From “Voters Think Billionaires Earned Their Wealth Through Exploitation, Not Hard Work‘ at Data for Progress:

This summer, Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire. Yet, in 2025, nearly 2 in 5 Americans could not afford a $400 emergency expense. As the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and voters are recognizing how extreme wealth not only exploits the working class, but also negatively influences politics.

New polling from Data for Progress finds that voters think they are more likely to become homeless than a millionaire or billionaire, and reject the idea that billionaires obtain their wealth through innovation and hard work, instead seeing them as exploitative and a sign of a dysfunctional, anti-working-class economy.

Voters are unfavorable toward both trillionaires (54%) and billionaires (52%), and are closely split on their favorability of millionaires. Voters become more intensely unfavorable as the amount of wealth increases, while positive intensity does not change.

…In a split test, respondents were asked if they think they are personally more likely to become homeless or to become a millionaire (Split A) or a billionaire (Split B).

Around 3 in 5 voters say they are more likely to become homeless than to become a millionaire, including 71% of Democrats, 55% of Independents, and 48% of Republicans.

…Voters are even more likely to say they are closer to homelessness than to becoming a billionaire, including 67% of Democrats, 54% of Independents, and 65% of Republicans…

More here.

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman makes “The Case for a Medicare Buy-In Option” at paulkrugman.substck.com and writes: “Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for Michigan Senate on a platform advocating Medicare for All, aka single-payer health insurance. As I argued Tuesday, this makes a lot of sense in policy terms. Many healthcare experts would choose single-payer if designing a healthcare system from scratch. That’s not a hypothetical: my friend the late Uwe Reinhardt, who taught me much of what I know about healthcare economics, played an important advisory role in creating Taiwan’s highly regarded healthcare system — where he really could start from scratch — and argued successfully for single-payer…Furthermore, as I pointed out Tuesday, the United States is already most of the way to single-payer in terms of dollars spent: the government de facto pays for about two-thirds of health insurance and extensively regulates the rest. Except as providers of supplemental care, there is really no net positive added by private insurers. In fact, for basic health insurance coverge, private insurers are a net negative because they impose excessive administrative costs and often engage in fraudulent overbilling.”

Krugman continues, “The political obstacles to replacing private health insurance with a Medicare-like system are formidable, although arguably less formidable now than they were when Obamacare was created. As I’ll argue shortly, there’s a strong case for a soft transition in which people can choose to be covered by Medicare via a public option. But before I get there, let’s talk about why, in the realm of healthcare, there’s tension between good policy and political realism…Why won’t making the legitimate case that Medicare for All is the best system be enough to win the political argument? The pervasive corruption of our political environment by corporate and right-leaning money is part of the answer. Health insurers may be parasites, but parasites make campaign contributions. Other players will also spend big to fight single-payer. Drug companies, in particular, don’t want to see the U.S., like healthcare systems almost everywhere else in the world, bargain down their prices and reduce their monopoly power. And MAGA is against anything that would improve the health and well-being of average Americans…But it’s not just about money-driven corruption. Ordinary voters are inherently conservative, not in the left-right sense, but because they are understandably wary of change. El-Sayed does a very good job of making the case that most of the 183 million Americans now covered by private insurance would get better coverage under Medicare for All, and would pay less in additional taxes than they now pay in insurance premiums. But expecting most Americans to trust that promise is overoptimistic…Although Americans are extremely negative about what they think the federal government does, however, they are much more positive about what the federal government actually does. And no major government program is as popular as Medicare, which has an 82 percent favorable rating.”

Krugman adds, ” So it may be possible to defuse attacks on a single-payer healthcare system by portraying the plan as more Medicare, not bigger government…However, Americans suffer a disconnect between the general and the specific on the topic of private healthcare insurance. Americans have strongly negative views, verging on hatred, about the insurance industry. Luigi Mangione, who is expected to plead guilty to the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, has become a folk hero in some quarters. Yet 77 percent of Americans with private health insurance report being satisfied with their coverage. So any mandate that moves Americans away from private coverage to a government system they haven’t yet experienced is likely to face stiff resistance…What, then, should Democrats of good will — that is, people who want their fellow citizens to have affordable access to quality healthcare like citizens of every other advanced country — support? Should they call for an all-out effort to implement the best policy – Medicare for All — that is likely to face significant pushback and political roadblocks, albeit unjustified? Or should they settle for a strategy that is likely to involve a more drawn-out process to achieve universal coverage, but is also more likely to turn into reality?…For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that Medicare for All is as unrealistic politically as it was even a decade ago. Americans really do deeply distrust the health insurance industry, and a massive advertising and lobbying campaign by that industry, like the one that helped kill the Clinton health reform in 1993, might well backfire. ”

Krugman concludes, “And the right-wing propaganda apparatus has surely been damaged by its fealty to Trump, which would hamper any attempt to demonize healthcare reform the way the right demonized Obamacare in its early years…That said, a rapid transition to Medicare for All looks unlikely. Bear in mind that such a transition would require higher taxes, so that it would be necessary to persuade people that these taxes would be more than offset by lower premiums. And this would be a hard sell…But there is an alternative: A public option, better described as Medicare Buy-In. Allow individuals, and possibly more important, employers, to sign up for Medicare benefits, paying actuarially fair premiums to Medicare reflecting the health status of their workers. There’s no obvious reason a public option would be any harder to implement than payments to the Medicare Advantage plans offered by private insurers, which are also supposed to be actuarially fair…A healthcare system in which many Americans under 65 buy into Medicare would not immediately deliver all the advantages of full Medicare for All. Some people and employers, despite the disadvantages, might retain private insurance. And some people, who currently either choose to be uninsured or fall through the cracks, might remain uninsured. It would lack the clarity of a system in which every citizen knows that they are entitled to care…But it would be far better than what we currently have. Moreover, a system in which private health insurance is a rump industry, covering a dwindling fraction of the population, would be a better starting point for a full transition to universal coverage…So that’s my idea of how we should proceed. But I’m not going to denounce people who want to be more ambitious, to push more quickly for full Medicare for All. For now, the crucial thing is to elect people who really are committed to providing Americans with the healthcare they deserve.”

The following article, “Introducing The Long View with Ruy Teixeira and Michael Baharaeen,” is cross-posted from welcomestack.org. Baharaeen is editor in chief of the Long View and former chief political strategist of the Liberal Patriot. Teixeira is senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, former politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and co-author with John B. Judis of  Where Have All the Democrats Gone?:

“One of the defining features of modern American politics has been nonstop change. Across 12 federal elections since the turn of the century, ten have produced a change in party control of at least one of the House, Senate, or presidency. By comparison, just six of the prior 20 elections produced any change at all. And after three back-to-back, two-term presidencies between 1992 and 2016, each of the last three elections has ended with a new winner.

A series of major events and disruptions to daily life has further hastened the political instability of this era. The “forever wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed the 9/11 attacks and the financial crisis led trust in government to crater. Massive technological changes gave us new filters through which to see the world and others in it, helping to precipitate popular uprisings and social movements but also generating growing estrangement from our fellow citizens, worsening political and cultural polarization and tribalism, and a crisis of shared epistemology. The Covid pandemic exacerbated all of this.

The consequences have been grim. Americans have grown less trusting of their institutions and each other. Politics, increasingly informed by cultural attitudes, has become a more salient part of many people’s identities. The two parties have each become more ideologically homogenous, more tribe-like. All this has put even greater pressure on the country’s political system. Fewer people trust election results or view their political opponents as legitimate. Meanwhile, growing numbers believe election outcomes matter “a great deal” and that the other “side” represents a threat to their values and way of life. (And dissent or criticism from one’s own side is rarely considered cause for self-reflection and instead often viewed as heresy.)

As the political stakes have risen, America’s two parties have become myopic, rarely looking more than two years ahead at any given time because the next election is always “the most important of our lifetime.” This has created bad incentives for them and their supporters. Republicans, who currently control both chambers of Congress and the presidency and have an ideological majority on the Supreme Court, have won the latest battles. Yet their embrace of Donald Trump and MAGA, who practice a deliberate politics of division rather than addition, has turned off a generation of young people—especially young women—who may never vote for them.

Democrats, meanwhile, made clear that they are okay with shedding the support of more culturally conservative (or even moderate) white working-class voters—many of whom had voted for Obama, twice—in exchange for a new base that is more affluent, educated, culturally progressive, and politically active, sometimes called the “Brahmin left.” While this exchange has brought them increased success in lower-turnout, off-year elections, it also contributed to the movement of both the Electoral College and Senate toward Republicans and enabled Trump’s comeback in 2024.

In this environment, it often seems political actors are incapable of seeing the bigger picture and making decisions that are strategically sound. Though some partisans on both sides still understand the wisdom and value of persuasion—of winning converts and meeting voters where they are—many others have concluded that they simply don’t want to build coalitions that include people who might be more sympathetic to some of the other side’s views or policies. They believe those people are suspect, and that closing ranks with other like-minded people will make “our side” stronger.

To be sure, one advantage of these changes is that both parties now have higher floors of support than they once did, as more voters have been polarized into one camp or the other. But the trade-off has been a cap on how large their coalitions can ever really grow. Neither one enjoys landslide victories anymore, and national elections are increasingly decided by the thinnest of margins, raising the stakes of election outcomes. It’s an unstable system in which turnover is constant and majorities are rarely around long enough to affect lasting change.

In essence, we have a “politics without winners.” (In fact, the biggest winners in modern politics are the polarizing forces selling rage bait. To support our work to build something better, please fully join our community by becoming a paid subscriber today.)

But we also know that most Americans disapprove of this type of politics and want a change. They’re exhausted by political tribalism and the two parties’ inability to work together on behalf of the country. As a sign of their displeasure, many have shed party affiliations together: the share of Americans identifying as independents sits today at its highest point ever. This has left fertile ground for either party to build a dominant, enduring electoral majority—if one of them is willing to take the long view of politics.

Which brings us to the purpose of our new publication. Cards on the table: we lean more toward the left side of the spectrum, and much of our analysis and commentary will thus be focused on Democrats and the liberal tradition. In that way this project will serve as something of an intellectual successor to the Liberal Patriot, where both of us previously wrote.

We will also dive into related themes that the two parties—and Americans more broadly—will hopefully find worthwhile, including:

• Politics without winners. The gist of this idea, mentioned above, is that neither Democrats nor Republicans appear at this juncture concerned with doing the hard work of building a broad, ideologically and demographically heterodox coalition capable of winning an era, not just the next election. They are instead more concerned with mollifying their respective bases, staying on the right side of interest groups, and winning with as few members of the “other side” as possible. If neither party is willing to forge a different path, the constant churn of political change will endure for the foreseeable future.
• Structure of the shadow parties. “The groups” (or the “shadow party”) and other forces have taken advantage of weak formal party structures—especially on the Democratic side. Though they are not well-understood, they have immense power in shaping the party’s policy agenda and messaging. Yet, their priorities and views are often at odds with not just the median American but with the very constituencies they purport to represent. If the Democrats hope to reclaim that power for themselves, they must first understand who these groups are and how they have come to play such an influential role in the party.
• The median voter. Though the term has been invoked often enough in some spaces that it has become a punch line, it’s still a good reminder to political elites not to lose sight of what ordinary Americans believe and care about—to be willing to meet them where they are and not get too far out of step with them or tell them that their views are “unacceptable.” We appreciate the sentiment expressed by our friends at Welcome, who saythey “work for the center of the country, not the center of the [Democratic] party.”
• Political moderation. There is a great deal of misunderstanding in American politics surrounding the term “moderate.” Lately, some seem to think it’s simply a synonym for the “establishment.” Others believe it means “landing in the exact middle” or having no real convictions. But it’s actually a guiding framework for ensuring our politics are governed not by the extremes but in between them. The inclusion of political moderates in our parties is important because most Americans themselves are not strong partisans, and it remains vital to have effective guardrails against more extreme factions that would, if given the chance, lurch the country in a direction the overwhelming majority disagree with.
• (De-)polarization. Political divisions have existed in virtually every society ever, and we would never suggest it’s possible or even desirable to completely avoid them. But toxic political and cultural polarization clouds our judgment and makes us more tribal, which in turn stresses our experiment in self-government. The worse these trends grow, the harder it will be to build a healthier politics.
• Patriotism. America has its faults, just like every society throughout history. But it has also done an immense amount of good in the world and made great progress over time toward fulfilling its founding ideals, and it’s important to acknowledge this. However, there is a growing strain of anti-Americanism at home that is not only bad, per se, but unproductive as a way of improving life here. Reformers cannot fix a country they do not love. While reflexive or coerced patriotism is not healthy either, a strong national and civic identity can benefit all citizens.
• Prosperity and growth. Voters have lost faith in the ability of either party to deliver prosperity and growth. Worse still, some prominent figures, particularly on the political left, have questioned whether the goal of growth is even worthwhile. Yet, few things are more important to the average voter than strong economic growth and the opportunities it presents for upward mobility and a prosperous life. As we confront the momentous economic transformation driven by AI, this challenge to the parties will only grow in importance.
• Civic culture. An underrated factor behind America’s political malaise is the decline of shared activities, spaces, and culture. As technological advances have made it easier to live life on screens at home, Americans have been spending less time in groups and more time alone. There are fewer opportunities to truly know our neighbors, making it more likely that our understanding of them will be filtered through the distorted lens of social media. The country desperately needs a revival of its civic institutions to help bring people of different backgrounds together and break down superficial barriers.
• The working class. There has been much debate recently about what it means to be “working class” in America: is it tied to income, education, both, or something else entirely? No matter how one defines it, this cohort clearly has an immense amount of influence on the country’s politics. It is thus worth trying to better understand working-class Americans and their concerns, beliefs, and voting habits.
• The Democratic Party. We have previously written at length about our thoughts on the state of the Democrats, and that will continue in this publication, especially in the lead-up to the 2028 presidential primary. What will the party stand for in the post-Trump era? Who will lead it? Which factions will have the most influence? And are they setting themselves up for long-term success or succumbing to short-term thinking again?

As we write about these themes and more, we will be guided by old-school liberal values. We will maintain a commitment to ideological pluralism, free speech, and civil discourse, and no topic will be off-limits. We will strive to approach our analysis and commentary in a manner that is pragmatic, intellectually curious, and open to a good-faith exchange of ideas. At the same time, we will reject extremism, purity, dogma, and reflexive partisanship. We will also bring a data-driven approach to everything we do, and do our best to engage with information that may contradict or complicate our priors.

For now, The Long View will be a two-year project with Welcome that will go through the final night of the 2028 Democratic National Convention. We hope you will join us as we embark on this new venture.”

Click on the article link in the introductory paragraph to subscribe.

Some excerpts from “The Red Scare Returns to America. This time, though, it is pure farce” by Katherine Stewart at The Contrarian:

“With their party’s popularity in freefall, leading Republicans have identified a new message to unite around. The Democrats, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson, will lead America down “the dark road of death to communism.” President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with religious right leaders such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s spiritual leader Doug Wilson, have made equally histrionic claims. The Red Scare has returned to America, only this time it is pure farce. Still, this is dangerous stuff and will appeal to some voters. The pro-democracy coalition must confront it directly and forcefully.

…Republicans point to the candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America who have won their races — never mind that others have failed. Notwithstanding the presence of some noisy individuals on the fringes whose years-old tweets have received extraordinary amounts of attention, the politics of the Democratic Party remain, on balance, closer to the center than even those modest proposals…it’s about distracting from the current administration’s corruption and incompetence, criminalizing dissent, and laying the groundwork for authoritarianism.

What to do? This is no time for Democrats, progressives, and others in the pro-democracy coalition to return to the familiar defensive crouch. Rather, they must blow the whistle on this effort to distract from the failures and corruption of the worst administration in American history…Welcome to Trump’s America! We are now a country where dear leader and his friends use every lever of government to direct money away from you and into their pockets.

…In America today, we have a Cabinet, with a collective net worth around $7.5 billion, making policy for the benefit of billionaires; we have major AI investors “regulating” AI; and defense contractors overseeing defense contracts (especially when one of the president’s sons is involved). And we have sectors of the corporate world supplying Trump with free legal services, ballrooms, and whatever else he craves at any given moment. The difference between this and state socialism is that, under the Trump administration, profits are privatized while the costs are spread out among the population.

…The fear that powers the Red Scare is just the fear that American might one day become the free, fair, and democratic society that it has always promised to become.”

McCarthyism played out decades ago, and this twisted version will be a tough sell to the centrist Democrats, Independents and swing voters they want to get. It’s hard to see much value added for Republicans here. Voters who would buy into such infantile hysteria while Republicans rob the U.S. treasury blind were probably already set against Democrats. And after all, Trump and his GOP enablers are the ones who support Russia. Expect Republican midterm candidates to squirm like greased snakes when they ‘splain why they oppose giving Ukraine what it has asked for to defend their country against Russia.

From “Samuel Alito gained up to $2.9m from oil and gas assets since joining supreme court, analysis shows” by Dharna Noor at The Guardian: “The supreme court justice Samuel Alito gained up to $2.9m from his fossil fuel interests between 2005 and 2024, a new review of financial disclosures shows…The analysis from the non-profit advocacy group and judicial watchdog Court Accountability, shared exclusively with the Guardian, found that even at the lowest range of estimates, Alito gained almost $400,000 from his oil and gas interests since being tapped for the high court by George W Bush in 2005…The findings come as the supreme court prepares to take up a case in which the oil companies Suncor Energy and Exxon asked the justices to find that federal law prevents subnational governments from filing lawsuits against fossil fuel producers for the climate-warming effects of their products…The supreme court said this month it will hear oral arguments in the case on 5 October, the opening day of its new term. The Trump administration, which is siding with the oil companies, has asked for 10 minutes of argument time. Court Accountability and other groups have called for a Senate committee to investigate Alito, the sole supreme court justice with holdings in energy companies, and said he should recuse himself.” More here.

In”Four takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries in six states,” Maham Javaid writes at NPR.org: “Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Connecticut signaled what the party’s base may want from new leaders: a harder line against President Trump’s immigration crackdown and younger, more progressive nominees, as a 14-term congressman was swept aside by a candidate under 50…On the Republican side, the night tested how far Trump’s endorsement still carries, even with his approval at a second-term low, and the answer was mixed. His endorsements won in some states and stumbled in others…The competitive Democratic Senate race in Minnesota was being looked at as a litmus test deciding if the party has enough spine to effectively oppose Trump’s immigration policies and enforcement operations…With Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s primary win against Rep. Angie Craig Tuesday night, in a race called by the AP, it appears the base wants their party leaders to oppose ICE and Operation Metro Surge, a large-scale immigration enforcement operation launched by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in December 2025 which heavily impacted the Twin Cities and shaped much of this Senate race…For weeks, Francesca Hong, a 37-year-old chef, state lawmaker and democratic socialist, had been leading the polls against David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive and more mainstream candidate, in a state that is purple in presidential elections. But after being locked in a tight race on Tuesday night, Crowley was declared the winner, in a call made by the AP early Wednesday…The tight race, despite Hong’s controversial track record of statements, which included canceling Thanksgiving, and lack of endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders, signals the Democratic base is looking for change…Hong’s high-energy grassroots campaign has been fueled by progressives who are drawn to her unusual background and left-wing politics. She backs Medicare for All and universal childcare, and has called for a moratorium on data centers, a key issue for midterm voters.” More here.

Oren Oppenheim, Gaby Vinick and Diana Paulsen saw it this way in “Primaries key takeaways: A centrist win, questions about Trump endorsement” at ABC News: “Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a centrist Democrat, narrowly won the Democratic primary in a major upset in the race for governor, the Associated Press projects. He defeated Wisconsin assemblywoman Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, in what became a high-stakes test for progressives who pinned their hopes on winning a major party nomination in a crucial battleground state. A former state lawmaker, Crowley pitched himself as the candidate best-positioned to defeat Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, endorsed by President Donald Trump, in November. He campaigned on his executive experience running the state’s most populous county. It’s the final shakeup in what became a messy primary and a major comeback for Crowley, who had quit the race on July 8 as his campaign struggled to gain traction. But with Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez’s exit days later, it set off a scramble for Democrats to coalesce around a moderate opponent to Hong. He rejoined the race on July 17, bolstered by late support from outgoing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers…Crowley’s narrow victory also suggests that division over the party’s direction — and the split over support for progressives or more moderate candidates this midterm cycle — remains ever strong. It follows a handful of electoral victories for progressives in congressional primaries in Colorado and New York and, most recently, in Michigan’s closely-watched Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. Hong branded herself as a fighter for the working class, advocated for universal childcare and called to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She argued voters were ready for “transformational change.” More here.

Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman shared their view of the primaries at The Center for Politics: “Leading up to Election Day, polls showed Hong with a big lead, but Crowley rallied, leading by tenuous margins for much of Election Night before the belated release of Milwaukee’s absentee votes made it clear that Hong had no path to overtake his small lead. What exactly happened with the polls is hard to say: It may be the case that the white progressives who power left-wing candidates are responding to polls at greater rates, which may skew the results even with weighting. Wisconsin, like Michigan, does not have registration by party, so its primaries are open, and figuring out who is going to vote from year to year is a real challenge. This also was, as we just said, a crazy race, and there likely was a lot of change in the closing days. It may have even been the case that progressive Abdul El-Sayed’s (D) victory in the Michigan Senate primary, and subsequent Democratic handwringing about his electability, contributed to a shift toward Crowley in Wisconsin. Aside from the fact that Hong did not run any of her own television ads, the media hits that she did during the final stretch of the campaign did not dispel the notion that she would have been a very risky nominee for Democrats. All in all, the Democratic “establishment” has clearly taken some hits this cycle, but party leaders retain the ability to nudge voters…In what was reminiscent of how Rep. Haley Stevens (D, MI-11), another “establishment” Democratic candidate, held up much better than what her polling suggested last week, Crowley carried a majority of the state’s counties. Both Crowley and Hong carried their home counties, Milwaukee and Dane, respectively, although they each did so by margins that could be called underwhelming…Crowley’s coalition included the city’s Black wards, and he also posted a relatively strong showing in more established and monied neighborhoods along the county’s North Shore. Meanwhile—and in a way similar to how we found the aforementioned El-Sayed held up in Detroit—the pro-Hong coalition showed up in younger, whiter areas of the county as well as the city’s Latino pockets.” More here.

The following article stub by Jennifer Rubin is cross-posted from “How Democrats Win in 2026 and Beyond” at The Contrarian:

Democrats should not wait until Labor Day, the traditional kickoff of the midterm campaign, to pivot and begin sprinting toward November. No one who genuinely cares about the fate of democracy should be kvetching about primary polling (which partisans trolling for donor dollars, but not real voters, obsessively focus upon) or relitigating the relative electability of primary opponents after primaries are decided. (Kudos to Rep. Haley Stevens for fully embracing Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in recognition of the stakes.) Fortunately, a batch of insightful Democrats have stepped forward to offer a pathway to win decisively on a populist economic message with broad-based appeal.

Leading the way, Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico delivered a speech last week that adeptly framed the argument for Democrats:

For fifty years, billionaire mega-donors and puppet politicians have been stealing from the American people. Stealing the wealth we created. With their bribes, their bailouts, and their billionaire tax breaks.

This “affordability crisis” isn’t something that happened in the last five years. This affordability crisis has been fifty years in the making.

Since the late 1970s, mega donors and corporate special interests have been buying politicians in both political parties, and then those politicians turned around and rigged this economy to benefit their wealthy donors at our expense.

We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis.

Pushing back on the notion that Democrats despise capitalism, Talarico makes the case that the far right has destroyed free markets. Corruption, tariffs, and dark money have influenced regulatory favors and tax giveaways, and massive corporate consolidation are the antithesis of a competitive free market that would create wealth for a wide cross-section of Americans.

“[T]he idea behind capitalism was simple and revolutionary: people should get fairly compensated for their labor. We should get paid for our work. But that’s not what we have right now,” he argued. “You can’t tell me the market is working as it should when billionaires are becoming trillionaires — while the people who do all the work can’t afford the basics.” He added, “Adam Smith is rolling over in his grave. This is not capitalism; this is crony capitalism.”

Talarico’s proposed agenda, dubbed the New American Dream, includes raising the minimum wage, expanding overtime, repealing tax cuts for the super-rich, protecting labor organizing, and investing in college and vocational education. He also includes items that genuine fiscal conservatives used to favor — such as reducing the national debt (“closing tax loopholes, cracking down on tax cheats, and ending forever wars that send billions of our tax dollars overseas”) and removing red tape that impedes housing construction.

Talarico’s pro-worker proposals include universal childcare and paid family leave, an expanded child tax credit, and “cracking down on the data centers jacking up our utility bills and using up our water — and preventing new ones from being built unless they meet our demands.” Positions such as these, which legacy media would characterize as “progressive,” and MAGA operatives would denounce as “socialism,” are embraced by super-majorities of Americans. Here is where Talarico adeptly turns MAGA hacks’ rhetoric against them:

They’re going to claim this new dream is radical. They’re going to claim it’s extreme. They’re going to claim we’re socialists, or communists, or whatever sounds scariest in a headline. And we’ll say: Is that the best you can do?

These are the same old scare tactics. The same old politics of the past. The names they’ll call us only reveal how small their dreams are.

More here.

Cassidy’s cave lights up the corrupt heart of the Republican Party for all to see. There are a lot of articles you can read about it. Try “Spineless Republican Gives Jaw-Dropping Reason for Folding to Trump” for starters. Sen. Cassidy had the choice of providing a “profile in courage” his grandkids could one day be proud of. Instead he turned his back on honor and put his political career way ahead of any of the ethical or moral principles that America is supposed to be about. He chose the Hall of Shame that showcases political cowardice. But it’s too easy to blame just him. His entire party, with just a couple of exceptions, now stands well-lit in the bright light of corruption. He is just the emblematic example of all the Republican senators who decided that Todd Blanche, the guy who engineered Ghislaine Maxwell’s transfer to a “country club” prison, was fit to rule over American justice. No doubt Cassidy didn’t want to be the front man for this tawdry drama. It makes you wonder, where is the grimy bottom of the Republican Party? Does it even have one? Many once thought Pam Bondi was as bad the DOJ could get. Somewhere she is breathing a long sigh of relief. The victims in the Epstein files will never cave like the GOP senators. They will continue their fight until a semblance of justice has been achieved. It could take a while. But Epstein enablers and the party that feeds them will not only have to answer to history. They will have to answer to the voters in November. Their short-sighted politics of distraction will not save them then. In just a few short months the bill for Republican corruption comes due.

To add some clarity to what the new A.G. is all about, read “Todd Blanche Wants to Finish What Dobbs Started” by Rachel Rebouche at The Nation. As Rebouche writes, “When the Supreme Court handed down Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade, its defenders insisted the ruling was an act of judicial restraint and a decision that returned the question of abortion to democratic majorities in each state. The United States’ top lawyer, Todd Blanche, apparently has other ideas…On a July 30 conference call hosted by the White House Faith Office —not meant for public ears, though the audio later surfaced on YouTube—the acting attorney general told religious leaders that the administration is working to ensure that the Dobbs decision “becomes permanent in every single state.” He acknowledged that “we don’t have complete victory yet,” but promised the faithful, “Victory will be soon and it will be permanent.”…Blanche seems to have in mind a project that goes far beyond enforcing existing federal law or upholding current state abortion laws. Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department could use the agency as a tool to impose abortion restrictions on all states, even those that protect reproductive rights through their own democratic processes and state Constitutions…The confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general will represent a new facet of the post-Dobbs landscape. The debate over abortion access has been primarily a story of state-level politics: ballot measures, state constitutional amendments, legislative sessions, and court challenges fought state by state and county by county. That landscape could change…” More here.

If you had any doubts about where Republican leadership stood on the data centers issue, you can put them to rest in the wake of President Trump’s recent clarification. As Julia Manchester reports in “Trump: It’s a ‘mistake’ to go against data centers” at The Hill, “President Trump touted what he said were the benefits of data centers in an interview that was published Friday, potentially pitting himself against a number of Republicans and Democrats on the growing issue…“I saw Texas the other day sort of is against data centers. I think it’s a mistake,” Trump told Punchbowl News…“I’m not taking positions,” he continued. “I just think it’s a mistake because there are other communities that want it. When a community wants it, it means a lot of money is going to come into that community.”…“Taxes are going to go way down because this is a tremendous source of income,” the president said…Trump also pushed back on criticism of the data centers, including that they’re unsightly…“I don’t think they’re unsightly. I mean, I’m looking at some of these data centers, the most incredible buildings I’ve ever seen,” the president said…“They are tremendously important for the economics. I mean, this is — for Texas to say no to data centers is a mistake in the sense that it could be bigger than oil,” he said.” More here.

In “The Disintegration of the U.S. Military Under Trump and Beyond,” Mike Lofgren writes at Washington Monthly,  “I have written before that even in a so-called “conventional” conflict at which it is supposed to excel, the U.S. military has serious deficiencies. The Pentagon’s habit of purchasing high-tech weapons that are too expensive, take too long to build, and are too few to be sustained amid normal attrition has left us with a force that will quickly run out of munitions. The ill-advised war against Iran greatly exacerbated this deficiency, confronting the Pentagon with the stark reality that conflict with China would empty the U.S. arsenal in a few days. It also became clear that our military was unprepared to deal with drone warfare: Ukrainian advisors were dispatched to the Persian Gulf to teach Americans the new realities of war…During Trump’s second term, his misuse of the military has accelerated. The employment of the National Guard, and occasionally active-duty military, for policing assistance in American cities has been justified by dubious emergency declarations. Still, the real reason appears to be an impressive show of military force to cow the politicians and citizens of Democratic-run jurisdictions…A meddling president with a history as a fly-by-night developer who stiffs his vendors, tolerates shoddy work if it has surface glitz, and declared six bankruptcies. In his second term, Trump’s fingerprints are all over Pentagon contracting…Trump’s sons have invested in more than a dozen tech startups that received at least $3.2 billion in direct government business (mostly with DOD) and $3.1 billion in future contract options. Five of the firms had never done business with the federal government until the Trumps invested after their father became president—a notable achievement because of the difficulty in qualifying as a first-time federal contractor, particularly with DOD.” More here.

Today, we link to a podcast of TDS contributor Ruy Teixeira’s interview of Dan Wang, Canadian technology analyst and writer, focusing on modern China and author of “Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future.”

One of the big policy questions for the U.S. that emerges among viewers of the interview is, ‘Should America learn from China and build more stuff and have less regulation?” Never mind how just yet. This interview sheds rare light on that possibility and Wang describes what it is like to live in a society that moves fast to get things done.

President Trump and his fellow Republicans frequently stereotype China as a “Communist” country. But China’s edge may owe more to the practical philosophies of Confucius and the Tao than to Marx’s writings. When an American President wants to build something big that puts tens of thousands of people to work, he has to navigate through the caprices of 535 legislators, most of whom are quarrelsome lawyers. We call that ‘democracy.’ China’s President Xi meets with a couple of top aides and the project is launched soon afterwards. But let’s not pretend that these two nations are the only models we have. Scandinavian countries do a pretty good job of combining the best elements of representative and social democracies.

Due to a YouTube glitch, we can’t simply post the video interview here. but you can watch it on AEI’s web page.

With an incredible number of important things going on in Washington and around the world, the Trump White House is focused on base-pondering nonsense, as I noted at New York. It’s important for Democrats to understand what that means.

While Donald Trump is highly erratic, you can always rely on him pandering to his MAGA base on immigration-related issues. So it’s no surprise that the defeat in the U.S. Supreme Court of his bid to end birthright citizenship didn’t deter him from coming right back to the well on the subject. On Thursday he signed two new executive orders purporting to address abuses in the current immigration system. While his 2025 EO flatly repudiating the automatic right to citizenship of those born in the United States was struck down by the Supreme Court in the Trump v. Barbara decision on June 30, the new orders appear to nibble around the edges of the issue, as the Associated Press explains:

“[The first order]  was narrower in scope than the previous one shot down by the Supreme Court and appeared to focus on restricting automatic citizenship to specific categories of people, including children born to adults with connections to foreign embassies or organizations as well as anyone considered an “alien enemy” of the United States.

“It also aimed to restrict birthright citizenship to anyone whose parents ‘engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship.’

“A second order seeks to curb what Trump called ‘birth tourism’ by increasing restrictions on visitors to the U.S. who want to obtain visas to give birth while in the country.”

The number of people ostensibly affected by these orders is pretty limited, notes the Washington Post:

“The new orders were certain to face legal challenges, and if they survive, would affect far fewer people than the original. An estimated 15 million undocumented immigrants live in the U.S., while only a few thousand people are foreign lobbyists registered with the Justice Department.

“No significant populations of U.S. residents are designated as alien enemies or foreign terrorists, making that provision largely symbolic. The administration faces ongoing litigation over whether it can deport alleged gang members by treating them as alien enemies. …

“There is no official data on ‘birth tourism.’ In 2024, fewer than 10,000 babies were born in the U.S. to people with foreign addresses, out of 3.6 million total live births, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.”

When Trump announced the new orders Stephen Miller was on hand to offer some demagogic thoughts about “birth tourism,” a concept that fits in well with the presidential aide’s notorious subscription to conspiracy theories about immigrant efforts to rob American blind while rigging elections, as the BBC reported:

“’The idea (is) that people come here pretending to be a tourist, pretending to be a visitor,’ Stephen Miller, homeland security advisor and White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said while standing beside the president on Thursday.

“’But the real reason they’re here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen, (to) leave our country and then have a US citizen child,’ he said, adding that those children then gain access to welfare benefits, the voting booth, and ‘all the other rights and privileges that belong solely to Americans.'”

While it’s unlikely these orders will ever be successfully enforced, they serve as a pre-midterms reminder to MAGA voters–and everyone else–that the administration hasn’t given up on radically restricting legal immigration even as it carries out the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. It’s as close to the core of Trump’s message and agenda as his related claims that Democrats are regularly stealing elections by deploying the many millions of swarthy illegal voters they’ve lured across the borders by promises of welfare payments and encouragement to commit crimes. Mere Supreme Court decisions won’t stop Trump and Miller from hammering away at this lurid and divisive theme.

From “2026 is turning into a bloodbath for safe-seat House Democrats” by Andrew Solender at Axios: “A half dozen House Democrats in safe districts have lost their primaries so far this election cycle — and many more could soon follow suit…Why it matters: Many of these losses are the result of growing restlessness among the Democratic grassroots that has increasingly morphed into anger towards the party establishment…”I expected a lot of people to run because they didn’t know how to respond to Trump without just being active,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) told Axios…He added: “We’re seeing that and all the primary electorate voting right now.”…Reps. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.)…were all unseated by challengers running to their left…Freshman Rep. Christian Menefee (D-Texas) defeated longtime Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) after the two were drawn into a district together…And Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas) lost her primary to former Rep. Colin Allred…By the numbers: This is one of just four election cycles since 1994 in which at least half a dozen House Democrats have lost their primaries…The other three cycles — 2002, 2012 and 2022 — all came after congressional reapportionment, which often pits incumbent House members against one another…Only one Democratic primary ouster this year — Green’s loss to Menefee — has been the result of mid-decade redistricting…What’s next: Plenty more hurdles await Democratic incumbents, particularly those 70 and older who have had lengthy tenures in Congress…The bottom line: Pocan said the Democratic primary electorate’s anti-incumbency energy is “a good thing ultimately, because people will be ready for November and ready for change.” More here.