The following article by Stanley B. Greenberg, founding partner of Greenberg Research, board member of The American Prospect and author of ‘RIP GOP: How the New America Is Dooming the Republicans,’ is cross-posted from The American Prospect:

Just as the intelligence community may have missed the size, organization, and determination of Trump’s supporters to keep Donald Trump as president, the polls in 2016 and 2020 missed Trump’s ability to bring his base of white working class, evangelical, and rural voters into the electorate, to save white people from a changing America. Trump called Mexican immigrants “murders and rapists,” sent signals to the KKK, and instituted the Muslim ban. His political mission was defined by “good people on both sides,” closing the government to fund the border wall, and telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 by winning over the Tea Party, evangelical, and pro-life blocs, each of them determined to save America from Barack Obama, the first Black president. His enflaming racial resentment gave Trump an unassailable base in his party. But what the general elections reveal is that 40 percent of all Americans is fully part of an anti-establishment, God-first, racially resentful, anti-democratic bloc, who live in a right-wing media cocoon and adore Donald Trump. This bloc of white rural, evangelical, and working-class male voters rushed to the polls in both 2016 and 2020. And critically, they are three of every five Republicans.

Chanting “Make America Great Again,” “U-S-A.! U-S-A!” and “Stop the Steal,” Trump’s violent vanguard assaulted the Capitol to stop the counting of Electoral College votes. Rampaging white mobs and paramilitary Proud Boys abolish any nuance, waving their Confederate, American, and Trump flags. They aren’t sure anybody but Donald Trump will be as uncompromising, racist, and anti-establishment as they desire. And they don’t think anyone else on their side can win.

(READ MORE)

It’s been overshadowed by other issues, but now that Joe Biden is president with a Democratic Congress, the status of abortion rights remains in question, as I discussed at New York:

On the 48th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that recognized a federal constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, there is a sense among reproductive-rights advocates that a major disaster was averted by Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump. A second Trump term might well have given him an opportunity to further strengthen the Court’s conservative, presumably anti-abortion majority, which he helped build with three Justices — perhaps by replacing the 82-year-old pro-choice justice Stephen Breyer, and certainly by giving older conservative justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito an opportunity to retire in favor of younger jurists with similar views. Trump would also have been sure to keep the executive branch of the federal government relentlessly on the side of those who sought to curb and ultimately destroy reproductive rights, while promoting and facilitating the state-level attacks on abortion rights and opportunities that were a constant of his first term.

It was certainly a change of pace from the past four years to see the new president and vice-president release a pro-choice statement on the Roe anniversary:

“The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to codifying Roe v. Wade and appointing judges that respect foundational precedents like Roe. We are also committed to ensuring that we work to eliminate maternal and infant health disparities, increase access to contraception, and support families economically so that all parents can raise their families with dignity. This commitment extends to our critical work on health outcomes around the world.”

The statement was a reminder that despite his past sympathy for certain elements of the anti-abortion agenda, Joe Biden is now firmly in the pro-choice camp along with nearly all Democrats in Congress. But it also reflected the limits of what they can accomplish under current governing arrangements. “Codifying Roe v. Wade” means enacting a federal statute preempting state abortion laws to ensure that if the Supreme Court does reverse Roe, the law of the land would not materially change so long as that statute stayed in place. But without elimination of the Senate filibuster, enacting such a statute is not remotely feasible. And that’s one of the reasons Mitch McConnell is demanding a “power-sharing” deal that rules out any attack on the filibuster. More immediately, breaths are being held on both sides of the abortion-policy barricades as legislators await clear signals of what the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court will mean for Roe, amid what is uniformly expected to be at least some erosion of the precedents set by it and its 1992 reformulation, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. We have every reason to assume that six justices on the Court (John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and now Barrett) are hostile to abortion rights. It’s unclear, however, how quickly and thoroughly they may proceed in undermining precedents they all recognize (even the straightforwardly anti-choice Clarence Thomas, who is least reticent about favoring their reversal). Chief Justice Roberts has, famously, been concerned about the Court’s moving too quickly on politically charged issues, including abortion; he single-handedly (though on very narrow grounds) ensured that a Louisiana law that would have had a decisively negative effect on access to abortion services was struck down last year.

But that was before Barrett joined the Court. Will the new weight of the anti-abortion majority lead to a quickening of judicial activism against abortion rights, regardless of what Roberts would prefer? We don’t know.

One big question is what strategy the anti-abortion movement will choose to pursue. It has for years alternated between efforts to restrict or ban late-term abortions (which, while rare, are also controversial) or chip away at abortion access and full-on assaults on basic abortion rights, like the “heartbeat bills” and the even more extreme bans enacted by a wave of Republican-controlled states in the past few years. It’s possible the changes on the Court will embolden those responsible for “teeing up” landmark decisions through state legislation. But it’s also possible enemies of abortion rights will fail to properly coordinate between the states and the federal courts (where, moreover, pro-choice precedents will remain binding until SCOTUS erodes or overturns them).

Pro-choice activists will await these developments nervously, accomplishing what they can through Biden-administration executive actions and litigation under existing precedents so long as they last. Soon after the Biden-Harris ticket’s victory became clear, some progressives began publicly asking Justice Breyer to retire so that a Democratic president could appoint a younger justice and a Democratic majority in the Senate could confirm her or him (a Republican reconquest of the Senate in 2022 is always possible). And grassroots support for filibuster reform (and with it the codification of Roe Biden and Harris have promised to pursue) will continue, particularly if Republican obstruction persuades Democratic “centrists” like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to reconsider their current opposition to that step.

Until the presidential-election results became certain, defenders of abortion rights had every reason to wonder if Roe as we have known it would survive to its 50th anniversary. It’s still in peril, but the most immediate threat has been repelled.

The following article by By Mia Costa Assistant Professor, Dartmouth College and Brian Schaffner Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies, Tufts University, is cross-posted from Data for Progress:

Last week, as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building, many journalists and observers struggled with how exactly to describe those carrying out the shocking acts. Early reporting on the events at the Capitol building used the label  “protesters,” but descriptions quickly evolved with news organizations opting to use terms like “rioters,” “mob,” “insurrectionists,” and even “terrorists.”  The following day, President-elect Biden himself made his case: “They weren’t protesters – don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.” Politicians on both sides of the aisle are using terms like “insurrectionists” and “rioters” to describe those who attacked the Capitol building.

But how do Americans themselves describe those who attacked the Capitol building? In a survey sponsored by Data for Progress and fielded online on January 12th, we asked a representative sample of 1,140 American adults what word or words they would use to describe the individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol. We provided an open box where respondents could write anything they wished to describe these individuals. You can scroll through randomly selected responses by checking out this app.

The word cloud shows the 100 most common words used in these responses sized based on how frequently they were used. The most common word people used to describe those who stormed the Capitol building was by far, “terrorists.” In fact, more than one of every ten Americans in our sample used the word “terrorists” without any prompting. The other words shown demonstrate just how upset and disgusted most Americans were by the actions of these individuals. People in our sample frequently used words like “stupid,” “criminals,” “crazy,” “disgusting,” “idiots,” “traitors,” and “horrible.”. Overall, a sentiment analysis of comments indicated that the words respondents used to describe those who stormed the Capitol building were 9 times more likely to be negative than they were to be positive. Many gave just single-word responses, but some couldn’t help but use a string of negative descriptors. For example, one individual simply responded with “Despicable, disgusting American terrorists” and another wrote “delusional, brainwashed, dangerous, extremist.” Several used the opportunity to note Trump’s role in motivating the mob, one writing that those storming the Capitol were “Trump loyalists who are being misled by lies” with another noting that “this problem was caused by Donald Trump. He should get a punishment.”

We also present the 20 most common words used in responses to our question in the graph below. Once again, it is clear that the vast majority of these words are quite negative. Some contextualization is also useful. When people used the word “domestic,” it was almost always because they were using the phrase “domestic terrorists.” Likewise, when Trump’s name was invoked, it was usually to note that the rioters were “Trump supporters,” though in some cases, Trump voters in particular used this opportunity to insist that he was not to blame for what happened. For example, one Trump voter wrote, “It was a set up to make Trump supporters look bad and to unseat the president.”

The final graph illustrates some clear differences in the language used by those who voted for Biden in the election compared to those who voted for Trump. While Biden supporters overwhelmingly settled on the word “terrorists” to describe the mob, Trump voters used a wider array of terms. The most common among these was “antifa,” indicating that some Trump voters are already repeating the lie that the rioters were not Trump supporters at all but were instead antifa, a moniker some critics use to describe a far-left anti-fascist movement. For example, one Trump voter simply wrote, “Antifa and BLM – NOT TRUMP SUPPORTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” while another said “Imposters for the Democratic Party to make Trump look bad,” referring to both antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement.

But it is worth noting that many other Trump voters had negative things to say about this group with “terrorists,” “crazy,” “wrong,” “rioters,” “idiots,” and “criminals” all among the top words used when describing the mob. In fact, Trump voters used almost seven-times as many negative words as positive ones.

It is also clear how the event has turned off non-voters and those who voted for a third party candidate in 2020 — the top 10 words among those individuals were almost uniformly negative. We found almost nobody in this group who expressed sympathy for those who stormed the Capitol.

Overall, our analysis of these open-ended responses demonstrates just how upsetting most Americans found the attack on the Capitol building and reflects how angry they are with those who perpetrated the violence. Given the outrage expressed by those in our survey, it is no surprise that there is overwhelming support for prosecuting those involved in the storming of the Capitol building and that a majority of Americans also believe that Trump should be impeached for his role in provoking the insurrection.

There’s been so much confused and confusing talk about Joe Biden’s pleas for unity in his Inaugural Address that I decided to offer some historical context at New York:

Just about everybody has something to say about the “unity” thematics that dominated Joe Biden’s Inaugural Address. Some hopeful, if naïve, observers credulously think Biden could be on the brink of introducing some sort of new Era of Good Feelings. Progressives fear Biden is betraying a premature willingness to compromise an agenda that united Democrats before it has even been announced. Republicans are using the unity talk as a cudgel in making demands that Biden do exactly what progressives fear on subjects ranging from COVID-19 stimulus to the Trump impeachment trial. One conservative writer professes to be offended by calls for unity, which smell to him of totalitarianism!

Perhaps Biden’s unity plea seems odd because of the bitterness of the election that lifted him to the White House, a victory he was able to claim for sure only after an attempted coup failed less than two weeks before the inauguration. But let’s remember that most presidents offer similar rhetoric, whether sincere or simply ritualistic. Even Donald Trump made the occasional unity plea early in his presidency, though he kept interrupting himself with attacks on all his enemies.

The previous Republican president, George W. Bush, distinguished himself when running for the office with a “base plus” strategy that didn’t involve much outreach beyond his own ranks. But he also called himself a “uniter, not a divider” and said this in his own first Inaugural Address:

“[S]ometimes our differences run so deep, it seems we share a continent but not a country.

“We do not accept this, and we will not allow it. Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation. And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.”

This wasn’t strictly rhetoric, either. His political wizard, Karl Rove, developed a domestic agenda aimed at expanding the Republican base with targeted appeals to seniors (a Medicare prescription-drug benefit), women with kids (No Child Left Behind), and Latinos (comprehensive immigration reform) before the Bush presidency became defined by its foreign-policy excesses and a poorly managed economy.

Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, of course, became a breakout national celebrity with a unity speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. And he carried these themes into his presidency, as I noted in 2009:

“From his emergence onto the national political scene in 2004 throughout the long 2008 campaign, Obama has consistently linked a quite progressive agenda and voting record to a rhetoric thoroughly marbled with calls for national unity, ‘common purpose,’ and a ‘different kind of politics,’ and scorn for the partisanship, gridlock, and polarization of recent decades. Call it ‘bipartisanship,’ ‘nonpartisanship,’ or ‘post-partisanship,’ this strain of Obama’s thinking is impossible to ignore and has pleased and inspired some listeners while annoying and alarming others.”

Neither Bush nor Obama was under any illusion about leaders of the two major parties sitting down to work out the nation’s destiny in comity. Both were hardheaded politicians who wanted to undermine the opposing party’s politicians by appealing over their heads to their own and to unaffiliated voters. The idea was to expand the president’s coalition at the opposition’s expense while placing pressure on that opposition to cooperate in order to maintain its own following. In Obama’s case, I labeled his strategy “grassroots bipartisanship.” It’s obviously something Biden is intimately familiar with.

But Biden also presumably knows that Obama’s “grassroots bipartisanship” didn’t work. Instead of a segment of the Republican rank and file moving some of its elected officials in Obama’s direction, something like the opposite occurred: GOP pols in Congress decided on a strategy of obstruction, and the Republican grassroots followed them into polarization. Obama’s Gallup job-approval rating among self-identified Republicans declined from 41 percent just after his inauguration to 25 percent in mid-May 2009 and continued slumping to 16 percent by year’s end (eventually hitting single digits in 2010).

So why would what didn’t work for Obama now work for Biden? The ever-insightful Ron Brownstein thinks the new president has a small but potentially important sliver of Republican support he can use to create a more significant “wedge” into the opposition. He writes in The Atlantic: 

“Recent polls have repeatedly found that about three-fourths or more of GOP voters accept Trump’s disproven charges that Biden stole the 2020 election, a number that has understandably alarmed domestic-terrorism experts. But in the same surveys, between one-fifth and one-fourth of Republican partisans have rejected that perspective. Instead, they’ve expressed unease about their party’s efforts to overturn the results — a campaign that culminated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump’s supporters.

“Those anxieties about the GOP’s actions, and about Trump’s future role in the party, may create an opening for Biden to dislodge even more Republican-leaning voters, many of whom have drifted away from the party since Trump’s emergence as its leader. If Biden could lastingly attract even a significant fraction of the Republican voters dismayed over the riot, it would constitute a seismic change in the political balance of power.”

By linking his unity appeal to a firm rejection of the Capitol riot and the lawless president who incited it, says Brownstein, Biden is seeking to establish “a new dividing line in American politics, between those who uphold the country’s democratic system and those who would subvert it.” Maybe the moment has arrived when just enough Republican pols are sufficiently motivated to break with Trumpism to make bipartisan legislation possible — or maybe if they don’t, they’ll lose enough voters to give Democrats an advantage now and in 2022 (when the normal midterm swing might otherwise be expected to undo the narrow Democratic margins in Congress).

If this gambit fails, of course, Biden and congressional Democrats can always return to partisan hardball tactics with Republicans bearing much of the blame for polarization. The question is how far Biden will take his unity campaign and how much time and opportunity he is willing to sacrifice to pursue it.

But there’s really no reason for progressives to fear, or for conservatives to hope, that Biden is so gripped by nostalgia for the back-slapping Senate bipartisanship of yore that he will sacrifice his and his party’s agenda via sellout compromises or simple inaction. What he’s doing so far is entirely traditional, even if it feels exotic thanks to the receding shadow of Donald Trump.

At FiveThirtyEight, Geoffrey Skelley writes that “the past two elections reveal a potential long-term problem for Democrats, especially if we continue to have close, competitive elections: “wasted” votes. That is, Democrats seem to be disproportionately running up the score in some large, blue-leaning states, which helps with the national popular vote but provides no benefit in the Electoral College. Take a state like California: Biden would have won its 55 electoral votes whether he won by 5.1 million votes, as he did, or by just 1 vote. In other words, that’s a lot of wasted Democratic votes. If we expand this out to the 50 states and Washington, D.C., Democrats “wasted” 15.1 million votes compared to the GOP’s 8 million, a difference of 7.1 million votes — about the same as Biden’s 7-million-vote national margin, and roughly his combined margin of victory in California and New York….Given America’s increasing urban-rural divide, this inefficient distribution of Democratic-leaning voters could continue to hurt Democrats electorally and help the GOP, as the Electoral College and other institutions, such as the Senate, are biased toward small states. Those less populous states — especially more rural ones — are more likely to lean Republican….But if the Frost Belt states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin continue to lean somewhat to the right of the country, that will benefit the GOP in the Electoral College — unless there is a counter-shift elsewhere in the Democrats’ favor. In 2020, for example, Biden narrowly carried traditionally Republican states like Arizona and Georgia. Those two states alone can’t make up for Democrats losing that Frost Belt trio, but Democratic improvement in those states and other places in the Sun Belt (whither “Blue Texas?”) could undo the Republicans’ current edge in the Electoral College.”

Kyle Kondik notes at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “From a historical perspective, just an average midterm performance by Republicans would be more than enough to flip both chambers of Congress next year. Republicans will need to net just a single seat in the Senate and a half-dozen or so in the House. Since World War II, the president’s party has lost an average of 27 House seats and 3.5 Senate seats in midterms, although individual yearly results have varied widely….Joe Biden, as president, could end up presiding over a strong economic recovery as the nation (we hope) eventually leaves COVID-19 in the rearview mirror. A divided GOP with Trump remaining a major and divisive figure could lead to outcomes like we saw in the Georgia Senate runoffs, with an engaged, united Democratic Party fending off a slightly less engaged and united GOP. That is one midterm possibility; there are others that would be better for the GOP.”

“By defining with clarity why he was elected and the obligation he has assumed,” Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes, “Biden pointed the country and his presidency toward its most important task: the revival of the democratic spirit and the protection and expansion of democracy itself….From his very first words, he underscored why this was no normal Inauguration Day and why the 2020 election was anything but a routine exercise. Democracy itself had been challenged for four years, and violently so during the spasm of disrespect at the nation’s Capitol only two weeks ago….Biden took aim, indirectly but unmistakably, at the dishonesty of the Trump years, particularly the former president’s Big Lie casting Biden’s own election as illegitimate, which led to the desecration of the very building before which he took his oath. The new president’s words could also be read as a sally against right-wing media that fed and amplified his predecessor’s mendacity….Of course, unity will not come easily. The country still faces, as Biden noted, the dangers of “political extremism, white supremacy” and “domestic terrorism.” Biden’s program has already come under Republican attack….But suddenly, the nation faced at least the possibility of having normal arguments over normal issues. And it will be a nation, as Biden insisted, that appreciates far more than it did four years ago that democracy is a gift that must be defended, nurtured and treasured.”

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall notes that “Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard, wrote in an email: The invasion of the Capitol gives Biden an opportunity to reach out to Republicans who expressed their unease with Trump after Jan. 6, including Mitch McConnell. I expect Biden to be very effective legislating. Biden knows how to get things done, based on his experience in the White House as vice president and on the Hill as a senator….Biden, in Ansolabehere’s view, does have one significant weakness: His Achilles’ heel is communication. He has a great personal style, but that can fall flat and he is prone to snafus. He has a history of being baited in public and a bit too quick, resulting in misstatements. It’s unclear if he has adapted fully to the social media age. Communications might be a struggle, especially compared to the always entertaining Donald J. Trump….If Biden remains committed to a restoration of bipartisanship in Congress, his administration, in Ansolabehere’s view, will face an ongoing struggle as it attempts to balance the demands of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party while recruiting at least a few Republicans. “I would not be surprised to see a big infrastructure bill with a lot of money for roads, airports and energy,” Ansolabehere said. “That is the kind of measure that would get everybody on board.”

The following article, by Sherry Linkon and John Russo of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, is cross-posted from Working-Class Perspectives:

Predictably, politicos and commentators spent much of 2020 debating why working-class voters supported Trump and how the Democrats could win them back. Although we’ve occasionally contributed to these conversations, we’re also getting tired of them. They tend to envision “the working class” as if it were one group with a well-defined set of interests, and worse, they treat working-class people as a marketing problem. These habits reflect not only the commentators’ distance from the working class but also, for many, a sense of meritocratic superiority to people they view as deluded, foolish, stupid, or even amoral. If we want to improve the lives of the working class, and especially if we want to heal the divisions of American political and public life, we need to reframe the problem.

That should start by resisting any effort to define the working class in any singular way. Simplistic definitions fuel both stereotyping and resentments. Defining based on occupation or income highlights important differences in economic interests, but it doesn’t address the resentments that even many fully-employed, unionized, economically-comfortable working-class people feel in the U.S. today. To define the working class based on the college degree, as many pollsters do, ignores the complex array of forms, amounts, qualities, and outcomes of education. Focusing on one variable, like education, might be necessary in polling, but it erases the relationships among education and occupation, social status, and cultural patterns. Electricians and plumbers may lack college degrees, but their specialized training yields them secure and well-paid work as well as pride in their blue-collar status. Meanwhile, K-12 teachers often have graduate degrees but earn less than plumbers or electricians. If we link class with unions, a common (if outdated) assumption, then we might also note that teachers may be more likely belong to active unions than many industrial workers these days.

One illustration of the problem of simplistic definitions is the either/or debate about how to appeal to “the working class” as a voting bloc: either promote economic populism or talk about racial justice, either embrace the dignity of work or value the dignity of marginalized people. These options suggest that the working class is either white, blue-collar, and struggling economically or Black and Latinx and focused on racial rather than economic justice. If we reject this false choice and envision a working class that includes all of these people, one that might not respond as a bloc to any one political strategy or message, it can seem like we’re ignoring class altogether. Addressing working-class concerns – economic, practical, but also social and cultural – requires more complex thinking about class, culture, and policy.

It doesn’t help that discussions about working-class voters so often focus on how politicians should talk rather than on what they should do. That’s part of why we appreciated the invitation to contribute to a forum in  Social Policy, due out next week,to suggest what the Biden administration could do to help the working class. Simply framing the question in terms of policy rather than politics is a step in the right direction.

We recommended a few fairly obvious actions, starting with getting the coronavirus under control, a concern for everyone but especially for the working class. Even before the pandemic, many working-class people had limited access to good health care, and they were more likely to have underlying medical problems that made them vulnerable to COVID. Contrary to the old blue-collar stereotype, most working-class jobs today are in the service industry, including many of the jobs we now deem “essential” – grocery clerks, nursing assistants, janitors, delivery drivers, postal workers. This has put many workers at risk. Others face economic risks because of lost jobs. To address the needs of the working class, we need to stop the spread of the virus and provide substantial economic relief to ensure that millions of Americans with little or no savings will not lose their homes or go hungry.

To strengthen the economy going forward, the Biden administration should also develop a broader industrial policy that includes infrastructure projects, a buy American program, improved labor laws, improved training opportunities, and a higher minimum wage. All of this will create jobs and improve economic conditions for working people. It can also help address some social problems. Expanded access to health care, improved early childhood and K-12 education, and support for elder and child care could decrease some of the despair that has played out in high rates of drug addition, family violence, and mental health issues for many in the working class.

These are not new ideas, nor are we alone in suggesting them (see, for example, the list from the Economic Policy Institute). But to make a real difference for the working class, Biden and Congress must move beyond talking about these ideas in campaign speeches, as they have done in the past. They need to take significant action.

This will all help, but we need to do more to heal the divisions that leave many in the working class feeling disrespected and aggrieved. That will require a change in attitude from those who so often look down on the working class, smugly certain that they have earned their privileges and are intellectually, culturally, even morally superior to those who are struggling. As philosopher Michael Sandel argues in The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?, the pandemic makes clear both our mutual dependence and the hollowness of the refrain that “we are all in this together.” We failed to come together, he suggests, because of a combination of unprecedented inequality that separates those who succeeded economically have become ever more disconnected from those who are struggling and a deeply-embedded belief that those on top deserve their success because they have the education needed to compete in the global economy. The winners see themselves as better than the losers, and the losers are all too aware that the winners not only don’t care but actually hold them responsible for their own problems. As a result, neither those on the top nor those on the bottom actually believe that we are all in this together.

Sandel argues that we must reject the toxic mix of professional-class hubris and working-class resentment that has shaped so much of our public life in recent years. That will require more than economic populism. We’ve spent a lot of time this year applauding doctors and nurses but we too often ignore the janitors, medical assistants, teachers’ aides, and food service workers who are less visible and widely underpaid, treated with disdain, seen as less valuable, less smart, less human. Raising their wages is a step in the right direction. Sharing their stories is a good start. Real healing will require a step beyond: to genuine respect.

To serve the interests of the working class, we should learn from the model of Bargaining for the Common Good, an organizing strategy that emphasizes connections between the needs of workers and the needs of communities and in the process builds relationships and collective power.  It is time to embrace policies as well as attitudes and relationships that move us all toward a greater sense that we really are in this together.

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

Only a few more days of the Orange One! But Joe Biden and the Democrats have a huge challenge ahead of them in terms both of governance success and future electoral success. At The Liberal Patriot, John Halpin has a lucid analysis of the need for a Democratic brand reset to accomplish all this. You will perhaps recognize some of the themes I have touched on in my posts. But there’s plenty new here as well. I heartily endorse it all–this is exactly the course the Democratic Party needs to chart.

“Given the upcoming transition to unified Democratic control of government, it would be wise for the party as a whole—and the Biden/Harris administration and congressional leaders, in particular—to acknowledge and take steps to fix its image problem. With Republicans facing their own internal fissures post-Trump, the House majority on the line, and Democrats locked out of many state legislatures, governorships, and Senate seats across the country, the party needs to think clearly about strategies that add voters to its ranks rather than subtract them.

Unfortunately, to many voters, the Democratic party is the one where you get handed a list of 25 rules at the door about what you can and can’t say; and cliques of people—probably lawyers—whisper and size people up; and you can’t find a beer and you just want to get the hell out before the lecture on “Structural Normativity and Late-Capitalist Hegemony” gets going.

Instead, the Democrats need to be the party where people of all backgrounds get together to ensure that everyone has a job and health care. The party that stands up for American workers and businesses in the world, and that fights the bullies and thugs who prey on the vulnerable and weak. The party that welcomes new people and has their back and doesn’t cast out anyone who looks, talks, or thinks differently. The party that believes in a fair shot for everyone and special privileges for none….

With a new Biden administration taking office, it is time for a reset. What needs to be done? This is not an exhaustive list but here are a few ideas to help get the Democratic brand back on track as the party of the people, not the elites.”

Read it all! Halpin’s ideas for the reset are spot on.

Matthew Yglesias explains how “On Day One, Biden Can Start Winning the Midterms” at Blooomberg Opinon: “Job No. 1 (and 2, 3 and 4) is delivering a rapid economic recovery. A big, quick Covid relief bill such as the one Biden unveiled last week would go far toward achieving that, which in turn underscores the need to get something done fast rather than advance ideological pet projects. As negotiations proceed over what and how much to include in this and future relief bills, Democrats should favor easily understandable policies — like sending $1,400 checks to everyone — rather than convoluted and opaque measures…. instead of being coy about it as they were during the 2020 campaign, Democrats should be loud and proud about the fact that the state and local financial assistance they are pledging to deliver in the next relief package is funding the police —and that, by opposing state and local aid, Republicans are in effect defunding the police….Biden cannot afford to settle for a slow recovery. He needs to break 21st century growth records in 2021 in order to position workers for strong wage gains in 2022….Biden also needs to do everything in his power to center the national political agenda on popular progressive ideas such as raising the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana and investing in clean energy. Progressives often tell themselves that this is exactly what they intend to do before getting derailed by things like linking Covid relief to immigration amnesty….For Democrats, the key to success in 2022 is a disciplined agenda in 2021.”

The Des Moines Register editorial Board offers “6 priorities Joe Biden should pursue immediately through executive action to undo the damage done by Trump” including: Restoring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program; return the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal; Reinstate regulations and repair the nation’s framework of environmental protections; Hold for-profit colleges accountable foer their abuses of federal aid programs; and Revoke the gag on health providers, which prevents physicians from making referrals to abortion providers; Shoring up the Affordable Care Act – Trump’s “administration slashed funds to promote Obamacare insurance, shortened the open enrollment period to buy private coverage, welcomed back junk health “plans” that do not cover essential health services, and cleared the way for states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients.,,,,We should say goodbye to all of that….The Biden administration can also refuse to allow states to privatize Medicaid programs, which could finally put an end to the costly privatization mess in Iowa, with its record of eroding service and delaying payments to providers.”

At The Hill, Amitai Etzioni urges, “Invoking the War Powers Act (WPA) would enable President Biden to use unique capacities provided in the act to accelerate the vaccination of Americans, without waiting for Congress to confirm his Cabinet members, hold hearings on the needed budget and so on. (The Washington Post reports that “Biden’s incoming administration is in danger of not having a single Cabinet official confirmed on Inauguration Day, upsetting a tradition going back to the Cold War of ensuring the president enters office with at least part of his national security team in place.”)….Drawing on the WPA (as well as on the Defense Production Act, which Biden is already planning to invoke) would allow for rapid, effective, multifaceted domestic mobilization. The statutes enable the president to order corporations that manufacture vaccines to increase their production. If they need additional resources that are not available through the marketplace, the president can order these materials to be turned over to these corporations, compensating those that will be forced to give them up.”

David Roberts aregues that “Joe Biden should do everything at once: How to succeed in hyperpolarized politics: run a blitz” at Vox: “The only thing Biden will have real control over is his administration and what it does. And his North Star, his organizing principle, should be doing as much good on as many fronts as fast as possible. Blitz….Biden’s best chance is to try to overwhelm the system the way Trump did, by doing so much that it’s impossible to make any one thing into a lasting story. He should launch so many simultaneous reforms that there’s no time for right-wing media to make up lies about all of them or for the Supreme Court to hear them all. He should ignore bad-faith attacks and stay relentlessly on message about what’s gotten done and what’s getting done next. He should, at every juncture, get caught trying to make government work better for ordinary people….To succeed, all this must happen alongside Democratic Party efforts to improve messaging and media, get persistent party infrastructure on the ground in communities the party has neglected, and innovate on voter outreach and persuasion. (Aaron Strauss has some good ideas on that front.)”

Now that a Senate impeachment trial is going to happen sooner or later, I took a skeptical look at possible Senate Republican supporters of conviction at New York:

The brisk and successful drive to a second impeachment of Donald Trump and his ebbing power in Washington have raised some hopes that this time around the U.S. Senate might actually convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors and bar him from future office (since the calendar will take care of removing him from the one he occupies now). Predictions that this could happen appear to be based largely on the relatively low level of Senate Republican support for Trump’s electoral-vote protests on January 6, and a surge of questionably sourced claims that Mitch McConnell might actually support conviction.

It’s worth taking a closer look at how many Republican senators might reasonably be expected to throw Trump into the dustbin of history. Seventeen GOP senators would have to break ranks to convict him on the “incitement to insurrection” impeachment article, assuming Democrats stick together (and that’s not certain given Joe Manchin’s comments suggesting that it’s unnecessary and an obstacle to future bipartisanship). After conviction, only a simple majority would be needed to prohibit Trump from holding future office. Who might these Republican defectors be, in theory?

Chronic Anti-Trump Republicans

Mitt Romney, who voted to convict and remove Trump from office in February 2020, can be expected to do the same the second time around. Another regularly anti-Trump Republican, Ben Sasse, might go along with the more concrete “incitement to insurrection” accusation this time around. You could probably place Pat Toomey, an outspoken opponent of Trump’s election-coup efforts, in the same category as Sasse; he’s also announced he’s retiring at the end of his term in 2022. Other Republican senators prone to rebellion now and then are Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, against whom Trump has pledged to campaign in 2022, and Maine’s Susan Collins, the one Republican senator reelected in a state carried by Joe Biden in November. That’s five senators, though none of them is a lead-pipe certainty for conviction.

Senators Leaving Office or Fighting for Reelection in 2022

One theory of the case is that Republicans who have nothing to lose because they are lame ducks might defect at the end of an impeachment trial — as might senators in tough 2022 reelection contests. Aside from Toomey, the one Republican senator who is definitely headed for the exit in 2022 is North Carolina’s Richard Burr, who said on January 6 that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack on the Capitol, and has reportedly expressed contempt toward the 45th president in private. So you can put him down as a possible if still unlikely (Burr is hardly a boat-rocker) conviction supporter.

Another possibility is Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, who will turn 89 in 2022 when his current term ends, and who has said Trump has forfeited any opportunity for future leadership of the GOP. On the other hand, the fitness fanatic Grassley could well run again in 2022, when offending Trump supporters could be precisely the kind of thing that might attract a primary challenge to an otherwise unassailable veteran. And his suggestion that Trump has already disqualified himself from a 2024 comeback could ironically help Grassley argue that making it official is unnecessary.

There’s not a lot of fodder for conviction among the 16 other Republicans likely to run for reelection in 2022 (excluding the aforementioned Murkowski). Only one, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, is in a state carried by Joe Biden, and he’s been one of the most hard-core supporters of Trump and his election-fraud claims. Most are in deep-red states where their major political concern would be a primary challenge.

2024 Presidential Aspirants

The Republican senators who would have the most to gain from Trump being sidelined in 2024 are those who have aspirations to succeed him as the GOP presidential nominee: Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio, just to name the most obvious presidential wannabes. But without question, the political calculation for any of them would begin with a hope that they could inherit some or all of Trump’s fervent supporters, and any real chance of the 2024 nomination might end with being labeled an enemy of MAGA. So while these worthies might hope Trump is convicted, they will not want their fingerprints on the weapon that denied Republicans the opportunity to seek vengeance and vindication for him.

If there is a possibility of a 2024 aspirant trying to stand out by taking on Trump and his legacy, it could be Cotton, the most outspoken dissenter toward Trump’s attempted election coup in the group, or possibly the supremely opportunistic Graham, who might stop sucking up to the former president after he leaves office. But the safer course for all of them is to find some excuse for voting no at the end of a Senate trial, with or without public expressions of solidarity for Trump. Cotton has already issued a statement opposing a postpresidential trial as unconstitutional.

Constitutional Sticklers

Two Republican senators, Mike Lee and Rand Paul, style themselves as more loyal to the Constitution than to any party or politician, and both have occasionally given Trump problems (while generally currying his favor). But for that very reason, they will likely be convinced by conservative constitutional scholars, like Michael Luttig, who argue that any textual analysis of the Constitution prohibits an impeachment proceeding against a former president (an argument already endorsed by Tom Cotton). And in general, that will be a convenient excuse for a no vote across the ranks of Senate Republicans.

The McConnell Factor

Mitch McConnell is notorious for valuing doubt about his intentions, so all the blind quotes from those said to be familiar with his thinking on an impeachment trial should be accordingly discounted. His own statement that he is “open” to a conviction is indeed different from his public admissions before the first impeachment trial that he was closely coordinating with the White House on a defense for the president. But it’s still literally and figuratively an expression of the formal neutrality customary for all senators before an impeachment trial, not a veiled signal that he’s going to send Trump to political hell. The two things we know for sure about McConnell is that he’s not going to go against a majority of his conference on anything important and that he’s already ensured, by refusing to reconvene the Senate until January 19, a trial managed by Chuck Schumer.

With Joe Biden taking office and testing Republican unity early and often, you have to assume McConnell isn’t going to divide his troops or lead them into a massive intraparty fight. Maybe he’ll give the signal that further defections are all right if a majority of Republican senators are onboard for convicting Trump, but he probably won’t do a single thing to make that happen.

Why Most GOP Senators Are Likely to Oppose Conviction

Despite strong bipartisan elite fury and dismay over Trump’s conduct leading up to and during the January 6 crisis, “the base” hasn’t abandoned him in any significant way. Yes, he’s losing some support across the board, but not enough to embolden Republican rebels. A new Axios-Ipsos survey dramatically shows the current public opinion dynamics: A majority of Americans now favor removing Trump from office, but “a majority of Republicans still think Trump was right to challenge his election loss, support him, don’t blame him for the Capitol mob and want him to be the Republican nominee in 2024.” Among the more than one-third of Republicans who appear to identify with Trump more than with their party, support for Trump 2024 — which of course conviction in the Senate would make impossible — is at an astronomical 92 percent.

Republican senators will be reluctant to fight that sentiment, particularly since there are so many ways they could vote against convicting Trump without condoning his conduct. As his presidency quickly recedes into the background, Senate sentiment for formally burying him may recede as well.

But the most powerful excuse for doing nothing will be the plea (ironic as it might be coming from Trump-era Republicans) we heard so often during the impeachment debate in the House: that the country needs healing as it moves from the Trump presidency to Biden’s. It’s an argument that was clearly not available during the first impeachment trial, which occurred on the brink of the most intensely combative presidential election in living memory. Implicit in a let’s-move-on posture is the belief (stated or unstated) that Trump’s grip on the GOP will fade quickly as his proximity to the power he has lost — and to the social-media platforms he has been denied — grows more distant. Senate Republicans may accept his fall from grace, but don’t count on them to give him a push.

Some insights from “Biden Begins Presidency With Positive Ratings; Trump Departs With Lowest-Ever Job Mark: 68% of public does not want Trump to remain a major political figure in the future,” based on a study by The Pew Research Center, “conducted Jan. 8-12 among 5,360 U.S. adults, including 4,040 who say they voted in the presidential election”:

As Joe Biden prepares to take office just days after a deadly riot inside the U.S. Capitol, 64% of voters express a positive opinion of his conduct since he won the November election. Majorities also approve of Biden’s Cabinet selections and how he has explained his plans and policies for the future.

Donald Trump is leaving the White House with the lowest job approval of his presidency (29%) and increasingly negative ratings for his post-election conduct. The share of voters who rate Trump’s conduct since the election as only fair or poor has risen from 68% in November to 76%, with virtually all of the increase coming in his “poor” ratings (62% now, 54% then).

Trump voters, in particular, have grown more critical of their candidate’s post-election conduct. The share of his supporters who describe his conduct as poor has doubled over the past two months, from 10% to 20%.

The study notes further that “About two-thirds (68%) say Trump should not continue to be a major national political figure for many years to come; just 29% say he should remain a major figure in U.S. politics.” Also, “A narrow majority of Americans (54%) say it would be better for the country for Trump to be removed from office, with Vice President Mike Pence finishing the last few days of his term…” However,  “45% say Trump should remain in office until his term ends Jan. 20.”

The survey also found that “Among voters overall, 65% say Biden definitely or probably “received the most votes cast by eligible voters in enough states to win the election”; 54% say he definitely won the most votes.” Yet, “34% incorrectly say Trump definitely or probably was the rightful election winner.”

In addition, “57% – approve of Biden’s Cabinet choices and other high-level appointments. Almost half (46%) expect Biden to improve the way the federal government in Washington, D.C., works, while 28% say he will make things worse; 24% say he will not have much of an effect.”

Clearly, President-elect Biden and his fellow Democrats have reason to be hopeful that they have adequate political capital to enact major elements parts of their legislative agenda, such as pandemic vaccination acceleration and Biden’s stimulus proposals. But the thin margins they hold in congress will require successful bipartisan oputreach to enact many Democratic priorities.