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

I like to think that if Che was with us today that would be his uncompromising cry. Well, maybe not. Anyway, people really love to complain about Joe Manchin. But the ineluctable fact is that the Democrats would be two slices of hot buttered toast without him. So rather than complain about Manchin, which won’t do any good anyway, people on the center-left should be thinking hard, really hard, about how we can get *more* Joe Manchins.

The road to sustainable progressive governance lies through an expanded Democratic Senate majority. No substitutes.

Fanciful proposals to abolish the Senate or air-drop a bunch of lefty states into the Senate are not serious proposals. Progressives who do not have plausible ideas about how Democrats can capture Senate seats in redish states like IA, OH, NC, TX and FL are kidding themselves that they have a viable political strategy for the actually-existing United States, as opposed to some mythical country of their imagination.

David Leonhardt nails it in his column this morning, which includes this fantastic graphic, which smart Democrats should affix to a wall near their computer. And look at carefully before they fire off their latest tweet denouncing Joe Manchin.

“The structure of the Senate has not always favored Republicans. But in recent decades, heavily white and rural communities have moved to the political right. Because these communities dominate many small states, and because small states enjoy a lot of power in the Senate, it now has a large pro-Republican bias.

So how have Democrats nonetheless won control of the Senate, allowing them to pass an ambitious bill last week that will reduce poverty, lift middle-class incomes, cut the cost of health insurance and more? There are two main answers.

First, the Democratic Party has been the more popular political party nationwide for most of the past three decades, and this national edge sometimes allows it to overcome the Senate’s built-in bias. Last year, Joe Biden won the popular vote by 4.4 percentage points. That was enough for him to win exactly half of the country’s 50 states and for Democratic Senate candidates to flip seats in Arizona and Georgia.

The second answer is more succinct: Joe Manchin and Jon Tester.

Manchin, a Democratic senator from West Virginia, and Tester, a Democratic senator from Montana, have managed a remarkable feat in today’s polarized political atmosphere. They have won elections in states that usually vote by wide margins for the other party. The only other current politician with a similar track record is Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine….

Without him, there would be no Democratic Senate right now and no $1.9 trillion virus relief law. It’s unclear how many of Biden’s cabinet nominees would have been defeated and how successful the president would be at putting federal judges on the bench….

Few things in American politics are as valuable to a party as people like Manchin, Tester and Collins. And finding more such politicians is even more important to the Democratic Party because of the Senate’s pro-Republican bias.

As Matthew Yglesias writes in his Substack newsletter, addressing progressives: “If you don’t want your governing agenda perpetually held hostage to Joe Manchin (or for a majority to be out of reach if Manchin retires in 2024), then you need to win Senate races in right-of-center states like Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas and Florida that just aren’t as right-wing as West Virginia.”

In Other Polling Bites, Laura Bronner notes at FiveThirtyEight: “Several polls this week have found widespread support for Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package: 70 percent of Americans overall, according to Pew, with particularly strong support among low-income Americans (82 percent). In fact, while Democrats of all income groups were very supportive of the package, a majority of low-income Republicans (63 percent) were in favor, too. The Economist/YouGovfound 64 percent supported the bill overall, Data for Progress found 69 percent in support, and Morning Consult/Politico, which listed the bill’s major provisions in the question, found 75 percent in support. (Both The Economist/YouGov and Data for Progress also found broad support across the bill’s individual provisions.)”

Adam Serwer writes at The Atlantic: “Biden’s rescue bill uses the state as an instrument of broad prosperity rather than as one of vengeance—according to an analysis from the Urban Institute, the legislation could cut the poverty rate by more than a third. In the process, it stands to address the economic distresses that Trump exploited and the grievances he inflamed. And by making the bill’s benefits so broad, Democrats may also make them enduring, insulating them from future efforts to repeal them….Economists also believe that the bill—more than twice the size of the Obama-era stimulus designed to pull America out of the Great Recession—is large enough to deliver a robust recovery, rather than the halting one that followed the 2008 crisis….“Nobody thinks that there’s anything to be gained from bipartisanship politically anymore. There are a few people who still think that it’s really important in itself,” Adam Jentleson, once the deputy chief of staff to the former Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid and the author of Kill Switch, told me. “But even those people have a hard time arguing that it’s more important than actually delivering results.”….The American Rescue Plan Act is an important economic measure; it is also a down payment on a future in which the stakes for American democracy are less existential. But it is only a down payment—one that will be forfeit if Democrats allow the rest of their agenda to be held hostage in the Senate. More than just legislation, it is  a leap of faith that Americans of all political backgrounds will reward a party that seeks to make their lives better, rather than one that simply manufactures new targets for scorn. In that, the measure expresses a greater confidence in the decency of the Republican base than Trump or his acolytes ever displayed.”

Also at The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein warns, “Advocates want more attention on the state laws to discourage Republican legislators and governors from passing them. But they also recognize that, as in the Selma era, greater awareness of state restrictions could build support for national action—and particularly for H.R. 1, the sweeping democracy-reform bill the House passed earlier this month. More public awareness, the theory goes, will raise Senate Democrats’ comfort level about establishing a nationwide standard for voting rights through their own version of H.R. 1, even if that requires curtailing the filibuster to overcome lockstep Republican opposition. In an appearance on MSNBC this week, Marc Elias, the Democratic Party’s lead election lawyer, literally pleaded for more attention: “I am begging America and the media to pay attention to this. Right now, we are facing an avalanche of voter suppression” that the country hasn’t seen in decades.” Brownstein warns, “The administration and civil-rights groups don’t have much time to generate more national attention. Republican Governor Kim Reynolds of Iowa has already signed legislation limiting early voting and reducing the hours that polls can stay open on Election Day. Bills in other states are swiftly moving forward. Elias says Democratic lawyers’ success in beating Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the election may be making Democrats complacent about their ability to block these new restrictions if they are approved. “We will do the best we can in court,” he told me, “but I almost worry that people look at the success that some of us had last cycle” and expect the same success now. “I am here to tell you that we can’t assume the courts are going to solve every political ill.”

When it comes to messaging, it really does help the Biden Administrtion to have an alert press secretary who is on game, as Jen Pasaki demonstrates in  this exchange, flagged by Aldous J. Pennyfarthing in “Jen Psaki takes on GOP’s pearl-clutching over deficits, reminds them their concern is years late” at Daily Kos:

“REPORTER: “No Republican voted for the COVID relief package, and they argue that this is the sixth package and it adds to a deficit that’s already a trillion dollars this year alone. What do you say to that criticism, that ultimately this type of a sweeping piece of legislation will be a drag on the economy down the line?”

PSAKI: “Well, I would say to them we’re in the midst of twin crises, from the pandemic to an economic downturn that is impacting tens of millions of people in this country. People are struggling to make ends meet. They are worried about whether their grandparents, their cousins, their friends are able to get a vaccine, and they are suffering because they’re worried about the mental health of their kids, who aren’t back in school yet. And the president’s focus is on addressing those crises. And I would point, send a question back to many of these Republicans as to why the deficit spending wasn’t as concerning when they were giving tax cuts to the highest incomes, but now it’s concerning when we’re giving direct checks and relief to the American people.”

In “Democrats Make a Down Payment on a Radically More Just Economy” in The Nation, Joan Walsh writes of Biden’s Pandemic relief/stimulus legislative victory that “the many forces behind this stunning achievement are beyond my capacity to list here—and they represent a leftward migration of the Democratic Party that was a long time in the making but that accelerated in the past 10 years. Biden has been in the middle of it.” Walsh explains further,

It’s not a social democratic party, at least not yet. But it has steadily gotten more committed to using government to lessen suffering and promote equitable growth, and less afraid of GOP taunting about deficits and “dependency.” It had mostly moved past the neoliberal fetishization of markets, long before the pandemic: Hillary Clinton’s 2016 platform was more progressive than Obama’s, with a more robust role for government; four years later, Biden’s was more progressive than Clinton’s. (That partly reflected the influence of Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran a strong second in the Democratic presidential primaries to both of them.)

The pandemic accelerated the leftward surge of many, even most Democrats. The mismanaged plague that has in a year killed 530,000 Americans also destroyed Reagan’s tired maxim, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem”—hopefully for good. Last year’s first Covid relief bill, the $2.2 trillion America Cares Act—passed under the uncaring, incompetent Donald Trump—kept 13 million people out of poverty; when its benefits began to evaporate, especially its extended unemployment relief, people felt the difference, and the pain. That’s why Biden’s plan is supported by roughly three-quarters of Americans in the latest Morning Consult/Politico poll: Americans know government is the solution, at the very least to this deadly pandemic.

Walsh adds, “What’s most important about the Biden plan is not its size but the thinking behind it. For one thing, it rejected old notions about government support as a morally hazardous “handout” to the undeserving that would discourage work. Welfare reform essentially punished poor children for the (supposed) wrongdoing of their parents (mostly single mothers) and, especially, their joblessness.” In addition,

By contrast, the expanded child tax credits are more like Social Security, a recognition that government has a role to play in caring for those who can’t care for themselves, not just the elderly but children as well. It isn’t conditioned on whether parents, especially mothers, work or stay home, which was formerly a culture-wars obsession. Likewise, expanded unemployment insurance passed (though it was trimmed slightly), despite arguments that it could make not working more alluring than working. Most wealthy developed nations offer support like this…..The bill supports small businesses and restaurants, child care providers and union members on the verge of losing their pensions. It invests billions in Black farmers and Native Americans, funding that’s long overdue but especially needed in this pandemic. It also pumps billions into state and local government: That’s another learning from early Obama efforts to stem the bleeding in 2009: As the federal government sent money into the economy, budget-crunched local and state officials were laying off workers and thus taking money out of it….It significantly shores up the Affordable Care Act, weakened by Trump, including more subsidies for more people, and not just the poor. But back to the poor: It reduces child poverty by more than half; poverty for all Americans, according to the Urban Institute, by almost 40 percent.

Walsh credits progressive Democrats for fighting for their policy reforms, but not walking away from supporting the Covid relief package when they didn’t get their way on everything: “I want to hail the members of the Progressive Caucus,” and she adds,

They had major problems with the Senate bill—it stripped the House version of the $15-an-hour minimum wage, reduced unemployment benefits slightly, and (even as single mom and progressive powerhouse Katie Porter railed against it) left inequity between single parents and married parents intact—but they kept their eyes on the prize. Most people, myself included, assumed Biden and the Democrats went into this negotiation with a $1.9 trillion plan in order to cut it by at least a quarter. They did not. Progressives knew what this bill achieved.

Progressive Caucus whip Representative Ro Khanna hit the cable shows almost immediately after the Senate bill passed, promoting it. Bernie Sanders praised it too, tweeting after its passage on Wednesday: “What a difference it makes when government is on the side of working people.” An elated Representative Pramila Jayapal, Progressive Caucus chair, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Republicans made “a very big tactical mistake” in providing zero support for the relief package. “They’re going to have to try to explain why they voted ‘no’ on a package that puts money in people’s pockets.” On Wednesday afternoon, at a signing ceremony for the bill convened with Pelosi, Schumer effusively thanked Sanders. As well he should have.

Walsh concludes, “This is the new Democratic governing coalition moving forward—with a strong left wing that knows when to choose its battles, behind a president who survived the era when government was a dirty word, and now gets to live up to the ideals that inspired him to enter government. Every day won’t be like this, but as Biden signs the American Rescue Plan Act, less than two months into his presidency, I think we should all celebrate. This is a big fucking deal.”

The left, right and centrist flanks in the Democratic Party will continue to have major policy differences, heated debates and the occasional circular firing squad — It’s how we roll in the big tent. But we can hope that Democratic Party unity – and clarity – has been enhanced under Biden’s impressive leadership, with pivotal support from progressive leaders like Khanna, Porter, Jayapal and Sanders, as well as Pelosi and Schumer. It’s a good look. Here’s hoping it sticks.

There’s always something unusual cooking in California politics, and I reported on the latest zaniness from the Golden State at New York:

Like other governors, California’s Gavin Newsom is surely pleased at the favorable trajectory of COVID-19 cases and prospects for a return to something like normalcy. But happier times may not arrive quite quickly enough for Newsom: He is on the very brink of the ultimate nightmare for California officeholders, a recall election. With 11 days left before the deadline, organizers of the drive to recall Newsom now claim they’ve collected nearly 2 million signatures on their petition. At the current rate of signature verification, that could be just enough to reach the goal of 1.5 million, trigging an election this summer or fall (though Republicans are hedging their bets via unsupported claims that Democrats will find a way to void recall petitions illegitimately).

Newsom is not (at this point) even close to being as unpopular as the last California governor to be recalled: Gray Davis, who was replaced in a 2003 recall election by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. But while there is almost always low-level recall activity by some opposing party for any given governor of California, this time it’s been fed by various types of discontent with the state’s handling of the pandemic (particularly school closings and restrictions on churches and certain businesses). And for Newsom, specifically, the coup de grâce may have been his much-publicized attendance at an indoor dinner for a lobbyist friend last November at the ultraexclusive French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley — which violated Newsom’s own pandemic guidelines. Since then, the slow start to California’s vaccine rollout has only added more fuel to the fire.

But even if recall proponents collect enough signatures by March 17, California’s recall law provides for multiple delays before an actual election, as the Sacramento Bee explains:

“County elections officials must determine how many signatures are valid and report their signature counts by April 29, after which the Secretary of State’s office will have ten calendar days to determine if the effort met the nearly 1.5 million signature threshold. Then, people who signed the petition would have 30 business days to remove their signatures. Counties have 10 business days after that to report any signature removals to the Secretary of State. At that point, the California Department of Finance would have 30 business days to develop a cost estimate for the recall election, which the Legislature would have 30 days to review.”

And then Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis would have to schedule the recall election within 60 to 80 days. She, like every other statewide official and most of the county elected officials involved in the recall process, is a Democrat. So, too, are the legislative leaders who could amend the recall process to delay the election even further (Democrats have supermajorities in both state legislative chambers.) Assuming California rebounds from the pandemic doldrums, every delay could allow a boost for Newsom’s popularity. But more importantly the state’s heavily Democratic character makes Newsom a better bet to survive a recall than Davis was at a time when California Republicans were significantly stronger.

The way recall elections work complicates the dynamics. Voters will have two questions to resolve. First, they must decide whether to recall Newsom, (which is an up-or-down vote). Second, if they do decide to eject him from office, they must decide who will replace him. The incumbent in a recall cannot run to succeed himself. So the big strategic decision for Democrats is whether they successfully discourage any Democratic “replacement” candidates and just gamble on Newsom defeating the recall. If he fails, of course, California will have a Republican or possibly an independent governor. That’s assuming anyone can control the replacement field; thanks to very low qualifying requirements, you could have a vast number of contestants (there were 135 candidates on the ballot in 2003).

Let’s say for the sake of argument that no major Democrats run. There are currently three major Republicans mulling a replacement candidacy: 2018 gubernatorial nominee John Cox; former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer; and former Trump administration acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell. Perhaps the GOP can cull their own field, but in theory, a Republican could become governor with a plurality that represents far fewer votes than Newsom would win against the recall. That possibility reinforces an anomaly in the recall process: Since California adopted a “top two” primary system in 2011, every victorious general election candidate has won a majority. That may not be the case this year if Newsom is recalled.

At present, the best bet is that a recall election will happen, and will amount to an off-year amusement at best and an enormous waste of time and campaign dollars at worst. In three polls taken in early February, Newsom’s job-approval rating ranged from a high of 52 percent to a low of 46 percent. If the pandemic does abate, Democrats don’t split, and Newsom doesn’t badly stumble going forward, he should win the recall vote, and then nobody will much care which Republican finishes first in a replacement vote that no longer means anything. Indeed, California Republicans may wind up deciding they would have been wiser to lay off Newsom for the moment and save their powder (and money) for 2022 elections when they could stand to benefit from a midterm wave.

The Biden Administration is savoring one of the most significant legislative victories any president has achieved since the Johnson Administration. In his article, “Good job, Biden. Now comes the hard part” at The week, David Faris writes, “President Biden and his Democratic allies are riding high after Congress passed the expansive COVID-19 relief and stimulus package on Wednesday. And they deserve to take a victory lap, because the American Rescue Plan promises to ignite a broad economic recovery and realizes long-sought progressive goals like direct cash payments to parents….Despite the bill’s messy and divisive denouement in the Senate, and the failure to include a minimum wage hike, the stimulus package should be seen as the cherry on top of a hugely successful first seven weeks in office for Biden. It is also, however, likely the end of the easy wins for Democrats and the start of a much more challenging period of steering legislation through a closely divided Congress.” Regarding filibuster reform, Faris adds, “President Biden himself has remained maddeningly coy on the subject. Given the speed with which he plowed ahead with the stimulus package without any Republican support, it’s safe to assume that despite his campaign theme of unity and bipartisanship, he is under no illusions about the prospect of Republican buy-in for other priorities like voting rights.”

Faris notes Biden’s other accomplishments: “In addition to the relief bill, the president used the Defense Production Act to turbocharge COVID-19 vaccine production and signed a flurry of Executive Orders, effectively vaporizing former President Trump’s policy legacy by, among other things, reversing the controversial travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries, halting construction of the border wall, rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline project, and lifting the immigration restrictions imposed under the cover of COVID….With a few effortless strokes of a pen, President Biden was able to wipe away pretty much everything Trump did except the 2019 tax cuts and the far right’s successful takeover of the federal judiciary…But these victories also mark the end of the new president’s honeymoon period. The low hanging fruit has been plucked, eaten, and juiced. The harder work begins today, and the president must soon make some more difficult choices. He will never be more popular, and Democrats have more leverage today than they will for the rest of this congressional term. House Democrats and nearly all of the party’s Senate caucus are on board with an aggressive agenda, including shoring up voting rights and democracy with the newly-passed For the People Act (H.R. 1), granting statehood to Washington, D.C., and possibly Puerto Rico, raising the minimum wage, reinvesting in America’s decaying infrastructure, reforming immigration rules, and following through on the president’s campaign promise of adding a “public option” to the Affordable Care Act’s health-care framework.” All in all, a pretty remarkable tally of accomplishments for the first six weeks of  Biden’s Administration and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

Democrats did a great job of passing the Covid relief and stimulus package. But Dems need to do a better job of the “aftersale” than was done after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. They must explain to the public the legislation’s impressive benefits for working people, the poor and children, as well as everyone concerned about the pandemic. It appears that impeachment 2.0 and even the Republican riot in the capitol did not distract Democrats from getting the pandemic relief and stimulus legislation passed. Biden deserves lots of credit for keeping his eyes o the prize, and not getting suckered into the weeds. But now Dems should get focused on making sure the public knows all the ways this egislation is good for America. As Greg Sargent explains at The Plum Line, “Though public support for the package is overwhelming, events will intervene and voters will forget a good deal about what just happened, even as they benefit from its provisions. So Democrats must be relentless in telling them what’s in it and in highlighting how it’s improved their lives.” Sargent repoprts that the White House is gearing up to meet this challenge. But follow-through by all Dems is everything. Let it be a rare exercize in Democratic message discipline for the next few weeks and again in the closing weeks of the 2022 election. Democrats can not count on the media to do justice to the relief package. It will be quickly forgotten, otherwise. The public has a short memory and no Dems should expect automatic gratitude.

At The American Prospect, co-editor Robert Kuttner does a good job of putting this historic legislative achievement in perspective in his editorial “A Stunning Day.”

“Something extraordinary happened today which is worth celebrating—the most far-reaching expansion of government help to children and families since FDR.

A year ago, a universal basic income was a radical fringe idea. Well, we’ve just enacted it for families with children. And once in place, this will prove almost impossible to dislodge.

Imagine the politics next fall when Democrats propose making the child tax credit permanent, and Republicans propose a massive tax increase on American families. My sources say Biden is committed to making this policy permanent.

Consider the arithmetic. A family with two parents and three kids will be getting about $14,000 a year. It just happens that this is almost identical to what a minimum-wage job pays if you work full-time ($7.25 an hour times 2,000 hours).

This is revolutionary, and will compel employers to pay a great deal more to get workers.

Think of what it took to make this transformative social policy mainstream. It took a pandemic. It took the improbable Democratic victories in Georgia to get 50 Senate votes. It took rare Democratic unity. And it took the radicalization of one Joe Biden.

Even more remarkably, while the two previous transformative Democratic presidents, LBJ and FDR, had huge Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, Biden has done it with fumes.

Sometimes, things break right. It’s a day to celebrate.”

Trying to follow the action in various Republican efforts to restrict the franchise, I offered an observation at New York that differs a bit from the conventional wisdom:

The Republican-controlled Georgia state senate voted on March 8 to kill the no-excuse voting by mail that a previous Republican-controlled legislature put on the books way back in 2005. But something interesting happened along the way: This change has been opposed by several top Republicans in the state, and Governor Brian Kemp is not onboard either. Maybe these hard-boiled Georgia Republicans understand that the bipartisan belief that liberalized voting by mail cost Trump their state and ultimately the White House is far from clearly supported by the evidence.

Recently that Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz conducted a regression analysis that convinced him Joe Biden would have won without significantly higher levels of voting by mail. Last week, a new Stanford University study reached the same conclusion:

“The results of our paper do not offer a clear recommendation for the policy debate around vote-by-mail, but they do suggest that both sides of the debate are relying on flawed logic. Vote-by-mail is an important policy that voters seem to like using, and it may be a particularly important tool during the pandemic. Despite all that, and despite the extraordinary circumstances of the 2020 election, vote-by-mail’s effect on turnout and on partisan outcomes is very muted, just as research prior to the pandemic would have suggested.”

The participants in the Stanford study agreed that expanded voting by mail might boost turnout by one or 2 percent in midterm elections, but probably little or not at all in presidential elections, when a higher percentage of marginal voters are likely to vote in any event. Increased voter interest and engagement drove the turnout spikes of 2018 and 2020, not changes in voting procedures, they argue. As pre-2020 elections clearly showed, Republican voters are as likely as Democratic voters to take advantage of “convenience voting” (so long as their lord and master at Mar-a-Lago doesn’t tell them they shouldn’t).

So what’s the point of a GOP crackdown on liberalized mail ballots? And for that matter, should defending liberalized voting by mail be the main focus of Democrats at a time when Republicans are assaulting voting rights generally?

It’s a pertinent question in GOP-controlled places like Georgia, where, in addition to an end to no-excuse absentee voting, cutbacks in weekend in-person early voting, new voter-ID requirements, elimination of automatic voter registration, and mandatory voter purges are all in play, with less Republican opposition. In Iowa, Republican governor Kim Reynolds just signed partisan legislation that reduces early in-person voting days and even cuts Election Day voting hours.

Yes, the principle that all kinds of voting should be encouraged as a matter of basic democratic rights — as reflected in H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which recently passed the U.S. House — is worth defending. But when push comes to shove, perhaps the overemphasis on voting by mail on both sides of the voting wars doesn’t make a lot of sense. Being denied any path to the ballot box is surely the most urgently objectionable development to stop. People can adjust to changing incentives and disincentives to one form of voting or another, as so many did at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But being excluded from the franchise altogether is not something that can be overcome easily.

In his New York Times column, Thomas B. Edsall explores the reasons why “Democrats Are Anxious About 2022 — and 2024,” and writes, “In the wake of the 2020 election, Democratic strategists are worried — very worried — about the future of the Hispanic vote. One in 10 Latinos who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 switched to Donald Trump in 2020.” Edsall notes further,

Public Opinion Strategies, which conducts surveys for NBC News/Wall Street Journal, provided me with data on presidential voting from 2012 to 2020 that show significant Republican gains among the roughly 30 percent of Black and Hispanic voters who self-identify as conservative.

From 2012 to 2020, Black conservatives shifted from voting 88-7 for the Democratic candidate to 76-17. Black conservative allegiance to the Democratic Party fell by less, from 75 percent Democratic, 9 percent Republican to 71 percent Democratic, 16 percent Republican.

The changes in voting and partisan allegiance, however, were significantly larger for self-identified Hispanic conservatives. Their presidential vote went from 49-39 Democratic in 2012 to 67-27 Republican in 2020. Their partisan allegiance over the same period went from 50-37 Democratic to 59-22 Republican.

It’s not only Latino voters, as Edsall explains:

The 2020 expansion of Republican voting among Hispanics and Asian-Americans — and to a lesser extent among African-Americans — deeply concerns the politicians and strategists seeking to maintain Democratic control of the House and Senate in 2022, not the mention the White House in 2024.

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

The Empirical Case Against Cultural Leftism in the Democratic Party.

It’s a strong case and I summarize it in my latest post for The Liberal Patriot, which draws on David Shor’s recent interview in New York Magazine.

“The good news is that the Democrats control all three branches of the federal government and appear competent enough to successfully contain the covid pandemic and unified enough to do the legislative necessary to get the economy running on all cylinders, possibly moving into outright boom territory. That’ll be great for the country and should be good for the Democrats as the party presiding over the country’s turnaround.

The bad news is that the Democrats still face a daunting situation, even if these developments pan out. Despite running against an historically unpopular President embroiled in twin health and economic crises, Biden’s victory was much narrower than expected, accompanied by a reduced majority in the House, poor Senate results that were only redeemed by the Georgia runoffs and losses in state legislative elections when Democrats desperately needed gains to protect themselves in the redistricting process.

Moreover, with control of both the House and the Senate are on a razor’s edge, they will shortly confront the administration’s first midterm elections which are typically very tough for the incumbent President’s party. Even with the goodwill generated be a successful first two years, 2022 will be a daunting challenge.

This underscores the necessity of understanding how the Democrats fell short in 2020 and what can be done to maximize Democratic votes in the future. They simply can’t afford underperformance if they hope to hold power and continue to move the country in a progressive direction.

With data from voter files starting to come in and precinct returns having been ever more elaborately analyzed, the contours of Democratic underperformance and its probable causes are starting to emerge. The findings make clear that Democratic chances are undercut by cultural leftism but can be at least partially remedied by moving to the center on cultural issues and emphasizing economic issues that have broad appeal across working class constituencies.”

Read the rest at The Liberal Patriot! Democrats ignore Shor’s findings at their peril.

At nbcnews.com, Ben Kamisar reports, “Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a crucial swing-vote in the Senate Democrats’ slim majority, said Sunday that he won’t bend in his support for the filibuster, a Senate rule that forces most legislation to require bipartisan support to pass….But he added that he would be open to Democrats passing more important legislation like voting reforms by a party-line vote — if senators are given ample space for bipartisan negotiation first.” Mancin added that “he was “willing to look at” ideas to make the filibuster “a little bit more painful,” like requiring lawmakers to take to the floor for marathon speeches if they wanted to use the procedure.” That would surely reduce the frequency of filibusters overall. Equally intriguing, Mancin suggested the possibility of expanding the reconciliation process to include voting rights: “There’s no need for us to go to reconciliation until the other process has failed. That means the normal process of a committee, a hearing, amendments,” he said when asked about whether reconciliation could be used to pass voting reforms in the future.”

In “Joe Manchin opens the door to filibuster reform” at Vox, Cameron Peters adds, “Obviously, Manchin’s comments Sunday aren’t a definite commitment to do something about the filibuster — but they’re still extremely good news for Democrats, who appear as if they will soon face a string of futile fights to win over 10 Republican votes for priorities like voting rights and a minimum wage increase….Specifically, Manchin’s change in tone, though slight, comes as Senate Democrats prepare for a fight over a voting rights package recently passed by the House of Representatives, and as high-profile party leaders begin to get behind ditching the filibuster….On Meet the Press Sunday, Manchin indicated some willingness to consider that first option, in addition to a talking filibuster, telling Todd he might be open “to a reconciliation” style approach for passing bills if Democrats are met with repeated refusals from Manchin’s “Republican friends” to work together.”

‘Blue Tuesday’ notes further at Daily Kos: “Shifting a 60-vote threshold to a talking filibuster is essentially ending the filibuster in all but name only. It means debate will have to end. And as we know, Republicans have no real interest in putting in any effort — Ron Johnson forced Senate clerks to read the American Rescue Plan on Thursday night and didn’t even stay for most of it, while Ted Cruz, as you’ll recall, literally ran away to Mexico to avoid helping his constituents in Texas when the state’s energy grid was disabled amid a massive and unexpected winter storm….It wasn’t a slip-up, either: Manchin said something similar on Fox News Sunday….“Maybe it needs to be more painful,”  @Sen_JoeManchin says of the filibuster. “It should be painful to use it,” he adds to Chris Wallace, while also re-upping his strong support for keeping it in place.”….If Manchin is willing to budge on this, Kyrsten Sinema — who got just pilloried for the way she voted “no” on the minimum wage on Friday — must not be far behind….Simply put, if Democrats don’t kill the filibuster, it’ll kill their chances to be a national political party. Gerrymandering and voter suppression will kill them in swing states and come 2030, Republicans will control those states with such an iron fist, they’ll go ahead and eliminate any nascent Democratic movement with more redistricting and voter suppression.”

Meanwhile, Donald Judd and Devan Cole report that “Biden signs executive order expanding voting access” at CNN Politics: “President Joe Biden signed an executive order Sunday expanding voting access in what the White House calls “an initial step” in its efforts to “protect the right to vote and ensure all eligible citizens can freely participate in the electoral process.”….The move comes as Republicans in statehouses around the country work to advance voter suppression legislation, including a bill in Georgia that voting rights groups say targets Black voters. Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed measures in recent days to increase voting rights, including HR1 — a sweeping ethics and election package that contains provisions expanding early and mail-in voting, restoring voting rights to former felons, and easing voter registration for eligible Americans….Sunday’s order directs the heads of all federal agencies to submit proposals for their respective agencies to promote voter registration and participation within 200 days, while assisting states in voter registration under the National Voter Registration Act. In addition, the order instructs the General Services Administration to modernize the federal government’s Vote.gov portal….The executive order also expands voter access and registration efforts for communities often overlooked in outreach, including the disabled, military serving overseas and the incarcerated.”

Millions are wondering “How Much Longer Can This Era Of Political Gridlock Last?,” and FiveThirtyEight’s Lee Drutman takes a stab at providing a believable answer. Drutman provides some data-driven analysis and some cool charts and concludes in effect, that it looks like it could be a long time. Or as Drutman puts it more compellingly in one paragraph, after noting the thin margins Dems now have in both the Senate and House,

That means more divided government is probably imminent, and the electoral pattern we’ve become all too familiar with — a pendulum swinging back and forth between unified control of government and divided government — is doomed to repeat, with increasingly dangerous consequences for our democracy.

No doubt, many already came to that conclusion. But Drutman adds,

“This current period of partisan stalemate stands out in a few respects when we consider America’s long history with partisan conflict. For starters, the period we find ourselves in now is unique in that the national partisan balance of power is extremelyclose (with control of national government up for grabs in almost every cycle), even as most states and most voters are either solidly Democratic or Republican. What’s more, the national outcome often hinges on just a few swing states and districts. This period is also unique in the extent to which America is divided.”

There are other reasons to be skeptical about history-rooted analysis of the current political moment. Trump’s unique lunacy, McConnell’s shameless propensity for putting his personal power before what is good for America, the number of politicians of one party denying the results of certified elections and the homicidal attack on congress are all without historical parellel in U.S. history.

However, if you had to bet the ranch on political gridlock ending fairly soon or not, Drutman’s analysis lends credibility to the latter scenario.

So don’t hold your breath waiting for a warrior to emerge from the smoke, put on the blue face-paint, mount the noble steed and lead the masses to a landslide, filibuster-proof Democratic victory. Not gonna happen any time soon — although four years can be a hell of a long time in U.S. politics, especially in the wake of an exhausting plague.

But, is it really so unrealistic to hope that some kind of militant centrist comes along, articulates an inspiring vision of bipartisanship with a credible mix of progressive policies to win broad support from the war-weary rank and file of both parties and breaks the stalemate? It would be long-overdue.