From “Republicans don’t really care about crime — and the Nashville shooting proves it” by Charles F. Coleman, Jr. at MSNBC Opinion:

Just 6 months ago, high-profile midterm election races pushed the conversation about America’s crime problem into the national spotlight stage. GOP challengers were parroting talking points around a sensationalized narrative that painted Democrats as anti-police and ultimately responsible for rising crime rates. This, despite the fact that many of the areas where violent crime is highest across the United States are in red states and, more specifically, GOP-led districts. But there was another missing piece in the conversation: mass shootings….Republicans are very protective of their guns — more than they are of the children and educators forced to leave in fear of these weapons.

….Finally, of course, is how easy it is to access weapons in this country and, specifically, how easy it is to access and abuse assault weapons. GOP House members proudly wore AR-15 lapel pins to espouse their commitment to protecting Second Amendment rights during the State of the Union. Do they remain proud today? Probably. Worse, some conservatives have already gone on the offense, stoking fear and attempting to score political points by characterizing President Joe Biden and others who advocate for sensible gun legislation as “gun grabbers.”  This despite a majority of American voters being in favor of some type of assault weapons ban.

Coleman, a former New York prosecutor, notes further, “The bravado and self-righteous rage is designed to deflect the conversation away from real solutions. American lawmakers appear incapable of loosening the chokehold that the gun lobby maintains on the GOP, preferring to pacify loyalists and gun nuts.” Further,

We have known ever since Sandy Hook that the double-speak around school shootings in America is engagingly duplicitous. No amount of bloodshed appears capable of moving the needle — at least in the Republican Party, which now controls the House and almost half of the Senate (to say nothing of the legislative bodies in states like Tennessee). These men and women refuse to take meaningful steps to protect our youth.

And importantly, we now understand even more clearly that the feigned concern about crime that overtook the nation’s airwaves in the summer of 2022 was just a passing moment for the right. Crime stats are only worth mobilizing around when they fit a specific narrative, namely that Democrats are soft on criminals.

Because mass murder against children is an inevitable cost of doing business….Because Republicans don’t really care about crime, or about keeping our kids safe.

Coleman concludes, “And that’s why this keeps happening.”

In 2022 Congress did pass the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” which expands background checks for individuals under the age of 21 purchasing firearms and prevents individuals who have been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor or felony in dating relationships from purchasing firearms for five years. But a large majority of  Republicans opposed this ‘bipartisan’ legislation. Meanwhile President Biden has taken some bold initiatives on his own, including a March 14th executive order increasing background checks and expanding  “red flag” laws.

President Biden and other Democrats have proposed legislation “banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all gun sales, requiring safe storage of firearms, closing the dating violence restraining order loophole, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.” Thus far Republicans have blocked all such proposals.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

It’s not a secret that Democrats have been doing ever better with white college graduate voters, even as they have been slipping with nonwhite and working-class voters. Between the 2012 and 2020 elections—two elections with essentially identical popular vote margins—Democrats’ performance among white college graduates improved by 16 points, while declining by 18 points among nonwhite working-class voters.

Less well-appreciated is how polarized white college graduates have become in their political views as these trends have unfolded. Patrick Ruffini’s analysis of data from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study (CES), an academic survey with over 60,000 respondents, demonstrates this vividly. Across 50 policy items, white college Democrats are highly likely to give consistently liberal responses, while white college Republicans give consistently conservative responses.

Ruffini explains:

[G]iving the conservative or liberal answer more than 75 percent of the time places you in [ideological] camps. Otherwise, you’re in a non-ideological middle ground. The 75 percent cutoff is an important one. Above we find Assad-like margins for Donald Trump or Joe Biden in 2020 of more than 98 percent. If you’re above this threshold, you’re not persuadable in the slightest. In the middle, your vote is basically up-for-grabs, progressing from one candidate to other in sliding scale fashion according to your policy views.

This approach leaves relatively few white college voters—38 percent—in an ideological middle ground where their responses are significantly mixed across the 50 items. In contrast, black, Hispanic and Asian voters are much less polarized, including within education groups, and have far more voters of mixed orientation in their ranks. This middle ground includes 83 percent of black voters, 77 percent of Hispanic voters, 69 percent of Asian voters, and even 58 percent of white non-college voters, despite the fact that they skew conservative.

Putting this together with the trend data, this means that, as the Democrats have picked up more white college voters, they are adding many more ideologically consistent liberals, while shedding less ideological nonwhites with mixed policy preferences. Strikingly, among the most liberal voters—those who agree with liberal positions more than 90 percent of the time—there are 20 times more white college than black voters.

These developments can only push the party toward being uncompromisingly and uniformly liberal in its policy orientation and that is indeed what we’ve seen. Moreover, the cultural outlook of highly liberal white college graduates, given the heavy weight of this group in the Democratic party infrastructure and in sympathetic media, nonprofits, advocacy groups, foundations, and educational institutions, has inevitably come to define the culture associated with the party.

Here are some other findings that underscore the salience of Ruffini’s analysis:

1. Among white Democrats, there has been an astonishing 37-point increase in professed liberalism between 1994 and today according to Gallup. White Democrats are now far more liberal than their black and Hispanic counterparts, who are overwhelmingly moderate to conservative.
2. White liberals are now more liberal on many racial issues than black and Hispanic voters.
3. White liberals now outnumber the nonwhite working class among Democratic voters.
4. Recent Pew data found that of the 21 policy priorities tested, protecting the environment and dealing with global climate change ranked 14th and 17th, respectively, on the public’s priority list. But among liberal Democrats, these issues ranked first and third, respectively. The story was basically the same among white college-educated Democrats who, as noted, are heavily dominated by liberals.
5. Gallup data indicate that two-thirds of white college Democrats are liberal while 70 percent of black working-class and two-thirds of Hispanic working-class Democrats are moderate or conservative.
6. By 13 percentage points, white college liberals disagree that there are just two genders, male and female. But moderates and conservatives from the nonwhite working class agree by 31 points that there are in fact just two genders.
7. White college graduate liberals support providing government financed health insurance to immigrants who enter the country illegally by 22 points while this is opposed by 16 points among the moderate and conservative nonwhite working class.
8. On granting reparations to the descendants of slaves and reducing the size of the US military, white college liberals are solidly in favor, while nonwhite working-class moderates and conservatives are not.

While the Democratic party is a complex entity, it really is true that it has increasingly become a party whose positions and image are defined by the burgeoning ranks of white college-educated liberals who have made the party their political home. In the process, it has become much harder for many working-class voters, white and nonwhite, to feel comfortable in the party, given their more mixed policy views.

This is a problem. As Ruffini remarks:

[White college graduates are] less than 30 percent of the American electorate. If everything seems polarized these days, it’s probably because of the circles you run in. Not everyone is like this. And the people that aren’t—the multiracial working class—are wildly underrepresented in political media.

True that. Democrats would be well-advised to look past the political media they typically consume and set the controls for the heart of the multiracial working class. That’s the way—the only way—out of the current political stalemate.

From “Battleground looks evenly split in first House ratings for 2024: Biden would have won nine of 10 districts with Toss-up races” by Nathan Gonzales at Roll Call: 

While it took more than a year for the 2022 House battleground to come into focus because of redistricting, this cycle is less complicated. With district lines in place in the vast majority of states and one cycle worth of election results, it’s easier to identify most of the competitive seats where both parties will be spending their resources this cycle.

But Republicans’ narrow 222-213 majority means there’s still plenty of uncertainty about which party will control the House in 2025.

The initial House battleground comprises 66 competitive races, with each party defending 33 of the vulnerable seats. The symmetry is unintentional, and not necessary for nonpartisan analysis (remember the imbalance of the Senate battleground, where Democrats are defending eight seats and Republicans none). Rather, it’s more the result of an evenly divided Congress in an evenly divided country.

Technically, Democrats need a net gain of five seats for a majority. But that number obscures the added disadvantage Democrats will have if Republicans are able to draw new, friendlier congressional maps in Ohio and North Carolina. (Individual ratings in those two states’ 29 districts will be done after there’s more clarity on the redistricting situation and new maps.)

Joe Biden carried 11 of the 12 initial toss-up races in 2022, giving Democrats a path to the majority assuming the Democratic presidential nominee can match or exceed Biden’s 2020 performance. Democratic House candidates will likely need to replicate 2022, when they overperformed and won the vast majority of toss-up races.

It looks like Republicans have a narrow initial advantage to hold the House, but the top of the ticket will matter once again. In 2020, only 16 districts voted for a presidential candidate from one party and a House candidate from another. And just 23 of 435 seats voted for one party’s presidential nominee in 2020 and then the other party’s House nominee in 2022.

Gonzales also provides lists of district leanings for the following categories: Toss-Up; Tilt Democratic; Lean Democratic; Likely Democratic; and the same categories for the Republicans.

Guy Cecil, who is stepping down after eight years as chairman of Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA, talks with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow about the long term strategies the Republican Party is using to change the structure of American politics in their favor, and what Democrats need to do to counter and match those strategies.

Amy Walter takes a look at the 2024 election possibilities and pinpoints “Three Key Factors for Control of Congress” at The Cook Political Report. An excerpt:

History

(The Senate version): If you define history as the last two presidential cycles, Republicans are in the driver’s seat in 2024. Since 2016, only one Senate candidate, Republican Sen. Susan Collins, won in a state the presidential nominee of their party lost. If (recent) history repeats, Democrats would likely lose at least three seats — West Virginia, Montana and Ohio.

If your version of history extends to 2012, Democrats have a path to holding their majority. That year, six candidates (five Democrats and one Republican), won in states that the presidential nominee of their party did not. It also happens that two of those Democratic “overachievers” — Senators Joe Manchin and Jon Tester — are on the ballot this time around. Today, the question is whether Manchin (should he run for re-election), Tester as well as Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (whose state has since gone red) have the right combination of skill, luck and connection with voters to overcome the gravitational pull of polarization.

(House version). As my colleague David Wasserman has noted, the House hasn’t flipped in a presidential cycle since 1952 and hasn’t flipped to the party occupying the White House since 1948, when Harry Truman barnstormed against a Republican “do nothing Congress.” This has been the case even when the number of seats needed to flip was as small as it is this cycle. In 2000, Democrats needed just five seats to gain the majority in the House. They ended up gaining just one.

Turnout Turn-around 

One reason the House has only changed hands in midterm years is that lower turnout midterms tend to benefit the “out party,” while turnout in a presidential cycle is more evenly balanced. However, four straight cycles of higher-than-normal turnout and a more polarized electorate than ever have led to more unpredictable outcomes in the House. In 2020, Democrats were expected to pick up seats, but instead lost 12 and came within 30,000 votes of losing their majority. In 2022, Republicans underperformed expectations, winning their narrow majority by just 6,000 votes.

One way to look at the outcome of 2022 is to say that but for Democratic “underperformance” in dark blue states like California, Oregon and California, Democrats would have held the House. According to Wasserman’s calculations, House candidates in New York underperformed Biden’s 2020 margins on average by 13 points. In California and Oregon, Democratic House candidates underperformed Biden by 7.6 points.

Today, in New York and California alone, there are 11 GOP-held districts that Biden carried in 2020. Of those 11, five are districts Biden carried by double digits. In 2024, the thinking goes, “drop off” Democratic voters will return and, voila, there’s an 11-seat gain right there.

But, alas, it’s not that simple. The most existential threat to House Democrats is redistricting. As my colleague David Wasserman has expertly documented, Republican redraws in North Carolina and Ohio could put at least three to four Democrats in serious danger.

Another factor to consider is Democrats’ “overperformance” in 2022’s battleground states like Michigan and Ohio where abortion and weak GOP candidates helped juice Democratic turnout and dampen GOP enthusiasm.

In Michigan, for example, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin outperformed Biden’s margin in her Lansing-based district by five points. Democrat Dan Kildee won his 8th CD by 10 points, an eight-point improvement over Biden’s margin in that CD in 2020. In the Grand Rapids-based 3rd CD, Hillary Scholten outran Biden’s margin by five points.

In Ohio, Emilia Sykes won her Akron-based district by six points, a three-point improvement over Biden’s showing in that CD in 2020.

What happens when/if those less-than-enthusiastic Republican-leaning voters show up in 2024?

In 2020, for example, Pew’s verified voter survey found that 13 percent of the overall electorate that year had not voted in 2018. Those “midterm drop-off” voters ultimately supported Trump by 8 points.

The Republican Party has become more reliant on non-college white (and increasingly non-white non-college) voters. Those voters, however, are also the most likely to show up to vote only in presidential elections.

Intra-party Headaches

(GOP version): My colleagues David Wasserman and Jessica Taylor recently wrote about the challenges Republican leaders face in getting their preferred candidates through contentious primaries. On the Senate side, Taylor highlights five states — West Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Montana — where potentially complicated primaries could hurt Republican chances of taking back the Senate if a divisive, less broadly-acceptable nominee emerges.

Wasserman looked at five GOP incumbents who are likely to face serious primary opposition from more MAGA-aligned challengers. While none of those five races should be competitive in a general election, “that doesn’t mean, however, that primary contests won’t have an impact on House control. If, for example, Republicans nominate more MAGA-oriented folks in swing/competitive districts like they did in 2022 (WA-03, OH-09), they could give Democrats more opportunities for victories.”

(Democratic version): Sen. Krysten Sinema’s decision to switch from Democrat to independent may have saved *her* a primary, but it’s given Democrats a huge headache. First, and foremost the DSCC and other Democratic allies will have to decide whether to support the official Democratic nominee (likely Rep. Ruben Gallego), or their Senate colleague who, while identifying as an independent, still caucuses with Senate Democrats.

Then there’s the question of what a three-way contest between Sinema, Gallego and a GOP nominee would look like. Recent polling in the state showing Gallego leading in a number of potential scenarios is a bit misleading. After all, unlike his potential challengers (Sinema and failed GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake), Gallego hasn’t been hit with millions of dollars of negative advertising. The five-term congressman represents an overwhelmingly Democratic district and has never received less than 75% of the vote. Moreover, it’s likely that Gallego will be attacked not just from Republicans, but from Sinema as well. A messy GOP primary only adds to the uncertainty of how this thing plays out in the fall. And the BIden campaign can’t afford a “Democrats in disarray” scenario in this must-win state either. Overall, it’s just a big mess.

On the House side, there were fewer instances on the Democratic side than the Republican side of extreme or weak candidates defeating the stronger, more ideologically-aligned candidate in 2022. Even so, Democrats would likely be short just four seats instead of five had Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader not lost his primary to a more progressive Democrat.

Competitive open seats to watch on the Democratic side include CA-47, where Democratic Rep. Katie Porter is retiring to run for Senate, and MI-07, where Rep. Elissa Slotkin is also running for Senate.

Earlier in her post, Walter notes that issues like an inflation surge could make a difference in many races.  We can add the possibilities of game-changing events near election day in particular states or districts, such as a scandal, mass shooting or environmental disaster. Barring any such events, the chances for a flip in party control of both houses of congress look pretty good — unless either party wins the presidency in a landslide.

John Russo, co-editor of Working-Class Perspectives writes “Media stereotypes of military vets present them as right-wing and often reactionary, but as Steve Early writes in this week’s Working-Class Perspectives, that image ignores an important reality: working-class veterans are more likely to belong to unions than other workers. Veterans have led important labor battles, and, as Early’s profiles of today’s leaders makes clear, they are still fighting against the privatization of government services and for improving access for vets and others to higher education and health care.” An excerpt from Early’s Working-Class Perspectives article:

Even in the era of identity politics, one category of identity has largely been ignored: what UK journalist Joe Glenton calls “veteranhood.”19 million former soldiers — most of them working class — share a strong sense of personal identity as vets, but the media usually notices them only when they are involved in right-wing militias, white supremacist groups, and other MAGA-land formations. Some have noted their over-representation in U.S. law enforcement, which does reinforce  militarized policing, along with the better known Pentagon-to-police equipment pipeline.

Largely ignored is the positive role veterans from working-class backgrounds have played in key labor and political struggles since the mid-20^th century.  In the heyday of industrial unionism in the 1950s and ‘60s, tens of thousands of World War II veterans could be found on the front-lines of labor struggles in auto, steel, electrical equipment manufacturing, mining, trucking, and the telephone industry.  Today, about 1.3 million former service members work in union jobs, and women and people of color make up the fastest growing cohorts in these ranks.

Veterans are, according to the AFL-CIO, more likely to join a union than non-veterans. In a half dozen states, 25% or more of working veterans belong to unions. Vermont AFL-CIO President David Van Deusen sees veterans as “an underutilized resource for the labor movement,” particularly in high-profile organizing campaigns. No one, he believes, is better positioned to “expose the hypocrisy and duplicity of ‘veteran-friendly’ firms like Amazon and Walmart, who wrap themselves in the flag, while violating the rights of working-class Americans who served in uniform and the many who did not.”

That’s why former SEIU organizer Jane McAlevey recommends that unions today learn from the example of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the post-war era. . CIO organizers understood that former soldiers have “strategic value” in strike-related PR campaigns. Veterans also have “experience with discipline, military formation, and overcoming fear and adversity,” all very useful on militant picket-lines.

Tony Mazzocchi was a good example. After World War II,  he became a catalyst for change within the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) and the broader labor movement for five decades. A survivor of the Battle of the Bulge, Mazzocchi spearheaded labor’s fight for the 1972 Occupational Safety and Health Act, which now provides workplace protections for 130 million Americans.  During his storied career, Mazzocchi also campaigned for civil rights, nuclear disarmament, labor-based environmentalism, and single-payer health care….

Read the rest of the article here.

Yahoo senior editor Mike Berbernes has a good update on the Biden Administration’s sanctions against Russia. Some excerpts:

When Russia invaded Ukraine last February, the United States and its Western allies swiftly put in place an unprecedentedly harsh series of sanctions designed to isolate the Russian economy from the rest of the world and undercut Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to fund his war effort.

At the time, President Biden said the sanctions — which targeted everything from Russia’s fossil fuel industry to its financial sector and individuals with ties to the Kremlin — would “impose severe costs” on the Russian economy. At first, that appeared to be happening. Russia’s currency, the ruble, abruptly dropped in value, citizens swamped banks looking to withdraw cash and hundreds of international companies ended their operations in the country. Forecasts predicted that Russia’s economy would contract dramatically in the intervening months, with some economists saying it would collapse entirely.

But a year later, Russia is in much stronger shape than many had predicted. The ruble has regained its value. Russia’s oil exports, the lifeblood of its economy, have stayed steady as countries like China, India and Turkey have bought up supplies that used to go to Europe. The standard of living for everyday Russians hasn’t changed. Most important, Putin’s war machine has the funding to continue its assault on Ukraine.

Berbernes notes, however, that “Russia’s surprising ability to endure the West’s economic assault during the past year has fueled debate over whether the sanctions — which have caused a huge disruption to global markets, especially energy — are working at all.”  Further,

Optimists say disappointment about the impact of sanctions largely comes from misconceptions about what they’re designed to do. They argue that no level of economic punishment was ever going to win the war or lead to Putin’s being ousted from power. The real goal, many say, is to slowly chip away at Russia’s economic stability until it becomes increasingly difficult to fund the war and Russian citizens gradually start to feel the costs of the conflict.”

Many experts see signs that Russia is quickly exhausting the emergency measures it used to keep itself afloat, which could lead to a serious decline over the next year. Others say the sanctions have dramatically undercut Russia’s long-term economic prospects, which will steadily decrease Putin’s power on the global stage in the coming years and decades.

But pessimists fear that Russia is well positioned to weather the sanctions for as long as it needs, thanks to its powerful trading partners, its ability to evade lax enforcement and the West’s reluctance to risk creating a spike in energy prices by aggressively targeting Russia’s oil and gas industries. There’s also danger, some argue, that the focus on sanctions might draw attention away from the most important thing Ukraine’s allies should be doing: pouring in huge amounts of military and financial support so the war can be won on the battlefield.

Berbernes then shares perspectives of ‘optimists’ and ‘pessimists’ about the future of the sanctions success, including:

“The confusion around the effectiveness of sanctions stems from a lack of clarity about their goals. … First, Western countries are trying to send a strong signal of resolve and unity to the Kremlin. Second, sanctioning states aim to degrade Russia’s ability to wage war. Third, Western democracies are betting that sanctions will slowly asphyxiate the Russian economy and in particular the country’s energy sector. When judged on the basis of these criteria, sanctions are clearly working.” — Agathe Demarais, Foreign Policy.

And,

“​​The most significant roadblock to sanctions being effective is the failure of Western governments to use their full diplomatic leverage to pressure many governments to cease trading with Russia or allow their banks and corporations to continue doing business in Russia. This failure continues to make life harder for Ukrainians as the war goes on.” — Frank Vogl, Inkstick

Putin may be betting on Biden losing the presidency next year, in which case there is a realistic chance that a Republican president will end or weaken the sanctions. Biden may be underestimating the ability of the Russian people and/or their military leaders to resist Putin’s invasion and also the importance of China and other countries support of Russia.

It’s impossible to measure the effectiveness of sanctions alone, since Zelensky and the Ukrainians are waging an amazing resistance to the Russians thus far. President Biden certainly knows that American voters don’t have the patience for indefinitely subsidizing the Ukrainian military. But Biden also has access to military, economic and political intelligence that no journalist has, and it could be that Putin is closer to collapse than we know, in which case Biden could come out of this in a stronger political position than ever.

If you have any creative ideas for your Democratic congressional rep, now would be a good time to give him/her a jingle at 202-224-3121 (works for all House members) and share them. As Michael Schnell reports at The Hill: “House Democrats are gathering in Baltimore for their annual issues conference this week to chart a path back to the majority in 2024.’ Dems will be “capitalizing on the legislative achievements they secured in the first two years of President Biden’s term, when they had the upper hand in the lower chamber. But success is far from certain as Republicans hammer Democrats on issues including rising costs and the southern border, and several high-profile and high-stakes battles loom this year….“All of us share the same goal,” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said during Wednesday’s opening press conference, “and that is to safeguard the progress that we have made for the last two years, and to make sure that Democrats take the House again in 2024.”….Democrats’ dominance on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in the last Congress — controlling each chamber and the White House — propelled the caucus toward a number of legislative accomplishments that Biden signed into law….The party claimed victory with the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue package and a $740 billion tax, climate and health bill — both of which were passed along party lines — in addition to the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act and gun safety bill.” Not a bad showing, given the highly-polarized political climate in America. “Democrats have to flip at least five seats next November to retake control of the chamber, an undertaking that the caucus is already gaming out. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), the chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said on Wednesday that there are 18 Republican-held seats in districts that Biden won in 2020, calling the map “incredible opportunity.”

Every now and then I like to skewer headline writers for their myriad sins, unfairly ignoring the fact that most of them are pretty good. Occasionally, they produce gems, like “You probably won’t get any student loan relief, thanks to a GOP-controlled Supreme Court” over an article by by Ian Millhiser at Vox. It is a rare headline that allocates responsibility with such precision. Even the subtitle is good – “At the end of the day, the most important question in US law is which political party controls the Supreme Court.” The article also makes some good points, including “If you were hoping that your student loans would be forgiven under a program that President Joe Biden announced last summer, you should, unfortunately, make other plans….On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases, Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown, that ask the Court to strike down the student loan relief program. That program would provide $10,000 in relief to most borrowers who earned less than $125,000 a year during the pandemic, and $20,000 in relief to borrowers who received Pell Grants….The Brown case is laughably weak, and no justice appeared to believe that federal courts have jurisdiction to hear this case. But the Supreme Court only too needs to assert jurisdiction over one of these two cases to kill the loan relief program, and the Court appeared likely to split along party lines in the Nebraska case. Though there is an off chance that Justice Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett might break from their fellow Republican appointees, all six of the GOP-appointed justices appeared inclined to kill the program.” Millhiser addresses some of the complexities at issue, then concludes, “Meanwhile, the Court’s Republican appointees seemed more concerned that giving too much power to a presidential administration is itself inherently dangerous, and thus the Court must create some extratextual limits on the administration’s power. Under this approach to the law, the ultimate decision whether to cancel student loans rests not with any elected official, but with the Court itself….And, with six Republican appointees and only three Democrats on the Court, that means that it is likely that no one will have their loans forgiven.” Student loan debtors take notice.

Some perceptive insights from “What Are The Most Vulnerable Senate Seats In 2024?” a FiveThirtyEight chat session: “geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, senior elections analyst): In the grand scheme of things, Tester’s decision is one of the most important of the cycle. If he hadn’t sought reelection, Democrats would have been cooked in Montana….Tester’s ability to outrun Montana’s red partisan lean is a critical part of this. Former President Donald Trump carried Montana by 16 percentage points in 2020, placing the state roughly 21 points to the right of the country as a whole. In that same election, a relatively popular Democratic governor (Steve Bullock) still lost 55 percent to 45 percent against GOP Sen. Steve Daines. But Tester has survived a presidential cycle before, defeating a strong opponent (Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg) in 2012, even while Mitt Romney was carrying the state by 14 points. The state may be a tad redder now than it was back then, but Tester makes this election a toss-up instead of probably a “Solid Republican” race.” That’s good for Dems’ Senate prospects, but Tester might also make a first-rate presidential candidate, should the need arise. “geoffrey.skelley: As for Slotkin, she seems like a solid candidate for Democrats. Having worked for the CIA and Defense Department before entering congressional politics, she’s got a background in national security that might appeal to more centrist voters. She’s also a very strong fundraiser. To that point, her Senate campaign brought in $1.2 million on its first day….She won’t necessarily make people on the left happy, but Michigan is a purplish state and Slotkin has won on purple turf three times now in varied environments: In 2018, she beat an incumbent in a very Democratic-leaning cycle; in 2020, she held onto her seat in a more neutral presidential year; and in 2022, she won reelection by a larger margin than ever before, even though that was a more favorable year for the GOP nationwide.”

Looking at the larger picture Nathaniel Rakich and Alex Samuels note: “alex: ….candidate quality on the Democratic side is so good. The Democrats in the toughest 2024 races are arguably among the party’s strongest. Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia (assuming he runs for reelection), Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tester have all been battle-tested in their respective red states, and they’ve all overcome their states’ Republican leans — even in presidential years…..nrakich: Yeah, Alex, as you allude to, the Senate map is really bad for Democrats this cycle. They are defending eight seats in states with FiveThirtyEight partisan leansthat are redder than the nation as a whole. And as a reminder, they currently have just a 51-49 majority in the Senate (thanks to three independents who align with them), so they can afford to lose only one seat if Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris win reelection. (And if they don’t, Democrats can’t afford to lose any!)….alex: If Manchin runs for reelection, he would easily be the most endangered Democratic incumbent given that West Virginia went to Trump by nearly 40 points in 2020. When Manchin was on the ballot last, in 2018, he was able to convince Republicans to split their ticket — but I think that’ll be really hard for him next year since it’s a presidential cycle and the top of the ticket could influence his chances down-ballot. (For what it’s worth, reader, the last time he was on the ballot in a presidential year, in 2012, Manchin won by 24 points, while Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won the state by nearly 27. But partisan polarization has only gotten worse since then.)….geoffrey.skelley: ….Whereas Tester clearly outran the Democratic presidential ticket in 2012, Brown did about as well as President Barack Obama that year. And while Brown also won in 2018, he faced a very weak Republican opponent in then-Rep. Jim Renacci. So Brown may not be quite as much of an outperformer as some think…..alex: Brown is an interesting test case, Geoff, given that he’s the only Democrat to win a nonjudicial statewide race in Ohio since 2012. But between him, Tester and Manchin, I’d argue that Brown is in the best position given his populist street credand the fact that he’s found success working with Republicans while bucking conservative trends in his state.”….Color me skeptical, and I might regret saying this come next year, but I actually don’t think that the Democrats’ Senate outlook is that dire. If Manchin runs, their chances don’t look terrible; even without him, Democrats could hang on if Republicans struggle with candidate-quality issues again. Who knows.”

The following article excerpt by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

The Abundance Problem

Abundance means just what you think it means: more stuff, more growth, more opportunity, being able to easily afford life’s necessities with a lot left over. In short, nicer, genuinely comfortable lives for all.

That’s what voters, especially working-class voters, want. But that’s not what they have. Recent Echelon Insights data show more voters think owning a home in a safe neighborhood with good schools is “out of reach” for the average American family (47 percent) than believe that is “financially within reach” (41 percent). That net negative score of 6 points is matched by views on the feasibility of caring for an elderly family member. And views are even more negative on whether starting a small business in financially within reach (-14), saving up for retirement excluding Social Security (-21), sending a child to college (-28), dealing with a major illness (-33) and raising a child on one parent’s income (-34).

Other Echelon Insights data find just 35 percent of working-class (non-college) voters saying they “can comfortably afford” paying their mortgage or rent on their current household income “without having to cut back in other areas”. Only 30 percent of these voters say they can comfortably afford medical and prescription drug costs; on child care it is 4 percent; on a vacation, 20 percent; on going out to eat, 37 percent; on insurance, 29 percent; on transportation, 34 percent; on new clothes, 29 percent; on saving for retirement, 15 percent; and on placing money in an emergency fund, 21 percent.

Whatever that is, it ain’t abundance. Of course, some of this has to do with the baleful effects of high inflation. Over the last two years, workers’ wages have actually lost ground relative to inflation. This is particularly true for workers in the middle of the income distribution. Compared to a year ago, prices are up 28 percent for fuel oil, 27 percent for utility gas, 15 percent for transportation, 12 percent for electricity and 11 percent for groceries. While overall inflation has abated relative to the middle of last year, it clearly remains a large presence in workers’ lives.

In light of all this it is unsurprising that voters’ views on the economy and the effects of Biden administration policies are distinctly negative. In a recent CBS News poll 53 percent said Biden’s policies have made the economy worse, compared to 27 percent who say his policies have made it better. The analogous figures on “your own family’s finances” are 49 percent vs. 18 percent; on inflation, 57 percent vs. 22 percent; and on gas prices, 55 percent vs. 21 percent.

Recent Gallup data found half in the country saying they are financially worse off today than they were a year ago, the highest level since 2009 in the midst of the Great Recession. Among the working class, the level saying they are worse off than a year ago is even higher.

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