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

The heart of the message is in the title of Kelly Candaele’s “Sherrod Brown Is Out for 2020, But the Fight for Workers’ Rights Is Not” at In These Times. Candaele writes, “This week, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) announced he would not run for president in 2020. He had just recently wrapped up his “dignity of work” tour across the country, telling audiences “hard work should pay off.” He decided not to run for a number of reasons, but seemed pleased that other Democratic candidates for the White House were borrowing his worker-centric themes and approach. Brown had tailored his message to “regular” folks—fry cooks, nurses, construction workers, people who were once the political base of the Democratic Party.” American workers of all races spend more than half of their weekday waking hours on the job and preparing for work. Brown is surely right that focusing on the injustices of worklife in America and the reforms that can improve it for working people has to be a winning theme. It may not be the only theme, but any Democrat who overlooks it will be giving an adversary who doesn’t a significant messaging edge.

Michael Tomasky explains why “Elizabeth Warren Is Running for President. The Other 2020 Democrats Are Just Jockeying for Position” at The Daily Beast. Noting that “Yes, I’m bummed out Sherrod Brown decided not to run. I thought he had, potentially, the most persuasive argument by far,” Tomasky adds, that “all the others are running for wokest progressive. Warren’s running for president…She’s put out a bunch of tough, meaty proposals. They mean something. They communicate: “This is what I will do, and it will constitute serious change.” Last week’s proposal to break up the tech companies was ambitious and brave. Most Democrats are afraid of tech money… Warren went right at it. Monopoly power. It’s (yet another) huge and under-discussed crisis in this country, a grotesque distortion of the market that hurts consumers in a hundred ways every day…She’s putting the meat on the bones of new Democratic economic message, and no one else is even a close second so far.”

“There’s one other thing she’s been doing well. She knows how to handle the socialist question,” Tomasky continues. “This is important, because “socialism/Venezuela” is going to be a good chunk of the Trump-Fox campaign. She knows what to say. I’m a capitalist “to my bones,” as she once put it. What I’m doing is fixing capitalism. Boom. Easy answer. That John Hickenlooper disaster on Morning Joe last week was jaw-dropping. Dude! It’s not hard. Here’s what you say: “I’m not a socialist. I’m a capitalist. What Democrats want to do is fix capitalism, just like Franklin Roosevelt did. Because what we’re living under now isn’t real capitalism. Real capitalism provides opportunity for working- and middle-class people, not just the ones at the top. We’re in the business of saving capitalism. It’s the Republicans who’ve been distorting and destroying it…Some people on the left won’t like it, but they’re a small group, comparatively speaking. And while they might not like the word “capitalism,” they’ll be perfectly fine with Warren’s specific ideas.”

Tomasky makes it clear he is endorsing a message strategy, not a candidate, and underscores that “Warren has her downsides…She’s also uniquely hated by corporate America and Wall Street. Lots of those people don’t like Donald Trump and would back a Democrat, even a fairly leftish one, I think. But if Warren’s the nominee, they’ll be all-in for Trump. This is not a moral judgment. If anything, it speaks well of her. I’m just saying it would make winning harder. And finally, well, the Democratic Party is one-for-three on Massachusetts liberals, and the one who won the presidency wasn’t really all that liberal, and he won 60 years ago…I’m not at all sure she could beat Trump and Fox (since Fox News will be an arm of his campaign, I’ll try to remember to always say “Trump and Fox,” and everyone else should, too). And the latent sexism in the vote that helped sink Hillary Clinton hasn’t gone anywhere. In the Trump era, it’s probably gotten worse, if anything…Who knows about all that? Not me, not you, not nobody. But this I do know: Elizabeth Warren is defining what the Democratic Party ought to stand for and do so far. Her proposals are strong and smart. They’re not “radical” or “anti-business.” They are anti-multi-millionaire. To that, I say it’s high time.”

If you want to ridicule a good idea, trot out an absurdly-high cost estimate. That’s standard practice for the Republicans, so no one should be surprised that they have slapped a $93 trillion cost estimate on the Green New Deal. As Zack Colman writes at Politico: “the number originated with a report by a conservative think tank, American Action Forum, that made huge assumptions about how exactly Democrats would go about implementing their plan. But the $93 trillion figure does not appear anywhere in the think tank’s report — and AAF President Douglas Holtz-Eakin confessed he has no idea how much exactly the Green New Deal would cost.” Colman details how they came up with the ridiculous estimate. But Democrats would be wise not to fool with cost estimates for a broad vision statement. Yes, the GND proponents went too wide, and threw in everything but a pony for everyone. But the heart of the proposal is a much-needed infrastructure plan, with a strong emphasis on environmental modernization — and that’s a good overall vision for the progressive party. Smart Dems need not get down in the weeds with the naysayers.

Stef W. Knight cites the findings of a new Harris poll for Axios, which indicates that “Generation Z has a more positive view of the word “socialism” than previous generations, and — along with millennials — are more likely to embrace socialistic policies and principles than past generations, according to a new Harris Poll given exclusively to Axios.” Amond the data points: 73.2 percent of millenials and generation Z believe that “Govt. should provide universal health care. 67.1 percent of them agree that ” Govt. should provide tuition-free college.” 49.6 percent of them would “prefer living in a socialist country.” Also, “The top three voting issues for Gen Z, according to the Harris poll, are mass shootings, racial equality, and immigration policy and treatment of immigrants.” In addition, “Millennials‘ top issues are access to health care, global warming/climate change and mass shootings” and “Gen X’s top issues are: access to health care, terrorism/national security and the national debt — the same top issues for boomers and older.”

A revealing exchange from Zach Beauchamp’s interview of Brad DeLong in “A Clinton-era centrist Democrat explains why it’s time to give democratic socialists a chance” at vox.com: “Zack Beauchamp: But despite that substantive view, you think that instead of freaking out about the leftists at the gates, it’s smarter to side with them — to treat them as political coalition partners”…Brad DeLong: “Our current bunch of leftists are wonderful people, as far as leftists in the past are concerned. They’re social democrats, they’re very strong believers in democracy. They’re very strong believers in fair distribution of wealth. They could use a little more education about what is likely to work and what is not. But they’re people who we’re very, very lucky to have on our side…That’s especially opposed to the people on the other side, who are very, very strange indeed. You listen to [Never Trump conservatives] like Tom Nichols or Bruce Bartlett or Bill Kristol or David Frum talk about all the people they had been with in meetings, biting their tongues over the past 25 years, and your reaction can only be, “Why didn’t you run away screaming into the night long ago?”

“When asked whether they would prefer a presidential candidate who “comes closest to [their] views on issues” or one “with the best chance to defeat Donald Trump,” a full 40 percent of Democratic primary voters said it was most important to them to beat President Trump, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted Feb. 24-27,” note Nathaniel Rakich and Dhrumil Mehta in “Democrats Care More About Winning Than Usual” at FiveThirtyEight. “A larger 56 percent said it was most important to agree with their candidate on the issues, but still — two-fifths of the party’s core voters prized electability over ideological purity…True, this is far fewer than the share of Democrats who said this in a Monmouth University poll from late January. In that survey, 56 percent chose the more electable candidate, while 33 percent chose the candidate who agreed with them on the issues. However, the difference might be due to how the question was worded. Monmouth gave respondents a choice between “a Democrat you agree with on most issues but would have a hard time beating Donald Trump or a Democrat you do NOT agree with on most issues but would be a stronger candidate against Donald Trump.” Given that stark choice, it’s not all that surprising voters didn’t choose the candidate who they were explicitly told would have a difficult time defeating Trump.”

However, Mehta and Rackich also note in “Other Polling Nuggets” that “56 percent of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the economy according to a Gallup poll. That’s the highest number the pollster has recorded on this issue since Trump took office.”

“House progressives are set to introduce a revised single-payer “Medicare-for-all” bill during the last week of this month, as Republicans sharpen their criticism of the policy and Democratic presidential hopefuls face questions about whether they support it, writes Mary Ellen McIntire at Roll Call. “The House bill from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., will have at least 100 initial co-sponsors. It comes as Democrats are offering a range of bills to expand health insurance coverage, such as a proposal to allow adults between 50 and 64 to buy into Medicare that was unveiled Wednesday, and presidential candidates refine their positions on what “Medicare-for-all” should mean and the role private insurers would play…The intra-party divisions could complicate Democrats’ hope of keeping health care as a unifying issue and a central theme in the 2020 campaign, building on their capture of the House in 2018 by focusing on protections for pre-existing conditions and defending former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement…“The most important thing for Democrats to do is outline a couple of core principles that they are for and what they mean by ‘Medicare-for-all,’” said Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, adding that candidates should focus on broad topics like covering all Americans, lowering costs and the ability to choose their own doctors. “It’s very, very important that we get some of those components and core values out.”…“At the end of the day, what people want is access to affordable health care for everyone,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist and president of the Mellman Group. “People are less concerned about the mechanism through which that’s provided and more concerned about the ultimate objective….Polling shows that most people support expanding coverage through Medicare, but support for “Medicare-for-all” fell when people heard it could cause them to lose their insurance. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last month found that support for a national health plan fell from 56 percent to 37 percent when people were told it would eliminate private insurance.”

Li Zhou and Emily Stewart consider “5 ways Trump’s national emergency declaration could be stopped” at vox.com, including: 1) A joint resolution of termination contesting the status of the emergency; 2) Congressional Democrats sue the White House; 3) Landowners sue the White House; 4) Liberal activist groups sue the White House; and 5) California and other states sue. There is a good chance that all of these challenges will soon be launched. As Zhou and Stewart explain “Trump is issuing the declaration under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which lets presidents issue an emergency declaration but under certain constraints — namely, Trump can only use specific powers Congress has already codified by law, and he has to say which powers he’s using. The act doesn’t define what counts as an emergency…House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Friday that they were prepared to take multiple routes to try to block Trump’s efforts. “The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available,” they said in a statement.”

At CNN Politics, Priscilla Alvarez explores the question, “Will the Supreme Court stop Trump’s national emergency?” Alvarez notes, “How and where these legal challenges proceed is unclear, but it’s likely they’ll bubble up to the Supreme Court — potentially testing for the first time the 1976 law that formalized the structure by which a president can declare a national emergency…There’s been virtually no litigation in the 43-history of the National Emergencies Act about that statute,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law. “To a large degree, what is about to happen is not precedented,” he added.”…the administration could face legal challenges on what statutes he relies on to merit pulling from funds that haven’t been appropriated for his wall. Trump invoked Section 2808 of Title 10 of the US Code, which allows him to dip into a stash of Pentagon funds that are earmarked but have no signed contracts for spending that money. Section 2808, specifically, requires the use of the armed forces.”

“By validating the Republican efforts to portray Democrats as outside the mainstream,” writes Ronald Brownstein in “Howard Schultz Is Already Helping President Trump: The former CEO has staked out a platform few Republican-leaning voters would endorse” at The Atlantic, “Schultz is helping Trump already. He would help him even more if he runs as an independent behind a platform that aligns much more closely with the views of Democratic voters than with those of Republican voters. An independent candidacy that splinters the vote would reduce the share of the vote required to win, inexorably benefiting a president who has never sustained support from more than about 45 percent of the public. Unlike Clinton, who sought to remake the Democratic Party from within, Schultz could debilitate Democrats…With minorities and Millennials replacing working-class whites in the Democratic coalition, the party is more liberal than during Clinton’s era. But enough voters inside the coalition still share the views Schultz has expressed for him to exert influence within the party if he chooses to. Instead, he’s pursuing a course that may only help Republicans.

In his article, “One blue wave was not enough: Democrats need another in 2020: Beating Donald Trump might not be Democrats’ biggest task in 2020: A second blue wave could reshape history.” Paul Rosenberg writes: “Altogether, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is initially targeting 33 GOP-held seats, for 2020. Chairwoman Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., has declared that “2018 was just the tip of the iceberg for Democrats,” adding, “We have a clear path to expanding our Democratic majority, and by putting our plans in motion earlier in the cycle than ever before, we are demonstrating to Democrats across the country that the political arm of House Democrats is operating in high gear from the start.”…What’s more, the DCCC pointed out, 20 of the 33 seats it’s targeting “are held by an incumbent Republican who has never served in the minority before,” making them especially likely to retire and create a more winnable open-seat race…Pundits have largely tuned out on the House amid the early furor of the impending presidential campaign. That’s a mistake. Just as 2018 was all about the House, 2020 is expected to be all about the White House — with a secondary nod to the Senate. But a second wave election in the House could be crucial for longer-term Democratic success. And making further gains in state legislative races will be crucial to the redistricting process after the 2020 census is complete.”…“In 2020 we can defeat Trump and set up decades of progressive victories,” a Swing Left spokesperson told Salon. “That requires winning the White House, the Senate, key state races that will determine redistricting, and protecting our majority in the House. Put simply, the blue wave can’t be a temporary movement, and it can’t be confined to the House. We need to build a comprehensive and sustained approach to activating grassroots energy to win elections up and down the ballot.”

Rosenberg continues, quoting Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska and chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party: “There’s no question that Democrats need rural voters in order to win back the White House, as well as to win statewide races like U.S. Senate,” she said. “Unfortunately, Democrats have lost an entire generation of rural voters because there’s been this cycle of mutual neglect. Democrats don’t invest in the state parties, and then they don’t have the money to talk to rural voters. We don’t talk to rural voters, so they don’t vote for Democrats.”…One old-timer put it bluntly to her husband at a town hall, Kleeb recalled: “Let’s just be honest, if there’s only one church in your community, guess what religion you become.” Kleeb added that Democrats “have to start including the solutions that rural people are already putting on the table to the big issues facing our country and our party.”…“Real investments have to be made in red and rural states if we’re going to win the White House and critical statewide elections,” Kleeb said. “Specific examples are investing in state parties who know their communities best; opening up our primaries to independents, since we need their votes to win elections; and talking about issues that matter to rural people, like ending eminent domain for private gain, providing broadband access and ensuring competitive markets for family farmers and ranchers.”

At The San Antonio Express-News, Kevin Diaz reports that Dems see a “Texas ‘focal point’ of Democratic congressional strategy in 2020.” Diaz explains, “Smelling blood after picking up two Texas congressional seats in November – along with Beto O’Rourke’s narrow loss in the U.S. Senate race – House Democrats on Monday announced six new 2020 targets in the Lone Star State.” Diaz notes that Democratic strategists see 33 pick up opportunities for House of Reps seats in 2020, and 6 of them arte in Texas. “The targeted Texas lawmakers include Houston-area Republicans Michael McCaul and Pete Olson. Around San Antonio, the Democrats are putting two other Republicans in their sights: Freshman Chip Roy, a conservative stalwart who worked for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, and moderate Will Hurd, who represents a heavily Latino border district. Rounding out the list are Republicans John Carter of Round Rock and Kenny Marchant of Coppell…”All six have suburban areas experiencing population booms and an increasingly diverse electorate. These factors gave Republicans a taste of what is headed their way.” said DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat, in a memo released Monday…Republicans still represent 23 of the state’s 36 congressional districts. Flipping six seats would give Democrats a 19-17 majority in Texas.”

“While Northam is looking to atone for his actions, black organizers and activists say that he has a lot to do before he can be forgiven…Northam declared last week that he will stay in office, promising to help Virginia “heal” and use the blackface scandal as an opportunity to be more active in addressing racial inequality. That hasn’t stopped protests, though, or ended calls for his immediate resignation…Strong turnout among black Virginians, coupled with the fact that 87 percent of black voters in Virginia backed the Democrat, pushed Northam to a decisive victory over Republican Ed Gillespie…With Northam staying in office in hopes of riding out the scandal, the focus now shifts to how he will address the issue moving forward. On Tuesday, the governor’s office released a statement touting Northam’s record on restoring civil rights to people with felony convictions, a group that is disproportionately black. The Washington Post reported last week that the governor’s office is planning a statewide “reconciliation tour”, and Northam will attend a February 21 discussion on race at the historically black Virginia Union University. — From P. R. Lockhart’s “Ralph Northam wants forgiveness. Virginia’s black activists want him to work for it: The embattled governor’s fight for redemption is just beginning” at vox.com.

Lockhart reports that some groups, including the national and Virginia NAACP and county branches of the organization are still calling for Northam to resign. Other groups have have seized on the Northam meltdown to convert the controversy into an opportunity to advance a stronger civil rights agenda. The ACLU has called on him to support a constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote for those who have been convicted of felonies. Also, “In a letter sent to Northam this week, an activist group called the Virginia Black Politicos outlined their own set of policy proposals, including the removal of Confederate monuments, the creation of funds supporting black entrepreneurship and Virginia’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and a new office focused on issues affecting people of color.” Virginia’s legislative Black Caucus, which earlier called for his resignation, may be the most influential organization in shaping the outcome. Much depends on whether they will see a way for Northam to continue in office, in light of his record of support for civil rights reforms and the outright hostility to civil rights by Virginia’s Republican leaders.

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

There are few policy questions more important for Democrats than how they’re going to handle the debate about deficits and the national debt. This is because every time Democrats come up with some good new programs that would actually help people and make the country better and more productive over the long haul, the standard response is: we can’t afford it, that would run up the debt, we’ll become like Greece, etc. That is, unless you want to raise taxes to cover every nickel of that spending–and good luck with that.

But the conventional economic wisdom on deficits and the debt is shifting–finally–and that should help Democrats keep their heads on straight about this stuff. It’ll still be a struggle to hold off the conservative attack dogs and their pals in the deficit hawk community. But there is hope that the ideological tide on government spending is turning.

Paul Krugman:

“[T]here are…two big questions [about the debt]. First, how much should we care about debt? Second, will a double standard continue to prevail? That is, will the deficit scolds suddenly get vocal again if and when Democrats regain power?

On the first question: One surprising thing about the debt obsession that peaked around 2011 is that it never had much basis in economic analysis. On the contrary, everything we know about fiscal policy says that it’s a mistake to focus on deficit reduction when unemployment is high and interest rates are low, as they were when the fiscal scolds were at their loudest.

The case for worrying about debt is stronger now, given low unemployment. But interest rates are still very low by historical standards — less than 1 percent after adjusting for inflation. This is so low that we needn’t fear that debt will snowball, with interest payments blowing up the deficit. It also suggests that we’re suffering from chronic weakness in private investment demand (which, by the way, the 2017 tax cut doesn’t seem to have boosted at all).

So in the past few months a number of prominent economists — including the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and top economists from the Obama administration — have published analyses saying that even now, with unemployment quite low, debt is much less of a problem than previously thought…..

[B]orrowing at ultralow interest rates to pay for investments in the future — infrastructure, of course, but also things like nutrition and health care for the young, who are the workers of tomorrow — is very defensible.

Which brings us to the question of double standards.

You don’t have to agree with everything in proposals for a “Green New Deal” to acknowledge that it’s very much an investment program, not a mere giveaway. So it has been very dismaying to see how much commentary on these proposals either demands an immediate, detailed explanation of how Democrats would pay for their ideas, or dismisses the whole thing as impractical.”

Noah Smith:

“[E]conomists’ views on the subject of debt are changing. Economist Kenneth Rogoff, who once ran into criticism for a dubious claim that debt reduces growth, now advocates more deficit spending for the U.K. The IMF has softened its tone on debt, and is beginning to embrace the idea of fiscal stimulus for distressed economies. And Olivier Blanchard, a respected macroeconomist and former IMF chief economist, has a new paper questioning the idea that higher deficits would impose any real cost on the U.S. economy.

Blanchard begins with a simple observation: If the interest rate paid by the government is lower than the rate of economic growth, government debt doesn’t have to be paid down. Instead it can be infinitely rolled over, and as the economy grows, the debt burden will have a tendency to shrink all on its own. Blanchard notes that interest rates on short-term government debt have generally been lower than the rate of nominal GDP growth during the past few decades:…

Blanchard notes that effective borrowing costs may be even lower for the government, since some portion of the interest paid to bond holders gets taxed, ending up back in the government’s coffers. Taking this into account, he finds that during the past half-century, the U.S. almost always could have afforded to take on more government debt than it did.”

Sometimes you just gotta borrow the money. And quite frequently, and especially now, that’s fine.

In Geoffrey Skelley’s “Is Socialism Still An Effective Political Bogeyman?” at FiveThirtyEight, he writes: “If President Trump’s most recent State of the Union address is any indication, socialism could be at the forefront of his 2020 campaign rhetoric. In his Feb. 5 speech, Trump said that “we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country” and declared that “America will never be a socialist country.”

No shocker there, and it’s not just Trump. Republicans have parroted similar inanities for as long as all of us have been alive. But Skelley may be right that we should expect an uptick in GOP references to the socialist bogeyman in the 2020 campaigns.

The Republicans are desperate after getting creamed in the midterm elections. And now they have to own millions of voters getting screwed by G.O.P. tax “reform,” and their utter failure to enact any improvements in America’s health care. They can’t run on their record, so here come the distractions, including the fear-monger’s twin bogeymen, the Dangerous Undocumented Immigrant and the dreaded Creature of the Socialist Lagoon.

Skelley notes that “Unlike in the 1940s, Americans today are more likely to identify socialism with “equality” than with “government ownership or control,” according to polling by Gallup.”  Skelley notes, further,

Gallup periodically asks Americans how they feel about socialism, and in 2018, the pollster found that 57 percent of Democrats held a positive view of socialism, compared with just 16 percent of Republicans.³ For Democrats, this represented essentially no change from 2016, although it was a bit higher than in 2012, when 53 percent of Democrats said the same. As for Republicans, positive feelings toward socialism ranged from 13 percent to 23 percent in the four Gallup polls of the question since 2010…And in a January poll from Fox News, 80 percent of Republicans and 34 percent of Democrats said it would be “a bad thing” for the United States “to move away from capitalism and more toward socialism.”

…In June 2015, Gallup asked Americans about whether they’d vote for a socialist if their party nominated one — and found that 50 percent of respondents said they would not be willing to. The poll tested 11 different candidate characteristics — for example, whether someone was an evangelical Christian or a woman — to see what voters disliked most, and it found that the biggest disqualifier for both parties was a candidate who identified as a socialist. Thirty-eight percent of Democrats said they weren’t willing to vote for a socialist, and 73 percent of Republicans said the same.

Skelley adds that “59 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents said they would have “some reservations” or would feel “very uncomfortable” supporting a self-descibed socialist. He argues that “these numbers suggest that there is still an opportunity for Trump to score points by painting his opponent as a socialist in 2020.”

However, Skelley concludes, “it’s 2019, not 1949; socialism doesn’t automatically evoke the Iron Curtain anymore, and fewer Americans now associate socialism with government control or ownership. Trump’s anti-socialist message may find less success than he hopes.”

Fair enough. But that doesn’t mean that Democratic candidates have anything to gain by proclaiming themselves “Democratic Socialists.” Why even go there? Let the social scientists debate the differences between democratic socialism and social democracy. Democratic candidates should never take the bait and get suckered into arguments about political terminology.

Numerous surveys indicate that most Americans, even many of those who self-identify as conservatives, are “operational liberals,” who support a range of progressive policies that could fairly be termed “socialist” in origin. Thus, defend policies not ideological brands. Even long-time democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders often shruggs off the socialist brand when confronted and pivots to the issue of concern.

To address socialist bogeyman accusations in debates, interviews or tweets, Democratic candidates could ridicule the fear-mongering with brief, well-prepared retorts and soundbites, like “you may call decent health care (or fair taxes, gun control, labor laws or bank regulation) socialism, but I call it responsible government.” if they persist, “I doubt most Americans are so scared of that  bogeyman; what people want are reforms that can improve their lives in the real world.” Or crack wise, “Our party isn’t the one caving to Putin’s entire agenda. That would be the Republicans”

If the discussion still gets prolonged, point out that Republicans once called Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage and all of the now-popular policies of the New Deal and Great Society as “socialist.” Make them say whether they now believe such programs should be abolished in the name of the ‘free market.’ Redirect the heat where it belongs.

The following article is cross-posted from an email from Democracy Corps:

On behalf of the Voter Participation Center and Women’s Voices. Women Vote Action Fund, Democracy Corps conducted live dial-meter testing of the 2019 State of the Union among the Rising American Electorate (African Americans, Latinos, white unmarried women and white millennials), white working-class women, and white college women. Here are some of the key findings:

• Voters, including those in our dial-meter groups, watched the address with an extraordinary high level of political engagement.
• The Democratic presidential vote was not eroded and Trump’s job performance gains were unimpressive.
• The president made immigration and border security the central pitch of his address, but if the goal was to create a new context for a possible shutdown or emergency declaration, then he failed.

• The biggest gains of the night were on making healthcare more affordable, but Trump made these gains championing positions his administration does not support.
• The president saw a rise by recognizing women in the workplace and in Congress, but we suspect this were driven more by the celebrations of the Democratic women and the president playing along.
• Criminal justice reform delivered some of the highest moments in our dials, particularly among African Americans and white millennials, but he did not improve his standing with these groups.

In the end, the Rising American Electorate said that they want Democrats in Congress to be a check on Trump rather than to work with him by a two-to-one margin, marking even greater resistance to Trump and his agenda than last year (60 check to 40 work in 2018).

READ THE KEY FINDINGS REPORT & VIEW THE SLIDES

STREAM THE DIALS ON YOUTUBE & FACEBOOK LIVE

What, you may wonder, will Trump’s shutdown end up costing taxpayers? In his article “The Government Shutdown Will Cost More Than Trump’s $5 Billion Border Wall Funding, According to Experts,” Brad Tuttle shares some possibilities at Money: “The economic costs of the government shutdown may already exceed the $5 billion President Donald Trump is demanding for a border wall, according to some analysts’ estimates…First off, federal workers who are not paid during a government shutdown typically receive back pay once the shutdown is over, whether or not they were furloughed. So there is no money “saved” through a drop in federal employment payroll…Foregone services include things like permits and fees which the government cannot collect during a shutdown and therefore amount to lost revenues.” Tuttle notes also that “analysis of the October 2013 government shutdown, which lasted 16 days, researchers estimated that the shutdown lowered real GDP growth by 0.2% to 0.6%. That amounted to somewhere between $2 billion and $6 billion in lost economic output.” Also, “Standard & Poor’s estimated that the costs of the 2013 government shutdown actually came to $24 billion after incorporating the impact of the shutdown on hard-to-pin-down factors like decreased consumer and investor confidence — components that aren’t tabulated in the OMB analysis…in late 2017, Standard & Poor’s analysts said that a government shutdown threatened at the time would cost the American economy roughly $6.5 billion per week.”

Scott Clement and Dan Balz report on some findings of of a new WaPo/ABC news poll: “By a wide margin, more Americans blame President Trump and Republicans in Congress than congressional Democrats for the now record-breaking government shutdown, and most reject the president’s assertion that there is an illegal-immigration crisis on the southern border, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll…Support for building a wall on the border, which is the principal sticking point in the stalemate between the president and Democrats, has increased over the past year. Today, 42 percent say they support a wall, up from 34 percent last January. A slight majority of Americans (54 percent) oppose the idea, down from 63 percent a year ago…Concerning the allocation of blame, 53 percent say Trump and the Republicans are mainly at fault, and 29 percent blame the Democrats in Congress. Thirteen percent say both sides bear equal responsibility for the shutdown…The president faces sizable opposition from the public were he to do so. By more than 2-1 (66 percent to 31 percent), Americans say they oppose invoking an emergency to build a border wall.”

In “How House Democrats can advocate for a fairer, more effective tax system,” The Editorial Board of the Washington Post argues that “Democrats can use their platform in the House to advocate a fairer system that brings in more revenue than the current one…Their focus should be on eliminating or reducing the biggest source of favoritism toward the rich in the current code: the preferable treatment of capital gains and dividends. These forms of income are accrued overwhelmingly by the highest-earning households and reward activity that is, in principle, no worthier morally, or useful economically, than laboring for a wage or salary. Yet the top marginal rate for ordinary income is now 37 percent, while it is only 23.8 percent for capital gains and dividends…Certainly, the 2017 bill’s near-elimination of the estate tax, which affected precious few households in the first place, should be a high priority for reversal by the Democrat-controlled House…Eliminating a mere two percentage points of the differential between the tax rates on capital gains and ordinary income, and adjusting tax brackets, could raise another $81.4 billion over 10 years, CBO says. Meanwhile, increasing the Internal Revenue Service’s enforcement budget by $500 million from its fiscal 2018 level of $11.4 billion would net the government $35.3 billion over 10 years. Most of that would probably come from wealthy taxpayers who can afford to game the system.”

“The New Deal is back. Nearly a century after President Franklin D. Roosevelt began his effort to revive the American economy through government programs, Democrats are once again becoming fans of Roosevelt and his legacy,” writes Cornell professor Lawrence B. Glickman in his article, “The left is pushing Democrats to embrace their greatest president. Why that’s a good thing” in The Washington Post. Glickman traces the history of Democratic attitudes toward FDR’s New Deal, and explains, “It is too soon to say whether the Democratic Party as a whole will follow the lead of its left flank. But growing support for a Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all, progressive taxation and corporate regulation suggests that many members of the Democratic Party are once again embracing the Rooseveltian vision of activist government that promotes freedom, opportunity and justice for ordinary Americans. After half a century of consensus that the Age of Roosevelt was history, today’s Democrats are reclaiming the mantle of the party of ideas by reembracing the New Deal as a vision of positive governance.”

At The Plum Line, Paul Waldman explains “Why Democrats will not tear themselves apart from the inside,” and notes that, “unlike the white guys who made up the tea party, the Democrats who just came to Washington represent not only the Democratic Party coalition as it exists today, but also the coalition that is most likely to allow it to prosper in the future.” Waldman adds that “the things the progressive Democrats are pushing for — action on climate change, a higher minimum wage, universal health coverage — are all quite popular. That doesn’t mean there won’t be vigorous debates about them, but despite Republican cries of “Egad, socialism!”, their agenda strikes most Americans as pretty reasonable.”

“…Many in the party believe that proving oneself as the antidote to Mr. Trump and his brand of incendiary politics will become the ultimate litmus test in 2020, more than demonstrating policy purity. Yet some activists want both: fierce resistance to Mr. Trump and unwavering fidelity to the left’s catechism of issues…To strategists who worked on the 2018 midterms, however, the enormous attention being paid to a handful of outspoken liberals like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York misses the nonideological approach of many of the party’s successful candidates for governor and Congress…“There wasn’t a demand among Democratic primary voters for litmus tests,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster…And Ms. Greenberg, who is working for former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a possible 2020 candidate, contends that electoral viability will be more central in the coming Democratic presidential primary than in any recent election.” — from Jonathan Martin’s “Democrats Want to Run on Issues in 2020. But Does Beating Trump Matter Most?” at The New York Times.

Patricia Mazzei and Jonathan Martin probe Democratic prospects in the largest swing state in their article, “Stung by Florida Midterm Losses, Democrats See a Swing State Drifting Away” in The New York Times. “What is so agonizing for Democrats is that 2018 did little to clarify the best path…The party put forward Mr. Gillum, a 39-year-old black progressive, and Mr. Nelson, a 76-year-old white moderate who had been in elected office for nearly half a century. Mr. Nelson lost by about 10,000 votes and Mr. Gillum didn’t fare much worse, losing by about 32,000 votes…In other words, the party pursued two differing approaches in the same state and the same year — nominating a progressive who could mobilize voters difficult to turn out in midterms as well as a moderate who would appear more amenable to persuadable voters — and both failed.” Also note Mazzei and Martin, “Democrats started organizing Latino voters too late, didn’t tailor their message for an increasingly diverse community and ultimately took Latino support for granted, a Florida pollster told about 50 members of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Broward County…Democrats will lose again in 2020 if they don’t move swiftly to win over Hispanics, the pollster, Eduardo Gamarra, told the group. “You just need to start now,” he said…The question looming over the state going into 2020 is the same one Democrats are wrestling with elsewhere: How can the party narrow its losses with voters who are older — and in many cases white — without alienating younger, nonwhite voters?”

In “The more women in government, the healthier a population” at The Conversation, Edward Ng and Carles Montaner write, “Our findings, published recently in the journal SSM – Population Health, support the argument that yes, women in government do in fact advance population health…we examined whether there’s a historical association between women in government and population health among Canada’s 10 provinces. Between 1976 and 2009, the percentage of women in provincial government increased six-fold from 4.2 per cent to 25.9 per cent, while mortality from all causes declined by 37.5 per cent (from 8.85 to 5.53 deaths per 1000 people)…we found that as the average percentage of women in government has historically risen, total mortality rates have declined.” In the U.S., there are currently 106 Democratic women in the U.S. Senate and House, compared to 21 Republican women, and there are 9 Democratic women governors, compared to 3 Republican women, according the The Center for American Women in Politics. (CAWP).

CAWP also notes that there are 1,431 Democratic women and 660 Republican women serving in the state legislatures of the U.S. The states that have the ten highest percentages of women serving in their legislatures include: Nevada (50.8%); Colorado (45.0%); Oregon (41.1%); Washington (40.8%); Vermont (39.4%); Maine (38.7%); Alaska (38.3%); Rhode Island (38.1%); Arizona (37.8%); and Maryland (37.2%). The states with the ten lowest percentages are all “red” states.

Harry Cheadle’s “The Shutdown Is Mitch McConnell’s Fault: The Senate majority leader can end the shutdown by defying Trump. He’s just refusing to do so” at Vice provides an instructive angle on the current mess. Cheadle writes, “Trump could of course veto any spending bill passed by Congress, but a two-thirds majority could override his veto and end this stalemate. The only thing that’s required is a bit of courage on the part of Republicans…For such a veto override to take place, 55 Republicans in the House and 20 in the Senate would have to join with the Democrats and defy Trump…Republicans, and in particular Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, could restore what passes for normality in this era any time they wanted to…Initial polls found the public blamed Trump for the shutdown, but subsequent polls contained evidence that people also blamed Congress—in one recent survey, 58 percent of respondents disapproved of Republicans’ handling of the affair, compared to 51 percent disapproval for Democrats…the path that McConnell has evidently chosen—is to embrace rank partisanship by holding Trump’s line and forcing some government employees to work without pay in support of a wall most Americans don’t even want.”

In his Washington Post column, “After Trump’s dud, it’s up to the Senate GOP,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. also sees McConnell as culpable, “Trump is willing to keep hundreds of thousands of government workers idle and unpaid. He lacks the guts to stand up to Coulter and her allies…Which means that the only path forward is for sensible souls to pressure McConnell and other Senate Republicans to stop enabling the blusterer in chief and put bills on Trump’s desk to reopen the government. Already, at least three Republican senators (with others titling that way) have said it’s time to do this. More should join them.”

From “Democrats Focus on Shutdown’s Cost and Steer Away From Trump’s Wall” by Julie Hirschfield Davis at The New York Times: “While Mr. Trump has launched an elaborate public-relations effort to draw Democrats into a debate over the wall itself — even the material to be used to construct it — Democrats are just as determined to talk instead about a more universally resonant theme: the need to get the government open and functioning while negotiations continue….Obviously, there are some Democrats who talk about the wall being immoral or inconsistent with American values, but across the spectrum of Democrats, there is an emphasis on the degree to which the wall is waste of taxpayers’ money and irrelevant to addressing the most important challenges we face with regard to immigration in the country,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster…Nick Gourevitch, a pollster and communications strategist who advised Democrats during the midterm campaign on Mr. Trump’s fear-soaked immigration message, said Democrats are sticking to the simplest and freshest argument they have to appeal to a public that does not focus on the finer points of border security policy.”

Here’s a couple of good talking points for Democrats about what the shutdown actually means for national security, from an editorial on “Borderline Insanity” at The New York Times: “Mr. Trump’s spiteful choice to shut parts of the government is only making the situation messier. Immigration judges are being furloughed, further slowing the processing of asylum requests. Border Patrol agents are working without pay, eroding morale. In perhaps the choicest twist of fate, some $300 million in new contracts for wall construction cannot be awarded until the shutdown ends.” Meanwhile, Dan Lamothe notes at The Washington Post that 6400 of the Coast Guard’s 8500 civilian workforce is on furlough and 2100 more are working witout pay.

In yet another white house tantrum, Drama Boy Trump walks out of his own meeting, with little concern for the collapse of essential government services. “The breakdown left no end in sight to the shutdown even as its effects spiral around the nation on services for farmers, food inspection services and national parks,” report Erica Werner, Sean Sullivan,  Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim at The Washington Post. In his earlier meeting witjh Republicans, “Moderate Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) pleaded with Trump to reopen the government, according to lawmakers present…Collins urged Trump to consider a previous deal she was a part of that would trade $25 billion for the wall for permanent protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. Trump dismissed that idea.”

In her FiveThirtyEight article, “Trump Has Lost Ground In The Shutdown Blame Game,” Janie Valencia reports that “Trump’s efforts to pin the blame on Democrats aren’t working, according to three pollsters who have conducted at least two polls in the two and a half weeks since the government first closed. Rather, polls show that Americans are increasingly blaming Trump…Polls conducted in the first few days of the shutdown showed that between 43 percent and 47 percent of Americans blamed Trump most for the shutdown, while about a third blamed congressional Democrats. Polling data had been pretty scarce thereafter, but this week a handful of new polls gave us an updated view of who Americans think is responsible. (We’re looking only at data from pollsters who have conducted two surveys since the shutdown started — one just after it began and one after the new year. This makes for nice apples-to-apples comparisons.)..The two YouGov polls found a 4-point increase in those blaming Trump. There was a 4-point increase among registered voters who most blamed Trump in the two Morning Consult polls. And surveys from Reuters/Ipsosalso found a 4-point increase…As for where Democrats stand in the blame-game, Morning Consult found a 2-point increase in those who blame them the most between their two polls, while Ipsos/Reuters found a 1-point drop and YouGov found a 3-point drop…In the most recent HuffPost/YouGov poll, for example — conducted Jan. 4-7 — more Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of the shutdown (52 percent) than they did of the way Democrats were handling it (46 percent), but 56 percent of Americans expressed disapproval of the congressional GOP’s performance…His job approval rating has edged down in the past three weeks — a trend that lines up almost perfectly on the calendar with the shutdown.”

Ruy Teixeira has a two-parter on the “Green New Deal” at his web page, The Optimistic Leftist. Among Teixeira’s strategic insights, from Part II: “The GND can and should be sold as a growth program because an effective approach to the clean energy transition (full employment, massive public investment) both needs and should facilitate strong growth…It is odd that the left does not stress this connection more than it does. This may have something to do with prevalence of anti-growth sentiments in some of the greener parts of the left. These sentiments could not be more misguided…instead of arguments for growth, we are more likely to hear arguments for “degrowth” from green activists, on the belief that, on our current trajectory, we cannot possibly continue to grow and hit reasonable climate targets.” You can read Part I here.

Teixeira also flags an article in The Economist, “Gerrymandering Is Still a Problem But It Isn’t Working Like It Used To,” and notes “There’s been relatively little comment about this but it’s interesting to note that Democrats got about 54 percent of the House 2-party vote and….about 54 percent of the House seats.” One of Teixeira’s Faceboopk commenters notes that “I always felt those white suburbs were winnable because they are easily canvassable as compared to rural areas and very urban areas.” Another adds that gerrymandering is “Still a factor in state legislative races. Wisconsin legislature: Dems 54% of votes, 36% of seats.”

Few political candidates have former President Obama’s speaking skills. But his “What took you so long?” question to Republican “leaders” is one that many Democratic candidates could tweak into a potent refrain for their 2020 campaigns: