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

The Democrats’ Hispanic Voter Challenge Is a Normie Voter Challenge

I explain in my latest from The Liberal Patriot:

“In retrospect, it seems clear that Democrats, in fact, seriously erred by lumping Hispanics in with “people of color” and assuming they embraced the activism around racial issues that dominated so much of the political scene in 2020, particularly in the summer. This was a flawed assumption. In reality, Hispanic voters are overwhelmingly an upwardly mobile, patriotic population with practical and down to earth concerns focused on jobs, the economy, health care, effective schools and public safety.

In short, they are normie voters, not at all a liberal voting bloc, especially on social issues, that just needs to be mobilized. This is not true about Hispanics in general and is very far from the truth among working class Hispanics, three-quarters or more of Hispanic voters. In Pew’s post-election validated voter survey, just 20 percent of these voters described themselves as liberal, while 45 percent said they were moderate and 35 percent said they were conservative.

Just how normie and not super-progressive Hispanics are as a group is well-illustrated by recent data from Echelon Insights. Take the issue of structural racism. Echelon asked respondents to choose between two statements: Racism is built into our society, including into its policies and institutions vs. Racism comes from individuals who hold racist views, not from our society and institutions.

Of course in progressive sectors of the Democratic party, which do so much to define the party’s national brand, it is an article of faith that the first statement is the correct one. Indeed, in Echelon’s “strong progressive” group—roughly 10 percent of voters—they are so very, very sure of America’s systemic racism that they endorse the first statement by an amazing 94-6 margin. But Hispanic voters disagree, endorsing the second statement that racism comes from individuals by 58-36.

That’s quite a difference. Clearly, this constituency, unlike Democratic progressives, does not harbor particularly radical views on the nature of American society and its supposed intrinsic racism and white supremacy.”

Read the whole thing at The Liberal Patriot!

In his post, “Will This Be An Asterisk* Election?* It takes something unusual for the president’s party to do well in the midterms,” Nate Silver writes at FiveThirtyEight: “Democrats started out with 222 House seats following the 2020 election, four more than the number required for a majority. According to our model, there’s a 7 percent chance that Democrats wind up with fewer than 222 seats after November but still enough seats to maintain a narrow majority. Meanwhile, there’s a 13 percent chance that they actually gain seats.¹ Those numbers combined give them their 20 percent chances….Time for a quick historical gut check. In 19 midterm elections since World War II, the president’s party lost fewer than five seats in the House once, in 1962. And they gained seats twice, in 1998 and 2002. That means three out of 19 times the president’s party would have a successful enough midterm to keep the House, or 16 percent of the time. That squares pretty well with our model’s 20 percent estimate….Silver discussess the exceptional midterms, and adds, “….all these elections featured some sort of special circumstance: the Great Depression, the Cuban missile crisis, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the first impeachment of a president in 130 years. But such a definition is inherently fuzzy as you can potentially retrofit almost any political or news development to constitute a “special circumstance,” in the same way that almost every election gets called “the most important election of our lifetimes.”Immediately after the court overturned Roe, Democrats began to gain ground on the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party they’d support in an election, and it’s now translated into some electoral successes, too. In Kansas last week, voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative that would have allowed the legislature to restrict abortion in the state amid very high turnout. And in Minnesota this week, Republicans won a special election in the 1st Congressional District by only 4 percentage points, a district that Trump won by 10 points in 2020. Likewise, on June 28, just a few days after Roe was overturned, Republicans won a special election in Nebraska’s 1st District by only 5 points in a district that Trump carried by 15 points.^3…It’s not just the courts, either. Republicans are also aggressively exercising power through state governments, especially on abortion, gay and transgender rights and education policy. And although voters don’t regard Jan. 6 as an event as important as Sept. 11 — public opinion about it is also much more polarized — it’s a reminder that Republicans can also potentially seek to achieve power through extralegal means….If nothing else, Democratic voters have no shortage of motivation to turn out: Many feel as though their basic rights are being threatened, something a party’s voters ordinarily aren’t concerned about when it controls both the presidency and Congress. The “enthusiasm gap” often accounts for much of the presidential party’s disadvantage at the midterms, but it’s not clear it exists this year after Roe was overturned….All that said, Republicans are still fairly clear favorites to keep the House. Notably, President Biden is quite unpopular despite a modest improvement in his approval ratings, whereas FDR, JFK, Clinton and GWB were all popular at the times of their midterms. The public still has very negative views about the economy and the direction the country is headed in, and that’s usually rough for the party in power to overcome….But the circumstances of these midterms are also potentially unusual, with high uncertainty, and that’s why Democrats keeping the House is a thinkable outcome.”

At The Cook Political Report, the newly-appointed Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Amy Walter writes thaT “the data is giving us mixed signals. Despite these favorable winds, Biden’s job approval rating remains mired under 40 percent. Americans remain deeply pessimistic about the economy and Biden’s handling of it. The one improvement in fortunes for Democrats has been the generic ballot which shows Democrats making up significant ground over the last few weeks. And, as my colleague David Wasserman has noted, better-than-expected showings by Democratic candidates in NE-01 and MN-01 House specials mean “we’re no longer living in a political environment as pro-GOP as November 2021….At the start of the summer, Republicans had a 2 point advantage on the generic congressional ballot. Today, the two parties are basically tied (Democrats up 0.1 in the FiveThirtyEight average)….polling taken this month and last by Monmouth found a ‘generic Democrat’ running anywhere from 11 to 14 points better among independent voters than Biden’s job approval ratings with these same voters. For example, the most recent Monmouth poll found a Democrat pulling 47 percent of the vote from independent voters — which is 14 points higher than Biden’s anemic 33 percent job approval rating with these voters. A late July Quinnipiac poll, which found Republicans ahead by just one point on the generic ballot question (44 to 43 percent), also found Democrats doing 12 points better among independents than Biden’s anemic 23 percent….Overall, Democrats were winning independent voters in the most recent Monmouth survey by 6 points (47 percent to 41 percent). The July Quinnipiac poll showed Democrats losing independent voters by 9 points (35 percent to 44 percent). …So, how are Democrats able to defy political gravity with independent voters? And, can they sustain it?…. First, not all those who disapprove of Biden are taking out their frustration on his party. One pollster told me that his most recent polling showed “Dems winning generic Congress ballot among ‘somewhat disapprove’ of Biden by 17 points. That’s what is keeping Dems competitive in Congressional ballot generically….Another is that independent voters are simply fed up with both parties and, as such, aren’t focusing their frustration at just the party in charge….Overall, however, Republicans can take heart in the fact that the top issues for independent voters remain inflation and the economy — issues for which they give Biden very low marks, and say they trust the GOP more. And, while things are improving on the economic front, they still aren’t great.,,,Vulnerable Democratic Senate candidates have been raising gobs of money and spending it liberally to raise their bonafides with independent voters. But, at the end of the day, they can only control so much. They have been able to fly above Biden’s dismal ratings thus far, but once the GOP ad assault has been underway for a while, we’ll find out whether they can continue to defy political gravity.”

Aside from having major implications for individual rights and perhaps for the Democratic Party, the current abortion fight may also affect the future of individual politicians, one of whom I wrote about at New York:

Vice-presidents of the United States are captive to their boss’s interests and the assignments they are willing to delegate. This has been particularly true of the current vice-president, Kamala Harris. She’s in the shadow of a generally unpopular president who has at best a shaky grip on his own party (most Democrats hope those negative characterizations of Joe Biden will soon be out of date, but they remain accurate right now). And as my colleague Gabriel Debenedetti recently explained, Harris has been unlucky with the thankless jobs Biden has given her:

“Her popularity started sinking when she first visited Central America and appeared dismissive of a suggestion that she visit the border. Behind the scenes, she was worried the assignment to take on the migrant crisis was a clear political loser … Her other top priority — voting rights — was no less publicly frustrating when the administration’s preferred legislation predictably failed in the split Senate. Some close to her wonder why she didn’t muscle her way into leading more popular projects: implementation of the COVID-relief-bill spending or, later, the infrastructure package.”

But now Harris’s luck may have finally turned: She is emerging as the Biden administration’s chief champion of abortion rights at a time when they are uniquely in danger and when Democrats everywhere are seizing on the issue as a potential game changer in 2022 and beyond. It’s an issue that fits her far better than it does the president, an old-school Irish Catholic politician who until mid-2019 opposed federal funding for abortions and could not bring himself even to say the word abortion. Harris is an entirely credible and consistent advocate for reproductive rights, as the Los Angeles Times noted:

“Taking command in the battle over abortion’s future, now largely being fought in the states and as an issue in the November election, comports neatly with Harris’ political résumé, touching on her experience as the first woman elected to the second-highest post in the nation and as a former California attorney general and U.S. senator with a longstanding interest in maternal health.”

It’s also worth noting that the women most immediately and harshly affected by the anti-abortion legislation racing toward enactment in red states are people of color, Black and Asian American women like Harris. And although many other federal and state Democrats will command a portion of the bright spotlight on this topic, Harris uniquely can call on the unparalleled megaphone of the White House, which reaches all states with highly diverse abortion landscapes. Per the Times:

“’We need a leader on this. No one knows who’s the head of Planned Parenthood,’ said Montana state Sen. Diane Sands, an abortion rights activist since the 1960s and one of many Democratic lawmakers and advocates who have met with Harris in recent weeks.”

Most of all, the abortion-rights battle offers Harris something her 2020 presidential campaign lacked: a passionate constituency with national reach, as the Washington Post observes: “She faces considerable pressure to show that her political skills have improved since that effort, which collapsed before a single primary vote was cast.” Yes, she has the famously combative “KHive” Twitter army ready to throw down on her behalf at a moment’s notice, but she could use a showing of excitement in the non-virtual world of left-of-center grassroots activists too. No issue is more starkly partisan than abortion post-Dobbs; within the Democratic Party, there is no real downside to pro-choice militancy.

What would really benefit Harris politically, of course, would be evidence that the abortion issue can stop or significantly mitigate the red wave so many Democrats fearfully glimpse on the horizon of the November elections. If abortion rights turn out to be not simply an energizer for the Democratic Party’s progressive base but a wedge issue that can bring back the suburban gains and heavy youth turnout of the 2018 midterms, it could help give Harris’s prospects a significant boost.

This development for Harris couldn’t arrive at a better time. Biden’s rapidly approaching 80th birthday is very likely to revive pressure on him to retire at the end of his first term. At this point, even though Harris is the heir apparent as vice-president, it’s unclear whether she has enough political juice to head off powerful rivals for the 2024 nomination. Nothing would make her more powerful as a presidential contender than to have not just Biden’s blessing but a reputation for fighting on an issue of crucial importance to progressive politics and the people it aims to represent.

At The Cook Political Report, Charlie Cook addresses a question of considerable interest, “Whose Baggage Will Weigh Heaviest This Fall?” As Cook writes:

From September of last year through July of this year, the coronavirus and Afghanistan receded from the news, but other challenges more than took their place. Inflation surged to the highest levels in 40 years, amid fears of an oncoming recession. Biden’s approval ratings plummeted and Americans turned increasingly pessimistic, with only one in five saying the country was headed in the right direction. Yet pollsters in both parties had begun privately remarking about how incongruous it was that all of these elements that looked so horrible for Democrats weren’t translating into the kind of GOP advantage that one might have expected—just two or three points on the generic ballot.

In the last six weeks though, we have started seeing more aberrational signs that may or may not signal a directional change in this campaign. First was the realization that several Republican Senate primary winners in key contests may be a bit too exotic and problematic to succeed in a broader November election pool of voters. Just using the betting markets as a benchmark, as recently as mid-June Senate Republicans had been favored to unseat Democratic incumbents Mark Kelly in Arizona and Raphael Warnock in Georgia as well as retaining the open seat in Pennsylvania. Republicans now have uphill climbs in the three states thanks to weak nominees.

While Republicans are still favored to hang onto their open seat in Ohio, some are a bit unnerved by signs of a metabolism problem with their candidate J.D. Vance. His energy levels for fundraising and campaigning is causing some angst, especially since Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee, has run an impressive campaign and is certainly working much harder.

The overall odds of Republicans winning a majority have dropped from over 70 percent in late June to 47 percent now.

Bam! That’s a big tumble. But there are two senators Dems must shore up, if they hope to for a net gain of Senate seats in November:

The biggest question marks on the Senate map concern two other Democratic incumbents, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada and Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire. The Nevada contest between Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general, is a straight-up coin-flip race without any problematic candidates. How the political winds are blowing come November will matter a lot; the race is less between two people than two dueling and evenly matched parties.

New Hampshire’s Sept. 13 primary will tell us whether Hassan’s reelection is in deep trouble or very lucky. If Republicans pick the more mainstream state Senate President Chuck Morse, the dynamics will resemble those in Nevada, red versus blue, with neither candidate horribly flawed or enormously advantaged. But if New Hampshire Republicans go with retired Gen. Don Bolduc, a highly decorated Army Special Forces commander with ten tours in Afghanistan but a less impressive political pedigree, then the GOP’s hopes would depend upon a gigantic wave.

Like many pundits, Cook tweaks the ‘Democrats are screwed’ narrative to better fit post-Kansas reality, and writes, “The second sign was the surprise 19-point defeat in Kansas of a ballot initiative that would have allowed the state Legislature to ban abortion. That would seem to support Democrats’ hope that the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade could draw a surge in pro-choice voters to the polls in November. But whether a vote on a primary election day ballot that was about nothing but abortion really underscores the larger point is debatable.” Further,

Finally, are Democrats finally learning to get out of their own way and do something with the unified government voters have given them? Biden is expected to sign the CHIPS and Science Act on Tuesday. The House could send the Inflation Reduction Act (aka “Build Back Somewhat Better”) to his desk on Friday. Democrats argue that these two packages, when added to the coronavirus relief and infrastructure packages, add up to an impressive set of accomplishments for any president in the first half of a term.

So what’s it all add up to? I must echo keen political observer Doug Sosnik, who told The New York Times, “I can’t figure this one out.” In her newsletter, GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson writes, “I’d still rather be Republicans than Democrats heading into November [but] it might be time to sound some gentle alarms for Republicans.”

Cook concludes, “My own hunch is that Republicans will still take the House, but not by the margin they had hoped. In the Senate, look for another photo finish, maybe on Nov. 8 but maybe even in a Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia.”

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall writes, “In a paper that came out in June, “Explanations for Inequality and Partisan Polarization in the U.S., 1980 — 2020,” Elizabeth Suhayand Mark Tenenbaum, political scientists at American University, and Austin Bartola, of Quadrant Strategies, provide insight into why so much discord permeates American politics: “Scholars who research polarization have almost exclusively focused on the relationship between Americans’ policy opinions and their partisanship. In this article, we discuss a different type of partisan polarization underappreciated by scholars: “belief polarization,” or disagreements over what people perceive to be true….” Suhay, Tenenbaum and Bartola cite data from American National Election Studies and the Pew Research Center to track the increasing polarization between Republicans and Democrats on various questions, which require respondents to agree or disagree with statements like these: “one of the big problems in this country is that we don’t give everyone an equal chance”; “most people who want to get ahead can make it if they’re willing to work hard”; and “poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.”….In 1997, 68 percent of Republican and 43 percent of Democratic survey respondents chose “have it easy,” a 25-point difference. By 2017, 73 percent of Republicans said the poor “have it easy,” while 19 percent of Democrats shared that view, a 54-point difference.”

Edsall continues, “There is further evidence that even people who are knowledgeable about complex issues are sharply polarized along partisan lines….Nathan Lee at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Brendan Nyhan at Dartmouth, Jason Reifler at the University of Exeter and D.J. Flynn at IE University in Madrid argue in their paper “More Accurate, but No Less Polarized: Comparing the Factual Beliefs of Government Officials and the Public” that while “political elites are consistently more accurately informed than the public,” the “increase in accuracy does not translate into reduced factual belief polarization. These findings demonstrate that a more informed political elite does not necessarily mitigate partisan factual disagreement in policymaking.”….Lee, Nyhan, Reifler and Flynn assessed the views of elites through a survey in 2017 of 743 “elected policymakers, legislative staffers, and top administrative positions in local and state government in the United States.” Three-quarters of the sample held elective office. The survey tested belief accuracy by partisanship and elite status on eight issues including health care, the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent, climate change and voter fraud.” Edsall adds, “I asked Nyhan about the consequences of the findings and he wrote back by email: “The most important contribution of our study is to challenge the assumption that we will disagree less about the facts if we know more. Elites are better informed than the public on average but Democrats and Republicans still are still deeply divided in their beliefs about those facts. In some ways, the conclusion of our study is optimistic — government officials are better informed than the public. That’s what most of us would hope to be true. But the findings do suggest we should avoid thinking that people becoming more informed will make the factual divides in our society go away. Belief polarization is a reality that is not easily overcome.”

Edsall also explores the role of racial attitudes in a more generalized political polarization and notes, “In their January 2022 paper, “The Origins and Consequences of Racialized Schemas about U.S. Parties,” Kirill Zhirkov and Nicholas Valentino, political scientists at the Universities of Virginia and Michigan, make an interesting argument that, in effect, “Two parallel processes structure American politics in the current moment: partisan polarization and the increasing linkage between racial attitudes and issue preferences of all sorts.”….Racial attitudes, the authors argue persuasively, “are now important predictors of opinions about electoral fairness, gun control, policing, international trade and health care.”….There are, Zhirkov and Valentino note, long-range implications for the future of democracy here: “As soon as ethnic parties start to compete for political power, winning — rather than implementing a certain policy — becomes the goal in and of itself due to associated boost in group status and self-esteem of its members. Moreover, comparative evidence suggests that U.S. plurality-based electoral system contributes to politicization of ethnic cleavages rather than mitigates them. Therefore, the racialization of American parties is likely to continue, and the intensity of political conflict in the United States is likely to grow.” No doubt, de facto racial segregation of many neighborhoods in American cities and the absence of African Americans in many rural communities plays a significant role in polarization. As MLK once said, ” We have to be together before we can learn to live together.”

In “The Ads That Won the Kansas Abortion Referendum: Avoiding progressive pieties, the ad makers aimed at the broad, persuadable middle of the electorate,” Bill Scher writes at The Washington Monthly: “Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the group that led the campaign to defeat the constitutional amendment intended to permit abortion bans, developed a messaging strategy that resonated across the political spectrum and eschewed purity tests….“We definitely used messaging strategies that would work regardless of party affiliation,” Jae Gray, a field organizer for the group, told The Washington Post. The results validated the strategy, with the anti-abortion constitutional amendment losing by some 160,000 votes, even while Republican primary voters outnumbered Democrats by about 187,000….What did the abortion rights campaign say to woo voters in a conservative state?….I reviewed eight ads paid for by Kansans for Constitutional Freedom. One used the word choice. Four used decision. Three, neither. The spots usually included the word abortion, but not always….To appeal to libertarian sentiments, the spots aggressively attacked the anti-abortion amendment as a “government mandate.” To avoid alienating moderates who support constraints on abortion, one ad embraced the regulations already on the Kansas books….And they used testimonials to reach the electorate: a male doctor who refused to violate his “oath”; a Catholic grandmother worried about her granddaughter’s freedom; a married mom who had a life-saving abortion; and a male pastor offering a religious argument for women’s rights and, implicitly, abortion.” Scher provides six ad videos used by the successful campaign, including these two:

After a sudden period of long-stalled legislative activity, I took a look for New York at the possible midterm election payoff:

Not that very long ago, Joe Biden’s job-approval rating seemed chronically and endlessly depressed; the Democratic-controlled Congress couldn’t get anything done; and all the indicators for the 2022 midterm elections looked terrible for the party, in part because its own voters were deeply disappointed with the lack of legislative productivity and a perceived absence of presidential leadership.

Now, in a series of legislative victories highlighted by the Schumer-Manchin budget-reconciliation agreement (now known as the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA), Senate Democrats are suddenly walking tall, as Punchbowl News noted:

“Senate Democrats have put together an impressive resume this summer, most especially during the last two months. The CHIPS Plus Act, PACT Act, Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO, gun control and reconciliation were all passed in this period, a number of them with big bipartisan majorities. All in a 50-50 Senate.”

Assuming the House finishes action on the IRA later this week, it’s quite the late-innings home run, complete with a rebranded title that shows Democrats at least trying to address what has been the dominant issue of the midterms: inflation. Along with the Kansas abortion-rights referendum on August 2 that shows that Democrats may have an issue of competing significance to both swing and base voters, the landscape is most definitely getting brighter for Democrats. And though Biden and his party probably had little to do with it, they will get credit for falling gasoline prices if they continue to drop.

In an interview with Politico, Biden’s pollster John Anzalone used a gambling analogy for the turnaround. “We put our last silver dollar in our slot machine and came up big,” he said. “And they were sitting there with a stack of chips and are down to just one. The turnaround is unbelievable.”

Spin aside, things are clearly looking better for Democrats, but the question (other than uncertainty over the future direction of crucial economic indicators) is whether midterm losses are already baked into the cake. After all, with the exception of George W. Bush in the immediate wake of 9/11, every president going back to the 1930s has lost ground in his first-term midterm election. Even very small House and Senate net losses would flip control to Republicans. And while a yearlong downward drift in Biden’s job-approval rating has now been replaced with small gains, it’s still dreadful at the moment: 39.6 percent in the averages at both FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics. At this point in 2018, Donald Trump’s RCP job-approval average was 43.4 percent, and his party was on the way to losing 41 House seats. Then, too, the “direction of the country” right-track, wrong-track ratio was 41-51. Now it’s 20-73.

Sure, Democratic base voters unhappy with earlier legislative misfires may now have a sunnier outlook on the party’s congressional candidates. That, along with the growing anger at conservative Supreme Court justices and anti-abortion Republican state officials, could certainly improve Democratic turnout. But Republicans will likely retain an advantage of core swing-voter concerns that are unlikely to go away by November 8, as Senator Marco Rubio suggested in a taunting floor speech on the IRA over the weekend:

“There isn’t a single thing in this bill that helps working people lower the prices of groceries, or the price of gasoline, or the price of housing, or the price of clothing. There isn’t a single thing in this bill that’s gonna keep criminals in jail. There isn’t a single thing in this bill that’s going to secure our border. Those happen to be things that working people in this country care about.”

That too is spin, of course, but the point is that GOP talking points really don’t have to change in light of the IRA’s passage.

The best empirical news for Democrats is the trajectory of the congressional generic ballot, the midterm indicator that has had the most predictive value in the past. As recently as June 13, Republicans had a 3.5 percent advantage in the RCP averages for this measurement of congressional voting preferences, with the expectation that the margin would widen as voting grew near. Now the generic ballot is basically tied (Republicans: 44.7 percent, Democrats: 44.6 percent). Historically, the party controlling the White House loses steam late in the midterm cycle, but at the moment, Biden’s party does seem to have some momentum. And in the national contest where Democrats have most reason to be optimistic, the battle for control of the Senate, Republicans continue to suffer from candidate-quality problems that could lose them seats they probably should win in a midterm. John Fetterman keeps maintaining a solid lead over Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania; this race is for a seat currently held by the GOP. And in Georgia, Raphael Warnock continues to run comfortably ahead of Herschel Walker even before the frequently tongue-tied former football great reluctantly faces the highly eloquent incumbent Democrat in debates.

There is no way to know, much less factor in, late-breaking real-world developments that might affect the trajectory of these and other midterm contests, whether it’s unexpected economic news, a change of direction in the Russia-Ukraine war, or an official 2024 candidacy announcement by Trump that reminds Democrats that the wolf is still at the door. Typically, voting preferences form well before Election Day, and early voting will begin in September in some states. At present, FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans an 80 percent probability of controlling the House next year and Democrats a 59 percent chance of holding the Senate. These numbers are better for Democrats than those we saw in June and July, and that’s grounds for gratitude.

From Editor Michael Tomasky’s “Yes, the Inflation Reduction Act Is a Big Effing Deal” at The New Republic: ”

So Kyrsten Sinema didn’t back out (although of course she threatened to),no other Democratic senator got Covid-19, and the Inflation Reduction Act passed the Senate Sunday afternoon. Passage is assured, we think, in the House, so it should soon become law….The bill is only a portion of what should have been, true. But here’s the big picture on why even this whittled-down bill is, as Joe Biden once said of another historic but compromised piece of legislation, “a big fuckin’ deal.” In a nutshell: It begins to turn 40 years of bad economic conventional wisdom on its head by asserting that the government has a role in structuring markets, promoting growth, and guiding industrial policy.

Tomasky, author of the forthcoming “The Middle Out: The Rise of Progressive Economics and a Return to Shared Prosperity,” reviews the history of Democratic economic policy in the post WW II period, and writes that “today, the Democratic Party is a different animal than it was a decade ago. It’s very frustrating that Build Back Better Act, or BBB, didn’t pass, but I sometimes look at it this way: Of the 271 elected Democratic legislators in Congress, all but two or three either did vote for a $2.2 trillion version of BBB (in the House) or were prepared to vote for it (in the Senate). That would not have been remotely true just five years ago. The Democratic Party has embraced an economic populism from which there is no turning back.” Further,

So that brings us back to the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA. Yes, I wish it were bigger and contained some of the key elements of BBB like subsidized childcare and Medicare expansion and housing. Yes, that sop to Joe Manchin on fossil fuels is very unfortunate. And Republicans stripping out the insulin provision for non-seniors is monstrous, except that between killing abortion rights and keeping insulin prices high, they sure seem intent on handing Democrats opportunities to hold their majorities.

But whatever it doesn’t do, the IRA does this important thing: It establishes the principle that the government has a role to play in setting industrial policy and creating growth, and in determining what kind of growth we want. That’s why the climate investments in the bill are so important. Over the weekend, I read a National Bureau of Economic Research paper that I’m told has been making the rounds in the Biden administration that lays out a case for attacking climate change through direct subsidy of clean-electricity generation (as opposed to putting a price on emissions, like a carbon tax, which the paper also finds would be productive but for which there aren’t the votes in Congress). The IRA invests in decarbonization in every sector of the economy, with $10 billion directed toward the building of clean technology manufacturing centers and $20 billion toward construction of clean vehicle manufacturing facilities.

If you want to dive deeper into all this, read the important speech that Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council and the person really driving Biden administration economic policy, delivered in June to the Atlantic Council on the administration’s industrial strategy. He talked about how inequality is slowing growth. This is a key point. Conservatives have spent the past four decades arguing that growth is all that matters, and inequality is a byproduct of growth and is thus inevitable. They have that, and basically everything, backwards.

Dees also lays out the five-point strategy for promoting equitable growth: supply-chain resilience, targeted public investment, public procurement, climate resilience, and equity (“equity” is government lingo for making sure historically underserved groups share in the bounty this time). It’s a strategy that can both modernize the economy and invest in the middle class.

This is exactly what the United States needs. It’s a tragedy that Sara Gideon and Cal Cunningham raised and spent all those millions and failed to win their Senate seats. If they’d won, Biden would have had the votes for $2 trillion or so, it would have passed a year ago, and most Americans still wouldn’t even know who Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are. They lost, and we are where we are. But let’s not allow what might have been to make us too cynical about what is. The IRA is historic.

Tomasky concludes, “The right wing doesn’t believe there is such a thing as the common good. I do. Joe Biden does. Society is not just the sum of 330 million individuals pursuing their self-interest. Someone has to steer the ship. We can’t do it as individuals any more than people who live along a certain roadway can pool their resources to repave it. Private enterprise, which puts profit first, won’t fill these needs, as has been shown repeatedly over the decades. Only government can. The climate investments in the IRA fulfill this important social principle. Let’s hope they’re the first of many such investments over the next several years.”

Some Lessons and Questions After the Kansas Abortion Referendum

From “Senate Democrats strike a blow against cynicism — and hopelessness” by WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr.: “On a straight partisan vote, Democrats approved the largest investment in history to fight climate change married to first steps toward controlling prescription drug costs and helping Americans buy health insurance….The bill also raised corporate taxes and increased tax enforcement to begin what should be a sustained effort to reform the tax code by way of bringing revenue closer to long-term alignment with spending…..If Congress had done nothing, the United States would have squandered any claim of global leadership on one of the central challenges of our time. It also would have been a signal that our political system is so dysfunctional that it could not even enact comparatively painless, positive incentives for moving toward cleaner energy….We were very close to this policy cliff until Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) negotiated an agreement with the two holdout members of his caucus, first Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and then Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), leading to Sunday’s victory….The realist view accepts that voters don’t tote around lists of bills passed by Congress but insists that most of them do notice when the system seems to be working — or failing….Democrats have promised to contain drug costs for years. They finally did something. (And 43 Republican senators did themselves no political good by casting procedural votes on Sunday to block a cap on the cost of insulin for people who are not on Medicare.) Younger Americans especially were angry when Congress seemed ready to leave town without doing anything about climate change. Frustration gave way to something close to elation when a climate deal was finally reached….Nothing feeds cynicism about democracy and collective action more than abject institutional failure. That’s why what happened on Sunday matters. Despite partisan obstruction, arcane rules and dilatory habits, the Senate struck a blow against hopelessness.”

In their FiveThirtyEight article, “The Supreme Court Is Unpopular. But Do Americans Want Change?,” Amelia Thomson Deveaux, Michael Tabb and Anna Rothschild address the politics of high court expansion, and write: “Many Americans are dissatisfied with the Supreme Court, but there are very few ways to rein in the justices. The easiest option — expanding the court — has been unpopular for years, but in the wake of the court’s controversial decisions on guns and abortion, have Americans changed their minds?….Over just a week at the end of June, the Republican-appointed justices overturned the constitutional right to abortion, dramatically expanded gun rights, dealt a big blow to church-state separation, made it easier for religious schools to get public funding and limited the EPA’s ability to issue broad regulations to fight climate change….The Supreme Court’s approval fell after a draft version of the opinion overturning abortion rights leaked in May. That hasn’t changed since the Supreme Court’s term ended — in fact, recent polls tracked by FiveThirtyEight show that over half of Americans disapprove of what the court is doing….The Constitution doesn’t say anything about how big the Supreme Court should be, and Congress has added or taken away justices in the past. Term limits, on the other hand, might actually be unconstitutional….The problem for court-reform advocates is that while term limits are popular, adding justices to the court? Not so much. A poll conducted just after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade found that 54 percent of Americans do not want more justices added to the court, while 34 percent are in favor. Though, of course, there is a pretty big partisan split.” The authors conclude, “Even though Americans may be increasingly upset with the Supreme Court, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be expanded anytime soon.” I’ve noticed that too many otherwise intelligent people, including liberals, scowl and parrot the GOP’s “packing the court” lingo, and then express genuine surprise when they are informed that the size of the Supreme Court has been changed 7 times, and no, it doesn’t take a constitutional amendment to do so. I usually ask them, “Besides, what is so good about the number 9?” That often elicits a shrug, mumble or blank stare response. I doubt there is a good answer. The way it is now, each justice has too much power. The court is too small to be trusted to make fair decisions for 330 million people — and that was true even before the Dobbs ruling.

For a nuanced update on the Democrats prospects for increasing their senate majority in the midterms, read “Reassessing the Race for the Senate” by Kyle Kondik at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Kondik comments on the particulars of several close senate races as of this writing, and explains, “The abortion issue continues to be a significant wild card, and conservatives were dealt a stinging blow in Republican-leaning Kansas on Tuesday night when voters solidly picked the pro-abortion rights side in a statewide ballot issue….We typically do not think candidate debates make that much of a difference, but the combination of the low experience level of the GOP candidates and the unpopularity of their stridently anti-abortion positioning could lead to some legitimately important moments on the road to November. Back in 2012, Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock arguably destroyed his chances when, during a debate with Democrat Joe Donnelly, Mourdock said when a woman is impregnated during a rape, “it’s something God intended.” Republicans who have already made it clear they support hardly any exceptions to banning abortion are probably going to say similar things, if they haven’t already….We also seriously doubt Biden’s numbers are really going to improve. For too many Americans, he just does not seem up to the economic challenges that worry them (namely, inflation)….So then it’s just a question as to whether the Republicans can capitalize — and that is a big question. So much so that we think the battle for the Senate is now basically a Toss-up.” However, Kondik concludes, “the GOP’s move toward less experienced candidates makes this a harder race to handicap than it otherwise might be.” The wild card here may be the ability of Democratic campaigns to pin the extremist label on GOP candidates who have praised the Dobbs decision.

“If democrats avoid the worst outcome in November’s midterm elections, the principal reason will likely be the GOP’s failure to reverse its decline in white-collar suburbs during the Donald Trump era,” Ronald Brownstein writes at The Atlantic. “That’s a clear message from yesterday’s crowded primary calendar, which showed the GOP mostly continuing to nominate Trump-style culture-war candidates around the country. And yet, the resounding defeat of an anti-abortion ballot initiative in Kansas showed how many voters in larger population centers are recoiling from that Trumpist vision….The more realistic route for Democrats in key races may be to defend, as much as possible, the inroads they made into the white-collar suburbs of virtually every major metropolitan area during the past three elections. Although, compared with 2020, the party will likely lose ground with all groups….A Monmouth University pollreleased today showed that white voters without a college degree preferred Republicans for Congress by a 25-percentage-point margin, but white voters with at least a four-year degree backed Democrats by 18 points….A recent Fox News Poll in Pennsylvania showed the Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman crushing Republican Mehmet Oz among college-educated white voters, while the two closely split those without degrees. Another recent Fox News poll in Georgia found Senator Raphael Warnock trailing his opponent Herschel Walker among noncollege white voters by more than 40 percentage points but running essentially even among those with degrees (which would likely be enough to win, given his preponderant support in the Black community). The most recent public surveys in New Hampshire and Wisconsin likewise found Republicans leading comfortably among voters without advanced education, but Democrats holding solid advantages among those with four-year or graduate degrees. A poll this week by Siena College, in New York, found Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul splitting noncollege voters evenly with Republican Lee Zeldin, but beating him by more than two-to-one among those with a degree….This strength among college-educated voters may be worth slightly more for Democrats in the midterms than in a general election. Voters without a degree cast a majority of ballots in both types of contests. But calculations by Catalist, a Democratic-voter-targeting firm, and Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who specializes in voter turnout, have found that voters with a college degree consistently make up about three to four percentage points more of the electorate in a midterm than in a presidential election. “When we see lower turnout elections,” like a midterm, “the gap between high-education and low-education voters increases,” McDonald told me. In close races, that gap could place a thumb on the scale for Democrats, partially offsetting the tendency of decreased turnout from younger and nonwhite voters in midterm elections….Kansas result showed, abortion rights may be an especially powerful weapon for Democrats in white-collar areas. Polls, such as a recent survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, have generally found that about two-thirds or more of voters with at least a four-year college degree believe abortion should remain legal in all or most circumstances. That support is evident even in states that generally lean toward the GOP: Recent public surveys found that strong majorities of voters with college degrees supported legal abortion in Georgia and Texas, and another survey showed majority backing among more affluent voters in Arizona….Republicans have responded to their suburban erosion by betting even more heavily on the policies and rhetoric that triggered their decline in the first place. In November, white-collar suburbs may be the deciding factor between a Republican rout and a split decision that leaves Democrats still standing to fight another day.”

Always on the lookout for a new wrinkle on ancient battles, I drew attention to a recent legal development at New York:

Though the constitutional law of “religious liberty” is a murky field, we are all accustomed to hearing anguished claims from conservative Christians that laws requiring them to provide or pay for reproductive-health services or treat LGBTQ employees and customers equally are an unacceptable violation of their beliefs. Now that the Supreme Court has struck down the federal right to an abortion, it’s clearer than ever that the Christian right and its Republican allies are aiming to construct a system where they are free to live their values as they wish, regardless of the impact on others.

But as a new lawsuit in Florida shows, what’s good for the conservative goose may also be good for the progressive gander. A group of religious officials are arguing in state court that the new anti-abortion law enacted this year by Florida Republicans violates their right to religious expression. The Washington Post reports:

“Seven Florida clergy members — two Christians, three Jews, one Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist … argue in separate lawsuits filed Monday that their ability to live and practice their religious faith is being violated by the state’s new, post-Roe abortion law. The law, which is one of the strictest in the country, making no exceptions for rape or incest, was signed in April by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), in a Pentecostal church alongside antiabortion lawmakers such as the House speaker, who called life ‘a gift from God.’”

The plaintiffs in these suits most definitely want to rebut the idea that forced birth is the only authentically “religious” perspective on abortion services. After all, as United Church of Christ minister Laurie Hafner explains, the anti-abortion cause has little biblical sanction:

“Jesus says nothing about abortion. He talks about loving your neighbor and living abundantly and fully. He says: ‘I come that you might have full life.’ Does that mean for a 10-year-old to bear the child of her molester? That you cut your life short because you aren’t able to rid your body of a fetus?”

The legal theory in the lawsuits focuses specifically on the counseling of pregnant people and their families that clergy engage in routinely, and that under the new Florida law may be treated as the illegal aiding and abetting of criminal acts. Hafner’s suit alleges that this violates both federal and state constitutional rights, along with Florida’s version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (a 1993 federal “religious liberty” law):

“The dramatic change in abortion rights in Florida has caused confusion and fear among clergy and pregnant girls and women particularly in light of the criminal penalties attached. Given her general duties and work as a Pastor, Plaintiff intends to engage in counseling regarding abortion beyond the narrow limits of HB 5 and, therefore, risks incarceration and financial penalties.”

It’s unclear how this argument will fare in the courts. Conservative judges may stipulate that anti-abortion laws impinge on religious-liberty rights that are nonetheless outweighed by the state’s “compelling interest” in fetal life. But at least, for once, the judiciary and the public will have to come to grips with the fact that many millions of pro-choice religious Americans passionately oppose what is happening to our country in the name of “life.” During the run-up to this week’s resounding “no” vote on a constitutional amendment removing any hint of abortion rights in the state’s constitution, a Presbyterian Church in Kansas displayed a sign that read, “Jesus trusted women. So do we.” This was likely an allusion to the “Trust Women” motto of the famous Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, who in 2009 was assassinated in the foyer of the church in which he was serving as an usher. His legacy lives on in houses of worship and now in the courts.