersect with sex inequality, Clinton would miss an opportunity to sell the truly far reaching benefits of gender parity reforms.
Without acknowledging the invisible labor of domestic workers which permits women to work outside the home, the full range of economic benefits of subsidized childcare, elder care and paid family medical leave remain unspoken. Subsidizing domestic work not only would benefit women who pay for it but also women who provide it — lifting them out of poverty level wages and into the formal economy. Paid family leave would also allow workers to take time off work when their family members are sick, creating more reliable schedules for all working families, including those whose breadwinners are paid caregivers.

Alemzadeh cites the heroic leadership of working-class women in often lonely battles against forms of workplace injustice, including

Working class women have been leaning in for all of us. Domestic workers across the country are lobbying for inclusion under basic labor laws. Restaurant workers are fighting against sexual harassment that is rampant in the industry. Fast food workers are making the case for a living wage. A lone delivery truck driver took the case for pregnancy accommodations all the way to the Supreme Court. Women’s economic equality rests on these women’s shoulders — without safe and dignified working conditions at the lowest rungs of the economy, efforts to truly eradicate gender inequality in the American workplace are destined for failure. And yet, the political work of these working women has not received the attention it deserves. As they stand in the way of an endless race to the bottom by unscrupulous economic actors, our presidential nominee needs to stand with them.

As Democrats seek to secure their identity as champions of economic reforms to help middle-class families, they should also provide a strong voice for the specific concerns of working-class women noted by Alemzadeh. An improved standing with this large constituency should benefit Democratic candidates down-ballot, as well as our candidate for the presidency.

In is latest New York Times column, David Brooks marvels at “The Center Right Moment” in the wake of the UK elections. As a center-rightist himself, however, Brooks may be indulging in a bit of wishful thinking.
What “center-right” is he talking about in the U.S.? Very few of today’s Republican politicians accept even modest social welfare policies, or even negotiate in good faith. Brooks also conveniently overlooks the reality that many of northern Europe’s “conservative” parties have long embraced policies that would be termed as “socialism” by Ted Cruz and other members of the ascendant right in the U.S.
And the U.S. right’s control of congress, he neglects to acknowledge, is deeply-rooted in gerrymandering and voter suppression. But that’s biz as usual for conservative pundits who embrace the code of political omertà regarding their party’s relentless advocacy of disenfranchising African American voters.
For a more interesting analysis of the political moment, try “Progressives Are Getting Clobbered in Europe. Here’s Why Their Chances Are Better in America” by TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira. Writing in Mother Jones, Teixeira explains:

…In the United States, the Democratic Party has largely succeeded in capturing the current wave of modernizing demographic change (immigrants, minorities, professionals, seculars, unmarried women, the highly-educated, the Millennial generation, etc.) Emerging demographic groups generally favor the Democrats by wide margins, which combined with residual strength among traditional constituencies gives them a formidable electoral coalition. The challenge for American progressives is therefore mostly about keeping their demographically enhanced coalition together in the face of conservative attacks and getting it to turn out in midterm elections.
The situation is different in Europe, where modernizing demographic change has, so far, not done social democratic parties much good. One reason is that some of these demographic changes do not loom as large in most European countries as they do in the United States. The immigrant/minority population starts from a smaller base so the impact of growth, even where rapid, is more limited. And the younger generation, while progressive, does not have the population weight it does in America.
Beyond that, however, is a factor that has prevented social democrats from harnessing the still-considerable power of modernizing demographic change in Europe. That is the nature of European party systems. Unlike in the United States, where the center-left party, the Democrats, has no meaningful electoral competition for the progressive vote, European social democrats typically do have such competition and from three different parts of the political spectrum: greens; left socialists; and liberal centrists. And not only do they have competition, these other parties, on aggregate, typically overperform among emerging demographics, while social democrats generally underperform. Thus it would appear that social democrats, who have also hemmoraged support from traditional working class voters, will be increasingly unable to build viable progressive coalitions by themselves.

Germany and the Scandinavian nations, where core social welfare policies are popular, are going to be alright for the foreseeable future. Having long-ago achieved progressive reforms American liberals are still fighting for, it’s more a matter of holding on and fighting over taxes and immigration for the political left. The U.K., for as long as it survives as a political entity, and to some extent France, are ground zero for the struggle Teixeira previews, while Spain, Italy and Greece also look forward to protracted battles over austerity vs. social welfare.
As Teixeira concludes,

Bringing progressive constituencies together across parties is of course difficult to do and so far European social democrats seem completely at sea on how to handle this challenge. Much easier to have all those constituencies together in one party–like we do in the United States…The road to progress isn’t clear anywhere but, defying national stereotypes, it’s starting to look a bit clearer in the US than in Europe.

Democrats will have to edge leftward to keep it all together for the upcoming national elections. Making their message palatable to potential swing voters is the over-arching challenge for 2016, made more possible by the rigid right turn of their adversaries.

At Vox Jonathan Allen explores reasons why “Hillary Clinton’s move to the left could help her win the general election“: “Here’s the gamble Clinton’s taking: targeted policy shifts will activate key Democratic voting constituencies early in the campaign without alienating swing voters. If it works, African Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians, and straight white men (the group that seems to like her the least among Democrats) will see her as a true champion and remain energized through the general election. Her campaign views the risk of pushing away independents as minimal compared with the advantage of rallying Democrats…”Over time, the landscape has shifted on so many of these issues that now Democrats don’t have to hide from them,” one campaign official said. “The data is pretty clear: the independent voters are on our side on issues like gay marriage. So leaning into them comes with a benefit, not a cost.”
I doubt any of today’s presidential candidates would do very well on this test, particularly if subjected to a similar level of scrutiny as that experienced by Clinton. And then there’s the relevant follow-up question that should always be asked: “Compared to who?”
Ronald Brownstein addresses the topic in his National Journal article “Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Need Americans to Trust Her,” noting, “For all those convinced that the serial allegations of ethical impropriety swirling around Hillary Clinton will puncture her prospects of winning the presidency next year, there’s a relevant precedent to consider: On the day Bill Clinton was reelected by more than eight million votes in 1996, a solid 54 percent majority of voters said in exit polling that they did not consider him honest and trustworthy…It’s possible that voters have since grown less tolerant of perceived ethical missteps, such as the questions Hillary Clinton is facing over her private State Department email account and the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising practices. But it’s more likely that empathy, faith in her competency, and ideological compatibility will count more than integrity in shaping voters’ verdict on Hillary Clinton–just as they did for her husband.”
“…If American schools did a better job teaching about history and government, students most likely would grow up to be more engaged adults. Alas, the latest testing by the National Assessment of Educational Progress — aka NAEP or The Nation’s Report Card — found that just 18 percent of eighth-graders scored “proficient” or better in history; 23 percent scored proficient or above in civics. In short, close to 4 in 5 middle schoolers don’t know much about history, while 3 in 4 don’t know much about their government,” writes Debra J. Saunders in “Want more voters? Teach more civics and history” at The herald of Everett, Washington.
In Amy Chozick’s NYT article “As Middle Class Fades, So Does Use of Term on Campaign Trail.” she observes, “A social stratum that once signified a secure, aspirational lifestyle, with a house in the suburbs, children set to attend college, retirement savings in the bank and, maybe, an occasional trip to Disneyland now connotes fears about falling behind, sociologists, economists and political scientists say…Rising costs mean many families whose incomes fall in the middle of the national distribution can no longer afford the trappings of what was once associated with a middle-class lifestyle. That has made the term, political scientists say, lose its resonance…”We have no collective language for talking about that condition,” Dr. Elwood said.”
Democratic candidates, not Republicans, take note: Some good tips in Mark Leibovich’s New York Times Magazine article, “Crying Gotcha” for handling trick questions.
Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson write at American Prospect, via Moyers & Company, “The GOP isn’t moving back to the center. The “proxy wars” of 2014 were mainly about tactics and packaging, not moderation…The far right has built precisely the kind of organizations needed to turn diffuse and generalized support into focused activity on behalf of increasingly extreme candidates…Those organized forces have two key elements: polarizing right-wing media and efforts by business and the very wealthy to backstop and bankroll GOP politics. Pundits like to point to surface similarities between partisan journalists on the left and right, but the differences in scale and organization are profound. The conservative side is massive; describing its counterpart on the left as modest would be an act of true generosity…The Republican base generates an exceptionally strong gravitational pull, and that pull takes politicians much farther from the electoral center than do the comparatively weak forces on the left of the Democratic Party.” As for the Democratic response, Hacker and Pierson urge, “As difficult as it surely will be, there is no substitute for restoring some measure of public and elite respect for government’s enormous role in making society richer, healthier, fairer, better educated and safer. To do that requires encouraging public officials to refine and express that case and rewarding them when they do so. And it requires designing policies not to hide the role of government, but to make it both visible and popular.”
The dean of conservative political columnists has a one-word description of Mike Huckabee’s presidential candidacy: “Appalling.”
But there is an inherent weakness in conservative messaging. Jonathan Chait addresses “Why Conservatives Use Novels to Justify Inequality,” and observes “Abstract thought experiments and references to old novels are a more attractive way for conservatives to frame their defense of existing economic privilege than engaging with the actually existing debate over inequality.” Their overall message strategy is to avoid relevant statistical realities because they tend to favor progressive arguments.

Washington Post political/pop culture writer Hunter Schwarz takes a look at some of the presidential candidates’ slogans for 2016 and offers some observations, both wry and perceptive.
Schwarz likens Republican Ben Carson’s “Heal. Inspire. Revive” to a slogan for “a spa or a multi-level marketing company that sells energy drinks.” Perhaps a cut to the chase is needed here. Given Carson’s somewhat low name-recognition, maybe preface his slogan with “Think Ben Franklin and Kit Carson, Oh, and Here’s Some Nice Words.”
For Carly Fiorina’s “New Possibilities. Real Leadership,” add, “– Not Much to Say, but a Couple of Cliches should Do.” Ted Cruz’s “Reigniting the Promise of America” sounds hackneyed (How do you ‘reignite’ a ‘promise,’ anyway?). How about “Resurrecting the Spirit of Joe McCarthy,” which is more on point.
Regarding Marco Rubio’s “A New American Century,” Schwarz enthuses, “Rather than just promising four or eight years of peace and prosperity, he’s promising 100. What a deal!” Better still, Rubio’s campaign could add “OK, The New American Century is 15 Years Old, But You Can Still Vote for the Youngest-looking Wing-Nut.”
Then there’s Rand Paul’s “Defeat The Washington Machine. Unleash The American Dream,” which Schwarz feels has a little moxie. To punch it up with a little more veracity, however, it could be replaced by “Ayn Rand in a Trojan Horse.”
With respect to Democrats, Schwarz credits the slogan of Bernie Sanders: “A Political Revolution is Coming” with at least being “on-brand.” For Hillary Clinton’s “Everyday Americans need a champion. I want to be that champion,” Schwarz notes:

So it’s not her official slogan, but it’s a sentence she used in her announcement video…In lieu of a slogan, it’s what people are using…While it basically sums up what all elections are about, it uses the phrase “everyday Americans,” which we’ve established isn’t a phrase actual “everyday Americans” actually use, and it’s self-centered. Even though candidates are the entire reason for their campaigns, they’re supposed to pretend they’re not, by saying things like “we” and “us” instead of “I” and “me.”

Point taken. But maybe what is really needed here is a party-centric slogan that all Democrats can run on. For that, TDS suggests a meme from one of our bumper stickers:

“The Map: 11 Angles on the Electoral College” by Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley provides a riveting read for anyone interested in 2016 political strategy, as well as political map junkies. My overall take-away is that Dems are going to have to screw up really bad to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this time out.
As a bonus, the same guys have “The 2016 Results We Can Already Predict,” in which they i.d. the likely 2016 toss-up states as: CO; FL; IA; NH; NV; OH; and VA. The only “Leans R” state is NC; The only “Leans D” states are WI and PA. The rest are all “likely” or “safe” one party or the other.
From an ABC News report by Chris Good and Rick Klein comes a reality check on the fuss about the number of presidential debates: “In 2004 and 2008, the DNC similarly sanctioned six debates, but thanks to advocacy groups and media outlets organizing their own debates and forums, the actual number of debates ballooned to over 20 in each year.” Any effort to restrict debate is likely doomed to failure of one sort or another. Strategic concerns about overexposure are probably futile in today’s media environment anyway.
Yet another indication that Dems ought to be able to get a bigger bite of the high-turnout senior vote.
At The Atlantic Gillian B. White probes a question of political consequence: “What Does ‘Middle Class’ Even mean?” Her article has the disturbing subtitle, “The gap between the richest and poorest in the U.S. is so wide that more Americans have started to assign themselves to lower socioeconomic groups.”
E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains why “Populism could divide the Grand Old Party,” and notes “a steady but little-noticed trend: Americans are becoming less conservative. In the fall of 2010, the Times/CBS poll found, there were twice as many self-described conservatives as liberals: 19 percent of Americans called themselves liberal, 38 percent called themselves conservative. In the latest poll, liberals stood at 25 percent, conservatives at 33 percent. In less than five years, a 19-point margin has shrunk to eight points.”
You probably knew that the U.S. record on voter turnout is not so hot, compared to many democracies. But 31st out of 34 countries studied is an embarrassment for a nation which fancies itself ‘the world’s greatest democracy.’
Memo to the good people of Iowa’s 4th congressional district: Is this really the best you can do?
Here’s why such neo-McCarthyite rants by Rep. King, Sen. Cruz and others are not going to get much traction.

Bloomberg political commentator Mark Halperin gives Mike Huckabee an overall “B” grade for his “Colloquial, Clever Appeal to the Working Class” in his presidential candidacy announcement. No reason to doubt the grade — The Huck can flat work a script.
But I have to wonder if Huckabee’s tour as a credible presidential nominee is going nowhere. I don’t doubt his ability to rally blue collar swing voters in the general election to some extent; it’s just hard to envision him outpolling the more lavishly-heeled and genteel Bush, Rubio or Walker in the GOP primaries, each of whom is chugging along nicely in the latest polls. Of course, anything can happen in such a large primary field.
I have no trouble, however, envisioning the media-savvy Huckabee on the GOP ticket as Spiro Agnew Jr., blasting away well-crafted one-liners. Dig his announcement jab at Jeb Bush: “I grew up blue collar; not blue blood” or remember, as I do with a grimace his put-down “Congress spends money like John Edwards in a Beauty Shop.”
A number of political commentators have noted the GOP candidates bragging abut their respective working-class childhoods. Not to doubt the authenticity of their social class origins, but none of them project it quite as shamelessly as does Huckabee. It’s not so much where you came from that makes a strong candidate with blue collar voters or any demographic group; it’s how well you connect with the constituency on all levels. Huckabee seems more comfortable in his skin with the blue collar meme than do Walker or Rubio, who also have working class roots. He may not walk the walk, but he can parrot the talk.
Huckabee’s facility with zingers may be just what the party Brahmins are looking for — in the number two spot. Halperin calls Huckabee ‘clever,’ but I wouldn’t object to shrewd, devious or conniving, which is kind of what you want in your attack-dog.
Rubio may be a better choice for the veepstakes, since he brings a big plus in the GOP’s quest for the elusive Latino vote and could excite young Republicans. But if he wins the presidential nomination, he’s going to want some extra entree with white, blue collar swing voters. Who better do the Republicans have to connect with this pivotal constituency and maybe even shore up rural voters, as well as disappointed religious wing-nuts?
Huckabee is expected to make much of his Arkansas pedigree as a candidate who knows how to stick it to the Clintons. But Huck became Governor because he was positioned in the Light Gov slot when Jim Guy Tucker resigned after being scandalized in the Whitewater mess. Further, Huckabee’s Arkansas record is tainted by his rap sheet as “a tax-raising big-spending criminal-coddler,” as Ed Kilgore has noted.
I don’t doubt that Huck is playing to win the presidential nomination. But I think the GOP mainstream wants a less devious, more trustworthy front-man, and sees Huckabee as a guy whose persona screams ‘Veep!’

In the wake of the Baltimore riots, Dalia Sussman of The New York Times reports findings of a new CBS News/NYT study of race relations and racial attitudes in the U.S.:

Sixty-one percent of Americans now say race relations in this country are generally bad. That figure is up sharply from 44 percent after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown and the unrest that followed in Ferguson in August, and 43 percent in December. In a CBS News poll just two months ago, 38 percent said race relations were generally bad.
The negative sentiment is echoed by broad majorities of blacks and whites alike, a stark change from earlier this year, when 58 percent of blacks thought race relations were bad, but just 35 percent of whites agreed. In August, 48 percent of blacks and 41 percent of whites said they felt that way.
Looking ahead, 44 percent of Americans think race relations are worsening, up from 36 percent in December. Forty-one percent of blacks and 46 percent of whites think so. Pessimism among whites has increased 10 points since December.

As you might expect the poll shows substantial differences in racial attitudes towards police culpability. And there are differing opinions about the rioting that followed. “Most Americans, 61 percent, say the unrest after Mr. Gray’s death was not justified. That includes 64 percent of whites and 57 percent of blacks,” writes Sussman.
Of course “justified” is a loaded word, which can mean different things to different people, ranging from “understandable” to “morally right.” Unfortunately, the study did not probe possible solutions, other than 93 percent of both black and white respondents agreeing that police wearing body cameras is a good idea.
There are a range of constructive reforms to reduce police-community violence, which should have strong support. The body cameras are a slam dunk, and I suspect you would also find lots of agreement on the merits of more cities creating independent police review boards, better training in conflict-resolution and rules of engagement for police, and more African American and Latino police throughout department ranks, among others.
With respect to rioting, however, state and local governments rarely have adequate resources to address the underlying cause that contributes so powerfully to rioting — hopelessness. The overwhelming majority of impoverished people of Ferguson, MO and Baltimore are law-abiding citizens. But when large numbers of people feel that they have little reason to hope for a better future, or even a decent life, some are going to feel they have little to lose by rioting. It is more remarkable, considering the generations of grinding poverty and despair in America’s ghettos and barrios, that there has been so little rioting.
So how does a great democracy address poverty, despair and hopelessness? We have tried decades of neglect, and clearly that is not working. But there are points of consensus about possible solutions.
it is often noted for example, that there are more impoverished whites than people of color in the U.S. Add to their numbers the millions of citizens of all races working their tails off for incomes just a little above the poverty line, and you are talking about tens of millions of voters. It ought to be possible to build a majority for practical, corrective programs which can reduce hopelessness among impoverished and low-income families.
Paul Krugman writes in his NYT column, “Race, Class and Neglect,”

…At this point it should be obvious that middle-class values only flourish in an economy that offers middle-class jobs…The great sociologist William Julius Wilson argued long ago that widely-decried social changes among blacks, like the decline of traditional families, were actually caused by the disappearance of well-paying jobs in inner cities. His argument contained an implicit prediction: if other racial groups were to face a similar loss of job opportunity, their behavior would change in similar ways.
And so it has proved. Lagging wages — actually declining in real terms for half of working men — and work instability have been followed by sharp declines in marriage, rising births out of wedlock, and more.
As Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution writes: “Blacks have faced, and will continue to face, unique challenges. But when we look for the reasons why less skilled blacks are failing to marry and join the middle class, it is largely for the same reasons that marriage and a middle-class lifestyle is eluding a growing number of whites as well.”

So why not put millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans of all races to work at jobs that need doing? For many years progressive Democrats have argued for a major investment in improving America’s infrastructure, and with good reason.
Currently, 65% of U.S. roads are rated “in less than good condition,” while 25% of our bridges “require significant repair or can’t handle today’s traffic,” according to a report by the National Economic Council and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. The report found that “the U.S. lags behind many of its overseas competitors in transportation infrastructure investment. In the most recent World Economic Forum rankings, the U.S. had in less than a decade fallen from 7th to 18th overall in the quality of our roads.” In addition, 45% of Americans lack access to transit. Our ability to compete in the world marketplace is being crippled by infrastructure neglect.
But there is wide support for major infrastructure investments. A 2013 Gallup Poll found that 91 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of Independents and 63 percent of Republicans supported “a federal government program that would put people to work on urgent infrastructure repairs.”
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) have introduced The Rebuild America Act, legislation to “invest $1 trillion and create or maintain at least 13 million decent-paying jobs. The legislation “makes targeted investments in roads, bridges, transit, passenger and freight rail, water infrastructure, marine ports and inland waterways, national parks, broadband and the electric grid.”
We’ve also got to start thinking about education as a critical, make that central, component of our infrastructure and the most cost-effective investment we can make in America’s competitiveness, as well as for reducing hopelessness. In a CBS/Washington Post poll taken in January, 53 percent of respondents said they supported President Obama’s proposal “providing free tuition to attend community colleges at a cost to the federal government of sixty billion dollars over 10 years,” an impressive figure, considering there was no public education campaign before announcing the proposal. But Democrats will have to make a stronger, more unified case for investing in education than has thus far been the case.
We can no longer afford the luxury of substituting pious talk about bootstrap mobility for needed investment in America’s human and physical resources. As Krugman concludes,

The poor don’t need lectures on morality, they need more resources — which we can afford to provide — and better economic opportunities, which we can also afford to provide through everything from training and subsidies to higher minimum wages. Baltimore, and America, don’t have to be as unjust as they are.

Instead, we can put millions of Americans to work improving our physical and educational infrastructure — which will do more to enhance our world-wide competitive position than any trade agreements. But Democrats have to unite behind it and make such infrastructure upgrades the priority message of the day — every day.

Michael Tomasky’s Daily Beast column, “Hillary and Liberals: Here’s the Deal” cuts to the chase “What I’m talking about here is not just a handful of policies. I’m talking about the bulk of the Reagan-Gingrich-Bush legacy. Obama could not undo it because he had to deal with the Great Recession. But eight more years of a Democratic presidency can do exactly that–undo it, across a whole range of fronts…This and nothing else is the basis of the deal. This election isn’t about Clinton’s personality or vision or lack of it or anything else that’s directly about her. It’s about having the chance to undo what conservatism has wrought for two generations. I can assure you–smart conservatives understand these to be precisely the stakes, if the Democrats win two more straight presidential elections.”
So how does the public feel about the decline in union membership? For the answer, check out the latest Pew Research Center report on the topic, which notes “The public expresses mixed views of the longterm decline in union membership on the country: 45% say this has been mostly a bad thing, while 43% see it as mostly a good thing…However, the effects of the decline in union membership on working people is seen in more negative terms: 52% say the reduction in union representation has been mostly bad for working people, compared with fewer (40%) who say it has been mostly good. The balance of opinion on this question is about the same as it was in a 1994 NBC/Wall Street Journal survey that asked about the previous 20 years…48% hold a favorable view of unions, while somewhat fewer (39%) say they have an unfavorable view. Opinions of unions have recovered from lows reached in 2010 and 2011.”
At the L.A. Times Cathleen Decker explores reasons for “Why Don’t More Women Run for Office?”
From Valeriya Metla’s “What Part Will Hispanic Voters Play in the 2016 Elections?” at Law Street: “Statewide, eligible Hispanic voters amount to around 40.1 percent in New Mexico, 27.4 percent in Texas, 26.9 percent in California, 20.3 percent in Arizona, 17.1 percent in Florida, 15.9 percent in Nevada, 13.2 percent in New York, 12.8 percent in New Jersey, and 10.3 percent in Connecticut. Again, Hispanic voter turnout during the midterms was lower than that of other ethnic groups and nationwide. For example, in Florida, only 36.5 percent of Hispanic voters showed up to vote in the 2014 midterm elections, while the overall voter turnout was at 50.5 percent. Despite low turnout, however, Hispanic voters have the ability to strongly affect American elections.”
At The Fix Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza have “The top 10 Senate races of 2016, ranked.” They see the states most likely to change the party affiliation of their Senators, in order, as: IL; WI; FL; NV; PA; CO; NH; OH; NC and IN.
‘Poorer than thou’ seems to be the current mantra of GOP presidential wannabes. It’s all about creating a compelling narrative, as Jeremy W, Peters explains in his New York Times article, “G.O.P. Hopefuls Now Aiming to Woo the Middle Class,” quoting National Review writer Charles C. W. Cooke, who says “Probably the idea that is most attractive to an average voter, and an idea that both Republicans and Democrats try to craft into their messages, is this idea that you can rise from nothing.” And in the case of the Republicans, ‘be about nothing, save tax cuts for your rich chums,’ he could have added.
At The Upshot Justin Wolfers explores the data revealing the power of place in upward mobility. As Wolfers writes of the strategic implications, “This puts the issue of fixing our failing neighborhoods squarely on the political agenda,” a priority Democratic candidates who want to win elections should be able to articulate.
From Dorian T. Warren’s “How to Truly Eradicate Poverty” at The Nation: “…Underneath the frozen surface of partisan rancor and stale ideological arguments, powerful currents are moving the country towards a new consensus for change…This moment calls for an aspirational program that can galvanize energy, animate a broad-based coalition and provide a foundation for concrete action that will put the voice and agenda of struggling Americans…at the center of a new national debate. At its core is a simple and achievable idea: government should take action to create millions of good new jobs in emerging sectors, guarantee decent wages and benefits for all who want to work, and ensure equity in the labor market for women and people of color.”
Drawing from Michael Bader’s “More than Bread and Butter: A Psychologist Speaks to Progressives About What People Really Need in Order to Win and Change the World,” Daily Kos’s Meteor Blades has a provocative question, “Do progressives need to make better emotional ties when organizing?”