This is another well written and researched article including humor in the first paragraph, what Ben murmurs in his sleep, plus leaving us with the haunting issues that will lead to who will become President: the cost of living, border security, immigration and abortion policies.
Honestly I’m starting to have doubts on whether a dem trifecta will truly be best right now. Of course I want Harris to keep trump from the wh. And I also think congressional republicans are terrible, so don’t want them to be able to carry out their awful agenda. But do i trust Dems to make good decisions under Harris ? I don’t. Even under Biden, who was a genuine moderate, they ended up going too far. Harris by contrast is neither a genuine moderate nor an ideologue of any kind. She strikes me as a political opportunist and we’ve already seen that she is willing to go along with extremists, at least rhetorically, when she thinks that’s where the wind blows. The fact that she is willing to commit to very little substance right now might be a correct election tactic but doesn’t assuage these concerns. Maybe it’s best if gop keeps the house with a slim majority? Again, genuinely putting out there my heretical thoughts. Tell me why I’m wrong ?
P.S
To elaborate further. Gop control of the senate scares me if it means total inability to carry appointments, which is a realistic and perhaps even the probable scenario. The good (though perhaps less likely) scenario however is return to appointing moderates, which could happen if gop loss of wh and house makes new senate majority leader saner? Or is that hopeless ? Alternatively if control remains as now (ie gop only in house) that’s risky eg for government shut down and Ukraine funding, but Johnson proved surprisingly reasonable on both ? Would that last? On the other hand the house eduction committee may be run by cynics but they are doing genuinely important work right now and I’d hate for that to stop as it will undoubtedly under dem leadership.
I don't agree. I think if Harris starts pushing and gets the base behind her, it's going to extremely difficult for a Democratic senator to hold out. Look at how Manchin or Sinema was treated.
I just want to note that Schumer always talks about ending the filibuster to "save democracy" by expanding voting rights but when you double click into the linked articles, they all seem to begin with: "While voter participation has *increased* overall across the United States ..." and then follows with some tortured data showing like a 1-2% disparity. It's so transparently silly that you just wish we had better leadership.
It all depends on whether or not they can get 50 votes for something that they really want to do, though. As I always say, most of the time, the votes that can't get 60 votes don't really have 50 votes either.
If you always say it maybe we've already disagreed on it and I've forgotten…but surely there was a lot of legislation in the Before Times that got between 50 and 60 votes?
My take has always been that the marginal senators who vote for cloture but aren't really wild about the legislation have a cover to say that they supported it and to create ambiguity about any actual opposition they might have.
And as Slow Boring has pointed out, even Senate bills that only require 50 votes are still very moderate because you need very vulnerable senators to vote for them
True, assuming Dems don’t blow up the filibuster. Still, not everything is under filibuster, and there are also other concerns (see my ps). By and large I guess I’m still rooting for Dems in all three branches but no as confidently as in basically every elections in the past (not because I trust gop more because my faith in Dems has declined dramatically)
On what issues or policy areas did Democrats go too far on under Biden?
Yes, Harris is willing to run on popular issues. It is a good thing that she is playing to win by addressing voters’ concerns about prices, rather than trying to make the election about January 6th. I personally think January 6th was really bad and should be disqualifying for Trump. Voters don’t agree. Unfortunately right-wing media has been successful in normalizing the insurrection. Mitch McConnell didn’t have the balls to convict Trump so it’s up to us to beat him at the ballot box. If that means running on price-gouging proposals that poll over 80% but make people on here — who per the reader survey are disproportionately high-education and high-income, i.e., not swing voters — mad, then so be it.
I don't fully agree with OP, but I can think of a few areas of overreach:
- Student loan forgiveness
- BBB had some great components but Manchin was right that it was too big for an economy teetering on major inflation
- I live in a poorer state without its own minimum wage, so I would have love to see a $11 or $12 federal minimum. It might seem inadequate to people in DC, but it would make a big difference down here. But the push for $15-$17 was never going to pass, whatever its merits.
I don’t see how BBB was an overreach given that it did not happen and got trimmed down to IRA.
I also don’t see how a $15 minimum wage is an issue. Adjusted for inflation (and especially once you consider the phase-in period) it’s well below the safe threshold of 60% of median wage that Arin Dube’s literature review found avoids negative effects to employment. If you look at Civiqs polling $15 federally is now what the median voter favors.
As I said above, student loan stuff: bad. Also not something the trifecta caused—it was an executive action.
The median hourly wage in Mississippi seems to be around $18.85(according to Google's AI overview, all other sites kept giving me average). 60% of that is 11.31 so yeah , $15 national is too high.
The Raise the Wage Act has it at $17 in five years. That's a 140% jump in my state. In Mississippi, $15/hour is more than 80% of the median wage. It isn't gonna be 60% by 2028, when the $15/hour would kick in. Inflation is high, but not THAT high.
The BBB wasn't passed for the same reason that the filibuster survived- Manchin and Sinema blocked it. With them being gone, who would you put forward as blocking the next overreach?
The ten-odd moderate Democrats in the Senate who also opposed filibuster abolition but didn’t speak out. If you read the coverage of the debates on the filibuster from the time it discusses this.
Besides that, the fact that Democrats have clearly learned from their mistakes. Look at the policy and rhetoric on the border now vs. in 2022, for example. Given that the party has a negative association with inflation, elected would likely be averse to doing things seen as inflationary. There’s also a big budget fight coming up where some compromises will have to happen anyways.
Will they make the same mistake from 2021 - no. Are the very likely to go to far if they have a trifecta - yes. Perhaps it's passing popular legislation you support about price controls restrictions on greedy companies. Or if not that, then it will be something else. As for there being 10 other Senators willing to throw themselves in front of Harris to keep the filibuster or block extreme legislation, consider me doubtful. If there is one thing the Biden campaign demonstrated it's that most Democrat politicians value being on the correct side of the party way more than saying the obvious truth. I think there are very few of them willing to take the heat that Manchin & Sinema took from the Democratic base. They will see what happened to Sinema and go along to get along.
My worries with Harris aren’t her current issues but her 2020 issues. I see no core beliefs with her, only the polls and vibes. That we need to defeat trump isn’t under debate here, that’s not what my post is about.
(For Biden excesses: overstimulating the economy, inaction on immigration for too long, title ix policy, perhaps the appointment of Lina khan (still of two minds about it). That being said I think Biden was (is?) a great president. In fact I think he’s the greatest in generations. My worry is what a Harris presidency with trifecta looks like when I fundamentally don’t see any sign that she has some core values to ground her. Sorry if saying this out loud spoils the election positive vibes !)
Common thread in Slow Boring comments: appealing to median voter is good when they align with my existing right-of-median-Democratic-elected views on gender/immigration, bad when it means catering to views on economics that I disagree with.
See this is where I think we disagree the most. I respect someone lwho want to pull the Democratic party and the US to the left because that's what they believe even if I disagree with their position. I even appreciate when they moderate their actions to win. But saying you support something you think is bad in order to win political votes is bad. I wouldn't want someone on the left to do that. I don't want JD Vance to say things about immigrants he doesn't believe in order to win votes - even if its popular. I don't want Harris to say its about greedy corporations when she doesn't believe that - even if its popular. And if she does actually believe that, then I can respect her for saying her beliefs, but it would worry me that she is that mistaken about basic economics. Much like Trump seems to honestly believes tariffs are good for America, but its bad because he is wrong.
What is the actual difference between “moderating your actions in order to win” and “supporting things you think are bad”? There is not actually a principled distinction here. One can easily say that moderated actions constitute bad policy from the perspective of the pre-moderation policy being the thing that is good.
The counterargument is that by moderating you win bring policy closer to your ideal even if you don’t get everything. But that doesn’t get us anywhere; it is still true that supporting suboptimal ideas to win will bring policy closer to your goals. Which brings us back to my position.
I don’t think the overstimulation charge works when you compare America to the rest of the G20 and note that we have had a stronger recovery than any of them. See Matt Klein’s work on this—this was by far the better way to pay the inevitable price of the pandemic.
Student loan forgiveness I agree was a bad idea. But note that that was an executive policy; it had nothing to do with the trifecta. Lina Khan is I think fine.
Harris’ core grounding values are those of a generic Democrat which I think are on balance perfectly fine.
A couple from my perspective: pausing federal student loan payments and then continuing to expand / try to expand student loan forgiveness programs, all the day 1 EOs around immigration / the boarder, the ARP was too large and poorly constructed, canceling the Keystone pipeline, probably some other EOs around racial equity that really established their DEI orientation early in the administration.
On ARP I just think you’re wrong. Again I will point to America’s much stronger recovery relative to basically all other rich countries.
On the EOs, it doesn’t make sense to want a Republican Congress to prevent that—they are executive actions not congressional ones. Trifecta or no won’t affect that.
The historic inflation that was both unbelievably foreseeable at the time and that then became a massive anchor on Biden’s popularity demonstrates quite clearly who is correct here.
I agree some Dems' policy agenda are underwhelming/concerning. Middle-class tax cuts *and* new entitlements when both the deficit and debt are already unusually doesn't seem realistic, first-time homeowners' grants seems like a bad idea.
But...it's incredibly hard to have a rigorous policy agenda when you're running against rival that's so intellectually bankrupt. Trump will throw out random promises like tariffs will pay for everything, there's only so much "green-eyeshade" Harris can allow herself in response.
Having moved to the UK, I've really come to the conclusion that it's much better if the government can do stuff, even if some of the stuff is bad. Even if I don't agree with everything they do, it's much better to have a functioning government that can pass laws than one where nothing can happen.
I think the Democrats have done a lot of work recruiting and empowering more center leaning members this cycle (see, all of the Squad primary attrition), so it will be a more moderate caucus. I also think (hope?) that Harris won't just appoint the Warren cabinet again, which is where a lot of the weirder policies this cycle came from.
Really, what would be nice is if we had a reasonable opposition party that saw an election loss as a reason to moderate and come to the table, not one to double down on intransigence and cynically making the country more ungovernable. But Democrats don't control that, so "win a Trifecta and then enforce discipline in the Dem caucus" is the best shot that we as a nation have for meeting large scale challenges.
The idea that a bipartisan border security, voter rights reform, funding social security and medicare properly, and fiscal policy that could have more greatly kept inflation down is worhtless is just such a wild idea. Republicans blocked all of those things despite supermajorities of their own voters wanting every single one of them. What did Dems do that gives Republicans the right to keep blocking bread and butter governance and thereby making millions of lives worse? If the GOP were genuinely trying to govern, weren't trying to gain the power to throw out our elections, and weren't still cozying up to white nationalists, I could maybe see the both sides. But each of those truly terrible things are happening, and until they tryly have stopped doing all of them, those are all very important reasons to keep them out of power.
I think a lot of the criticism of Biden on the 1994 crime bill is unfair.
First, crime was astronomical in the early 90s, and even two-thirds of the Congressional Black Caucus voted for the bill. It was part of a massive nationwide trend towards getting tough on crime. If in the fullness of time a law proves to have negative consequences (e.g., the extent of mass incarceration), it's fine to go back an amend it.
Second, there were good things in that bill, like the assault weapons ban, the violence against women act, state tracking of violent sex offenders (public tracking came later), and funds for community policing. I doubt Biden regrets any of that. The provisions that contributed to mass incarceration, including incentive grants to build new jails for states that enforced mandatory sentencing, were BAD, but that was not most of the bill.
I wasn’t paying attention to politics 30 years ago and you may be right in all counts (certainly confirming Clarence Thomas was folly for the ages!) but the Biden of the last decade had a clear moral backbone even as he was pragmatic on top of it (which is good). I’m not for dogmatism and unwilling to compromise. I want someone who can make tactical concessions, but from a place of a clear goal in mind under a solid worldview I support. With Harris I saw no evidence so far that there is anything genuine there *beyond* the pragmatism/opportunism
I’ve come to respect Pelosi over the years. However, my biggest beef with her was she always prioritized protecting incumbents over challenging frontline Republicans. Basically, Ds would rather throw resources into defending a D+5 district than flipping an R+2 district. This gives Ds very few paths to a majority. However, it does keep incumbents safe when Rs have a good year. It prioritizes the careers of Congressional Democrats over the interests of party members in winning a majority.
I wonder how that looks if you examined it over say a decade or three Presidencies. Incumbency is a huge structural advantage for any given race. It may actually be harder in the long run to win back one should have been safe seat than to win the swing seats in good years. So maybe her strategy works long term?
Congressional Democrats to seem more about their careers than big progressive change. Look how slow they were to ditch Biden and how captive they are to monied zionists.
Fascinating to see "abortion" loom so large in that Dem word cloud. I remember when nobody said the word in Democratic politics. Choice, reproductive rights, etc. Couldn't say "abortion". Couldn't even say it in the movies (let alone depict it)-- that was Jud Apatow's joke in Knocked Up ("rhymes with smashmortion").
It's very good to see Democrats finally realize that this is a winning issue for them. That it's 2024 and voters know that women have sex and terminate pregnancies. They are following the strategy I mapped out after the Dobbs leak here:
There was a judicial ruling of generational magnitude. People obsess over messaging but ultimately policy matters. I confess I don't know the details but I assume that mother who died in a carpark in Georgia would still be alive absent Dobbs.
Absolutely! The thing that annoyed me is society changed on sexual mores long before that, and the politicians still messaged like prudes afraid to say that women have sex and need abortions.
But Dobbs changed that, as you note. And yes, what happened in Georgia is directly on the hands of those who overturned Dobbs.
Dilan, Yes, for many people sexual mores changed many years ago, but in some churches “Abortion” is word that arouses anger. To me saying we need to protect women’s rights over their own bodies is less inflammatory and more comprehensive. We have this unfortunate argument about whether the mother’s life and health or the life of a fetus is more important. Why should government have any say in that? Deep down I believe it is about keeping a separation between Church and State.
I disagree. Again, it's 2024. Church leaders who are offended by the word "abortion" are irrelevant; their flocks don't believe in their BS anyway. (See, e.g., American Catholics who are correctly pro-choice and correctly disobey their Church on almost all of its sexual teachings.)
You shouldn't confuse what a few whiners who aren't going to vote for us anyway think about abortion and mass public opinion. The public is fine with us saying "abortion" and protecting it.
This seems like slightly aggressive rhetoric. There are certainly voters who would consider voting for Dems, but wince at perceived heavy handed treatment of abortion issues. Many of them are conservative-leaning independents in swing state suburbs, which surely matters for this election. I don’t see the positive EV of avoiding Spencer’s suggested messaging.
I think the situation calls for some aggressive rhetoric. The number of people in Western developed countries who actually think the Vatican is right about sex is TINY. They don't number enough people to win an election for dog catcher in a reasonably sized city.
What happens is that because they claim to represent the Church as a whole, you get into this situation where you are afraid of some of the most dangerous extremists who nobody agrees with on the face of the Earth. Which is just dumb.
There's almost nobody in the membership of the Church who is clamoring for the Democrats to pretend that Catholic sexual teachings are right; quite the opposite, the vast majority of American Catholics would like us to side with them and ignore the guys in charge (who are supposedly celibate and know absolutely nothing about sex to begin with).
So no, the way you appeal to "conservative leaning independents in swing state suburbs" is by supporting the right to an abortion and contraception and to have a same sex sexual relationship and to have premarital sex, all things they support. There's no electoral margin at all in pretending a hierarchy that is so unpersuasive that they can't even get their own members to agree with them when they threaten them with eternal damnation has any purchase with the American public.
3,500 Americans die every day, it strange that a single death of a non-famous person can be politically useful. If we had better parks and more leisure time, dozens of the people who died yesterday might still be alive and thriving
No, it’s not. Literally any fertile woman could potentially die in those circumstances, without having an abortion, because the life saving care after a spontaneous miscarriage is the same as the care after an abortion. The laws effects are NOT limited to people choosing an abortion.
Having a public policy that can literally kill you is generally of interest to the people who could die. And their relatives. And their friends. And people who understand the risk.
Eventually, we will likely reach an equilibrium on abortion and enough front line Rs will support first trimester abortions that big electoral swings will only affect the edge cases.
@Ben, on the Slow Boring landing page, the most recent post is big, and front and center, while the second most recent is small and offscreen, requiring me to scroll down to see it. On the weekend, it seems like you post the main story later than Matt does during the week, and post the Daily Thread earlier. Today there was only a two or three hour window where your article was front and center on the landing page. I have often opened Slow Boring, seen a Daily Thread post as the main article, and closed the tab immediately, assuming there was no article today. I think you would get more views if you kept the posting schedule similar as during the week.
Great article but Susan Altman's opponent is Tom Kean , Jr (not Cain). I used to live there in 1980 or so. It's one of those classic weathy suburban districts that it was pretty solid Republican but is increasingly blue!
Agreed. But the sets of "readers of wonky political blogs" and "persuadable voters" are almost entirely disjoint, so rest easy, you probably aren't the target audience ;)
I live in PA’s 10th District (Harrisburg). Every ad here is a campaign. We have billboards. Anyway our hope for flipping this seat (maybe) is basically “incumbent is hardcore anti abortion”. He also supported January 6.
I'll have to disagree with WI being a "good" GOP pickup. Yes, Hovde is a bad candidate and the margin is looking to be much smaller than 2018 (she beat Leah Vukmir by 10 points), but Tammy Baldwin is a strong candidate. She'll run ahead of Kamala, and I'll be shocked if it's within 3 points.
Though, I was surprised (and disappointed) when Feingold lost to RoJo in 2016, so who knows.
Shoutout from OR-5 where one-term R Chavez-Deremer is going for re-election against new D rival Janelle Bynum (Bynum won the primary against a more progressive D candidate who lost in 2020); also Bynum has defeated Chavez-Deremer in two other elections. Tons of broadcast ads and mailers in Bend and I’m sure elsewhere in the district. Will be wildly close.
This is another well written and researched article including humor in the first paragraph, what Ben murmurs in his sleep, plus leaving us with the haunting issues that will lead to who will become President: the cost of living, border security, immigration and abortion policies.
Ben's proud grandparents
Honestly I’m starting to have doubts on whether a dem trifecta will truly be best right now. Of course I want Harris to keep trump from the wh. And I also think congressional republicans are terrible, so don’t want them to be able to carry out their awful agenda. But do i trust Dems to make good decisions under Harris ? I don’t. Even under Biden, who was a genuine moderate, they ended up going too far. Harris by contrast is neither a genuine moderate nor an ideologue of any kind. She strikes me as a political opportunist and we’ve already seen that she is willing to go along with extremists, at least rhetorically, when she thinks that’s where the wind blows. The fact that she is willing to commit to very little substance right now might be a correct election tactic but doesn’t assuage these concerns. Maybe it’s best if gop keeps the house with a slim majority? Again, genuinely putting out there my heretical thoughts. Tell me why I’m wrong ?
P.S
To elaborate further. Gop control of the senate scares me if it means total inability to carry appointments, which is a realistic and perhaps even the probable scenario. The good (though perhaps less likely) scenario however is return to appointing moderates, which could happen if gop loss of wh and house makes new senate majority leader saner? Or is that hopeless ? Alternatively if control remains as now (ie gop only in house) that’s risky eg for government shut down and Ukraine funding, but Johnson proved surprisingly reasonable on both ? Would that last? On the other hand the house eduction committee may be run by cynics but they are doing genuinely important work right now and I’d hate for that to stop as it will undoubtedly under dem leadership.
Well it still takes 60 senators to do big things, so I wouldn't worry much. Remember Joe Manchin!
With both Manchin and Sinema gone, I think its very likely that if the Democrats hold the senate and capture the house, they will end the filibuster.
If they do it’ll only be to codify roe. They’re not going to use it for any big ticket progressive items.
Senators like Michael Bennet won’t let them!
I don't agree. I think if Harris starts pushing and gets the base behind her, it's going to extremely difficult for a Democratic senator to hold out. Look at how Manchin or Sinema was treated.
I just want to note that Schumer always talks about ending the filibuster to "save democracy" by expanding voting rights but when you double click into the linked articles, they all seem to begin with: "While voter participation has *increased* overall across the United States ..." and then follows with some tortured data showing like a 1-2% disparity. It's so transparently silly that you just wish we had better leadership.
VRA should absolutely be renewed. Shelby was a joke of a ruling as a piece of constitutional law. Besides that, rainstorms, umbrellas, etc.
Maybe so. But the fact remains that 2020 was the highest voter turnout of any election since 1900. If it's "raining"; we're not getting wet.
2020 involved a lot of temporary changes to voting laws because of the pandemic, which goes to show you that voting laws matter WRT turnout.
It all depends on whether or not they can get 50 votes for something that they really want to do, though. As I always say, most of the time, the votes that can't get 60 votes don't really have 50 votes either.
If you always say it maybe we've already disagreed on it and I've forgotten…but surely there was a lot of legislation in the Before Times that got between 50 and 60 votes?
My take has always been that the marginal senators who vote for cloture but aren't really wild about the legislation have a cover to say that they supported it and to create ambiguity about any actual opposition they might have.
You think that if they have both the house and senate they won't nuke the filibuster to pass a national abortion law?
No clue--depends if they can wrangle 50 votes together that are devoted to make that happen.
That’s an argument against trifecta then ?
And as Slow Boring has pointed out, even Senate bills that only require 50 votes are still very moderate because you need very vulnerable senators to vote for them
That’s theory-world. Empirically far reaching votes pass with small margins and elected officials do commit political suicide
True, assuming Dems don’t blow up the filibuster. Still, not everything is under filibuster, and there are also other concerns (see my ps). By and large I guess I’m still rooting for Dems in all three branches but no as confidently as in basically every elections in the past (not because I trust gop more because my faith in Dems has declined dramatically)
Unfortunately, I don't think blowing up the filibuster is possible until you have at least 55 Democratic senators and a Democratic House.
On what issues or policy areas did Democrats go too far on under Biden?
Yes, Harris is willing to run on popular issues. It is a good thing that she is playing to win by addressing voters’ concerns about prices, rather than trying to make the election about January 6th. I personally think January 6th was really bad and should be disqualifying for Trump. Voters don’t agree. Unfortunately right-wing media has been successful in normalizing the insurrection. Mitch McConnell didn’t have the balls to convict Trump so it’s up to us to beat him at the ballot box. If that means running on price-gouging proposals that poll over 80% but make people on here — who per the reader survey are disproportionately high-education and high-income, i.e., not swing voters — mad, then so be it.
I don't fully agree with OP, but I can think of a few areas of overreach:
- Student loan forgiveness
- BBB had some great components but Manchin was right that it was too big for an economy teetering on major inflation
- I live in a poorer state without its own minimum wage, so I would have love to see a $11 or $12 federal minimum. It might seem inadequate to people in DC, but it would make a big difference down here. But the push for $15-$17 was never going to pass, whatever its merits.
Thx for reminding me of the student loan forgiveness. A fundamentally unfair, regressive policy akin to tax cuts for the rich
I don’t see how BBB was an overreach given that it did not happen and got trimmed down to IRA.
I also don’t see how a $15 minimum wage is an issue. Adjusted for inflation (and especially once you consider the phase-in period) it’s well below the safe threshold of 60% of median wage that Arin Dube’s literature review found avoids negative effects to employment. If you look at Civiqs polling $15 federally is now what the median voter favors.
As I said above, student loan stuff: bad. Also not something the trifecta caused—it was an executive action.
The median hourly wage in Mississippi seems to be around $18.85(according to Google's AI overview, all other sites kept giving me average). 60% of that is 11.31 so yeah , $15 national is too high.
You’re forgetting that phase-in isn’t instantaneous.
The Raise the Wage Act has it at $17 in five years. That's a 140% jump in my state. In Mississippi, $15/hour is more than 80% of the median wage. It isn't gonna be 60% by 2028, when the $15/hour would kick in. Inflation is high, but not THAT high.
The BBB wasn't passed for the same reason that the filibuster survived- Manchin and Sinema blocked it. With them being gone, who would you put forward as blocking the next overreach?
The ten-odd moderate Democrats in the Senate who also opposed filibuster abolition but didn’t speak out. If you read the coverage of the debates on the filibuster from the time it discusses this.
Besides that, the fact that Democrats have clearly learned from their mistakes. Look at the policy and rhetoric on the border now vs. in 2022, for example. Given that the party has a negative association with inflation, elected would likely be averse to doing things seen as inflationary. There’s also a big budget fight coming up where some compromises will have to happen anyways.
Will they make the same mistake from 2021 - no. Are the very likely to go to far if they have a trifecta - yes. Perhaps it's passing popular legislation you support about price controls restrictions on greedy companies. Or if not that, then it will be something else. As for there being 10 other Senators willing to throw themselves in front of Harris to keep the filibuster or block extreme legislation, consider me doubtful. If there is one thing the Biden campaign demonstrated it's that most Democrat politicians value being on the correct side of the party way more than saying the obvious truth. I think there are very few of them willing to take the heat that Manchin & Sinema took from the Democratic base. They will see what happened to Sinema and go along to get along.
15 felt like a clear opening bid, not an eventual target, fwiw.
My worries with Harris aren’t her current issues but her 2020 issues. I see no core beliefs with her, only the polls and vibes. That we need to defeat trump isn’t under debate here, that’s not what my post is about.
(For Biden excesses: overstimulating the economy, inaction on immigration for too long, title ix policy, perhaps the appointment of Lina khan (still of two minds about it). That being said I think Biden was (is?) a great president. In fact I think he’s the greatest in generations. My worry is what a Harris presidency with trifecta looks like when I fundamentally don’t see any sign that she has some core values to ground her. Sorry if saying this out loud spoils the election positive vibes !)
Shouldn't the fact that she's fundementally a political being reassure you? One should expect her to hew towards "ideas that will win me re-election".
Common thread in Slow Boring comments: appealing to median voter is good when they align with my existing right-of-median-Democratic-elected views on gender/immigration, bad when it means catering to views on economics that I disagree with.
See this is where I think we disagree the most. I respect someone lwho want to pull the Democratic party and the US to the left because that's what they believe even if I disagree with their position. I even appreciate when they moderate their actions to win. But saying you support something you think is bad in order to win political votes is bad. I wouldn't want someone on the left to do that. I don't want JD Vance to say things about immigrants he doesn't believe in order to win votes - even if its popular. I don't want Harris to say its about greedy corporations when she doesn't believe that - even if its popular. And if she does actually believe that, then I can respect her for saying her beliefs, but it would worry me that she is that mistaken about basic economics. Much like Trump seems to honestly believes tariffs are good for America, but its bad because he is wrong.
What is the actual difference between “moderating your actions in order to win” and “supporting things you think are bad”? There is not actually a principled distinction here. One can easily say that moderated actions constitute bad policy from the perspective of the pre-moderation policy being the thing that is good.
The counterargument is that by moderating you win bring policy closer to your ideal even if you don’t get everything. But that doesn’t get us anywhere; it is still true that supporting suboptimal ideas to win will bring policy closer to your goals. Which brings us back to my position.
I don’t think the overstimulation charge works when you compare America to the rest of the G20 and note that we have had a stronger recovery than any of them. See Matt Klein’s work on this—this was by far the better way to pay the inevitable price of the pandemic.
Student loan forgiveness I agree was a bad idea. But note that that was an executive policy; it had nothing to do with the trifecta. Lina Khan is I think fine.
Harris’ core grounding values are those of a generic Democrat which I think are on balance perfectly fine.
A couple from my perspective: pausing federal student loan payments and then continuing to expand / try to expand student loan forgiveness programs, all the day 1 EOs around immigration / the boarder, the ARP was too large and poorly constructed, canceling the Keystone pipeline, probably some other EOs around racial equity that really established their DEI orientation early in the administration.
On ARP I just think you’re wrong. Again I will point to America’s much stronger recovery relative to basically all other rich countries.
On the EOs, it doesn’t make sense to want a Republican Congress to prevent that—they are executive actions not congressional ones. Trifecta or no won’t affect that.
The historic inflation that was both unbelievably foreseeable at the time and that then became a massive anchor on Biden’s popularity demonstrates quite clearly who is correct here.
I agree some Dems' policy agenda are underwhelming/concerning. Middle-class tax cuts *and* new entitlements when both the deficit and debt are already unusually doesn't seem realistic, first-time homeowners' grants seems like a bad idea.
But...it's incredibly hard to have a rigorous policy agenda when you're running against rival that's so intellectually bankrupt. Trump will throw out random promises like tariffs will pay for everything, there's only so much "green-eyeshade" Harris can allow herself in response.
Having moved to the UK, I've really come to the conclusion that it's much better if the government can do stuff, even if some of the stuff is bad. Even if I don't agree with everything they do, it's much better to have a functioning government that can pass laws than one where nothing can happen.
I think the Democrats have done a lot of work recruiting and empowering more center leaning members this cycle (see, all of the Squad primary attrition), so it will be a more moderate caucus. I also think (hope?) that Harris won't just appoint the Warren cabinet again, which is where a lot of the weirder policies this cycle came from.
Really, what would be nice is if we had a reasonable opposition party that saw an election loss as a reason to moderate and come to the table, not one to double down on intransigence and cynically making the country more ungovernable. But Democrats don't control that, so "win a Trifecta and then enforce discipline in the Dem caucus" is the best shot that we as a nation have for meeting large scale challenges.
Your hopes are my hopes too. But I also have concerns and fears and am thinking in terms of risk aversion.
The idea that a bipartisan border security, voter rights reform, funding social security and medicare properly, and fiscal policy that could have more greatly kept inflation down is worhtless is just such a wild idea. Republicans blocked all of those things despite supermajorities of their own voters wanting every single one of them. What did Dems do that gives Republicans the right to keep blocking bread and butter governance and thereby making millions of lives worse? If the GOP were genuinely trying to govern, weren't trying to gain the power to throw out our elections, and weren't still cozying up to white nationalists, I could maybe see the both sides. But each of those truly terrible things are happening, and until they tryly have stopped doing all of them, those are all very important reasons to keep them out of power.
Biden is the textbook example of a political opportunist. Go back 30 years and look at Anita Hill, superpredators, etc.
I think a lot of the criticism of Biden on the 1994 crime bill is unfair.
First, crime was astronomical in the early 90s, and even two-thirds of the Congressional Black Caucus voted for the bill. It was part of a massive nationwide trend towards getting tough on crime. If in the fullness of time a law proves to have negative consequences (e.g., the extent of mass incarceration), it's fine to go back an amend it.
Second, there were good things in that bill, like the assault weapons ban, the violence against women act, state tracking of violent sex offenders (public tracking came later), and funds for community policing. I doubt Biden regrets any of that. The provisions that contributed to mass incarceration, including incentive grants to build new jails for states that enforced mandatory sentencing, were BAD, but that was not most of the bill.
Biden never used the term superpredators. "Predators" yes (and that's an accurate description of many criminals).
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/fact-checkhillary-clinton-not-joe-biden-used-thetermsuperpredatorin199-idUSKBN27B1PB/
I wasn’t paying attention to politics 30 years ago and you may be right in all counts (certainly confirming Clarence Thomas was folly for the ages!) but the Biden of the last decade had a clear moral backbone even as he was pragmatic on top of it (which is good). I’m not for dogmatism and unwilling to compromise. I want someone who can make tactical concessions, but from a place of a clear goal in mind under a solid worldview I support. With Harris I saw no evidence so far that there is anything genuine there *beyond* the pragmatism/opportunism
I’ve come to respect Pelosi over the years. However, my biggest beef with her was she always prioritized protecting incumbents over challenging frontline Republicans. Basically, Ds would rather throw resources into defending a D+5 district than flipping an R+2 district. This gives Ds very few paths to a majority. However, it does keep incumbents safe when Rs have a good year. It prioritizes the careers of Congressional Democrats over the interests of party members in winning a majority.
I wonder how that looks if you examined it over say a decade or three Presidencies. Incumbency is a huge structural advantage for any given race. It may actually be harder in the long run to win back one should have been safe seat than to win the swing seats in good years. So maybe her strategy works long term?
If incumbency is a big structural advantage, less reason to invest in defending D+5 incumbents.
And hopefully Jeffries will prioritize those challenges!
Congressional Democrats to seem more about their careers than big progressive change. Look how slow they were to ditch Biden and how captive they are to monied zionists.
> I’ve been told I murmur “corporate greed” and “open borders” in my sleep.
I hope the management at Slow Boring has hazard pay!
Fascinating to see "abortion" loom so large in that Dem word cloud. I remember when nobody said the word in Democratic politics. Choice, reproductive rights, etc. Couldn't say "abortion". Couldn't even say it in the movies (let alone depict it)-- that was Jud Apatow's joke in Knocked Up ("rhymes with smashmortion").
It's very good to see Democrats finally realize that this is a winning issue for them. That it's 2024 and voters know that women have sex and terminate pregnancies. They are following the strategy I mapped out after the Dobbs leak here:
https://quillette.com/2022/05/10/we-need-to-talk-about-abortion/
There was a judicial ruling of generational magnitude. People obsess over messaging but ultimately policy matters. I confess I don't know the details but I assume that mother who died in a carpark in Georgia would still be alive absent Dobbs.
Absolutely! The thing that annoyed me is society changed on sexual mores long before that, and the politicians still messaged like prudes afraid to say that women have sex and need abortions.
But Dobbs changed that, as you note. And yes, what happened in Georgia is directly on the hands of those who overturned Dobbs.
Dilan, Yes, for many people sexual mores changed many years ago, but in some churches “Abortion” is word that arouses anger. To me saying we need to protect women’s rights over their own bodies is less inflammatory and more comprehensive. We have this unfortunate argument about whether the mother’s life and health or the life of a fetus is more important. Why should government have any say in that? Deep down I believe it is about keeping a separation between Church and State.
I disagree. Again, it's 2024. Church leaders who are offended by the word "abortion" are irrelevant; their flocks don't believe in their BS anyway. (See, e.g., American Catholics who are correctly pro-choice and correctly disobey their Church on almost all of its sexual teachings.)
You shouldn't confuse what a few whiners who aren't going to vote for us anyway think about abortion and mass public opinion. The public is fine with us saying "abortion" and protecting it.
This seems like slightly aggressive rhetoric. There are certainly voters who would consider voting for Dems, but wince at perceived heavy handed treatment of abortion issues. Many of them are conservative-leaning independents in swing state suburbs, which surely matters for this election. I don’t see the positive EV of avoiding Spencer’s suggested messaging.
I think the situation calls for some aggressive rhetoric. The number of people in Western developed countries who actually think the Vatican is right about sex is TINY. They don't number enough people to win an election for dog catcher in a reasonably sized city.
What happens is that because they claim to represent the Church as a whole, you get into this situation where you are afraid of some of the most dangerous extremists who nobody agrees with on the face of the Earth. Which is just dumb.
There's almost nobody in the membership of the Church who is clamoring for the Democrats to pretend that Catholic sexual teachings are right; quite the opposite, the vast majority of American Catholics would like us to side with them and ignore the guys in charge (who are supposedly celibate and know absolutely nothing about sex to begin with).
So no, the way you appeal to "conservative leaning independents in swing state suburbs" is by supporting the right to an abortion and contraception and to have a same sex sexual relationship and to have premarital sex, all things they support. There's no electoral margin at all in pretending a hierarchy that is so unpersuasive that they can't even get their own members to agree with them when they threaten them with eternal damnation has any purchase with the American public.
3,500 Americans die every day, it strange that a single death of a non-famous person can be politically useful. If we had better parks and more leisure time, dozens of the people who died yesterday might still be alive and thriving
No, it’s not. Literally any fertile woman could potentially die in those circumstances, without having an abortion, because the life saving care after a spontaneous miscarriage is the same as the care after an abortion. The laws effects are NOT limited to people choosing an abortion.
Having a public policy that can literally kill you is generally of interest to the people who could die. And their relatives. And their friends. And people who understand the risk.
Thermostatic opinion is very powerful
Eventually, we will likely reach an equilibrium on abortion and enough front line Rs will support first trimester abortions that big electoral swings will only affect the edge cases.
@Ben, on the Slow Boring landing page, the most recent post is big, and front and center, while the second most recent is small and offscreen, requiring me to scroll down to see it. On the weekend, it seems like you post the main story later than Matt does during the week, and post the Daily Thread earlier. Today there was only a two or three hour window where your article was front and center on the landing page. I have often opened Slow Boring, seen a Daily Thread post as the main article, and closed the tab immediately, assuming there was no article today. I think you would get more views if you kept the posting schedule similar as during the week.
Great article but Susan Altman's opponent is Tom Kean , Jr (not Cain). I used to live there in 1980 or so. It's one of those classic weathy suburban districts that it was pretty solid Republican but is increasingly blue!
"Tom Cain Jr."
Clearly this article is based on watching videos, but you probably want to cross-reference the names you write down with written sources.
(the name is Tom Kean Jr. and his dad is the most popular NJ state politician of the last 50 years).
7 of 32 doesn’t sound that different from 8 of 29. Which are the relevant races so that we can help?
Campaign ads mostly just make me cringe and less likely to vote overall.
I find it best to avoid most media around this time, to be honest, so I don’t see it.
Agreed. But the sets of "readers of wonky political blogs" and "persuadable voters" are almost entirely disjoint, so rest easy, you probably aren't the target audience ;)
I live in PA’s 10th District (Harrisburg). Every ad here is a campaign. We have billboards. Anyway our hope for flipping this seat (maybe) is basically “incumbent is hardcore anti abortion”. He also supported January 6.
I'll have to disagree with WI being a "good" GOP pickup. Yes, Hovde is a bad candidate and the margin is looking to be much smaller than 2018 (she beat Leah Vukmir by 10 points), but Tammy Baldwin is a strong candidate. She'll run ahead of Kamala, and I'll be shocked if it's within 3 points.
Though, I was surprised (and disappointed) when Feingold lost to RoJo in 2016, so who knows.
Some people were wondering what the 7 of 32 races are. I posted this on Twitter:
6 of the races are OH-10 FL-04 VA-05 FL-16 OH-07 CO-05
But these are based on FEC filings from June/July.
And I don't know if I would call these all "winnable races".
https://x.com/dem91002154852/status/1837711553501724678
There's a screenshot with a table of the 32.
Shoutout from OR-5 where one-term R Chavez-Deremer is going for re-election against new D rival Janelle Bynum (Bynum won the primary against a more progressive D candidate who lost in 2020); also Bynum has defeated Chavez-Deremer in two other elections. Tons of broadcast ads and mailers in Bend and I’m sure elsewhere in the district. Will be wildly close.