Amee Latour reports at The Hill: “Swing Left, a group that organizes volunteers and donors to support Democrats in some of the most closely watched races, announced its Win Back the House strategy on Tuesday” and notes further that Republicans won the House majority last year by a margin of less than 7,000 well-distributed votes.

Swing Left’s Executive Director Yasmin Radjy has said that “[I]f we raise dollars for candidates to hire their field directors six months earlier, if we get our volunteers knocking on doors a year earlier than we have before, then we think that a lot more is possible.”

Latour notes that “All six of the GOP-held target districts on the group’s list are in blue states California, New York and Oregon.” She reports that the list of targeted district includes,

Democratic-held “hold” targets:

• IL-17 (Rep. Eric Sorensen)
• NC-01 (Rep. Don Davis)
• NM-02 (Rep. Gabe Vasquez)
• NY-18 (Rep. Pat Ryan)
• OH-01 (Rep. Greg Landsman)
• OH-13 (Rep. Emilia Sykes)

Republican-held “flip” targets:

• OR-05 (Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer)
• CA-13 (Rep. John Duarte)
• CA-27 (Rep. Mike Garcia)
• NY-03 (Rep. George Santos)
• NY-04 (Rep. Anthony D’Esposito)
• NY-17 (Rep. Mike Lawler)

Latour reports that “two of the “flip” target districts were among the five closest Republican-won districts in 2022, according to Inside Elections: California’s 13^th and New York’s 17^th….Each of the six “flip” targets is also on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) list of 31 GOP-held targets released earlier this month. And the six “hold” districts overlap with the DCCC’s list of 29 “Frontline” districts.”

Meanwhile Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. shares some blistering talking points Dems can use to attack the GOP’s House leader’s do-nothing strategy behind his debt-ceiling ‘plan.’ As Dionne notes that former GOP House Speaker John Boehner termed Republican obstructionists as “knuckleheads,” “noisemakers” and the “chaos caucus.” Dionne adds, “In 2011’s debt-ceiling fight, Boehner made a deal. This time, there is little reason to trust that McCarthy, who has made himself a prisoner of his party’s right wing, can negotiate effectively or in good faith.”

Dionne adds that President Biden “is not about to upend a growing economy with steep spending cuts. Nor does he want to glorify the absurd bill McCarthy is hoping to push through the House in the coming week that ties a debt-ceiling increase to outlandish budget cuts that have absolutely no chance of passing the Senate.” Dionne notes that “The cap, after all, was suspended three times when Donald Trump was president without much fuss or fanfare.” Further,

The catch? McCarthy is having trouble uniting his caucus behind anybudget proposal, so the speaker has pushed aside governing in favor of theater. And the production is not even worthy of a high school gym. (I apologize to high school thespians who take their work more seriously.)

It is truly astonishing, as my Post colleagues Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman wrote on Friday, that any Republican operating under labels such as “moderate,” “mainstream” or “problem solver” would vote for a McCarthy proposal that hides its ferocity behind sanitized budgetary gobbledygook….

Dionne concludes, “The Economist magazine recently devoted its cover to the U.S. economy as “a marvel to behold.” Allowing the fractious politics of an unstable House GOP caucus to tank it would be unconscionable.”

For Democrats, it’s time to crank up their two-pronged strategy to win back a House majority: Escalate attacks against McCarthy and his entourage of do-nothing extremists, while getting an early start in the ‘flip and hold’ districts targeted by Swing Left and the DCCC.

In “The human cost of McCarthy’s debt ceiling demands would be catastrophic” Karen Dolan, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, writes at The Hill: “President Biden said it well when he called House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) demands to gut the U.S. safety net or force a federal default “wacko.”….Whatever word for it you use, McCarthy and his caucus are holding American families, the full faith and credit of the United States and the global economy hostage to his demands to slash the programs that most of us rely on….Make no mistake — this isn’t about debt….McCarthy and Republicans in both the House and Senate voted three times under Trump to raise the debt ceiling — and even to suspend it — in order to rack up nearly $8 trillion in debt, including about $2 trillion for tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations. Although bipartisan spending has contributed to the national debt over the years, on partisan votes it’s actually been Republicans who’ve voted to add more to the national debt than Democrats….President Biden, by contrast, reduced the annual deficit in 2022, and his 10-year budget plan for the next fiscal year would lower the national debt by $3 trillion while more robustly funding the programs so many of us rely upon. This is because, unlike the GOP plan, he includes revenues from fair taxation for the nation’s wealthiest….Biden wants the wealthy to pay their fair share to fund social programs that address ever-deepening inequality — while also reducing deficits and debt. If McCarthy simply voted for that budget, he’d reduce the debt. Instead, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill refuse to raise the cap unless underfunded programs — for health care, food and housing, education, veteran’s health and Meals on Wheels —  are slashed to make way for even more tax cuts for the already very wealthy.”

Dolan adds, “According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, McCarthy’s “Limit, Save, Grow Act”  demands the following as ransom for the full faith and credit of the United States:

• Leaving many more veterans, families and elderly people homeless, hungry and unable to access health care or college.
• Eliminating tens of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of Head Start and child care slots.
• Increasing interest on credit cards, car payments and mortgages, while preventing any student loan relief.
• Scaling back tax incentives for green energy and making it easier for oil and gas companies to pollute.
• Making it easier for rich folks to cheat on their taxes.

This is simply no way to run an economy, serve our people or be a responsible global partner. It’s a formula for the opposite….The package is dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate…The debt ceiling should be abolished. It has no connection to the real economy and it’s of no use except as a weapon to take the government hostage. McCarthy’s faction couldn’t care less about the debt ceiling when it comes to unfunded wars, tax cuts for the wealthiest and ballooning the Pentagon budget. But let it be about doing their job and keeping the rest of us afloat and they go into full fiscal terrorist mode….But if the ceiling can’t be abolished, it must be raised as required by the Constitution — without conditions. McCarthy and his cadre should be pressured to immediately pass a clean new debt limit. Anything else is just “wacko.”

“Support for abortion rights has grown in spite of bans and restrictions, poll shows,’ Laura Santhanam writes at pbs.org, and explains, ” Support for abortion rights overall has increased as state legislatures and courtrooms have instituted a growing number of restrictions and bans, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll. Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults say they support abortion rights, marking a 6-percentage point increase since last June….Nearly a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, U.S. opinions about that consequential decision remain largely unchanged in this latest poll. A majority of U.S. adults – 59 percent – still say they oppose the justices’ decision, which removed federal protections for many reproductive health care services, while another 40 percent of Americans agree with the nation’s highest court….Those who say they mostly support abortion rights include 84 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents. At the same time, 37 percent of Americans overall oppose abortion rights, including 67 percent of Republicans….When asked whether abortion should be allowed up until 24 weeks – around when the fetus can be viable outside the womb and before which almost all abortions are performed – 44 percent of Americans said yes. Such laws, favored by a majority of abortion-rights supporters in this poll, saw a 10-percentage point increase since May….While a majority of Americans – 66 percent – say abortion should be prohibited after the first three months of pregnancy, that attitude has diminished from 84 percent nearly two decades ago….Meanwhile, a growing number of Americans — 34 percent — think abortion should be allowed at least up until the first six months of pregnancy, if not throughout the entire pregnancy. That support has more than doubled since May 2009, when 14 percent of Americans felt that way….At the far ends of the spectrum, two in 10 Americans think abortion should be permitted at any time during pregnancy (especially true among Democrats, Biden voters, adults aged 44 or younger and people who graduated from college), while one in 10 Americans think abortion should never be allowed under any circumstances.”

Kyle Kondik probes a question of concern, “Is Biden’s Approval Rating Too Weak for Him to Win? Just like in 2022, “soft” disapprovers are a key bloc” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and observes: “Remember that in 2022, Democrats held their own despite Biden’s poor approval rating in no small part because they did better with Biden disapprovers than Republicans did with Biden approvers. According to the 2 major exit polls of the 2022 election — the Edison Research survey done for several media entities as well as the NORC at the University of Chicago VoteCast done for the Associated Press and Fox News — Biden’s approval/disapproval split among the midterm electorate was 44% approve/55% disapprove (Edison) or 43% approve/57% disapprove (VoteCast). Democratic House candidates won the Biden approvers 94%-5% (Edison) or 90%-8% (VoteCast), while Republican House candidates won the Biden disapprovers 86%-12% (Edison) or 82%-15% (VoteCast)….Both polls also asked voters whether they strongly or somewhat approved or disapproved of Biden’s job performance, and both found that Democrats narrowly won the 10% (Edison) or 13% (VoteCast) of voters who somewhat disapproved of the president….Unless Biden’s approval improves significantly, rising to around 50% or better by the time of his reelection, the “soft” Biden disapprovers are probably going to decide the election. If they vote against Biden en masse, he is likely doomed, particularly because Biden may have to win the popular vote by a few points in order to win if the current bias toward Republicans in the Electoral College endures. But these cross-pressured voters are also going to consider what the alternative to Biden is. As we noted after Biden’s State of the Union address in early February, Biden is very reliant on the Republican Party nominating a presidential candidate who does not have much appeal to these voters — and the GOP may deliver for Biden on that account.”

From “As Biden officially launches his re-election bid, inflation remains a top worry for voters” by Victor Reklaitis at Marketwatch: ”

President Joe Biden has formally kicked off his re-election campaign, with the move coming even as most Americans don’t approve of his performance, while he talks up the strong job market and his legislative record.

In a video message released on the fourth anniversary of when he declared his candidacy in 2019, Biden said the U.S. remains in a battle for its “soul.” The video heavily features footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, and Biden declares that the question Americans are facing is “whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”

About 54% of Americans don’t approve of Biden’s performance, while 43% do, according to a RealClearPolitics average of job-approval polls….Rising food costs rank as the most pressing financial worry for Americans, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Other inflation-related concerns include mortgage or rent payments, healthcare XLV, -1.07% costs and energy NG00, -2.64% bills, the poll found.

Reklaitis also notes, “On the plus side for Biden, the Democratic incumbent has the best chance of winning the 2024 presidential election, according to betting market PredictIt, which puts his odds at around 48%. That’s ahead of former President Donald Trump at about 33%, and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 16%….To be sure, betting markets are not that reliable as a predictor, and they got the 2022 midterm elections wrong. They had suggested a red wave, but Democrats kept their grip on the Senate, and the GOP won just a slim majority in the House.

However, “In addition, the commander-in-chief can point to a robust U.S. labor market, with the unemployment rate at 3.5% in March.”

At Forbes, Derek Saul; reports “The most headline-driving economic development under Biden, the U.S. consumer price index surged from 1.4% on an annual basis in January 2021 to 5% in March, reflecting an overall increase of 15%—far more than the 10.9% increase in average wages during the timeframe….Gas prices soared to their highest levels ever last year amid shock from Russia’s invasion from Ukraine, and though the price at the pump has come down dramatically, the $3.66 average cost per gallon last week was 54% higher than the week preceding Biden’s inauguration despite crude oil prices slipping.”

“Nevertheless,” Saul adds, “Biden has latched onto the job market’s resilience as a key economic talking point, declaring last year the labor market was “the strongest it’s been since just after World War 2,” and saying Americans “can tackle inflation from a position of strength….Biden has latched onto the job market’s resilience as a key economic talking point, declaring last year the labor market was “the strongest it’s been since just after World War 2,” and saying Americans “can tackle inflation from a position of strength.”

Yet, “A recession is “not at all inevitable,” Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told Forbes in a phone interview. The U.S. can avoid a recession “with a little bit of luck and some reasonably good policymaking because the fundamentals of the economy are good.” Zandi also blamed high inflation on supply chain constraints and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led to a staggering surge in energy prices last year. Inflation is “high everywhere in the planet” and has “little to do with Biden’s policies,” he said.”

Here’s an interesting poll, as reported by Andrew Romano at yahoo news: “With President Biden reportedly set to announce his reelection campaign early next week, more Americans say they feel “exhaustion” over the prospect of a 2024 rematch between Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, than any other emotion, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.….The survey of 1,530 U.S. adults, which was conducted from April 14 to 17, found that 38% chose exhaustion after being shown a list of eight feelings and asked to select all that “come to mind” when considering another Biden vs. Trump campaign….Among registered voters, the number is even higher: 44%….No other sentiment — not fear (29%), sadness (23%), hope (23%), anger (23%), excitement (16%), pride (8%) or gratitude (7%) — cracks the 30% mark among all Americans.” One reason not to take this too seriously is that, if the pollster picked 8 different words, number one would have been something else. Blue words have different meanings for different people. Romano adds, “Fatigue is an understandable response to what could be the first general election for president since 1892 to feature the incumbent and his defeated predecessor competing as the major-party nominees — and the only White House race in U.S. history in which one candidate is facing indictment and possible criminal prosecution for conspiring to overturn his prior loss.” I would agree that “exhaustion” is the best choice of the selected “feelings” to describe the prospect of such a rematch, in my case 100 percent because of Trump, who is the most obnoxious president I can remember. I suspect few would hang the “exhausting” label on Biden, through his detractors would undoubtedly have some choice words of their own. Romano has lots more numbers for those who want to check out the poll.

Say what you will about President Biden. But he may be the ‘greenest’ president we have ever had, at least according to the number of trees his administration is planting across the nation. At The World Economic Forum, Stephen Hall reports that “The US is planting a billion trees to fight climate change,” and writes: “As a solution to global warming, “tree restoration can be a powerful tool for drawing carbon from the atmosphere,” according to ecologist and professor Tom Crowther, from Swiss university ETH Zürich….It’s a potential fix that is already being implemented in earnest by governments and institutions around the world. In July 2022, the Biden administration announced that the US government aims to plant over a billion trees to replace millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands….More than $100 million has been set aside by the US Government for reforestation this year, which is more than three times the investment of previous years, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a statement….Over 4 million acres of forest now need to be replanted over the next decade. This equates to 400,000 acres of forest annually, which, if successful, will significantly exceed the 60,000 acres planted last year.” Many would point to Teddy Roosevelt, who started the national parks, FDR’s CCC or President Jimmy Carter’s environmental initiatives. But, for sheer scale, Biden’s tree-planting initiative is unprecedented. Of course, where the trees are planted is really important for quality of life. The hope is that plenty of them are/will be planted where most people actually live, and create more urban parks. Biden also deserves some credit for other environmental policies, even though many progressives would fault him for not moving fast enough to de-carbonize our energy dependence.

In “Here’s the Gutsy, Unprecedented Campaign Biden and the Democrats Need to Run: The party needs a clear hold on power in Washington to deliver big economic boons to the American people. To do that, they need to make a big promise to voters,” Michael Tomasky writes at The New Republic: “A poll released Friday showed that just 47 percent of Democrats want Joe Biden to run for reelection. That’s a grim number. And here’s a grimmer one: Overall, just 26 percent of respondents said he should run again….But Biden is running—with an announcement coming this week, possibly. There’s nothing the Democrats can do about it. And in fact, there’s nothing they should do about it. Yes, he’s 80 years old. But he has a terrific record of accomplishments both domestic and foreign, and there’s no one in the party who would obviously be a better candidate right here and right now….Democrats appreciate that he ran in 2020 and beat Trump and that he’s passed some impressive bills. Under normal circumstances, that would be enough. Incumbents usually run on some version of “stay the course”; we’ve moved things in the right direction, and this is no time to switch. But that won’t be enough this time. The “wrong track” number in this Morning Consult daily poll (69 percent last Monday) has been higher on average for the last year than it was during most of Trump’s presidency. And there could be a recession coming—one rather inconveniently timed from the Democratic point of view. If additional economic headwinds start to blow, that wrong track number is likely to go even higher….So no—the circumstances don’t call for a stay the course campaign.

Tomasky continues, “Biden should do something bigger and bolder. He and the Democratic candidates for Senate and House should run a unified campaign. They should say to America: Elect us—give us the White House, 52 Senate seats, and a House majority—and we’ll reform the filibuster and by Memorial Day 2025, we’ll pass a platter of bills all aimed at helping the middle class and fulfilling the Biden motto that the economy grows from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down….That’s an interesting campaign. That’s a campaign about the future. It implicitly acknowledges that things aren’t great right now, but it does so obliquely enough that it doesn’t sound like an admission of any kind of failure. It says, “We’ve done some good; now, we want to do better. But you have to give us the run of the place.”….This is key. Swing voters, the 5 or 6 percent who aren’t locked in and have gone from Obama to Trump to Biden and could go back, have a very old and hard-wired habit. Distrustful of both parties, they split their votes. Okay, they reason, I’ll go for Biden, I guess, because I don’t want Trump back in there; but I’ll vote Republican for Senate to keep him honest….This seems, to the swing voter, to make a kind of sense. But in reality, it’s the precise cause of our current dysfunction. Giving this Republican Party any degree of power is a surefire recipe for nothing getting done. Democrats need to explain this to swing voters and get them to break that old habit. You don’t have to love us and everything we stand for, they could say. But give us full power in Washington, and we’ll use it to make your life better….what Democrats have to do is get swing voters to understand a very simple truth: Joe Biden can’t make these things happen alone. He has to have a Democratic House and Senate (and in the latter, he needs a couple extra seats to spare to get filibuster reform done).” Tomasky proposes an 8-point agenda that could win the support of Democrats from Rep Ocasio-Cortez to Sen. Jon Tester —  “A unified, parliamentary-style campaign in which they all run on the same economic agenda is their best shot at holding the Senate, because it gives a rationale for why they need unified power and what they’ll do with it.” Read his article for more details.

At The Hill, Keith Naughton probes the efficacy of President Biden’s “zig zag strategy” and observes:

In 1996, President Clinton pursued a reelection strategy of “triangulation” — politically, a made-up term that meant running to the middle in order to win, a tried-and-true strategy that worked for Clinton as it has for many others in American presidential politics.

For President Biden, “triangulation” is not on the table given the highly polarized nature of American politics. His own progressive left base won’t hear of it. Instead, Biden is pursuing a more modest “zigzag” strategy, throwing favors from time to time to the middle and to labor.

Recently the Biden administration approved (rather, failed to oppose) a huge new hydrocarbons project in Alaska. Just weeks later, Biden proposed a set of automotive tailpipe emissions that will severely limit the number of gasoline-powered cars sold starting in 2027. This neat zigzag was perfect for Biden. He gets to take credit with labor for approving a big job-creating project in time for the next election, while giving the environmentalists a big future regulatory win.

But will this strategy work?

Naughton thinks it has done well so far, and notes, “Catering to significant parts of the progressive left — along with a big helping of Republican incompetence — has taken care of any real party primary opposition.”

In terms of public opinion, Naughton writes, “In spite of his occasional apostasy, Biden still scores well with liberals. Biden has an approval rating of 84 percent with Democrats generally, and 82 percent with self-described liberals. He does have some erosion in the ballot test with Trump, scoring 77 percent of Democratic votes (9 percent of Republicans), but 70 percent of liberals (11 percent of conservatives). Seven percent of Democrats said that they would not vote, as opposed to 8 percent of liberals. This erosion does seem like more than a little posturing. It is difficult to see liberals voting for Trump or sitting out 2024 once they get another dose of Trump on the campaign trail.”

However, Naughton adds, “There is bad news and good news for Biden….”

The bad news is the public does not want Biden to run. In last week’s YouGov benchmark, 58 percent of Americans did not want Biden to run again, including 31 percent of Democrats. Trump fares about as bad with 57 percent opposing another Trump run. Independents, however, are somewhat less enthused about a Biden run (65 percent opposed) than a Trump run (59 percent opposed).

Respondents rated Biden’s worst job performance on economic matters. He was underwater at 36 percent approve to 56 percent disapprove on inflation and 42 percent approve to 50 percent disapprove on the economy. This contrasts to his overall approve/disapprove of 47 percent to 49 percent. With economic issues perennially at the top of voter concerns, Biden’s poor ratings are a big structural problem.

The good news for Biden is mostly all the bad news surrounding Trump. Trump remains less popular than Biden with a 45 percent to 51 percent deficit in the YouGov poll. The RealClearPolitics approval average has Trump 17.4 points under water, while Biden’s deficit is 10.3 points.

Looking ahead and drilling down, Naughton adds, “Expect a re-run of the 2020 campaign for Biden, where he just ran as “not Trump.” For Democrats, this strategy seems likely to work. If anything, Trump is getting more chaotic….The good news for Biden is mostly all the bad news surrounding Trump. Trump remains less popular than Biden with a 45 percent to 51 percent deficit in the YouGov poll. The RealClearPolitics approval average has Trump 17.4 points under water, while Biden’s deficit is 10.3 points.”

However, “Respondents rated Biden’s worst job performance on economic matters. He was underwater at 36 percent approve to 56 percent disapprove on inflation and 42 percent approve to 50 percent disapprove on the economy. This contrasts to his overall approve/disapprove of 47 percent to 49 percent. With economic issues perennially at the top of voter concerns, Biden’s poor ratings are a big structural problem.”

On the other hand, “Republicans cannot count on the economy staying bad forever, and they should probably expect a burst of interventions to improve conditions leading up to the election.”

Naughton concludes, “For Biden, keeping his own squabbling party unified, combined with facing Trump, is the recipe for reelection. And so far, that is working.” And it could also help Democrats to hold their own down ballot.

In “Medicaid is popular. So why are Republicans still trying to cut it?,” Dylan Scott notes at Vox: For years, Republicans have believed that Medicaid, which primarily serves low-income Americans, is less politically potent than Medicare or Social Security, two of the other core features of the US social safety net, and therefore a safer target for proposed cuts….There may be some truth to that notion — but Medicaid is plenty popular on its own terms. Over the past two decades, the health insurance program has become an increasingly crucial part of the safety net. Enrollment has roughly doubled from about 46 million people in 2007 before the Great Recession to more than 92 million today. More than 75 percent of the US public says they have very or somewhat favorable views of the program. Two-thirds say they have some kind of connection to Medicaid, either because they themselves or a loved one was enrolled….In state after state, when the question of expanding Medicaid to working-age, childless adults has been put to voters in red states, they’ve voted in favor of giving more people access to health insurance. Even the Republican legislature in North Carolina recently made peace with expanding the program….The last time Republicans tried (and failed) to pass significant cuts to the Medicaid program, in the first year of the Trump presidency as part of their Affordable Care Act repeal plans, they paid the price during the 2018 midterm elections.”

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall takes a sobering look at the drift toward authoritarianism in America, and writes: “In an April 2021 paper, four scholars, Samuel Wang of Princeton, Jonathan Cervas of Carnegie Mellon, Bernard Grofman of the University of California, Irvine, and Keena Lipsitz of Queens College, address the basic question of what led to the erosion among a substantial number of voters of support for democratic principles in a nation with a two-century-plus commitment to this tradition:

In the United States, rules and institutions from 1790, when voters comprised white male landowners and slave owners in a nation of four million, were not designed to address today’s governance needs. Moreover, existing rules and institutions may amplify background conditions that drive polarization. The decline of civic life in America and the pluralism it once nurtured has hastened a collapse of dimensionality in the system.

Americans once enjoyed a rich associational life, Wang and his colleagues write, the demise of which contributes to the erosion of democracy: “Nonpolitical associations, such as labor unions, churches, and bowling leagues, were often crosscutting, bringing people from different backgrounds into contact with one another, building trust and teaching tolerance.” In recent years, however, “the groups that once structured a multidimensional issue space in the United States have collapsed.”

Edsall writes further, “Two senior fellows at Brookings, William Galston and Elaine Kamarck, explore threats to American democracy in a January 2022 analysis, “Is Democracy Failing and Putting Our Economy at Risk?” Citing data from six surveys, including those by Pew, P.R.R.I., Voter Study Group and CNN, the authors write:

Support in the United States for political violence is significant. In February 2021, 39 percent of Republicans, 31 percent of independents and 17 percent of Democrats agreed that “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.” In November, 30 percent of Republicans, 17 percent of independents and 11 percent of Democrats agreed that they might have to resort to violence in order to save our country.

In the wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Galston and Kamarck observe:

Even though constitutional processes prevailed, and Mr. Trump is no longer president, he and his followers continue to weaken American democracy by convincing many Americans to distrust the results of the election. About three-quarters of rank-and-file Republicans believe that there was massive fraud in 2020 and Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president.

In fact, Galston and Kamarck continue, “the 2020 election revealed structural weaknesses in the institutions designed to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process,” noting that “if Mr. Pence had yielded to then-President Trump’s pressure to act, the election would have been thrown into chaos and the Constitution placed in jeopardy.”….If democracy fails in America, they contend,

It will not be because a majority of Americans is demanding a nondemocratic form of government. It will be because an organized, purposeful minority seizes strategic positions within the system and subverts the substance of democracy while retaining its shell — while the majority isn’t well organized, or doesn’t care enough, to resist. The possibility that this will occur is far from remote.”

Should Senate Democrats ditch the “blue slip” tradition”? Jake Johnson makes the case for doing so at salon.com: “The Democratic chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that he is not ready to ditch the arcane tradition that has given individual Republican lawmakers veto power over nominees for federal court seats in their home states….”We’re not at that point yet,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told HuffPost when asked if he’s considering scrapping the so-called “blue slip courtesy”—a non-binding rule that Republicans tossed aside for circuit court nominees when they last controlled the Senate….When a senator returns a blue slip, they are indicating they will allow a judicial nomination to proceed. Earlier this month, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., announced she would not be returning a blue slip for Scott Colom, who President Joe Biden nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi….But Hyde-Smith’s decision, which effectively tanked Colom’s nomination even though he had bipartisan support in the Senate, wasn’t enough for Durbin to abandon the blue slip process—though he said earlier this week that “her conduct and the timing of her decision have made it extremely difficult” to preserve the tradition….On top of the extended and indefinite absence of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Durbin’s continued adherence to the blue slip rule has allowed Republicans to dramatically slow the judicial confirmation process, leaving open dozens of vacancies as right-wing judges they’ve approved in recent years wreak havoc across the country….”Democrats returned more than 130 blue slips during the Trump admin, confirming 84 district judges in states with at least one or two Dem senators,” [HuffPo’s Jennifer] Bendery wrote on Twitter. “More than two years into the Biden admin, Republicans have returned 13 blue slips. That’s as of last month.”….”Progressive judicial groups are practically shouting from the mountaintops to ditch blue slips,” Bendery continued. “Republicans did it for years with Trump’s court picks, as Dems fumed from the sidelines. The result? Trump confirmed a massive [number] of right-wing ideologues to lifetime court seats.”

In his Politico article, “Fox News reaches $787.5 million settlement in Dominion’s defamation lawsuit,” Matt Taylor reports “Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over false election claims on Tuesday, a massive sum that spared some of the biggest names in conservative media the witness stand.”

Taylor explains further, “Dominion, a voting machine company that has worked in over two dozen states, accused the conservative network of deliberately spreading bogus conspiracy theories about its products after the 2020 election in a bid to win back viewers.” As Taylor reports, ““The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” Dominion attorney Justin Nelson said while trumpeting the payout outside the Leonard L. Williams Justice Center on Tuesday. “Over two years ago, a torrent of lies swept Dominion and election officials across America into an alternative universe of conspiracy theories, causing grievous harm to Dominion and the country.”

The bad news is that the public will be deprived of the jolly spectacle of Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Rupert Murdock being grilled on the witness stand. The slightly good news is that Fox News will have to carefully frame its election denier rants to avoid future lawsuits.

Among discerning news consumers, Fox didn’t have much respect even before the trial. But the settlement insures that the mere mention of the Network in future reports will frequently be accompanied by noting the $787 million the company shelled out in acknowledgement of its own wrong-doing. Also, as Michelle Goldberg writes in her New York Times column, it is “one of the largest defamation settlements in history and is one that constitutes a humiliating admission of fault by the network, even though, as The New York Times’s Jim Rutenberg reported, the deal doesn’t require Fox to apologize.”

The settlement will be emblazoned in media history accounts as proof of one of the most grotesque examples of reportorial bias ever.

The thing is, the disaster isn’t over for Fox News. As Goldberg notes, “Smartmatic is still suing Fox for $2.7 billion, though no trial date has been announced yet. “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign,” Smartmatic lawyer J. Erik Connolly said in a statement on Tuesday. “Smartmatic will expose the rest.”

More than any other media outlet, Fox News has stoked political polarization, served Trump’s rise and supported the GOP. But every media company has a shelf life and will eventually be replaced. Newsmax may get a temporary upward bump in its influence, or perhaps morph into a more influential news source for the right.

Amy Watson notes at Statistics.com that “In February 2023, Fox News was the most watched cable news network in the United States and continues to do well in terms of its primetime audience, with 2.2 million primetime viewers in that period. Fox News viewers in the 25-54 demographic reached 299 thousand, whilst MSNBC had just 119 thousand…..Cable news networks like Fox, CNN, and MSNBC are engaged in a monthly battle to hit the top spot during primetime and grab the highest cable news ratings during those precious evening hours. Fox News ratings during primetime are generally higher than its two direct competitors….”

Meanwhile there is no reason to expect a mass maga head exodus by network viewers. Fox had pretty much whittled its regular viewership down to the hard core, which is admittedly large. Some will see the settlement as normal p.r. management, others as yet another example of the vast liberal conspiracy and many of them will shrug it off or not care enough to switch networks. It will likely not be big a game-changer in. terms of public opinion.

The wild card, however, is what happens with the Smartmatic lawsuit. If it results in an equally-large settlement, we may see a more significant dip in Fox News viewers, at least for a while. But even that probably won’t influence many votes in the next election.

Here’s a trend that provides a problem and perhaps an opportunity for Democrats: “After a tumultuous year in the markets, America’s preparedness for retirement has gotten shakier, Axios’ Erica Pandey writes….By the numbers: More than half — 52% — of Americans are not on track to comfortably pay for their retirement, according to a new report from Fidelity, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) plans….401(k) accounts lost 23% of their value last year, compared with 2021, per another recent Fidelity report….And 55% of those between the ages of 18 and 35 have put retirement planning and saving on hold, Fidelity notes….Between the lines: “Roughly half the workforce, we’re talking 50 plus million people, work for an employer that doesn’t offer a retirement plan,” said David John, a senior policy adviser at AARP. That could mean a small business or gig work….And millennials and Gen X-ers are far less likely to have traditional pensions than their Boomer counterparts, John said….What to watch: Gen Z is more prepared for the future than previous generations, said Rita Assaf, vice president of retirement at Fidelity. Gen Z’s creation of new IRA savings accounts was up 30% in 2022, compared to 2021….The bottom line: Retirement preparedness among young people, especially millennials, isn’t where it should be, Assaf notes. “The good news is they still have time.” The big problem is that a lot of older voters are quite shaken that their retirement assets tanked an average of 23 percent in one year, and along with inflation at the gas pump and grocery market, they may want to blame the incumbent President. That’s not an easy fix. But Biden can at least propose a significant tax break for retirees. There is another opportunity – loudly propose irresistible tax incentives for employers, plus self-employed workers – that half of the workforce who are not in a retirement plan – to enroll in one. The big idea is for Biden and the Democrats to become the unrivaled champions of a decent retirement for all workers. It could help. Trump got 52 percent of voters over age 65 in 2020, compared to 48 percent for Biden. Census data indicate that voters over age 65, about one-fourth of all voters, had the highest turnout rate — 74 percent, in 2020.

Is ‘No Labels” a GOP front? According to Daniel Strauss at The New Republic, “For many years, Third Way and No Labels have been thought of by inside Democratic observers as peas in a pod. Both are moderate groups—Third Way explicitly Democratic, No Labels avowedly bipartisan—but both occupy, too many observers, the same general space on the ideological parking lot. Both groups are close to or involved with some of the same senators and House members, and both certainly have suffered their share of scorn from groups to their left….So it was awfully interesting Thursday when Third Way executive vice president Jim Kessler wrote an email to friends and colleagues lambasting No Labels: “The group No Labels is holding its nominating convention in Dallas to select a 3rd Party candidate that most assuredly would hurt Biden and elect Trump or whoever wins the GOP nomination. They have already raised $70m. They are already on the ballot in a bunch of states. And in a map they recently published showing their absurd path to 270 electoral college votes, they’ve targeted 23 states for victory—19 won by Biden and 4 won by Trump. That gives you an idea of what they’re up to and who they really want to elect. And as a reminder, No Labels endorsed Trump in 2016.”….As Kessler’s missive indicates, No Labels has set out to get on the ballot as its own political party in a number of states….on Friday, Third Way co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post with a couple of unlikely allies among the constellation of Democratic groups: the Center for American Progress Action Fund and MoveOn. The effort really covered the waterfront. Third Way is centrist, CAP mainstream liberal, and MoveOn represents the party’s more progressive wing. The Post op-ed was co-bylined by the three group leaders: Third Way’s Jonathan Cowan, CAP’s Patrick Gaspard, and MoveOn’s Rahna Epting….“We understand the sentiment that has driven donors to the No Labels banner,” the three wrote. “But there is simply no equating a party led by Biden to today’s MAGA Republican Party. One side believes in American democracy, while the other has attacked it. One is governing from the mainstream, while the other champions extremism. One seeks to work collaboratively on the issues; the other has given way to conspiracy theorists and cranks”….This isn’t the first former friend No Labels has lost. William Galston, the respected centrist scholar at the Brookings Institution, said in late March that he would separate himself from the group over its plans for a third-party challenge.”

Strauss also profiles “The Democrat Who’s Betting Her Senate Bid on Gun Control” at TNR, and writes that Rep. Elisa Stotkin “has been an important centrist envoy to the Great Lakes State. The 7th Congressional District she represents, in the south central part of the state, has a population of less than 800,000, and she had won her first congressional campaign in 2018 by threading the needle between her farm-life experience in the district (she grew up in rural Holly, population less than 6,000) and her bipartisan foreign policy background: She was recruited by the CIA after graduating from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in 2003. She spent five years in Iraq with the CIA, and later, at the National Security Council, serving in both the Bush and the Obama administrations. (Subsequently, Slotkin worked at the State Department, then Defense.) It didn’t hurt that the Slotkin name was well-known in Michigan: Her grandfather, Hugo, ran Hygrade Food Products, the company behind Ball Park Franks. Slotkin is also a member of the New Democrat Coalition and the Problem Solvers Caucus, groups that liberal Democrats occasionally feud with—a fact that may endear her to some of her constituents. (Like some in the moderate caucus, she declined to support Nancy Pelosi for speaker in 2021, but she’s been a reliable vote on the House floor….Now, she’s taking aim at guns. “I’ve had friends close to me be killed by rockets,” she said back in February, referencing her time in Iraq, but “our schools and our communities are not war zones….These are civilians.”….Although Congress passed, and President Joe Biden signed, compromise gun control legislation last year, passage of any further restrictions in the current Republican-controlled House is hardly likely. Still, she is pushing ahead. By late March, her office was preparing to help roll out a new set of proposals in Congress, such as $50 million in funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to finance gun violence research (co-sponsored with Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts), mandatory waiting periods for firearm purchases, and prohibiting those convicted of misdemeanors involving guns to own firearms for three years….“I think I’m the only congressperson to now have had two school shootings in their district,” Slotkin said. “I hope I’m the only one.”

At ‘The Downballot’ at Daily Kos, David Nir observes, “We took a look at which states could amend their constitutions to guarantee the right to an abortion. It’s quite a few. Last year, California, Michigan, and Vermont all voted in favor of amending their constitutions to guarantee abortion rights. They were the first states to do so. It turns out that, at least at the moment, another 23 states could do the exact same thing. There’s a reason why amending your constitution really is so important both in blue states, but especially in purple or red states. It’s the most permanent, longest-lasting way of guaranteeing abortion rights. It’s more difficult than simply passing a statute, but sometimes it’s your only option….In fact, there are two ways to go about getting an amendment on the ballot. In every state, the legislature can refer a constitutional amendment to the ballot. Since we know that Republicans, of course, will never support such a thing, that means we can expect that only blue states are going to be able to have their legislatures put an amendment on the ballot. That’s what happened in California and Vermont….In some states, you only need a simple majority of the legislature. In some states, you need a two-thirds supermajority. There are even some blue states where the legislature doesn’t have enough votes to put an amendment on the ballot….But there are 18 states where voters themselves can put amendments on the ballot. They can do so by using the initiative process, which means that they gather a sufficient number of signatures from voters across the state, and then voters get to vote on that amendment if they qualify with enough signatures. This really opens up a lot of doors because it gives abortion rights advocates the chance to amend constitutions in purple and red states that are otherwise hostile to abortion or have even banned the practice….There are, in fact, two efforts underway right now that we know of in Ohio and South Dakota to qualify measures for the ballot….Florida also allows citizen initiatives on the ballot. They are expensive, they take a lot of time and effort, you have to gather large numbers of signatures. But with the courts so hostile in so many ways to abortion rights, it really is a smart move for Democrats to pursue….And also, as we saw in 2022, it’s not just the blue states where abortion rights are popular. In, once again, Montana, but also Kentucky and Kansas, voters rejected restrictions on abortion rights. Now asking them to vote for guarantees of abortion rights, a positive measure as opposed to voting against a negative restrictive measure, that’s something different….this is really an area that advocates and Democrats need to be focusing on.”

In her article “Montana GOP Has a Ploy to Sink Sen. Jon Tester: A New Election Law” at The Daily Beast, Ursula Perano reports on the Republican scheme to defeat the MT Senator — and bury his example of how a common sense Democrat can win in a “red” state. As Perano writes:

After three Senate elections in which Democrat Jon Tester narrowly beat the Republican candidates by—collectively—40,000 votes, Montana Republicans are striking back.

The GOP-controlled state legislature is considering a radical change in election law—a change that is nakedly targeted at taking down Tester and could, in effect, flip one of the most vulnerable Senate seats well before November 2024.

Montana Republicans are trying to take a page out of California’s playbook and switch their primary election to the controversial top-two primary system, otherwise known as a “jungle primary.”

But it’s only for next year, when Tester, Montana’s last statewide Democrat, is up for re-election. After that, the change would expire, supposedly so lawmakers could assess how things went.

It’s a move that would obviously benefit the GOP—with suspiciously convenient timing. After the bill stalled in committee, the measure quickly sped through the state Senate, and now seems on the fast track toward becoming law.

Democrats, many flabbergasted by the ploy, are calling out the move.

They shouldn’t be flabbergasted. But they should be alarmed. Anyone following recent politics will not be surprised that the Republicans would try a sleazy back door gambit under the guise of “electoral reform” to unhorse one of the most impressive U.S. Senators. Perano notes further,

Republicans, hands down, would have preferred Tester not to run for re-election in 2024. He’s considered the only Montana Democrat prepared to actually compete for the Senate seat. And he’s managed to hang on through his past three elections, even as the state more broadly trended red.

But with a top-two primary, the math could sway in the GOP’s favor.

In a jungle primary, all candidates of both parties run in the same primary, and the top-two vote getters head to a runoff. That could mean that two Republicans simply beat Tester during the primary and only they go to the final vote during the general election. More likely—but potentially just as consequential—it could mean that Tester and a Republican go head-to-head during the general election, and third-party candidates, namely Libertarians, wouldn’t have a spot on the ballot.

In two of Tester’s previous three races, Republicans and Libertarians combined got more votes than Tester’s Democratic total. If there were no Libertarian option, the working assumption is Republicans would likely pick up those votes.

The GOP sees Tester as vulnerable and his seat as a potential pick-up in their quest to win a senate majority. But it may be that they fear his “template” as a rare elected Democrat who supports a moderately progressive agenda with eloquent, plain talk even more. As one of the smartest Democratic senators, Tester connects with working class voters in a way that wins their support.

Unlike Republican leaders who ride around in pick-up trucks they don’t need and fondle rifles in their campaign ads, or other “all hat and no cattle” ranchers, or GOP preppies in mega hats, Tester has authentic blue collar cred few Republicans can match. He’s the real deal, a guy who loves working on his farm, but not posing with hay bales and enjoys repping his state and keeping up with the issues that really matter to Montana farmers and working families. Try to think of a Republican senator who has even a shred of that “look.”

If the new generation of Democratic candidates replicated Tester’s example even in approximate ways, it could spell disaster for Republicans, and they know it. If events turned in such a way that Tester became a presidential candidate, even worse for them. The GOP would love to cancel Tester and blot out his example.

Don’t let them. Anyone can contribute to Tester’s re-election at this link.

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall shares a scary warning about the GOP’s well-planned “authoritarianism.” Edsall writes “Theda Skocpol, a professor of political science and sociology at Harvard, contended that many of the developments in states controlled by Republicans are a result of careful, long-term planning by conservative strategists, particularly those in the Federalist Society, who are developing tools to build what she called “minority authoritarianism” within the context of a nominally democratic system of government….Skocpol outlined her thinking in an email: The first-movers who figured out how to configure this new “laboratory of democratic constriction” were legal eagles in the Federalist Society and beyond, because the key structural dynamic in the current G.O.P. gallop toward minority authoritarianism is the mutual interlock between post-2010 Republican control, often supermajority control, of dozens of state legislatures and the SCOTUS decision in 2019 to allow even the most extreme and bizarre forms of partisan gerrymandering….These organized, richly resourced actors, she wrote, have figured out how to rig the current U.S. system of federalism and divided branches, given generational and geographic realities on the ground, and the in many ways fluky 2016 presidential election gave them what they needed to put the interlock in place. They are stoking and using the fears and resentments of about half or so of the G.O.P. popular base to undo American democracy and enhance their own power and privileges. They are doing it because they can, and they believe in what they are doing. They are America’s G.O.P. Leninists.” Considering the recent follies of DeSantis, Abbot, Trump, Santos, Graham, Pence, MTG and hundreds of bomb-throwers in various state legislatures, there’s not a lot of room left the GOP clown car. They are going to need one of those long, accordion busses by Election Day 2024. In light of Skocpol’s insights, they are the distractor front men and women, while the organizers lay the groundwork for a takeover. To stop them, Dems are going to have to get smarter, better-organized and unified.

Speaking of ideological bomb-throwers in the state legislatures, read “Tennessee Republicans may have just handed a lifeline to Democrats” by Politico’s Liz Crampton, who explains: “A blue turnaround in Tennessee seemed like a pipe dream just a few weeks ago — and maybe still does. Democrats are outnumbered, out-resourced and hamstrung by a legislative map drawn to favor Republicans. It’s also a state that suffers from one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country….Party insiders and organizers are the first to concede just how bad they have it….“Nothing changes the fact that these districts are highly gerrymandered,” said Lisa Quigley, a former chief of staff to Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who didn’t seek reelection after his district was effectively eliminated in redistricting last year. “It’s going to take some really smart organizing all over the state, because none of us vote very well.”….But if there was ever a moment when the party stood a chance, it’s now. The state Democratic Party has been flooded with donations and interest since the GOP started moving against three Democrats for participating in a gun safety protest on the state House floor, and ultimately expelling two of them last week for violating decorum rules….On the day that state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Black millennial freshmen, were kicked out of the Legislature, 33,000 people called into the state party office looking to get involved, Democratic Party Chair Hendrell Remus said. So far, nearly 10,000 have signed up to volunteer, he said in an interview, and hundreds of people have expressed interest in running for office — many in districts where Republican lawmakers ran unopposed in the midterms. More than half of Republican lawmakers serving in the statehouse today were uncontested in November.” TN’s right-wing bomb-throwers have just laid a shiny new political forklift at the door of the Dems — if they use it to help build wisely.

Regarding political investment strategy, check out “The Billionaire Gap in American Politics: Financiers on the American right marshal money in the relentless pursuit of power, while their left-leaning counterparts spend it on vanity projects” by Chris Lehman at The Nation. As Lehman observes, “financiers on the American right marshal money in the relentless pursuit of power, while their left-leaning counterparts spend it on vanity projects premised on the assumption that they already have power.” Lehman shines a revealing light on the past financial strategies of the right and left and observes, “The left-leaning donor world is much less ideologically driven, in part because it traffics in the more traditional philanthropic theology of “giving back” in a fundamentally settled social order—i.e., financing benevolent undertakings as a sort of spiritual reputation laundering for the filthy rich….In the age of neoliberal capitalism, charitable giving follows far more circumscribed channels of neoliberal policy, such as school privatization, agricultural microlending, and anything that can be depicted as technologically disruptive. Former New York Times reporter Anand Giridharadas chronicled this philanthropic turn in his 2018 book Winners Take All, which showed how signature liberal philanthropies such as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation now work to shore up the foundations of wealth inequality.” Nothing wrong with “benevolent undertakings” for a host of progressive projects. But Dems clearly need more sugar mommas and daddies focused on electing good candidates at the federal, state and local levels.

Kyle Kondik takes a look at “How the Other Half Votes: The Southwest” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “We’re applying our top half/bottom half presidential voting analysis to 5 key states in the Southwest: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. Unfortunately, this method of analysis — comparing how a state’s biggest counties that cast roughly half the statewide vote have changed from 2012 to 2020 versus the bottom half counties that cast the remainder of the statewide vote — does not work well with Arizona and Nevada, the most competitive states in the region and 2 of the 7 states that were decided by less than 3 points in 2020. That’s because each has a single dominant county that casts considerably more than half of the statewide vote…As recently as 2004, George W. Bush carried all 5 of these states, but there’s been a Democratic trend in the region more broadly in the years since, with Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico voting Democratic in each of the last 4 elections, and traditionally Republican Arizona flipping to Joe Biden in 2020. Meanwhile, the megastate Texas — which now has 40 electoral votes — is showing signs of becoming markedly more competitive even as it is still clearly positioned to the right of the nation….Because Arizona and Nevada don’t really have comparable top and bottom halves to the other 3 states, we’re not going to rank these 5 states in comprehensive tables (like we did for the Midwest and East previously). However, we do have a few concluding takeaways:…— Clark County in Nevada is still more Democratic than Maricopa County in Arizona, but we could imagine the counties converging in the not-too-distant future. If that happened, Arizona would very likely move to the left of Nevada….— The top halves of both Colorado and New Mexico are both blue to varying degrees, and the bottom half of Colorado stands out as actually voting for Biden in 2020….— Democrats have made some progress in both the top and bottom halves of Texas, but they need the top half of Texas to look more like that of Georgia to win the state.”