The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

The left isn’t dead yet. But it’s getting there.

That’s a shame because the self-identified left played a leading and productive role in the 20^th century. The various socialists, social democrats, and radicals that made up this loose aggregation pushed unions and government policy that benefited the working class, helped tame the excesses of capitalism and provided the shock troops for efforts to end discrimination, ensure equal treatment for all, and protect the environment. On all these fronts, the left made important contributions.

But the left came into the 21^st century beaten down. From the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s to the rise of the Third Way in the 1990’s to the first Bush term and War on Terror that started the century, it didn’t seem like anyone really wanted to hear from the left any more. Political contention between the parties and within American politics generally had passed the movement by.

And then: a sort of revival, sparked initially by the backlash to the Iraq war. The revival was strengthened by the Great Recession of 2008-09 and Obama’s historic first election, gathered force through his second term with the rise of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, and then was turbocharged by Bernie Sanders’ insurgent candidacy and, of course, the norm-busting election of Donald Trump and his chaotic first term in office. Suddenly, being on the left was cool again. The moribund Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) spiked to 100,000 mostly young members from a few thousand aging veterans of the 20^th century left.

And it wasn’t just the DSA. In many circles, a radical critique of American society as structurally racist, hostile to marginalized communities, and embedded in a rapacious capitalist system that will destroy the planet became a sort of conventional wisdom. In this view, opposing Trump had to be joined to a struggle against all these aspects of oppression (the “omnicause”) and to social transformation. Otherwise, the oppression would remain even if Trump himself was removed.

This view spread through sympathetic cultural milieus where it already had a considerable presence—universities, media, the arts, nonprofits, advocacy groups, foundations, and the infrastructure of the Democratic Party itself—redefining what it meant to be on the left. In opposing Trump, who was himself so radical, it seemed only reasonable to be radical in return.

As a result as the teens drew to close, punctuated by the COVID pandemic and the George Floyd summer of 2020, the left was both larger than it had been in a long time and very different from earlier iterations. This was a left that believed America was a white supremacist society, fully bought into climate catastrophism, prized “equity” above social order, good governance and equal opportunity and thought “no human being is illegal” was a good approach to immigration policy. And they were perfectly willing to shout you down if you didn’t believe all this stuff or even if you didn’t use the right language when referring to these issues. Not coincidentally this was also a left with almost no connection to the working class, in stark contrast to the 20^th century left’s origin story.

But this left did have quite a lot of influence on Biden administration staffing and policies, down to the language officials used to describe their initiatives. To their shock, however, American voters were not delighted with the results, especially the working class, and the left’s preferred party, the Democrats, are out on their ear.

So this would be a great time for the left to recalibrate its approach, right? But are they? To paraphrase George W. Bush: “Is our leftists learning?”

Sadly, that does not appear to be the case. Neither in the evolving intraparty strategic debate after the November election nor in reactions to GOP priorities and Trump’s executive orders is there much evidence of a desire for compromise on the part of the left. Instead, there are signals that there are hills—many hills!—they are willing to die on rather than give ground. Here are three of the most important hills they are willing to die on—and probably will.

1. Immigration/border security/deportations. Outside of the economy, no issue hurt the Democrats more in 2024 than immigration. And the laxness on border security and quasi-open borders policy that resulted in massive waves of illegal immigration was very much a priority and product of the left. You’d think they’d be rushing to correct that mistake. Nah.

Take the Laken Riley Act which just passed Congress. Laken Riley was the Georgia nursing student who was murdered by illegal Venezuelan immigrant Jose Ibarra (recall that Biden, under pressure from the left, apologized for referring to illegal immigrant Ibarra as “illegal” as opposed to the approved nomenclature of “undocumented”). The legislation named after her provides for the detention of illegal immigrants charged with theft-related crimes, assault on a police office or acts causing death or bodily harm to an individual. Just 12 Democrats in the Senate and 46 Democrats in the House were willing to vote for the Laken Riley Act, with the left, heavily concentrated in blue states, conspicuous by its absence.

Outside of Congress, left reaction was predictable and vitriolic. Sarah Dohl, chief campaigns officer of the movement organizing group Indivisible had this to say:

Spineless. That’s the only word for the..Senate Democrats who handed MAGA Republicans a gift they didn’t deserve…The Laken Riley Act is a racist, xenophobic attack on immigrants that shreds constitutional rights and hands power to extremists like [Texas attorney general] Ken Paxton to hijack federal immigration policy. It’s not just cruel—it’s a train wreck of chaos and bad faith. And yet, Senate Democrats caved.

And that’s just the Laken Riley Act! That Act is merely the opener for a variety of Trump administration moves to drastically tighten up border security and deport many of the illegal immigrants who are currently here, focusing initially on those with criminal records. The left will oppose all these moves, with appropriately inflammatory rhetoric, despite their general popularity. Indeed, deporting those illegals with criminal records is stunningly popular; a new New York Times poll finds 87 percent overall support for deporting such illegal immigrants including overwhelming support among surprising groups like Democrats (83 percent) and Hispanics (85 percent).

The simple fact of the matter is that it is impossible to solve the illegal immigration problem without changing the incentive structure for prospective immigrants by: (a) making it much tougher to enter the U.S. illegally, and (b) making it much tougher to stay in the country once you are here illegally. The public understands this while the left evidently does not or (more plausibly) just does not want to solve the problem. They are determined to die on this hill and die they will, perhaps dragging the rest of the Democratic Party down with them.

2. Identity politics/equity/”trans rights.” The contemporary left is deeply invested in these issues and shows little sign of backing down or compromising on any of them. Take the statement of Ben Wikler, the left’s favorite candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee:

We unite our coalition by making sure everyone’s at the table.

As DNC Chair our leadership team will lift up our full coalition—Blacks, Latino, Native, AANHPI, LGBTQ. Youth, Interfaith, Ethnic, Rural, Veteran and Disability representation.

This does not seem like the statement of someone even willing to entertain the idea that identity politics is past its sell-by date. Or consider that it is Trump, not anyone on the left, who ringingly called for unrestricted free speech and for a society that is “colorblind and merit-based.” That’s because all these principles have become right-coded in the last period of time and are therefore verboten for anyone on the left to endorse. That’s crazy! As Jeff Maurermemorably puts it, these statements by Trump

hurt not because I disagree, but because I can’t believe that the left has fucked things up so badly that free speech, color blindness, and meritocracy are now issues that the right feels they own. In fact, those issues are so right-coded that they made the list of Things To Throw In Democrats’ Faces At The Inauguration Speech. A little more than a decade ago, those were bedrock liberal ideals. How did we screw this up?

That wasn’t the only challenge in Trump’s inauguration speech to left shibboleths and there are even more in his spate of executive orders. The left is inclined to fight each and every one of them because they believe history is on their side. But is it? I am doubtful the median working-class voter is going to greet the demise of DEI programs in their workplace, public institutions, or community with anything but delight.

Nor will they miss the pronoun police, the insistence that trans-identified biological boys should be able to play girls sports or the easy availability of “gender-affirming care” (e.g., puberty blockers, hormones, surgery) for minors. The Times poll mentioned earlier found that 80 percent of working-class (non-college) respondents opposed transgender birth males playing in women’s sports and 75 percent opposed allowing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to be prescribed for anyone under 18.

For all that, only two (2!) House Democrats—both conservative Hispanic Democrats from Texas—could find the wherewithal to vote for The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act which would prohibit the participation of biological men and boys in women’s and girls sports. Even Massachusetts Democratic representative Seth Moulton, who had raised questions about having biological boys in girls sports, did not vote for the bill presumably because of pressure from the left (they viciously attacked him for being a “Nazi”, transphobe, etc, etc.)

The left is determined to die on this hill and is willing to call out their army of enforcers to defend it. But the clear shift in public sentiment against their agenda makes defeat far more likely than victory here. Meanwhile, Democrats’ ability to adapt and move to the center on these issues will be seriously compromised while the left is busy dying on that hill.

3. Climate catastrophism/renewables uber alles/net zero. Trump has thrown down the gauntlet to the left on climate and energy issues. In his speech and in his executive orders he has made clear his intention to untether domestic energy production from regulatory and permitting obstacles and de-emphasize Biden administration policies centered around renewables and electric vehicles. He promises energy abundance and low energy prices. The left hates this but the fact of the matter is that such an approach is far closer to what the public wants—especially what the working class wants—than the left’s quasi-religious commitment to a rapid renewables-based clean energy transition.

This can be easily seen by reviewing public opinion data on climate and energy issues. Here’s a refresher:

A recent YouGov survey designed by myself and Roger Pielke found that, by 74 percent to 26 percent, working-class voters prefer an energy approach that uses a mix of energy sources including oil, coal, and natural gas along with renewables to an approach that seeks to phase out the use of oil, coal, and natural gas completely.

In terms of the energy they consume, cost and reliability are way, way more important to working-class voters than possible effects on the climate. Given four choices, 41 percent of these voters said the cost of the energy they use was most important to them and 35 percent said the availability of power when they need it was most important. Just 17 percent thought the effect on climate of their energy consumption was most important and 6 percent selected the effect on U.S. energy security.

In terms of proposals to mitigate the effects of climate change, getting to “net zero” as quickly as possible is relatively unimportant to working-class voters. Asked to consider proposals to reduce the effects of global climate change, these voters were least likely to say “getting the U.S. to net zero carbon emissions as quickly as possible” was very important to them personally (26 percent), fewer than said “limiting the burden of regulations on business” was very important (33 percent). Working-class voters were most likely by far to say keeping consumer costs low (66 percent) and increasing jobs and economic growth (60 percent) were very important aspects of climate mitigation proposals.

Consistent with many other surveys, the YouGov survey found that climate change as an issue has very low salience to working-class voters. Voters were asked to evaluate a list of 18 issue areas and rate their priority for the president and Congress to address in the coming year. As a “top priority,” dealing with global climate change ranked 16^th out of these 18 areas among working-class voters, well behind strengthening the national economy, fighting inflation, defending the country from terrorist attacks, and keeping Social Security financially sound—and also behind reducing health care costs, dealing with immigration, improving the educational system, keeping energy costs low, reducing the budget deficit, reducing crime, improving how the political system works, improving the job situation, strengthening the military, dealing with the problems of poor people, and dealing with drug addiction. The climate issue only ranked above global trade and issues around race.

Finally, by 30 points (59 to 29 percent) working-class voters flat-out favor more domestic production of fossil fuels like oil and gas. But only 15 percent of these voters are aware that the Biden administration increased oil production on federal lands. However, when informed that the U.S. has, in fact, increased domestic production of oil and gas in the last several years, they are delighted. Almost three-quarters (73 percent) of working-class voters said “this is a positive development, which brings good jobs for U.S. workers, ensures our energy supply and helps the U.S. support our allies who need similar resources” compared to 27 percent who thought “this is a negative development, which brings more pollution, climate change, and continued reliance on fossil fuels.”

In short, Trump is likely to shore up his base, rather than lose support, with his energy proposals. Meanwhile, the usual suspects on the left have already denounced his moves as undercutting the sacred quest to stop climate change, lining the pockets of evil fossil fuel companies and even (somehow) raising grocery prices. This hill, too, is evidently one they are willing to die on rather than compromise in any way on what is likely to be an extremely popular quest for energy abundance. And here too the left is likely to be decisively defeated as they expend vast amounts of money and effort defending the indefensible and kneecapping the ability of their party to come up with an alternative that can actually compete with Trump and his party.

Such is the nature of today’s left—divorced from the working class but intimately connected to the leftist strongholds of the professional class. The latter connection has kept them blissfully unaware of how far outside of the public opinion mainstream their current commitments are and therefore how quickly the hills they are defending could be overrun. That’s happening right now but the left seems determined to fight on to the bitter end.

So be it. Perhaps out of the ashes of this left, a better 21^st century left may arise that channels the best aspects and universal principles of the 20^th century left. But in the meantime, Democrats would be well-advised to craft an approach that ignores the left as much as possible. Just because the left is willing to die on all their various hills doesn’t mean Democrats have to as well.

In “Democrats grapple with their own message in Trump 2.0,” Sarah Ferris and Lauren Fox write, ” President Donald Trump is already testing the limits of Hill Democrats who have vowed to be less antagonistic the second time around….Privately, Democrats have largely agreed it’s time to end the capital-R resistance to the newly sworn in president. Then on Trump’s first 24 hours in office, he freed those who violently attacked police officers protecting the Capitol four years ago.”

Elected Democrats know that the chances or reversing Trump’s pardons and commutations of the January 6 perpetrators are nil. But they also know that Trump’s credibility is damaged every time the public is reminded that five police officers died as a result of the insurrection and 140 officers were injured by the rioters. Honest conservatives can’t support ganging up on police officers who were doing their job protecting our elected officials of both parties. The pardons and commutations, on top of Trump’s own convictions, make a mockery of the GOP’s pretense of being the party of law and order.

However, as Ferris and Fox note, “The natural inclination is to fight, fight, fight, fight,” said Rep. Tom Suozzi, a centrist Democrat who represents a Trump-won district on Long Island. Suozzi stressed that Democrats need to be more disciplined in their politics to avoid their more reactionary tactics: “That’s what’s got us to this point.”….Even so, he and others acknowledge they can’t ignore when Trump allows January 6 rioters to go free at the same time he is pushing to deport other violent criminals. “I mean, come on,” an exasperated Suozzi said.”

“On the pardons specifically, [Democratic House Leader] Jeffries privately told Democrats on Wednesday that they should hammer Trump’s decision to free January 6 rioters in a way that makes clear how it risks the safety of the American people, according to two people in the room. And the focus was less on Trump but on the complicity of House Republicans — the ones who will be on the ballot in two years.”

“Democrats have also tried to contrast how what Trump is doing isn’t actually helping the Americans who voted for him,” they write. The flood of executive orders is like Trump’s mass announcement of cabinet appointments, designed to confuse and distract his opponents.

“I think he’s trying to flood the zone,” with executive orders, Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said. “Trump got hired because he thought he was going to help bring grocery prices down, what does pardoning literally hundreds of criminals who attacked police officers have to do with bringing grocery prices down?”

With respect to the confirmation hearings, “While a hearing for Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth saw blistering questioning about Hegseth’s personal life, including one particularly tough exchange with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia on Hegseth’s marriages and an unexpected pregnancy, other hearings — including those for Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent and Department of Homeland Security pick Kristi Noem — were relatively civil by partisan standards, and focused far more on policy disagreements than personal animus.”

This is understandable. The Department of Defense is the big prize. It involves 3 million armed services members and workers and a budget of 841 billion dollars, and the potential for contractor corruption is a kleptocrat’s dream. In the modern era, at least, the Secretary of Defense has been headed by a leader who has some gravitas. Those days may be over. The Democrats now need two Senate votes to defeat the Hegseth nomination.

“This guy is clearly not qualified,” Warner said of Hegseth. “I’m supporting a number of Trump’s nominees. I voted for (Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA John) Ratcliffe, I voted for Bessent, but there are some of these that are way beyond the bounds.”

However, “We’ve gone back to our playbook which is, ‘attack him,’ instead of actually dealing with the fact that the party doesn’t have a message, doesn’t really have a spokesperson,” one senior House Democrat said of the strategy. “We’re just going back to the shrill attacks.”

“They have a permanent information ecosystem. We don’t,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said following the lunch. “They define us and we don’t get to define them. No matter how good our messaging is here, it doesn’t get reflected, reverberated and amplified like theirs does.”

That sounds like something that can be fixed.

From “It’s time for Democrats to go low” by Peter Rothpletz at The Guardian: ”

What the 2024 election results made clear is that the Obama coalition is dead. If Democrats are to have any shot at reclaiming power, so too must be the niceties and mores of the Obama era.

Yes, Democrats must get mean – ruthlessly, bitterly mean. This is not to say, however, that they need merely to cast aside the former first lady’s once-famous, now-infamous messaging mantra. No, what I prescribe is not just a new approach to political discourse but a new theory of opposition party politics.

Trumpism has corrupted America in many ways, but one of the most obvious is how voters now expect lawmakers and surrogates to be truly vicious cultural warriors for them….As the commentator SE Cupp recently observed, “it doesn’t get said enough, but Trump’s enduring legacy will be convincing BOTH parties to lower the bar, and that possessing moral authority on anything is no longer a currency that matters”. Democrats can either bemoan the fact the fundamental rules of politics and discourse have changed or they can adapt to it. In the four years to come, emboldened voices on the right will work to expand the Overton window. Democrats’ reaction to this effort must not materialize as feigned – or earnest – injury and horror. Take the punch and return the favor.

Rothpletz argues further, “This new, more muscular messaging strategy must be combined with a far more aggressive war footing in the halls of Congress….Mike Johnson, the House speaker, will have only a 220-seat majority. However, Republicans are poised to lose three seats (if not more) as members resign to join the Trump administration. That will leave them with a majority of 217-seats, meaning Johnson can only afford to lose one member on major – and minor – votes…..Johnson will need to pass a bill to fund the government. Democrats must not help him.”

Also, “Time and again congressional Democrats have swept in to save Republican leaders – and Republican voters – from their own lawmakers. This generosity must end. The Dems must bleed the Republican party of its political capital at every opportunity….On a Bulwark podcast this week, the writer Jonathan V Last channeled Alan Moore’s iconic comic book anti-hero Rorschach to describe the mentality Democrats should adopt: “The politicians will look up and shout ‘save us,’ and I’ll look down, and whisper ‘no.’”

Democrats do need to toughen up. But they don’t have the luxury of behaving as lawless and morally bankrupt as Republicans, who routinely get away with behavior that would doom any Democrat. For example, ask yourself what would happen if Democrats staged a riot at the U.S. capitol, which resulted in the death of six police officers. Then those rioters are set free by a Democratic president, and the same Democratic senators who condemned the riots later condone it.

Or look at how the double-standard played out with respect to Supreme Court confirmations. It would take a hell of a lot of inflation to enable Democrats to get away with half the sleaze that Mitch McConnell and Republicans shrug off as business as usual. Yes, Dems can play tougher. Few voters would care if Leader Jeffries poached a couple of Republicans to switch parties with political inducements. But any such moves should be carefully calibrated.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Cast your mind back to the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. It was then that Joe Biden emerged as the “Great Moderate Hope.” Recall that by the time the first Democratic presidential primary debates were held in late June 2019, leading candidates were seeking to outflank one another to the left. The thinking was that a Democratic electorate radicalized by the Trump presidency would respond favorably to maximally progressive positions.

Many of these candidates endorsed a wide range of radical policy options: “Medicare for All” reforms that would eliminate private health insurance; a Green New Deal with an aggressive timeline for reducing reliance on fossil fuels; banningfracking; decriminalizing unauthorized migration over the Mexican border; providing health insurance to illegal immigrants; allowing prisoners to vote; abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and promising reparations to the descendants of slaves.

Joe Biden, by and large, did not participate in this race to the left. Instead, he took advantage of both his primary opponents’ radical ideas and the chaos of Trump’s governance by striking a moderate note, promising to pursue progressive but sensible policies, restore the “soul of America,” provide the help Americans needed to get through the crisis, and, of course and above all, beat Donald Trump. This was a congenial message to the Democratic primary electorate, starting with black voters in South Carolina on February 29 and running through every demographic on Super Tuesday and beyond. It turned out that, despite the strenuous appeals of many candidates to the party’s rising left, most Democratic primary voters had more pragmatic and moderate views than the media-anointed advocates for a more radical party. Other candidates’ failure to understand this emptied the field for Biden, who cruised to the nomination after Super Tuesday.

Then a funny thing happened which was a “tell” on whether Biden intended to govern—as opposed to run—as a moderate. Usually, candidates attempt to move toward the center in preparation for a general-election campaign. But Biden did the reverse. He formed six “unity task forces” jointly coordinated by Biden and Bernie Sanders campaign figures, covering climate change, criminal-justice reform, the economy, education, health care, and immigration. The co-chairs included such lions of the left as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal, then-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the task forces themselves were well stocked with Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren) supporters. The task forces produced a blizzard of positions and language considerably to the left of the “moderate, normie” politics upon which Biden had built his successful campaign. And these positions and language found their way into the Democratic Party platform, were incorporated into Biden’s campaign promises and, importantly, determined how the Biden administration made staffing and policy decisions. Despite Biden and his team’s initial insistence that the strenuous leftism found on Twitter wasn’t real life, by the end of the campaign they seemed to be quite happy to act as though it was.

Sure enough, once the Biden administration was up and running, moderation was conspicuous by its absence. First, there were the executive orders that, among other things, dramatically loosened the rules for dealing with illegal immigrants (pleasing progressive immigration advocacy groups), cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline and paused oil and gas leasing on Federal lands (pleasing progressive climate groups) and instituted a sweeping, government-wide effort to promote “equity” (pleasing the congeries of progressive identity-focused groups). He also signaled his support for transgender activists by appointing a transwoman, Rachel “gender-affirming care is settled science” Levine, as Assistant Secretary for Health and de factoadministration spokesperson on transgender issues. And Biden repeatedly referred to transgender equality as “the civil rights issue of our time.”

None of this suggested a moderate approach targeted to the bulk of voters who had put him in office but rather one focused on pleasing the progressive wing of his party. The ordinary voters that supported Biden had bought the image of moderate “Scranton Joe” who would restore normality to the country after the stormy Trump years and the double whammy of a pandemic and subsequent economic crash. They were not really looking for a “transformational” president.

Biden, however, did aspire to be one, not least in the economic realm where he pursued an amazingly aggressive agenda despite his narrow victory and thin congressional majorities. The first indicator of this was the American Rescue Plan (ARP). While there was a reasonable argument for a stimulus package of some size, Democrats, with Biden’s support, opted for a super-sized $1.9 trillion package that included $1,400 per person direct payments to households, an increased, fully-refundable child tax credit, $350 billion to state and local governments and much, much more. This was on top of well over $2 trillion in stimulus spending already passed at the end of the Trump administration. Larry Summers warned that a stimulus of the size pushed by Democrats had a high probability of spiking inflation.

And spike inflation it did. While some inflation was likely unavoidable due to supply-chain issues as the economy revved up, there seems little doubt that over-stimulating the economy made the inflation surge substantially worse than it would otherwise have been. As it happened, the inflation rate did indeed go up dramatically in the aftermath of the ARP eventually hitting 9 percent, a 40-year high, in mid-2022.

Read more…

In “Trump’s Tax Plan: A Guide for Advocates,” Navigator Research shares the following “key takeaways” from a poll they conducted last month:

• Democrats are more trusted to make sure the rich and big corporations pay their fair share in taxes, while Trump and Republicans are more trusted to handle the level of taxes paid by the middle class.

• Only one in five have heard “a lot” about Trump’s tax plan, with Americans divided along party lines on initial support.

• The framing of Trump’s tax plan is critical: framing the plan as giving “tax cuts to the rich and big corporations while shifting the burden to the middle class” drives opposition up to more than three in five Americans, while Republican messaging drives support up to a similar level.

Drilling down,

“Americans trust Democrats more on “making sure the rich and big corporations pay their fair share in taxes” (net +11 trust Democrats more), while Republicans hold an advantage on “the level of taxes paid by the middle class” (net +5 Trump and Republicans)….Among independents, Trump and the Republican Party have an advantage over the Democratic Party on both items.

Views of Trump’s tax plan are polarized along partisan lines, as seven in ten Democrats oppose the plan (net -59 support) and two in three Republicans support it (net +58 support).

Framing Trump’s tax plan as giving “tax cuts to the rich and big corporations while shifting the burden to the middle class” drives opposition up to more than three in five Americans (62% oppose), while Republican messaging drives support up to a similar level (64% support).

After reading Democratic messaging about Trump’s tax plan, nearly three in five (57%) say it “would hurt people like me.” By comparison, after reading Republican messaging about the plan, only a plurality (45%) say it “would help people like me.”

Among those who read Democratic messaging about Trump’s tax plan, the top concern was that it “wouldn’t help middle- and working-class people struggling to deal with rising costs” (35% top two concern).

It appears Democrats have much to gain by pressing their case against Trump’s tax policies.

The following article by Robert Reich, professor of public policy at U. Cal, Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor, is cross-posted from Alternet.org:

Trump will try to take credit for the Biden economy. Don’t let him. And don’t let Republican enablers of Trump or the media give him credit, either.

In 2017, Trump inherited a strong economy from President Obama and never stopped congratulating himself for it. He claimed that “we created the greatest economy in the history of the world.”

Rubbish. Trump tanked the economy with his trade wars and his botched pandemic response.

Now, Trump is inheriting an even stronger economy.

On Friday, the Department of Labor reported that the nation added 256,000 jobs in December, significantly more than economists expected.

The total number of jobs created under Biden’s four years is 16.6 million. That makes him the only president in history to have presided over an economy that created jobs every single month.

He has also presided over the lowest average unemployment rate of any president in a half-century, ending at 4.1 percent.

The nation gained more jobs in Biden’s four years than it did under Trump’s first term of office, or under either of Barack Obama’s or George W. Bush’s terms of office.

Working-age women are now employed at record levels.

The gap in employment between Black Americans and their white counterparts is at the lowest level ever.

Biden has also presided over an economy that has grown faster and created more jobs than any other advanced economy around the world. Under Biden, the American economy grew faster than did the pre-pandemic Trump economy.

Yes, the United States and every other country had to deal with inflation, but Biden brought inflation down to below 3 percent — lower than in most other countries.

Americans have every reason to be outraged at decades of policies that prioritized corporations over people. But the Biden administration cracked down on corporate price-gouging, monopolization, and trickle-down nonsense.

All this means that Trump begins his second presidency with the best economy a president has inherited in living memory.

Will he claim credit for it? You betcha.

In addition, some of the most important Biden initiatives will start to pay off only during the Trump presidency (assuming Trump doesn’t reverse them).

Biden took on Big Pharma by capping out-of-pocket drug costs for millions of seniors on Medicare. That lowered the price of 64 drugs. These changes will take place throughout 2025. More drugs are scheduled to get cheaper in the following years.

Will Trump claim credit? Of course he will.

Biden’s infrastructure law will give us better roads, bridges, public transit, and broadband access. But most Americans won’t see those improvements for a year or two, well into Trump’s term of office.

Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act will provide more American-made semiconductors, but we won’t see them for a few years, so during Trump’s presidency.

Biden’s clean energy initiatives will also pay off with greater fuel efficiency and less pollution. But here again, not for several years.

Will Trump claim credit for these successes as well? Do birds fly?

His whole life, Trump has taken credit for things he simply inherited, starting with his own personal fortune.

Just as he avoids accountability for the bad stuff he’s done, such as his attempted coup against the United States, he congratulates himself for the good stuff others have done.

If Trump doesn’t wreck the economy with his bonkers tariff plans or cruel mass deportations, you can be sure he’ll take a bow for what Biden built.

Don’t let him. Don’t let Republican politicians claim credit. Don’t let the media allow Trump or other Republicans to claim credit. Speak out. Remind America that these good things happened because of Joe Biden.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

For the last decade, Democrats and the left have ever more eagerly embraced a climate catastrophist narrative on energy policy. That narrative may be summarized as follows:

Climate change is not a danger that is gradually occurring, but an imminent crisis that is already upon us in extreme weather events. It threatens the existence of the planet if immediate, drastic action is not taken. That action must include the immediate replacement of fossil fuels, including natural gas, by renewables, wind and solar, which are cheap and can be introduced right now if sufficient resources are devoted to doing so, and which, unlike nuclear power, are safe. Not only that, the immediate replacement of fossil fuels by renewables will make energy cheaper and provide high wage jobs.

People resist rapidly eliminating fossil fuels only because of propaganda from the fossil fuel industry. Any of the problems with renewables that are being cited, such as their intermittency and reliability, are being solved. This means that as we use more renewables and cut out fossil fuels, political support for the transition to clean energy should go up because of the benefits to consumers and workers.

That’s been the mantra that’s dominated Democrats’ policy commitments on energy and their rhetoric and philosophy on climate issues. Indeed, it is not uncommon for Democrats to apply the term “climate denialist” to those who, while they accept the reality of global warming, refuse to endorse the climate catastrophist mantra and its maximalist policy agenda.

So what have the Democrats gained from their fervent advocacy for climate catastrophism? Not much. Sure, they did manage to pass the misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act which pumped hundreds of billions of dollars—if not over a trillion—into the renewable energy and electric vehicle industries.

But the needle is moving very slowly indeed on a renewables-based clean energy transition. During the Biden administration, the share of renewables in the country’s primary energy consumption has increased only very modestly from 10.5 percent to 11.7 percent. And the share of energy consumption from fossil fuels remains over 80 percent just as it does in the world as a whole.

It is just very hard to bring that share down quickly while keeping an advanced industrial economy chugging along. That’s why, despite the Biden administration’s professed commitments, energy realities have forced them to preside over record levels of oil production (both on federal lands and overall), record natural gas production, and record LNG exports.

Nor have Democrats been rewarded with a political bonanza for their embrace of climate catastrophism. Quite the contrary. They just lost the presidential election to an opponent who says “drill, baby, drill” and whose priority is cheap, abundant energy—not clean energy. And Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Energy is Chris Wright, CEO of a fracking company, who has been forthright in his advocacy of energy realism, or as he puts it, “energy sobriety.”

It’s interesting to look at Wright’s actual views on climate and energy because they represent what Democrats’ climate catastrophism is now up against. While Wright has been accused of being a climate denialist, this is not, as noted above, because he refuses to accept the reality of global warming but rather because he does not accept the Democrats’ current climate catastrophist narrative and policy approach. Here is what he actually says:

The expansion of the global energy supply by adding fossil fuels has greatly improved the human condition; it also brought the risk of climate change caused by increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases…. Climate change is a real and global challenge that we should and can address.

And his basic stance on meeting this challenge is:

Two things are required for positive progress on climate change: a sober understanding of the issue and the tradeoffs required, and massive improvements in energy technologies that can deliver low-carbon energy that is also low cost, reliable and secure.

That seems….pretty reasonable. Here’s his own 10 point summary of his perspective:

1. Energy is essential to life and the world needs more of it!

2. The modern world today is powered by and made of hydrocarbons.

3. Hydrocarbons are essential to improving the wealth, health, and life opportunities for the less energized seven billion people who aspire to be among the world’s lucky one billion.

4. Hydrocarbons supply more than 80 percent of global energy and thousands of critical materials and products.

5. The American Shale Revolution transformed energy markets, energy security, and geopolitics.

6. Global demand for oil, natural gas, and coal are all at record levels and rising – no energy transition has begun.

7. Modern alternatives, like solar and wind, provide only a part of electricity demand and do not replace the most critical uses of hydrocarbons. Energy-dense, reliable nuclear could be more impactful.

8. Making energy more expensive or unreliable compromises people, national security, and the environment.

9. Climate change is a global challenge but is far from the world’s greatest threat to human life.

10. Zero Energy Poverty by 2050 is a superior goal compared to Net Zero 2050.

Again, all pretty reasonable and empirically defensible though one could quibble here and there with how he formulates some of his points. But I would not quibble with his last point; it underscores the moral problems with the standard climate catastrophist/net zero approach. Lifting up the billions in the world who suffer from energy poverty and the stunted lives and living standards such poverty produces is or should be a moral imperative—a moral imperative about which net zero definitionally has nothing to say.

But Wright’s approach is more than a strong empirical and moral competitor to Democrats’ approach—it also overlaps in important ways with emerging voter sentiment about these issues. This is particularly true among working-class (non-college) voters where Democrats have rapidly been bleeding support. Consider these data from a YouGov survey conducted for an AEI project comparing scientific understandings of energy and climate with dominant public narratives on these issues and comparing both to the views of actual voters.

The survey found that, by 74 percent to 26 percent, working-class voters prefer an energy approach that uses a mix of energy sources including oil, coal, and natural gas along with renewables to an approach that seeks to phase out the use of oil, coal, and natural gas completely.

In terms of the energy they consume, cost and reliability are way, way more important to working-class voters than possible effects on the climate. Given four choices, 41 percent of these voters said the cost of the energy they use was most important to them and 35 percent said the availability of power when they need it was most important. Just 17 percent thought the effect on climate of their energy consumption was most important and 6 percent selected the effect on U.S. energy security.

In terms of proposals to mitigate the effects of climate change, getting to “net zero” as quickly as possible is relatively unimportant to working-class voters. Asked to consider proposals to reduce the effects of global climate change, these voters were least likely to say “getting the U.S. to net zero carbon emissions as quickly as possible” was very important to them personally (26 percent), fewer than said “limiting the burden of regulations on business” was very important (33 percent). Working-class voters were most likely by far to say keeping consumer costs low (66 percent) and increasing jobs and economic growth (60 percent) were very important aspects of climate mitigation proposals.

Consistent with many other surveys, the YouGov survey found that climate change as an issue has very low salience to working-class voters. Voters were asked to evaluate a list of 18 issue areas and rate their priority for the president and Congress to address in the coming year. As a “top priority,” dealing with global climate change ranked 16^th out of these 18 areas among working-class voters, well behind strengthening the national economy, fighting inflation, defending the country from terrorist attacks, and keeping Social Security financially sound—and also behind reducing health care costs, dealing with immigration, improving the educational system, keeping energy costs low, reducing the budget deficit, reducing crime, improving how the political system works, improving the job situation, strengthening the military, dealing with the problems of poor people, and dealing with drug addiction. The climate issue only ranked above global trade and issues around race.

Finally, by 30 points (59 to 29 percent) working-class voters flat-out favor more domestic production of fossil fuels like oil and gas. But only 15 percent of these voters are aware that the Biden administration increased oil production on federal lands. However, when informed that the U.S. has, in fact, increased domestic production of oil and gas in the last several years, they are delighted. Almost three-quarters (73 percent) of working-class voters said “this is a positive development, which brings good jobs for U.S. workers, ensures our energy supply and helps the U.S. support our allies who need similar resources” compared to 27 percent who thought “this is a negative development, which brings more pollution, climate change, and continued reliance on fossil fuels.”

How about that. Perhaps instead of hiding this achievement away Democrats should have featured it. Their failure to do so obviously has a lot to do with the climate catastrophist narrative they have felt obliged to embrace and defend. That narrative is clearly getting in the way of Democrats’ ability to reach working-class voters and is leaving an open lane for Chris Wright’s version of energy realism.

Can Democrats wean themselves away from climate catastrophism and their obsession with net zero? It could be difficult. Their net zero commitment stems from the extremely high priority placed on this goal by the educated elites and activists who now dominate the party. These elites and activists—unlike working-class voters—believe that nothing is more important than stopping global warming since it is not just a problem, but an “existential crisis” that must be confronted as rapidly as possible to prevent a global apocalypse. President Biden said in September, 2023:

The only existential threat humanity faces even more frightening than a nuclear war is global warming going above 1.5 degrees in the next 20—10 years. That’d be real trouble. There’s no way back from that.

He also said in November of that year:

I’ve seen firsthand what the reports made clear: the devastating toll of climate change and its existential threat to all of us. And it is the ultimate threat to humanity: climate change.

More frightening than nuclear war, eh, from which there ispresumably a way back? Up and down the Democratic Party, rhetoric has been more similar than not to Biden’s absurdly histrionic take. That’s an awful lot of rhetoric to walk back.

It also seems unlikely that the climate movement, with its intransigent radical wing, is going to do much to help Democrats do a reset on on these issues. Instead it seems like they’re inventing new ways to make their movement irrelevant to normie voters. A recent innovation is “intersectional environmentalism” which emphasizes how “injustices happening to marginalized communities and the earth are interconnected”. Somehow that’s going to result in a movement “rooted in joy and radical imagination and community building.”

Intersectionalism and a radical politics of joy? This does not sound like a movement prepared to grapple with reality. The reality is that climate change policy, to be politically successful, must be embedded in and subordinate to, the goal of energy abundance and prosperity. In other words, as energy abundance is pursued, efforts to mitigate climate change should be undertaken within those constraints, rather than pursuing climate change as the paramount goal and trying for energy abundance within those limits. There’s a big difference and only the former approach offers a viable way forward for Democrats.

Such an approach will require Democrats and the left to develop a more realistic understanding of what is feasible in terms of climate action. There is no point in setting goals and timelines that cannot be met. Discarding these will make it much easier to pursue an energy abundance path that also includes reasonable progress on reducing emissions over what will undoubtedly be a very lengthy time period. Democrats would be well-advised to develop this path—their own version of energy realism—rather than pursuing the dead-end of climate catastrophism. The latter is and has been a loser. Energy realism will beat it every time.

In the current issue of Washington Monthly, Editor-in-Chief Paul Glastris spotlights “Ten New Ideas for the Democratic Party to Help the Working Class, and Itself,” and writes, “For many years, outside observers, including the editors of this magazine, have warned that the Democratic Party cannot win if it continues to hemorrhage the support of working-class Americans. The results of the November election should put an end to any debate about this….

The tragedy is that as president, Joe Biden did a lot to try to bring back these voters. He openly supported unions and was the first sitting president to walk a picket line. He pushed through major legislation to fund infrastructure and manufacturing projects that would produce, he said again and again, good-paying jobs that you don’t need a college degree to get—and by design these projects were disproportionately located in red areas. He signed other bills that put cash in the pockets of average Americans, including a short-lived but successful child tax credit. He began a revolution in competition policy that took on corporate power and greed in favor of small businesses and employees. When he dropped out of the race, Kamala Harris picked a running mate with working-class rural roots and proposed to help ordinary Americans buy a first home, start a new business, and secure protection from corporate price gouging…. Yet despite all of this, Donald Trump not only won the election but also gained ground with working-class Americans of every race and gender and in every part of the country.”

Here’s a teaser from one of the ‘ten new ideas,’ “Medicare Prices for All: Want a real raise? Slash health care costs by tying employer plans to Medicare rates” by Phillip Longman:

….Everyone complains about the high price of drugs and hospital stays. But few people are aware of how hidden health care costs that don’t show up in the Consumer Price Index are profoundly eroding their purchasing power.

To understand how this giant rip-off works and how to fix it, you need some background. Most working- and middle-class Americans receive their health care coverage through employer-sponsored insurance plans. Most of us covered by such plans know full well that we are perpetually being asked to pay higher deductibles and co-pays. Most of us also know when our premiums go up. Individual workers covered by such plans typically pay around 20 percent of the cost of the premium in the form of a paycheck deduction. Workers who insure a spouse and two children under an employer plan typically see about 32 percent of the cost of the premium deducted from their paycheck.

….The employee-benefits expert Syl Schieber has calculated how much rising health care costs have lowered what he calls the “kitchen table” income of workers with employer-sponsored health care plans—that is, the income they have available each month to pay for housing, groceries, gas, and other day-to-day expenditures. He finds that due to the wage suppression caused by the rising cost of their health care plans, lower-income workers with family coverage had $2,500 less kitchen table income in 2019 (adjusted for inflation) than they brought home two decades earlier. In effect, health care inflation gobbled up all of the meager raises they received as they gained seniority, and more.

….Since 2010, health care costs for the average family of four with an employer-sponsored plan have risen by more than $13,000, or over 71 percent. Currently, the cost for individuals covered by such plans is rising by 6.7 percent a year, roughly double the official rate of inflation. No wonder so many Americans, even those “privileged” enough to have employer-sponsored health insurance, feel like the economy is not working for them.

….What can be done? Abolishing our employer-based health care finance system and replacing it with something like a government-financed, “Medicare for All” program might be a good idea. But it hardly needs saying that it is a political nonstarter at the moment.

….So here’s the solution. Just mandate, going forward, that all employer-sponsored plans pay providers the same, or close to the same, prices Medicare does. And further mandate that employers share the enormous resulting savings with their workers.”

Read more here.

The following article, “Key elections to watch in 2025” by 538’s Geoffrey Skelley is cross-posted from abcnews.go.com:

The 2024 election may be over, but the electoral hamster wheel will keep on spinning in 2025. In the past, elections that occur the year after a presidential race have often presented opportunities for the party that lost the White House to make gains or hold onto power in places it already controls, and 2025 is no different.

Statewide races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey sit at the top of the 2025 marquee, and Democrats and Republicans, respectively, will hope that recent trends in those states point to success this fall. Meanwhile, Wisconsin will host a race that will determine whether liberals or conservatives control the state’s highly contested Supreme Court. Millions of other voters will also decide on the next mayors of their cities, including the country’s largest city, New York. Lastly, we can already anticipate at least three special elections in the House. Here then is an early look at what’s to come now that the calendar has turned to January.

State elections

Virginia

Virginia’s gubernatorial elections are unique because the Old Dominion is the only state that prevents incumbent governors from seeking immediate reelection. As a result, these races are always open-seat contests that test each party’s strength just a year after the presidential contest — which has usually benefited the party not in the White House. Dating back to 1977, that party has won all but one of 12 gubernatorial contests in the state, with Democrats’ narrow win in 2013 serving as the lone exception. And in each of those contests, the national opposition party has gained ground relative to its statewide performance in the presidential election a year earlier.

Media coverage of the outcome of the 2024 presidential election does not point to a good year for women in politics. Despite widespread anger about the Dobbs decision, Kamala Harris was defeated, while Trump won a healthy majority of male voters. But Harris did win the votes of women by a margin of 10 percentage points, vs. 13 for Hillary Clinton and 15 percent of Biden. However, Harris lost white women voters by a margin of 5 percent.

Looking at the 2024 elections in general, it was a pretty good year for women in politics. As Simone Pathe, Renee Rigdon and Arit John write in “Fewer women will serve on Capitol Hill, but they’re setting new records in the states” at CNN Politics,

While Vice President Kamala Harris fell short of the Oval Office, women in executive office are setting a record – with 13 female governors set to serve in 2025 after the election of Republican Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire. (President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security, however, could change that.)

Further down the ticket, 2,467 women across the country will serve in state legislatures – more than ever before, according to CAWP. That’s still just about a third of legislators – more than the roughly quarter of Congress that is female – but similarly far short of the 53% of the 2024 electorate that was female.

Further, “94 Democratic women were elected to the House, while 31 Republican women were elected, fewer than the 34 who served on Election Day 2024. Overall, Democratic women far outnumber Republican women in Congress.”

Pathe, Rigdon and John add that “More than half of [state] legislators in Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado will be women, as a result of the 2024 general election. And 12 states are in the range of 40%-50%, nearing equal representation….Women are expected to be about 50% of Democratic state legislators, according to CAWP’s preliminary data, but only about 20% of Republican legislators….Three states will have majority-women legislatures in 2025: Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. All of them have Democratic majorities and, as Dittmar noted, they have state-based programs to recruit and help female candidates.”

Looking toward the next elections, it’s hard to sort out the strategic implications of the way women voted in 2024, other than the conclusion that growing percentages of women in state legislatures should eventually produce increased acceptance of women statewide candidates, which is probably good for Democrats. At the presidential level, Harris came within 1.6 percent of winning the popular vote, close, but still a consolation prize, as long as the Electoral College continues to distort U.S. politics.