Democratic political advisor Mally Smith explains why “Tinkerbell politics won’t save progressive Democrats” at The Hill: “A variation of this “Tinkerbell effect,” the idea that believing hard enough can make something true, shows up in both academia and popular culture. Now, I’ve started to see a political version of it in Democratic politics. (I’ll note it may exist in Republican politics as well, but I know progressive politics best, having worked in that space for years.)…I make no claim to grand theories of persuasion. Each campaign I’ve worked on has overturned some piece of “conventional wisdom” and replaced it with new lessons. But I hold one belief that never changes: politics is about addition. To succeed, you must expand your coalition through both persuasion and mobilization. In a diverse, polarized country like ours, that requires humility about your own views and a willingness to meet voters where they are — two things “Tinkerbell politics” cannot do… Some progressives might read this as a call for moderation. It’s not. In that TV segment, I could have said Democrats are too progressive; it would have earned easy applause. But I didn’t throw progressives under the bus, because I am one. I believe progressive economic arguments, especially on economic equality, can be electoral winners. But going further left on every issue is not always strategically sound, and writing off those who disagree with us is, frankly, political malpractice…In the end, it’s simple: Addition beats fairy dust every time. You win by having at least one more vote than your opponent. I’d like that voter under the Democratic Party’s tent.”

J. Miles Coleman shares his updated analysis of “The Big Picture in Redistricting” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Right now, our Crystal Ball ratings show 209 seats as Safe/Likely/Leans Democratic, 207 Safe/Likely/Leans Republican, and 19 Toss-ups. When Abbott signs this map, that will change to 211 at least Leans R, 206 at least Leans D, and 18 Toss-ups…However, if Democrats’ proposed California map is implemented, that would then flip to 211 at least Leans D, 206 at least Leans R, and 18 Toss-ups, even taking Texas into account…So, if re-redistricting were limited to just Texas and California, Democrats would probably come out ahead, although other red states like Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and Florida could produce new Republican seats, giving the GOP an overall edge from redistricting even taking California into account. Of course, if the California redistricting ballot measure fails, Republicans could pick up the better part of a dozen seats…Over the weekend, Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) opened the door to redrawing his state’s lines, although Democrats, who hold 7 of Maryland’s 8 seats, could only gain one additional seat there. A Democratic 8-0 map of Maryland could also run into some legal problems (court intervention submarined such a plan in advance of the 2022 elections), There’s also Utah, discussed above, which could help Democrats, and potentially other states too…If the environment is blue enough next year, Democrats could still overcome the net loss from redistricting (even if California fails to redraw), but if 2028 is more of a neutral year, Republicans could have an easier time regaining the chamber.”

But David Dayen has this to say about the gerrymandering mess at The American Prospect: “Democrats aren’t relying solely on a blue wave to overpower gerrymandering. California’s redistricting election is on track for victory, according to Democratic pollsters. Maryland may take action to nullify a Republican seat. And gerrymandered congressional maps in Utah, in defiance of an anti-gerrymandering ballot measure, were finally ruled illegal by a state judge, who required the state to draw new maps that don’t crack liberal Salt Lake County four ways, a situation that will almost certainly create one solid-blue seat…But Democratic fortunes in 2026 can also be tied to the instability of the Latino voting shift, particularly in Texas. Three of the five new “Republican” seats created in Texas remain contested territory; while Trump won all of them by double digits, in the same election, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) did not reach 52 percent in any of those seats. So Trump’s popularity is not automatically transferrable down the ballot even when he appears on it, and he won’t next year…Trump’s Latino support shifted at least 13 points from 2016 to 2024; he shifted some Biden 2020 voters and took a large share of first-time voters. But House Republicans sharply underperformed Trump. And today, Latinos are snapping back away from Trump. An Equis Research poll from July showed Trump’s job approval among Latinos at just 35 percent, and one-third of Latino Trump supporters are thinking of voting Democratic in 2026. That number rises to half of Biden 2020–Trump 2024 voters. Other polling picks up similar trends…Some of the uncertainty for the midterms involves how far gerrymandering will actually go. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on October 15 on whether to obliterate what remains of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for diluting racial minorities in congressional districts. Louisiana, whose maps are at issue in the case, has already scheduled a special session just in case the Supreme Court moves quickly, and the ripple effects would reverberate throughout the South. (This could also save the Texas maps, which even with some of the heavy minority participation are under a lawsuit claiming that they violate the racial gerrymander section of the Voting Rights Act.)…But there are some limits to unfair maps, even in the worst-case scenario. If voters are unhappy with Trump and display their anger next November, maps are unlikely to stop the House from flipping.”

If you have been wondering about the massive voter indifference to and ignorance of such principles of American democracy like separation of powers, checks and balances and due process, consider the steep decline of civics education in America as a possible factor. Here’s some data from “A Look at Civics Education in the United States” by Sarah Shapiro and Catherine Brown at aft.org: “A 2016 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government, which was a significant decline from previous years…Not surprisingly, public trust in government is at only 18 percent² and voter participation has reached its lowest point since 1996…only 23 percent of eighth-graders performed at or above the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics exam…The policy solution that has garnered the most momentum to improve civics in recent years is a standard that requires high school students to pass the U.S. citizenship exam before graduation.⁶ According to our analysis, 17 states have taken this path…Only nine states and the District of Columbia require one year of U.S. government or civics, while 30 states require a half year and the other 11 states have no civics requirement.” As the authors note, “Without an understanding of the structure of government, our rights and responsibilities, and the different methods of public engagement, civic literacy and voter apathy will continue to plague American democracy. Educators and schools have a unique opportunity and responsibility to ensure that young people become engaged and knowledgeable citizens.”

From “How Trump is decimating federal employee unions one step at a time” by Andrea Hsu at npr.org: “Federal employees have had the right to join unions and collectively bargain over working conditions since the 1960s. Unlike private sector workers, government employees cannot negotiate wages or strike. But through collective bargaining, they do help shape disciplinary procedures, parental leave policies, how overtime is managed and much more…Giving workers a say in workplace policies, the thinking goes, leads to less friction in the workplace and more effective government…But President Trump has abandoned that idea. Instead, he’s argued that federal employee unions pose a danger to the country. In March, he issued an executive order ending collective bargaining rights for more than one million federal workers at about 20 federal agencies. Almost immediately, many agencies halted automatic deductions of union dues from employee paychecks, cutting off a critical source of cash flow to the unions. Just ahead of Labor Day, Trump issued a new executive order, adding about a half dozen agencies to the list…Unions have filed lawsuits, alleging Trump is retaliating against them for opposing parts of his agenda. Lower courts temporarily halted the March order; the government appealed…Two appeals courts then said the Trump administration could move forward while litigation continues, citing the president’s unique responsibility for protecting national security. In their rulings, the judges noted that the Trump administration had told agencies not to terminate collective bargaining agreements while litigation was pending…But last month, the administration sent agencies updated guidance, telling them they could go ahead with terminating most union contracts — just not those with the National Treasury Employees Union, due to ongoing litigation. To date, nine agencies have canceled contracts, according to the American Federation of Government Employees.” Now would be a good time for the Democratic Party to issue a statement saying they support union representation for all workers in both the public and private sectors.

Don’t entertain entertain any delusions that the souring of U.S.-Canada relations as a result of Trump’s tariff mess won’t hurt our economy. As Natasha Chen reports in her article, “The ‘self-inflicted injury’ to US tourism that’s making some Americans angry and disappointed” at CNN Travel: “Many Canadians have boycotted taking US trips and buying American products since the spring. That’s when President Trump made false claims and belittling comments about Canada in the midst of a tariff war…The absence of Canadians has been felt acutely in the United States, especially in cities like Seattle close to the northern border. And Canadians aren’t the only international travelers skipping the US. Some other international travelers have also named recent policies around tariffs and immigration as reasons they’re staying away…After a promising estimate in December by analytics company Tourism Economics that the US would see about 9% growth in overall international visitation in 2025, the company’s updated outlook now estimates an 8.2% decline, led by about one quarter fewer Canadians visiting the US from January to July, compared to the same period in 2024.”

Chen continues, “The World Travel and Tourism Council, a global tourism advocacy organization, projected in May that the United States will lose $12.5 billion in international visitor spending in 2025, the only country out of 184 economies the council analyzed that will see a decline this year.” Her article also reports “Rob Hawkins, from the United Kingdom, changed plans he and his wife had for a 20-day spring 2026 trip to the US to go to South Korea and Japan instead. “America to me is rock ‘n roll, NASA, speed, jazz, horses, bourbon, hip hop, dance, MTV (the original), Hollywood, gold medals, innovation, strength, respectful (sic) and apple pie,” Hawkins told CNN in an email. “Not the army on the streets and the extreme division currently on show,” he said, referring to the National Guard presence in Los Angeles during immigration raids and in Washington D.C. to take federal control of the local police force.” Chen’s article also quotes Julia Simpson, World Travel and Tourism Council president & CEO: “While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the ‘closed’ sign.” Chen notes, further, “Tourism Economics, which tracks data on domestic and international tourism, now projects that a full recovery to pre-pandemic levels won’t happen until 2029 — three years later than it originally projected.”

David Corn shares some thoughts on “Donald Trump and the Deconstruction of America” at Mother Jones: “Every day, Americans are bombarded with the bad news of Trump 2.0: concentration camps; cruel ICE raids targeting law-abiding residents; health insurance being yanked from millions; elite universities, media companies, and law firms yielding to mob-like extortion; crypto deals and other brazen grifting tied to a corrupt White House; rampant abuses of governmental power and threats of sham criminal prosecutions against the administration’s critics and political foes; drastic cuts in food assistance; assaults on women’s rights; the withholding of disaster relief; the reckless shutdowns and eviscerations of crucial government services and agencies that will result in hardship (and, in some cases, death) for Americans and people overseas…This is, of course, a partial list. And it is exhausting to keep track of and absorb each new outrage. That is the clear intent. The Trump transgressions come so fast they distract from each other. Public attention rarely remains focused on any one atrocity. We’re bludgeoned by the never-ending stream of misdeeds and affronts—which each day come wrapped in propaganda extolling a new Golden Age and assorted false glories of Dear Leader. When one is caught in the crossfire, it is hard to see, let alone address, the big picture…That is to Donald Trump’s advantage. For a long time, commentators have noted that he relishes generating chaos and believes he can exploit disorder for political advantage. It’s an escape route for him. The dizzying whirlwind he creates places critics and opponents off-balance. And perhaps best of all for him and his crew, it hides their overall plan and inhibits the development and promotion of an overarching counternarrative. Their foes are stuck decrying the individual acts of villainy, one at a time, without doing what is most necessary in American politics: telling a story…In today’s fractured and bubble-ized media ecosystem, plotlines don’t punch through unless there’s repetition and force in the presentation. It’s too easy to be distracted.” More here.

Barbara Smith Warner, executive director at National Vote at Home Institute, has an article, “Mail ballots are not a threat to democracy, but an invitation to it” at The Hill. Warner’s article makes a compelling case for increasing voting by mail.

As Warner notes in one of her introductory paragraphs, “But whether you call it vote by mail, absentee voting or vote at home, it’s not new, risky or partisan. In fact, mail ballots are one of the most time-tested, secure and bipartisan voting methods in America. And instead of being a threat to democracy, mail ballots might just be the solution to the problem of American democracy becoming a mere spectator sport, where an aging, shrinking number of voters determine most of our electoral outcomes.”

You won’t find a better defense of voting by mail than Warner’s article, and every Democrat engaged in the discussion about voting by mail ought to give it a sober read. But drilling down a bit, I was struck by how her argument relates to political primaries.

As Warner writes, ” In the 2024 presidential election, more than one-third of America’s eligible citizens — over 80 million — didn’t vote at all…It’s far worse in primaries, which often determine who actually takes power in Congress and state governments. In the 2024 primary elections, turnout was just 18.5 percent of eligible citizens, less than one out of five. And the median age of these voters was 65. Add in the thousands of local contests for mayor, city council, school boards and more, where turnout is often in the single digits, and the picture is even bleaker.”

Think about that. Less than one out of five eligible voters cast ballots in the primaries, and the median age of those who voted in primaries was 65. Such stats raise all kinds of questions, including: Why is the primary turnout so low? Are the stats skewed significantly more by the primaries of one party more than the other?  If primary turnout was higher, would we have better leaders? Why does the primary turnout skew so strongly toward older voters? How come moderates don’t do better with elderly votes disproportionately influencing the outcomes of primary elections? Do the parties do a lousy job of turning out voters in their primaries on purpose, or are they just incompetent at it? Worse, is it just that Americans don’t really care all that much who their preferred party nominates? Have self-described ‘Independents’ gotten so large as a group that they don’t feel either party offers them adequate choices? What could be done to increase primary turnout rates?

Such questions ought to provide fodder for further research. But getting back to Warner’s main point, could primary turnouts across the nation improve by promoting voting by mail? Warner notes that “All but 13 states now allow the use of mail ballots for any reason, and in the 2024 general election, 48 million voted by mail.” But that doesn’t tell you what kind of education and promotion campaigns were most effective in increasing primary turnout, in particular. But it seems reasonable to conclude that expanding – and more aggressively promoting – mail voting in primaries could improve primary turnouts and, quite possibly, the quality of our elected officials.

Some encouraging news from “Democrat Catelin Drey wins Iowa Senate special election, breaking Republican supermajority: Catelin Drey’s victory is the latest in a string of positive special election results for Iowa Democrats this year that will give the party hope that it can claw back seats in the 2026 midterms” by Stephen Gruber-Miller at The Des Moines Register: “Democrat Catelin Drey pulled off a victory in a special election for the Iowa Senate, flipping a Republican-held seat and breaking the GOP’s supermajority in the chamber for the first time in three years…Drey won with 55% of the vote to Republican Christopher Prosch’s 44%, according to unofficial results from the Woodbury County Auditor’s Office…Gov. Kim Reynolds called the election to fill a vacancy in Iowa Senate District 1 after Republican Sen. Rocky De Witt died of pancreatic cancer in June…”I’m just really incredibly honored that the folks in Senate District 1 believed in this campaign as much as the team did and I am looking forward to representing them well,” Drey said in an interview with the Des Moines Register…Drey will serve the remainder of De Witt’s term, which ends in January 2027. The seat will be on the ballot again in November 2026.”

If you thought that perhaps the Administration has finally exhausted its capacity for chaos, read “CDC erupts in chaos after ousted chief Susan Monarez refuses to resign” by Robert Mackey and Lauren Gambino. An excerpt: “The US’s top public health agency was plunged into chaos on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to oust its leader Susan Monarez, sworn in less than a month ago, as her lawyers said she would not resign and that she was being “targeted” for her pro-science stance…Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was ousted on Wednesday evening, according to a statement from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that offered no explanation its decision…“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” HHS said in an unsigned statement posted to social media. Her lawyers pushed back in a statement, saying she had “neither resigned nor received notification” from the White House of her termination…Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate just last month, appeared to have run afoul of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, after she declined to support sweeping changes to US vaccine policies, according to reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times…“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk,” her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement. “When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”…The ousting has set off a wave of departures within the agency, with at least three other CDC leaders publicly resigning after the HHS announcement.”…“What’s happening at the CDC should frighten every American Regardless of whether you are MAGA, MAHA, neither, or don’t give a damn about labels or politics. It’s unclear whether the CDC director—confirmed just weeks ago—has been fired or not. Absolute shitshow,” Dr Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine doctor and professor at Brown University School of Public Health, posted. “And incredible career professionals resigned tonight, sounding a massive alarm,” he added. “This is pure chaos that leaves the country unprepared.”

Washington University Sociologist Jake Rosenfeld explains “How the Trump administration’s approach to organized labor is more symbolism than substance” at Fast Company: “During the 2024 election campaign, the Republican Party’s historically fraught relationship with organized labor appeared to be changing. Several influential Republicans reached out to unions, seeking to cement the loyalties of the growing ranks of working-class Americans who have been backing Donald Trump’s presidential runs and voting for other members of his party…During Trump’s first bid for the White House, the percentage of votes in households where at least one person belongs to a union fell to its lowest level in decades. In 2021, Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator at the time, wrote a USA Today op-ed supporting a unionization drive at an Amazon facility. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, walked a United Auto Workers picket line in 2023 in solidarity with striking workers…As the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, Trump spotlighted International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien with a prominent speaking slot at the Republican National Convention—rewarding the union for staying neutral in that campaign after endorsing Joe Biden four years earlier…Yet O’Brien shocked many in the convention crowd by lambasting longtime GOP coalition partners such as the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable for hurting American workers…Once in office, Trump continued to signal some degree of solidarity with the blue-collar voters who backed him. He chose former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), a Teamsters ally, to be his second-term labor secretary…”

Rosenfeld continues, “The GOP’s various outreach efforts during the 2024 campaign led University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner, a scholar of declining labor power, to write, “Is a pro-labor Republican Party possible?”…More than six months into Trump’s second term, I would say that, based on the evidence thus far, the answer to Posner’s question is a resounding no…In late March 2025, Trump issued an executive order stripping hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their collective bargaining rights…Overnight, twice as many federal employees lost their union protections as there are members of the United Auto Workers union, making the action“the largest and most aggressive single act of union-busting in U.S. history,” according to Georgetown University labor historian Joseph McCartin…While affected unions have challenged that action and similar subsequent ones in court, the Trump administration is moving on to other agencies. In August, over 400,000 federal employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency saw their union contracts terminated and their collective bargaining rights dissolved…U.S. car producers are struggling to keep up with rising tariff-related costs of raw materials and parts. The number of factory jobs has fallen to the lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic…Even United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, a supporter of targeted tariffs to buttress the domestic auto industry, criticized the administration’s trade policy in April 2025, saying, “We do not support reckless tariffs on all countries at crazy rates.”…What seems clear in my view is that whenever the GOP has tried to cast itself as a labor-friendly political party, it has emphasized symbolism over substance, favoring using rhetoric embracing workers who belong to unions versus taking actions to strengthen labor rights.”

From Thomas B. Edsall’s opinion essay “The Mind-Boggling Intrusiveness of Donald J. Trump” at The New York Times: “The Trump administration ranks among the most intrusive in American history, driving the tentacles of the federal government deep into the nation’s economy, culture and legal system…Economically, the administration is dictating corporate behavior through tariffs, subsidies and the punishment of disfavored industries and companies, while rewarding allies with tax breaks and deregulation. And that’s all before the government takes its cut…Culturally, Trump is seeking to redefine the boundaries of public discourse: pressuring universities, elevating grievance politics and reshaping federal agencies to reflect ideological loyalty rather than expertise or experience…“No peacetime president has remotely approached the Trump administration’s campaign to control the conduct of all the major institutions that comprise American civil society as well as its governments,” Rogers Smith, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote to me by email. “This is comparable to the rise of totalitarian regimes in the 1920s and 1930s, when Mussolini said even a teacher of mathematics must be a fascist…Now all who do not take positions on American politics, policies and history that comply with the administration’s views are in danger of being denied funding, subjected to lawsuits, and derided by the White House in ways that can inspire violent private attacks. All this has precedents, but not in America’s peacetime history.” Ironically, Republicans, along with civil libertarians, have long complained about “intrusiveness in government.” But apparently, it was always about ‘whose intrusiveness?’ for approximately one-third of voters.

After a decade of Trump monopolizing America’s political news, it seems a good time for learning the over-arching lessons about his rise to global domination, one of which has to be his proof of William Hutchinson Murray’s dictum, “Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Trump is engaging in a perverse kind of civil disobedience, which is to simply ignore the Constitution and core principles of U.S. democracy, like separation of powers and checks and balances. And there is apparently no scandal nasty enough nowadays to stop a determined president from bullying his way to power and wealth, the rule of law be damned. The cruelty isn’t really the point; it’s just a useful tool for a bully to get power and wealth with no accountability. Then there is the “everything, all at once” strategy. Keep the opposition so busy responding to your latest outrage that they don’t have time to organize a successful impeachment conviction. Or more precisely, we don’t have enough time and resources to educate and mobilize the public to support impeachment conviction. Calling him an ignoramus who doesn’t really understand policy or care who is hurt by bad policy gives some of his liberal critics a useless sense of entitlement. It is more important to recognize that he has a genius, or at least a gift, for distraction. And now that he has discovered the distraction power of international grandstanding, we can expect more of it. All of which has exposed profound weaknesses in a system we were all taught was infallible as school kids. If there is any benefit to this ordeal, it may be that we now have a much better understanding of the structural weaknesses in our constitution and political system. We now know why and how accountability flunks. Fixing it is a tougher challenge.

Here’s our chart of the day, from “Latino Voters Want Working Class Relief Prioritized in U.S. Economic Policy” at Data for Progress:

Alicia Bannon and Michael Milov Cordoba have this to say about “Supreme Court Term Limits” at the Brennan Center for Justice web pages: “Proposals range from creating an ethics code to expanding the Court to stripping its jurisdiction. One of the most popular options would also be among the most transformative: establishing 18-year terms and regularized appointments for justices. Under this system, justices would sit in staggered terms of active service on the Court, such that a new vacancy would open every two years. Each president would have two, and only two, appointments during a four-year term… On average, justices today sit on the bench for more than a decade longer than their predecessors did as recently as the 1960s. Several justices now on the Court are likely to hold office over as many as nine presidential terms. Unbounded tenure allows a single justice to shape the direction of the law for generations, without regard for the evolving views and composition of the electorate. It puts justices in an elite and unaccountable bubble for decades. No other major democracy in the world provides life tenure for high court judges who hear constitutional cases…By contrast, with 18-year active terms and regularized appointments, every president would have an equal imprint on the Court during a four-year term. Such a system would enhance the democratic link between the Court and the public, making the institution more reflective of changing public values while preserving judicial independence…This reform would also encourage a better-functioning and less politically charged confirmation process. Shorter terms would lower the stakes of each nomination, while regularized appointments would both encourage compromise and allow for public accountability in the event of confirmation impasses. Regularized appointments would also eliminate the destabilizing impact of late-term vacancies because an unexpected death or retirement would not create a new seat to fill; instead, a senior justice would temporarily step in. And this reform would ensure that no individual holds largely unchecked power for decades at a time…Broad swaths of Americans support term limits for justices. Since 2022, several polls have found that more than two-thirds of the public are in favor of this reform, including more than three-quarters of Democrats, two-thirds of independents, and more than half of Republicans. This bipartisan support is long-standing: since at least 2014, polls have consistently shown supermajority support for term limits “

Yes, we know. There really is violent crime in Washington, D.C. To put things in saner perspective, however, Harold Meyerson reports that “The GOP States With Guards Deployed to D.C. Have Urban Murder Rates Way Higher Than D.C.’s” at The American Prospect.

As Meyerson explains,  “As the governors of South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee have now all proclaimed, crime is out of control in the nation’s capital—so sayeth Trump and hence it must be true—so they’re sending in their states’ troopers…The irony here is that crime rates in the cities of their own states are markedly higher than they are in D.C. The murder rate in Washington, D.C., last year was 17 for every 100,000 residents…The actual numbers, to state this gently, aren’t reflected in these governors’ pronunciamentos.”

Meyerson, adds, “In the past 24 hours, Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said he’d send 200 Mississippi Guards to D.C. because “Americans deserve a safe capital city that we can all be proud of.”…In 2024, Mississippi’s own state capital, Jackson, had the highest murder rate of any American city: 77 per 100,000, which was more than four times that in Washington, D.C…Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said he’d send the state’s National Guard to D.C., proclaiming, “I am proud to support this mission to return safety and sanity to Washington.”

Further, “In 2024, Louisiana’s own state capital, Baton Rouge (whose U.S. House member is Speaker Mike Johnson), had a murder rate of 36 per 100,000, twice that of Washington, D.C. New Orleans had a murder rate of 31 per 100,000.” Same problem for Republican governors of Tennessee, South Carolina, West Virginia and Ohio.”

Heather Cox Richardson also comments on the performative folly behind Trump’s sending military forces into Washington, D.C.: “A map of where the troops have been seen in the nation’s capital makes it very clear they are not really there to combat crime. They are stationed in areas where they are mostly likely to be seen and to make a statement, especially around the White House and the national monuments on the National Mall. Many of them are simply standing around. They are there to demonstrate Trump’s control of the seat of government in the United States of America with an eye to convincing Americans he controls the government itself.”

Cox Richardon explains, “MAGA Republican governors are rushing to be part of the demonstration of the MAGA takeover of the country’s government, sending their state’s National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. This, too, has little to do with actual crime. Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia committed troops over the past few days, but as journalist Philip Bump noted, there are 43 cities in those states that have higher crime rates than Washington, D.C., does.”

Also, “Today, the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee committed National Guard personnel to Trump’s crackdown in Washington, D.C…The White House seems determined to provoke confrontations: after the Army said National Guard troops would neither carry weapons nor have weapons in their vehicles, the White House said in a statement on Saturday that National Guard troops “may be armed, consistent with their mission and training, to protect federal assets, provide a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests, and deter violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence.”

Add to the context Trump’s shameful pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters. The hypocrisy   of Trump and his GOP governors is stunning. There is no word yet on how much all of this military deployment drama is going to cost. But it’s pretty clear taxpayers are going to pay for it.

In “Texas Democrats’ plot to stall redistricting until Epstein files released fails” Asher Price writes at Axios: “A plan by Texas House Democrats to block a Republican redistricting effort until the complete release of the Jeffrey Epstein files failed on Wednesday…Why it matters: The Democratic effort, which aimed to put pressure on the Trump administration regarding the president’s association with Epstein, was killed on a point of order in the Republican-controlled Legislature because it was not germane to the redistricting measure…Earlier this month, a legal nonprofit sued the Trump administration for not releasing Epstein-related documents and requested them in an expedited manner…The big picture: The proposed redistricting was drawn at President Trump’s urging and is an effort to boost GOP chances of retaining control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections…Driving the news: Texas Rep. Gene Wu, a Democrat from Houston who led a group of more than 50 members who left the state to stall the vote, introduced an amendment to the redistricting bill Wednesday…What they’re saying: “This amendment forces Republicans to choose between their loyalty to Trump and their obligation to expose sexual predators,” Wu said in a statement…What happened: The amendment never got debated — let alone a vote — after Republicans killed it in a procedural move…Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, determined Wu’s amendment would have made redistricting “contingent on a matter that is not even remotely related to the congressional redistricting.”

Nicole Markus reports “Supermajority of Washington residents oppose Trump’s police takeover, poll finds” at Politico, and writes: “The vast majority of Washington residents oppose President Donald Trump’s efforts to federalize the city’s police department and deploy the National Guard, according to a new poll released Wednesday…The survey from The Washington Post/Schar School found that 79 percent of residents either somewhat or strongly oppose the efforts, compared to just 17 percent who backed it…Washington — where Trump won just over 6 percent of the vote in 2024 — is an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Just 31 percent said that crime in the city was either “extremely” or “very serious,” down from 65 percent in an April 2024 survey. Seventy-eight percent of residents responded they felt “very” or “somewhat” safe in their neighborhoods. Twenty-one percent said they felt not too or not at all safe…Sixty-one percent of residents who have noticed federal law enforcement officers in the city since Trump’s announcement said it makes them feel less safe, with 38 percent saying it makes them feel more safe or makes no difference.”

“Local Democratic candidates say that they didn’t receive the institutional support their campaigns needed in 2024, as the Democratic ecosystem poured money and resources into topline contests like the presidential race,” Max Greenwood writes at Campaigns & Elections. “A survey of nearly 1,000 local Democratic hopefuls conducted by the Pipeline Fund, a group that provides funding and support to progressive candidates, found that nearly half of respondents – 49 percent – said they received only some, very little or none of the help that they needed for their campaigns last year…That percentage was even higher among first-time candidates, 58 percent of whom said they didn’t get the support they needed, as well as candidates of color, at 57 percent. Most candidates – 58 percent – had no paid staffers on their campaigns, while another 15 percent had just one, the survey found…Those candidates say that they want access to experienced staff and campaign managers to help navigate their races…Denise Feriozzi, the co-founder and executive director of the Pipeline Fund, said the results should come as a warning sign for national Democratic and progressive groups… “There’s this amazing new generation of leaders that are stepping up to run,” Feriozzi told C&E in an interview. “They’re talented, they look like their communities, they’re doing it for the right reasons. But unfortunately, our infrastructure isn’t keeping pace with the needs of these candidates.”…As Democrats look to claw their way back to power after a bruising 2024 election cycle, some strategists have urged the party to take a closer look at local and state offices – school boards, county commissions, state legislatures – arguing that competing in those races will be key to winning back voters who have soured on the national Democratic brand…“Every cycle, we get drawn into these big national fights – Senate races, presidentials – and we neglect these very important state- and local-level races. And those are the offices that we can use to show people that Democrats are for them; that government can still work,” one Democratic consultant said.” Read more here.

Democrats who believe that it’s time for some hardball should be cheered by Adam Peck’s article, “House Democrats turn their attention to Donald Trump’s involvement in hush-money payments” at Think Progress. An excerpt: “For all his talk about hiring the best people, a remarkable number of Donald Trump’s former campaign and White House staff have already been indicted by federal authorities. Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Michael Cohen — the list of indicted conspirators is a who’s who of cheap mafioso knockoffs…Not on that list: anyone from the Trump family tree…Former special counsel Robert Mueller’s refusal to indict the president or his family is presented as favorable evidence by the White House and its allies to suggest Trump was somehow vindicated and acquitted of any wrongdoing. Not only did Mueller not acquit Trump, now it turns out the White House’s celebration for avoiding indictments may have been a bit premature…House Democrats, back in session after the summer recess, are reportedly preparing to launch a comprehensive investigation into hush-money payments made on Trump’s behalf to at least two women — former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Both women say they had affairs with Trump…Depending on what the Judiciary Committee unearths, Donald Trump might not be out of the woods just yet when it comes to legal repercussions.”

Yes, it’s possible that Trump’s Summit Distraction will help him get past the media’s Epstein scandal reports. But no one should be deluded that it is not a deliberate attempt at distraction. According to Corbin Bolies’s article, “Trump Is Plotting This Desperate Move to Distract From Epstein” at The Daily Beast: “President Donald Trump is desperately seeking a “big thing” to distract from Jeffrey Epstein—and is willing to sacrifice Ukraine to achieve it, his biographer Michael Wolff has revealed…In the debut episode of the new Daily Beast podcast, Inside Trump’s Head, the best-selling author told co-host Joanna Coles that the president is making “relentless” calls to aides and allies to demand something to get past the unending questions over his links to the dead pedophile and his surviving lover-turned-sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell…Wolff disclosed, not only have successive plans failed or fallen flat, but Trump is now willing to give up Ukraine to Vladimir Putin when they meet in Alaska on Friday to achieve the distraction he needs…The firestorm began last month when the Department of Justice quietly announced at a weekend that there was nothing more to say about Epstein—despite Attorney General Pam Bondi claiming in February that the files were on her desk, and the White House handing MAGA influencers folders of “Epstein Files,” promising more to come. In the backlash, conservatives accused Trump and Bondi of a cover-up, prompting the most dramatic break between the president and his base to date…Wolff told Coles, “Let me go back about a week or so, or 10 days, when Trump started to say to everyone who would listen—and everyone listens to Donald Trump—to staffers and on the phone calls, the relentless phone calls that he’s constantly making, he said, ‘I need a big thing. I need a big thing.’…Wolff explained that Trump would likely pull the U.S. out of any involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict—something which would please, in his judgment, the MAGA base, which has been opposed to U.S. involvement and particularly to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky…“He’s going to sacrifice Ukraine for Epstein,” Wolff said. “Essentially, this is, in his mind, a trade…Wolff’s tape of one of his interviews with Epstein—who asked the author to be his biographer—was first revealed by the Daily Beast in November and featured the pedophile financier describing himself as Trump’s “closest friend” and detailing their long relationship.”

What if Trump’s summit initiatives somehow help bring about peace in Ukraine? In that unlikely event, would Democrats lose some traction in their quest to win seats in the coming midterm election next year, or the presidential election in ’28? Of course, Democrats should avoid making ‘sour grapes’ comments that could make them look like they are putting political gain before peace. If a Ukraine peace agreement is negotiated during the coming months, Trump will claim exclusive credit for it. But it’s a big stretch from there to argue that Republican midterm candidates will benefit all that much. There is not much evidence that foreign policy achievements translate into votes for one party or another, regardless of domestic politics. There are arguments to the contrary, but not a lot of compelling evidence since WWII. Looking at presidential politics, Democrat Jimmy Carter secured an historic peace agreement between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin in 1978. That, along with the peace-making leadership of the Carter Center, got him a richly-deserved 2002 Nobel Peace Prize after his presidency. But he nonetheless got badly whipped in his 1980 campaign for re-election. LBJ’s experience with the Vietnam War indicates that foreign policy blunders may affect re-election prospects more than achievements. One could also argue that Carter’s foreign policy achievements during his presidency were negated by the Iran Hostage crisis. But they were also overshadowed by rising inflation. High inflation may actually help the party out of the White House. It remains a significant threat to both Trump and the GOP, and it is not likely to be much overshadowed by a peace treaty in Ukraine. In a close election, however, anything can make the difference between victory and defeat.

“President Donald Trump’s announcement Monday that he will sign an executive order aimed at getting rid of mail-in ballots and voting machines seems unlikely to amount to much,” Aaron Blake writes in “Trump’s remarkable statement against states’ rights” at CNN Politics. He doesn’t appear to have any such authority, and legal challenges would surely follow…But it was instructive in one way: It made clear the president elected to lead the party of states’ rights has very little regard for states’ rights…Indeed, he almost seems to disdain them…It’s difficult to read his comments any other way, especially as he has spent much of his second term attempting to chip away at states’ rights — or at least, the ones he doesn’t like…While selling his new pitch to get rid of mail-in voting and voting machines, Trump included this remarkable pair of sentences…“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”…He often claimed during his first term that the Constitution gave him absolute power. Even when out of office, he floated terminating portions of the Constitution, while repeating his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged. And earlier this year, he posted a quote often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte suggesting his actions couldn’t be illegal as long as he was acting to “save” the country.”

This meme’s graphic could be better. But the message is excellent:

From “U.S. consumers will take most of the hit from tariff costs: Goldman Sachs – Analysts at the firm said U.S. consumers will  eventually take on 67% of tariff-related costs” by Hannah Parker at Quartz: “Through June, about 22% of tariff costs have been passed onto consumers, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis shared with Bloomberg. However, that number will rise to 67% if tariffs follow the same course as years prior, the firm said…Goldman analysts said in the report that the CPE will rise to 3.2% year-on-year in December. They added that when taking away the additional costs from tariffs, the inflation rate would have been 2.4%. So far, the analysts said tariffs have increased this index by 0.2% and expect it to rise 0.16% for July and 0.5% for the rest of 2025…Tariff-induced hikes to the rate of inflation come as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly rejected President Donald Trump’s demands to lower interest rates. In the president’s most recent move against Powell, he appointed a fellow critic to a key seat at the central bank…Goldman analysts said in the report that U.S. businesses have absorbed about 64% of tariff-related costs. Companies like Apple reported a $800 million hit from tariffs and reported tariff-related costs of over $1 billion in their respective earnings last quarter. The analysts expect that, moving forward, companies will pay less than 10% for tariff costs. They added that international exporters have taken on about 14% of tariff costs through June, but that rate could increase to 25%.”

The The Hill, Flip Timotija reports that “One-third say family’s finances have worsened,” and notes, “About one-in-three U.S. adults say their family’s finances have gotten worse in the past year, while another 40 percent said it roughly stayed the same, according to a new poll…The latest Yahoo Finance/Marist Poll survey, released Monday, found that 33 percent of U.S. adults said their family’s finances have deteriorated in the last year. Another 27 percent argued it has gotten better while 40 percent stated that their family’s financial conditions stayed the same…Older generations, nearly four-in-ten of Gen X and 35 percent of Baby Boomers, are more likely to say their finances have gotten worse. Roughly 29 percent each of millennials and Gen Z said the same, the poll shows…Nearly half of households, 47 percent, who are earning below $50,000 annually, said their finances are declining. Twice as many male respondents, 36 percent, said their finances have gotten better over the past year compared to 18 percent of women…Around 45 percent of adults said the cost of living in their area is either not very affordable, 36 percent, or not affordable at all, 9 percent. More than half, 55 percent, said their area is affordable — with 11 percent of respondents saying “very” affordable and 44 percent choosing just “affordable,” according to the poll…The Yahoo/Marist survey was conducted from June 13-17 among 2,575 adults. The margin of error is 2.1 percentage points.”

In his NYT opinion essay, “Democrats Delivered Millions to Texarkana. It Didn’t Matter One Bit,” Thomas B. Edsall writes:  “On Aug. 8 of this year, John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt, wrote on the blog Good Authority, “Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, there was a notion that a politician can win votes by delivering benefits to voters — also known as ‘deliverism.’”…In practice, the Biden administration’s deliverism strategy failed to deliver politically, both across the nation and especially — and emblematically — in Texarkana…In 2020, Texarkana, which is made up of Miller County, Ark., and Bowie County, Texas, voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump — 72.3 percent to 27.7 percent for Biden, a 44.6-point margin. In 2024, despite the growth of green industry and economic improvement during the Biden years, Trump beat Kamala Harris in the Texarkana counties with 75.4 percent of the vote and 24.6 percent for Harris, an immense 50.8-point margin…These voting patterns show how durable Trump’s core support is despite his limitations and his falling poll numbers…William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has spent much of his career exploring the strengths and weaknesses of democracy, has a book coming out in September, “Anger, Fear, Domination: Dark Passions and the Power ofPolitical Speech.” He summarized the main arguments of the book in “Liberalism Without Illusions,” an essay in the summer edition of “Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.” Galston contends that much of contemporary politics is shaped by a struggle between competing forces in human nature: Rational self-interest does not always drive human events; the passions matter, and evil is real. Economics isn’t everything, or even the “base” of everything. Culture and religion have retained — and will not lose — their independent power to shape understanding and motivate action.”

The Boston Review is running “The Dead End of Checks and Balances,” by Lisa L. Miller and featuring responsees from eight writers. Subtitled “Far from the cure to Trumpian authoritarianism, the U.S. constitutional system is driving our democratic decline,” the discussion includes the following excerpt: “Far from serving our republic well, America’s unusual system of checks and balances has paralyzed it—contributing to the very authoritarianism we now face rather than protecting us from it. However well-meaning these venerable invocations, doubling down on America’s alleged constitutional virtues at this moment will only entrench the dysfunction that got us here. If our aim is to safeguard democracy, these dangerous times call for a long-overdue reckoning with the system’s deep vices—and a clear vision for overcoming them…Indeed, urging a return to normal misses the point that the normal order is widely perceived as a problem. Majorities of Americans across the political spectrum have long understood that their system of government doesn’t serve them well. Institutional obstacles at all levels empower elite minorities to safeguard their own interests and block popular policies that would broadly serve the American people, from universal health care to a higher minimum wage. Of course, Trump’s attacks on political institutions have little to do with constraining the power of elites or advancing such policies; on the contrary, with Elon Musk at the head of DOGE, they are advancing rank corruption and kleptocracy for the benefit of the ultrawealthy and extreme ideologues. But Trump does tap into the sentiment that our institutions are broken. Acknowledging the flaws in our system does not mean endorsing his, or any president’s, unlimited power. Nor does it mean there is no form of checks and balances that can serve American democracy. Rather, it clarifies the necessity and urgency of reforming government so it responds better to the needs of ordinary people.” It’s a provocative notion. Read more here.

In “How To Rebuild the Democratic Coalition” at The Liberal Patriot, Justin Vassallo writes: “Given the looming disadvantages the party faces in the House—both the Cook political report and Larry Sabato’s Center for Politics note that the number of swing districts has fallen significantly in the last twenty years—accommodating and encouraging “independent,” culturally moderate Democrats to challenge Republican incumbents in districts that have spurned the national brand is of utmost importance. Although it might be painful, this will force the party to shed the baggage of sectarian identity politics. And the benefits will surely outweigh the costs. By expanding its foothold outside the coasts and championing the left behind, Democrats will be better positioned to credibly defend pluralism and liberty against right-wing overreach…Denial, it is commonly said, is a powerful drug. But by now it should be self-evident that the current “wait for Trump to fail spectacularly” strategy is a dead end. Democrats are weak not primarily because their messaging about Trump is exhausted—although this is true—but because they are in denial about the extent of their regional woes and voters’ mistrust. To return to power, Democrats must reimagine how to build it and how to wield it. That is only possible, however, if the party commits to making dramatic inroads in places they have ignored and abandoned—and by bringing in more voices who understand that a coalition guided by common interests is far greater than one guided by common fears.”

From “A Democrat’s Scathing Review of the Democratic Party” by Joanna Golden at Daily Kos: “The Democratic entrepreneur, Mark Cuban, nailed it on a recent Pod Save America appearance. “We moralize instead of connect,” he said. “While Republicans hammer home the immediate and the tangible (gas prices, border issues), Democrats often drift into climate change narratives, existential threats, or moral high ground. But voters are tuning that out. They’re not buying hypothetical doom or lofty aspirations anymore—they want real stories, real proof, and real progress.” Cuban’s challenge to Democrats isn’t to abandon our values, but to express them in everyday terms.  Talking in everyday language means trading political lecturing for storytelling that aims to relate on platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or podcasts…Speak like a human. Be interesting. Sell the dream. Because in modern digital politics, being right isn’t enough –  you have to be irresistible…We’ve lost touch with how and where people connect today. While the world shifted to punchy digital storytelling, podcasts, and social media, we clung to press releases, long reports, and email blasts. The Democratic Party must become fluent in the media and emotional grammar of now—meeting people not where we wish they were, but exactly where they are. And once we’re there, we need to flood the digital ecosystem…If we want to win, we have to stop over-intellectualizing our arguments and start feeling them. We desperately need young, diverse content creators—people who live online, understand the algorithms and platforms, and can teach us what works, why it works, and how to do it better so we can saturate those places. Right now, in the political landscape, our message is simply not where the people are.”

It would be great if the U.S. enacted a Medicare for All program. But it’s not gonna happen anytime soon. Absent comprehensive, nation-wide health care coverage, forms of which have been secured by every other industrialized nation, my second choice would be a public option – giving every family the power to choose government coverage or insurance by private, for profit companies. Unfortunately, that is also a non-starter under our current political configuration. At the state level, however, public option health care coverage is a recent reality in Colorado and Washington State. As you might imagine, the reviews have been mixed. Public option legislation has also been passed in Nevada and Minnesota, and may spread to some other states, depending on the overall success of the programs, and their cost-containment in particular. There will be mistakes, of course, which will slowly be corrected. That’s the optimistic scenario. Another possibility, which hasn’t yet been enacted anywhere in the U.S., would be federal or state government coverage for catastrophic illnesses only, focused on the principle that no American would lose their retirement savings or their home because of the out-of-pocket costs of a major illness. When the out-of-pocket expenses exceed a specified percentage of a family’s most recent reported income, government insurance would cover the remaining  expenses. The private sector would still provide coverage for the rest of medical care. Such a measure would not be a substitute for Medicare for All or the public option – it could be pitched as an interim reform. Democrats could flip a significant number of votes by uniting in favor of such legislation, which would relieve every family of the fear of economic ruin as the result of a health crisis. Republicans have zero prospects for offering any credible alternatives, and ads underlining the difference could be impressive.

At The Conversation, Charlie Hunt discusses “Three Reasons Republicans’ Redistricting Power Grab Might Backfire,” including: “In trying to maximize their seats, a party spreads its voters too thin and fails to make some districts safe enough. These vulnerable districts can then flip to the other party in future elections, and the opposing party ends up winning more seats than expected…This phenomenon, commonly referred to as “dummymandering,” has happened before. It even happened in Texas, where Republicans lost a large handful of poorly drawn state legislative districts in the Dallas suburbs in 2018, a strong year for Democrats nationwide…With Democrats poised for a strong 2026 midterm electionagainst an unpopular president, this is a lesson Republicans might need to pay attention to…in terms of gerrymandering, the low-hanging fruit is already picked over. States controlled by either Democrats or Republicans have already undertaken pretty egregious gerrymanders during previous regular redistricting processes, particularly following the 2010 and 2020 censuses…Republicans have generally been more adept at the process, particularly in maximizing their seat shares in relatively competitive states such as Wisconsin and North Carolina that they happen to control…over the past half-century, “gerrymanderable” territory has become more difficult to find regardless of how you draw the boundaries. That’s because the voting electorate is more geographically sorted between the parties…As a result, it’s become less geographically possible than ever to draw reasonable-looking districts that split up the other party’s voters in order to diminish the opponents’ ability to elect one of their own.”