The issue that Democrats last year thought might boost them this year has not gone away. One key Senate candidate understands, as I noted at New York:

Enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies benefiting over 20 million Americans expired at the end of last year. It was such a big deal that the need to address it became the principal Democratic rationale for triggering the longest government shutdown in U.S. history last October. It remained a big deal as 2026 arrived: The House actually passed a “clean” three-year extension of the subsidies on January 8, with 17 Republicans joining Democrats on the vote. There were bipartisan negotiations in the Senate to cut a deal that would include some sort of subsidy extension.

Republicans were all over the place on health-care costs more generally. Some tried to change the subject to non-insurance health-care cost issues like pharmaceuticals. Others spoke of some huge conservative health-care overhaul that would be enacted on a party-line vote using budget reconciliation (a sort of One Big Beautiful Bill Act 2.0). On January 15, Donald Trump himself suddenly announced he was unveiling a “Great Healthcare Plan” that turned out to be a hodgepodge of old Republican gimmicks fleshed out with vague promises, with no real plans for legislation.

And then … everyone got distracted, mostly because federal immigration agents conducted a mass-deportation “surge” in Minneapolis that resulted in two deaths, a terrorized city, worldwide outrage, and a partial government shutdown. Even as the two parties in Congress fought over the immigration-enforcement guidelines Democrats were demanding, prospects for any sort of bipartisan action on health care sickened and died, as The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week:

“Top Senate negotiators said an effort to renew expired healthcare subsidies had effectively collapsed, likely ending the hopes of 20 million Americans that the tax-credit expansion could be revived and lower their monthly insurance premiums.

“Talks had centered on a proposal from Sens. Bernie Moreno (R., Ohio) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) to extend a version of the enlarged Affordable Care Act subsidies for at least two years, while cutting off higher-income people from participating and eventually giving enrollees the option of putting money into health savings accounts. It also would eliminate zero-dollar premium plans. But lawmakers from both parties now say the chances of a deal have all but evaporated.

“’It’s effectively over,’ Moreno said Wednesday. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.)—the architect of an adjacent plan—agreed.”

Some conservative Republicans are still talking about a second budget reconciliation bill to repeal and replace Obamacare (the task that famously eluded them during Trump’s first term), but this seems extremely unlikely given the fragile nature of GOP control of the House, obvious intraparty divisions over the substance of health-care policy, and the universal preoccupation with the midterms.

Speaking of the midterms, every day that goes by without action on the aftermath of the Obamacare subsidy lapse, it becomes an even more potent campaign issue for Democrats. One Democratic senator whose reelection in November is critical to his party’s hopes of flipping the Senate, Jon Ossoff, has made it his principal campaign issue. It’s pretty clear why he’s focused on the issue. Georgia, like other red states that rejected the Affordable Care Act’s optional Medicaid expansion, is a place where reliance on private health-insurance markets that go under the name of Obamacare is especially important. About 1.5 million Georgians, or 13 percent of the state’s population, obtained health insurance via Obamacare in 2025. Facing premium hikes, that number has dropped by 200,000 in 2026 so far. And those sticking with their policies are paying premium increases averaging 75 percent over last year’s costs. Ossoff talks about this problem constantly:

“‘If we don’t extend these tax credits, it’s projected that half-a-million Georgians will lose their health insurance altogether,’ Ossoff said [in early January]. ‘More than a million Georgians will see their health insurance premiums double, in some cases triple.’

“’I challenge all of my opponents today … to make clear where they stand,’ Ossoff said. ‘This is not a time for vague promises and political talking points. Do my opponents support throwing half-a-million Georgians off their health insruance? … I think it’s a very straightforward policy and moral question.’”

Ossoff is taking advantage of the fact that three major Republicans who are competing in a tight race to oppose him in November — congressmen Buddy Carter and Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley — want to discuss almost anything else. Carter and Collins voted against the subsidy extension, and Dooley has no known position. As they compete for a potentially decisive Trump endorsement for their May primary (with a June runoff quite likely), they are not about to go out on any limbs on health care, particularly if it involves continuing what Trump calls the Unaffordable Care Act.

While the issue is particularly acute in Georgia, it will be a point of contention in campaigns everywhere, particularly if Trump and the GOP continue to ignore it or make vague promises to do something about health-care costs some other day in some other ways. Health-care policy has been a political albatross for Republicans for many years, and this looks like one year it could weigh on them heavily.

From “How to Deter Trump From Rigging and Overturning the Midterm Election” by Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect:

The good news about Donald Trump’s efforts to take control of the upcoming election is that the legal changes he’s seeking to make won’t get through the Congress. The bad news is that his illegal efforts might succeed.

When Trump first raised the topic on a podcast over the weekend, his own press secretary felt compelled to say he was only referring to his support for the SAVE Act, now pending before Congress, which would require a raft of documentation from those trying to register to vote. Given the 60-vote threshold that the bill will run up against in the Senate, however, the nation will be saved from SAVE by Democratic opposition.

Similarly, Trump has no legal authority to get states to send him their voter rolls, which he fairly lusts after so he can strike likely Democratic voters from these lists. That absence of legal authority was rather glaringly revealed last week when Attorney General Pam Bondi offered Minnesota a deal: If the state just forked over its rolls, she hinted that the administration might just withdraw its ICE and Border Patrol goons. No administration action has revealed so starkly as Bondi’s ploy the fear Trump harbors about the coming election, and the absence of legal channels available to him to rig or curtail it.

As we’ve seen in Atlanta over the weekend, Trump can use the FBI to try to seize ballots, though he’s being sued by local government officials over that action. Come November, he could, I suppose, send in the feds to stop the vote counting in Democratic cities (and keep in mind that virtually every large American city is heavily Democratic). The problem with that is that if an urban county can’t certify its votes, neither can the state in which it’s located certify its votes. Impounding the ballots in, say, Harris County (Houston and its suburbs) means that Texas can’t certify its statewide election results for senator, governor, and its members of Congress and the legislature. Trump would probably be fine with that if he’d interceded in so many states that the new Congress couldn’t convene, but it’s hard to imagine that Republican elected officials would feel the same way.

More here.

There is a pundit consensus that, absent any political earthquakes in the coming months, Democrats are favored to win a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and with it, the speakership. The U.S. Senate, however, is a tougher call, with the smart money betting on Republicans holding their majority, according to Kyle Kondik at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. As Kondik, explains, “The 2026 midterm may once again be a “Blue Wave,” as we saw in 2018, Donald Trump’s first midterm as president…But that environment wasn’t enough for Democrats to win the Senate that year, and it may not be in 2026, either…While Democrats have made progress over the course of the last year in positioning themselves to compete in enough Republican-held seats to win the majority, the GOP nonetheless remains favored to hold that majority…The basic asset for Republicans, and problem for Democrats, is the structure of the Senate map. With Republicans having knocked out all of the remaining Democrats from states that voted for Donald Trump all three times he was on the ballot—a group of 25 states that accounts for half of all the Senate seats—Democrats either have to start winning in redder states again or, over time, essentially sweep all of the Senate seats in blue and purple states…Despite Republicans defending 22 of the 35 seats being contested this November, only a pair of those are in states where Democrats are currently very competitive: Maine, which consistently votes Democratic for president but also has the only Republican senator from a Kamala Harris-won state, Susan Collins; and North Carolina, which consistently votes Republican for president but often elects Democrats in other statewide races. Meanwhile, Democrats have to defend a couple of Trump-won states, namely an open seat in Michigan and the Georgia seat held by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D). We are upgrading Ossoff’s race to Leans Democratic—more on that below—but these other three races remain Toss-ups. Holding Georgia along with all of their other seats and flipping Maine and North Carolina would get Democrats to 49 seats—still two short of the 51 they need for a majority. Democrats have attracted credible recruits in additional, Republican-held seats, most notably Alaska and Ohio, but they may just run into a red wall even if the political conditions are very favorable in November.”

Here’s the U.S. Senate race midterm map, according to Kondik:

Jennifer Rubin explains “Why Dems Should Force Kristi Noem Out: Keep the momentum going,” and writes at The Contrarian: “Creating a record, presenting the evidence through credible witnesses, and forcing Republicans to defend the indefensible (just as the original videos of the killings did) are part and parcel of rallying the people, throwing Republicans on defense, splitting the Republican cult, and, candidly, throwing Trump’s party and underlings into panic that others could also face Noem’s fate…From a purely political standpoint, the calls for her to quit are already sowing divisions among Republicans. “Sens. Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign Tuesday, making them the first Republicans in Congress to say she should step down,” NBC reported. And, to boot, Tillis called out Miller for the same treatment. (“GOP Sen. Thom Tillis on Stephen Miller: ‘Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence,’ he said, later adding, ‘I can tell you, if I were president, neither one of them would be in Washington right now,’ also referring to Noem.”) Squeeze Noem and watch her drop the dime on others, including other Cabinet members, Vice President JD Vance, and Trump…By making Noem’s ouster a necessary but not sufficient condition of dismantling Trump’s police state, Democrats should also force Republicans up for reelection (e.g., Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, John Husted of Ohio, and John Cornyn of Texas) to justify why they are covering for her (and Trump). That should make for some effective debate moments…Finally, without the White House or majorities in either chamber of Congress, Democrats do not have a surplus of “wins” to tout. To reassure the base that elected Democrats are fighting for them and to encourage protestors to achieve progress through nonviolent action, a win of this magnitude — knocking out a Cabinet secretary in charge of arguably the most important domestic initiative of Trump’s second term — would be an invaluable sign of momentum. And for a regime that survives on the aura of invincibility, each stumble, loss, and scandal should be treasured.” More here.

If Trump’s self-dealing and corruption is going to be a concern for midterm voters, then this article should be a must-read for Democratic campaigns. David D. Kirkpatrick reports that “Trump’s Profiteering Hits $4 Billion: In August, I reported that the President and his family had made $3.4 billion by leveraging his position. After his first year back in office, the number has ballooned” at The New Yorker. Here’s the lede: “At the start of Donald Trump’s first term, he promised that he and his family would never do anything that might even be “perceived to be exploitive of office of the Presidency.” By contrast, his second term looks rapacious. He and members of his family have signed a blitz of foreign mega-deals shadowed by conflicts of interest, and they’ve launched at least five different cryptocurrency enterprises, all of which leverage Trump’s status as President to lure buyers or investors. Ethics watchdogs say that no other President has ever so nakedly exploited his position, or on such a scale. Trump recently explained to the Times why he cast aside his former restraint: “I found out that nobody cared.” You can read the rest of the story by signing up for a free New Yorker newsletter right here.

I certainly don’t make a habit of criticizing congressional Democrats, who have an especially difficult job right now. But their handling of the crisis over immigration enforcement really struck me as misguided, and I said so at New York:

A brief but loud partial shutdown of the federal government ended yesterday when just enough House Democrats joined Republicans in approving appropriations for a host of major departments, along with a ten-day stopgap spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security. Now, supposedly, the two parties will negotiate over the rules governing the immigration-enforcement activities DHS supervises, particularly through its lethal ICE and Border Patrol agents.

But nobody believes these negotiations will go anywhere. Here’s how Punchbowl News puts it:

“Is there any agreement that Republicans and Democrats could reach that makes some progress but leaves everyone a bit disappointed?

“Probably not.” 

Politico reports there’s “broad Republican opposition” to the kinds of restrictions on ICE that Senate Democrats have already proposed, which are themselves considered weak tea by many progressive Democrats, not to mention the grassroots activists who want ICE closed down forever. Meanwhile, there’s steadily increasing pressure in the GOP ranks to counter Democratic demands with proposals to crack down on “sanctuary cities” or to impose vast new “show your papers” requirements on people who want to vote in November to address imaginary widespread noncitizen voting.

If, as appears very likely, negotiations on immigration enforcement go nowhere or even go backwards by February 13, when the continuing resolution for DHS runs out, what then? Republicans are talking about another short-term CR, or even one that runs until October. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is saying “hell no” to that, and again, Punchbowl News reports there is “zero chance” of Senate Democrats supplying enough votes to just fund DHS under present levels until the end of the year. And in the meantime, MAGA Republicans will be tempted to sabotage any accommodation by attaching nativist poison pills to any DHS continuing resolution.

What all this means is that the partial government shutdown that ended yesterday will soon morph into just a DHS shutdown, while the two parties shout past each other about ICE and sanctuary cities. This will, it’s important to understand, have no effect whatsoever on immigration enforcement. ICE and the Border Patrol have access to an immense slush fund created by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which means that absent new legislation restricting their operations, they are free to continue their brutal treatment of immigrants and protesters. The brunt of a DHS shutdown will fall entirely on parts of other parts of DHS like FEMA, TSA, and the U.S. Coast Guard, all of which perform vital services unrelated to immigration enforcement. In that very likely scenario, Democrats will have achieved less than nothing from their decision to use appropriations to block or reform ICE.

It may perhaps be protested that Democrats have drawn new and powerful attention to the abuses of power being exercised by masked agents on the orders of Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem. But in truth, the whole world was already watching the terrible scenes from Minneapolis thanks to the courage of observers who recorded every nanosecond of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and of protesters around the world who made sure we didn’t avert our eyes. All congressional Democrats have done is to rush to the front of the parade of protesters and pretend they were doing something to stop the assault on Minneapolis. Perhaps continued public outrage and the likelihood of midterm-election consequences will convince the Trump administration to get a grip on its thugs and even ramp down mass deportation to less disruptive levels. But congressional Democrats will have little or nothing to do with it.

It’s hard for politicians to admit their powerlessness or acknowledge that empty gestures of defiance really do nothing to “stop Trump.” After the midterms, they may have the real ability to force changes of policy on the tyrant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But for now, congressional Democrats are just noisy bystanders. They should recognize their limited role in the resistance to Trumpism and act more strategically.

New York Times essayist Thomas B. Edsall proposes a “Project 2028” for Democrats, which he describes as “an outline of items in a hypothetical 2028 Democratic Party platform designed to restore the party’s appeal to centrist working- and middle-class voters.” Edsall adds, “My suggestions are subject to challenge and dispute, and as usual, I have sought out comments from strategists and political experts. In the expectation that this will turn out to be a more-than-one-column project, I welcome comments, critiques and suggestions from readers. What did I miss? What did I overemphasize?”

Here’s an excerpt of Edsall’s opinion essay:

Mission Statement

The Democratic Party is committed to equality of opportunity and to democratic, competitive markets in which discrimination by race, creed, sex or ethnicity is prohibited and the chance to get ahead is broadly shared.

The party’s focus will be on supporting the aspirations of working men and women rather than privileging the interests of those who have accumulated extraordinary wealth through market power, inheritance or political influence.

The Democratic Party believes government has a substantial obligation to secure this equality through access to education, housing, public safety and protection from poverty, especially in childhood.

The party rejects a politics that seeks to guarantee equality of outcomes, which risks undermining growth, productivity, innovation and beneficial competition.

The party believes that economic growth is essential to the maintenance of public support for policies promoting fairness, equality, better schools and more housing.

The party is committed to ensuring an equal chance for all people to succeed to the best of their ability while making sure everyone who wants to work can get a job that pays enough to live a secure, middle-class life.

The Democratic Party welcomes proposals to better the lives and opportunities of Americans, particularly the working and middle classes, from all sources, regardless of ideology or party affiliation, including Republicans.

Here, for example, is what Edsall suggests via “Sex and Genders”:

The Democratic Party recognizes the legal and policy precedence of biological sex in certain contexts. Transgender Americans should not, however, face discrimination in employment, education, housing or public life, and they should be free to live in accordance with their gender identity, including their choice of names, dress and pronouns.

At the same time, in settings where physical differences materially affect fairness, safety or privacy — such as competitive sports and certain custodial settings — the party believes policy should be grounded in biological sex.

Edsall includes some critical comments from issue experts, including William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a former deputy assistant to President Bill Clinton for domestic policy, who writes:

While every American should have access to quality, affordable health care as a matter of right, Democrats understand that achieving this goal will require major changes in the current health care system, including increasing the number of pediatricians, gerontologists and primary care doctors while expanding access to community-based clinics.

We encourage all large businesses to make on-site health care available to their employees. We will attack all aspects of the current system — including excessive concentration, counterproductive regulations and distorted government payment schedules — that raise costs and diminish access to basic care.

More here.

From “A closer look at Americans’ views on ICE” by Aaron Blake at CNN Politics: “The White House and Congress have begun what appear to be earnest negotiations over reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the aftermath of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis…And a couple new surveys conducted both before and after Pretti’s death add some interesting data points to the debate…It’s well-established by now that Americans have largely turned against ICE, with about 6 in 10 disapproving of it and saying it’s gone “too far” or been “too tough.”…But a Fox News poll and a Pew Research Center poll dig a little deeper on a few key points…1. Independents don’t agree with Trump on local police helping ICE..For one, the Fox poll released this week suggests an argument made by Trump and others – that local officials are to blame for the chaos because of their lack of cooperation with ICE – is unlikely to fly with Americans…Trump warned Wednesday that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was “playing with fire” by not using local police to enforce federal immigration laws…White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have “shamefully blocked local and state police from cooperating with ICE, actively inhibiting efforts to arrest violent criminals.”…Vice President JD Vance added last week: “If we have a little cooperation from local and state officials, I think the chaos would go way down in this community.” But Americans aren’t sure this is what’s called for…The Fox poll asked registered voters whether they favored or opposed “requiring local governments to cooperate with ICE.”…Voters were about evenly split, with 49% in favor and 50% opposed. But independents opposed this idea by a wide margin, 64%-34%…(And that’s to say nothing of the fact that Minneapolis police are actually legally barred from doing what Trump wants.)…”

Blake continues, “2. Americans seem to misunderstand the scope of ICE’s actions…There is one aspect of Trump’s messaging that does appear to be breaking through, though…The Fox poll shows a majority of registered voters think that ICE’s actions reflect Trump’s promises to target people with criminal records either “almost always” (29%) or “most of the time” (25%)…That suggests that most Americans think this is indeed mostly about criminals…But it’s not – or at least, not anymore…The most recent data from the Deportation Data Project at the University of California Berkeley shows that the vast majority of non-citizens arrested by ICE had no criminal convictions, as of data through mid-October. (The percentage of non-criminals targeted has generally increased over Trump’s second term.)…Many others had pending charges. But a New York Times analysis last month found that major enforcement operations focused on specific areas tended to key on people who hadn’t even faced charges. In Washington, DC, 84% had never been charged with a crime. That percentage was 57% in Los Angeles; 63% in Massachusetts; and 66% in Illinois…We don’t have data on Minneapolis yet, but it stands to reason that the numbers look somewhat similar there…The difference between Americans’ perception of the immigration crackdown and what the statistics bear out suggests their already- negative opinions of ICE could worsen further…After all, Americans’ support for deportations drops significantly when the person in question hasn’t committed a crime.”

Blake adds, “3. Americans are good with recording ICE; they don’t like ICE wearing masks…Pew, meanwhile, tested how people feel about some of the things they’re seeing from both federal agents and the protesters in Minneapolis…Americans, by and large, seem to be okay with many of the protesters’ tactics. About three-quarters (74%) said it’s acceptable to record video of agents making arrests. And 59% said it’s even okay to share information on where arrests are happening, which protesters often signal through whistles…As for ICE’s tactics, Americans don’t like them as much…Nearly three-quarters (72%) said it’s unacceptable to use a person’s looks or the language they speak as a reason to check their immigration status. (Some videos from Minneapolis show agents mentioning the accent of the person they’re stopping.) And Americans say 61%-38% that it’s unacceptable for immigration agents to wear face covering to hide their identities on the job…The latter issue is one area where Democrats are demanding reform in the current negotiations. Trump and administration officials have said it’s necessary to avoid the agents being doxxed…Expect that to be one of the major flashpoints in this debate.” More here.

Alex Nguyễn reports that “Texas Democrat Flips State Senate District That Trump Won by 17 Points” at Mother Jones: “A Democrat and union leader won a special election on Saturday to represent a Texas state Senate district that Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024… GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called the result, a 57-43 victory for Taylor Rehmet, “a wake-up call for Republicans across Texas” in an early Sunday post on X. Republicans currently hold every statewide elected office in Texas…“Our voters cannot take anything for granted,” Patrick continued, calling out low voter turnout in special elections…Rehmet, an Air Force veteran and the leader of his local machinist’s union, spent $242,174—nearly 10 times less than Wambsganss—according to campaign finance reports reviewed by Fort Worth Report…“It’s clear as day that this disastrous Republican agenda is hurting working families in Texas and across the country, which is why voters in red, blue, and purple districts are putting their faith in candidates like Taylor Rehmet,” Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement. “This overperformance is a warning sign to Republicans across the country.”…According to the Texas Tribune, Patrick gave $300,000 to the campaign of Rehmet’s opponent, Leigh Wambsganss, through his PAC, Texas Senate Leadership Fund. Trump also posted multiple get-out-the-vote messages on behalf of Wambsganss on Truth Social in the days leading up to the election… Rehmet, an Air Force veteran and the leader of his local machinist’s union, spent $242,174—nearly 10 times less than Wambsganss—according to campaign finance reports reviewed by Fort Worth Report… “It’s clear as day that this disastrous Republican agenda is hurting working families in Texas and across the country, which is why voters in red, blue, and purple districts are putting their faith in candidates like Taylor Rehmet,” Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement. “This overperformance is a warning sign to Republicans across the country.” More here.

The following article, “Seven Principles for a 21st Century Left” by Ruy Teixeira, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of major works of political analysis, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Recently I argued that the left’s 21st century project has failed. After the era of social democracy sputtered out at the end of the 20^th century, the left embarked on a new project they hoped would remedy the weaknesses evident at century’s end and inaugurate a new era of political and governance success. We are now a quarter of the way through the 21^st century, which has witnessed both a genuine “crisis of capitalism” (the Great Recession of 2007-09) and the systemic breakdown of the COVID era (2020-22). Enough time has gone by to render a judgement: despite ample opportunity to advance their cause, the left’s 21^st century project has failed and failed badly.

Consider:

• It has failed to stop the rise of right populism.
• It has failed to create durable electoral majorities.
• It has failed to achieve broad social hegemony.
• It has failed to retain its working-class base.
• It has failed to promote social order.
• It has failed to practice effective governance.
• It has failed to jump-start rapid economic growth.
• It has failed to generate optimism about the future.

Of course, the project hasn’t been a complete failure. Left parties, including the Democratic Party, have succeeded in building strong bases among the educated and professional classes and, if they have lacked broad social hegemony, they have generally controlled the commanding heights of cultural production. As a result they have mostly set the terms of “respectable” discourse in elite circles.

But that’s pretty weak beer compared to all those massive failures and the heady aspirations of those who presume to be on “the right side of history.” Most on the left would prefer to believe that the left’s 21^st century project is basically sound and just needs a few tweaks. This is whistling past the graveyard. After a quarter century, it is time to face the facts: the project is simply not fit for purpose and needs to be jettisoned.

By that I don’t mean that parties of the left cannot win elections. They have, and they will! Already, Democrats look well-positioned to take back the House in 2026, and they even have an outside shot at taking the Senate. And if the unpopularity and poor results of the Trump administration continue into 2028, they’ll certainly have a solid chance of recapturing the presidency three years from now.

But a continuation of the electoral see-saw between Democrats and Republicans is not what the left should have in mind. It has been and would be little more than a holding action against right populism. Taking advantage of the thermostatic reactionagainst your opponents’ overreach and failure to manage the economy effectively is a very low bar—especially given how egregiously flawed that opponent is. It would hardly indicate a revival of the left and a new political project to replace the one that has limped along for a quarter of a century. Rebuilding the left’s base among the working class and forging a durable majority coalition will require a genuinely new project based on core principles that break with the failures of the past.

Those principles should be based on the fundamental fact that the left has lost touch with baseline realities of how to reach ordinary working-class voters, what policies could actually deliver what these voters want, and what kind of politics accords with these voters’ common sense rather than the biases of their own base. The left needs to course-correct toward realism to give themselves a serious chance of decisively defeating right populism and achieving the good society they claim they are committed to.

With that in mind, here are seven core principles a serious 21^st century left must embrace for long-term success.

Energy realism. This is an important one. As I have noted, the left has spent the first quarter of the 21^st century obsessed with the threat of climate change and the need to rapidly replace fossil fuels with renewables (wind and solar) to stave off the apocalypse. In their quest to meet arbitrary net zero targets, they have made this transition a central policy goal and structured much of their economic program around this.

A dubious crusade to begin with, albeit much beloved among their Brahmin left base, the wheels are now coming off the bus. A recent article by Tom Fairless and Max Colchester in the Wall Street Journal summarized the European situation:

European politicians pitched the continent’s green transition to voters as a win-win: Citizens would benefit from green jobs and cheap, abundant solar and wind energy alongside a sharp reduction in carbon emissions.

Nearly two decades on, the promise has largely proved costly for consumers and damaging for the economy.

Europe has succeeded in slashing carbon emissions more than any other region—by 30 percent from 2005 levels, compared with a 17 percent drop for the U.S. But along the way, the rush to renewables has helped drive up electricity prices in much of the continent.

Germany now has the highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world, while the U.K. has the highest industrial electricity rates, according to a basket of 28 major economies analyzed by the International Energy Agency. Italy isn’t far behind. Average electricity prices for heavy industries in the European Union remain roughly twice those in the U.S. and 50 percent above China. Energy prices have also grown more volatile as the share of renewables increased.

It is crippling industry and hobbling Europe’s ability to attract key economic drivers like artificial intelligence, which requires cheap and abundant electricity. The shift is also adding to a cost-of-living shock for consumers that is fueling support for antiestablishment parties, which portray the green transition as an elite project that harms workers, most consumers and regions.

Such have been the wages of the green transition. No wonder countries around the world are increasingly reluctant to sign on to getting rid of fossil fuels, as shown by results of the recent COP30 deliberations. Projections from McKinsey, the International Energy Agency, and so on now see strong fossil fuel demand through 2050, with these energy sources not zeroed out but rather providing close to or an outright majority of the world’s primary energy consumption. Indeed, based on recent trends, these projections are, if anything, too optimistic about how fast the fossil fuel share will decline from its current 81 percent level.

These realities, plus awareness of the importance of development to poor countries, have led even erstwhile climate warrior Bill Gates to remark:

[C]limate change…will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will…thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future….[F]or the vast majority of [poor people in the world] it will not be the only or even the biggest threat to their lives and welfare. The biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.

When Bill Gates starts sounding like Bjorn Lomborg, you know things are really changing!

Here in the United States the relative strength and copious energy resources of our economy, plus somewhat more modest policies, have spared us from the worst that has befallen Europe. But the direction of change is clear. Even during the green-oriented Biden administration, domestic oil and gas production hit record levels. It is unlikely with AI data centers juicing energy demand that this upward trend will be reversed.

Meanwhile, Trump has gotten rid of subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicles, which were never popular, and a pragmatic public simply does not care. They have always favored an all-of-the-above energy policy, very much including fossil fuels, and do not see climate change as the existential, overriding issue that has preoccupied the activist left.

What they do care about is cheap, abundant, reliable energy, and the same could be said about American industry. The recent vogue for “affordability” rather than strenuous climate change rhetoric among Democrats indicates that the left is starting to wake up on this issue. But name-checking affordability falls far short of fully embracing energy realism and all that would entail.

Read more…

I took a look at Senator Amy Klobuchar’s announcement video for her gubernatorial run, and found a lot to like, which I noted at New York:

Many millions of eyes are on Minneapolis this week as the city, the state, and indeed the nation try to cope with the violence unleashed by a federal immigration-enforcement “surge” that has taken the lives of two U.S. citizens and created a huge backlash against the Trump administration’s mass-deportation initiative. Now Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar is stepping into that maelstrom and a very bright spotlight. The veteran legislator and onetime presidential candidate announced she’s running for governor this year. If she wins (and she will be a strong favorite), Klobuchar will succeed embattled two-term governor Tim Walz, the normie progressive icon who’s had a very tough 2026 already and recently decided to fold his planned bid for a third term.

It’s not just the ICE invasion of Minnesota that Klobucher will be asked to deal with as a gubernatorial candidate. Her position in the Senate (which she does not intend to resign during the campaign) means she has an enormous stake in securing legislation to rein in the abuses of law-enforcement authority so evident in her state and in ensuring the disastrous “surge” isn’t repeated there anytime soon. But she also has to cope with a very real (if exaggerated) child-care-fraud scandal that served as the pretext for the “surge” and fed Trump’s racist argument that inherently criminal immigrants are fleecing the American welfare state for benefits as Democrats stand by with approval or indifference.

Klobucher is relying on her history as a county prosecutor and her reputation as a “centrist” figure in Washington to make the case that she’s what Minnesota needs to deal with both the federal invasion and the local fraud scandal. Her campaign launch video’s relentless message is that she knows how to “stand up for what’s right and fix what’s wrong.”

More specifically, Klobuchar is calling for an end to ICE deployments in Minnesota. But she’s also pledging to “make sure the people who steal taxpayer money go to jail, and root out fraud by changing the way state government works.” She may be a Washington insider after 18 years in the Senate, but she’s an outsider when it comes to the current problems in St. Paul. Republicans, of course, will tie her to old friends and acquaintances back home and to non-centrist Democratic politicians like the Squad’s Ilhan Omar and State Attorney General Keith Ellison. But she gives Democrats a fresh political start in a state where they already have many advantages. And Klobuchar also has some demonstrated political chops: In 2024, she ran five points ahead of Kamala Harris and won 12 counties carried by Donald Trump.

Until she took this step, Klobuchar was on some lists of potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates. Does running for governor this year enhance or demolish such prospects? You could make the argument that being a governor is a far better platform from which to run for president at present, particularly for a politician who prides herself on “getting things done.” But on the other hand, dealing with the situation in Minnesota could take some serious time, particularly given the current close division of the state’s legislature and the partisan furies so evident on the streets of Minneapolis. Running for president is not something you can do part time or half-hearted. Besides, Klobuchar could very well be pressured to rule out a presidential run during her current campaign. Since she’s 65, she could (according to current standards) run in 2032, assuming everything goes well with a gubernatorial tenure and the job at the White House is available. But realistically, she’s probably giving up presidential dreams in the face of such big challenges back home.

Many Minnesota Democrats will likely be grateful to Amy Klobucher for joining this gubernatorial race. Her famous temper could even help her convey righteous indignation over what the Trump administration has been doing to her state. If she can continue to strike the right balance between promises to fight Trump and promises to fix fraud as the election year unfolds, she should be on the road to victory.

At The Argument, Lakshya Jain reports that “Trump is losing the working class: A multiracial working-class coalition, if you can keep it,” and writes:

Donald Trump and the Republicans are losing their newest voters at alarmingly fast rates, leading to the rapid emergence of one of the worst political environments Republicans have seen in years.

It’s well-documented that Trump’s winning coalitions were powered by record gains among all types of historically Democratic voters. Among Black, Hispanic, and noncollege voters, Trump made double-digit improvements on the historic Republican margins.

Seems like it’s last in, first out. This coalition is rapidly coming apart at the seams — as I’ve written before for The Argument, the Republican Party is losing support among young, nonwhite, and disengaged voters, as well as male and non-college-educated voters.

But there’s one major underexamined source of discontent: working-class voters.

Despite Donald Trump putting up record GOP numbers with low-income voters, his standing with them is now abysmal, and it is here that he has suffered his biggest losses.

Though Trump is now unpopular with every income bracket, the slippage is especially striking when it comes to the poorest voters. For example, in our dataset, Trump outright won voters who made less than $25,000 in the last presidential election. But his approval with them is now 20 percentage points underwater.

More here.

After the shocking events in Minneapolis in recent weeks, an old debate over the nature of Trump and his MAGA movement has changed, as I pointed out at New York:

For nearly a decade, there has been a recurring debate in center-left intellectual circles about whether you could properly describe Donald Trump, his MAGA movement, and the administrations he has led as “fascist.” Such discussions have accelerated since Trump returned to the White House in 2025 and began stretching the powers of his office to target his many enemies, real and imagined. Hardly anyone in either party would argue that Trump is just a regular, old-school conservative, or that the Republican Party has undergone anything less than a major transformation since he came down that escalator in 2015. But have he and his supporters drifted so far from normal politics as to represent something as sinister and, well, un-American as fascism?

Perhaps the most thorough examination of this question I’ve ever read has just appeared at The Atlantic, written by the regularly brilliant Jonathan Rauch, who has previously warned against loose application of “the F-word” to Trump. He’s changed his mind, and concludes that “the reluctance to use the term has now become perverse.” Rauch concludes that Trump is a “fascist president” because he meets 18 different criteria for classic fascist thinking and conduct, ranging from “demolition of norms” and “glorification of violence” to “alternative facts” and “politics as war.” He denies the United States has become a “fascist country” just yet because of the still-viable forms of resistance against Trump’s plans.

Most Americans have a limited interest in political theory and an even more limited recollection, from long-ago history classes or World War II lore, of facts about the European fascist movements of the 1930s. They can’t be expected to care much about how Trump is classified on some spectrum that leads from Ronald Reagan to Benito Mussolini. But now recent events in Minnesota, as crystallized by two viral videos showing U.S. citizens being shot and killed by federal immigration agents, have done more to arouse widespread horror at the the Trump administration’s abnormal modus operandi than all those warnings from experts about creeping authoritarianism or incipient fascism.

Trump’s mass-deportation program, as displayed in Minnesota, plays a prominent role in Rauch’s account of the president’s emergence as a fascist leader:

“Trump has turned ICE into a sprawling paramilitary that roves the country at will, searches and detains noncitizens and citizens without warrants, uses force ostentatiously, operates behind masks, receives skimpy training, lies about its activities, and has been told that it enjoys ‘absolute immunity. …’

“In Minneapolis and elsewhere, the agency has behaved provocatively, sometimes brutally, and arguably illegally—behaviors that Trump and his staff have encouraged, shielded, and sent camera crews to publicize, perhaps in the hope of eliciting violent resistance that would justify further crackdowns, a standard fascist stratagem.”

A picture of fascism in action is worth a thousand words. As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said of his inability to precisely define pornography, “I know it when I see it.” Americans who are not blinded by loyalty to Trump or visceral hatred of immigrants or “leftist” protesters saw masked agents execute Renee Good and Alex Pretti and knew they were seeing something that didn’t belong in this country. And efforts by J.D. Vance, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and Trump himself to gaslight the country and blame the victims made it all worse.

It’s far too early to tell what will happen next in Minnesota; in other places where the mass-deportation surge is underway; or in Washington, where the shots — an unfortunate but in this case all-too-accurate term — are being called. The president seems to be backpedaling or “pivoting” to a different posture than the belligerence he has shown toward all criticism of mass-deportation efforts up until now. Perhaps there is some strategic retreat underway that will mitigate, if not erase, the horrible images emanating from Minneapolis.

But right now, the video evidence of fascism in action could rival in significance the televised scenes of Alabama state troopers clubbing peaceful civil-rights protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in March 1965. The “Bloody Sunday” when the brutality of that time and place became evident to the whole world was the beginning of the end for the Jim Crow regime that had gripped the South since Reconstruction. Perhaps a “Bloody Saturday” in 2026 can represent the beginning of the end of the fascist threat posed by the MAGA movement and its leader.