in “Barriers to voting for people with disabilities: An explainer and research roundup” at Journalists’s Resource, Naseem S. Miller reports on an issue that affects millions of voters and their families, but doesn’t get much attention: “A growing body of research shows that voting and health are intertwined. People affected by poor health or disabilities are less likely to cast a ballot than the general population….When previously disenfranchised people, including people with disabilities, vote, policies that benefit everyone and better health outcomes follow, according to County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a program of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute….About 42.5 million Americans have disabilities, according to 2021 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. ….In the November 2020 election, individuals with disabilities voted at a 7% lower rate than people without disabilities, according to the Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2020 Elections survey by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and Rutgers University. More than 11% — nearly 2 million people with disabilities — said they faced difficulties voting….Voters with disabilities face a range of barriers, including inaccessible voting places, lack of accessible voting machines, and state laws that restrict voting by mail or criminalize assisting a person in voting, according to the American Civil Liberties Union….When the Government Accountability Office officials visited 167 polling places during the 2016 general election, only 17% were fully accessible for people with disabilities who wanted to vote in person. The most common barriers were steep ramps, lack of signs for accessible paths to the building, gravel parking lots or lack of parking options….In 2023, at least 14 states enacted 17 restrictive voting laws, which will take effect for the 2024 general election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute at New York University. Most of the laws limit mail-in voting, shorten the window of requesting a mail ballot or ban drop boxes. Even though these laws don’t target people with disabilities, they create additional barriers for them….People who live in institutions like nursing homes, those who are under legal guardianship and people with mental illness are also less likely to vote than the general population, research has shown. In some cases, these people are prohibited from voting by state law.” While there is no convincing data indicating Democrats would get moe votes than Republicans by expanded access for these voters, Democrats might benefit by being more visible champions of reforms to make voting more convenient for them.

Some revealing statistics from “What America’s Relocation Boom Means for Election 2024” by Shawn Donnan at Bloomberg Business: “The population shifts are more pronounced in some battleground states than others, and they don’t uniformly favor Biden. But in aggregate, they offer a reason for optimism for the president’s campaign, even as polls showhim trailing his likely opponent, Donald Trump: A Bloomberg analysis of state population forecasts found swing-state counties that Biden won in 2020 will have on net gained almost twice as many people by election day as those that voted for Trump….Counting people is hard, and state demographers’ population forecasts don’t always agree with Census Bureau estimates, which for some states point to smaller gains….Still, by November’s presidential election, around 30 million Americans — the equivalent of the population of Texas — will have moved to a different state since 2020, even if migration recedes to a pre-pandemic pace…..In Georgia, where Biden beat Trump by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, the population will have grown by almost 395,000, according to state forecasts. Most of that growth is in metro Atlanta counties that Biden won handily in 2020. Likewise, in Nevada, Las Vegas home Clark County will have added almost 125,000 people by the time the election is held…..State forecasts show Maricopa County, Arizona, which Biden won narrowly and where 2 million ballots were cast in 2020, will have 337,000 more residents on election day 2024. Biden’s razor-thin 2020 margin there suggests that capitalizing on that growth may not be as easy as in Wisconsin, Georgia or Nevada….The relocation boom is not a tailwind for Biden everywhere. In North Carolina, the growth in red counties appears to have more than offset the rapid growth in the Raleigh-Durham metro area’s blue suburbs, according to state forecasts….Rapidly growing states like Georgia and North Carolina are seeing major changes in the composition of their electorates, while others like Pennsylvania are becoming more urban as they fight to maintain population.”

Bill Scher explains why “It’s Time for Biden to Learn from Reagan and Go All “Morning in America”: The president has a better economic record than Reagan. He should take a page from the Gipper’s extremely optimistic 1984 reelection ad campaign” at The Washington Monthly: “The Biden economy is by nearly every significant measure better than the 1984 Reagan economy: the unemployment rate is lower, earnings are higher, the poverty rate is lower, inflation is lower, and interest rates are lower. Yet public sentiment towards Biden hasn’t caught up to the economic data, the media continues to harp on his age, and Donald Trump is furiously retconning the economic narrative of the last seven years….The public may come to credit Biden with the improved economy, so long as the improvement continues, in time for Election Day. But with counterwinds, Biden can’t assume credit will organically materialize. Because his challenge is steeper than Reagan’s, he should not wait until September to marshal his best arguments….Granted, an inherent risk with bragging about economic data is that it can go south….But a review of the original Morning in America spot reminds us that emotion, not data, made it resonate….A Biden version of Morning in America could sound like this: It’s morning in America. Today, more Americans will go to work than ever in our country’s history….Why not lift directly from the original’s first line? It’s technically accurate as a matter of raw numbers: in every month of 2023, for the first time, over 160 million Americans were employed. But the unemployment rate has been at 4 percent or below for the last two years, which hasn’t happened in over 50 years. Even if the unemployment rate ticks up some, the line will almost surely remain technically true…And we’re building things in America again…As of January 2024, we have 13 million manufacturing workers (about 8 percent of the workforce), the most in 15 years….We’re enjoying the fruits of our labor, living in safer neighborhoods, and taking more vacations….The 2023 murder rate is down 12 percent from the prior year, according to crime data analyst Jeff Asher, and all violent crime (through the third quarter of 2023) is down 8 percent. ….Then, to close the ad, why change a word?….It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Biden, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?….Ideally, the Biden campaign would tap people from all walks of life—small business owners, PTA presidents, first responders, community bankers, blue-collar workers, stay-at-home parents, community college students, and retirees—from every state or even every county, to echo similar messages in local media about how the economy has turned around. Such a communications effort would till the soil for a national Morning in America campaign, which would not have to consist of just one ad but several versions tailored to different demographics.”

Democrats have often faulted  evangelical Republican members of congresss for violating the separation of church and state. But Washington Post syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. reports on a unique challenge Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CONN) has posed to House Speaker Mikie Johnson (R-LA), connecting New Testament teachings to GOP policies. As Dionne, writes, “Because Johnson’s brand of Christianity is decidedly right-wing, he has since faced much criticism and reproof — which is entirely fair for a politician who has chosen to make his religious convictions so central to his public life. But Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), whose progressivism on issues related to economic justice is rooted in her Catholic tradition’s social teaching, has another way of approaching the question….I was not surprised when she recently called me to report that she had been thinking a lot about Johnson’s comment on the Bible explaining his outlook. Her purpose, she said, was not to question Johnson’s commitment to Christianity. On the contrary, DeLauro went out of her way to be respectful to Johnson’s spiritual life….“He is a man of faith, I start from there,” DeLauro said. “And he says his beliefs are rooted in the Bible, and many of us believe that. … The Bible is replete with guidance, of attention to act as a community, to focus in on the poor,” she said. “And the Bible lays out a faith-based policy agenda. It espouses social justice.”….And off she went, citing Exodus’s command not to oppress the poor or the stranger whose cry God will hear; Leviticus on setting aside of a share of the harvest for the poor; the Gospel of Matthew on the need for a living wage; the letter of James on the obligation not to show favoritism for the rich over the needy…..DeLauro wanted to be clear that however much she disagrees with Johnson on a slew of questions, she was not accusing him of anything. Instead, she wants to invite him to a dialogue on what taking the Bible seriously means.”

NYT Opinion essayist Thomas B. Edsall addresses a question of overarching consequence for the 2024 presidential election, “Does Biden Have to Cede the White Working Class to Trump?” An excerpt: “A chorus of political analysts on the center left is once again arguing that the Democratic Party must reclaim a significant share of racially and culturally conservative white working-class voters if it is to regain majority status….John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira have made this case repeatedly in recent years, most exhaustively in their 2023 book, “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?”….They are not alone….“For Victory in 2024, Democrats Must Win Back the Working Class,” Will Marshall, the founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute, wrote in October 2023. “Can Democrats Win Back the Working Class?” Jared Abbott and Fred DeVeaux of the Center for Working-Class Politics asked in June 2023; “Democrats Need Biden to Appeal to Working-Class Voters” is how David Byler, the former Washington Post data columnist, put it the same month.” Edsall quoters a number of academics who have expertise on issues related tot he topic, including Judis, who says: “Democrats have won and could win elections without winning back many of the working-class voters that deserted the party over the last decades. Democrats did so in 2022 by decrying Republican attacks on abortion rights and on gun control and by decrying Donald Trump’s leadership and his threat to democracy. Democrats could win on these issues again in 2024.” However, notes Edsall, “Judis argued, however, that this approach is not adequate to “establish solid majorities capable of upending the balance of power in American politics.” For Democrats to return to their position as the dominant political party, Judis maintained that “they have to win back working-class voters.”

Edsall also quotes William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who contends: “1. The lines between the white working class and the nonwhite working class are eroding. Donald Trump received 41 percent of the non-college Hispanic vote in 2020 and may well do better this time around. If this turns out to be the case, then the old Democratic formula — add minorities to college-educated voters to make a majority — becomes obsolete….2. The share of young Americans attending and completing college peaked a decade ago and has been fitfully declining ever since….3. The “stop chasing the working-class vote” approach flunks the most important test — Electoral College math. The stubborn fact is that working-class voters (especially but not only white) form a larger share of the electorate in key battleground states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, than they do nationally….Galston provided The Times with data showing that while the national share of white working-class voters is 35 percent, it is 45 percent in Pennsylvania, 52 percent in Michigan and 56 percent in Wisconsin, all battleground states Biden won in close contests in 2020 and states that the Democrats are very likely to need again this November.” Edsall also quotes Dartmouth political scientist Sena Westwood, who observes, ““it is foolhardy for Democrats to count on higher education to offset the growth of more conservative minority populations….The number of students entering the nation’s colleges, Westwood wrote, is about to fall off an “enrollment cliff,” while “the nonwhite portion of America is on track to continue surging. The undeniable truth is that the future of America and of both parties rests in the hands of America’s minority population.”

Edsall notes further, “Robert Borosage, a founder of the Campaign for America’s Future and the issue director of Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, argued in an email that white working-class voters are crucial to the ideological coherence of the Democratic Party, You can’t build an enduring majority for progressive change vital to sustaining a democracy without a broad coalition that includes white working-class support. Without the effort to appeal to the white working class, you will watch more and more erosion of working people of all races and genders.…Candidates, Borosage continued, “who lead with a populist economic agenda can, in my view, sustain their social liberalism. Candidates that lead with their social liberalism and eschew a populist economic agenda pay a severe price for that failure — Hillary Rodham Clinton as signature example.”….Politically speaking, in Borosage’s view, Democrats have suffered more because of their economic policies than from cultural liberalism and identity politics: Where Democrats have been losing is that their economics hasn’t worked for working people. It is far more destructive to be the party of Wall Street and multinational corporations (the neoliberalism from Carter to Clinton to Obama, with Clinton the worst offender) than to be the party defending abortion or D.E.I.  Edsall; adds, “While the call coming from Judis, Galston and others for the Democratic Party to do all it can to retain and expand its working-class support has merit, I think [Jacob] Hacker’s case for Democrats’ continued reliance on an upstairs-downstairs coalition will be the party’s de facto strategy.”

At 538, via abcnews, Monica Potts shares some observations about divided GOP state parties in key swing states: “In Michigan, Arizona and Georgia, intense internal battles are tearing through the state Republican parties. The fights largely pivot around divisions that opened up in the wake of the last presidential election. A new cadre of Trump-loyalist party leaders, in many cases propelled into power based on their defense of the Big Lie that former President Donald Trump actually won in 2020, have found themselves at war with more establishment-aligned Republicans … and, increasingly, with each other….These rifts in three potential swing states are one of the many ways that Trump’s hold on the GOP and the rise of election denial in the aftermath of the 2020 election are defining not only the election this fall — when Trump loyalists could be looking at their 2020 playbook for ways to influence the outcome — but also the Republican state party organizations that will shape their states’ politics for years to come….State parties traditionally don’t play a huge formal role in presidential elections, but they can certainly have an impact. While national candidates and party organizations have their own turnout and fundraising machines, state parties filter money from the national parties, recruit local and state candidates, and play a role in driving turnout. Even more directly, in some states, including Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, state parties also choose electors for the Electoral College vote, an issue that has become newly salient in the wake of 2020 election denial. “If there’s a question about who gets on the ballot as electors … [state party leadership] comes into play, because a lot of times the state party rules specify how electors are chosen,” said Douglas Roscoe, a political science professor at UMass-Dartmouth….With election deniers helping to shape state parties, another battle could open up if election results in a state are close and subject to court challenges, in which these organizations traditionally play a role….More broadly, state parties play a major role in selecting candidates for down-ballot races. A dearth of young Republican leaders seems to be an emerging challenge for the GOP, as support for Trump and the Big Lie remain a litmus test for those who would run for office — these younger, Trump-aligned Republicans are often less experienced than their more establishment peers, more focused on grandstanding than policymaking.”

Kelly Eleveld explains why “Democrats have an opening as Trump rolls over for Putin at Daily Kos: ”

It’s worth remembering here that, despite Trump’s bromance with Putin, the vast majority of Americans have no love for Russia. In fact, last year, Gallup found Russia’s favorability rating among Americans was at an all-time low of 9%, as former Obama White House aide Dan Pfeiffer noted in his “Message Box” Substack.

Newly released polling from Pew Research Center also found that 74% of Americans view the war in Ukraine as important to U.S. national interests, including 43% who describe it as “very” important….The combination of Russia’s abysmal favorability rating, Americans’ understanding that the fate of Ukraine has implications here at home, and Putin’s likely role in Navalny’s death—his biggest political threat at home—leave Trump and Republicans more vulnerable than ever to attack on the issue.

Eleveld urges that “Biden and Democrats should keep rallying around Navalny’s death, Putin’s thuggery, and Trump’s cowardice. For House Republicans, failure to act on the Senate-passed aid package will likely play terribly in the 17 Biden-won districts they need to hold in November to keep control of the House.”

In “Schism over Russia drives Republicans apart” at CNN Politics, Zachary B. Wolf notes that “In recent days, Haley has made passionate arguments about the need for the US to stand up to autocrats and bristled at Trump’s attempt to compare himself to Alexey Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in jail.”

Further, notes Eleveld, “And on Tuesday, the Biden administration said it plans to announce a new sanctions package against Russia on Friday over Navalny’s death.” Quite a contrast from Putin’s lapdog. As Eleveld writes, ” Biden is taking charge, using the tools at his disposal to hold Putin to account, while Trump is whining on the national stage and promising to give Putin free rein “to do whatever the hell they want” to our NATO allies.”

It’s too early in the ’24 election campaign to assess whether the Navalny assassination will continue to deepen the divide among Republicans leading up to the election. But Democrats certainly can get plenty of video footage showing beloved Republican leaders, including Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan and Republican presidential nominee John McCain warning Americans – and their fellow Republicans – to be wary of the malevolence of Russian leaders. Hell, Reagan called the Soviet Union, which Putin wants to restore under his control, “the evil empire.”

The conventional wisdom is that foreign policy doesn’t win or lose elections because the economy overshadows all international concerns, although historians can name a few exceptions. But the steady improvement in  economic indicators just might give Democrats enough room to make what they can of the GOP’s shamefully epic cave to Putin, and pick up a point or two in key swing states.

Adriana Gomes Licon and Jonathan J. Cooper of Associated press report that “Biden’s rightward shift on immigration angers advocates. But it’s resonating with many Democrats,” and explain: “In his 2020 campaign, Joe Biden vowed to undo former President Donald Trump ’s immigration policies, specifically expressing frustration with a policy setting limits on the number of asylum seekers accepted each day at the southern border….This year, Biden backed a Senate proposal that would have set daily limits on border crossings — and Democrats are planning to campaign to reelect him by emphasizing that Republicans caused the deal to collapse….Democrats are reframing the immigration debate, going from embracing more welcoming policies in response to the Trump administration’s programs at the border — including its separation of hundreds of immigrant children from their parents — to declaring that they can get tough on border security and adopt policies long sought by Republicans. Biden’s rhetorical shift risks straining his support from immigrants and their advocates who campaigned for him in 2020, but it appears to be working for Democrats after they won a special election in New York….“We need to lean into this and not just on border security, but, yes, tough border security coupled with increased legal pathways,” said Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist….Democrat Tom Suozzi, who won Tuesday’s special election in New York for the House seat once held by ousted Republican Rep. George Santos, ran ads calling for more border security and featuring an interview he did on Fox News in which he supported U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement….His district includes parts of Queens, a diverse New York borough that has received thousands of migrants bused from the border.” However, note the authors, “More than 130 organizations from around the country sent a letter to Biden opposing the deal and the tougher standards for asylum. Some immigration activists expressed frustration with Biden and a lack of enthusiasm to go knock on doors for him at a recent gathering of more than a dozen advocacy groups in Arizona.”

Licon and Cooper continue, “Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor and secretary of housing and urban development who ran against Biden for the presidential nomination in 2020, suggested Biden and his allies were adopting the terms of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell….“Democrats, you’re never going to be cruel enough, ‘tough’ enough, anti-immigrant enough or able to deport your way to the negotiating table with McConnell and MAGA,” Castro said. “Stop playing their game.”….The border proposal would have included for the first time a right to counsel for vulnerable asylum seekers such as children 13 and younger and would have raised the cap on immigrant visas available by 250,000 over the next five years. The National Border Patrol Council and the Chamber of Commerce supported it….“The President stands with the overwhelming majority of Americans who demand action from Washington to address our long-broken immigration system,” Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign, said in a statement. “MAGA Republicans, led by Donald Trump, have opted to abdicate their responsibilities so they can demonize immigrants to score political points.”….Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat and the only Hispanic woman in the upper chamber, said her constituents want to see an “orderly process at the border.” She said they still demand broad immigration reforms that legalize the status of “Dreamers” and others who only have temporary protections from deportation. “We can work on a broken immigration system but also secure our border,” Cortez Masto said in an interview. “Many of the Nevadans that I talked to, including in the Latino community, get that because they want safe communities. They understand that. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to continue to work on fixing this broken immigration system.” Cortez Masto said she hopes that after the collapse of the border deal, the public sees that Republicans were not looking for solutions….Gabriel Aldebot, a 66-year-old union electrician in Las Vegas, said he felt lawmakers must secure the border, and a compromise that includes more resources for enforcement is the best way to do it….“The more bipartisan, the more it’ll seem like it’s fair to people,” Aldebot said after voting for Biden in Nevada’s Democratic primary.”

Rehan Mirza explores “How AI deepfakes threaten the 2024 elections” at Jounalist’s Resource: “Deepfakes already have affected other elections around the globe. In recent elections in Slovakia, for example, AI-generated audio recordings circulated on Facebook, impersonating a liberal candidate discussing plans to raise alcohol prices and rig the election. During the February 2023 Nigerian elections,an AI-manipulated audio clip falsely implicated a presidential candidate in plans to manipulate ballots. With elections this year in over 50 countries involving half the globe’s population, there are fears deepfakes could seriously undermine their integrity…. Media outlets including the BBC and the New York Times sounded the alarm on deepfakes as far back as 2018. However, in past elections, including the 2022 U.S. midterms, the technology did not produce believable fakes and was not accessible enough, in terms of both affordability and ease of use, to be “weaponized for political disinformation.” Instead, those looking to manipulate media narratives relied on simpler and cheaper ways to spread disinformation, including mislabeling or misrepresenting authentic videos, text-based disinformation campaigns, or just plain old lying on air.…As deepfakes continually improve in sophistication and accessibility, they will increasingly contribute to the deluge of informational detritus. They’re already convincing. Last month, The New York Times published an online test inviting readers to look at 10 images and try to identify which were real and which were generated by AI, demonstrating first-hand the difficulty of differentiating between real and AI-generated images. This was supported by multiple academic studies, which found that “faces of white people created by AI systems were perceived as more realistic than genuine photographs,” New York Times reporter Stuart A. Thompson explained….Listening to the audio clip of the fake robocall that targeted New Hampshire voters, it is difficult to distinguish from Biden’s real voice.”

Taylor Giorno reports that “Corporate greed increasingly seen as ‘major cause’ of inflation: Poll” at The Hill, and writes: “A new poll found 3 in 5 Americans now say corporate greed is a “major cause” of inflation. That’s a 15 percent jump to 59 percent from 44 percent in January 2022, according to a new poll from Navigator Research. The left-leaning polling and opinion research group surveyed 1,000 registered voters from Jan. 25-29…..“After more than two years of corporations posting record profits while Americans struggle to balance their checkbooks, it’s no surprise that people increasingly see corporate greed as a problem,” said Maryann Cousens, associate of polling and analytics for Navigator Research….Inflation hit 7.5 percent year over year in January 2022 and peaked at 9.1 percent 6 months later, as measured by the Labor Department’s consumer price index (CPI). Prices have fallen precipitously, with annual inflation clocking in at 3.1 percent in January, but it remains above the Federal Reserve’s goal of 2 percent….The share of respondents who said they believe corporate greed causes inflation is now on par with the share who blame inflation on government spending. While the latter position tends to be favored by Republicans, the rise in Americans blaming corporate greed for higher prices spans party lines….The share of Democrats and independents who said corporate greed was a “major cause” of inflation increased by 17 percentage points, while the share of Republicans who agree increased by 13 percentage points….A whopping 84 percent of all respondents said they believe “corporations being greedy and raising prices to make record profits” is a driver of inflation, according to the poll….Overall, Democrats are still more likely to say that corporate greed is a “major cause” of inflation: 72 percent, according to the new poll, compared to 62 percent of independents and 45 percent of Republicans.”

“According to Pew Research, the share of voters who said that the United States provides “too much” support to Ukraine more than quadrupled between March 2022 and December 2023, going to 31 percent from 7 percent,” Thomas B. Edsall writes at The New York Times. “Among Republicans, the share grew to 48 percent from 9 percent….A Gallup poll found even more opposition to American aid for Ukraine among Republican and independent voters. The share of Republicans agreeing that the “United States is doing too much to help Ukraine” rose between August 2022 and October 2023 to 62 percent from 43 percent and among independents to 44 percent from 28 percent….Both polls reflect the rapid increase of isolationism in the American electorate.” Edsall interviews foreign policy experts, including Gordon Adams, a professor of international relations at American University in Washington, D.C., and a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraf, who observes: “a public tired of external interventions has turned inward. There is little expectation that the United States can turn global situations around. There is no longer a political price to be paid for failing to support long-term commitments or interventions.” Edsall adds that “The failure last year of Ukraine’s highly publicized counteroffensive, leaving the contest at a standstill, with Ukrainians suffering continued losses and destroyed infrastructure, also diminished public support here for the continuation of the war.” Edsall quotes Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich, who motes “Ordinary Americans are increasingly doubtful that the burdens of global leadership are worth bearing. Events since 9/11 have undercut public confidence in establishment thinking regarding America’s role in the world. That Trump’s views attract as much support as they do from ordinary citizens is an indication of the extent to which the establishment has forfeited public support.”

Edsall notes further “Polling conducted annually by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs shows a recent sharp decline in support for the engagement of the United States in international affairs. From 1974 to 2020, the share of Americans surveyed agreeing that “it will be best for the future of the country if we take an active part in world affairs” barely changed, going to 68 percent from 67 percent….That abruptly shifted over the next three years as the percentage supporting the United States taking an active role in world affairs steadily declined by 11 points, to 57 percent. The drop cut across partisan groups: Democrats by eight points, independents by 10 and most precipitously among Republicans, a 17-point drop to 47 percent from 64 percent….Timothy Frye, a political scientist at Columbia, wrote by email: “The place of the United States in the world in the coming years will largely be decided by domestic politics in the United States rather than by international events.”….Christopher Nichols, a professor of history at Ohio State with a focus on national security, wrote by email that….there is far more anti-Americanism across the world than there was in the late 1940s and 1950s, largely the result of the ways the United States wielded power in the past 75 years, which means U.S. motives for action and support, or lack thereof, are subject to tremendous scrutiny and castigation.”…..Trump’s declaration on Feb. 9 that he would not only decline to come to the assistance of a NATO country attacked by Russia if that country was behind on its “dues” but also would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” has inflicted profound damage on America’s stature, according to Nichols….This low opinion of Trump has dragged down the international reputation of the United States. “Trump’s unpopularity has had a significant negative effect on America’s overall image,” according to Pew’s report. “Ratings for the United States plummeted after he took office in 2017. In fact, in several nations that are key U.S. allies and partners, the share of the public with a favorable view of the U.S. is at its lowest point in nearly two decades of polling.”

From Ben Metzner’s “GOP Pollster Reads Party the Riot Act Over 2024 Losses: Republican pollster Frank Luntz is issuing a “wakeup call” to the rest of the GOP after the brutal New York special election” at The New Republic: “Frank Luntz foresees disaster for Republicans if they don’t course-correct following the brutal New York special election that cost them a House seat….“Tonight is the final wakeup call for the @HouseGOP. If they ignore or attempt to explain away why they lost, they will lose in November as well,” the Republican pollster tweeted. “The issue agenda is on their side. Their congressional behavior is not.”….Democrat Tom Suozzi on Tuesday handily defeated Republican Nassau County legislator Mazi Pilip to reclaim his House seat after it was vacated by George Santos….While it’s fair to question Luntz’s analysis that Republicans have winning issues, it’s hard to disagree with his comment on their recent actions in Congress….On the campaign trail, Suozzi hit at Pilip for opposing the border deal brokered in the Senate, a position Pilip shared with House Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Trump. In doing so, some say, he outflanked Pilip on the issue of immigration, even as House Republicans have attempted to portray Democrats as overly soft on the border. The GOP Congressional Leadership Fund’s $1.5 million ad buy aimed to tar Suozzi as dismissive of the “migrant crisis,” but those attacks didn’t seem to stick….Now, though, with Luntz, the call is coming from inside the house, and it’ is not anti-trans hysteria, but recalcitrance to passing bipartisan legislation that threatens to hurt Republicans in 2024….The smart money is on House Republicans continuing to fearmonger about immigration, but will these attacks land now that their vote against a harsh border bill is on the record? Will House Republicans get their act together before November? Whatever the answer is, they won’t be able to say Luntz didn’t warn them.”

Rachel Bitecofer visited MSNBC’s ‘Morning. Joe‘ recently to promote her new book, “Hit Em Where It Hurts:How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game.” It went like this:

There are times in politics when bipartisan outreach undergirded with respectful courtesy is the wisest approach. But this is not one of those times, according to Bitecofer. As Helmville puts it at Daily Kos, “This is war and I completely agree with Rachel Bitecofer and others like Steve Schmidt who among many more are warning us to stop playing nice! No more nice please! This victory belongs to us and unfortunately we need to take it by force!”

In the classic “Fear and Loathing n the Campaign Trail ’72,” Hunter S. Thompson advised, “Sending Muskie against Nixon would have been like sending a three-toed sloth out to seize turf from a wolverine. Big Ed was an adequate senator . . . but it was stone madness from the start to ever think about exposing him to the kind of bloodthirsty thugs that Nixon and John Mitchell would sic on him. They would have him screeching on his knees by sundown on Labor Day.” The way the ’72 election worked out, however, it’s hard to see how Muskie could have done worse.

But Nixon was a day at the beach compared to what Democrats are facing now. Nonetheless, it can be argued that President Biden has a potent wild card in his ‘nice guy’ image, which stands in stark relief to his opponent’s rabid egotism and vicious treatment of everyone who doesn’t kiss up to him.

Biden didn’t ascend to the presidency by playing patty cake. But going full ‘Dark Brandon’ this year might not come off as authentic, and could backfire. Bitecofer is surely right that Democrats must strike a vivid contrast to Republicans up and down-ballot. Sure, President Biden should deploy well-crafted zingers at opportune moments. But there is a good argument for letting his surrogates bring the mean.

In his latest email blast, Matthew Yglesias takes on “Trump’s middle class tax hike,” and writes, “Most people think (and I agree) that Trump flip-flopping the GOP away from its Reagan-Bush-Bush free trade positions helped him pick up votes in the Midwest. So Joe Biden has mostly kept Trump trade policies in place, which has induced Trump to raise his ambitions in an effort to outflank Biden. And what he’s stumbled on is an idea that, if explained properly to the American people, would be politically toxic. This isn’t a huge regressive tax increase that will finance useful public services — it’s a huge regressive tax increase that will partially offset the cost of tax cuts for the rich….But I worry that because a lot of progressive intellectuals are so invested in the industrial policy debate, they aren’t going to want Democrats to talk about why a 10 percent across the board increase in tariffs is bad….So it’s really worth saying that whatever you make of industrial policy, what Trump is suggesting is not a remotely strategic approach to national economic development. If anything, Trump’s entire trade agenda — not only these tariffs, but things like his 2020 effort to score a giant sale of soybeans to China — is geared around de-industrializing the United States and turning us into a primary commodity exporter….The right’s intellectual trajectory on these topics is somewhat alarming. Everyone in DC understands that Trump did not come up with this policy proposal based on any kind of detailed study of the issue. Unless it benefits him personally, Trump just pulls ideas out of his ass because he likes the vibe. Most professional conservatives have realized that the best way to wield influence in a Trump-dominated party is to say nice things about him and try to work behind the scenes. But the MAGA faithful don’t see the machinations behind the scenes. All they see is Miller talking about how amazing it will be for South Carolina to tumble backward to a more primitive state of development.”

“Joe Trippi, a Democratic operative who managed Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid and Doug Jones’s two Senate campaigns in Alabama, told me in a phone interview that his major concern is that the Biden campaign should take the threats posed by third-party candidates “more seriously,” Thomas B. Edsall writes in his latest NYT opinion essay. “If Trump wins in November, it will be because of third parties getting a significant number of people,” Trippi argued. “No one who is a MAGA Trump supporter is going to vote for a third party. Most of it comes off Joe Biden.”….Polling supports Trippi on this score….In the RealClearPolitics compilation of recent polls pitting Trump against Biden, Trump led by 2.1 points, 46.7 percent to 44.6 percent….In the RealClearPolitics compilation of polls that add Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein to the mix, Trump’s lead over Biden more than doubles, to 4.8 points, 41.6 to 36.8 percent. Kennedy gets 13 percent, and West and Stein each get 2.1 percent….Along with the threat posed by third-party candidates, two major crises — immigration and the Israeli assault on Hamas in Gaza — have become significant liabilities for the Biden campaign….Voters, as I mentioned earlier, overwhelmingly favor Trump over Biden to handle immigration and the southern border. Biden’s backing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war against Hamas in Gaza has weakened Democratic support, especially among young voters who were crucial to Biden’s 2020 victory….The Dec. 10-14 New York Times/Siena poll found that young voters, aged 18 to 29, favored Trump over Biden 49-43. These voters said they trusted Trump over Biden “to do a better job on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” 49-30. In the 2020 election, Biden beat Trump among 18-to-29-year-old voters by 24 points, 60-36, according to exit polls, by far his biggest margin in all age groups.”

Edsall continues, “Even so, Biden has the potential to regain ground on both immigration and the Gaza war….In the case of immigration, Biden has endorsed a hard-line, bipartisan border security bill — backed by most Democrats and some Republicans — that may be voted on in the Senate later this week, emphasis on “may.”….Many of the provisions of the act have been endorsed by conservative Republicans in the past, but the bipartisan measure is opposed by Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, on explicitly political grounds. They want to keep public anxiety over immigration festering through Election Day and they do not want to give Biden a victory on the issue….Trump and his allies have provided Biden the opportunity to counter the Trump-Johnson strategy by portraying himself as a proponent of vigorous border enforcement and Trump as a politically motivated politician who doesn’t actually care about the border….According to Jonathan Cowan, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, Biden’s current strategy on immigration is a step in the right direction….“To win in 2024, Biden will need to convince voters that he is still the proud moderate they voted for in 2020,” Cowan wrote by email. “He has a lot of evidence on his side, but he still has a lot of convincing to do.”….The opening to win over swing voters, in Cowan’s view, “is there, including the blocs of soft Republicans and gettable independents we saw looking for someone else other than Trump in the New Hampshire G.O.P. primary.”….Douglas Schoen, a center-right Democratic operative and frequent critic of his own party, wrote in the Feb. 2 edition of The Hill that “evidence is beginning to emerge that Biden has at the very least, stabilized the race and that the ‘Trump surge’ has cooled off.”….Schoen concluded: “As for Biden’s chances one month into this election year, there is a lot of work to be done. However, if I were the Biden campaign, I’d be more pleased with the road ahead than just a few months ago.” Edsall concludes, “The biggest danger facing the Biden campaign is the possibility that Trump reins himself in. The chances of that happening, however, are virtually nil.”

In “The GOP Owns the Border Now. Here’s How Democrats Make Sure of It. Hard-right Republicans killed the Senate immigration deal out of fealty to Trump. That’s the perfect opening for Biden to go on the attack,” Michael Tomasky argues at The New Republic, “The GOP killed the border deal. The party that has been caterwauling for months—years—about the porous border dispatched one of its most conservative members, James Lankford of Oklahoma, to negotiate a bill. They had Democrats over a political barrel. President Biden was willing to sign a bill that included plenty of stuff that’s hard for many Democrats to swallow, but it’s an election year, and there’s Arizona to think about. They had a bill the likes of which they won’t see for another 15 years….So how can the Democrats be sure that voters get the message that the Republicans now own this chaos? Obviously, for starters, just say it and say it and say it. The Republicans blocked a bill because they and Trump want to run on the issue. They’d rather have the issue than fix the problem. Whatever Democrats settle on as the best way to say it, just say it over and over and over. They’ll never persuade MAGA voters, but that isn’t the point. The point is persuading the voters who’ll decide the election: the 20,000 in Wisconsin, the 15,000 in Michigan, and so on….Besides which, they may even persuade some Republicans voters of the merit of their message. They’re not all MAGA. A significant minority don’t love Trump. They won’t vote Biden, but they may stay home—and some of them may lose their ardor for Senate and House candidates who so cravenly kowtowed to Trump on this….Biden needs to rise up here. The State of the Union address will take place March 7. That’s the biggest audience he’ll have until his convention speech this summer, and he needs to use the occasion to drive home the Republicans’ naked hypocrisy. He should spell out all the strict provisions of the bill that made it a very tough sell to many members of his own party. He was willing to take some political heat to accept a compromise—one that included a number of Republican priorities—just to do something about the problem. And the Republicans killed it. They’ll boo him. Let them. It’ll be great theater, and to those few thousand Great Lakes voters, the Republicans will look ridiculous….How many times do swing voters need to see this movie before they understand the moral? Apparently a lot of times. Democrats: Remind them.”

From “What we’re getting wrong about 2024’s “moderate” voters: The voters who could decide 2024 are a complicated bunch” Christian Paz at Vox: “They constitute one of the most valuable, overlooked, and misunderstood chunks of the American electorate: the nation’s mythical moderates….They’re a complicated bunch. They’re often described as swing voters, fickle ideological creatures who exist around the center of the political spectrum. They get conflated with “independent” and “undecided” voters but aren’t exactly the same. They tend to be less politically engaged than their fierce partisan compatriots to their left and right. They’re both accused of not really existing and credited with winning elections for the major parties. And recently, they’re both the reason the Republican Party has been doing so poorly in the Donald Trump era and the reason Democrats should be careful that their winning coalition doesn’t collapse….you should break down moderate Americans into three discrete blocs….You have true moderates, whose opinions consistently fall around the center of the ideological spectrum. Then there are the moderates who are largely disengaged from politics and hold inconsistent opinions — sometimes, a mix of extreme views from both sides that, when averaged, often give them the false appearance of centrism. And then you have a kind of unicorn, the person who is engaged in politics but similarly has a mix of policy opinions that don’t place them cleanly on the ideological spectrum or in either major US political party….According to surveys of Americans’ ideological beliefs, those who call themselves “moderates” have tended to be a plurality of the American population since at least 1992. In 2022, they were roughly the same size as the segment of Americans calling themselves “conservative” — 35 percent moderate to 36 percent conservative, according to Gallup polling. Self-described “liberals,” meanwhile, trail at 26 percent of American adults, though that number has been trending up over the last 30 years….And Trump’s own brand of conservatism also appears to be less appealing to moderate Republicans in the first two states that have held primary contests so far: In Iowa, he garnered the support of about 20 percent of moderate GOP voters, a drop from his 34 percent showing in 2016 (the last time there were competitive GOP primaries). And in New Hampshire, he won about 25 percent of these moderates, down from 32 percent in 2016….Democrats face a challenge of their own: Their winning coalition counts on a bigger chunk of various kinds of moderate voters turning out for them than for Republicans.”

Highlighting this short message from top Democratic strategist and pollster Stan Greenberg, founding partner of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQR) and Democracy Corps.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains “Why I changed my mind and think Trump should be thrown off the ballot” in his Washington Post column: “It is annoying when your political judgments come into conflict with what you decide is right. That’s what has happened to me on the question of whether Donald Trump should be barred from running for president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment….Though I agreed that Trump had, indeed, engaged in insurrection, I thought it would be best for the country to have him go down to defeat again in a free and fair election. Keeping him on the ballot so voters could decide was the path to long-term institutional stability and might finally force a reckoning in the Republican Party….But the more I read and listened, the clearer it became that Section 3 was directed against precisely the conduct Trump engaged in. Its purpose is to protect the republic from those who would shred the Constitution and destroy our system of self-government. What Trump did in advance of the attack on the Capitol and on Jan. 6, 2021, legally disqualifies him from the presidency….to argue that barring Trump from the ballot is “antidemocratic,” wrote professors Carol Anderson and Ian Farrell in another brief, is “ironic … as he bears by far the most responsibility for attempting to subvert democracy on Jan. 6.” An effort to overthrow constitutional procedures, wrote Ifill, should be distinguished from political protests, even those “accompanied by sporadic acts of violence.” Demonstrators are not the same as a mob trying to hijack the government….There are paradoxes galore on this matter. Believing Trump should be unable to run, for example, is the opposite of a partisan wish, since he is without question the weakest Republican whom President Biden could face….The biggest paradox of all: Throwing Trump off the ballot would seem, on its face, the opposite of democracy. Yet the whole point of Section 3 is to protect constitutional democracy from anyone who has already tried to destroy it. If its provisions don’t apply to Trump, they don’t apply to anyone.”

Your daily downer comes from Harry Enten’s “The union vote is becoming more Republican” at CNN Politics, in which he writes: “Take a look at recent New York Times/Siena College polling in the six closest swing states that Biden won in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Biden and Trump were tied at 47% among union members when asked who they’d vote for in 2024. When these swing state voters were asked how they voted in 2020, Biden won the group by an 8-point margin….The union vote is especially important in Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Somewhere between 14% and 15% of employees in these three states are represented by unions. (Between 12% and 13% of employees in these states are themselves union members.)….Biden won union workers – who reside primarily in blue states – by 22 points, according to the 2020 Cooperative Election Study survey by Harvard University. Compare that with Bill Clinton’s performance in 1992, when he won the national popular vote by a similar margin to Biden 28 years later. But Clinton won union members by 31 points, according to an American National Election Studies survey….We’re a far cry from 1948, when Democrat Harry Truman won union workers by 62 points over Republican Thomas Dewey. Truman almost certainly wouldn’t have won the election that year without them….When Truman defeated Dewey, union workers represented about 30% of wage and salary workers. Today, they’re about 10%….Trump won non-college graduate union members by 6 points in 2020. Biden’s victory among union members was entirely attributable to those who had graduated college, winning them by 46 points….union workers are far likelierto be in education, training and library occupations (32.7%). Additionally, public sector employees are much likelier to be part of a union (32.5%) than private sector employees (6.0%)….About two-thirds of Americans approve of labor unions, which ranks among the highest percentages recorded since 1967. Just 15 years ago, only 48% of Americans approved of unions….In other words, it pays to be seen as friendly to labor unions even among those voters who are not members.”

New York Times opinion essayist Thomas B. Edsall addresses a question of strategic concern for Democrats in the 2024 campaign, “Can Biden Take a Page Out of Trump’s Playbook?” with respect to the immigration crisis.  As Edsall writes, “In a bid to weaken Donald Trump’s domination of the immigration crisis going into the 2024 election, President Biden has reversed his position and adopted a high-risk strategy….Biden is seeking enactment of border legislation that “would give me, as president, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed.”….On Monday, The Times described Biden’s rationale in “How the Border Crisis Shattered Biden’s Immigration Hopes”:

The number of people crossing into the United States has reached record levels, more than double than in the Trump years. The asylum system is still all but broken.

On Friday, in a dramatic turnaround from those early days, the president implored Congress to grant him the power to shut down the border so he could contain one of the largest surges of uncontrolled immigration in American history.

Trump, acutely aware of the critical importance of immigration to his campaign, is determined to block Biden’s border security proposal, now under negotiation in the Senate. Trump, of course, wants to make sure that the “crisis at the border” remains foremost in the minds of voters through Election Day….The prize in this struggle is the 2024 presidency and all the power that goes with it.”

Edsall notes further, “I asked political strategists and American and European scholars to evaluate the viability of Biden’s immigration initiative and received a wide range of responses….Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has often argued that Democrats have moved too far to the cultural left, questioned the viability of Biden’s immigration strategy in an email:

It’s a steep political hill Biden has to climb on this issue. His approval rating on “handling the immigration situation at the U.S.-Mexico border” is now 18 percent. Eighteen percent! That’s really, really bad and the lowest presidential approval on the issue ABC News has measured since 2004. In the latest Wall Street Journal poll, Trump is preferred over Biden by 30 points, his greatest lead on any issue.

Illuminating detail, Teixeira continued,

comes from a December survey conducted by the Blueprint group. Between Trump and Biden, who are voters most likely to think is close to their views on immigration? It’s Trump by a country mile: 44 percent of voters say Trump is close to their position, compared to a mere 25 percent who say Biden is close to their position. Even Hispanic voters are more likely to say Trump is closer to their views on immigration than to say Biden is….It’s a bit late in the day to finally be moving on this issue and only under duress from the Republicans. The border debacle has been unfolding throughout Biden’s term and the political damage has been accumulating. A big part of the problem is that there are a lot of Democrats who didn’t — and don’t — really want to do much about border security….I don’t think Biden is really committed to being a different kind of Democrat, just a somewhat more palatable one. And I don’t think he really wants to go after some specific person or group to forcefully dissociate himself from “weak on border security” views in and around the Democratic Party. That limits the salience of his repositioning both in the general political discourse and to voters’ perceptions of him and his party.

“All this said, it’s still worth striking a tougher stance on border security,” Teixeira wrote. “It’s the beginning of a move in the right direction and could help Biden modestly….Would Biden “lose more support on the progressive left than he would gain in the center?” Teixeira asked. His answer: “My view is that, on this issue as on so many others, the progressive left is a paper tiger….The net for the Democrats,” he concluded, “is likely to be strongly positive”

Edsall also quotes Brooking Senior Fellow William A. Galston, who observes: “Biden’s shift on immigration will make a political difference to the situation on the ground well before the election only if his new policies change the day. In the last year of the Trump administration, encounters with illegal migrants at the southern border numbered less than 500 thousand. During the third year of the Biden administration, the total rose to 2.5 million, and the dispersal of these migrants throughout the country has produced fiscal and housing crises in large cities controlled by Democrats….Biden will have to undertake tough measures that won’t be easy to distinguish from Trump’s. The Democrats who understand the political stakes will probably go along with this, while those who see this issue through humanitarian or ideological lenses will balk. If he proceeds down this path, Biden will have to hope that gains among swing voters exceed the losses in his base.” Trump and the Republicans, in Galston’s view, “will pay a price if they are seen as being driven by politics rather than the desire to address a really difficult problem,” but Biden faces a big hurdle in his bid to take command of the immigration issue:

The administration has waited so long to act that it faces a credibility problem that will only get worse if it flinches and settles for half-measures whose effects are incremental at best. Turning this issue around will take determination — and a willingness to endure criticism from fellow Democrats that hasn’t been the administration’s long suit thus far.”

In addition, Edsall writes, “Joel Kotkin, of Chapman University and the Houston-based Urban Reform Institute, argued that adopting a tougher immigration stance is a plus for Biden that comes with little cost: “The progressives, faced with the odious Trump, will fall into line, except on the margins. The open border is not welcomed by most people.”….

It’s hard to see, Kotkin continued,

how either working-class Latinos or African Americans welcome their communities being inundated by people who have entered illegally and about whom we know nothing. Protests in New York and Chicago by working-class people should not be ignored. This year, if I were Biden, I would be more worried about them than far-left foundations or cheap-labor lobbyists who might object.

Edsall notes further that “in communities suffering economic decline and growing isolation, a relatively small influx of immigrants can propel voters to the right.”….Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster, replying by email to my inquiry concerning the current politics of immigration, argued that the Republican Party has increased the odds that the Biden strategy will work. “I believe the Republicans may have given the Biden campaign the opportunity to turn this issue into a real plus,” Goeas wrote, referring to the politicized reasoning Republicans are using to reject the legislation under consideration in the Senate.”….Overall, Kotkin contended, “The political rewards of standing up on the border are far greater than backing the current chaos. Everywhere in Europe support for stricter immigration is moving from the right to the center and even the left, particularly in the ‘enlightened’ North.” Edsall concludes, “The public clearly wants the government to take steps to control the border. If Biden does nothing, Trump will retain his advantage on immigration, which consistently ranks among the top three voter concerns in polls. And most progressive voters understand, deep down, that if they cast a ballot for a third-party candidate or abstain from voting at all, they are in practice supporting Trump.”