Since there were no major surprises in the President’s State of the Union address or the Texas primary results, I’ll go with some insights from Charlie Cook’s “Foreign Policy Unlikely To Save Democrats in the Fall” at The Cook Political Report:

Given how monolithic partisans are in their approval ratings and actual voting, it is always useful to look only at independents, the ‘jump ball’ Americans. Biden’s overall rating among them was 35 percent (5 points below his approval among all adults). His best marks were on dealing with the coronavirus (45 percent approval), followed by foreign policy (37 percent), Russia (35 percent), and the economy (30 percent). It is pretty clear the president and his administration’s denial of the threat of inflation and slow reaction to it was exceedingly damaging to him. (While we are on the subject, it is fascinating to see Senate Democrats, after so passionately advocating for more infrastructure spending this past year, propose suspending the gasoline tax for the rest of the year, no matter that the gas tax is the primary regular funding source for transportation infrastructure. Panic is never pretty.)

While we don’t know the trajectory that the Russia/Ukraine crisis will take, and there are many factors that can impact on midterm elections, we do know that in the absence of a large number of U.S. military deaths, Americans rarely vote on foreign-policy issues, particularly in midterms. The state and direction of the economy, particularly change in real disposable personal income, is far more determinative.

Turnout and the relative levels of enthusiasm between the two parties’ bases is key. There was a big gap heading into the 2018 midterm elections with, as usual, the party out of power much more motivated going into the fall of that year—though the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination did a lot to close the gap in predominantly rural areas, which helped Republicans actually score a net gain in the Senate while getting hosed (a political science term) in the House. Right now, Democrats are the party suffering from a lack of motivation among their base.

If someone wanting a read on a midterm is only going to watch two things, it should be a president’s approval rating and the generic congressional ballot test, both pretty good barometers of which way the wind is blowing and whether it’s light, moderate, or heavy.

In my view, Biden and his team are handling this incredibly challenging crisis far better than many other things over the last year. But this is unlikely to save Democrats from what is increasingly looking to be a pretty horrible midterm election.

In short, none of the relevant data indicators are looking very good for Dems at this political moment. But Dems who want a little more hope should check out Andrew Prokop’s analysis of “The Presidential Penalty“at Vox, which Cook cites. As Prokop concludes, “Considering how historically difficult it is for a president to even get a draw in the midterms, Biden will probably need not just one but several things to break his way — an improving approval rating, growing real incomes, and an improving pandemic. And he likely needs both turnout and persuasion to break in his favor: He has to give sporadic Democratic voters a reason to cast ballots this year, and to win back some voters who initially approved of him but who have since soured on his presidency.”

That’s asking a lot. But another factor to chuck into the hope bucket is the deepening Republican split, which could become worse by election day, in light of Republican divisions on Russia’s Ukraine invasion. And Democrats do have a +3 point lead in the latest “generic congressional ballot” indicator. If the primaries in the months ahead help Dems to run the strongest House and Senate candidates – another big “if” – the midterm outcome may not be so bad.

“How Will Americans Grade Biden’s Handling Of The Crisis In Ukraine?” Nathaniel Rakich addresses the question at FiveThirtyEight and observes: “According to a Feb. 18-21 poll from The Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Americans disapproved of Biden’s handling of “the U.S. relationship with Russia” by 56 percent to 43 percent. Meanwhile, a Feb. 1-17 Gallup poll found that Americans disapproved of his handling of “the situation with Russia” by 55 percent to 36 percent. And in a Feb. 10-14 Quinnipiac University poll, Americans disapproved of his handling of “tensions between Russia and Ukraine” by 54 percent to 34 percent. These figures were all within a few points of his approval numbers on foreign policy more generally in those polls. (In addition, a Feb. 19-22 Fox News poll found that 56 percent of registered voters thought Biden had not been tough enough on Russia, virtually identical to the share who disapproved of his foreign-policy performance.)….These numbers were also within a few points of his overall approval rating, suggesting that Americans may not yet know how to judge Biden on the crisis and have simply retreated to their partisan corners when answering this question. That’s consistent with findings from political science research that Americans don’t have strongly held opinions on foreign policy and look to signals from political elites to tell them how they should feel about it.’

Further, Rakich writes, “a separate Morning Consult survey conducted Thursday — the only poll asking about Ukraine conducted entirely since Russia’s invasion so far — told a different tale. In it, registered voters gave Biden a positive net approval rating on his handling of foreign policy in Ukraine and Eastern Europe: 48 percent to 43 percent. This could reflect what will happen to Biden’s approval ratings on Ukraine (and perhaps overall) once the public hears more about the crisis and has new information on which to base their opinions — such as Biden’s televised announcement on Thursday that he would impose harsh economic sanctions on Russia and not send U.S. troops to Ukraine. As my colleague Geoffrey Skelley wrote at the time, both of those positions are popular among the public.”

Rakich also warns about “potential downsides for Biden,” including “the Morning Consult/Politico poll, 58 percent of registered voters would hold Biden very or somewhat responsible if gasoline prices increased as a result of the conflict.” Rakich concludes, “For now, though, this is all speculation. A wide range of outcomes are still possible. Ukraine could dominate the headlines for the next several months — or some other major event could take place and overshadow it. U.S. involvement in the conflict could prove to be minimal — or the nation could end up getting dragged into war (a lot of this, of course, depends on what Russian President Vladimir Putin does, which is even less predictable). And Biden could prove a deft negotiator of the situation — or he could bungle it.” The great wild card in all of this speculation is the intensity and durability of protest inside Russia. There is no reliable polling data explaining how Russians feel about Putin’s invasion. But Dasha Litvinova reports at Time that “From Moscow to Siberia, Russian anti-war activists took to the streets again Sunday to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the arrests of hundreds of protesters each day by police…According to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests, police detained at least 2,710 Russians in 51 cities for anti-war demonstrations Sunday, bringing the total of those detained over four days to nearly 6,000.”

At U.S. News, Susan Milligan writes in “The Benefit of a Crisis: As global conflicts go, Russia’s threatening posture toward Ukraine is one that could actually work in Joe Biden’s favor” that “as crises go, experts say, this is one that could work to Biden’s benefit….While senators in Biden’s own party are denying his domestic wish list, the question of how to handle Russia will not involve arm-twisting the likes of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia or Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona….”I think this is a defining moment, not just in the Biden presidency but in Joe Biden’s long political life,” says Fred Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank. “To his credit, in his campaign and afterward, he has defined this moment as an inflection point in the systemic struggle between democracies and autocracies. Now he has the challenge to execute against that diagnosis.”….”This is an opportunity for President Biden to show what he’s made of on the foreign policy front. He knows his stuff inside out,” Fiona Hill, a former official at the U.S. National Security Council specializing in Russian and European affairs, said during a recent webinar sponsored by The Common Good…..And unlike some domestic issues or more nuanced foreign policy questions, Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine is an easily digestible matter for Americans, especially those with a memory of the Cold War, says Jeffrey Engel, founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University….”He can talk about traditional tropes of American foreign policy rhetoric that are impossible to refute. He can say, ‘You can’t appease dictators,'” Engel says.”

Daniel Cox explores the question, “Why Are White Liberals So Pessimistic About Politics?” at FiveThirtyEight, and writes: “A new survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life, which I lead, found that less than half the American public felt optimistic about the country’s future. But there is a fairly stark divide among Americans on this question, with white Americans expressing far more pessimism about our country’s direction than members of other racial groups….White evangelicals were the most pessimistic group we surveyed, but I found in follow-up analysis for FiveThirtyEight that there was a notable racial divide among Democrats as well.¹ More than 6 in 10 Black Democrats (68 percent), and 62 percent of Hispanic Democrats said they were somewhat or very optimistic about the country’s future but white Democrats were much more divided — roughly as many said they felt optimistic (53 percent) as pessimistic (47 percent) about where the United States is headed.” Among the reasons this pessimism is politically consequential is “A greater share of Americans identify as liberals today than at any point in the past 30 years or so, according to polling from Gallup, even if they are still significantly outnumbered by self-identified moderates and conservatives.” It seems worth investigating, at what point does liberal pessimism turn into a decision not to vote?

Cox notes that “Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Tufts University, argued in 2020 that college-educated white Americans — a group that has trended leftward in recent years — tend to engage in politics very differently from Black and Hispanic Americans. In his research, Hersh found that “white people reported spending more time reading, talking, and thinking about politics than black people and Latinos did, but black people and Latinos were twice as likely as white respondents to say that at least some of the time they dedicate to politics is spent volunteering in organizations.” There are reasons to be skeptical about ‘reading, talking and thinking’ data. But Cox notes a more consequential difference: “Hersh suggested that white, college-educated, left-leaning voters are much more likely to engage in “political hobbyism” than in building coalitions to address social problems. These efforts often require sustained energy and investments, which for many left-leaning hobbyists is likely a less attractive way of participating in politics, though it may prove more effective in the long run.” Cox adds that “a new study by the Knight Foundation shows that Democrats are already paying far less attention to national news today than they were just a few months earlier. Taking an interest in politics is an important part of being an engaged citizen, but for liberals, greater participation in local affairs and organizations may ultimately prove more personally rewarding.”

At The Cook Political Report, Amy Walker writes “Democrats like NDN’s Simon Rosenberg urge the president to acknowledge the challenges the country has been through over the past couple of years and “to make the grit, resilience, ingenuity, can do spirit of the American people the hero our story in 2022.”….But, Rosenberg also wants to see Democrats selling their successes. “As the incumbent party, Democrats will be judged this fall largely on whether voters think we’ve done a good job, that things are better. Things are better, and we should spend the next 10 months relentlessly making the case that they are.”….In a slide deck released this week, the Democratic research organization, Navigator, made a similar argument. When voters are presented with the tangible economic gains made during the Biden era (such as “more than 6 million jobs created last year,”), the presentation shows, opinions about the state of the economy improve….”The story Dems have to show is that the economy is back up off the mat,” Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson (and adviser to Navigator Research) told me. “That doesn’t mean everything is fixed or everything is better, but just that it’s heading in the right direction. This can’t be mission accomplished, but it does need to be mission underway….But, former Obama White House senior advisor David Axelrod warns Biden not to overdo it on the happy talk. In a New York Times op-ed this week, Axelrod writes that “[Y]ou simply cannot jawbone Americans into believing that things are better than they feel.”

Walker continues, “All of this advice is coming up on a pretty hard economic reality. Americans’ views of the economy aren’t likely to get better until they see that inflation improves. I’ve yet to sit in a focus group where the issue of the rising costs of groceries, rent or gas didn’t come up. In fact, many of the participants can tell you, to the dollar, how much more they spent at the gas station or the grocery store this week than they did a year ago.”….The Brooking’s Institution Bill Galston pointed to a recent Economist/YouGov survey showing that inflation has become the dominant factor determining voters’ view of the economy. Asked to identify the “best measure” of how the economy is doing, 52 percent pointed to the cost of goods and services, compared to 17 percent for unemployment and jobs and just 6 percent for the stock market. As such, writes Galston, while “the Biden administration wants Americans to focus on rapid job creation and the sharp decline in unemployment, it seems that the people are more likely to emphasize rising prices until the pace of inflation abates.” Walker adds that Biden does not have Trump’s gift for bragging and getting away with it. Instead Biden’s strong card is his ability to convey real empathy for struggling Americans. That alone won’t inspire the needed uptick in his approval ratings that can help Democrats in the midterm elections. For that he’s going to need a downtick in Covid and inflation — or at least some credible executive action on both fronts.

It’s eight plus months till election day. But former President Trump’s coddling of Russian President Putin’s Ukraine policy during his Administration and now the invasion of Ukraine may turn into a midterm campaign issue benefitting Democrats.

Stephen Collinson reports at CNN Politics, ” It took only 24 hours for Donald Trump to hail Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dismembering of independent, democratic, sovereign Ukraine as an act of “genius.”….The former President often accuses his enemies falsely of treason, but his own giddy rush to side with a foreign leader who is proving to be an enemy of the United States and the West is shocking even by Trump’s self-serving standards.”

It gets worse. Trump also said, “So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force,” Trump said. “We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. … Here’s a guy who’s very savvy. … I know him very well. Very, very well.”

Collinson notes, further, “Trump’s latest idolization of Putin is likely to widen the growing divide in the GOP between traditional hawks, who have sometimes praised Biden for standing up to the Russian leader, and pro-Trump lawmakers – and conservative media stars like Tucker Carlson – who have sided with Putin….The House Republican leadership, which is in Trump’s pocket, accused Biden of “appeasement” on Tuesday – the same day that their de facto leader described Putin as a “genius.”

No doubt many Republican candidates for the Senate and House are squirming today. But former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Putin for being an “elegantly sophisticated.” Mitch McConneell, along with some G.O.P. House members tried to deflect criticism to President Biden. Representing the sane wing of the G.O.P., Rep. Liz Cheney tweeted “Former President Trump’s adulation of Putin today – including calling him a “genius” – aids our enemies. Trump’s interests don’t seem to align with the interests of the United States of America.”

At Bloomberg, Mike Dorning explains why “Democrats’ Muscle-Flexing on Inflation Meets Reality and There’s No Easy Fix“: “Democrats have been searching for tools to ease inflation as price increases continued and worsened, with a January inflation report showing consumer prices rose 7.5% from a year earlier, the steepest climb in almost four decades….A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows inflation as the most urgent issue for 36% of Republicans, 32% of independents and 13% of Democrats….Congressional Democrats’ strategy to address rising costs through a gas-tax holiday and other legislation are shaping up as more of a political crutch than an inflation cure ahead of the midterm elections….Several of the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats are spearheading a proposal to suspend the federal 18-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax until next year and others are drafting a bill to lower insulin prices….Though the federal government could act quickly to lower gasoline taxes, the savings at the pump would likely be disappointing, said Gilbert Metcalf, a Tufts University economics professor who specializes in energy tax policy. What’s more, suspending the federal gas tax would siphon off a source of funding from badly needed highway construction and maintenance that Congress only months ago sought to address with a historic bipartisan infrastructure bill….Several studies have shown savings from a gasoline tax reduction, especially a temporary one, are usually split between consumers and sellers. When Illinois and Indiana suspended a 5% gasoline tax in 2000, retail prices only dropped 3%, according to an analysis by MIT economist Joseph Doyle and Krislert Samphantharak of the University of California San Diego….The Federal Reserve holds the most powerful tool to bring down inflation, by raising interest rates, as the central bank is expected to do when it meets in mid-March. And rate increases typically take six to 18 months to deliver their full effect on the economy….Democrats are also considering pulling out popular pieces of President Joe Biden’s stalled economic agenda addressing prescription drug and child care costs..” In November, Biden released 50 million barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. There are still over 500 million barrels left in the S.P.R. If Biden plans another release, it should be perfectly-timed.

For now, however, the Biden Administration is focused on executive action to help unclog bottlenecks in supply chains to ease inflation. Congressional action on inflation is mostly a non-starter because of Republican roadblocks. The Republican midterm strategy is anchored in the assumption that voters will blame the party in the White House for inflation, regardless of what the other party does or does not do. Pundits, and to some extent history, say they are likely correct in that assumption. Unclogging bottlenecks may not help in time to make much of an impression in the midterm elections, but Biden has to try. There is also increasing talk of “strategic price controls” to quell inflation, and President Biden seems open to using the tool for prescription drugs. You may have seen ads attesting to how much the pharmaceutical industry, and really industry in general, hates that idea. It’s hard to assess how much it would help Democrats in the midterm elections, but it’s certainly a good idea that would help Americans who are struggling with prescription drug price-gouging. Inflation in gas and meat prices the two expenses that likely have the most immediate political consequences, since consumers confront them on a regular basis. Biden is expected to take more executive action to alleviate bottlenecks leading to rising meat and gas prices, along with jawboning about excess profits paired with price gouging. Unfortunately, big media is distracted by culture war side-shows, which makes it hard to get voters to see how much the Biden Administration is doing to stem  inflation, while Republicans do nothing. regarding the application of price controls more broadly, Economist Isabella Weber has written, “Today, there is once more a choice between tolerating the ongoing explosion of profits that drives up prices or tailored controls on carefully selected prices. Price controls would buy time to deal with bottlenecks that will continue as long as the pandemic prevails. Strategic price controls could also contribute to the monetary stability needed to mobilize public investments towards economic resilience, climate change mitigation and carbon-neutrality. The cost of waiting for inflation to go away is high. Senator Manchin’s withdrawal from the Build Back Better Act demonstrates the threat of a shrinking policy space at a time when large scale government action is in order. Austerity would be even worse: it risks manufacturing stagflation.”

Michael Sokolove’s New Republic article, “The Losing Democrats Who Gobbled Up Money” is generating buzz in Democratic campaign circles. Sokolove provides some instructive examples of bad campaign finance management, which merit consideration as cautionary tales. You can read his article for the dish about specific Democratic candidates, and I’ll just share a couple of his general observations: “Even in the digital age, local broadcast TV still accounts for the biggest share of campaign advertising, as high as 60 percent. It’s the most expensive use of funds, and, after a certain point, the least effective. But campaigns fat with cash have only so many ways to spend it. Especially in the final stretch, all they can do is throw it at more TV….David Hopkins is an associate professor of political science at Boston College who has written extensively about the American electoral system. “What we know from the academic study of campaign finances is that money is subject to a threshold effect,” he said. The threshold, he explained, is the point at which the money allows a candidate to run a “visible” campaign that establishes close to 100 percent name recognition, broadcasts a message, answers the other side’s attack ads, and deploys an effective field operation….“Once you are past that point,” Hopkins explained, “the marginal return on additional dollars becomes very small. It may be helpful for a voter to see an ad three times rather than once. Or even 10 times. Once you are seeing it 25 times instead of 20, it probably won’t make a difference.”….Late money—meaning dollars that gush in during the final weeks of a campaign—is particularly hard to make good use of, because it usually just buys more ads after all but a tiny number of voters have tuned out.” Absent a crystal ball, it’s not clear what can be done to prevent placing big, wasteful bets on doomed candidates, but maybe, by some kind of party-wide agreement, a small percentage of all large campaign contributions could be set aside for underfunded Democratic Senate and House candidates.

Jon Steinman of Project Democracy shares some insights at Talking Points memo regarding “The RNC’s Complicity In Trump’s Attacks On Democracy,” which merit repeating by Democratic midterm campaigns: “Acknowledging the truth of what actually led up to and occurred on Jan. 6, 2021, after all, might expose the RNC to genuine civil penalties….Indictments from the U.S. Department of Justice and evidence from the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 are painting a fuller picture of the attempted heist of our democracy….Whether the RNC will be named in any future civil suits is an open question. Less of an open question is the notion that the party’s behavior demands some kind of accountability — from its voters, donors, and electeds who still believe in democracy. The RNC was instrumental in helping some of the worst promoters of the Big Lie flood the zone with falsehoods, distract voters from reality, and secure a nation’s angry attention. Our democracy is built on the rule of law, and one can’t simultaneously demand “law and order” while seeking to overturn the will of the voters….As with a bank, there is money in the Big Lie and, like any self-respecting get-away driver, the RNC got a cut of the take. Let us not forget that vast sums were raised by amplifying and recirculating the claims of election fraud. Tucked within the attack on our democracy was a cynical money-making machine, as misled supporters continue donating to fund this destructive lost cause. By driving anger in their base against our democracy and the valid winner of the presidential election, Big Lie flamethrowers like Powell raised millions of donor dollars for themselves as well as Trump and the RNC, as the RNC received 25% of the post-election WinRed donations to Trump….The RNC helped create this monster, raised money off of it, and shares responsibility for the damage done. The question is whether the party will face any true accountability for its actions.”

One of the most challenging obstacles to Democrats holding their House of Reps majority and the speakership is, well, quitters. As Chris Cillizza writes in “Here’s why Democrats’ chances of winning in November are slipping” at CNN Politics: “House Democrats are retiring in numbers not seen in decades as a dire political outlook, new district lines and a negative environment at the US Capitol haveother combined into a toxic brew for lawmakers considering their political futures….On Tuesday, New York Rep. Kathleen Rice became the 30th Democrat to announce plans to not seek re-election in 2022. By comparison, only 13 House Republicans are planning to call it quits or seek higher office….”I entered public service 30 years ago and never left,” said Rice of her decision. “I have always believed that holding political office is neither a destiny nor a right. As elected officials, we must give all we have and then know when it is time to allow others to serve.”….The 30 House Democratic retirements are the most for the party since 1992, when a whopping 41(!) Democrats walked away from their seats. If one more House Democrat retires before the election, the 2022 cycle will tie the 1976 and 1978 election cycles as the second most retirements in modern history for the party, with 31. Democrats have already seen more retirements in this cycle than the last two elections combined.”

It’s one thing when a retirement trend is fueled by normal aging or length of service, but quite a different phenomenon when it is not. Although he does not provide any stats regarding the average age or length of service of the retirees, Cillizza does share some telling observations, including: “Amy Walter, the editor of the Cook Political Report, a non-partisan campaign tip sheet, cites three main reasons for the Democratic exodus. First, she told me the national environment; “it’s bad out there for Democrats,” she said. Second, the weight of history; “they all know that it’s hard for party in White House to pick up seats. They can only afford to lose 5. They can do math.” And, finally the “environment” in the Capitol itself; “Talk to any member or staffer and they’ll tell you morale is low. It’s a combination of January 6th, a lack of civility, plus a frustration with a fact that most legislation is leadership driven instead of member driven.”….”I think it’s a direct result of the malaise on Capitol Hill,” said former New York Rep. Steve Israel, who previously ran the party’s House campaign committee. “Most Members decide to retire when they calculate that they might lose their next election. These days people are deciding to retire when they’re confident they will win.” Cillizza adds, “There is a solid — if not perfect — correlation between high retirement levels and House seat losses. In 1992, for example, Republicans netted 10 House seats in the general election, according to Brookings’ Vital Statistics on Congress. In 1978, the Republican gain was 15. In 1976, however, Democrats actually gained a seat despite the 31 retirements from within their ranks….Democrats’ issues are compounded by the fact that Republicans have kept their own retirements very low. If no other House Republican walks away this year, the 13 calling it quits will be the party’s lowest total since 1988.”

At least one of those retirements I can wholeheartedly applaud, that of 10-term House Democrat Tim Ryan, who will retire from his House seat, and is running for the U. S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Rob Portman. Ryan currently reps OH-13, which includes portions of Youngstown, Akron, Lordstown and the Mahoning Valley (aka “Steel Valley”). Democrats have won this district in the last 23 House elections, so prospects for holding it in November, even without Ryan, are good, given a credible Democratic candidate for the House seat. Ryan’s senate bid has been endorsed by Ohio’s other Democratic U.S. Senator, the highly-regarded Sherrod Brown, who also occupied OH-13 back in the day. Ryan does have some primary opposition. But he has to be one of the most appealing Democratic Senate candidates for 2022. A gifted orator with an impressive track record and solid center-left cred with Ohio’s white working-class voters, Ryan provides an important pick-up opportunity for Dems in a state that has been trending red in recent presidential elections. Ryan’s blistering denunciation of the Republicans abdication of democracy and his passionate endorsement of infrastructure investment resonates as the kind of authentic patriotism many voters are hoping to see more of in Democratic candidates. This could be the marquee U.S. Senate race, if Ryan wins the primary and if enough Democratic contributors step up and make sure he has adequate funding to take on the Republican senate nominee, who will be rolling in sticky corporate cash. Democrats urgently need a few more  Senate candidates like Ryan.

“Part of Biden’s dilemma is that reorienting a bureaucracy to promote competition takes time, and voters want to see inflation — running at a 40-year peak— start dropping now,” AP’s Josh Boak writes. “Voters feel the bite of inflation with every trip they make to the grocery store or the gas station, yet the president is traveling the country to discuss solutions such as competition and new infrastructure that predate the current predicament and would have a much more gradual impact….America’s current inflation woes stem from the pandemic. Supply chains for computer chips, clothes, furniture and other goods are under stress. At the same time, consumer demand has surged after a historical amount of government aid flowed into the economy. Despite efforts to get the kinks out of the supply chain, price increases have stayed high in recent months instead of fading as many initial forecasts suggested. That has the Federal Reserve ready to increase interest rates to lower inflation.” However, “in a January survey by the University of Chicago, two-thirds of leading economists said that the concentrated power of companies does not explain the current rash of inflation.” Yet, “Corporate profits after tax equaled 11.8% of the total U.S. economy in the second quarter of last year, the highest share on record going back to 1947. The Biden administration is arguing that government policy can ensure that more of that money goes to workers and customers.” At Axios, Hans Nichols and Joanathan Swan note that “Last week, the White House unveiled a three-pronged plan to fight inflation: fixing supply chains and the country’s infrastructure, lowering health and child care costs and promoting competition to benefit consumers.”

At The Cook Political Report, Charlie Cook explains why “Dems’ Problems Bigger Than Redistricting,” and writes: “A question I’m getting asked a lot these days is: “What does President Biden need to do to turn this midterm election around?” To many, it seems like a political version of a Rubik’s Cube, a puzzle ready and waiting to be solved with the right approach. Don’t be so sure….Surely, some Democrats have been buoyed by a bit of good news lately. Reports over the last few days from Cook Political Report with Amy Walter redistricting guru David Wasserman and others have argued that Democrats have fared better than expected in the redistricting process….While it is true that Democrats do seem to have escaped a tsunami in reapportionment and redistricting, their fundamental political troubles heading into the midterm elections have little to do with either reapportionment or redistricting….The overall political environment, including Biden’s low job-approval ratings and a big disparity in enthusiasm levels between more-energized Republicans and more-lethargic Democrats, continue to be much greater threats. The potential for a wave election has nothing to do with ink on a map and everything to do with voters’ broader concerns….So what needs to happen to save Democrats’ skin? As Doug Sosnik, who was a senior political aide in the Clinton White House, told Politico’s “Playbook,” the administration needs to control the coronavirus and inflation, return the supply chain to normal, dodge a global crisis, and hope Biden’s job approvals return to the “high 40s by summer.” Meanwhile, the GOP needs to “nominate unelectable general-election candidates and run lousy campaigns,” and “Trump and Republicans need to keep talking about the 2020 election.”…t stands to reason that between now and Election Day, we may have emerged from the coronavirus and started feeling normal again. If the Republican National Committee’s censure of Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger this weekend for their participation on the Jan. 6 committee is any indication, Republicans may indeed give Democrats a helping hand.”

In “What Democrats And Republicans Get Wrong About Inflation” at FiveThirtyEight, Santul Nerkar writes that “there is an element of the prices we’re seeing today — and how Americans are responding to them — that could be explained by big business run amok. Philippon, whose book “The Great Reversal” focuses on how a lack of competition and corporate concentration have defined the modern American economy, told me that one reason why inflation is such a big deal in the U.S. is that prices were already so high to begin with…..“That’s not a statement about rapid inflation, it’s a statement about slowly rising profit margins that slowly choke off the middle class,” Philippon said. “One reason it’s particularly painful in the U.S. is that prices were already high, people’s purchasing power, the real value of their wages was already being eroded by market power before. Then when you add to that a burst of inflation, it’s even more painful.” ….That may explain why recent polling has found that Americans are sympathetic to arguments that attribute inflation to corporate greed, and why Biden is singing a fairly populist tune on inflation. But as with all aspects of messaging on the issue, whether Democrats or Republicans are more right on the facts of inflation has very little to do with its potential electoral impact. Prices have to stabilize for Americans to feel good about the economy — and for Democrats to feel good about their chances in 2022…..“I don’t think there’s any message that would make people feel good about 7 percent inflation,” Furman said.”

“Bills banning members of Congress from trading stocks are gaining increased bipartisan support,” reports Ellen Ioanes at Vox, “— including from a former skeptic, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — after a series of investigations involving potential insider trading by lawmakers, particularly in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic….There’s wide agreement among voters that legislators should be banned from trading stocks while in Congress, since their position can give them access to information about companies and industries that ordinary people don’t have. While there are some policies in place to at least provide transparency about how legislators are making money from the stock market, there aren’t significant punishments for violating those rules….In fact, as Business Insider’s Dave Levinthal reported earlier this month, at least 55 members of Congress violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act in 2021 alone….According to Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the government watchdog group Public Citizen, public frustration with ethical issues — and widespread public support for a stock trading ban — is likely driving the current push….Ethics experts say there are abundant reasons why lawmakers should be barred from trading individual stocks, but the problem was cast into particularly stark relief by the start of the Covid-19 pandemic….Specifically, in early 2020, when many Americans suddenly lost their jobs due to the pandemic (not to mention had to deal with unexpected medical bills and child care), US senators raked in millions after placing fortuitous trades in the stock market.” Ioanes discusses several proposed reforms, including “The Ossoff-Kelly bill, which has yet to find a Republican co-sponsor in the Senate, is modeled closely on a bipartisan bill in the House, which was first introduced by Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Chip Roy (R-TX) in 2020 and reintroduced last year. That bill — the TRUST in Congress Act — doesn’t cover other asset classes like mutual funds or government bonds, as its Senate counterpart does, but would still impose substantial divestment requirements on lawmakers.”

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. reviews U. S. Rep. Ro Khanna’s new book, new book, “Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us,” and observes that it is “a manifesto for a progressive capitalism that values both ambition and settled communities, both growth and fairness….Khanna’s goal is “to make the high-tech revolution work for everyone, not just for certain Silicon Valley leaders” and to “create opportunities for people where they live instead of uprooting them.”….He scolds policymakers for ignoring “the destabilization of local communities.”….A member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Khanna endorses the social supports that liberals have long insisted are essential to a just society: health-care guarantees, “a family-supporting wage,” wide access to educational opportunities, enhanced worker rights…..But he also outlines an array of place-based approaches to make venture capital more widely available; to use the federal government’s contracting power to spread tech opportunities to rural areas; and to create “digital grant colleges” allied with traditional land-grant institutions “to bring private-sector expertise to job training.”….We need to move away from “mythologizing these tech jobs,” Khanna says, with “the worst caricatures” involving talk of “turning coal miners into coders.” In his book and in conversation, he stresses that good manufacturing jobs now require a high level of technical training because so many products, from appliances to automobiles — cars, he notes, have become “computers on wheels” — are themselves high-tech goods….Our country will miss an enormous opportunity if it doesn’t take advantage of what Khanna calls “the covid-19 realignment.” The pandemic opened up “the possibility of tech decentralization to places that have been left behind.” Remote work not only relocates jobs but, harnessed wisely, could also create opportunities “for local wealth creation.”….What’s heartening about Khanna’s way of looking at things is not just the policy creativity he’s calling for or his invocation of an old American tradition — dating to Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln — of marrying public action to widely diffused economic growth. It’s also his insistence that Democrats and progressives need to go beyond saying “America is falling apart” and advance “a hopeful, aspirational vision of America.”….“Yes, we should be for a redistribution — tax the billionaires in my district,” he says with a laugh. But the broader objective is to give everyone “the opportunity to build wealth” because “people want to aspire, they want to build things, they want to create things.”….Lord knows, we can’t count on even the wisest economic policies to wipe away our political divisions, or racism, or intolerance. But it’s bracing to hear a progressive speaking with admiration and respect for Paintsville, Ky.; Beckley, W.Va.; Jefferson, Iowa; and places like them. And if we’re ever to find our way toward a degree of social peace, Khanna’s shorthand for a better society — “prosper together and respect local communities” — seems a good place to start.”

In his article, “Status Anxiety Is Blowing Wind Into Trump’s Sails,” New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall writes that “In “Local Economic and Political Effects of Trade Deals: Evidence from NAFTA,” Jiwon Choi and Ilyana Kuziemko, both of Princeton, Ebonya Washington of Yale and Gavin Wright of Stanford make the case that the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 played a crucial role in pushing working-class whites out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican Party:

We demonstrate that counties whose 1990 employment depended on industries vulnerable to NAFTA suffered large and persistent employment losses relative to other counties. These losses begin in the mid-1990s and are only modestly offset by transfer programs. While exposed counties historically voted Democratic, in the mid-1990s they turn away from the party of the president (Bill Clinton) who ushered in the agreement and by 2000 vote majority Republican in House elections.

The trade agreement with Mexico and Canada “led to lasting, negative effects on Democratic identification among regions and demographic groups that were once loyal to the party,” Choi and her co-authors write….Before enactment, the Republican share of the vote in NAFTA-exposed counties was 38 percent, well below the national average, but “by 1998, these once solidly Democratic counties voted as or more Republican in House elections as the rest of the country,” according to Choi and her colleagues….Before NAFTA, the authors write, Democratic Party support for protectionist policies had been the glue binding millions of white working-class voters to the party, overcoming the appeal of the Republican Party on racial and cultural issues. Democratic support for the free trade agreement effectively broke that bond: “For many white Democrats in the 1980s, economic issues such as trade policy were key to their party loyalty because on social issues such as guns, affirmative action and abortion they sided with the G.O.P.””

Edsall continues, “The promise of economic well-being achieved through meritocratic means lies at the very heart of Western liberal economies,” write three authors — Elena Cristina Mitrea of the University of Sibiu in Romania, and Monika Mühlböck and Julia Warmuth of the University of Vienna — in “Extreme Pessimists? Expected Socioeconomic Downward Mobility and the Political Attitudes of Young Adults.” In reality, “the experience of upward mobility has become less common, while the fear of downward mobility is no longer confined to the lower bound of the social strata, but pervades the whole society.”….Status anxiety has become a driving force, Mitrea and her colleagues note: “It is not so much current economic standing, but rather anxiety concerning future socioeconomic decline and déclassement, that influences electoral behavior.”….“Socially disadvantaged and economically insecure citizens are more susceptible to the appeals of the radical right,” Mitrea, Mühlböck and Warmuth observe, citing data showing “that far-right parties were able to increase their vote share by 30 percent in the aftermath of financial crises.”

Economic insecurity translates into support for the far-right through feelings of relative deprivation, which arise from negative comparisons drawn between actual economic well-being and one’s expectations or a social reference group. Coping with such feelings increases the likelihood of rejecting political elites and nurturing anti-foreign sentiments.

The concentration of despair in the United States among low-income whites without college degrees compared with their Black and Hispanic counterparts is striking.”

Chris Cillizza provides an update on U.S. Senate races at CNN Politics, and notes, “At the moment, there are six Senate races that both sides agree are toss ups. Democrats are seeking reelection in three of those races: Arizona (Mark Kelly), Georgia (Raphael Warnock) and Nevada (Catherine Cortez Masto). Another features a Republican running for another term: Wisconsin (Ron Johnson). And two are open seats due to Republican retirements: North Carolina and Pennsylvania….Barring some sort of unforeseen cataclysm, those races will be close from now until Election Day. It’s the races at the next level of competitiveness — where one side is favored, but the other side has a shot — that could wind up determining who holds the majority come January 2023….In that next tier of Democratic-held seats is where Republicans are struggling on candidate recruitment. While New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan is still considered vulnerable, Republicans have a harder climb than they would have if Gov. Chris Sununu had run. Ditto Colorado, where the GOP seems to be nowhere in terms of recruiting a top-tier candidate to take on Sen. Michael Bennet. Now, add Maryland to that list….Democrats, by contrast, have a few longer-shot opportunities among GOP-controlled seats. They got their preferred candidates in Florida (Rep. Val Demings) and Ohio (Rep. Tim Ryan) to run, and effectively cleared the primary field for each of them. Missouri’s open seat is another longer-shot chance if Republicans nominate controversial former Gov. Eric Greitens.”

On January 31st I posted that Judge J. Michelle Childs, who who President Biden recently nominated to the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court and has been listed on media short lists as a possible contender for Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, had “a strong record a strong track record in support of worker rights” and “may be the potential nominee most feared by anti-labor conservatives.” Alexander Sammon , who researched Judge Child’s record more thoroughly than I did, reports at The American Prospect that “Childs’s experience is worth scrutinizing closely. As a lawyer, Childs served as an associate and then partner at Nexsen Pruet Jacobs & Pollard, from 1992 to 2000. At Nexsen Pruet, Childs worked primarily in labor and employment law, principally working on behalf of employers against allegations of racial discrimination, civil rights violations, and unionization drives….Nexsen Pruet, where Childs was a partner, has for years boasted of its anti-union services, advertising to firms hoping to keep their workplace “union-free,” “offer[ing] strength in unfair labor practice and union representation issues,” and warning against the impacts of the PRO Act, Democrats’ signature unionization bill that was included in the Build Back Better Act.” I apologize to readers for inadequate research in my post.

Stef W. Knight and Andrew Solender report that “Democrats snag redistricting” at Axios, and note that “Proposed maps released for New York last Sunday would knock out half of the state’s House Republicans, while giving Democrats as many as three more seats.’ In addition, “The newly enacted Illinois maps create two more blue seats, eliminating two Republican-leaning districts. Both states will lose one seat this decade because of their relatively slow population growth” and “Democrats also managed to draw favorable lines in New Mexico and Oregon, giving themselves a chance to pick up two additional seats from those states.” Further, “Democratic governors are also flexing their veto muscles in key states, with the potential to ward off Republican gerrymandering efforts in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Kansas.” Also, “North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper used his own veto powers to block efforts by Republican state lawmakers to delay primary elections while the state Supreme Court considers the new GOP-enacted maps,”…. In Louisiana, the official redistricting process is just getting started, but Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards could block any Republican plan that fails to add a second Black majority district. Knight and Solender also report that Democrats won favorable court rulings in four states AL, NC, OH and PA. The arrticle quotes, Kelly Ward Burton, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, who said “We’ve been, for years, running this comprehensive plan and really pushing to think about redistricting in this holistic way. And what you are seeing are the receipts of that strategy.”

At FiveThirtyEight, Alex Samuels and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux chew on some possible strategies for Democrats to address Republican framing of ‘culture war’ issues, and write: “So what can Democrats do in response?”….They could unravel some of the misinformation out there, reframing conversations in ways that are both truthful and potentially beneficial to them electorally. With abortion, that could mean talking about it as an issue that’s fundamentally about women’s power and autonomy. And on critical race theory,….that might look like them providing evidence on what these bans in schools really mean for public school curricula. For example, over the next several years, executive orders like the one Youngkin issued are likely to lead to teachers getting reprimanded for doing their jobs. (Youngkin, for his part, already implemented a tip line for parents to report “inherently divisive practices,” like teaching critical race theory, in schools.) So if Democrats can condemn those offenses while also reframing public discourse on those issues, public opinion — and the terms of how these debates are framed — may later be on their side….Alternatively, Democrats could coalesce around a completely different message that energizes their own base “rather than getting stuck talking about critical race theory — which is something that animates the right, and just isn’t really an issue on the left,” Arora said. Because of increasing partisan polarization, he said, it’s unlikely Republican voters’ opinion on this issue will change unless elites in their own circles say otherwise, so it may be prudent for Democrats to focus on where they can unify their own base instead….Regardless of the choice Democrats make, though, experts said that telling voters their fears and concerns about these issues aren’t real is the worst of both worlds. After all, insisting that the focus on critical race theory is just fake news will only alienate the people who believe it’s not — and it won’t do much to convince Democratic voters that they should care about the underlying issues either.” Whatever else Democratic candidates say, they should keep repeating that  Republicans use the politics of distraction to try and hide their failure to initiate any laws that actually help working families.

Adam Woillner’s “Biden is (finally) stringing together some political wins. Can it last?” at CNN Politics provides an impressive checklist Democrats can share with potential swing voters, including:

“(1) The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that the US economy had added 467,000 jobs in January, well above what had been forecast.

2) Covid-19 cases nationally are down 38% from last week, according to Johns Hopkins University, while hospitalizations are down 16%. (Deaths were 7% higher, but there are signs that number is plateauing.)

3) A successful US counterterrorism raid in Syria that was months in the making resulted in the death of a top ISIS leader.

4) And on top of all that, Biden kick-started the process of filling the upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Plus, the week was marked by infighting for the President’s opposition, with the Republican National Committee voting to censure two of the party’s most outspoken critics of former President Donald Trump: Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The RNC also received swift blowback for referring to the events of January 6, 2021, as “legitimate political discourse.” OK, it’s just a week. But it’s a damn good week, and if Democrats don’t toot their own horn, who will?

“Although Donald Trump has hovered over American politics since leaving office, most voters saw him as yesterday’s news,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes in his Washington Post column. “Now, he’s very much today’s news, and — thanks to the accelerating pace of the House’s Jan. 6 inquiry — tomorrow’s. This should change the trajectory of this year’s midterm election politics.”

Dionne adds, “Democrats did well in 2018 and 2020, when a significant share of the electorate thought the survival of our democracy was on the ballot. Democrats need to put democracy on the ballot again this year.” Further, Dionne notes,