Greg Sargent, author of An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics, has some valuable insights for Democrats in his post, “Trump’s First Big Fiasco Triggers Stephen Miller’s Rage—Take Note Dems: The Democrats finally started to find their legs after Trump’s spending freeze. The key lesson? Making sheer political noise about something does make a difference.” at The New Republic. Some nuggets from Sargent’s article:

Admitting failure is anathema to the authoritarian leader, who is perpetually in danger of being diminished by those who are resentful of his glory—which is why White House adviser Stephen Miller is frantically searching for scapegoats to blame for the unfolding disaster around President Donald Trump’s massive freeze on federal spending….

What Miller is actually angry about is that the media covered this fiasco aggressively and fairly. Miller insists that the press glossed over the funding pause’s supposed exemption for “aid and benefit programs.” But this is rank misdirection: The funding freeze, which is likely illegal, was indeed confusingly drafted and recklessly rolled out. This is in part what prompted the national outcry over the huge swath of programs that it threatened, Medicaid benefits included—and the media coverage that angered Miller.

All of which carries a lesson for Democrats: This is what it looks like when the opposition stirs and uses its power in a unified way to make a lot of what you might call sheer political noise. That can help set the media agenda, throw Trump and his allies on the defensive, and deliver defeats to Trump that deflate his cultish aura of invincibility.

….Until this crisis, the Democratic opposition has mostly been relatively tentative and divided. Democrats were not sufficiently quick, forceful, or unified in denouncing Trump’s illegal purge of inspectors general and his deranged threat to prosecute state officials who don’t comply with mass deportations. Internal party debates suggest that many Democrats believe that Trump’s 2024 victory shows voters don’t care about the dire threat he poses to democracy and constitutional governance, or that defending them against Trump must be reducible to “kitchen table” appeals.

But the funding-freeze fiasco should illustrate that this reading is highly insufficient. An understanding of the moment shaped around the idea that voters are mostly reachable only via economic concerns—however important—fails to provide guidance on how to convey to voters why things like this extraordinary Trumpian power grab actually matter.

Democrats need to think through ways to act collectively, to utilize something akin to a party-wide strategy, precisely because this sort of collective, concerted action has the capacity to alert voters in a different kind of way. It can put them on edge, signaling to them that something is deeply amiss in the threat Trump is posing to the rule of law and constitutional order.

Generally speaking, some Democrats have several objections to this kind of approach. One is that voters don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly impact them and that warnings about the Trump threat make them look unfocused on people’s material concerns. Another is that if Democrats do this too often, voters will stop believing there’s real cause for alarm.

The funding-freeze fiasco got around the first objection for Democrats because it did have vast material implications, potentially harming millions of people. But Democrats shouldn’t take the wrong lesson from this. A big reason this became a huge story was also that it represented a wildly audacious grab for quasi-dictatorial power. Democratic alarms about this dimension of the story surely helped prompt wall-to-wall coverage. Democrats can learn from that.

Sargent notes that Democratic activist Faiz Shakir has called for a quick response messaging strategy, in which Democrats regularly comment on all the ways Trump betrays “working-class values and your working-class interests.” Also,

Shakir also suggests an intriguing way for the party to act in concert. As chair, he’d aggressively encourage as many elected officials as possible to use the video-recording studio at the DNC in moments like these, getting them to record short takes on why voters should care about them, then push the content out on social media….The goal, Shakir said, would be to provide Democrats with research and recording infrastructure enabling elected officials to find their own voices and flood information spaces with civic knowledge. This also would give Democrats who want to stick to a “kitchen table” approach a way to shape their own warnings around that.

….Nobody denies that the Democratic Party is a big, sprawling, highly varied organism with elected officials facing a huge spectrum of different political imperatives. Of course there will be variation in how they approach each Trumpian abuse. But as Brian Beutler puts it, the answer to this cannot be to “lodge passing complaints about Trump’s abuses of power, but turn every conversation back to the cost of groceries.” This incoherently implies that the abuses themselves are not serious on their own terms.

Of course, it’s not all about messaging. Democrats have to make some major policy changes, as well, particularly regarding immigration and inflation and they must ditch the sillier cultural issue excesses. But Sargent’s TNR column offers a nuanced discussion of possible Democratic messaging strategies in response to Trump’s scorched-earth grand strategy. Read the whole article right here.

In “Trump’s grant gambit threatens to wreck the goldilocks economy he inherited,” Allison Morrow writes at CNN Politics: “A two-page memo, totaling less than a thousand words and packed with right-wing rhetoric, threw the fate of the US economy into uncertain territory late Monday as the Trump administration ordered the suspension of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans….The document from the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget states explicitly that federal funds should align with Trump administration priorities and focus on “ending ‘wokeness.’”….It’s difficult to overstate the chaos that the directive, with its ambiguous wording, unleashed within organizations across broad swaths of the economy that rely on federal funds — including programs that provide essential medical services, emergency aid for farmers, cancer center support and even a program covering the cost of caskets for deceased veterans with no next of kin, my CNN colleagues Jennifer Hansler, Andy Rose and Tami Luhby reported….By Tuesday evening, a federal judge had temporarily blocked part of the freeze on federal aid….And while there were still countless questions left unanswered — a White House spokesperson initially couldn’t say whether Medicaid funding would be paused, for instance — what was clear is that any disruption to the flow of federal funds would have undeniable ripple effects throughout the US economy….The gambit is part of Trump’s stated desire to wrest control over spending from Congress, and is, according to legal experts, almost certainly illegal.” As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse put it, “Trump’s power grab was plucked directly from the Project 2025 playbook….It’s hard to tell if this is incompetence or mischief, but this funding freeze is illegal and unconstitutional, and every single American has a stake in getting it undone.”

“‘He’ll stiff you’: Senator warns federal workers Trump’s ‘buyout’ offer is bogus,” Matthew Chapman writes at The Raw Story, quoting Sen. Tim Kaine: “….Kaine issued his warning on the Senate floor on Tuesday, following reports of the buyout proposal. “The President has no authority to make that offer,” said Kaine. “There’s no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work … If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you.”….Trump has been accused of not paying workers what he promised, dating back to his days when private contractors said he ripped them off, and even attorneys he hired who said he stiffed them for legal services. ….The buyout offer, which reportedly extends to every worker in the entire federal civil service, does not appear to actually entitle government employees to a compensation package without work; rather, it lets them take a “deferred resignation,” where they can remain in their job for up to 8 months and be exempt from Trump’s new executive order mandating federal employees return to full-time in-office work.” As Ed Mazza notes, further, at Huffpo, via Yahoo News: “Don’t be fooled,” Kaine said. “He’s tricked hundreds of people with that offer. If you accept that offer and resign he’ll stiff you just like he stiffed the contractors.”

The big buzz continues about former Ambassador Caroline Kennedy’s warning about her cousin, RFK, Jr.’s nomination to head HHS as hearings begin. Aria Bendix writes at nbcnews.com: “In a letter Tuesday urging the Senate to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for health and human services secretary, Caroline Kennedy referred to her cousin as a “predator.”….Caroline Kennedy, a former U.S. ambassador to Australia and the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, said RFK Jr. was unqualified to lead HHS, which oversees 13 federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services….Among her many criticisms in the letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Kennedy said that “siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death.”….“Bobby is addicted to attention and power,” Caroline Kennedy said, using her cousin’s nickname. “Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own kids while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.”….“Bobby is willing to profit and enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer,” Caroline Kennedy wrote….“Bobby expropriated my father’s image and distorted President Kennedy’s legacy to advance his own failed presidential campaign, and then groveled to Donald Trump for a job,” she said….“Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination and that of his own father,” she added. “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone who is willing to exploit their own painful family tragedies for publicity would be put in charge of America’s life and death situations.”

It’s pretty clear now that Trump’s grand strategy for invoking his imagined imperial authority is to “flood the zone” with so many outrages that Democrats won’t have time to unite behind an effective strategy for defending democracy. As Sahil Kapur explains at nbcnews.com: “Less than 48 hours after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries held a closed-door meeting with Democratic lawmakers to issue a warning and a clarion call….The new administration was going to “flood the zone,” and Democrats couldn’t afford to chase every single outrage — or nothing was going to sink in for the American people, Jeffries told them….Jeffries, D-N.Y., urged members to focus their message on the cost of living, along with border security and community safety….Burned by their failures to end the Trump era the first time, Democrats are crafting a new playbook for his second administration that departs from the noisy resistance of his first presidency. The new approach, according to more than a dozen party leaders, lawmakers and strategists, will be to zero in on pocketbook issues as they lay the groundwork for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. And they plan to focus less on his cultural taunts and issues that don’t reach the kitchen table….The strategy will test Democrats’ ability to break through in a cluttered and rapidly evolving information environment….Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was in many ways the face of the first resistance to Trump, agreed with the approach. “I think we have to pick our fights and not chase after every crazy squirrel,” Schiff said in an interview….the stuff that really matters — the trade wars that are going to raise costs on people, the mass deportations that are going to raise food prices and cause suffering among huge numbers of families, the pardoning of criminals who beat police and now the focus on tax cuts for really rich people that will do nothing for working families. These are the big fights that we need to focus on.”….Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, a member of the Democratic leadership team, begrudgingly admitted Trump is talented at distracting his critics by making them chase shiny objects. This time, he said, the resistance needs to focus on the GOP economic agenda….“We are going to talk every day and every week about what a rip-off this whole enterprise is,” Schatz said in an interview….“One of the things that congressional Democrats have done poorly, frankly, is that we talk about one thing one week and then something else the following week,” he said. “And I think that’s especially the dynamic with Trump in charge, because he’s extraordinarily skillful at commanding attention. And so one of the things that we’re going to make a conscious effort to do is: Whatever else is going on, our message is going to be: They are ripping you off.”

Mary Radcliffe, Nathaniel Rakich, Tia Yang, and Cooper Burton write in “What do Americans think of Trump’s executive actions? “They support Trump’s immigration policies, but not much else” at 538/abcnews: “Before this week, the modern record for most executive orders signed on a president’s first day was nine (set by Trump’s predecessor, former President Joe Biden). And Trump is moving much faster to enact his agenda than he did in his first term:….But how will these sweeping policy changes sit with the American people? We dug up recent polling on 15 of the policies Trump has already issued. While Americans as a whole support some of them, particularly the ones cracking down on immigration, most of the other executive actions he took on Monday are unpopular among the public….In a Beacon Research/Shaw & Company Research/Fox News poll from January, 59 percent of registered voters said they would favor not just detaining but deporting “illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes” while allowing law-abiding immigrants to “remain in the U.S. and eventually qualify for citizenship.” Another 30 percent said they would support deporting all illegal immigrants in the country…..Building a wall at the southern border: Popular….In the latest poll for The Wall Street Journal from Fabrizio, Lee & Associates/GBAO, voters….”strongly favor” building a wall….After the recent surge in migration, Americans’ opinions have evolved on this issue, which used to be quite unpopular. For example, just after Trump’s first election win in 2016, a Politico/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health pollshowed only 35 percent of Americans said they supported building the wall, while 62 percent opposed it.”

Further, the authors note: “Using the military to secure the border: Popular….Citing the national emergency, Trump also issued an executive order directing the military to help stop “unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking” at the border. According to a December poll by Hart Research/Public Opinion Strategies for CNBC, 60 percent of Americans thought deploying the military to the border to stop illegal drugs and human trafficking should be a top priority for the Trump administration. Only 24 percent opposed it….Ending birthright citizenship: Unpopular….However, at least one of Trump’s executive orders on immigration may not meet with such a warm reception from Americans: his order attempting to end birthright citizenship for people whose parents are in the U.S. illegally. (This action will likely get blocked in court, as the Constitution states that people born in the U.S. are automatically citizens.) An Ipsos/New York Times poll from Jan. 2-10 found that Americans oppose ending birthright citizenship for children born to immigrants who are here illegally, 55 percent to 41 percent….Reducing costs: Popular….One of the actions that Trump signed with great pomp and circumstance during his inaugural parade was a memorandum ordering all executive departments and agencies to “deliver emergency price relief … to the American people and increase the prosperity of the American worker.” Trump probably did this because he knows it’s exactly what Americans want: Per a Cygnal poll earlier this month, 85 percent of likely 2026 voters said reducing inflation and lowering the cost of living was extremely or very important to them, making it far and away their top policy priority.”

In addition, the authors write: “Jan. 6 pardons: Unpopular….Trump also issued a blanket pardon Monday for anyone convicted of offenses surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. That includes more than 1,500 individuals who have been arrested since the attack, over 80 percent of whom had already been convicted. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to do this, but it’s not likely to play well with the public. In a recent Marist College survey for NPR and PBS News, 62 percent of Americans said they disapproved of Trump taking such an action, and a similar share (57 percent) were opposed in the latest Fabrizio, Lee & Associates/GBAO poll for The Wall Street Journal. The pardons are almost certain to please Trump’s base, though: 64 percent of Republicans in the Marist/NPR/PBS News poll approved of them….Withdrawing from the Paris accord: Unpopular….In another hit to sustainable energy, Trump began the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, an international commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Americans may not be too happy about this move, as the AP/NORC poll found 52 percent opposed to the withdrawal and only 21 percent in favor (with 26 percent undecided or neutral). That does leave a lot of room for convincing, especially among Republicans, who continue to believe policies to mitigate climate change hurt the U.S. economy….But opinions on this issue have actually remained pretty consistently in favor of the Paris agreement since its inception: 62 percent of Americans were opposed when Trump withdrew from it for the first time back in 2017, and the same share supported Biden’s decision to rejoin in 2021.”

Also, “Ending DEI programs in the federal government: Mixed….Trump issued an executive order ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government that were primarily begun under the Biden administration, including, among other things, environmental justice programs and equity-related employment practices and initiatives….But polls are mixed on whether Americans support such a move, and the result seems to depend quite a bit on the question wording: In a Harvard/Harris poll from January, for example, voters supported “ending hiring for government jobs on the basis of race and returning to merit hiring of government employees,” 59 percent to 41 percent. But in a Pew Research poll conducted in October, a majority of voters (52 percent) said that “focusing on increasing diversity, equity and inclusion at work” is “mainly a good thing,” while just 21 percent said it’s “mainly a bad thing.”….Declaring there are only two sexes: Popular….Another culture-war-oriented executive order declared that it is now U.S. government policy that there are only two sexes: male and female. The order also bans the use of federal funds for gender-affirming care for inmates and urges the protection of single-sex spaces and facilities, including the assignment of transgender people to prisons that match their sex “at conception.”….This one is likely to go down well with a majority of Americans: According to a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2023, 65 percent of Americans believed there were only two gender identities, and only 34 percent said there were more than two. And a May 2024 survey from McLaughlin & Associates/America’s New Majority Project found that registered voters supported a law that “forbids taxpayer dollars from being used to pay for gender reassignment surgery,” 59 percent to 30 percent. (However, because America’s New Majority Project is a Republican sponsor, it’s possible those numbers are too favorable for the conservative side.)”

According to a new “CNN Poll: Most Democrats think their party needs major change, while the GOP coalesces around Trump” Ariel Edwards reports at CNN Politics. As Edwards writes, “In the wake of the 2024 election, most supporters of the Democratic Party say it needs to make significant changes and that they feel “burned out” by politics, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. The party faces its lowest ratings in more than 30 years….Donald Trump’s return to office is also remolding the GOP, with a majority of the party’s backers now saying that support for the president-elect is central to being a Republican….Those shifts are playing out against a broader backdrop of political unhappiness, with even Republicans far more likely to say they’re disappointed and frustrated by politics than to express optimism, inspiration, or pride….A 58% majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say that the Democratic Party needs major changes, or to be completely reformed, up from just 34% who said the same after the 2022 midterm elections, when the party retained control of the Senate but lost the House. Over that time, the share of Republicans and Republican leaners who feel the same way about the GOP has ticked downward, from 38% to 28%….Only 49% of Democratic-aligned adults say they expect their party’s congressional representatives to be even somewhat effective at resisting GOP policies, while more than 9 in 10 Republican-aligned adults expect their party’s congressional representatives — who now control both chambers of Congress — to be at least somewhat effective at passing new laws to enact their agenda….But across party lines, the predominant political mood is one of discontent. Most adults in the US describe themselves as disappointed (70%) and frustrated (64%) with the nation’s politics today, with nearly half calling themselves burned out. About 4 in 10 say they’re angry, rising to 52% among Democratic-aligned women. Fewer than 20% say they’re optimistic, fired up, inspired or proud.”

“We don’t need to waste time trying to parse the differences between the last three elections. In all three, he won—and lost—with historic vote tallies,” Robin D. G. Kelley writes in “Notes on Fighting Trumpism” at The Boston Review. “The message has been clear since 2016, when Trump, despite losing the popular vote to Hilary Clinton, still won the electoral college with nearly sixty-three million votes, just three million fewer than what Obama got in 2012. Trump lost in 2020, but received seventy-four million votes, the second-largest total in U.S. history. For an incumbent presiding disastrously over the start of the Covid pandemic, that astounding number of votes should have told us something. And if we were honest, we would acknowledge that Joe Biden owes most of his victory to the uprisings against police violence that momentarily shifted public opinion toward greater awareness of racial injustice and delivered Democrats an unearned historic turnout. Even though the Biden campaign aggressively distanced itself from Black Lives Matter and demands to defund the police, it benefited from the sentiment that racial injustice ought to be addressed and liberals were best suited to address it….Yet in all three elections, white men and women still overwhelmingly went for Trump. (Despite the hope that this time, the issue of abortion would drive a majority of white women to vote for Harris, 53 percent of them voted for Trump, only 2 percent down from 2020.) The vaunted demographic shift in the 2024 electorate wasn’t all that significant. True, Trump attracted more Black men this time, but about 77 percent of Black men voted for Harris, so the shocking headline, “Why did Black men vote for Trump?” is misdirected. Yes, Latino support for Trump increased, but that demographic needs to be disaggregated; it is an extremely diverse population with different political histories, national origins, and the like. And we should not be shocked that many working-class men, especially working-class men of color, did not vote for Harris. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is right to point to the condescension of the Democrats for implying that sexism alone explains why a small portion of Black men and Latinos flipped toward Trump, when homelessness, hunger, rent, personal debt, and overall insecurity are on the rise. The Democrats, she explained on Democracy Now, failed “to capture what is actually happening on the ground—that is measured not just by the historic low unemployment that Biden and Harris have talked about or by the historic low rates of poverty.”

Kelley concludes that “If we are going to ever defeat Trumpism, modern fascism, and wage a viable challenge to gendered racial capitalism, we must revive the old IWW slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Putting that into practice means thinking beyond nation, organizing to resist mass deportation rather than vote for the party promoting it. It means seeing every racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic act, every brutal beating and killing of unarmed Black people by police, every denial of healthcare for the most vulnerable, as an attack on the class. It means standing up for struggling workers around the world, from Palestine to the Congo to Haiti. It means fighting for the social wage, not just higher pay and better working conditions but a reinvestment in public institutions—hospitals, housing, education, tuition-free college, libraries, parks. It means worker power and worker democracy. And if history is any guide, this cannot be accomplished through the Democratic Party. Trying to move the Democrats to the left has never worked. We need to build up independent, class-conscious, multiracial organizations such as the Working Families Party, the Poor People’s Campaign, and their allies, not simply to enter the electoral arena but to effectively exercise the power to dispel ruling class lies about how our economy and society actually work. The only way out of this mess is learning to think like a class. It’s all of us or none.”

In “The single most unconstitutional thing Trump did yesterday, explained: The president cannot unilaterally repeal parts of the 14th Amendment,” Ian Milhiser argues at Vox: “The most alarming of these immigration orders seeks to strip millions of future Americans of their citizenship….There isn’t even a plausible argument that this order is constitutional. The Constitution is absolutely clear that all people born in the United States and subject to its laws are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. The Supreme Court recognized this principle more than 125 years ago…. Nevertheless, Trump’s order, labeled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” purports to deny citizenship to two classes of Americans. The first is children born to undocumented mothers, whose fathers were not themselves citizens or lawful permanent residents at the time of birth. The second is children whose fathers have similar immigration status, and whose mothers were lawfully but temporarily present in the United States at the time of birth….Almost immediately after this executive order was released, pro-immigration advocates started naming prominent Americans who might not be citizens if this order were in effect when they were born — including former Vice President Kamala Harris. That said, the order does not apply to current US citizens, and is not retroactive: It only attempts to deprive “persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order” of citizenship….It is likely that immigration advocates will obtain a court order blocking Trump’s executive order soon — a group of civil rights groups, including the ACLU, already filed a lawsuit seeking such an order. And, because the Supreme Court has already ruled that birthright citizenship is the law of the land, any lower court judge hearing that lawsuit should be bound by the Court’s 125-year-old decision.” Trump knows that this executive order is toast. But he doesn’t really care because he still gets credit for playing hardball on immigration and that adds to his image as the great warrior against open borders.

“The Democratic Party begins 2025 with several looming questions about its future,” Stephen Fowler writes in “After major 2024 defeats, the Democratic Party searches for a new direction” at apr.org. “Among them: how to recover from losing the White House and the Senate, in an election that saw Democrats lose ground across nearly every demographic group; who will lead its national party apparatus; and how it will handle President-elect Donald Trump’s second term….But as Trump prepares to retake the White House Monday, Democratic leaders have highlighted other results that show November’s losses are not fatal….For example, many down-ballot Democrats outperformed the top of the ticket in competitive races, with the party managing to gain one seat in the House. That shrunk the margin for an already-tight GOP majority that struggled with infighting during the last Congress….Democrats also saw record fundraising last year, and point to years of behind-the-scenes investment in voter data and campaign resources that they say has created a more coordinated and robust party infrastructure for future election cycles….At an in-person forum in Detroit Thursday, candidates seeking to help run the DNC largely agreed on the path forward for Democrats to regain power and the trust of voters who stayed home or supported Trump: year-round organizing efforts, more resources for state and local parties and spreading the Democratic message beyond traditional and friendly media sources.”

In “Democrats’ future crisis: The biggest states that back them are shrinking” Jonathan J. Cooper reports at AP, via pbs.org: “With America’s population shifting to the South, political influence is seeping from reliably Democratic states to areas controlled by Republicans. Coming out of a presidential election where they lost all seven swing states, Democrats are facing a demographic challenge that could reduce their path to winning the U.S. House of Representatives or the White House for the long term….If current trends hold through the 2030 census, states that voted for Vice President Kamala Harris will lose around a dozen House seats — and Electoral College votes — to states that voted for President-elect Donald Trump. The Democratic path to 270 Electoral College votes, the minimum needed to win the presidency, will get much narrower….“At the end of the day, Democrats have to be able to win in the South or compete in the South” if they want to control the levers of government, said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “Otherwise, it’s a really uphill battle every time.”….The Brennan Center, which is left-leaning, projects Democratic states in 2024 would lose 12 seats in the next census. The right-leaning American Redistricting Project forecasts a similar blue-to-red shift but pegged the loss at 11 seats, not 12.”

Cooper continues, “To control the White House, House or Senate, Democrats will likely need to do better in the three southern swing states. Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina lean conservative but have elected Democrats at a statewide level….Alternatively, they could try to achieve their long-elusive goal of turning Texas blue or reverse the recent trend toward Republicans in Florida, once a swing state that has shifted hard to the right…. And while Harris won more than half of Hispanic voters, that support was down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 Hispanic voters that Biden won, according to AP VoteCast. Roughly half of Latino men voted for Harris, down from about 6 in 10 who went for Biden….Democratic resurgence will require much more investment in state parties and a frank assessment of how to appeal to parts of the country that supported Trump, said James Skoufis, a New York state senator running to be chair of the Democratic National Committee….“It requires a reorientation of how we speak with voters,” Skoufis said. “It requires emphasizing our working class values again. And if we’re being honest with ourselves and we’re owning some of what just happened two months ago, we need to shed this perception that we are an elitist party.”

From “2024 Election Post-Mortems: The Elephant Under America’s Political Rug” by Washburnb at Daily Kos: “The oligarchs have acquired and weakened the ability of legacy news media icons like the WaPo and LA Times to warn their readers about the corporate takeover of the US government. The oligarchs and their theofascist allies have also built a modern, think-tank-driven media ecosystem designed to push RW propaganda and misinformation 24/7 for 52 weeks a year. That media ecosystem includes corrupted and shrunken social media platforms like Facebook and X(Twitter). Even TikTok is vulnerable because of its ownership by a Chinese oligarch with ties to the Chinese government—not to mention the national security issues that ownership raises….President Biden’s January 15th farewell address sounded a clear alarm about the corporate/oligarch takeover of American democracy. His labeling of this authoritarian movement as a new tech industrial complex echoed President Eisenhower’s 1961 warning about the threat of a rising military industrial complex to American democracy….The Democratic Party and its progressive allies must build a progressive,grassroots-based media/think tank ecosystem that can effectively counter the RW narrative of fear-based cruelty and domination. This work must be done as the Dems mount an effective 50-state/12-months-a-year campaign to reclaim the White House, Congress, and SCOTUS….It’s time for all of us to reclaim and rebuild our American democracy. Let’s agitate, educate, and organize our communities to build the future that we want for our children and their descendants….No one is going to save American democracy from oligarch-financed theofascism but We the People. President Biden made this point perfectly clear at the conclusion of his January 15th farewell address.”

At Daily Kos, Emily Singer shares some poll stats, which bode poorly for Republicans: As Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office for a second time, he claims to have a “massive” mandate to enact his destructive agenda. But new polling shows that’s far from the truth….A NPR/PBS News/Marist College poll released Wednesday shows that just 44% of Americans view Trump favorably, while 49% view him unfavorably. That’s nearly identical to the 45% approval rating Trump has in Civiqs’ tracking poll….The fact that Trump is viewed unfavorably before he even takes office is a warning sign for his tenure. The start of a presidential term is usually when a president is at their high-water mark of approval…..The NPR/PBS News/Marist College poll has other warning signs for Trump….Just 31% of Americans say the tariff policy Trump plans to enact would help the economy. That should be a flashing red warning light for Trump, showing that Americans will likely blame him if those tariffs cause prices to skyrocket, as economists expect….What’s more, 62% of Americans oppose Trump’s plan to pardon people who either pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes for their role in the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021….It’s not just Trump who is unpopular among voters. Trump’s Cabinet nominees are also underwater….Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, has just a 19% approval rating in the NPR/PBS News/Marist College survey. And the survey was conducted before Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, when Democratic senators laid bare the nominee’s abhorrent behavior of alleged sexual assault, womanizing, on-the-job drinking, and misogynistic remarks….Trump’s co-president, Elon Musk, is broadly unpopular. Only 37% of Americans have a favorable view of him, while 46% view him unfavorably, according to the poll. That’s also a warning sign for Trump.’

If you were wondering “Who were the strongest Senate and House candidates of 2024?,” Nathaniel Rakich brings the answer at 538?abcnews.com: “One general trend here is that Democratic Senate candidates tended to punch above their weight. Democrats outperformed Harris in 23 of the 32 races in the table, helping them to win Senate races in four states that Trump carried: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. A big reason for this is probably that Democrats had more incumbents running for reelection than Republicans did (15 to 8), and, while incumbency advantage isn’t what it used to be, it’s still not nothing….” Here’s the chart showing the derails, minus color coding:

“Democrats certainly don’t want to replicate the destructive, hyperpartisan style that has characterized the GOP,” Julian E. Zelizer writes in “Partisanship Has Worked for Democrats Before. It Can Again” at The New Republic. “As a party that is committed to the continued role of government in American life and the imperative of governance, Democrats must rightly insist on maintaining guardrails that contain their own fiercest instincts. They don’t want to become a second party willing to send the nation into financial default simply to score partisan points; nor do they want to undermine the integrity of democratic institutions in the short-term pursuit of power….But in the space between bipartisanship and hyperpartisanship, there is a wide-ranging world of responsible partisanship within which congressional Democrats can operate, as became clear in the recent struggle over government funding….What are some of the partisan strategies Democrats can deploy in the year ahead? Most important will be for congressional Democrats to remain disciplined. Voting the party line and remaining on the same page will be essential if the House and Senate caucuses want to act as a coherent bloc, as they did with this battle over the continuing resolution, thereby forcing narrow Republican majorities to take the difficult positions that Trump will push on them. Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer need to make clear that any member who decides to go rogue will lose support from the party. Jeffries and Schumer must work closely with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to leverage the purse strings as rewards for loyalty….Given the stakes of the battle ahead, they must make clear to all Democrats that any serious dissension will come at a high cost. Democrats should work in unison to force issues onto the floor, such as proposals for additional federal investment in deindustrialized areas, to push Republicans into uncomfortable positions that will reveal the limitations of their populist agenda.”

Thomas B. Edsall has a must-read column, “Trump’s Return Is a Civil Society Failure” at The New York Times. Among his insights: “A key question emerging from the 2024 elections is whether the Democratic Party is significantly — or even permanently — wounded. Can it return to fighting trim in 2026 and 2028?….A post-election YouGov poll commissioned by the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank, sent a clear message to party loyalists….YouGov asked 5,098 working-class voters (defined as those without college degrees) — primarily in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, along with 881 people elsewhere in the nation — to evaluate the political parties on measures of trust and commitment….Asked which party they trusted “more to improve the economy, protect Americans from crime, handle the issue of immigration,” majorities of respondents chose the Republican Party, ranging from 55 to 34 percent on the economy to 57 to 29 percent on immigration….Asked whether the Democratic Party or the Republican Party was “in touch or out of touch” and “strong or weak,” majorities of working-class voters described the Democrats as out of touch (53 to 34 percent) and weak (50 to 32) and the Republicans as “in touch” (52 to 35) and “strong” (63 to 23).

Edsall continues, “More significant, on two survey questions that previously favored Democrats — whether the party “on my side or not” and which party respondents trusted “to fight for people like me” — the Democrats lost ground to Republicans. Fifty percent of voters participating in the survey said that the Republican Party would fight for people “like me,” while 36 percent said the Democratic Party would….Thirty-four percent of those polled said that the Democratic Party was on their side, and 49 percent said it was not. Fifty percent said that the Republican Party was on their side, and 37 percent said it was not….In an essay accompanying the release of the poll, Will Marshall, the president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, wrote:

The most lethal attack ad of the presidential campaign was a clip from a 2019 interview in which Kamala Harris explains her support for publicly funded sex-change surgery for prisoners, including detained immigrants. The kicker: “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.”

Edsall poses the big question, “Did the Trump campaign’s focus on inflation, immigration, crime and transgender rights succeed in pushing the public image of the Democratic Party farther from the mainstream, no longer concerned with the day-to-day issues of the middle class?”

Edsall adds, “One clearly troubling development for Democrats is the failure of President Biden’s economic initiatives to win votes in either red or blue counties….While inflation was profoundly damaging to Democratic prospects in 2024, Biden administration programs like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act paid large dividends to the regions of the country that had been economically suffering the most ­— red America……..Stanley Feldman, a political scientist at Stony Brook University, wrote by email that

a substantial fraction of Trump (MAGA) supporters believe that demographic change and changes in gender norms are a threat to their way of life and to their status in American society. Most importantly, Republicans (and influencers) have successfully convinced many people that Democrats and liberals are directly responsible for creating and supporting the social forces that they are frightened of.

Edsll notes further, however, that  “In a reflection of the scope of dispute on these issues, Charles Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, declared in an email: “I fundamentally disagree with the proposition that Trump’s re-election is a watershed moment marking the demise of the progressive cause.”….Instead, Kupchan argued, “Trump’s victory reflected an anti-incumbent wave, not a decisive rightward shift.”….Neil Malhotra, a political scientist at Stanford, wrote by email that

the idea that the Democratic Party is a tarnished brand or that the Democratic Party is nearing collapse is highly overrated. An unpopular incumbent administration lost a close election. This has happened countless times in American history, and we have not claimed that a party was on its deathbed.

The 2024 elections, Malhotra continued, were

nothing compared to the 1980s when the Democrats lost three consecutive landslide presidential elections. In the 1930s, the Republican Party was shut out of power across the country except for the Supreme Court, and the party survived.

Edsall quotes James M. Lindsay, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Affairs, who argues, “The question, then, is not why the Democrats lost the White House, but why the center is not holding across industrialized democracies. The list of culprits is long. Rapid globalization. Waves of immigration that exceed the capacity of countries to absorb them. Growing income inequality. Technological change that diminishes the employment prospects for unskilled workers and will soon diminish the prospects for skilled workers. Social media that give disproportionate attention to extreme voices….So, yes, the liberal project is endangered, but it is endangered in both its right-of-center and left-of-center versions.”

In “Why Trump is getting more popular,”  G. Elliott Morris writes at 538/abcnews.com:

According to 538’s average of polls of Trump’s favorability rating, 47.2 percent of American adults have a favorable view of the president-elect, compared to 47.4 percent who have an unfavorable view. That means his net favorability rating — the difference between these two numbers — is now the highest it has been since our tracking began on Jan. 30, 2021. It’s also higher than his average net approval rating — a related but different metric that measured how many Americans approved of his job performance while he was president — was at any point after Feb. 2, 2017. Trump, in other words, is at or near an all-time high in popularity.

“Net favorability” notwithstanding, Trump isn’t getting favorable reviews from a majority of respondent in the poll average. He’s probably getting a little pre-honeymoon bump as he approaches Inauguration Day. I’m a bit surprised, however, that more people aren’t bothered by his sorry cabinet picks.

Morris writes more convincingly that “Trump’s rising popularity since Election Day 2024 is particularly notable. He has gained roughly 8 percentage points of net favorability in the average poll since Nov. 5. The president-elect’s net favorability was at -8.6 points then — around where he was for most of last year. An 8-point bounce is quite a feat in this day and age of stable public opinion; in all our tracking,” One has to wonder how many people are not paying any attention, which is the optimistic scenario, compared to the possibility that the public actually likes his cabinet picks.

Morris speculates that “Trump is being evaluated more generously now because of the post-election glow but that his ratings will fall once he assumes office and starts enacting policies and sucking up more oxygen. But only time can bear this theory out.” Sure, Trump could get lucky, particularly if the good will from Biden’s infrastructure upgrades start to kick in.

However, Morris brings it down to earth in writing “similar boosts in the past have not lasted long. Trump’s victory was in fact much smaller than his supporters have mythologized, and some of his promises — like that to pardon the people imprisoned on charges related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021 — are still very unpopular. If his favorability rating follows the usual track, and/or he attempts some of his more unpopular policies, Trump may find himself quickly at odds again with the American public.”

In any case, smart Democratic strategy shouldn’t change much because of Trump’s favorables: Ditch the unpopular culture war policies, ideas and photo-ops, and get more focused on fighting inflation and all  that can help win more support from working-class voters.

One of these days, when everyone gets tired of yelling at each other about cultural violations, some smart political leader is going to pick up the long-neglected torch of industrial policy, figure out how to sell it to the public and mobilize a majority consensus for a new industrial policy. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt for Democrats to educate themselves about the possibilities. Toward that end, a new book, “Industrial Policy for the United States” by liberal Marc Fasteau and conservative Ian Fletcher is getting some buzz. Consider this teaser from the publication’s web page: “Industrial policy is based on viewing the economy not as one single thing, which is the usual way to view it when people talk about inflation being X% or economic growth being Y%, but as an intricate network of specific industries, some of which are more important than others….The key here is that nations are locked in a ruthless rivalry to possess the most valuable industries. These are not only those important for national security, like aircraft building, but those that generate the highest profits and the most good jobs….foreign nations like China, Japan, Germany, and others use a wide range of policies to grab and hold onto the best industries. For example, they lock America out of their markets with trade barriers, often hidden, to keep the sales for themselves.  They subsidize their exports, overtly and covertly, to build volume and destroy American competitors. They fund not just pure science, but the development of new technologies right down to the factory floor. (Sometimes, they steal technology from us!) They rig their banking systems to build up industry, not financial speculators. (Why don’t we? See Chapter 18.) They don’t try to send all their people to college, but teach them the skills for sophisticated, modern manufacturing industries….Industrial policy is neither liberal nor conservative, and this book is forthrightly bipartisan. Both Trump (tariffs) and Biden (the CHIPS Act) took some small steps in the direction of industrial policy. These moves were a success, but America needs to go much further in this direction and probably will. ​Therefore, this book is the key to understanding how much of the economic agenda of the next 30 years will unfold, what will work and what won’t, and why.”

We can be confident that President Biden will do all that he can in the few remaining days of his presidency to help Los Angeles County recover from the devastation caused by the seven fires which are creating a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions in southern California. President-elect Trump, however, is already using his bully pulpit to blame Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom for the disaster, as if there was something he could do about the freakish weather and ocean conditions that fed the ferocious windstorms. Los Angeles County is the largest County in the U.S., with more than 9.6 million people. Only 10 of the 50 states have more people than L.A. County, and one of them is California. Nobody knows how much money the recovery from this disaster will cost, when all of the recovery expenses are paid, nor what portion will be covered by private fire insurance. But the devastation is so vast that taxpayers will surely pay a large proportion of the final expenses. What Democrats must do is unify against all Republican efforts to short relief aid and foment chaos in L.A. County, hoping that voters will blame California Democrats for Republican failure to fund the recovery. Democrats have always stood for supporting recovery efforts following natural disasters, as a fundamental principle of national patriotism, and now, more than ever, they are challenged to honor that commitment, as they have so often done in red states like Florida.

From “The Federal Reserve Thinks Trump is Going to Make Inflation Much Worse” by Malcolm Ferguson at The New Republic: “Officials at the Federal Reserve are worried that Trump’s policies will cause inflation to rise once again. Recent meeting notes included four separate mentions of the economic impact of changes on immigration, inflation, and trade policy, according to CNBC reporting….“Almost all participants judged that upside risks to the inflation outlook had increased,” the minutes said. “As reasons for this judgment, participants cited recent stronger-than-expected readings on inflation and the likely effects of potential changes in trade and immigration policy.”….Trump has been making broad threats about hardline tariffs against China, Canada, and Mexico, as well as promising mass deportations and deregulation. All of these things are causing the Fed to move carefully….Officials noted that they still expect inflation to get down to 2 percent, but not until 2027 at the earliest.” High inflation, or diminished consumer purchasing power, if you prefer, was the leading cause of Trump’s election victory in November. But soon high inflation will be his to own, and it’s up to Democrats to make sure that happens. it will likely be the pivotal issue of the 2026 midterm elections. If Democrats don’t seize the opportunity, there will be no one else to blame.

In “Sanders doubles down on attacks on Musk over H-1B visas: ‘Dead wrong,’ Lauren Irwin writes a The Hill: “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is doubling down on his attacks against tech billionaire Elon Musk over H-1B visas, telling him he’s “dead wrong” about the employment visa….In an op-ed published Wednesday on Fox News, Sanders highlighted the ongoing debate about H-1B visas and other guest worker programs as President-elect Trump prepares to implement his immigration plan….The H-1B visa is a temporary, non-immigrant work permit that’s become part of the political debate. …Some say the visa attracts professional talent to the U.S., and others say the program allows employers to hire outside the country and pay workers less than they would if they hired an American citizen….Sanders said that H-1B visas are not intended to employ the “best and brightest” but instead replace American workers with people who can be paid lower wages and people who “often live as indentured servants.”….“If there is truly a major shortage of skilled tech workers in this country, why did Tesla lay-off over 7,500 American workers last year – including many software developers and engineers at its factory in Austin, Texas – while applying to hire thousands of H-1B guest workers?” Sanders wrote.”

House Minority Leader Jeffries got a big applause and a lot of media coverage when he told House members that Trump won the election fair and square, and then added that “there are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.” It was an effective comment, and one that shut down the House Republican gloatfest, as Dems rose up to cheer their leader.

Inauguration day, January 20th, however, does present Dems with an opportunity. No, not angrily protesting the inauguration. There will be some of that. But it doesn’t serve the Democratic cause. Just as Democrats are not election deniers, it behooves Democrats to remember that theirs is not the sour grapes party. It’s a bad look and Democrats shouldn’t wear it.

January 20th is also the Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday, a day of nationwide community service projects. The King holiday, as enacted and signed into law in 1983, always falls on the third Monday of January, and sometimes that third Monday is January 20th, Inauguration Day, as it will be this year.

So, Democrats who are looking for an alternative to grumbling about Trump’s inauguration, have an interesting alternative: Get involved in the community service projects that are occurring all across America. It’s a much better look for Democrats to  be doing something to actually help people, and to do it in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.,  than it is for Dems to be whining and grinding teeth on the sidelines.

There is a lot in Trump’s stated plans which merit protest. Those who feel they must protest the inauguration should feel free to do so. But not all of those in the the majority of Americans who voted against Trump are comfortable with going negative on January 20th. It’s kind of like going to an opening day baseball game and focusing on insulting the visiting team, instead of rooting for your home team.

The MLK holiday presents a positive way for Democrats to express their hopes for a better America – to reaffirm their commitment to MLK’s great dream for our country by helping people in need in community service projects. It’s a good look.

Some of the amazingly-diverse MLK Day community service projects undertaken by groups and individuals in cities, counties and small towns in recent years include:

• Blood donor drives
• Cleaning up trash in parks and local rivers
• Collecting food for feed the hungry projects
• Painting and refurbishing shelters for homeless people
• Collecting guns for disposal by the police
• Tutoring kids
• Planting trees
• Reading to vision-impaired seniors
• Yardwork help for people with disabilities
• Fixing broken playground equippment
• Running errands for homebound people
• Shoveling snow for elderly homeowner walkways
• Collecting clothes for family violence shelters
• Organizing free medical care clinics for MLK Day
• Sponsoring teach-ins about MLK’s nonviolence

Such community service projects and many others have been launched on the King holiday every year since the first MLK holiday was observed in 1986. Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden have all personally volunteered to serve communities on MLK Day. Countless public service organizations and private sector businesses have also sponsored such projects. More multi-racial community service projects are completed on MLK Day than on any other holiday, and Democrats who want to do something positive on January 20th are encouraged to help fulfill the Dream.

There will be mass marches, community breakfasts, dinners and other activities in hundreds of cities and towns all across the nation on the MLK holiday. But community service will always be the heart and soul of this holiday.