At pbs.org, Meg Dalton reports on President Trump’s full pardon of Dwight and Steven Hammond, “father-and-son ranchers from Oregon who were convicted of intentionally setting fire to federal land two years ago…The Hammonds became central to the debate over public lands in the West when their imprisonment inspired the now-infamous ranching family, the Bundys, and a cadre of anti-federal government militants to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016.” Trump’s pardon says in essence “no crime ever happened, according to Peter Walker, a professor at the University of Oregon. Whereas a commutation would have meant their release from prison, a pardon brushes off the Hammonds’ conviction entirely and legitimizes the Bundys’ far-right movement…Trump’s pardon could encourage those who want to confront and harass federal employees, according to Walker. “It puts a target on the back on federal employees,” he said. “This declares open season [on them].” It also may signal a new raid on public lands, in which big timber and other extractive industries exploit federal land for corporate and personal gain, later to be punctuated by their increased contributions to the GOP.

Here’s one antidote to the GOP’s environmental destruction agenda: “Nathaniel Stinnett knows he’s preaching to the choir. The problem is, even believers don’t always show up for church. Dismayed by how low environmental concerns like climate change, pollution and pipelines rank on surveys of voter priorities, Stinnett founded the nonpartisan Environmental Voter Project three years ago on the hunch that a substantial number of people care about environmental issues and are registered to vote, but don’t show up on Election Day…The veteran Boston-based campaign strategist developed a formula for identifying these voters. He builds profiles based on consumer, demographic and behavioral data, then runs a series of polls to verify the data and find out how likely voters are to list environmental causes among their top two political priorities. Stinnett and his team of three sift through the survey responses to identify patterns…After that, they run those profiles through a model that scores voters based on how likely they are to be so-called “super environmentalists.” Finally, they cut out people whose public voting records show they turn out for most elections. What’s left is a group of registered voters who don’t need to be sold on the reality of climate change or the dangers of air pollution – they just need to be convinced to get to the polls.” – from “This Man Is Building an ‘Army’ of Environmental Super Voters to Rival the NRA in Turnout” by Alexander C. Kaufman at HuffPo, via The Environmental Voter Project.

A worthy health care talking point for today, from Austin Frakt’s “Hidden From View: The Astonishingly High Administrative Costs of U.S. Health Care” at The Upshot: “A widely cited study published in The New England Journal of Medicine used data from 1999 to estimate that about 30 percent of American health care expenditures were the result of administration, about twice what it is in Canada. If the figures hold today, they mean that out of the average of about $19,000 that U.S. workers and their employers pay for family coverage each year, $5,700 goes toward administrative costs…That New England Journal of Medicine study is still the only one on administrative costs that encompasses the entire health system. Many other more recent studies examine important portions of it, however. The story remains the same: Like the overall cost of the U.S. health system, its administrative cost alone is No. 1 in the world.”

Michael Tomasky has a New York Times op-ed urging Democrats to fight hard against the Kavanaugh nomination. Fight to win, but have a sound strategy ready if you lose. Tomasky argues that Dems should make the nomination fight “a referendum on Judge Kavanaugh’s past actions and on President Trump’s character…Polls usually show that on most issues, in the abstract, majorities support the Democratic position, from preserving Social Security to comprehensive immigration reform. That seems great for Democrats, but in fact it often lulls them into an uncreative passivity: They’re with us on the issues, Democrats think, so all we have to do is discuss the issues and we’re home free.” But issues are not the only, or even, the primary, factor in every campaign.

Democrats, Tomasky adds, “must discuss character — both the president’s and Judge Kavanaugh’s. The nominee worked for Ken Starr in 1998 as Mr. Starr pursued President Bill Clinton. What exactly did he do for Mr. Starr?…Did he leak secret grand jury proceedings, violating Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure?” Tomasky cites the possibility of Trump naming his own future jurors. “The Democrats’ job here is to get Judge Kavanaugh on the record” about whether or not Trump can be prosecuted…The Democrats will probably lose the Kavanaugh battle” writes Tomasky, “But there are two ways to do it. They can lose by appearing to be timid, calculating, fretting too much about the consequences of being aggressive…Or they can lose by showing they understand that millions of Americans are counting on them to protect their rights and, the stakes being what they are, the Constitution itself. If Democrats do the latter, they will manage to have laid the groundwork for some optimism about November and 2020.”

In his article, “Study: Campaigns Falling short on Latino Outreach,” Sean J. Miller writes, “A new report released Monday focused attention on some 25 competitive House districts where Latino voters could make a sizable difference this fall and underscored the need for campaigns and political parties to invest in outreach now as the Latino voting population surges…The report, a collaboration between UnidosUS and the California Civic Engagement Project at the University of Southern California, charts demographic shifts that forecast the Latino population will grow more than 50 percent in the next two decades to 87.5 million — representing nearly a quarter of all Americans…their turnout when they’re on the voter rolls — at least in presidential cycles — “is close to that of registered voters in other groups, or upwards of 80 [percent.]…“Latino share of total votes cast nationwide was very close to the Latino share of the U.S. registered voter population — 9.2 [percent] and 9.7 [percent], respectively.” In addition,  “There are congressional districts where Latino youth actually outperform older Latino voters,” including in Wyoming, Iowa and the Carolinas.

Some ‘key points’ from Rhodes Cook’s data-rich article, “Registering by Party: Where the Democrats and Republicans Are Ahead” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Altogether, there are 31 states (plus the District of Columbia) with party registration; in the others, such as Virginia, voters register without reference to party. In 19 states and the District, there are more registered Democrats than Republicans. In 12 states, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. In aggregate, 40% of all voters in party registration states are Democrats, 29% are Republicans, and 28% are independents. Nationally, the Democratic advantage in the party registration states approaches 12 million.” Cooks adds that “the Democrats approach this fall’s midterm elections with an advantage in one key aspect of the political process — their strength in states where voters register by party.” However, “Altogether, there are 10 states with more registered independents than either Democrats or Republicans. These states are mainly in the Northeast, with a cluster also in the West. By comparison, there are Democratic pluralities of registered voters in 13 states plus the District of Columbia and eight other states with Republicans ahead of both Democrats and independents. In addition, there are six states where there is an independent plurality but Democrats outnumber Republicans, and four states where independents are on top of the registration totals but Republicans outnumber Democrats. That produces the 19 to 12 state registration advantage for the Democrats mentioned earlier.”

In “Optimizing Your Efforts in 2018: Part I, the House,” Sam Wang writes at The Princeton Election Consortium: “The odds moderately favor a switch in control of the House of Representatives in 2018. But make no mistake, things could go either way. This November will be a battle of inches…For many of you, the battle’s coming to a district near you. We’re renewing a tool that made its debuttwo years ago. Sharon Machlis has very kindly updated her Congressional District finder to display swing districts for 2018. It’s awesome – check it out!..Many of the closest races will be run in the suburbs of America. Here are some high-value areas: Six swing districts are within 100 miles of New York City; Five are within 50 miles of Los Angeles; and Five are within 50 miles of Chicago.”

Republicans are understandably a tad miffed at satirist Sasha Baron Cohen, who just punked three Republican leaders, and got them to support a “Kinderguardian” program, arming pre-schoolers. For an amusing take on the fuss, check out John Quelley’s “Think GOP Lawmakers Not Unhinged Enough to Endorse Program Called “Kinderguardians” That Puts Guns in Hands of 4-Year-Old Kids? Watch Them: Sacha Baron Cohen’s new show is about to drop and exposed nut-job Republicans are not happy about it” at Common Dreams.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s syndicated column, “The centrist heavenly chorus is off-key”  notes, “Among the myths that can steer us off course in the Trump era, three are particularly popular. First, that political polarization is primarily a product of how elites behave and not the result of real divisions in our country. Second, that a vast group of party-loathing independents can be mobilized by anti-partisan messages. Third, that Republicans and Democrats are becoming increasingly and equally extreme, so they should be scolded equally…All these pious wishes are false, as Alan I. Abramowitz’s latest book, “The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump,” makes clear. He provides a wealth of data in a compact package…As Abramowitz shows, most people who identify as independents lean toward one party or the other…Factoring out independents who tilt toward a party, “only about 12 percent of Americans have fallen into the ‘pure independent’ category, and these people are much less interested in politics and much less likely to vote than independent leaners.” Independents are plainly not some magical force that will call into being that centrist third party that looms so large in the imaginations of many pundits and fundraisers…Abramowitz’s data make clear that the two sides are not equivalent. Republicans have moved significantly further to the right than Democrats have moved to the left.”

From “Midterm Election Winners Could Determine Medicaid’s Future” at aarp.org: “For 53 years, Medicaid has served as a safety net for millions of people who needed assistance as their ability to care for themselves declined. In 2010, Medicaid’s health care role grew with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which called for the expansion of health coverage to more low-income families. So far, 33 states and Washington, D.C., have expanded the program…Seventy-four percent of Americans have a favorable view of Medicaid, according to a February tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). That may be due to Medicaid’s long reach. For example, the program covers 6 in 10 nursing home residents in America, a KFF report shows…Several states (including Utah, Nebraska and Idaho) may have proposals for Medicaid expansion on their ballots this fall…Whoever is elected as governor or to the state legislature could well determine whether a state revisits the issue.”

Jeffrey Peck’s op-ed, “No more softball, Senate. Ask Trump’s Supreme Court pick these questions” at The Washington Post provides a pretty good checklist of questions. Peck, a former general counsel and staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee, writes: “The Bork, Kennedy and Souter hearings tell us that questions such as the following can and should be asked — and answered:…Do you believe the Constitution recognizes a right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment? Is Griswold v. Connecticut, in which the court embraced this right, settled law?…Do you agree with Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. — whose seat Kennedy took — who wrote in Moore v. East Cleveland, “Freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment”? Do you consider it a “fundamental” liberty such that the government may interfere only for extraordinary reasons?…What factors would you weigh in determining whether a prior decision by the Supreme Court is settled law? Is Brown v. Board of Education settled law? How would you determine whether Roe v. Wade is settled law?…What is your understanding of “one person, one vote” under the 14th Amendment and its relation to state gerrymandering practices?…What examples would you cite of proper limits on the assertion of executive power by the president?” Feel free to add a couple of questions clarifying the nominee’s views on Citizens United and the right to join and organize labor unions. “Let’s have real hearings with enlightening discussion, not fake ones with vapid cliches,” concludes Peck. “The American people are entitled to know whether fundamental rights and liberties will be maintained, constrained or eviscerated.”

Don’t get too swayed by media drama about tonight’s hyped-up reveal of Trump’s SCOTUS nominee, advises Ed Kilgore: “You’d be wise to tell yourself “Don’t believe the hype.” The most convincing indications are that Trump is determined to keep the world in suspense about this fateful decision before revealing it Monday night on live TV in an approximation of the reality-show format he mastered long before running for president. It is, after all, what he did in naming his first SCOTUS nominee, Neil Gorsuch, in 2017, a process that avoided the usual chronic Trump White House leaks and involved some deliberate misdirection..it’s not just a matter of Trump repeating last year’s PR success: the less lead time media folk have to obsess about the actual nominee, the more the focus stays on Trump himself. And that’s how the 45th president likes it.”

“Globalization is an omelet that cannot be unscrambled,” writes Jared Bernstein at Post Everything Perspective. “That doesn’t mean that it’s all sunny-side up. Many people and communities have been hurt by exposure to trade, especially American-style, unbalanced trade, with little social policy to offset the losses of those thrown into competition with workers earning much lower wages. In fact, the denial of trade-induced wage and job losses by center-left-to-right-wing politicians was something Trump skillfully tapped during the 2016 campaign, enabling him to vanquish opponents who implicitly argued that Rust Belt voters simply weren’t smart enough to realize how much “free trade” has helped them…But the globalization omelet means that Trump’s tariffs won’t work. Why not? Because they target so many inputs into American production (“intermediate” and capital goods) and threaten, through retaliatory actions, lucrative international supply chains tapped by American exporters (follow the money soybeans). They will hurt more Americans than they will help, and, in most cases, the economics of replacing imported goods with domestic content won’t make economic sense. As Paul Krugman put it, “What’s notable about the Trump tariffs … is that they’re so self-destructive.”..It’s bad enough that team Trump doesn’t do anything to help those hurt by trade. Now, it is enacting policies that will hurt those helped by trade. They promised win-win; they’re delivering lose-lose.”

Instead, Bernstein recommends, “Two straightforward policies would help our exporters: Fight back against exchange rate manipulation and seriously beef up the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The former levels the playing field by taking action against countries that buy dollars to make our exports expensive in their currency and their exports to us cheaper in dollars. The MEP, which Trump zeroes out in his budget, is a Commerce Department agency that can help small manufacturers get a regional foothold and even find their way into global supply chains…To help the people and communities hurt by trade, we must invest some of the benefits of expanded trade into places where our persistent trade deficits and job outsourcing have undermined opportunities. In fact, this is entirely consistent with the rationale for expanded trade, even if it is largely forgotten by its contemporary proponents. These investments should take the form of direct job creation, significant wage subsidies, training for new jobs, infrastructure investment, and what economist Tim Bartik describes as “life-cycle skill development, including high-quality child care, high-quality preschool, K-12 education, college scholarships, and adult job training.” As he puts it: “better skills for local workers help attract and grow higher-wage jobs.”

At The Monkey Cage, “This might be the way to prove partisan gerrymandering, according to the new Supreme Court standard” by Bernard Grofman sheds light on the “successful challenges will not mean a whole state’s map must be redrawn. Rather, they will affect only a relative handful of districts — with some spillover effects, as adjacent districts will need to be redrawn…Partisan gerrymandering opponents will have to come up with different types of evidence than they presented in these two cases. In these cases, expert evidence on partisan gerrymandering has involved statistical evidence about the effects of the plan as a whole, especially as compared with a politically neutral districting process. However, in two other states, Maryland and Michigan, partisan gerrymandering challenges are already being considered that involve allegations of packing or cracking in particular districts ..Packing means concentrating one party’s backers in just a few districts, so they win by overwhelming margins. Cracking means dividing a party’s supporters among several districts so that party has a harder time winning a majority in each one. There are other tools, such as separating minority-party incumbents from their previous supporters…Here’s the problem: If evidence about gerrymandering must be district-specific, it will be necessary to identify exactly which districts were (unconstitutionally) cracked and which were (unconstitutionally) packed. That is not easy.”

For a deeper dive into the politics of partisan gerrymandering, check out at The Princeton Election Consortium’s research project on the problem. “We are engaged in nonpartisan analysis to help understand the causes of partisan gerrymandering, and develop tools to fix it through court action and through citizen-led reform efforts. For example, our amicus brief in one of this year’s Supreme Court cases was used by the Court in their decision in Gill v. Whitford. To learn more about that analysis, which can be applied on a state-by-state basis, watch our great explainer video. For a deep dive into why partisan gerrymandering has soared, see our piece in The American Prospect…We’re also taking the analysis to a local level. State supreme courts, citizen initiatives, and new laws can establish procedures and limits in ways that are specific to a state’s special circumstances. Understanding the connection between proposed laws and actual outcomes will require careful analysis and a major data-gathering effort.”

Addressing the SCOTUS fight, Eric Levitz notes at New York Magazine that “Fortunately for Democrats, the arguments that could ostensibly sway Collins and Murkowski are roughly the same as those that the party wishes to disseminate to female swing voters in suburban congressional districts this fall: Supporting the Republican Party is a threat to your health, and every woman’s reproductive autonomy….Whether that message will do more for the Democrats than a high-profile fight over Kennedy’s replacement will do for GOP turnout is unknowable…The Democratic Party’s initial turnout advantage derived from its base’s eagerness to rectify a traumatic loss — and the Republican base’s complacency, in the face of triumph. In all likelihood, Kennedy’s replacement will be confirmed more than a month before the midterms. Conservatives will have locked in a far-right majority; liberals will be reeling from nightmare visions of Roe’s imminent demise. It isn’t hard to see how such circumstances could exacerbate the GOP’s turnout problem, rather than mitigating it….In the first generic ballot poll taken after Kennedy’s retirement, Quinnipiac University puts the Democratic lead at nine percentage points — three points higher than it was in early June.”

Although Democrats failed to prevent the enactment of one of the largest transfers of wealth from working Americans to the already-rich in history, a.k.a. the Republican tax bill, Dems do have an opportunity to make it a potent election issue.  As Seth Hanlon writes in “How the Tax Act Embodies the Republican Culture of Corruption” at The American Prospect, “Last year, Gallup found that 63 percent of Americans believed that upper-income Americans pay too little in taxes, and 67 percent believed that corporations pay too little. Last fall, as the tax push began to heat up, more than twice as many Americans wanted to raise tax rates on large businesses and corporations as Americans who wanted to lower them. Even most Republicans wanted to either raise corporate tax rates or keep them where they were. These preferences are not terribly surprising at a time when both after-tax corporate profits and inequality are at record highs…The end result was a tax law that, by slashing corporate taxes, imposing a broad-based tax increase on individuals, and sabotaging the health-care system, produces shocking results in the long term: By 2027, 83 percent of the benefits flow to the top 1 percent, while most households actually see their taxes go up. Only a political system deeply corrupted by corporate political spending could have produced such a result.”

Medicaid expansion is a leading midterm issue in Georgia and other states where Republicans have obstructed it. At The Upshot, Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine who blogs on health research and policy at The Incidental Economist, provides an update, “Finally, Some Answers on the Effects of Medicaid Expansion,”which Democratic campaigns in these states may find of interest: “Since the start of Medicaid expansion, 77 studies, most of them quasi-experimental in design, have been published. They include 440 distinct analyses. More than 60 percent of them found a significant effect of the Medicaid expansion that was consistent with the goals of the Affordable Care Act…Only 4 percent reported findings that showed the Medicaid expansion had a negative effect, and 35 percent reported no significant findings…After the Medicaid expansion, insurance coverage improved and the use of health services increased…The evidence to date is — if anything — positive. As Olena Mazurenko, the lead author of the systematic review, wrote to me, “With dozens of scientific analyses spanning multiple years, the best evidence we currently have suggests that Medicaid expansion greatly improved access to care, generally improved quality of care, and to a lesser degree, positively affected people’s health.”

I agree with the argument that the Democratic midterm elections strategy can’t be all about Trump. At the same time, however, it can’t not be about Trump to some extent, given the congressional Republicans support of his worst policies and the statistical relationship between presidential approval rates and midterm election outcomes. All of which makes Pulitzer Prize winner David K. Johnston’s New York Times article, “How to Make Trump’s Tax Returns Public” of extra interest. Johnston writes of obtaining Trump’s tax returns, “The attorney general could, however, easily gain that authority. All that’s needed is for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York State Police or the state Department of Taxation and Finance to make a request, and the authority would be granted to her…A state or county criminal investigation that begins with abuse of the Donald J. Trump Foundation need not be limited to violations of charity and election law. It can also examine his personal and business tax filings and, in the process, lawfully put his tax returns in the public record.”

Among the longer-term strategic considerations Democrats should be thinking about is adding a little sunshine to the ways ballots are counted across the nation. In his NYT letter to the editor, Jonathan D. Simon, author of “CODE RED: Computerized Elections and the War on American Democracy,” makes a frequently-overlooked point that merits consideration, regarding the way we count votes in American elections: “If we want our democracy back — if we want to ensure that it is the people, not the programmers or hackers, setting our national direction — we must insist not just on the right to vote but also on the right (and the duty) to count those votes in public.”

Amanda Marcotte shines a light on the destructive distortions about immigrants that many Americans still embrace. As Marcotte writes at Salon (via Alternet), “…native-born citizens drastically overestimated how many immigrants there are. Native-born Americans estimated that 36 percent of the population were legal immigrants, when the reality is around 10 percent…less than 1 percent of immigrants to the United States are from North Africa, but respondents estimated it was closer to 8.5 percent. About 4 percent of come from the Middle East, but survey respondents put the number closer to 12 percent. Only about 10 percent of immigrants are Muslim, but Americans guessed it was over 22 percent. And while more than 60 percent of immigrants are Christian, respondents estimated the number to be less than 40 percent…Only 5.5 percent of immigrants are unemployed and 13.6 percent live in poverty, but native-born Americans put the numbers at 26 percent and 35 percent, respectively…Conservatives, unsurprisingly, had more distorted views than liberals. Low-skilled workers who work in industries that employ a large number of immigrants also had more distorted views. Interestingly, however, high-skilled workers who also had a large share of immigrant colleagues — such as computer programmers — while still off in their estimates, were closer to the mark.”

At npr.org Kelsey Snell and Scott Detrow see a healthy mix of both progressives and moderates invigorating the Democratic party, “Looking back at the party’s key electoral victories over the past year, many Democratic leaders see a theme: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, and Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb are all low-key centrists who campaigned on local issues and an overall message of competence and outreach…Joe Trippi, a top strategist on the Jones campaign, sees that approach as the best way for Democrats to take back the House. “When you get that confrontational tone, what you do is drive people to their corners,” he said…But while moderates are advancing in this year’s most critical House districts and Senate races, there’s no question that Democratic energy overall is shifting to the left…”We have had real success in moving the ideology of the Democratic Party to be a pro-worker party to stand up to the billionaire class,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said. Surveying the political landscape, the independent senator and his political advisers see a much different party than the one whose nomination Sanders ran for in 2016.”

“Democrats have recruited, nurtured and funded dozens of veterans aiming to unseat Republicans in November,” report Dan Merica and Annie Grayer in “‘Country over party:’ Democrats turn to veterans to take back the House“at CNN Politics. “The strategy cuts against the common Republican attack that most of the military leans red and Democrats want a less robust military, a refrain repeatedly pushed by President Donald Trump…A key force behind the effort has been Seth Moulton, a 39-year old congressman from Massachusetts and former Marine Corps officer. Through his political action committee Serve America, Moulton has backed veterans running for House seats across the country, elevating people like Feehan, Chrissy Houlahan in Pennsylvania and Gina Ortiz Jones in Texas…The number of veterans in Congress has been on a steady decline ever since the 1971, when an astonishing 72% of member of Congress and 78% of Senators were veterans. The current veteran representation in Congress has hovered around 20% for almost a decade, a historic low for the deliberative body.”

Paige Winfield Cunnngham puts the SCOTUS fight in sharper focus in “The Health 202: These are the five senators to watch in the Supreme Court nomination fight,” and observes: “…Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are back in the spotlight as the Senate gears up to confirm a new Supreme Court justice. Along with three Democratic senators from red states — Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), all of whom are up for reelection this year — they make up the five senators whose votes will most aggressively be courted in the knockdown fight over President Trump’s nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy…Assuming Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer, can’t make it to Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will have a one-vote margin to confirm Trump’s nominee for the high court, who is expected to move the court significantly rightward on a host of issues from abortion, to gay rights to voting issues. So McConnell either needs all 50 Republicans on board with his plan — with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Pence — or he’ll be depending on the support of two Democrats if Collins and Murkowski defect. Both women did vote to confirm Justice Neil M. Gorsuch last year — but the stakes were significantly different then. Gorsuch replaced the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, while Trump’s next nominee will replace Kennedy, the court’s longtime swing vote.”

E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s column, “This is the fight of our lives. Here’s how we win it,” brings the strategy into focus: “With Republicans in control of the Senate, the odds favor anyone President Trump picks to fill Kennedy’s seat. But as the mass mobilization to preserve the Affordable Care Act demonstrated, progressives can win battles in the Senate if Democrats hold together, and if a handful of Republicans are convinced that going along with their party will have high political and substantive costs. There is no choice but to mobilize…Moderate and liberal voters who had not weighed court appointments heavily in their ballot-box decisions may do so now that the threat to Roe is not theoretical but real. This could also further boost turnout among women strongly opposed to Trump, whom Democrats are counting on this November.” In addition to winning over Republican Senators Collins and Murkowski, “Democratic senators will have to stay united, and opposing a Trump pick could be difficult for those on the ballot this fall in pro-Trump states. That’s particularly true of three who voted to confirm Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and who, along with Collins and Murkowski, met with Trump last week: Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia…They need to be prepared to make a broader argument about how the lives of the people they represent will be affected by the radical nature of conservative jurisprudence.”

From Deva Woodly’s article, “An Electoral Vision for Black Lives: If the Democratic Party really wants to engage black voters, it should take its cues from the organizers already on the ground.” at Dissent: “Research shows that the Democratic Party is growing less white, and further, that white Democrats are increasingly concerned with racial justice. In 2009, 81 percent of black Democrats, 50 percent of white Democrats, and 49 percent of Latinx Democrats agreed with the statement “the country must do more to give blacks equal rights.” A Pew survey taken last fall showed that those numbers have dramatically increased, now 90 percent of black Democrats, 80 percent of white Democrats, and 76 percent of Latinx Democrats believe that advocating for racial justice should be a top political priority. This shift in opinion did not come out of nowhere. It is the result of movement work—a nearly four-year push, via mass direct action and purposeful social media campaigns highlighting stories and images of the unjust murder that black people endure at the hands of police (including when their fellow white citizens use the police as a weapon). The broader public awareness and protest campaigns of the movement are ongoing and simultaneous with the electoral work, each making it more possible for the other to succeed.”

Also at Dissent, Adam Gaffney discusses Canada’s journey to health security and frames the “Single-Payer or Bust” health care reform movement: “By providing a single tier of coverage to all, regardless of wealth or station, with automatic enrollment, comprehensive benefits, and no cost-sharing, single-payer provides a distinct—and more egalitarian—vision of universality. Although the analogy is loose, this can be seen as a sort of universal healthcare “from below.” In contrast, a patchwork approach to universal coverage, which incorporates a privatized hierarchy of different levels of coverage, without comprehensive benefits, with varying degrees of cost-sharing, perhaps undergirded by a restored government “mandate” to buy insurance, can be seen as a type of universal healthcare “from above.” And it constitutes a far narrower vision of universal coverage that falls short of the full universality that our fractured and increasingly unequal society urgently requires.”

The New Yorker’s John Cassidy writes, “In terms of messaging, Ocasio-Cortez isn’t as much of an outlier as she might appear. Although many prominent Democrats seem to be talking mainly about Trump—to the point that they can barely see straight—that preoccupation is partly an artifact of the media’s focus. In a world of all Trump all the time, Democrats who bring up other things don’t get much coverage. The fact is that many Democrats are concentrating on the same issues that Ocasio-Cortez emphasized during her campaign: health care (she supports Medicare for all), housing, education (like Sanders, she favors free tuition at public universities), wages, and jobs (she has advocated for a federal jobs guarantee)….Listen to the speeches of Senator Sherrod Brown, of Ohio; or of Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor in Georgia; or of Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Ted Cruz in Texas; or of Conor Lamb, who won a special election in western Pennsylvania earlier this year; or of Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy pilot who recently won the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s Republican-held Eleventh Congressional District. To be sure, these Democrats are attacking Trump and talking about immigration and the Supreme Court. But their main focus is on promoting social and economic empowerment for people living in their districts.”

“We’re not moving off our long-held belief that House control is something of a 50-50 Toss-up, but our seat-by-seat handicapping is only getting better for Democrats,” writes Kyle Kondik at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “Today’s seven ratings changes are all toward the Democrats, and the overall ratings now show 208 seats at least leaning to the Republicans, 199 at least leaning to the Democrats, and 28 Toss-ups. To win the House under the current ratings, Democrats would have to win two-thirds of the Toss-ups. In the event of a good Democratic environment in the fall, that would not be unreasonable to expect.”

“Want to Increase Turnout? Make It Easier to Vote at Home,” writes David Atkins at The Washington Monthly. “Both red and blue states have been implementing what is perhaps the most effective method of increasing voter turnout: mail voting. Counties and states that have moved to full vote-at-home programs have seen turnout increase, often dramatically….A new report prepared by Pantheon Analytics on behalf of our own Washington Monthly on the effects a mail-vote-only program in Utah shows significant turnout increases…In the 2016 general election, twenty-one counties in Utah administered voting entirely by mail, while eight counties administered traditional polling place-based voting. Using vote propensity scores to control for voters’ pre-existing differences in likelihood to vote, we show that the advent of vote-by-mail increased turnout by 5-7 points. Low-propensity voters, including young voters, showed the greatest increase in turnout in vote-by-mail counties relative to their counterparts in
non-vote-by-mail counties…There is much more information available at the newly created National Vote-At-Home Institute, including turnout improvements in North Dakota, Minnesota, Alaska, Nebraska, and elsewhere. Many other states including Maryland to Hawaii to Wyoming will be implementing similar programs.”

Sean Iling interviews David Faris, author of “It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority” at vox.com and asks him what Democrats should do about the filibuster. Faris’s answer: “Yeah, I think they should eliminate the filibuster in the first month of the next Democratic administration, if it even survives that long. I think it’s another anti-democratic procedure in the Senate. We already have a constitutional framework that is deliberately difficult to work around to get policy change, and then you add a supermajority requirement in one of the two national legislatures? It’s just bananas. There’s no other country on the face of the earth that has a supermajority requirement to make routine legislation.” Iling and Faris discuss a range of other reforms in Faris’s book, including, packing the courts, creating more progressive states out fo California and statehood for Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

Democrats should study this impressive ad, produced by Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes of Means of Production, “a media production company that works exclusively for the working class.” The ad has been credited with influencing the upset Democratic primary victory (NY-14) of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and its messaging, technical innovations and story-telling techniques could be effective in other ads against Republicans in the closing weeks before the November elections:

In his article about the ad at The intercept, Zaid Jilani writes, “The video is tightly produced, crafting a narrative about an organizer-candidate who has the same sort of working-class background that is representative of the majority of New York’s 14th Congressional District…What you may be surprised to find out is that the video was produced not by Hollywood video production veterans or high-dollar political consultants, but by a ragtag pair of socialists based in Detroit.” It was “one of the most viral campaign videos of 2018.” Jilani adds,

Hayes was hesitant to disclose the campaign’s exact budget for the commercial, but told The Intercept that the entire project cost less than $10,000. Costs were kept low because virtually everyone in the ad was a community member, a volunteer, or a member of Ocasio-Cortez’s family. Much of the video was produced simply by following Ocasio-Cortez around during the campaign. The closing shot of the film is set in an apartment.

…The success of the video shoot raises the question: Why do candidates spend so much money on high-priced consultants who produce boring, safe videos, when ideologically aligned, camera-savvy activists can do it quicker, cheaper, and with more vitality?

Ocasio-Cortez adds in a tweet that “One great thing about our campaign video: not a single consultant was involved…I wrote the script. My family is the closing shot. That’s my actual bodega.” It will be an even greater thing if the ad inspires other young filmmakers to get involved in grass roots campaigns to elect Democrats on November 6th.

From “Don’t want a right-wing Supreme Court? Do everything you can to stop it.” by E. J. Dionne, Jr. at The Washington Post: “And now things stand to get even worse because of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement. He was, at least on some occasions, a moderating force. His replacement by another conservative hard-liner in the mold of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch would give right-wing interpretations of the law free rein…On Wednesday, in what might be seen as a companion to the Citizens United decision that enhanced the influence of corporations on our political life, the majority voted to undercut organized labor’s ability to fight back. In Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees , it ended the practice of public employee unions automatically collecting fees from nonunion members on whose behalf they negotiate contracts, tossing aside 41 years of settled law and crippling the broader labor movement…It is equally clear — not only on Trump’s travel ban but also on issues related to voting rights, labor rights and gerrymandering — that the Republican Five on the nation’s highest court have operated as agents of their party’s interests.”

Dionne adds, “You might ask: What’s wrong with all these 5-to-4 partisan decisions? Well, there is the matter of the Republican majority in the United States Senate not even permitting a vote on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the court, allowing Trump to fill the seat with a Republican. Every 5-to-4 conservative decision is (in the parlance of judges) the fruit of a poisonous tree of unbridled partisanship…All the recent talk about civility should not stop opponents of a right-wing court from doing everything in their power to keep the judiciary from being packed with ideologues who behave as partisans…There is nothing civil about rushing a nominee to replace Kennedy before the midterm elections. And no rule of civility demands the confirmation of justices who would leave an abusive president unchecked and use raw judicial power to roll back a century’s worth of social progress.”

McConnell held a Supreme Court seat open for a year, insisting no Justice be confirmed in an election year without voters having a say. This was a terrible precedent but one he will need to live with. Dem Senators must insist — absolutely no confirmation until after the midterm.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) June 27, 2018

Aaron Blake’s “The Democrats Are in Dire Straits” at The Fix takes a more pessimistic view for Democrats: “Even worse, while Democrats appeared primed to win back one or both of those chambers this November, that momentum has been arrested. It could be further arrested by the enthusiasm created by a new conservative Supreme Court justice just before Election Day…Democrats are basically powerless to prevent that from happening. They drew closer in the Senate thanks to an unexpected win in the Alabama special election, leaving Republicans with a bare 51-49 majority and just one vote to spare to confirm their nominee. Democrats will fantasize that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) or Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will take a stand with them. But that’s likely fanciful; it is much more likely that some of the 10 Democrats seeking reelection in red states will cross party lines in the name of being reelected. With Supreme Court nominees needing just a majority thanks to a series of machinations in recent years, the math is just not there.” But rather than be demoralized by doomsayers, Democrats should make the most of it to energize their base and challenge political moderates of all parties to vote for Democrats in the midterms as a way to restore some needed checks and balance to our government.

“Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said, “The stakes for Democratic voters in this election already were extremely high, and the Supreme Court vacancy supercharges all of that,” note Phillip Rucker and Anne Gearan at Post Politics. “Party officials now hope to use the Supreme Court vacancy as a tool to mobilize progressives, giving them a cause other than their dislike of Trump to volunteer and vote for Democratic candidates…“If there was ever any question whether the November elections would be the most important of our lifetime, Justice Kennedy’s retirement should remove all doubt,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement…“We need all hands on deck to stop the Court from taking a vicious, anti-worker, anti-women, anti-LGBT, anti-civil rights turn,” [Sen. Chris] Murphy said in a statement.”

Not that Justice Kennedy was a genuine centrist, but he was the closest to the center on the high court. Looking forward, Nan Aron, president of Alliance for Justice,  explains why “No one on Trump’s short list is fit to replace Kennedy” at The Hill: “So the stakes for this next Supreme Court nomination are enormous. And none of the people on Trump’s “short list” of some two dozen potential nominees, a list that Trump has already acknowledged as a product of the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, gives us confidence, No one on the list seems likely to be free of the intense political bias toward the ruling class that judicial nominees of this administration possess in spades.” Aron notes the extremist views of four short-listers and adds, “It should worry us that these judges are at the head of the line for appointment to a court where the future of health care and environmental protection, along with the rights of women, people of color, LGBTQ people, workers and consumers are literally on the line…This Supreme Court nomination will engender the most epic battle over such a nomination that this country has ever seen. Count on it.”

The New York Times editorial, “With Kennedy Gone, Justice Must Be Won at the Ballot Box,” reccomends a heightened midterm effort from progressives: “Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who put up that blockade despite the damage it inflicted on two branches of government, is celebrating now. He knows he has an open road to confirming whomever he and the Federalist Society want on the bench. Of course, it would take only a couple of Republican senators — say, Bob Corker and Jeff Flake, both of whom are retiring and have been very critical of Mr. Trump, or Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who have supported abortion rights — to force the president to pick someone who at least approximates a moderate…Do not for a moment underestimate the importance of getting out and voting in November. Four years ago, only 36 percent of Americans cast ballots in the midterm elections. Had more people showed up, the Senate may well have remained in Democratic control, Mitch McConnell would not be the majority leader and Judge Merrick Garland would now be Justice Garland. In the days and months ahead, remember this.” If every crisis contains both dangers and opportunity, Democrats may find that they get more GOTV leverage from the Kennedy retirement than does the GOP.

Much progressive energy that will be poured into the midterm elections over the next 4+ months will come from voters who are alarmed by the likelihood of coming SCOTUS assaults on reproductive rights, civil rights, gun safety, the Affordable Care Act, environmental protection and other reforms. But Democrats must also make a stronger case that no future Supreme Court Justices win confirmation if they have a history of opposing worker rights, a consideration that has been barely mentioned in many recent Supreme Court confirmation battles. As Duke Law professor  Jedediah Purdy writes in his NYT op-ed: “When it comes to economic inequality, today’s Supreme Court is not only failing to help, it is also aggressively making itself part of the problem in a time when inequality and insecurity are damaging the country and endangering our democracy…What is at stake is whether American democracy can overcome the new Gilded Age of inequality and insecurity. The justices, meanwhile, are part of the problem: In Janus and other rulings, they have retrenched on the side of private power and budgetary austerity. A different law of economic power will have to wait for a different court, and that will come only through winning elections. Those victories get more uphill every year, thanks in no small part to the current court.”

At The Nation Sean McElwee argues that “Democrats Must Stop Pretending the Supreme Court Is Apolitical: The party has largely avoided talking about the radical nature of the Roberts Court” and urges    stronger messaging: “My think tank, Data for Progress, has been studying messaging on the Supreme Court from elected Democrats, on social media and other channels. We found that Democratic senators tweet less frequently about the Supreme Court than Republicans. “In a political climate where Democrats have been relying on the integrity of the Court to serve as a check against a malicious executive branch and an ineffective legislative branch, Democrats seem to avoid discussion of the courts,” said Data for Progress senior adviser Hanna Haddad, who assembled a data set of every tweet from every senator from January 2017 through June 2018…Jon Green, a co-founder of Data for Progress, studied tens of thousands of newsletters sent by members of Congress since mid-2009, which were compiled by political scientist Lindsey Cormack. “Democrats are less likely to mention the Supreme Court than Republicans. And when they do mention the Court, it is more often to celebrate liberal decisions than it is to alert their subscribers when the Court has sided with conservatives,” Green said. “If this pattern is consistent across other channels of communication between the party and its voters, it could contribute to a misperception of the Court’s ideological alignment among the Democratic base…So there’s room for Democrats to take a more aggressive tone when talking about the Supreme Court and judicial nominations—and it’s badly needed.”

Here’s a problem Democrats should address, soon.”…In a new Pew generic congressional ballot question posed to a large sample of registered voters, women under the age of 35 tilt Democratic by a 68/24 margin, while men under the age of 35 prefer Republicans by a 50/47 margin,” writes Ed Kilgore at New York Magzine. “That’s a 21-point gender gap in the Democratic percentage, and a 26-point gender gap in the Republican percentage. Meanwhile, there’s a smaller gender gap among voters aged 35–49, and barely one at all among voters over 50…These are pretty astonishing numbers, reflecting a trend that’s been under way for a while. And it suggests pretty clearly that odds of a Democratic wave in the 2018 midterm rest heavily on a strong turnout from young women, who are rejecting Trump and his party by near-historic margins. Meanwhile Democrats have some missionary work to do with young men. Given the high percentage of them who are from minority groups that lean strongly Democratic (some 44 percent of millennials are from minorities), you have to figure there’s some MAGA mojo going on to lift Trump and the GOP to such a strong position.”

At The Guardian, columnist Cass Mudde writes that “it may take liberals by surprise to hear that a recent Reuters/Ipsos mega poll of 16,000 respondents, found that the Democrats are losing ground with millennials. While millennials still prefer the Democratic party over the Republicans, that support is tanking. In just two years, it dropped sharply from 55% to 46%. Meanwhile, their support for Republicans has remained roughly stable in the past two years, falling from 28% to 27%…The trend is not universal among millennials, however. Reflecting developments within the broader population, there are strong gender and racial differences. The drop in Democratic support among white millennials is roughly the same (8%), but most of the defectors in that group seem to have moved to the Republicans (6%)…Today, as many white millennials support the Democrats as the Republicans (each 39%). Just two years ago, Democrats still had a 14% lead over Republicans among white millennials. The trends are even more pronounced among white male millennials. Today, this group favors the Republicans over the Democrats by a staggering 11%. In 2016, Democrats led white male millennials by 12%.”

Mudde continues, “As far as the Democrats are relevant to the US political debate these days, they have largely focused on relatively “fringe” issues that many millennials don’t care much about. For example, millennials seem much less concernedabout Russian meddling in US elections than the rest of the Democratic party elite. Even the newest golden issue, gun control, seems much more a post-millennial than millennial issue. A recent poll found that millennials are no more liberal on gun control than previous generations…Just as the Republicans have blended their socio-economic and socio-cultural agendas, linking economic anxiety and cultural backlash, Democrats should link key concerns of millennials, especially economic inequality and cultural openness. This does not mean more, mostly symbolic “identity politics”, but integrating identity into a broader agenda of economic, environmental and social justice – staples of true progressive politics…This is perfectly in sync with the priorities of millennials, irrespective of race, who support governmental protection of the environment and for whom key economic priorities are increasing job opportunities, increasing wages and decreasing economic inequality. The way to stop support for Democrats among millennials from sinking further is to speak to those needs in a meaningful way. The longer they fail to do that, the more lethal it becomes.”

So, what could Democrats do to address the gender gap among voters who are under the age of 35? The no-brainer part of the answer has to be investing in a higher turnout of young Black men in key  ‘purple’ districts and winnable statewide races. With respect to ad strategy, Dems should launch a campaign focusing on this demographic group, featuring TV, radio, internet and cell phone ads with national and local African American leaders in politics (Obama), faith, entertainment, sports and other fields. Ditto for young Latino males. The tougher challenge is reaching persuadable young white males, with ads that show what they have to lose if Republicans hold the House, and what they have to gain if Dems win a House majority. Of course, ads are only one strategic consideration. There should also be stronger voter registration and GOTV programs that intensify in each state when early voting begins. Here’s a state-by-state guide to voter registration deadlines, and here’s a guide to early voting in the 50 states.

In Stanley Greenberg’s article, “The Broad Support for Taxing the Wealthy: Why Democrats should run on rolling back the tax cut and raising taxes on the rich” at The American Prospect, he writes, “Am I really recommending that we run in 2018 on raising taxes? Yes. We will raise taxes on the rich. Count on it. Voters view that as the most important thing we can do to reverse the Republicans’ corrupt course. Three-quarters of voters want to reverse the tax cuts or raise taxes on the rich to invest in or help the middle class, according to a June survey…And critically, a candidate who makes this statement—“I want to be very clear: Their huge tax giveaway is wrong and I will vote to put back higher taxes on the richest so we can invest in education and make health care more affordable”—increases opposition to the tax cut and pushes up the Democratic vote and engagement…Does anybody remember that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ran their elections and re-elections promising to raise taxes on the rich?..For the base of progressive voters and for most swing voters, conversely, the 2017 Republican Tax Act is the ugliest and most deceptive face of trickle-down yet, a corrupt deal that will do nothing for working people who face rising costs. It threatens Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and health-care investments.”

Pulitzer Prize-winner Sonia Nazario provides a thoughtful take the immigration debate, which Democratic campaigns may find useful, in her New York Times op-ed, “There’s a Better, Cheaper Way to Handle Immigration.” Nazario writes, “The family case management program, a pilot started in January 2016, allowed families seeking asylum to be released together and monitored by caseworkers while their immigration court cases proceeded. Case managers provided asylum seekers with referrals for education, legal services and housing. They also helped sort out confusing orders about when to show up for immigration court and ICE check-ins. And they emphasized the importance of showing up to all court hearings, which can stretch over two or three years…The pilot was implemented with around 700 families in five metropolitan areas, including New York and Los Angeles, and it was a huge success. About 99 percent of immigrants showed up for their hearings…It also did something Republicans love: It cut government spending. The program cost $36 per day per family, compared with the more than $900 a day it costs to lock up an immigrant parent with two children, said Katharina Obser, a policy adviser at the Women’s Refugee Commission.”

Alexia Fernandez Campbell agrees in her Vox post, “Trump doesn’t need to put families in detention centers to enforce his immigration policy. There are better options: Community supervision and electronic monitoring are two alternatives that the government has used instead.” Campbell explains: “One alternative is to release immigrants under community supervision, in which a non-profit group or government contractor provides families with social workers, who help them find housing and transportation, and who make sure they attend court hearings and comply with the law…Another alternative is to release immigrants with electronic monitoring, which generally involves placing GPS ankle monitors on the parents and assigning them case workers…Up until recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was running two such programs at the national level: the Intensive Supervision Alternative Program (ISAP), which involves electronic monitoring, and the less restrictive Family Case Management Program (FCMP), which relied on community monitoring. The methods used in these programs are available to DHS, and are much cheaper than traditional detention — but the Trump administration is choosing to keep families behind bars instead.”

E. J. Dionne, Jr. has another keeper column that illuminates the damge Republicans are doing to vulnerable Americans. Among Dionne’s insights: “In principle, reorganizing the federal government and finding ways to make it more efficient are actually reasonable objectives. There are good arguments for rethinking a structure built by accretion over decades. But as is its way, the Trump administration poisoned this effort from the start. It failed to engage in serious conversation with stakeholders (or the opposition party), and it put its ideological goals first…The family-separation policy dramatized in an especially egregious way the routine cruelty of this administration. It highlighted an approach that targets those who have the fewest resources to defend their interests and their rights. The fight against callousness must be extended across a much broader front.”

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson’s “We’re going to lose this trade war” sees Trump’s trade policy as a disaster in the making. As Samuelson explains, “If we are to have a “trade war” with China, it would be best to win it. We should be better off after the fighting. Unfortunately, the chances of this happening seem slim to none, because President Trump’s plan of attack suggests that everyone — us and them — will lose…Frustrated by U.S. technological restrictions, China could turn to other advanced countries — Japan, Germany, Canada, South Korea, France — for similar technologies. We do not hold a monopoly on advanced technologies. To be effective, we need a global coalition that will cooperate in curbing abuses. (Most routine technologies, it’s worth noting, should be available on normal commercial terms.)..The trouble is that Trump’s bombastic assaults against our traditional trading partners — and military allies — virtually guarantee that the essential cooperation will be difficult, if not impossible, to attain. “Trump’s focus on the trade deficit is causing specific harms to American national security, including the distortion of U.S. [foreign] alliance relationships and loss of leverage against China,” wrote Derek Scissors of the conservative American Enterprise Institute…Trump’s bombastic assaults against our traditional trading partners — and military allies — virtually guarantee that the essential cooperation will be difficult, if not impossible, to attain. “Trump’s focus on the trade deficit is causing specific harms to American national security, including the distortion of U.S. [foreign] alliance relationships and loss of leverage against China,” wrote Derek Scissors of the conservative American Enterprise Institute…But whatever Congress and Trump do won’t be effective unless it’s matched by other major trading countries. Trump either doesn’t realize this or doesn’t care. He’s infuriating the very countries whose support he desperately needs. His policies are more than misguided; they’re backward.”

“The speed of America’s moral descent under Donald Trump is breathtaking. In a matter of months we’ve gone from a nation that stood for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to a nation that tears children from their parents and puts them in cages…What’s almost equally remarkable about this plunge into barbarism is that it’s not a response to any actual problem. The mass influx of murderers and rapists that Trump talks about, the wave of crime committed by immigrants here (and, in his mind, refugees in Germany), are things that simply aren’t happening. They’re just sick fantasies being used to justify real atrocities…And you know what this reminds me of? The history of anti-Semitism, a tale of prejudice fueled by myths and hoaxes that ended in genocide.” — from Paul Krugman’s New York Times column, “Return of the Blood Libel.”

Strong words from top GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, as reported by Dan Balz in his article, “A GOP strategist abandons his party and calls for the election of Democrats” at The Washington Post: “Trump’s election did not spell doom for the Republican Party,” Schmidt said by telephone Wednesday while traveling. “There’s a crisis of cowardice in the Republican Party that is profoundly un-American and, in my reading, unprecedented,” he said… “No one is prepared to lay down their political career to do what’s right to oppose the corruption, the assault on institutions, the nonstop lying, the assault on objective truth.”The reality is that our Founders always predicted that one day there would be a president like Trump, and that’s why they designed the system of government the way they designed it. What they never imagined is the utter abdication of a co-equal branch of government, which we’re seeing now.”

Balz writes further that Schmidt “cited Trump’s praise for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, attacks on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the horrific images of immigrant children separated from their parents on the U.S.-Mexico border,” which “finally tipped him over the edge.” Schmidt continues, “The definition of conservatism now is the requirement of complete and utter obedience to the leader.” Balz adds, “He said he came to see the Republican Party as living in fear of the president and, as such, “a threat to the American republic and to liberal democracy.” The party, he said, “is irredeemable…He called the party “utterly corrupted,” a force for “incendiary politics and crackpottery and a real threat to small ‘L’ liberalism in the U.S.-led liberal global order…The Democratic Party is called to be the sentinel of American democracy and liberty…It is beyond bone-chilling to consider what happens if that party fails in that task, in that duty.” Schmidt’s statement should prove useful to Democrats in their midterm campaigns.

Ronald Browstein notes at the Atlantic, “With several polls this week showing that roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose Trump’s family separation policy and images of distraught children dominating television, many congressional Republicans were openly seeking a way out. But, by any reasonable standard, Capitol Hill Republicans marched themselves into this quagmire by either actively endorsing, or failing to effectively resist, almost every earlier step Trump has taken to redefine the party around his insular nationalism.”

“Activists are organizing a nationwide effort on June 30 to protest the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the US-Mexico border,’ reports Jen Kirby at Vox. Also, “A #FamiliesBelong Together march is planned for Washington, DC, in Lafayette Square at 11 am on Saturday, June 30, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said Monday on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes. Sister marches are expected in dozens of cities across the country.” The protest is “being sponsored by the National Domestic Workers Alliance and MoveOn, and more than a dozen other groups.”

“Separating Families At The Border Is Really Unpopular,” wrties Dhrumil Mehta at FiveThirtyeight. “We finally have a decent number of polls testing support for the Trump administration’s policy of separating parents from their children at the border. As of early Tuesday, four pollsters — CBS News, CNN, Quinnipiacand IPSOS — had released surveys; they found that about two-thirds of the American public oppose the policy, on average.” According to a FiveThirtyEight chart, “Respondents’ views on separating families crossing the border and holding children and parents in different facilities while they await trial”:

A FiveThirtyEight.com chat session responds to the question, “Will Voters Give Trump Credit For North Korea?” Among the possibilities, as Perry Bacon, Jr. sees it: “I don’t think the agreement reached this week means a ton. If there are no North Korean nuke tests between now and Election Day 2018 but also no big deal between Trump and Kim, then North Korea is not a real Election Day factor. It recedes from the news. I don’t think this summit itself changes the midterm dynamics that much….The media will move on from this issue back to Mueller/Pruitt/Trump scandals/tweets, etc. People just don’t think about foreign policy that much in general.” Micah Cohen adds, “How’s this for a starting point: Voters will view Trump’s North Korea policy through their normal partisan lens … unless (i) it very clearly goes south and a substantial portion of elected Republicans begin to criticize it, or (ii) it very clearly goes well and even the commenters in the media are praising it?…But the 90 percent confidence interval of likely outcomes probably fails to break partisan biases….And you can see those biases in the pre-summit polling:” Clare Malone suggests, “I agree about the midterms. It could affect 2020 more, or at least play a part.”

I’m a fan of both Robert DeNiro and Samantha Bee. But Frank Bruni makes a good point in his ‘open letter’ column, “How to Lose the Midterms and Re-elect Trump” at The New York Times: “I get that you’re angry. I’m angry, too. But anger isn’t a strategy. Sometimes it’s a trap. When you find yourself spewing four-letter words, you’ve fallen into it. You’ve chosen cheap theatrics over the long game, catharsis over cunning….Many voters don’t hear your arguments or the facts, which are on your side. They just wince at the din…It’s about maturity, pragmatism and plain old smarts — and the necessity of all three when the stakes are this high…“When they go low, we go high,” said another first lady, Michelle Obama, at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. It’s a fine set of marching orders, disobeyed ever since.” Of course actors and entertainers should have their say, like everyone else. But Bruni’s column should be a keeper for all public figures who want their comments to be strategically-sound.

Vox’s Dylan Scott says polls indicate “Democrats have a good shot at turning Ohio blue again in 2018,” and notes that, “Brown, a popular two-term incumbent, should already be viewed as the favorite, but both polls showed him running far ahead of Renacci:…Quinnipiac: Brown leads Renacci, 51 percent to 34 percent…Suffolk: Brown is again way ahead of Renacci, 53 percent to 36 percent…DeWine had been considered the slight favorite in a state that has been trending red, with no statewide elected Democrats except Brown, and where Donald Trump won by 8 points in 2016. But both surveys actually found Cordray ahead:…Quinnipiac: Cordray narrowly led DeWine 42 percent to 40 percent…Suffolk: Cordray had a bigger lead over DeWine, 43 percent to 36 percent…But the findings were striking enough that after their release, the University of Virginia’s Crystal Ball said it was shifting the Ohio governor’s race from Lean Republican to Toss-Up and the Senate race from Lean Democrat to Likely Democrat.”

At The Upshot, Neil Irwin addresses a question of enormous consequence that doesn’t get enough coverage, “If the Robots Come for Our Jobs, What Should the Government Do?” Trump’s antagonistic trade policies are a distraction from more immediate, real-world causes of job loss. It’s less about the role of tariffs than automation and U.S. industry’s investing too much in other countries. Regarding automation, Irwin writes that “Some of the potential answers are big, bold ideas that have gained traction in particular ideological circles. A universal basic income — the idea that the government simply give each citizen enough money every month to support basic needs — has fans among both free-market libertarians and socialists….But other ideas starting to percolate in economic policy circles may have advantages in terms of cost and political viability.” Irwin flags several other ideas emerging from think tanks, including shorter terms for patents and trademarks, shorter work-weeks (work-sharing), expanding subsidized re-training and “life-long learning accounts,” greater ‘portability’ of benefits, and expanding the earned-income tax-credit. It would be good to see more Democrats developing proposals that include some of these measures and addressing the rvages of automation more directly.

Robert Atkinson argues in “The Pro-Growth Minimum Wage” at Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, however, that automation is a desireable consequence of raising the minimum wage, in part because somebody has to make and service the new machines. But mostly Atkinson is concerned with better progressive messaging in support of the minimum wage. “If progressives want to break through this frustrating stalemate and get a higher minimum wage over the finish line—at least in more states, if not in Congress—it’s time for them to make the case for a higher minimum wage on the grounds of growth first, and fairness second. In other words, not only should progressives stop ceding ground to opponents when it comes to jobs and GDP growth, they should rightly assert that a higher minimum wage would actually improve both. In other words: If we want to grow the U.S. economy, not just redistribute more of its fruits to low-income workers, we need to raise the minimum wage. This argument is much more likely to prevail…what’s truly important is how many jobs there are in the U.S. economy after raising the minimum wage…There are too many low-wage, low-skill jobs, too little investment by companies in new machinery and high-performance work organizations, and too little support by government for those organizations, including skills development. Getting out of this trap will require a wide range of policies, including better programs to boost worker skills. But no policy change is more vital here than a higher minimum wage. And, as such, progressives will need to champion such a move, by highlighting the essential role it will play in creating a robust economy and growth for all.”

Democrats have been gifted ample material for a powerful ‘weathervane’ ad in the Trump Administration’s decision to gut the highly-popular pre-existing health care provision of the Affordable Care Act. WaPo’s Fact Checkers Glenn Kessler and Meg Kelly document the history of Trump’s comments supporting pre-existing condistion coverage on at least ten occasions — in stark contrast to his recently authorizing the gutting of the measure. As the authors conclude, “With no explanation or warning, the president now supports an effort to nullify the provisions that make it possible for millions of people to purchase affordable insurance. Thus this new position, directly contradicting his repeated stance as a candidate and as president, qualifies as a flip-flop.”

Some insights from Meredith Ferguson’s “Cracking the Code of Young Voter Turnout” at Campaigns & Elections: “Consider who young people are today, and for whom they’re being asked to vote. They’re the most racially and culturally diverse generation in American history. Forty-six percent identify as a race or ethnicity other than white. Yet, women and minorities each make up less than 20 percent of lawmakers in the 115th Congress. According to the CDC, eight percent of high schoolers identify as LGBTQ, while only one percent of Congress does. The average member is 57 years old — that’s among the highest average in recent history…Young people also refuse to be bound by the traditional ideological boxes. The plurality — 46 percent — of our survey respondents said they identify as independent or unaffiliated and 50 percent view themselves as moderates. While young people may be considered liberal on many social issues, those positions reflect more of a societal shift than a political philosophy…For example, even a majority of our respondents who identify as conservative support universal background checks for gun purchases and believe that the government has a responsibility to ensure health coverage for all.”

In his Washington Post column, “Trump’s America goes full Charles Dickens,” Dana Milbank spotlights the glaring contradiction between GOP elected officials mouthing of cliched concern for opiate addicts and migrant children and their failure to support anything resembling substantial legislation to address the  crises. “This is why the show of compassion rings hollow: Republican lawmakers aren’t willing to stand up to the source of their Dickensian dilemma. Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) spoke out against Trump — and lost his primary Tuesday. Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.) once expressed concern about Trump — and was forced into a runoff. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who is retiring, complains his GOP colleagues won’t defend their own trade principles because they don’t want to “poke the bear…Republicans may be afraid voters will see them as heartless — but they are more afraid of crossing Trump.”

“The problem with this administration is that everything it does is a distraction from everything else it does,” writes Eric Alterman at The Nation. “Trade? Immigration? Economic equality? Education? Environmental protection? Workers’ rights? Women’s rights? Diplomacy? Whatever it is, to borrow from Groucho Marx, they’re against it. And they will also lie about it. And they will complain about being asked about it…Trump’s genius for distraction, self-pity, and entertaining idiocy succeeds not only in normalizing his psychopathic behavior and malevolent prejudices but also in hiding the fact that institutions that protect our freedom and democratic rights are teetering beneath a ferocious assault…Trump supporters and their media apologists complain that news coverage of this administration is overwhelmingly negative. In fact, it’s nowhere near negative enough. That’s because it is piecemeal and professional, and cannot help itself from trying to be fair to “both sides,” bending over backward to treat Trump as somehow normal.” Well put. Now Dems could use some fresh ideas for addressing the media coverage problems associated with Trump’s distractions and false equivalency journalism.

“An electoral strategy that prioritizes high-tech areas and inner-ring suburbs faces daunting demographic math when applied nationwide. It has left liberalism in a historically weak political position, write Lily Geismer, author of “Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party” and Matthew D. Lassiter, author of “The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South,” in their New York Times op-ed, Turning Affluent Suburbs Blue Isn’t Worth the Cost. “Democrats haven’t paid enough attention to the substantial policy costs of turning affluent suburbs blue. That focus has failed to reverse the downward mobility of middle-income households and openly favored upscale communities without addressing economic and racial inequality…The Democratic fixation on upscale white suburbs also distorts policies and diverts resources that could generate higher turnout among nonwhite voting blocs that are crucial to the party’s fortunes and too often taken for granted. It should not be that hard for liberalism to challenge the Republican tax scheme to redistribute income upward, and build on Mr. Obama’s important but inadequate health care reform, with policy solutions that address the real diversity of American suburbia.”

Thomas B. Edsall has an instructive column about the drastic decline of worker rights in America at The New York Times, entitled “The Class Struggle According to Donald Trump.” Edsall draws from a range of scholarly studies and sources to illuminate the ways workers are increasingy restricted by “noncompete” and no-raid” agreements that severely restrict the mobility of an estimated 30 million workers in the U.S. Edsall also recounts the devastating effects of “alternative work arrangements ” (24 million workers in “temporary help agency workers, on-call workers, contract workers, and independent contractors or freelancers”) mandatory arbitration and spreading anti-union policies in the labor force. As for the Trump Administration’s role in American worklife, Edsall writes, “Trump campaigned as the ally of the white working class, but any notion that he would take its side as it faces off against employers is a gross misjudgment. His administration has turned the executive branch, the federal courts and the regulatory agencies into the sworn enemy of workers, organized and unorganized. Trump is indisputably indifferent to the plight of anyone in the bottom half of the income distribution: look at his appointments, look at his record in office, look back at his business career and look at the man himself.”

Net Neutrality is history starting today. As Daniel Politi writes at slate.com, “The repeal of the rules known as net neutrality, which essentially prohibit internet service providers from giving preferential treatment to certain websites, is officially set to take effect on Monday. Lawmakers and state officials are working to try to reinstate the rules shortly so the change may not be long-lived but that doesn’t change the fact that starting June 11, internet service providers will be much freer to block, speed up or slow down access to certain content…Online protests are expected on Monday to call attention to the issue as activists focus on lobbying the House of Representatives, where lawmakers still haven’t taken up a measure that would restore net neutrality. The measure passed the Senate on May 16 but the House is still around 50 votes short. Democrats have been pushing for a vote to get everyone’s position on the record, thinking it could become a key issue in midterm elections.” Smart Democratic candidates will make sure their constituents know who to blame for this attack against free speech — Republicans.

Michael Scherer’s “Should Democrats find a Trump of their own? Political outsiders find little room in 2020 presidential field” at The Washington Post considers some possible “outside the box” presidential candidates for Democrats, including Starbuck’s departing chairman, Howard Schultz, talk show star Oprah Winfrey, Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban, Disney’s Bob Iger, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and liberal financier Tom Steyer. Thing is, none of these potential candidates are far outside the corporate box. Cuban said last year that he would rather run as a Repubican. Schultz has even proposed cutting “entitlements” and opposes single-payer health care, which is becomming more popular with Democratic rank and file and elected officials. But credit the best quote in the article to Steyer, who says “As far as I am concerned, anybody who is thinking about 2020 is taking their eye off the ball.”

One of the GOP’s favorite targets is billionaire philanthropist, author and progressive activist George Soros, who has been a generous contributor to Democratic candidates and progressive causes, as well as a broad range of non-partisan humanitarian causes. In his Post Politics article, “‘I must be doing something right’: Billionaire George Soros faces renewed attacks with defiance,” Michael Kranish notes that Soros gave $25 million to mobilize Democratic voters in 2016 and plans to spend another $15 million supporting candidates this year. “This cycle, Soros has focused his political investments on congressional races and mobilizing voters on the left. His largest donation this year has been $5 million to Win Justice, a voter-mobilization group focused on minorities, women and young voters in Florida, Michigan and Nevada.” In addition, “His New York-based Open Society Foundations now spends $940 million a year in 100 countries, promoting values such as free speech and free elections.” Soros is arguably the most important and generaous progressive donor of our times, and the Democratic party would have a tough time of it, without his contributions as a counter-weight to the billions of dollars the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and other conservative sugar-daddies have lavished on Republican candidates.

At The Plum Line, Paul Waldman writes that “the Trump administration has told the public that they want to make things much, much worse. Not only may health insurance continue getting less affordable, they even want to take away the pre-existing conditions protection you now enjoy, all while they’re working hard to destabilize the private insurance market…Indeed, polls have shown over and over again that the policy issue most on voters’ minds right now is health care. In Virginia’s 2017 elections, for instance, exit polls showed health care far and away the most important issue for voters, and those who said it was their top issue picked Democrat Ralph Northam over Republican Ed Gillespie in the governor’s race by a margin of 77-22 percent. A recent HuffPost/YouGov poll also found that health care is voters’ top issue. As much as president Trump may dominate the headlines, the increasing cost of care is weighing heavily on voters…Take a moment to marvel at the position the administration has taken: They think insurance companies should once again be able to deny you coverage or charge you outrageous premiums because you have a pre-existing condition….If Democrats don’t repeat that sentence a thousand times a day between now and November, they’re nuts.”

Waldman takes a step back to ponder the irony of Republicans inadvertantly taking steps to discredit privatized health insurance and replace it with a more socialized system. “There’s an old Marxist idea that sometimes you need to “heighten the contradictions,” making the problems of the current system even worse so you can more quickly bring about the revolution that will replace that system with something better. If you didn’t know better, you’d think that today’s Republican Party is doing just that on the issue of health care, in the service of exactly the kind of big-government universal program they claim to despise…Republicans seem determined not only to make American health care more inefficient and cruel in every way they can think of, but to do it while making themselves as unpopular as possible. That could both bring about the political victory of their enemies the Democrats, and create the conditions for those Democrats to pass a universal coverage program. It’s quite an extraordinary strategy.” And if Democrats succeed, “it will be in no small part because Republicans made voters so disgusted with the existing health care system and afraid for their own health security that they’re willing to support radical change.”

In her post, “How Democrats plan to pitch their economic agenda in a strong economy,” at vox.com, Ella Nilsen writes,”Trump’s approval rating is at historic lows, but one thing he has going for him is a good economy. This is key to Trump’s message: He was elected in a wave of economic anxiety, especially in white, rural areas where manufacturing jobs had disappeared…Questions linger over how much a strong economy can help Republicans win in the midterms. That’s because historically, the economy matters much less in a midterm than it does in a presidential year… Take, for instance, the 2006 midterms, when the economy was good pre-2008 recession and Republicans were in power. They were still swept out of office by the Democrats. The opposite thing happened in 2014, when the economy was steadily improving yet Democrats lost control of the Senate and ceded ground in the House.” Trump’s penchant for rolling out daily distractions to deflect coverage of the Mueller probe may also crowd out “‘good economy’ stories.

Georgia’s Democratic candidate for Governor Stacy Abrams just got a nice gift from the GOP frontrunner, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, as Ed Kilgore explains at New York Magazine: “It’s not often that you see a seasoned politician go into a meeting with a political rival and insist he flipped-flopped on a key policy issue for dishonorable reasons. But that’s what Georgia’s longtime lieutenant governor and current gubernatorial candidate Casey Cagle did, according to a transcript published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ‘Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle told executive Clay Tippins he supported “bad public policy” to deprive another rival of supposed help from an outside group, in a recording obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News…Cagle’s conversation with Tippins, who finished fourth in the race, took place two days after the May 22 primary in Cagle’s campaign headquarters in DeKalb County. It was surreptitiously recorded on Tippins’ phone, which was in his coat pocket.” Of course it remains to be seen if Georgia voters have a high enough tolerance for such shenanigans to elect Cagle or his clownish Republican run-off opponent, Brian Kemp, who has a couple of messes of his own to explain to voters. Either way, Abrams will enjoy the GOP’s demolition derby, and she could get a bump from swing voters, few as they may be in Georgia.